Bane leaned even closer to me. His scent drifted into my nostrils. I leaned backward.
“Yeah? Where to?” he asked.
“My therapist.”
“That’s once a week, two at most. What else?”
I curled my knuckles, tapping them against the table, looking anywhere but him. “The maze.”
“The maze?”
I nodded triumphantly. “My neighbor has a hedge maze. It’s where I go when I don’t want to deal with Darren and Pam’s constant nagging about my getting a job and finding friends.” Like those are so easy to find.
“How old are you, Jesse?”
“I’ll be twenty in September.”
“Do you like your life?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“One that I’d like an answer to. Life is about meeting your eyes in the mirror without flinching.”
“Is that why you’re extorting money from innocent people and whoring yourself out?” I lifted a defiant chin. I hated that he was patronizing me. Hated that I’d opened up to him, just because he was the only one who seemed to remotely care. Hated that he was right. I wasn’t living. Not really.
None of my reasons for being crude mattered, though, the minute I saw his face. His eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared, and his short nails bit into the trendy, white wood of the table. There is ice in those veins. The thought trickled into my conscience. Bane was normally laid-back, but now, I saw him for who he was. He put that mask of bored-and-pissed on his face again, and I wished I could tear it off and see how he really felt about what I’d said, just so I could hurt for hurting him.
“It’s true.” I raised my quivering voice, straightening my spine. “That’s what you are. A criminal and a whore.”
Kick me out. Let me go. I’m no good, I inwardly begged. You will ruin me, and there’s not much left to ruin. Please let me keep whatever I have left.
“You don’t believe that,” he said, his baritone voice taciturn and relaxed.
“That you’re a whore? I do.”
“Well, then, get the fuck out of here.” He gestured for the door, still wearing the bored mask. “Now.”
I stared at his face, debating my next move. It was his eyes that managed to scare me more than his words. To penetrate my soul. I grabbed my backpack from under my chair and stood up. Something stirred inside me. Something unsettling. I felt…heated. Suddenly intense. I wasn’t used to this feeling. Was I anxious? Sure. Scared? More times than I wanted to admit. But rage was different. It was passionate.
It didn’t even make any sense. I’d insulted him—so he’d kicked me out of his place. It was natural. Understandable, even. So why did I want to throw the smoothie in his face and defy every word that came out of his mouth? Anything to create more friction, and taunt, and drink up his attention and face and secrets.
Why do I want to fight this guy? Maybe because I knew, after today, without a shadow of a doubt, that he wouldn’t use his physical advantage over me to try to win.
“Thanks for the smoothie.” I turned around and stormed out, my relief of leaving the crowded place caked with irritation and a weird sense of loss. I clutched the handle of my Range Rover’s door and jerked it open. His voice boomed behind me.
“Anyone ever tell you that you’re a huge pain in the ass?”
I turned around, pointing at him with a trembling finger.
“You said life is about meeting your eyes in the mirror. I just wondered if you’re at peace with sleeping with random people for favors.”
He flashed me a look-at-this-little-naïve-girl smirk. “Need I remind you that I’m young, healthy, and this town is the home of a high percentage of very dickable people?”
“So now dick is a verb, but Men in Black isn’t?”
His face transformed from patronizing to surprised, then from surprised to bemused. He shook his head, taking another step toward me.
“You should know better than anyone that words have an impact.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I turned to him fully, yelling now. My palms itched to slap him across the face. Seagulls floated above us, eavesdropping.
“It means that you’re impossible.” He finally sighed, shaking his head.
“Maybe I am. So don’t try to make me possible.” I turned back to my vehicle, yanking my door open.
“Fine. Go ahead. Hide from the world.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Snowflake.”
I don’t sleep at night. Haven’t for a long time now.
“Stop calling me that.”
“Why not? It’s a perfect fit, considering you’re having a fucking meltdown.”
I was waiting for him to say something more. I swiveled to him again, not exactly sure why it was so hard to just leave. We stood in front of each other on the busy promenade, panting hard, shooting daggers at each other. We made a scene, one that attracted the eyes and ears of beachgoers. I clutched the roots of my hair, realizing that sometime during that hour, I’d removed my ball cap and hood. People could see me. My face. My vulnerability. All of me.
I turned around, jumped into the car, and took off like the devil was at my heels.
When I got to the first red light, I punched my steering wheel and let out a scream.
It felt good.
I felt alive.
I let the delicious pain and anger swirl in me like a storm, knowing I was going to regret every single word I’d told Bane that afternoon.
Knowing what he probably knew, too.
I hadn’t looked at myself in the mirror for months, maybe even years.
So much so that sometimes, I even forgot the color of my own eyes.
LIFE IS ABOUT LOOKING AT yourself in the mirror without flinching.
Five minutes.
That’s how long I stared at myself in the mirror just to make sure fucking Snowflake was wrong. And she was. I hardly even blinked.
I wasn’t butthurt over her comments at Café Diem. It just rubbed me all wrong—and not in the right places—that Jesse Carter, of all people in Todos Santos, would label someone as a whore. People were allowed to fuck whomever they wanted, as long as it was legal and consensual. She’d probably cheated on her high school sweetheart and got deflowered by another. Pot and kettle anyone?
Whatever. Fuck that, and fuck her. Also, fuck this.
“’K, Grier, thanks for a wonderful time and a lovely blowjob.” I tossed my Tuesday Girl’s dress on my bed. I lived on a houseboat in the marina. I’d bought it when I was eighteen because I’d wanted to own something—anything, really, other than a bad reputation—and never saw the point in moving anywhere else over the years. I could probably afford more than a shitty mini-yacht at this point. But I liked the houseboat fine. It was nice and cozy, and I fed the fish under it every morning, my way to say thanks for sharing the ocean with me. Plus, my bedroom was big enough for a queen-sized bed, and that’s all I really needed. A place to eat, shit, and sleep. Grier’s blonde mane spilled all over her back as she sat on the mattress, stretching lazily.
“Were you distracted today?” She yawned.
“Huh?” I kicked the door leading to the deck open. I was naked, save for my briefs. Even they were pulled half-down after a piss, my inked ass cheek on full display. Skulls with roses pouring from their eye sockets, monsters in battle, sea creatures crawling up my thigh. I looked like a human canvas, because fucking Snowflake was right. About the eyes. About the mirror. About everything, really.
Hiding made me feel like shit.
“It seemed like your mind was elsewhere.” Grier lit up a cigarette and joined me on the deck, leaning against the banisters, wrapped in nothing but my white sheet. The roar of the ocean rising made her skin blossom into goosebumps. I angled my face toward hers.
“Is this your diplomatic way of saying I sucked?” I flicked her jawline softly, and she shivered in pleasure.
“You can never suck, Bane. That’s why I keep you around.” She winked. I smacked her ass. “Tell Brian I need him to stall the health and safety inspectors. They are pushing to come check out Café Diem, but the faucets are leaking again.” Another hundred grand I spent from Darren’s advance on plumbing before fulfilling my part of the deal.
Brian Diaz was the county’s sheriff. I kept his wife happy, and he, in return, gave me access to police files and turned a blind eye to some stuff that probably didn’t put me high on the Citizen of the Year list of Todos Santos. From the outside, it looked kind of fucked-up, but it wasn’t, trust me. Brian was gay and came from a notoriously Catholic and rich family. The last thing he needed was to be disowned and stripped out of his fat inheritance and badge. No one wanted a closeted sheriff who secretly liked picking up lady boys in radioactive-colored wigs at Redondo Beach. And it wasn’t like he was a bad husband, but Grier had needs. I took care of the Diazes’ problem, and they, in return, took care of mine.
“I will. Anything else?” She nuzzled her nose to my shoulder. She was warm and soft and wrong. Suddenly, I didn’t want another rodeo. I wanted her gone.
“Nope.”
A knock on the door saved me from the prospect of round two. I broke her cigarette in half and threw it in the water. “Say no to cancer.”
“You smoke like a chimney.” She laughed.
“Yeah, but you should know better.” With that, I tilted my head to my bedroom, silently ordering her to make herself invisible. I grabbed some pants and opened the door.
Hale.
I propped my shoulder against the frame, folding my arms.
“Miss me?” The smirk on his face was the main reason they invented sucker punches.
“Like a bad case of crabs, baby.” I tucked the joint I was about to smoke on the deck between my lips. Hale coerced his way into my living room like he owned the place. He wore Hawaiian board shorts and a black wetsuit top. I closed the door behind us, inwardly cursing him for making Grier stay longer. Hale flopped down onto my couch and crossed his ankles on my coffee table, making himself at home.