“One-time thing?”
“One-time thing,” I confirmed.
“You stupid?” he asked.
I decided not to answer that or react to it all, but I only decided that because I needed him.
I changed the subject. “I got a situation.”
“No shit?” he told me.
Thinking he still was referring to what he didn’t really know was going on between Merry and me, something I was done talking about, not to mention I had to get out and help Feb, I kept our conversation firm where I wanted it to be.
“Listen, I need a favor,” I said.
“I play, you pay,” he replied.
This was not a surprise. Ryker did nothing for nothing. You always paid. But I was speaking to him because he had three options he accepted for compensation: you owed him a marker, you gave him information, or you gave him money.
There was no marker he’d be willing to hold from me. And I didn’t want to spend the money on an investigator, not one as good (or expensive) as Tanner Layne, not one who was probably shit but less expensive, and not Ryker.
But I worked at a bar and Ryker dealt in a lot of currencies, information being one that for him was most lucrative.
“My ex and his wife are making rumblings they might wanna take my boy from me,” I shared.
“Sucks, sister,” he muttered but didn’t jump in to offer services for free.
“They may be happy just to negotiate more time with him. Before I sit down and do that, I wanna know, they get that time, he’s goin’ to good people. I need you to help me on that. And as a down payment to that shit, I’ll tell you the renters two doors down from my place had a short but loud conversation I overheard and the name Carlito was mentioned.”
I didn’t know if Ryker had any interest in Carlito.
I just knew that Ryker had interest in anything, specific things being worth more, and those specific things he took an interest in was the kind of guy Carlito was.
Ryker was silent.
I opened my mouth to speak.
“You at the bar?” he barked, his tone so loud and severe, I automatically jerked the phone an inch from my ear.
I felt nastiness slithering up my neck into my scalp at the sudden extreme Ryker was aiming at me.
“Yeah,” I answered hesitantly.
I got nothing in reply.
“Ryker?” I called but heard beeping, telling me the call ended.
I stared at my phone for a second, went to recent calls, and called him again.
He didn’t answer.
Shit, that was not good.
I left a voicemail of “Call me,” stowed my purse, shoved my phone in my back pocket, and headed out to help Feb.
“You need me to get anything from the storeroom?” I asked over the bar she was hunkered down behind.
“Took stock and grabbed everything I needed. Just gotta rotate it.”
I went behind the bar.
There were four fridges back there. She was at fridge two.
I went to fridge three and dragged one of the boxes she’d filled toward me.
“Heard you took care of Merry after the Mia news made the rounds,” she remarked casually.
Lying in wait.
Shit.
I knew I wouldn’t get away with it. She was my big sister in a lot of ways.
I opened the fridge and pulled out the front bottles of Bud.
“Yep,” I confirmed.
“That go okay?” she asked.
I looked to her. “We got drunk. We fucked. Shit got wrinkled. We’re ironing it out.”
Her eyes got big at the we fucked, but I ignored that and went back to the fridge.
“You two ironing it out…is that working?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I answered her question, unsure if it was a lie, a semi-lie, or what I hoped it would be—the truth.
“Cher,” she called.
I turned my eyes to her and there it was all over her face—that sweet that rode close to her edge, easy to get to if she gave a shit about you.
“It’s cool,” I assured.
“Shit like that goes down, a girl can get ideas.”
I grinned and did it to hide the pain. I was good at it, so I was relatively certain she bought it.
“Not a girl like me.”
The sweet didn’t move from her expression. It also didn’t hide the concern that started seeping in.
I twisted on the balls of my feet to give her my full attention.
“Listen, Feb, he’s in love with another woman.”
“I know that,” she replied, the absoluteness of her words driving that thorn deeper. “I just don’t want you to get hurt while he’s workin’ through that. And I know Merry’s a good guy, but even good guys do stupid shit when they’re workin’ through hurt like that, as evidenced by the pile of stupid shit he’s amassed while doin’ just that for the last however-many years.”
“I know the score,” I told her, something she had to know.
It seemed she didn’t when little wrinkles appeared between her brows and her head tipped to the side.
“What’s the score?”
“He’ll work through it, just not with me,” I said the last quickly to reassure her. “He got what he’s gonna get from me on that. And it was good, Feb. He needed it, and it was far from shit bein’ there to give it to him. But that’s done. If we can iron things out, we’ll get back to what we had, keep that, and I’ll be happy when he finds what he needs to get happy.”