Brody (12 page)

“No exceptions,” she said, inching it closer. “Now, you’re gonna have to go—”

“But I have nowhere else,” I pleaded. “I just need one more night. One more and that’s it.” Because after that, I would be gone. I could finally leave Texas, El Paso, and head home.

She laid her arm on the door, tilting her head. “You and everyone else, dear,” she said, nodding. “You and everyone else.”

I sat at a diner that night, watching the cars cruise by the windows until they got so dark behind them. Then those cars became few and far between, later and later into the night. By that time, my coffee had gone cold, the only thing I could make myself sacrifice a little money for. I had to stay awake. I couldn’t sleep just anywhere. Anywhere made me vulnerable. Eventually, the owner of the diner realized I wouldn’t be ordering anymore or leaving. He came over to my table, remorseful, polite, but in the end, he still made me leave.

I went by foot after that, just walking and trying to stay out of sight. I held my arms, wondering how I let it get this bad. Homeless, alone. At least in New York, I had managed to get myself to a place where I wasn’t on the streets, however little I had. I should have come home sooner.

I should have never left.

I made the mistake of thinking I could make it and that I could make change happen for Aiden. I could take him and my sister away. I could take care of them. I smirked behind a tear-streaked face.

I couldn’t even take care of myself.

A car pulled up to my side, cruising along slowly. Shielding my face, I kept on moving forward, ignoring it, but it wouldn’t stop or drive away. I braced my feet to run, not knowing what else to do when the window went down.

“Hey!” A male voice shouted. “Hey, I’m interested, honey.”

My back up, I dared to glance his way. He looked like some business guy. Caucasian, in a dark suit. He also drove one of those nice rides, a Mercedes Benz with the windows rolled down. One more thing I noticed was his left hand on his steering wheel. He had a gold band wrapped there.

I stopped. Looking at him, I didn’t say a word.

Was he…

“Twenty for the front,” he continued. “Forty for the back, right? Those still Wayne’s prices?”

Wayne?

This guy grinned. “I want the deluxe package. I’ll even give you an extra hundred if you let me eat that pussy.”

He was looking for exactly what I thought and the very notion of it returned a similar feeling I wanted to never experience again. My throat closing up made it hard to get air either in or out, the acidic bile burning in a rapid rise up from my stomach. They’d been things I felt in an act of desperation to a familiar situation. In fact, the same situation I found myself in currently. Things got so bad. I’d gotten so scared that I…

But things were different this time. I didn’t have a Brody to save me if I changed my mind. No, I had lost him. I lost the only good thing.

I stepped toward the car, giving up, and choosing anything but the fear. But then a voice across the street came, and a girl, she raised her hand. Dressed in fishnets and a tight, busty top, she strode over to the car. This got the guy’s attention. She was definitely dressed sexier than my shorts and tennis shoes. She leaned down, grinning at the man through his open window.

“This girl don’t work for Wayne,” she said, tipping her head my way.

He frowned. “Damn, I wanted the good girl thing today,” he responded. Turning, he gave me the once over, clearly liking what he saw, but the girl got him back, pointing over her shoulder.

“Well, we got a new girl. Piper. She’ll hook you up real nice across the way.”

The girl redirected his attention just that way and another busty girl, I assumed Piper, raised her hand. A high ponytail on her head, she gave a show of swaying her hips in a short skirt. She didn’t read much like a “good girl,” but the man didn’t seem too choosey tonight. He nodded and the girl who intercepted us waved to Piper. Piper came over and once she got inside the man’s car, the pair drove away.

I saw this as nothing but a sign.

Lowering my head, I went to walk away.

“Hey!”

I kept going, but the girl touched my arm. I wiggled back, but she raised her hands, indicating no threat. That didn’t mean she wasn’t one.

She lowered her arms across her chest. “What did you think you were doing, hon? You can’t work privately here. You’re in territory. Wayne has this block.”

I didn’t have to explain myself. Removing myself from the situation, I made a couple strides before she stepped in front of me. I put space between us. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Clearly,” she said, and in the light, I could see blue contacts behind her hot pink wig. They really stuck out since her skin had such a dark hue. She crossed her arms. “You want in? The guy was right, you do got that school girl thing going for you.”

I pushed my bag up my arm. “No, thanks. It was a mistake. Again, I’m sorry.”

Standing there, she watched me, nodding. After a moment, she made a few steps toward me in her strappy heels. She got close, real close, and tilted her head at me, her gaze sizing me up from head to toe.

What is she doing?

She lifted her head, apparently getting her fill, and when her eyes met mine, her pink hair swayed when she shook her head. “It really was a mistake, wasn’t it? I guess I didn’t see it at first, but you’re really not working.”

It was a mistake. One of too many. I stopped counting these days. When I didn’t answer she appraised me. Gazing down my body, she stopped at my arms, then my legs exposed from my shorts. She smiled. “You dance though, right?” she asked.

My eyes widened, my mouth parted. “I did. How did you know?”

“Honey, no one has legs like that unless they’re using them. And these arms,” she said, gesturing toward them. My sleeves were short enough for them to be seen. “Perfect to handle yourself on a pole. You ever done exotic?” she asked, eyes lifting.

I swallowed. “Yes.”

She raised her chin like she knew that’s what I was going to say. She placed a hand on her curvy hip. “I’m guessing you just need some quick money, which is why you even considered that guy just now and if that’s the case, I know where you can go. I dance at a place downtown. I can get you in. You do a good job and you could be walking away with a few Benjamin's. I can work it out with the owner. One night only.”

One night only…

She made it sound so simple and it wasn’t like I hadn’t done this before. That’s how I got by so long in New York, how I paid my rent when things got bad.

She went to walk away, not waiting for my response. But gazing back, she eyed me. She waited for me.

I shrugged my bag up my arm, following behind her. I could do this for just one night.

I could do this just one more time.

Chapter Thirteen

Brody

She straddled my hips, all hands, breasts. It came to this like it always had. Chloe rolled her thick hips, her soft pillowy thighs pressing against my jeans. She lowered placing a warm mouth on my neck, kissing, and I let her, filling my hands with her ass to beckon her to do it harder and faster. Again, it always came to this… in the end. She moved, the flowery smell from her violet hair going with her as she made her way down my body. Her hands found their way under my shirt, my stomach, and then her lips touched down and replaced that of her hands.

I set my head back on the couch in her apartment, allowing her to go and fill a void. It was one she could probably never fill, but she knew that. She understood that, but she went anyway. She always did, her tongue pushing into my belly button. Her hands went higher, my shirt higher, and her mouth kissed up a straight line.

I grabbed her shoulders, bracing, and she laughed, not stopping as her fingers played to get my shirt higher. I braced her again and the hum from her laughter hit my abs.

“I want to see it,” she said, fighting my hands to do just that.

Putting just enough force, I pulled her back, staring into her brown eyes. “It’s not like I’m some weird oddity or something.”

Her lips lifted, that red gloss she wore long gone. I had a feeling I could find it all over my neck and mouth. She pushed a hand into my hair, rubbing. “You’re not. It just means you’ve been through stuff.”

I had to laugh this time. “I don’t even remember when it happened. It was a long time ago.” And it had been. I’d gotten my scar when I was born.

Closing the space, she kissed me, her mouth so warm, so needed. “You’re strong, Brody,” she said, smiling. “You’re a fighter. Even from the beginning.”

Was I though? I didn’t feel that fight these days, that strength. But Chloe didn’t seem to care, her priorities in her lips on me. She travelled down, unstrapping my belt. Her hand ventured inside my jeans, cupping me over my boxers. Her other hand went for my chest again, my scar between my ribcage, but I grabbed her wrist.

She eyed me. “What’s up?”

Honestly, I didn’t know. I just knew I wasn’t really feeling this. It didn’t feel okay anymore. Reaching up, I squeezed her arm, rubbing. “Something just feels off.”

She placed her hand behind my neck, frowning. “What exactly?”

Turning my head, I shook it. “This. Don’t you just get… I don’t know, over all this sometimes? I mean, isn’t this lonely for you? Just this? I roll through town and… you know
this
?”

She knew exactly what I meant. This, us, and this friendship. We always found our way here for some reason and I didn’t understand why.

She pressed her other hand to my neck. “No,” she said, answering my previous question. “Why would I be over this,
us
?”

I let out a breath, tapping a finger against her leg. “Because it isn’t enough. It’s so physical, vacant. Why is that enough for you?”

The words just came. They came and I had no idea why. Thinking about them, I wanted to take them back, apologize or something for saying them. It sounded rude I guess, as well as cold.

Chloe left my lap like I probably would have in her situation. She rubbed her hands down her face, and when she leaned back, she faced me. “You mean, why isn’t this enough for you, right? That’s what you’re really asking.”

Maybe, in a way, I was. I pushed my hand into my hair, my other on my stomach. The two of us sat in silence for bit, but what she said next had me turning my head.

“This is about her, isn’t it? That girl you came to the bar with last week?”

I didn’t say anything and she gave a dry laugh, shaking her head with it. Alex, my time with her, hadn’t come into my head when I asked Chloe what I had. But the moment she brought Alex up, I couldn’t find it in me to deny what she said.

Had it already been nearly a week since I’d last seen her? Since I last touched her…

I had a feeling the reality of that moved over my face. Chloe’s eyes lifted, her body shifting while she rested a hand on her leg. “She’s not good enough for you, Brody.”

She didn’t have a place to say what was right for me and what wasn’t. She didn’t even know me, not really anyway. Our friendship had blossomed in my short trips here and quickly went physical fast, unless she was with someone at the time. I looked at her. “Don’t do that. You can’t say that for me and you don’t know her, so don’t do that.”

“And you know her?” she asked, raising and lifting her hand. “You bring her to the bar. She dances with
another
guy. You let her borrow your phone and she calls someone else ‘baby’ on the phone. God, Brody, and did you forget you caught her stealing from your wallet?”

I turned my head. “I never said that.”

“But that’s what she was doing. You know that’s what she was about to do.”

If she was, she probably felt she had to. She’d never… not without a reason.

Chloe pushed her hand through her hair. “You need to forget about that girl. She’s fucking weak. And what the fuck would you do with a girl that’s weak as shit?”

Alex wasn’t weak. I only got a snapshot into her life, but that was enough to know she’d been around some folks that didn’t treat her right and people who had to deal with that, the crap life threw at them, weren’t weak. They were the strongest of any of us because they kept on despite the fact.

I buckled my pants. Standing, I rose to get the fuck out of here, but Chloe was in my face.

“She’s
all
wrong for you. She barely put up a fight when I took her ass for all she had.”

I had to have heard her wrong. Because she wouldn’t go there. I thought her better than that.

But then she had the gall to look smug about it.

“Yeah, I robbed her,” she said, nodding. “Little thing pulled a knife on me, but couldn’t even hold her own for two seconds. I knocked it out of her hand and she didn’t even fight me. She handed over all her cash like a weak little bitch.”

I honed in on her, thinking she should thank God for not making her a guy. If she was, she wouldn’t be standing here like a cocky little shit in front of me. “Give me what you took.”

Her arms moved over her chest. “Sorry?”

She was testing my patience. “I said, give me the money you took from Alex. I won’t ask you again.”

She stared at me, hard, and though she looked like she’d do anything but comply, in the end, she did as I asked her.

Pulling down the front of her top, she stared right in my face. She did so boldly, unrelenting, and when she slid a wad of cash out of her shirt, I wanted to shake my head at both her and myself for not seeing her for her true colors. Or maybe I had, but had just been so lonely on the road I didn’t care. I was paying for that mistake now.

She counted slowly, pulling bill after bill of twenties and even a couple hundreds. God, she took everything from Alex. Everything. She gave me the entire stack and the last thing I cared about was the formality of saying goodbye. I left and she followed me out of her apartment complex and to my truck. My truck. That should have told me what a mess everything was. I wasn’t even on the clock and I came out to see Chloe. I could fuckin’ kick myself a new hide.