“Please ta meet cha!” Lo said as he shook my hand.
“Good to meet you, too,” I said as I took his.
“And this is Mo,” Aiden said. “As far as I know, it isn’t short for anything.”
“It’s short for mo-ron! Ha! Ha! Ha!” Lo said as he belly laughed at his own joke.
The sharpness and volume of the laugh actually caused me to jump.
“Look who’s talkin’!” Mo replied as he shoved Lo on the shoulder. He turned back to Aiden. “So where did you find this one?”
“Back up north,” Aiden said. “She needed a little vacation in the sun.”
“She’s too cute for you,” Mo said. “Let me take her off your hands.”
Aiden took a step forward, standing between me and Mo.
“You keep your hands and everything else to yourself,” Aiden said. Though he smiled when he spoke, there was an undercurrent of warning. “She’s my guest here.”
Mo laughed as loudly as Lo had, startling me again.
“So what’s Hunter been doin’ with ya?” Lo asked me. “You must be hard up if you’re hanging with this loser.”
“We went skydiving,” I replied.
“Holy shit! Are you serious?” Mo asked. His eyes bulged as he looked at Aiden. “Like, real skydiving?”
“Yeah, we went down to Homestead,” Aiden said. “I’d always wanted to go, and Chloe needed to let loose a little.”
“You crackers are crazy,” Lo said as he pointed a finger at Aiden. “There’s no way I’d jump out of a perfectly good airplane.”
“There’s no way you’d fit into an airplane, perfect or otherwise!” Mo said, and they both laughed loudly.
“These guys are characters,” Aiden said as he leaned close to me. “Watch out for them.”
“There’s no point,” Lo said as he ran his hands suggestively down his body. Mo began to dance around in a circle with his hands up behind his head. “No one can handle all of this!”
Mo and Lo both started laughing again. Now that I was expecting it, the sound wasn’t so jarring. I even smiled a little as Lo sashayed his hips back and forth. I looked at both of them carefully, trying to figure out just what their relationship was. If it wasn’t for the variations in skin tone, I would have thought them to be brothers just based on their similar mannerisms.
“You’re going to scare the neighbors,” Aiden said. “You guys want a drink?”
“Fuck yeah!” they both responded at once.
Aiden went inside and grabbed beer from the fridge. We all sat around the patio table, and Aiden popped open the bottles. Lo and Mo went over some details from the party Aiden had missed, focusing on the obviously insane amount of alcohol they had consumed.
“Vodka roulette, Redeye called it,” Mo said. “He’s out of his mind.”
“He had a dozen flavors of vodka,” Lo said, “some good, some not so good. Then there’s one shot that’s just water.”
“That’s the worst one to get,” Mo piped in.
“No it isn’t,” Lo corrected. “Nothing is worse than Bakon vodka.”
“Bacon?” I repeated.
“Bakon with a ‘k’ in it,” Lo said. “That shit is nasty.”
“Crack an egg in it,” Mo said, “and it’s the perfect hangover breakfast!”
“Dude, you are fucked up,” Lo responded seriously. “Nasty, nasty shit.”
“So everyone gets a different flavor,” Mo continued, “and you don’t know what it is until you drink it.”
“I got blueberry pancake,” Lo informed us. “It’s not bad, really.”
“That sounds awful,” I remarked.
“You can’t say no to a shot from Redeye,” Aiden said as he leaned toward me. “He’ll badger you until you take it. It’s easier to just give in.”
Mo suddenly stood up and pretended to hold a shot glass out to me.
“You need a shot!” he yelled. “Take this shot! Take this shot right now! Are you disrespecting my hospitality here?”
The three of them laughed.
“That’s about right,” Aiden said with a nod.
“His name is Redeye?” I asked.
“Not really,” Aiden said, “but it’s what everyone calls him.”
“Why?”
“I have no clue.” Aiden grinned and tipped back his beer. “He’s a lot of fun, though.”
“Is he a bartender or something?”
“Nah, he’s in sales, like me.”
I didn’t press the subject.
Lo and Mo went over more antics from the party, mostly concerning who ended up puking by the end of the night and who hooked up with whom afterwards. None of the names meant anything to me, so I just listened and watched the waves crashing along the beach.
“You want to take a little walk in the sand?” Aiden asked.
“That would be nice,” I replied with a smile. The idea of being alone with him for a little while sounded good. He had introduced me as his guest, which was as accurate as anything but still hadn’t so much as touched me all evening.
“Good,” Aiden said with a smile. “Lo can take you. I need to talk business with Mo for a minute.”
“Oh…okay.” That was not what I was expecting—not at all. I went with it anyway.
I glanced over my shoulder at Mo and Aiden as Lo led me across the patio and onto the sand. They were leaning forward with their heads close together and talking seriously. My curiosity was on high, but Aiden obviously didn’t want to share the conversation with me.
“Don’t worry about it,” Lo said. “They just have some shit to go over.”
Well, obviously Lo was in the know.
“I’m not worried,” I said. It wasn’t especially truthful, but I didn’t want him to know that. I was becoming increasingly confused by Aiden’s behavior, or lack of expected behavior, but I wasn’t about to share that with Lo.
“So how did you meet Hunter?” he asked as we reached the shoreline. I slipped off my sandals and held them in my hand as the water washed over my feet.
“Um…at a bar,” I admitted. “He drove me when I’d had a bit too much to drink.”
I didn’t tell him just where Aiden had driven me or how I had woken up in his bed.
“How long have you known each other?”
“Well…actually, we just met Friday night.”
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” Lo laughed. “And he convinced you to come all the way down here with him? Damn, he’s good!”
My face heated up, and it had nothing to do with the Florida sun. I bit down on my lip and stared at the sand. Lo obviously assumed that Aiden had brought me here for a particular reason, but I wasn’t so sure any more.
Hadn’t he said as much yesterday? No pressure, he said, and he definitely hadn’t put any on. If anything, he’d done the exact opposite. Was he waiting for me to make a move? That didn’t seem right either.
Maybe he’d just changed his mind.
“Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it,” Lo said in a much softer voice. “I’m really just a bit surprised. Hunter’s been alone a long time, and it’s not like him to jump into things so quick. It’s good to see him with someone. You seem like a nice girl. He needs that.”
“Well…thank you,” I said. I stared at the sand as it squished between my toes and contemplated for a moment longer before I looked up again. “How long have you known him?”
“We’ve known each other for years,” Lo said. “Um…six or seven, maybe? Met through Redeye at one of his parties. We went through all that shit with him.”
“All what shit?” I asked.
“Ah…well…” Lo stammered a bit. “You know—just life and shit. We were there when his last girlfriend dumped him and all. Just life.”
I was positive there was more to it than that, but Lo was apparently not going to elaborate. His backpedaling was obvious, but I was also sure he wasn’t going to tell me whatever it was.
“Who was she?” I asked just to keep the conversation going. Maybe he
’d let something slip that would give me a clue.
“Her name was Megan,” Lo said. “Great chick. He was really into her.”
“What happened to them?”
“Just one of those things. They weren’t in the same place and couldn’t get along when shit got real. He wasn’t making enough money to give her what she wanted, so she found someone else.”
“He seems to do pretty well,” I said as I glanced back toward the luxurious house.
“Well now, yeah.” Lo laughed again. “He does great now.”
“How long ago was this?” I asked.
“Three years since they broke up, I guess.” He thought for a minute before nodding. “Yeah, about three years ago.”
“And he hasn’t seen anyone since?”
“Nothing serious,” Lo said. “Hunter’s always been picky about women he dates. He’s been too busy with everything else to bother.”
“Busy with what?”
“I bet they’re done talking,” Lo said without answering me. “We should head back before he thinks I’m trying to steal ya.”
He laughed again.
“I wouldn’t want the Hunter hunting me! That motherfucker can be scary! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
We turned from the water and headed back up the sand dune to the house. Mo was still sitting outside, but Aiden wasn’t there.
“Just in time for scotch!” Mo announced. “Hunter’s digging up the private stock!”
“Sweet! Maybe the taste of Bakon vodka will finally be drowned out!”
Aiden appeared with a tall bottle and four glasses.
“You like scotch?” he asked me.
“I’ve only tried it once,” I said. “I didn’t care for it.”
“You probably never had the good stuff,” Aiden said with a wink. He poured out three glasses and handed one to me. “Try mine and see what you think.”
It burned my throat but went down a lot smoother than I remembered from years ago when Gabe had convinced me to try some, and it had made me want to gag. Not wanting to be rude, I nodded and smiled.
“It’s good.”
“See? You just needed to try a good one.” Aiden passed the two glasses to his friends and then poured one more for me. He traded glasses with me then stared into my eyes as he turned the first glass around and slowly drank from the same spot I had. He licked his bottom lip. “Extra good.”
My heart pounded as I dropped my eyes and sipped slowly, trying to get used to the taste and the feeling the drink left in my throat. It made me cringe a little every time I tasted it, but I just drank slowly and tried to keep a smile on my face.
“Got any new ink?” Mo asked Aiden.
“Of course,” Aiden replied. “I always hit up my tat man in Cincinnati.”
“What are you going to do when you run out of skin?” Lo asked with a laugh.
“I’ll figure something out.”
“What did you get?” Mo asked.
Aiden pulled off his shirt to show off a silhouetted bird in a cloud under his right arm.
“Didn’t that hurt?” I asked.
“Like a bitch,” Aiden said with a laugh. “Not as bad as behind the knee, though.”
I subtly tried to examine the myriad of pictures all over his torso. There were too many to even try to count. I could make out diamonds, stars, cartoon characters, skulls, numbers, and God knows what else. There were multiple phrases, but I couldn’t read them without being far too obvious, so I gave up.
The casual gathering continued as Aiden tossed a few pieces of firewood into a metal pit and lit it up. Mo and Lo pulled out cigars to smoke, and we chatted about nothing in particular until the hour was late, and the two men decided it was time to go.
“It was great meeting you, Chloe,” Mo said. “If this guy gives you any trouble, you just smack him over the head with that empty scotch bottle and give me a call.”
He and Lo both laughed again.
“I’ll do that,” I said with a smile.
Lo stepped forward and I squealed a bit as he lifted me into a big bear hug.
“Loved talkin’ with ya,” he said. He turned his face toward my ear and gave me a peck on the cheek before whispering to me. “Be careful with him. He’s more fragile than he looks.”
Lo dropped me back to my feet, and as I hit the floor, I felt his hand on my ass. For a moment, I was shocked, but then I realized he had just put something in my back pocket. I glanced at Aiden, and I saw him look between us quickly. He didn’t look angry at his friend’s familiarity, but there was a hint of worry in his eyes.
Aiden walked the visitors to the door. As soon as they were gone, I excused myself to the bathroom and checked my pocket. There was a business card in it that read “Flux Security Services.” It had both Lo and Mo’s names on it along with Lo’s phone number. I took a deep breath and wondered just what Lo meant about Aiden being more fragile than he seemed. Fragile in what way? Mentally? Physically? Were Lo’s words a warning for me to get away from Aiden? That didn’t seem right—they were obviously good friends. Fragile was such an odd word to use. It seemed like he was telling me not to hurt Aiden, not that he was dangerous in some way.
Lo had also said Aiden could be scary.
What had Aiden talked to Mo about? What was their business? Aiden hadn’t said anything about security, just sales. Then again, if you are a drug dealer, you would need your own security around.
No. I wasn’t going to think that way. I didn’t want to know. If I knew—if I knew for sure—I’d have to get out. I couldn’t stay around if I knew that’s what he really did. As long as I didn’t know, I could pretend his business was perfectly legitimate.
What legitimate business in sales required a private conversation between him and a security guy?
“You think too much,” I told myself in the mirror as I washed my hands. “You’re having a good time. Why can’t you just leave it alone?”
I already knew the answer to that question; I just didn’t want to admit it.
It didn’t matter that I had only known him for a few days—I wanted him. I knew I did. I wanted to feel his mouth on mine again. I wanted to be wrapped up in his arms as we sat on the beach. I wanted him to roll me over and take me in the sand. As long as I continued to force myself to believe he wasn’t a criminal, then I could let whatever happened, happen.
Aiden had brought me to this beautiful setting. He’d cooked for me. He’d encouraged me to do something I never would have tried on my own, and I had loved every second of it. He’d been a perfect gentleman.
There was no reason for me to be suspicious.
Satisfied with my reasoning, I brushed my teeth and left the bathroom. I quickly changed into my pajamas and then went to find Aiden, who was sitting at the kitchen table, looking at his phone.
“I was going to go ahead and go to bed,” I said, giving him a little smile. I hoped he would get the idea from my tone of voice, but I wasn’t really sure what tone I should use.
“It is late,” he said without looking up from his phone.
So much for subtle hints.
I stood there for a second, wondering if I should just go sit myself down in his lap and make the first move, but he spoke before I had the chance.
“Hey, listen,” Aiden said as he finally looked up, “I have a little work to catch up on. I’ll probably be up for a while.”
“Oh, okay,” I said. I tried to smile, but I didn’t think it came off well. His eyes were unfocused, and he seemed lost in thought. “I hope I’m not keeping you from things you need to do.”
“You aren’t.” Aiden shook his head slowly before he actually looked at me. I watched his eyes dart down my body briefly before he smiled again. “Don’t worry, I’ll still be up in time to make you breakfast.”
Breakfast was the furthest thing from my mind. Still, I didn’t want to bother him when he had other things to do, so all thoughts of trying to seduce him left my head as I said goodnight and went back to the bedroom alone.
/>
I climbed into bed and lay there for the longest time, trying to decide if I had lost my mind or not. Trying to fall asleep without Aiden in the bed proved to be more difficult that it had been when he was there. It was probably just because of the bed I was in, but it felt strange not to have him beside me though we had only spent the one night together.
Well, one that I remembered.
I sighed. Sleep was not coming, and I felt the need to pee again. I shoved myself out of the bed and padded down the hallway.
“I don’t give a shit!”
I stopped in my tracks. Aiden was on the phone in the next room.
“It’s nothing but bullshit. They knew what they were getting into, and now they’re being pussies about it…no, I’m not going to hold back—not anymore!”
I wondered if the beat of my heart was audible as I leaned against the wall and tried not to breathe as I listened to the one-sided conversation.
“I can’t right now…no…I’ve kind of got myself into a complicated thing this week.” The chair squeaked as Aiden leaned back.
I stayed still and silent as I continued to listen, wondering if I was the complication Aiden mentioned.
“Oh, Lo told you that, did he? Well, don’t read too much into it…I don’t know…not yet…”
What had Lo said? Was he talking about me? I folded my arms around myself and bit down on my lip.
“It doesn’t matter if it is a chick. I’ll fucking kill her if she gets in the way. If it turns out she had something to do with it—anything—I’ll bury them both in the same fucking hole!”
My legs began to shake. I supposed there was a reason people were warned against eavesdropping, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.
“Nothing matters more to me. You know that…I am…no, they haven’t found a fucking thing. As far as I can tell, they’re useless.”
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, and my toe bumped against the wall.
“Hold on a sec,” Aiden said, and I heard him move in my direction.
Shit!
As quickly and silently as I could, I scurried back down the hallway and threw myself into the bed. My heart raced as I pulled the blanket up over me and tried to lie still.