Jackson Stiles, Road to Redemption (15 page)

“Don’t touch my knobs, Green.”

“I thought you
wanted
me to touch your knobs.”

There’s a playful kind of tone to her voice. I’m surprised she’s going there, but hell, I’m game.

With my foot on the brake and my hand still on hers, I turn and lean in toward her, close. So close I can smell the perfume she put on since the last time we saw each other. When I look her straight in those kill-me-now eyes, my chest tightens. The way she’s looking at me right now doesn’t exactly make me wanna tell her to fuck off.

According to my dick, I’m actually having the exact opposite reaction.

“Be careful what you wish for.”

My voice is even. Calm. I’m not threatening her. I’m just letting her know. And when her mouth falls open, ever so slightly, she huffs out the tiniest bit of sexual frustration.

Stiles: one. Green: zero.

Truth is, I wouldn’t mind Green touching my knobs. But a) when I think about those hands, wrapped around my dick, I get distracted. Distractions are not acceptable this evening. B) it’s the
after effects
of said knob touching I’m not so keen on. ’Cause been there, done that.

It’s always the same. She wants me to call, I don’t. She starts harassing my ass. Next thing you know, I’ve got
two
stalkers.

Still. Wouldn’t mind it. Just saying.

X X X

The car is dead quiet for a while once we’re on the highway, and I semi-regret not letting her touch my knobs.
Could have been fun.
I made the right call, though. I don’t get involved with women who are currently involved. Douchebag or not.

The closer we get to Thomas’s turf the more fidgety Green gets. She’s nervous. Obviously. Probably having a bit of a flashback of guns and thugs and death and shit
.
So I distract her. I’m an excellent distractor.

“You always wear tank tops in the middle of fucking winter, Green?”

Shoot me. It’s still on my mind. I’m a guy; what do you expect?

“It’s not winter yet, Stiles,” she tells me. “And what’s wrong with this top?” She adjusts and smooths it out.

Jesus.

“Nothing.” I clear my throat and pull off onto a side street. I don’t want anyone to see us coming.

“It’s easier to move around in than a button-down.”

She’s fucking badass, I gotta say. Dressing down in preparation for a fight. That’s smart thinking. I’m not telling her that, though.

“The boy toy know you’re going into Flint’s territory tonight?”

“The b…” She’s flustered but she reels it in. “Connor doesn’t need to know where I am at all hours of the day.”

“Ha!” I point over at her.

“What?”

“You almost said the b-word.”

“I did not.” She tucks some hair behind her ear.

Ha, again! I point over at her with more vigor than before, triumphant.

“Liar.”

“What?”

“That’s your tell. Right there.” Snap.

Stiles: two. Green: zip.

“What are you talking about?”

I find a spot to park.

“When you’re lying, you tuck your hair. You did it the other day when you were making that lame ass attempt at flirting with my brother, and I saw you doing it when you were talking to Thomas’s guy.”

“I was not!” She tucks the same hair away.

“He’s married, by the way.”

“Who is?”

“Nick.”

“I am not interested in your brother, Stiles. I was simply trying to… never mind. Annoyance oozes from her pores, and I revel in victory. “Besides, I─”

“Shhh.” I hold a finger up to her. “We’re here.”

We slip out of the car, and Green immediately ducks down like she’s hiding behind a trash can or something. I let out an unexpected chuckle. She rolls her eyes, and I sign for her to follow me.

There’s no one around, which is a good thing, don’t get me wrong, but it’s weird as shit. Usually, they’re are hanging out, trying to decide what their next move is, or score, or hit. Tonight, Thomas’s street is eerily empty.

Green’s car is still parked right where she left it. I check the tires to make sure they aren’t flat, then I take a walk around it to see if there’s any key scrapes or inappropriately spray painted bullshit anywhere.

Nothing.

When we open the driver’s side door, we find out why.

There’s a note on the steering wheel.

Ms. Green. It was a pleasure to meet you today. Please tell Mr. Stiles he won’t get another warning.

“I’ll follow you home.”

She nods but doesn’t say another word. She simply puts the key in the ignition, throws the car into drive, and punches the gas pedal like her life depends on it.

I watch her leave the neighborhood, then jog back to the Chevelle, which I’m happily surprised to see is still there.

On the way back to Green’s, I play some classic rock but turn it down, trying to figure out why Thomas would have made things so easy for her tonight. As far as criminals go, he’s all right, I guess, but not really known for giving people their things back, if you know what I mean.

I think about Stix and his brother and how Thomas said he didn’t have anything to do with it. Something I kinda already figured, but have to admit, it cemented things for me when I heard it come from his mouth.

Maybe he’s trying to make a point. I don’t know. What I do know is my only real lead at this point is the cops.

“Fuck my life.”

X X X

Back at Green’s apartment,
Connor’s, that is, s
he disappears for a few minutes to park her car, she reappears out of the shadows and stops to have a conversation with the doorman for a few seconds. He laughs at something she said then waves.

She walks up to the Chevelle, opens the door, and gets in but doesn’t say a word.

“Everything okay there, Green?”

She breathes deep. As I inspect her expression, I find she seems unsettled.

When she turns to face me, I’m watching her eyes.

I’m always watching those eyes.

Definitely worried.

“Why was it so much scarier getting my car out of there, when no one even saw us, than when we were facing three potential murderers with nothing but a small boy in the backseat of your car as back up?” She plays with the ring on her right hand. I never noticed it before. It’s one of those promise rings with the two hands holding onto a heart in the middle.

Why does that bother me?

I pull away from her questioning stare and lean back in my seat. The moon isn’t high yet, but it’s full, and for a split second, I’m in my old backyard, up in the treehouse my brothers and I built years ago, making a promise to a scared kid who hates the dark.

“Night,” I tell her.

“What?”

“Everything’s scarier at nighttime.” It’s a simple explanation but truthful.

It’ll be okay, Mike. It’s almost morning. No worries, right?

Right, Jackie. No worries.

“Stiles?”

“What?”

“What are you thinking about?”

I bring my mind back to the present. “Nothing. Now, you wanna tell me what the gangbanger told you earlier?”

It’s a lame attempt at changing the subject but it’s enough. Green adjusts in the seat across from me and gets down to business.

“Right. It was kind of amazing, actually, that he told me anything. I must have disarmed him with my beauty and charm.”

She flips her hair and I laugh. So does she.

“He mostly went on and on about how street gangs don’t get enough credit these days. How it doesn’t really matter because pot’s going to be legal soon.”

I start to make a comment on that fuckery but she cuts me off as she continues her story.

“
He
said they keep drugs out of their own neighborhoods and even cleaned up some church property last weekend that had gotten vandalized the week before, and blah blah blah.”

Drug lord to church cleaning crew?

“Of course, he doesn’t mention how they’re still keeping drugs on the street, maybe a few blocks down the road but still on the street. Or how they exacted revenge on the young boys who spray-painted the church by stringing them up for their mothers to see.”

Good
Lord
this woman can babble with the best, but honestly, what hits me as she goes on and on about this shit is she’s about as intelligent as they come. Pays attention to real news even when I know for a fact that spot was only about a ten-second segment. I hadn’t expected that. Not with her background in spreading gossip and stirring pots.

“Green.”

“Yeah?” She blinks a couple times.

“Is that it? That’s the interesting fucking information you got from this guy?”

Seriously?

“Oh,” she snaps out of her rabbit-hole topic. “No, the interesting thing was, he let it slip that some of the cops who usually patrol the area were in a meeting with Thomas last week.”

“Really.”

That
is
interesting.

“Did he say why?”

She shakes her head. “He wasn’t present. He just saw them come in and watched them go out. But he did think it was odd since they usually only come around to make an arrest or give Thomas a bunch of hell about parking tickets or something.”

She trails off.

“You happen to know what precinct the cops were from?”

Swear to God, if she says first precinct…

“He didn’t know. Sorry.”

Damn.

“But he did say one of them had on a trooper's uniform. That’s weird, right? I mean, why would a trooper be in gang territory?”

Weird? Maybe. Bad news? Definitely.

“Maybe.”

“Hey.”

I look up at her, and she’s got a different look about her. Concern?

“You’re doing that thing.”

“What thing?” Her lips get all twisted up, like she’s thinking or debating. Then she reaches over and smooths the area between my eyes with her thumb. It feels, I don’t know, it just
feels
.

“Why do you do that?” She slowly takes her hand back.

“What?” Doesn’t everybody scowl at something some time or another?

“Why do you hold everything in?”

The fuck is she talking about?

“You don’t trust anyone, do you?”

My mouth opens to say something but I stop it from making an ass out of both of us.

Outside the Chevelle, the world is happening still, I’m sure. But inside? It’s just us. Me staring at Green, trying to figure her out, and her looking up at me expectantly.

Her tongue slides along her bottom lip, and my eyes are drawn to it. It would only take a second to pull her in, taste her, feel her lips against mine, her skin against my fingers.

But that is
so
not a good idea right now.

Down boy.

“Um.” She looks up at her building. I’m not sure what she sees there but shortly after, she clears her throat and pulls herself together. “I should probably go.” Her voice is quiet, like she doesn’t want to leave.

Surprisingly, I don’t want her to either.

“Yeah.” I let go of her wrist. “You probably should.” I’m sure
Connor—
whatever the fuck he is—is getting lonely up there. I nod to the building.

Her entire face falls, and it takes her another minute to gather herself enough to leave. I almost think she’s waiting for me to tell her to stay.

I’m almost regretting that I’ve disappointed her.

Almost.

“Bye.” She slides out of the car, and when she’s halfway back to her building, it hits me.

“Hey, Green.” She stops and walks back over to the car window. She leans down just enough to give me a teaser of what’s under the flimsy top she’s wearing.

I force my eyes up to hers.

“Listen.”

She waits as I process what she told me. And I am, trust me. But I’m also processing everything else that’s happened in the past twenty-four hours.

Lana’s words from earlier ring loud inside my head.

And, man, do I fucking hate it when she’s right, even more than I hate it when she tells me what the fuck to do.

If I’m gonna try this shit, though, I may as well try it with someone I nearly lost my life with today.

Right?

I breathe in. Here goes nothing.

“Thanks,” I tell her. And I fucking mean it.

DIRTY LAUNDRY ISN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE

I WISH I COULD SAY I got a good night’s sleep. Or that I had ridiculously hot sex dreams to make up for the shit fuckery of a day I had yesterday. Hell, I’d settle for mediocre sex dreams. As it stands, I was up most of the night thinking of possible ways to get out of dinner with the family tonight. When I came up empty on that front, I switched to listing the cops I suspected might be involved in the murder of Donnie Leary.

Jim Galley stands out.

He’s a douche, for sure, but he can’t be working alone.

And, okay, there might have been some fantasizing going on, against my will, of Green playing the part of Black Widow and me, in my Iron Man suit. Blame that on some late night Netflix viewing.

Don’t judge. It’s better than watching that QVC shit.

Despite my lack of shut eye, I’ve tried to make today productive.

Granted, I’m not saying I’ve been successful, but I’ve given it the old Stiles effort.

I fed the kid and made sure he understood the importance of not going out or answering the door, for any reason whatsoever, while I’m gone.

“Does that include the pizza guy?” he asked with all the teenaged sincerity he had in him. To which I stared blankly at him until he figured out for himself that I wasn’t dignifying that shit with an actual answer.

I grabbed some food from the local grocery store. That took a good two hours since, hello, never shop. But, hell, I got it done. That’s something.

I did a sweep of the property to make sure no one’s scoping out the apartment.

And finally, I made my last ditch Hail Mary throw at Ma. Told her I have a weird-looking lump I wanted to check out. Being the old-fashioned nurturer that she is, she told me if I didn’t get my ass over there for Dad’s birthday she’d give me a lump to check out.

In so many words.

Feel the love, people.

Not being one to forget my day job, I contacted the Redemption police department and told them I was some schmuck reporter from a couple counties over. When I asked for the names of the police officers who booked Donnie the night before he was killed, I got put on hold four times, transferred twice, and finally, I was randomly disconnected. When I called back, someone with authority in their voice answered the phone and told me they had no record of a Donnie Leary being booked the night I was inquiring about.

Which wasn’t suspicious at all.

I thought about calling Green because, back at the courthouse a few days ago, she flippantly mentioned she’d seen me that night “hanging out” with my cop friends.

I don’t make the call, though. I need some time to digest that fun fact and decide whether I think she was there for a reason or if it was just a coincidence.

For now, I need to concentrate on surviving dinner with my family.

X X X

“You coulda dressed a
little
nicer.” My brother checks his speed as he gives me fashion advice. He thinks, for some reason, he’s my mother when she’s not around.

“Didn’t have time.” I fidget and wipe some lint I found on my shirt because, apparently, I think he’s my fucking mother too. “Where’s Mia and the kids?”

“Already there. She’s been hanging out with Ma this afternoon. Shopping and shit.”

I nod.

“And, uh, where’s Emma? I thought─”

“You thought wrong, as per fucking usual, bro.”

Green. I cannot escape her, even when she’s not around.

Do I take this opportunity to fess up and let Nick in on the fact that she played his ass the other day?

Nah.

I mean it’s not like it’s gonna be an issue. All I have to do is wait a few days and tell him, like every other relationship in my life, it fizzled the fuck out.

No big.

It’s inevitable.

Actually, it’s not inevitable. Because there isn’t an
us
to have the chance at being anything anyway.

In the first place, there’s a boyfriend, or whatever the hell she considers good old
Connor
to be
.
Secondly, let’s say, for the sake of entertainment, that she’s all right. Maybe she’s not the evil spawn of Satan I thought she was a few days ago. And maybe, just maybe, something’s there between us somewhere. None of that crazy makes sense on any level.

Okay, one level. About midway between my head and my feet.

But I digress.

Not only would I never subject any woman to being around the tyrant known as Frank Stiles, not so loving father, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna give my brother the satisfaction of thinking he gave me advice in the romance department, and I actually listened.

“Gonna be one of those nights, huh?” Nick sneaks a peek at his rearview mirror. It’s a good thing he can’t eyeball me while he’s driving. Avoiding eye contact is the fundamental key to withholding information in my family. Don’t look ’em in the eyes, and they can’t make you talk. Period.

“It’s been one of those nights all year, Nick.”

A deep, thoughtful hum and he shakes his head. “Jackie, try and make it through at least the first hour before you start in on Dad, will ya? He’s had a rough week.”

Shit.

I reach inside my jacket pocket. I twist the cigarette between my fingers. It helps. A little.

“I’ll be sure to kiss his ass to your liking, Nick. Provided you get your head out of it long enough for me to do it, that is.”

In other words, not gonna happen.

“You know what? Fuck you.” He grips the steering wheel a little tighter.

“Ooooh, watch it there, Nick. You almost had a temper.”

That was a joke. Nick doesn’t do angry. Ever.

“At least, I’m
making an attempt
to be nice, here. And he’s been dealt a shitty hand too, ya know. Maybe even shittier than the one you think you’ve been dealt.”

“Wouldn’t wanna ruffle any feathers, would we?”

He throws a hand up.

“This is so typical. You haven’t even stepped into the house, and you’ve already decided you’re gonna piss off the old man.”

“Deciding has nothing to fucking do with it. My very existence pisses him off.”

“Your very existence pisses everyone off.”

“Then my work is done.”

“Jesus, you are so—”

“Hey, what are the troopers doing hanging out with the gangs? They need a little extra help these days?”

Diversions. My specialty.

I wasn’t exactly planning on bringing up the trooper thing with Nick just yet. It kinda popped out at the last minute. Just as well, though. I admit I wanna see how big bro reacts to my accusation.

“How’d you know about that?”

Interesting. However, I’m not sure that’s a good interesting.

I give him a Jimmy Leary shrug. “Just something I heard.”

“What’d you hear?”

“Why do you need to know?”

“Because nobody’s supposed to know about it. That’s why.” His voice is gruff, frustrated. He might very well be getting agitated. I, of course, press on.

“Why wouldn’t they want anyone to know, Nick? Someone hiding something?”

“You are so fucking paranoid, man.” Nick tries to laugh the idea off, but I know better. This is his
I’m not allowed to speak of it
standard diversion tactic.

“Don’t you think it’s a little odd they want it kept hush-hush? Or, wait, maybe you’re in on it, and that’s why you’re giving me a hard time about it.”

We pull up to Ma and Dad’s place. I have conflicting emotions. What if he’s actually in on it?

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours, Jackie.”

He looks over at me as he puts the car into park. He’s serious as a heart attack for a minute, then he waggles his eyebrows, smiling the signature Nick Stiles smile he likes to sport for the press.

Dick.

I give him the finger and push the car door open to get out before we start straight up wrestling. I breathe in the cold
almost
winter air and ready myself for a night of nitpicking and sarcasm.

Good times.

When I spot an old dirt bike leaning against the corner of my parent’s garage, my heart stops for a minute. My feet slow to a halt. The tension in my neck becomes so tight I can’t move it.

“Where’d that come from?”

Nick’s buoyant attitude takes a nosedive as he moves in next to me. He shoves his hands into his pockets.

“Dad was cleaning out the garage last weekend. Found it under a tarp. He called and asked me if I wanted it. I told him
sure
.”

I haven’t seen that old bike in probably fifteen years. It reminds me of better times. As in, pre-overbearing my-way-or-the-highway times.

I want to give my brother a look. One that says
what the fuck
. All I can do is stare at the beat-up piece of shit that’s leaning up our old house while I fight back emotions I swore off a long damn time ago.

“Why in the hell would you want it?”

“Not really sure. I just didn’t want him to throw it in the dump.”

When shit like this comes up, typically, I ignore it. I pretend it doesn’t exist, and the sting passes fairly quickly, but this… That bike. It demands my attention as it stands there, daring me to say something about the last time I saw it.

Also not gonna happen.

Not if I can help it anyway.

So, I can stand here all night, glaring at the past, letting it carve a hole inside my chest, or I can snap myself the fuck out of this unexpected funk.

Not a big fan of funks. They mess with my focus.

“Well,” I clap my hands, “we’ve got a dinner to get to.”

I will my legs to move and make my way up the walk to the front door, leaving Nick and the bike behind.

Easy-peasy.

A few more minutes of prep-time would be nice, but I’m not afforded that as Ma opens the door before I can raise a fist to knock.

“Jackson!” She pulls me into a tight hug. The same perfume she’s worn for as long as I can remember assaults my nose, but the comfort of her laugh makes up for it.

I peek around to see if Dad’s lurking anywhere. He’s not. Which is fine by me. I do, however, spot the framed picture, of three stupid kids with their arms around each other, at the end of the hallway.

The floor is a nice deflection.

“Hey, Ma.”

I put my arms around her, and her grip tightens, if that’s even possible.

“I missed you.”

I can’t breathe.

“I think a rib just cracked,” I choke out, and she laughs again. Thankfully, she lets go. Not entirely, though. She holds me still, at arm’s length, looking me in the eyes. She’s not gonna let me off easy.

“The next time you try to weasel your way out of coming to see me, young man…” She’s got her mother-voice on now. Awesome.

“Okay,” I promise. Not that I’ll keep it.

“The boys causing too much grief, yet?” Nick breaks up the mini-reunion. For once, he does something right, in my book.

I head off to look for the alcohol because I know there’s fucking alcohol here somewhere. It’s the only thing that’s gonna make tonight bearable.

“They’re watching the YouTube in the other room.” Luckily, my mother doesn’t notice.

“Just YouTube, Ma. Not
the
YouTube.” Those two. They kill me.

“Oh, there she is!” My mother squeals as I down my first shot of the night.

She?

Mia’s already here, who the fuck is─

“You must be Emma.”

Clear, potent liquid sprays across the kitchen counter as I hear my mother greeting… she
did
say Emma, right?

I wipe my mouth and turn to see her standing in my parents’ foyer. Fucking Emma Green is smiling and hugging my mother like she’s done it a thousand fucking times.