Mockingbird (A Stepbrother Romance) (9 page)

I stand on the porch for a while, look around, watch the other houses. It's three in the morning. I'm used to cities, where there really is no difference between three in the A.M. or in the P.M., except the color of the sky. Here it's quiet at night, like a soft blanket layered all over everything. The only sound is the creaking of trees and the soft voice of the wind.

I could get used to this.

"I've never taken you horseback riding, have I?"

The sound of his voice makes me jump. He snuck up on me. I think my father is the only one who can.

"No." I choke out.

"Might get a chance, when this is done. So many things I've missed, moving from place to place, always on the
 
run. It'd be nice to stay in one place, wouldn't it?"

I nod. It's all I can do. Lightning bugs flicker in and out of sight in the distance, and the low overcast sky catches street lamps and traffic lights and spreads the glow everywhere. It's not hot at night, but it's muggy and buggy. I sweep a mosquito away from my ear.

"You ever think about what it would be like if you weren't with me? If it was different?"

"Yeah. I guess I missed out. Going to that place with Diana was so strange. I felt like I was wandering on another planet."

True. I never attended a wild high school party, or any high school at all after my mother passed. I barely remember it. Sometimes I confuse the way it was with things I've seen on television. So much has happened since then, a whole lifetime packed into a few short years.

"You've never talked about Mom."

"No."

He motions his hands like he's got a cigarette pinched between his fingers. He does that a lot, in quieter moments. He quit after he picked me up. I couldn't abide seeing anyone smoke after what happened. I
 
was so lost when she was lying in the hospital withering away.
 
The disease stole everything about her, turned her into a pale, gaunt shade of her former self. At the end she was so thin I could see her ribs through the hospital gown and blankets, and the bones of her hips jutting out. The memory comes back to me hard and I squeeze the railing to stop my hands from shaking.

"I met her on a job," he says, very softly. "She wasn't involved, I just ran into her a few times while I was casing the place and working up my plan."

"Which job?"

"I don't remember."

A little pang of anger twists in my stomach.

"They all blur together," he adds, quickly. "When I was young, it was all about the excitement. The riches, the women, and most of all the thrill of the chase, the threat of being caught, the exultation of
 
success. Every time I'd swear this time I'm going to settle down, this time I'm going to retire, I've made enough, done enough, and I never did. I just kept going. I want to tell you the night you were conceived was magical, special, but I don't even remember it. We hooked up a few times. I felt something for her I've never felt for any of the others. After her the carousing became boring. It felt like there was no real point anymore, but I couldn't stay. A man in my line of work makes enemies, and if I settled down they would, in time, find me and strike at me through people I cared about. The best thing I could do was move on."

"Move on and keep stealing. Very convenient."

"You're going to hurt yourself with this girl. I can see it in your eyes. Worse, you're going to hurt her. We
have
to do this job. She's smart. She's going to figure out what we've done, and the more of a thing you make it with her, the more it's going to hurt
her
. If you like
her
, spare
her
that pain, not yourself. For her sake…"

"For her sake, what? Manipulate her emotions and fuck her so I can rob her mother's employer?"

"I don't think you'll have to."

"Dad, I'm starting to think we need to back out of this one. You keep telling me you have reserves and savings and resources. Let's back out of it
now
. You're telling me not to hurt Diana but her mother is falling for you. I'd have to be blind not to see it. I'm sure my old man can get the job done, but she's not looking at you the way they look at…" Me, I'm about to say, but I trail off.

"I want to," he says, and his voice breaks in a way that twists in my chest like a blade. "I'm an old man."

"Oh, you are not."

"Yes, I am. Passing fifty soon enough. When you get old enough, the diamonds start to lose their sparkle, the gold loses its lustre and all you're left with is a life to look back on and ask, what have I done? The only thing I've done that will last in this world is you, and look how that's turned out."

He stands up from the rail. "You've got nothing on your plate tomorrow. I have work to do. Take the car, go somewhere and get your mind off the girl. Keep your head in the game. This
will
be my last rodeo, I'm done after this. After that you can do as you like, but settle somewhere, for my sake. The longer you run the more and more the ghosts chase you until you can't outrun them anymore."

As he walks into the house he stops.

"I was wrong. I should have made that job the last one and stayed with you. I've never been more wrong about anything in my life."

Then he disappears inside and leaves me to the darkness, out here.

By the time I fall into bed, it's four-thirty. I should be exhausted but all I can do is toss and turn. The strangeness of this bedroom, another unfamiliar ceiling, presses on me. The sheets feel like sandpaper, the chill from the air conditioner in the window like an arctic blast, and I can't stop thinking about Diana.

I'm too smart for this. There is no such thing as love at first sight, I'm too smart, too practical for that. Sex is biological, it's a drive, like sleeping or eating, and I've never been shy about fulfilling that drive, in abundance. I can recall faces more easily than names.

It all blurs together.

I sit up and wait for the sun. When it slices between the blinds I'm sitting on the bed in the lotus position, in a haze, tired but unable to sleep. I find myself wondering what Diana is doing right now. I can imagine her mother chewing her out over what she saw. I don't even know how it happened. It's not like I've never met a woman that came on strong before, but there was something different about it this time. Something about her. The way she feels, the way she smells, even, that look in her eyes, so bright and full of spark and intelligence.

Finally, after sunup, I fall into a light sleep, curled away from the windows. When I wake up I feel worse than I did when I went to sleep. You'd think
I'd
been drinking, not that girl.

The whole day is mine, or what's left of it, since it's past one. I shower, I shave, I scrub my fingers through my hair.

You know, he's right. I need to get my head in the game. So I take the car while he's out doing whatever he does, and I drive.

It's a half an hour ride into the city. Philadelphia. I grabbed some cash from my drawer and have it stuffed in my pockets, and I have a very convincing fake ID that says I'm twenty one years old. At no point as I walk into the casino does anyone bother to check. It's social engineering, all about the swagger, looking like you belong there. I'm not dressed like a scrub, either, which certainly helps. There's a moment of nerves, a little twitch of excitement, when I drop a sheaf of hundreds on the table and look up at the dealer at the craps table.

"Change."

The dealer nods, and the moment has passed, but I'm still scanning the exits, mentally planning my escape, which way to run, which railings to vault over so they can't take me in.

I could play blackjack, but it's too much like work and there's a good chance they'd catch me counting cards, even with a shoe of eight decks. Roulette is too random.

Craps is my game.

It has a reputation for being vastly more complicated than it is, mostly because it's about ten games at once. The main game is called a
line bet
. A bet is placed on the line, hence the name. The shooter, the person with the dice, rolls. If the dice come up two, three, or twelve, everyone on the line loses. If the shooter rolls a seven or eleven, everyone on the line wins 1:1 odds on their bet.

If any other number is rolled, the object of the game becomes trying to roll that same number again before rolling a seven. That's the basics of the game. There's more to it than that- there are side bets which are only good for one roll, or side bets that sit until a win or loss condition is met, and odds can be placed. It's easier to do than to explain and after spending hours and hours playing, I know all of it in and out.

I don't make a line bet. I wait for the shooter to roll a point number, a five this time, and then call out "Hard six" and toss the stickman, the dealer in the middle of the table, a hundred dollar chip. If I win the bet, I get nine hundred back.

From there it's a waiting game, my stomach coiling with each roll. The first number rolled is a four, two and two. If it would have rolled two and four and made a soft six, I'd be down a hundred. Next roll is an eight. The longer the shooter rolls, the more likely seven is to come up, which means I lose.

With the next roll I watch the dice come in. The shooter is at the far end of the table. The dice bounce just under where my hands rest on the rail. One die lands with a three facing up, the other spins on its corner until I'm almost sweating, then drops.

"Hard six," the stickman calls.

He taps the board in front of me and the other dealer starts counting out chips.

I'm in a mood.

"Parlay."

No, it doesn't mean we're going to negotiate. It means I want my winnings rolled back into the original bet. I just won $900, which now sits on top of my original bet, and bumps it to a thousand.

I make another side bet, but it's that stack of chips on the hard six I'm watching intently. The shooter grabs the dice and hurls them my way, frustration on his face. He's pulling for that five.

He gets half of it, a three. The other half is a three, too. Hard six, back to back.

The stickman checks me with a look. I give him a nod. The dealer stacks two orange five hundred dollar chips in front of me. I lose my other bet on the next roll, but I don't care.

When the dice come to me, I take that thousand and put it on the line.

My first roll is a seven. That makes it two. They're watching me. They might be thinking about checking my ID, might be thinking about offering me comps. My next roll is an eight. I put a thousand behind the first thousand, to back it up. Those are my odds, and the payout is better if I roll another eight.

Five. Dice come back.

Two, dice come back. By the way, it's aces, no one says snake eyes at a craps table.

Roll.

Hard eight. Winner.

This time I take it down, as half a dozen people slap my back and punch my shoulders. The dealers are giving me the eye. If I check the dice now it'll be suspicious, so I roll again. I roll a six, easy number to roll, but the magic is gone. Seven out, and I take my winnings. I saunter with a purpose over to the cashier's window, and cash out. The utter lack of interest on the cashier's face always amuses me. They see so much money change hands, and they have no idea how much I started with, so it's hard to impress one. I should probably leave now, but I need a drink.

Casino bars are always a ripoff, especially since players get free drinks, but I don't care in the least. I order up a Screwdriver and spot a girl at the bar, having the same thing. She glances over, and something about her gives me the willies. It sounds dramatic, but it's like I feel a wind blowing over my grave. Dark hair, petite, and freakishly pale, like she's wearing pancake makeup or something. She looks at me hard, and then gets up and walks off, leaving her drink. I blink a few times, and it takes a slug of booze to make me feel warm again.

A much warmer hand rests on mine as a leggy bottle blonde in not much of a red dress slips onto the bar stool next to me.

"What are you having?"

I raise her my glass.

She nods the bartender over. "Buy me a drink?"

"Sure."

High class, this one. Long legs, and a skirt so short it borders on illegal. Nice big breasts, little dimples when she smiles, and silky hair even if it is bleached blonde, in tight ringlets she's piled up on her head in a high updo. Her drink is delivered and I pay the man, and she takes a sip without really drinking. I down the rest of mine.

"How'd you like to go upstairs?"

She bats her eyelashes. "I think I would."

I still feel a nervous flutter in my stomach. I'd put her in her late twenties, early thirties. When she stands up I see what kind of fantastic shape she's in. Flat belly, great ass, tall and shapely legs, and a pretty face. She has brown eyes, and a warm smile.

The walk to the elevator is casual, but I'm nervous about something.

This is wrong. I should stop.

I keep telling myself but I get in the elevator anyway. There's a kind of awkwardness to these transactions. There's a lot of pressure not to be so casual with this kind of thing.

I feel like I'm being watched as I stand by the door while she opens her room. I probably am. I duck in the bathroom, check in the shower as she walks into the room.

"I need to freshen up a bit. Make yourself comfortable."

That's code. I slip my winnings and a bit more from my pocket and leave it next to the sink, and walk out into the room.

When she emerges from the bathroom, I'm sitting on the bed, still dressed. She's discarded her slinky red dress for sultry red lingerie, stockings and a garter belt and a bra with little bows where her nipples must be, the whole nine yards. I look up and get hard instantly. God damn is she hot.

This is wrong.

She drops the sheaf of bills I left in the bathroom on the bed.

"You keep that."

"Uh," I say.

"I'm on my dinner break. You're dessert."

She falls to her knees in between my legs and undoes my fly, and her hand slides over my rock hard shaft, only a thin layer of cotton between her touch and me.