“Probably not, but you’re his scene. He’ll go for you,” Shelby said.
Would he? I gave myself a mental shake. I didn’t want to or need to spin castles in the air when it came to Ryan. But to hang out together? Ryan would probably go for that. “I’ll mention it to him.”
“You do that. I’m going to make sure the girl Tristan is dating shows up late to the party and catches him acting like the sleaze he is. We’ll let the shit hit the fan.” She gave an evil laugh that made me laugh too.
“As long as it doesn’t hit us,” I said.
She laughed again. “Like Ryan would ever let that happen. For someone who’s just a friend, he’s very protective of you.”
“Will you stop. It’s not like that. I need to go. I’ll see you at my place later.” After I hung up, I took the exit leading toward the garage where Ryan worked. I could have gone straight home and called him and I should have. What Ryan and I had was a good friendship with a hookup on the horizon. Based on the satisfied expressions on the faces of the girls I’d seen him with, it would probably be an amazing hookup, a once in a lifetime kind that a girl never forgot. I wouldn’t forget either, but I’d put it behind me afterwards. I had to. My life was going to fork away from his. I planned to sleep with Ryan and then leave for college not long after that.
A feeling of unease grew and settled in the pit of my stomach as images of Ryan flashed in my mind. Was I sure that I could handle my plan of walking away when the time came?
*
RYAN
My half day came and went and at five o’clock, I was still at Abraham’s garage, elbow deep in parts and grease. During the week, Cooper was here part time along with Ryker and Zane full time, all guys who at one point had lived in Mama Leena’s house. I’d known all three before then. We’d run the streets together as angry little shits lashing out at the world.
The garage was an older brick building, hulking on a corner lot, hopeless looking when Abraham bought it ten years ago. He’d extended the garage by adding two extra bays, repaved the parking lot and added lights around the perimeter.
The heating in the building sucked so in the winter, when the snow and ice coated the ground, even in long underwear, you’d freeze your junk off. In the summer, especially once the temperatures hit the mid 80s, the bricks absorbed the sun so you’d end up with your balls practically sunburned and dripping sweat. The building had bad acoustics and despite how many times Abraham cleaned it, the bathroom always smelled like vomit and piss. I wouldn’t rather be anywhere but here.
A 1986 Ford Bronco owner had shown up two hours ago complaining the truck idled rough and didn’t want to start. Abraham rubbed his goatee and looked at me. His dark eyes and ebony skin gleamed in the bright overhead lighting. He searched the pocket of his coveralls for his tobacco and sent me a sly grin. “What do you think?”
I knew he was testing me. Abraham had degrees in automotive training as long as my leg, but he’d said time and again that book learning is a different animal than hands on knowledge. It was one of the reasons he’d hired me. I didn’t have the book learning, but I’d worked on cars since I was seven years old when I’d first been taught how to hot-wire them.
“I think it’s a burnt valve.”
After we’d torn it down and I proved it was a burnt valve, Abraham laughed, spit a stream of tobacco into a can and said, “Damn, boy. You’re the only kid I know that can listen to the sound an engine makes and have an idea about what’s going on. That’s a gift.”
A gift I intended to use to open up my own garage one day. It was also the reason I had no intention of going to any of the colleges Mama Leena had picked out for me to study business management. All I wanted to do was be around cars.
“You clean and prep for tomorrow. Don’t forget to lock up,” Abraham said. He left at five fifteen five days a week. Even if he was right in the middle of something, he’d stop, clean his hands, and walk off. I’d asked him once why he didn’t just finish a job that would only have taken him another half hour at most and he’d said, “You have to own the job, son, or it’ll own you.”
He left carrying the day’s deposit and I started cleaning the tools and putting them back where they belonged. Easiest way to piss Abraham off was to treat his tools poorly.
I knelt in front of the Bronco to pick up a torque wrench I dropped, heard the soft growl of an engine, and stood up fast. Though the garage was in a fairly decent area, people were always the surprise element. You never knew about them.
Tana parked her Honda and walked across the oil stained concrete. For someone who used to have more money than I could imagine, she never acted like a once-rich girl even though she looked like she still belonged in that circle. Her hips swayed gently in a west to east movement. She had on a pair of old jeans with a scarf as a belt and a sleeveless blue vest over something lacy that was cut so low I could see plenty of cleavage and it interested me a lot more than I had the right to be.
I picked up a rag and started wiping off the wrench, trying to stop thinking with my dick. “What’s up?”
She huffed out a breath that ended in a small laugh. “I headed this way, then changed my mind and went home, then drove back here.”
“Are you okay?” I imagined shit had started up with her dad again. Though I’d never met the man, I despised him. She’d glossed over some of it, but Tana had told me how her father used to put her down, telling her she was worthless, and that going to college would be a waste of time for her because she was too stupid to handle it. When she swallowed and tore her gaze away from mine, I said, “Tana, tell me what’s going on.”
“I um...wanted to show you this.” She ducked her head and yanked open her purse. The force she used caused the contents to fly upward and crash to the floor. Dropping to her knees, she shoved things back in and I wondered why she acted so nervous. Then I saw the prescription bag and it didn’t take a genius to put two and two together.
This was exactly the reason why I had doubts about getting involved with Tana. She was my best friend. The light to my darkness. With the possibility of sex in the picture, all of a sudden our friendship took a new, awkward turn. If it was this bad now, how much worse would it get after we’d seen each other naked? After I’d felt her come apart under me? I savagely squashed the thought when my dick started to flagpole to attention.
She stood up, opened the prescription bag, and held out a round container. “The pills. I wanted you to know.”
I clenched my teeth together, then exhaled when visions of the two of us naked, sweaty, and driving each other crazy wouldn’t stop flashing in my mind. “Give me a time frame.”
“The doctor said to take the first pill within twenty-four hours of my period—”
“I don’t want to know all the shit about your period. Just give me a date.” I knew I sounded like a jerk but it was my fear of damaging us speaking. This was new territory for our friendship. I felt out of my normal and part of me regretted saying I would have sex with her. It was smarter to tell her this was a mistake but I didn’t know that I was strong enough to watch her walk away with some other guy.
She crammed the container back into her purse. “Dammit, Ryan. Is this part of the asshole act you use to make sure girls don’t waste their hearts on you?”
“Who says it’s an act?”
“I do, because I know you better,” she snapped.
“You don’t know the me you’ll fuck.”
“Whatever, Ryan.” She turned around to stomp back toward her car.
Beneath the anger, there was a hitch to her voice. Any other girl, I would have gone right back to wiping down the tools. But Tana wasn’t any other girl. I couldn’t let her walk away.
“Hey!” I caught up to her before she could get into her car. I stuck my hands in the pockets of my jeans to keep from reaching for her. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“You didn’t. I can separate sex from friendship, Ryan, and I can do it without acting the way you’re acting. If you changed your mind about sleeping with me, all you have to do is say so.” She sounded like she had an attitude a mile wide and that she wasn’t hurt, but I saw her lower lip tremble slightly.
I didn’t have a chance to respond to that because a black SUV pulled up behind her car, blocking her in and when the driver’s door opened, I knew my past had just caught up to me.
Chapter Four
TANA
When the SUV pulled up and the driver’s side door opened, Ryan’s demeanor changed. The expression on his face was one I’d never seen before. He looked totally different. Hard and mean. Like he was about to kick ass.
“Don’t say a word and don’t react to anything anyone says,” he warned.
I nodded and turned my attention to the guy walking toward us. He was a skinny Asian guy, probably in his late twenties. Not handsome, but eye-catching. His face was square, defined with all sharp edges like the old comic book heroes. His pupils were so big, it looked like his eyes were filled with black oil. He was dressed in black and every tattoo lining both his arms was just as devoid of color as his clothes.
“Ryan. How you been, my brother?”
“What do you want, Chanos?”
“Am I so unwelcome?” He flung his arms out. “I can’t pay my brother a little visit for old times sake?”
His gaze flicked to me and his eyes crawled over my skin. I shuddered.
“You traded up, bro. Nice. You wanna deal for the ‘ho?” Chanos reached out his hand toward the side of my face and I clenched my teeth together, fighting the urge to slap him.
His hand never connected with my skin. Ryan moved, putting himself between the guy and me. “You wanna keep that hand?”
Chanos’ eyes widened with surprise and he lowered his arm. “You boned out and you want to talk that trash?”
“I didn’t bone out. I took a bullet and we were clear.”
“Yeah. We were.
Then
.” He rubbed his forehead with his thumb. “Everybody living happily ever after. But now, I’m missing a little something from the warehouse where your dumbass brothers work and I think you might know where it’s hiding.”
“That’s not my scene anymore.” Ryan put his hand out behind him when I made a noise. He pushed me slightly to the side so that I was completely covered by his body.
“Not your scene?” Chanos lips turned upward in amusement. “Mama Leena has you in the church to spoon feed you some religion?” He raised his hands toward the sky and shook them. “Hallelujah.” He lowered his hands and smirked. “Don’t you know, boy, there ain’t no redemption for motherfuckers like you and me?”
I peeked up at Ryan’s face. He yawned and crossed his arms.
That action made Chanos laugh. “You always were one cocky sonofabitch.” His laughter faded. “Street value thirty eight thousand. You think you might know somebody besides yourself with balls big enough to walk out with my product?”
I’d known Ryan long enough to know when something upset him and he didn’t want to let on. There was a slight shift in the way he stood, in the way he curled his lip at one corner. “Can’t think of anyone.”
Chanos rapped his knuckles on the side of the SUV. The back doors opened and two other guys stepped out. One black, one white, both with shaved heads, baggy pants and lifeless eyes focused on Ryan. Their T-shirts were caked with spots of what looked like dried blood. My stomach churned.
“I wish I could accept that, but you know how it is.” Chanos shook his head. “You let one fucker slide and the next thing you know, there goes the goddamn neighborhood.”
“You want me to talk to him?” The white guy took a step forward right into Chanos’ upraised hand.
“It’s not necessary. My brother, Ryan, is a reasonable man. He knows that when one family member owes a debt, they all owe a debt.”
Ryan looked at the white guy with a sneer. “Still Chanos’ bitch.”
When the white guy took another step forward, Chanos warned him, “Ryan’s the king of bare knuckle hurt. I once saw him break a man’s jaw who was twice his size. Put that baby in the dirt begging for mercy. He’ll fuck you up the same if you touch him. Make you wish you were dead. Isn’t that right, Ryan?”
Ryan didn’t answer and the guy looked at Chanos and then back at Ryan.
Chanos moved closer and looped his arm around Ryan’s shoulder. “I think you can ask some questions, yeah? Find out who’s playing hide and seek with my kilogram, for old time’s sake, huh?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Chanos smiled and patted Ryan on the back. “See? I knew I could count on you. Once a family, always a family.” His dark gaze switched to me and his voice lowered like the hiss of a snake. “And you know how much it hurts to lose a member of the family.” He made a twirling motion with his hand and the two guys with him went back to the SUV. Chanos opened the driver’s door and looked at Ryan. “I’ll be waiting.”
As soon as the SUV was gone, I breathed out. “Losing a member of the family? He was threatening me.”
“Uh huh.” He was edgy, impatient.
“Because someone took drugs that belonged to him?” I wanted to hear Ryan say it because I could hardly believe one of his brothers was messing with a drug dealer.
Ryan headed back to the garage and started turning off the lights. When he was through, he came back to where I waited. “Why don’t you go home and I’ll call you later?”
“I’m not stupid, Ryan. Something is going on with your brothers and that guy’s drugs, right?”
For a second, I thought Ryan was going to tell me again to leave, but he sighed. “Yeah, something bad.”
I rubbed my hands on my arms and shivered.
He shot me a look. “What’s wrong?”
“Seeing that out there made me realize that even though you and I have been friends for years, there’s a part of your life I don’t know anything about,” I said, hoping maybe he’d tell me what that part was.
“And it’s going to stay that way.”
Ryan should know I didn’t blow off that easily. “You said you took a bullet. What did you mean?”
The impatience was back, stronger this time. He gave me a hard look. “Tana, trust me when I tell you my past is a world you don’t want to know anything about.”