Luke Read online

  “You didn’t say you weren’t still screwing her either,” Trigg said.

  “Because it’s ridiculous and I’m not answering that.”

  “You are,” Trigg said. “Shit, man, I’ve known you how many years now? I know when you’re avoiding shit or trying to lie. You’re the worst damn liar in the world.”

  “Trigg,” I sighed. “What the hell do you want?”

  “Well, I want to know about the TV producer chick,” he said. “But since you’re not talking about that, I’ll tell you why I called.”

  “That would be nice,” I said. “Getting to the point would be wonderful.”

  “I’m doing you a damn favor, Silas,” he said. “You could be a little nicer about it.”

  “Sorry, Trigg,” I said, my voice sing-songy. “Did I hurt your feelings? I’ll even say please.”

  “You should,” he said, fake sniffling. “Quit screwing around. I wanted to tell you that some weird shit has been going on with Coker.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked warily, waiting to hear that Coker was looking for Tempest and the rest of her team.

  “He’s all around the fight circuit looking for fighters, bragging about some big money-making opportunity he has going on,” Trigg said. “International fights. He’s talking about making people stars. Abel and I are obviously not idiots. But some of the guys are getting into it.”

  I exhaled, my relief palpable. Whatever Tempest had promised him, Coker was apparently too much of a tool to have realized that they weren’t going to deliver. “Yeah, I would stay out of that, Trigg.”

  “Do you know something about it?” Trigg asked.

  I stopped. Tempest would want me to be discreet. “Nah, I don’t know anything,” I lied. “But if it’s something Coker’s involved in, you don’t want to be.”

  Trigg was silent for a minute. “Roger that,” he said. “There’s another opportunity for you, though. Coker’s not involved in it at all. One of the other promoters wants you- he’s been trying to get in touch. There’s a fight coming up that has a big purse. Ten grand. Have you been keeping up with shit?”

  Had I been keeping up with shit? I’d been running in the mornings with Tempest, using the heavy bag that hung in the corner of the garage downstairs for practice.

  I wasn’t supposed to be fighting. Doctor’s orders. The last fight had been impromptu, unexpected, really. I was doing Abel a favor.

  I wasn’t trying to get back into it, but the pull was strong.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ve been keeping up with shit.”

  “You should do this fight,” he said. “I know that last one was it for you, that you paid off your tab to Big Johnny, but it’s ten grand. That would be a lot of weekends bouncing, you know?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, thinking of Tempest in the other room. I knew she’d hate the idea of me fighting.

  “Ten grand, Silas,” he said. “This guy had a hard-on for you specifically. He’s been trying to track you down. What could you do with ten grand?”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said, hearing Tempest behind me.

  “What’s there to think about?” Trigg asked.

  “Dude. I said I’d think about it,” I said.

  “Well, think hard about it,” Trigg said. “And fast. It’s coming up real soon. Need to know ASAP.”

  I sighed. “Yeah. I’ll let you know.”

  I hung up the phone and turned to face Tempest, who slid her arms around me. “What’s up?” she asked.

  “That was one of the guys I trained with out in Vegas,” I said. “Did you know Coker hasn’t figured out that you’re scamming him yet? He’s looking for fighters for some international TV channel or something.”

  Tempest grinned. “I told you we’re good at this,” she said. “We usually string them along for a while. Emir has something set up to auto-respond on email to the mark for a few weeks and blow him off. By the time they realize they’ve been conned, we’re somewhere else.”

  “I’d say you’re a sneaky bitch, but I approve of you scamming Coker, so I won’t.”

  “I am a sneaky bitch,” she said, looking up at me, her smile radiant. She slipped her hand down the waistband of my sweatpants. “Want to see how sneaky I am? Do you think we can do it before the cookies come out of the oven?”

  “How long are they in the oven?”

  “Twelve minutes,” she said.

  “Race you,” I said.

  ***

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  TEMPEST

  “Sorry about the cookies,” I said. But I wasn’t sorry in the least.

  Silas laughed. “I’m not. It was worth a giant burnt cookie. And a house filled with smoke.”

  “My Nana called me yesterday,” I blurted out. I hadn’t told Silas about her. We’d spent the last three weeks screwing and talking about things that had happened in our lives since we were teenagers. But we hadn’t talked about West Bend. Or about the shit that had happened with the sheriff. Or about how my grandmother had asked me to look into things. I didn’t want reality to intrude on us, to pierce this perfect little bubble we had going.

  We were living in this little fantasy universe we’d created, and I found myself not wanting to leave. And yet, I wanted him to meet the person who was most important to me, my grandmother.

  “Is she in West Bend?”

  “She’s at the nursing home in town,” I said. “Excuse me- an assisted living facility.”

  “I’d heard she moved away,” Silas said. “After what happened with your parents and stuff…”

  “She didn’t move far away,” I said. “But she’s here in town now. I want to take you to meet her.”

  The smile that crossed Silas’ face couldn’t have gotten any fucking bigger if it tried. “All right.”

  “It’s no big deal,” I said, holding my hand up. “I mean, it’s not some giant thing. Don’t make a giant thing about it.”

  I was lying. It was the biggest of things. I couldn’t believe I’d just offered to have Silas meet my grandmother. She’d think I was marrying him.

  Silas was still grinning. “Yeah,” he said. “No big deal. When?”

  “Seriously,” I said. “You’re making it a thing. I can see it in your face. Don’t. You can meet her whenever. Maybe tomorrow or something.”

  “No way,” he said. “How about now?”

  “Now is sudden.”

  “Exactly,” Silas said. “I don’t need to give you an opportunity to change your mind.”

  ***

  Nana gasped audibly, her hand over her mouth, doing her best to be as dramatic as possible. “Oh my stars,” he said. “This is Silas, isn’t it? My, my, my, look at those eyes.”

  Silas chuckled. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Weston.”

  “Oh, and he’s as polite as he is good-looking, isn’t he?” she asked, gesturing to the chairs in the room. “Call me Letty. Mrs. Weston makes me feel like my mother, and that makes me feel like I’m a hundred years old and I’m not quite there yet. Sit with me and visit, will you? I told you he was a young Paul Newman, didn’t I? Those eyes. Of course, I hadn’t seen you in person, just photos from your mother.”

  “You were friends with my mother,” Silas said.

  Letty sank into her armchair and smoothed the pant leg of her tracksuit, today’s choice a pink and purple rhinestone studded number. “I don’t know that I’d call us friends exactly,” she said. “You mother - God rest her soul - I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but your mother was a...complicated...person.”

  Silas made a sound that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a cough. “Complicated is a good way of putting it.”

  “Well, then you know, I don’t think your mother really had friends,” Letty said. “I’m not sure she was really that capable of something of that nature. But we were good acquaintances, I’d say, on account of us both being black sheep in the town. Your family and mine, we had that in common.”

  “People didn�