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In her bedroom, I have another flash, this time seeing the two of us sprawled across her queen-size bed, sliding across the white cotton sheets that are visible because the comforter is crumpled on the floor. She’s got what looks like half her wardrobe piled on a chair in the corner or scattered across the bed, and somehow the mess makes me like her better, because real women let their hair down and their apartments go messy sometimes.
I can picture my head between her legs as she straddles that office chair. I can see her lying spread-eagle on the bed, hands and ankles bound at the corners, bared for me to savor. I can see her kneeling beside the bed, sucking me into that perfect mouth of hers while I grip the headboard with white knuckles.
I ignore the raging hard-on I’ve got and knock a few clothes off the chair, dragging it over to the top of the closer, where a small crack in the wall gives me just enough space to wedge in the final camera.
My stomach churns. I have never felt this way during a job before.
I’ve hated myself, yes. Thought the worst of the man I’ve become. Known I’m doomed to a shitty future because of all the fucked-up jobs I’ve pulled for Rich in the past. I’ve always known that if I’m ever caught doing one of these jobs, if I’m ever arrested or shot or worse, I’ll deserve every ounce of pain and punishment I get.
But I’ve never felt bad about the people I’ve had to target before. They’ve always been people like Ian Banner. Gamblers, addicts, losers, con artists. Men like Rich himself, or women like the hookers he hires to suck him off.
Never a woman like this. Never a person like Skye.
Fucking hell. I creep out of the apartment again, depositing the final piece to this elaborate puzzle into her mailbox as I leave, making sure to lock the door behind me as I go.
I keep worrying that she’ll find out what I’m doing. That she’ll learn how I’ve betrayed her, how I’ve been betraying her since before we even met. I worry about how I’ll never be able to make it work if she discovers this secret—if she learns the kind of work I’ve done for Rich in the past, the things I’m still doing for him now, and to her, of all people.
But maybe that’s the problem. I don’t deserve a happily ever after.
I just can’t help wanting one with her.
12
Skye
Want to catch that movie tonight? I text Ian as I leave the diner. Tonight’s my early shift, over by ten. We have time to catch a midnight showing if we hurry, though it won’t be at the Tuesday prices, so maybe he won’t be interested. Or we could just watch a rerun at my place or something, I add, just in case money’s the reason he was so antsy the other day.
Guilt settles into my veins. Something was bugging Ian days ago, and I’ve barely spoken to him at all since then, except to break our plans yesterday and then to answer his How’d the date go? text early this morning with a smiley face.
It had prompted a Gross, I’m your brother, TMI reply.
Since I met him, I’ve been so caught up in Stone—in the emotions a man I hardly know brings out of me—so I spend the short drive home from the diner forcing thoughts of him out and ideas to cheer up Ian in. Maybe we can order pizza from his favorite spot tonight and watch that shitty zombie remake he’s been bugging me about since last year. I’ve refused to see it on principle because the original version was so good.
I’m feeling optimistic by the time I wrestle the fistful of mail from my box and climb the steps to my apartment. That is, until I shove open my door, dump the mail onto the table, and notice the letter on top of the pile.
It’s addressed to Ian, which isn’t all that unusual. He’s used my address before, when he’s been between apartments, or the one time he decided he wanted to try living in this weird co-op situation that required its residents to share literally everything—from personal income to diets. Thankfully, he moved out of that place pretty quick, but he still thought it prudent to put my address as his so if anything too private turned up, his ten roommates wouldn’t all feel free to read it.
Aside from the one time his Hustler magazine accidentally showed up here and I told him he needed to cancel that shit or at least not admit to his sister that he subscribed to it, there’s never been anything really embarrassing or off-the-wall that’s come through.
This, on the other hand…
I stare at the envelope, which is torn in one corner, the weather-beaten letter inside already half-exposed to the world anyway. Mostly, though, my focus settles on the return address. At the big bold logo of the Borealis Casino, the newest establishment in town.
The only establishment, due to its newness, where my brother wouldn’t already have his photograph hung in a prominent place with a “Do Not Admit” sign beside it. He’s racked up enough debt and drunken bar-fights to get him banned for life from everywhere else in Atlantic City.
It can’t be about him, I tell myself, pretending not to feel the painful knots forming in the pit of my stomach. It has to be some kind of general ad. One of those spam letters that new businesses mail to everyone in a twenty-mile radius.
That’s all it is.
&
nbsp; But the letter peeks out from the ripped corner of the envelope, tantalizing me, and I can’t help seeing the first few words of it.
Dear Mr. Banner,
In reference to your debts accrued…
The breath whooshes out of my lungs. Borealis has only been open for six months. As far as I know—as far as I’ve been told—Ian hasn’t been anywhere near a casino in four years. If he’s got debts at this place, that means he’s off the wagon.
