Find Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy - Book Two) (16 page)

“
Is that all you got?” I say, my hand to my
jaw. That it wasn’t his hardest, doesn’t mean it didn’t
hurt.
Because
motherDAMN it hurt!
It
hurt like a mofo.

Skate starts laughing. He’s enjoying this
as much as I am. I’m hunched down, looking at his feet. They start
dancing,
Muhammad Ali
. A
drop of red spittle drops from my lips. “You mother...fucker. You
made me bleed.”

“You gonna get up and fight or just keep
talkin like a pussy, Deck?”

I smile. I stand. I put my fists up, and I
also start dancing.

Trev stands back. “
Jesus, this is the slowest fucking fight
I’ve ever seen in my life. Could we get some action
here?”

Both Skate and I look at Trev from the
corners of our eyes.

The rage is gone from me. All I feel
is
a bubbling laughter
in my stomach (and a growing swell by my jaw.) But I’d love to land
a few shots, and maybe even have a few more land on me—just a few
thumps of pain to wake me. To ease the stress, to forget all the
psychological clobbering I’ve been getting all this
week!

Because here, in a street fight,
there’s a target. This isn’t a
shadow, a ghost. This is flesh and blood. Reachable. I like
that.
And a
dude throwing a Molotov in a window and then driving off is just a
shadow. And you can’t hit a shadow
—

I swing!

I miss!

Skate’s hard fist connects with my left
rib and takes the wind out of me. The pain fires up all through my
neck.
Good!
Good!
Something I can feel goddamnit!

“
Another lucky shot.”
Very lucky indeed, because I
think he broke my damn rib.

Skate hangs back. I straighten, and the
pain is like lightning. I will it away, let it seep into me.
Physical pain is so much easier to deal with than emotional.
My left leg starts going numb.
Skate’s face starts fading.

Skate says, “Deck, you OK?”

“
Of course I am.” I call him to me with my
index finger. My ribs burn like fire. I swing again, just to keep
up appearances.

Skate puts his fists down.
“Deck, you alright?”

“
Sure...” I don’t finish the statement. The
world becomes a spinning top
and I—

All is white.

I open my eyes to see one very concerned
white face and one pretty amused black face above me. “You guys are
close enough to kiss me.”

“
Deck, god! I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying
to—”

“Skate, chill, I’m sorry.” I raise a hand and
slap him on the cheek. “But I’m gonna take a rematch one of these
days.”

Trev helps me up from the ground and the
sting down my left side confirms that, yip, I’m pretty sure he
nailed a rib. “Can you walk?” Trev asks.

“
Sure, but sex is gonna be tough.” I put my
arm around Skate’s shoulders, and they pretty much carry me to my
car.

“What the fuck did Clarissa say to you in
there to make you so pissed at me, bro?”

“Basically? That she still loves you, you
fucking punk.”

“So? You never gave a shit about that stuff
before.”

“
I don’t know. I just kinda felt sorry for
her. I mean—
ouch
!—she seems
to really care for you. And I figured that might be good for
you.”

“
In other words,” says Trev, “our boy here
is gonna be walking down the aisle one of these days with his
multi-colored-hair beauty. Because he’s so fucking in love that he
believes it’s the panacea of all pains and troubles in all the
world.”

“
You can talk a lotta bullshit, homes,” I
say. But when they get me in the car, all I can think about is how
the game has changed so much now that I’ve met Blaze. When I’m not
with her, I’m counting the hours to when I can be. I’m always
wondering how long it’s been since I’ve last texted her, just so
that I can text her again.

Skate’s in the backseat. No one says anything
about him leaving his Dodge behind because it happens all the
time.

“Bar?” Trev’s behind the wheel.

“
Uhm, no,” I say, “
we’re gonna go visit Gina Moretti.” No one
says anything. “What? Did you think I was in there talking about
Skate all the time? He barely made an appearance in our
conversation.”

“
He made enough of an appearance to nail
you to the ground.”

“Skate.” I put my hand on his shoulder.
“Thanks for looking out for Blaze today.”

“No sweat.”

Then I slap him on the back of the
head.
Hard
. “But I
still think you’re an asshole!”

On the way to
St. Dymphna’s Home
—a drug-free “Home of Rest and Care for
the Mentally Disturbed” (talk about a euphemism)—I get a
call.
Number
withheld.

I use my business greeting:
“
Dude with a Truck
.”

The voice on the line is husky, female.
“Mr.
Cocks
?” And
familiar...

“Speaking.”

“
This is
Tatiana
. Tatiana Watkins.” The flirty babe Trev and I did a move
for last week.

“
Oh, Mrs. Watkins.” I groan because I move
suddenly. Trev’s eyes perk up at me, a glint of arousal in them.
“How may I help you?”

She pauses for a second, breathes heavily. “I
just...wanted to offer...my condolences.”

“Condolences?”

“Yes, for your father.”

“
Oh. Right.”
This feels very weird.
“Uhm, how— How did you—?”

“
The paper. It was in there. And your name
was mentioned. And, well, my husband called in a favor at the
station and confirmed that it was indeed your father.”

“Your husband, the lawyer.”

“
Yes. So, Mr.
Cocks
, I just wanted to let you know that...if you need
any
help getting through
this.
Any
help
whatsoever, my door is
always
open.”

OK, before it felt weird, now it just
feels outright disgusting. She’s using my
dead father
to get into my pants? To get her
married
hands into my pants? “Uhm, OK,
sure, right. Well, thanks for the condolences. Bye—”

“
Wait. Wait. Mr.
Cocks
—”

“
Just
Cox
,
ma’am. It’s a short sound. Not a long one.”

She giggles—

Time-Out.

If you’re male, you can just skip this
part, because you already know this.
But if you’re not, well, you gotta understand
something about the male anatomy:

It reacts.

That’s it. Nothing more. It
reacts
. And
because it does, doesn’t mean shit. It doesn’t mean you like the
babe or that you don’t like your girlfriend or fiancé or wife or
whatever—it just means it
reacted
.

Unfortunately, with that reaction, so come
several other hormonal reactions as well.

Arousal is one of them.

—
and my cock goes hard. My skin starts to
sweat, and I swallow.

Fuck, this could get me
into
major
shit.

“
I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,
Mr.
Cockssss
. Is
your friend with you? The
larger
one.”

“Trevor is with me, yes.”

Trev’s face is glowing. I look out the
window because I don’t need him aiding and abetting this broad’s
illicit solicitations.

“
Good.
Good.
So, Mr.
Cocks
—”

“Declan, ma’am.”

“Tatiana, remember?”

“
Tatiana, right. I forgot. And you can call
me Declan.”

“
No, that’s fine”—husky husky husky
sexy—“I’ll stick with
Cocks
.
Anyway”—deep and affected
sighhhhhhh—“
I need a
few
more things moved around. I don’t know if you do that—move
things
around
?”

“Around?”

“Yes, uhm, like around the house.”

“
I’m a little confused—”

“
Well, Mr.
Cocks
, it’s quite simple, I would pay you a thousand dollars an
hour—times two, if you are with your friend—to help me rearrange my
furniture. I know it’s unusual, and that you usually move
things
away
, but I
can’t imagine that you would turn a job like this down. Besides,
I’ve been telling my friends about your
services
. A few of them are moving into this condo in the
next few months—oh, four or five of them. I convinced them to skip
the moving company they’d chosen, and to go with you.
Because”—giggle giggle—“well, Mr.
Cocks
, let me be very blunt, because you two guys are just
plain...fucking...
hot
. And there’s
nothing wrong with getting a few cheap looks at some boys moving
furniture around, is there?”

“I see.”

“Oh, and I told them your rates.”

“You did.”

“
Yes, three thousand an hour.”

“
THREE THOUSAND— Uhm, I mean, I— Well,
that’s quite generous of you, Mizz Watkins.”

“
If you insist on calling me by my last
name, then it’s
Missus
Watkins,
Mr.
Cocks.
I
am
married, you know.”

Oh, god, and you are indeed
trouble
. “Yes, it was
just— Never mind. Well,
Missus
Watkins—”

“Tatiana.”

Christ!
“Tatiana. That’s a fairly generous rate
you recommended.”

“
Well, we
are
all yuppies after all, isn’t that what you said?” After my
long silence, she says. “Don’t worry, I don’t hold it against you.
But, let’s be honest, they’re not only paying for a mover, but also
for the view.”

“I see. About your moving-things-around
stuff, when would you need us?”

“Tomorrow?”

I could really use this break.
Really
.
Especially if I’ve committed to helping Blaze replace her gear if
anything happens to it because of me. Because, who am I kidding, I
got so little put away that that would destroy me.

And then there
was
that idea I had for the business. The one where
we’d be doing precisely this: Offering moving services with good
looking dudes for, well, frustrated housewives... No harm. As she
says, some cheap looks. It’s almost as if the woman had been
listening to me and Trev talk about it (which would be insanely
creepy indeed if she had been.)

And yet...something about this does not
sit right with my conscience. The business idea is cool.
My
business idea. But not with
her. There’s something else going on here. I’d bet my left big toe
on it.

“
Declan?”
Finally, she’s done calling me
Cocks
.

I consider the best approach. I need to go
gently, feel the water. “Yes, uhm, Tatiana, you see, I’d like to
accept, but I actually got injured today
—”

Very affectedly:
“Oh my goodness! Are you
OK
!?”

Uh-huh. Whatever.
“Yes, I’m fine. Look, would you
mind if my friend comes through, and another friend of mine that I
highly recommend, instead of me?”

“
Hmmmm, that’s not
entirely
what I had in mind...”

I can only imagine what you had
in mind
...

She starts backpedalling. And that’s not
good. Because business is business: “On second thought—”

“No, no. It’s fine. We’ll do it.
Tomorrow?”

Smugly, “Yes, tomorrow.
Ten OK?”

“Ten’s fine. And, uhm, thank you...for the
referrals.”

“
Oh, I think you’ll be getting a
lot
more business from me. But, of
course, that all depends on how you...er...
perform
tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it, Declan
Cocks
.”

I’m not
. “Sure, OK. See you tomorrow.”

After I click off the phone,
Trev says, “What the
fuck
was that?”

“
Trouble. That’s what it was. But it’s also
business.
Good
business. I
think it’s time to get a name for the Sexy Movers I planned on
creating. Because I think we just got our first client.”

“You just said it.”

“Said what?”