Translation: If you snooze, you lose…and I will do whatever it takes to win.
“You have reached your destination,” my car’s GPS informs me as I hook a right onto a quiet residential road a few blocks from Conwick’s campus. Noting the passing numbers of the neighbors, I pull up to the curb outside the house I’m looking for, and throw the gear stick into park, then peer out the window at the bright azure blue Victorian with its even brighter red door. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this. The house is…cute, with fish-scale shingles and a cozy white porch that extends along the front width of the residence—not at all the kind of property I envisioned Blondie living in. It’s not that I had anything specific in mind, but I definitely picturedsomething more ominous, like a shed full of knives she spends her time sharpening with the intent of chopping off my balls.
Then again, it does look like there might be a backyard, so I guess I can’t completely rule out the shed.
Leaning back, I lift my hips and tug my phone from my pocket, then pull up my contacts and tap the text icon for the most recently saved number. As I type out the message, a momentary flicker of doubt stills my thumbs.
This is a bad idea. I already know Blondie has a short fuse, and she could very well blow up in my face for turning up out of the blue like this. If she backs out of our deal, all hope I have of working for the family biz—the one light in the dark tunnel that my life has become—will be completely kaput, and then what? Crawl on my hands and knees back to my parents, and beg Daddy Dearest for forgiveness and mercy? As if.
No, thishasto work. I need to make it work.
“Be brave. Be bold. Be fearless,” I say to myself, regurgitating the inspirational message on my mother’s decorative sofa cushions. I wouldn’t usually quote cliché home decor, but it seemed more appropriate than “live, laugh, love,” and something tells me I’ll need all the bravery I can get to face Blondie today. She’s the one uncertain factor in this equation, and I can’t be sure she won’t fuck this up on purpose to get back at me for what happened between us at the start of the year.
If only I knew what was going on with her that made her agree to this arrangement, then I’d at least have some leverage. But I don’t, and I have a feeling she won’t ever tell me, so I guess all I can hope is that she’s as desperate for money as I suspect. Desperation keeps even the most fickle people in line.
“You got this,” I murmur. Then I finish typing the partially written text and hit send.
Me
Knock knock Blondie. Let’s go somewhere
A long moment passes before my phone vibrates with a response.
Blondie
Who is this?
A mischievous smile curls the edges of my lips. Under any other circumstance, I might be tempted to use this brief anonymity to mess with her, but the sensible part of me knows I can’t afford to get on Blondie’s bad side any more than I already have. Besides, time’s a wastin’ and I’m eager to get this show on the road.
So, instead—and using tremendous effort to keep Naughty Damian in check—I text back:
Me
Come outside and find out
Movement in the corner of my eye lures my gaze away from the phone screen and back to the house, where I glimpse a familiar face staring down at me from one of the second-floor windows, through a gap in the curtains. From what I can make out of Blondie’s expression, on a scale of indifferent to “fuck this guy,” she looks somewhere between confused and annoyed, but she disappears before I can read any more into it, like a ghost in a haunted house that makes you question whether you ever saw them at all.
I hesitate for a few seconds, then push open the door and slide out of the car, unsure what else to do. Is she going to come outside, or is she expecting me to go up to her door and knock? Maybe she’s just biding her time, hoping I’ll go away if sheignores me long enough. Considering how she left Touro Park the other day, the latter seems the most likely.
I’m about to hop back in my car and abandon my plan altogether when the front door swings open and Blondie appears at the threshold. She meets my gaze, but hesitates for a few seconds before tugging the door shut behind her and hurriedly descending the porch steps, her cheeks slightly pink and hair unruly. Agitation glimmers in her stormy green eyes.
“What are you doing here?” she hisses, speed-walking toward me. “And on that note,” she adds, her brows drawing together as she glances between her house and my car, “how thehelldo you know where I live?”
My lips twitch at the corners. “I have my methods.”
She crosses her arms, her mouth puckering into an adorable—but no less terrifying—scowl.
I roll my eyes and let out a put-upon sigh. “Fine, I bribed one of the admin ladies in the office at Conwick to give me your details. She was quite the flirtatious one for a woman of her age. I’m not usually into cougars, but I might make an exception.”
The scathing look Blondie gives me could melt steel.
“If you’re talking about Meredith, she’s, like, sixty-eight years old and about to retire, so…ew,” she says, sounding utterly scandalized. “Second, that’s a major breach of privacy,andI’m fairly certain it’s illegal.”
I blow out a dismissive breath. “Well, you didn’t really leave me much of a choice. I didn’t exactly have a chance to ask for your number the other day before you ran off. You’re fast, by the way.”
“Only when I’m running from assholes,” she mutters. Then, combing a hand over her curls, she asks, “If you wanted to talk to me that badly, why didn’t you just email me? You know, that method of contact we were literally just using on Monday? Orjust text me like you didjust nowsince you apparently also stole my number?”
I make a show of considering this, scratching my chin with one hand and propping the other on my hip. “Oh, yeah. I suppose I could have. Truth be told, it didn’t even occur to me.”
