Lauren Blakely - Night After Night

Except her. She told herself Charlie only rented her and eventually the lease would be up.

“No thank you. I don’t need a cab,” she said, and walked home in the night, the fog crawling into the city, threatening to ensnare the night. She brushed her hand roughly against her cheek, wiping away a tear.

But another one fell, and then another, and that’s how she walked home, wishing there were a way to unravel herself faster from Charlie’s clutches. Wishing she’d never met Dillon, that he’d never made off with $100,000 from the mobster he worked for, that he’d never claimed the money was for her.

When she reached her home and poured herself a glass of whiskey, her fingers itched to pick up the phone and call Clay. To tell him why she ran, that she missed him, that this weekend was the best she’d ever had.

But she could still feel Charlie’s hand on her chin, and she knew, she fucking knew, she shouldn’t be involved with anyone. Because when you get close to people, your debt becomes their debt, and theirs becomes yours, and you are left with nothing but an aching well of shame inside you as you try to claw your way out.

Clay could be just like Dillon – disappear and leaving her holding all his problems.

She put the phone in a kitchen drawer and shut it hard.

“Uncross your legs,” Gayle said, pointing her sharp scissors at Julia.

“You have the weapon. I do as you say,” Julia said, following orders. “But why is it that I see you every six weeks and I still can’t remember to uncross my legs?”

“Maybe because you have too much else on your mind,” Gayle said, patting Julia’s shoulder then widening her stance so she could trim the ends of her hair.

The stylist dressed in black as she always did, and today’s homage to the shade of midnight was a black tunic top and tight leggings, with black cowboy boots on her feet. Down her arm was her permanent mark – a tattoo in a swirling script that said I want to be adored. Julia loved the boldness in branding her own body with a wish for love. She longed for that sort of daring. The wish had come true; Gayle had met someone recently who she’d fallen hard and fast for, and he for her. There were no issues, no problems, no pasts in the way.

Of course, you never knew what was coming. When someone would turn on you. She would never have predicted Dillon would be a world-class douche. A knot of anger was set loose in her body at the thought of the ex; like a marble in a Rube Goldberg machine, it rolled down the tracks, picking up speed. Her insides were twisted, and Dillon wasn’t the sole cause. She’d been wracked with tension since she left Clay behind in a swirl of dust in New York. Every night she’d been tempted to text, to call, to chat. Every night she’d resisted.

Her chest felt like a pressure valve inside her. The valve was stuck, so the pressure kept building. She tapped her toe on the hardwood floor of the salon as Gayle cut.

“What’s the story, Jules? You’re jumpy today.”

She sighed heavily, as if the weight of the last week were pouring out in that one breath. “Oh Gayle, it’s getting harder,” she said, because she couldn’t take it anymore. Her stylist was the only person who had a clue about the troubles Dillon dumped on her doorstep with when he skipped town with Charlie’s money, claiming she’d be paying it off. Julia reckoned a stylist was akin to a shrink. Maybe even a priest. A stylist was the one person you could pour out all your secrets to. Gayle wasn’t a part of her regular life – she was someone she saw every six weeks. Neat and cordoned off, safe from the harm that was circling her on the other side. “I still owe a crap ton of money, and the people I owe it to aren’t making it any easier for me, and on top of that, I met someone I really like, but I can’t let myself get close to him because of all this stuff going on, and I want to trust him, but he might screw me over too, but I miss him like crazy, which makes no sense because it was only one weekend. Okay, it was two weekends, but still, they were both spectacular,” she said, the words spilling out of her. Julia stopped talking for a second, stared in the mirror at her friend’s reflection. “Wow. That was like a confessional or something.”

She squeezed Julia’s shoulder, then continued snipping. “I’m so glad you met someone you like. It’s been so long since Dillon, and even then you weren’t terribly fond of the douche. With good reason, of course,” she quickly added, with a wry smile.

Julia narrowed her eyes. “He is such a douche. And I feel so stupid for ever trusting him, or even getting involved with him.”

“That’s the thing. Sometimes you just can’t know how someone is going to turn out,” Gayle said as she ran a comb through Julia’s wet hair, appraising her work so far.

“Right? So I guess it’s all for the best that things aren’t happening with this other guy. He might turn out to be just like Dillon. I was an idiot for getting involved with him, and an even worse idiot for the way he scammed me.”

“That’s not what I meant. I mean, you can’t beat yourself up for not knowing Dillon was going to con money out of his employer and pin the debt on you,” she said, because that’s the extent of what she knew. Not that Charlie was a gangster, but that Dillon had swindled money from him. “That man should have his balls chopped off.”

“If I ever see him again, can I borrow those scissors?”

“I’ll order a better pair. A ball-snipping pair. But let’s talk about happier fates for balls. What’s this other guy like?” Gayle said, stopping her cutting for a moment to bump her hip against Julia’s shoulder, giving her a salacious wink in the mirror. “I want to hear all about him.”

She couldn’t help but grin at the memories that came racing back – images that warmed her heart, and sent her body soaring. Clay’s strong hands holding her down. His tongue working her over. His mouth claiming hers. Okay, now she was doing more than grinning. She was tingling something fierce. A sharp bolt of lust shot straight to her core. And then a burst of warmth surrounded her heart as she flashed on all the sweet things he’d said to her. “He’s the sexiest, dirtiest, smartest, and kindest man I have ever met.”

Gayle’s eyes widened. “More, more. Tell me more.”

She told her about their weekend. Not every detail, but enough to make Gayle’s jaw drop, and the tension to loosen momentarily in Julia. Just talking about him felt good. It was as close as she was going to come to being near him, because once she left this salon she was going back on lockdown. She’d tie her hands behind her back if that’s what she had to do to resist him.

Flynn’s jaw dropped when he saw the gift. A new set of five-irons that his junior partner had been eyeing for a few weeks. Talking about. Showing him pictures on the Internet. It had damn near gotten to the point of golf porn. But Flynn had sealed the deal with Pinkertons yesterday, and with the kind of dough the film producers were raking in, he was contributing quite nicely to the firm’s bottom line. That kind of dedication and drive needed to be rewarded.

“Holy crap,” he said as he reached for the set and removed one club, touching it as if it were some kind of rare treasure. He stroked it with his palm.

“Flynn, man. You can’t start feeling up the golf clubs in my office. If you do I’m going to need to take them back,” Clay joked.

“I can’t help myself,” he said, his eyes wide as he gazed at the club in his hand. “This is a thing of beauty. Almost better than a woman.”

“You haven’t met the right woman then,” he said, and his mind latched onto Julia, and how she’d seemed like the perfect woman for him. Smart, sharp, witty, and with that vulnerable side underneath. His mind flooded with images of their weekend – her curled up on his bench on the balcony, him washing her legs in the tub, that kiss in the rain that she’d insisted on. Then, to all the things they shared, her stories of her sister, his tales about Thanksgiving, and the easy way they had together. Like two people who were meant to have been matched. Until she walked out on a lie. His chest knotted up, and his shoulders tensed, both with anger and annoyance.

Damn.

This wouldn’t do. He didn’t have the real estate in his head or his heart to keep going back to her, and all the ways he’d wanted her. Good thing he was seeing Michele tonight. She had a way of keeping him focused on the present, not the past. “I’m out of here. Meeting a friend for drinks,” he said to Flynn, then grabbed his suit jacket and took off, making some phone calls when he hit the streets of New York.

First, he rang his buddy Cam about their poker game this week, and to check in on some information he’d asked him to run down on another potential client – a TV producer who’d seemed a little shady when he came to him, claiming his studio had screwed him over.

“I looked into your guy, and I can see how he might seem like a crooked bastard with the way things ended with his last deal. But you know what? I checked him out six ways to Sunday and that fucker is squeaky clean as can be,” Cam told him.

“Good to know,” he said, relieved his gut had been wrong. It was rare when it happened, but that’s why he liked to do his homework and research clients in advance.

“That’s why you like me though. C’mon admit it. You love me because you never know if someone is a slimeball, but I can always find out.”

“That you can. And I guess I love you, in some pathetic needy way that makes me sick,” he teased.

“Aww, you’re so sweet when you shower me with compliments. So you gonna take this deal?”