Reborn (5 page)

He reached out one foot and for a moment scratched behind her ear before his attention wandered. There was a photograph on the corner of the desk. Mandy—his uncle’s one and only wife—had taken the photo when Max and Carl were still getting to know each other, the two of them sitting on the bumper of a 1953 Cadillac Coupe in serious need of repair.

A knock on the door interrupted his thought. “Come in,” he called, thinking it was probably Kyle, who was scheduled to handle the lunch crowd, which was usually pretty steady.

Instead, it was Cherry, his head waitress and occasional fuck. “Max, honey, you got a sec?”

“Aye.” He gestured for her to come in.

She tapped her way over in four-inch heels that he never let her wear to work and took a seat next to him on the corner of his desk.

“What ’tis it, Cherry, love?”

She squirmed a little on his desk, which did absolutely nothing for him, he was sorry to realize. Two months ago he would have already had her bent over the desk, taking his throbbing dick. Instead a picture of the queen bitch popped in his head, her green eyes flashing at him, and he scowled.

“Max, if this is a bad time, I can come back a little later.” Cherry was frowning at him, her small, turned-up nose wrinkling in distress.

“No, it’s all right, lass.” He patted her on one bare knee. “What’s the problem?”

Cherry pursed her lips, never a good sign in Max’s experience.

“Well, the thing is I got this new man, and he says he don’t like me working so late on Saturday nights.”

“Is that right?” Max muttered flatly.

“Yep.” She nodded and shrugged.

Max knew she wasn’t as dumb as she pretended to be, but Max figured that if you pretended long enough, eventually it became reality.

“So what, for fuck’s sake? Are ye saying you quit, or that you can’t work tonight?”

She frowned at him. “What’s got you so bitchy?”

He sighed and opened a drawer on the right side of his desk. It was full of various flotsam, but he always kept an extra pack of cigarettes in case of an emergency. He tapped one out of the pack and used a match from a book he’d gotten at the Hard Rock casino to light it.

“Since when do you smoke in the office?”

Since before it was illegal to smoke in bars. “Since now,” he snapped. “Listen, Cherry, you need to take a night off, that’s fine. Check with Kyle to see if he’ll switch. If he won’t, I’ll call Mary and ask if she can take a shift.”

“I already asked Kyle.” Cherry pouted. “He said he had a meeting with his investors.”

Kyle designed apps when he wasn’t working at the bar, and Max had a feeling that if you replaced “investors” with “hooker” you would have something closer to the truth.

“Fine, I’ll call Mary, then.”

“She’s not very good at the bar when it’s busy,” Cherry told him helpfully.

“Thanks, lass, I’m aware of that.”

She gave a one-shoulder shrug and looked at him through her lashes. “Well, she isn’t.”

“It’s not your worry, is it.” He was tempted to blow smoke in her direction for making his life more difficult, but he refrained with some difficulty and blew the opposite way, toward the framed picture on the corner of his desk. The car in the photograph reminded him of the car Lille had been driving when she drove up that morning, and he had an unwelcome thought.

“She’ll have a friend with her.” He voiced the thought aloud.

“Oh, yeah.” Cherry licked her lips. “Is he cute?”

Max thought of Lille and the chest that strained the front of her blouse. He’d bet anything that she was an excellent bartender, though where his certainty came from he didn’t know. “Not that kind of friend,” he said finally, and sent Cherry on her way.

“I’m telling
you, darling, we need to expand
the online store and change the website. It’s boring and doesn’t do the inventory justice.”

As Mary opened the front gate, a herd of cats burst through the opening and into the messy landscaping that made up the front walkway of the house.

Lille stopped talking to take in the scene, surprised there were so many cats, though Mary had mentioned the creatures in a phone call a few weeks ago. They reminded Lille of the apartment where she’d grown up in Vegas; she felt her stomach muscles tighten in reflexive terror, though it wasn’t the cats that frightened her.

“You weren’t kidding about the cats,” she said to Mary, whose back was to her. She could hear the dog, Atticus, barking like a madman inside.

“I know—aren’t they crazy?”

“Uh-huh,” Lille agreed, telling herself that she didn’t believe in omens. She even liked cats . . . in limited quantity.

Mary finally managed to get the stubborn lock on the front door open and Atticus dashed out, dancing around the two of them on two legs before he spotted the cats and took off.

“Atticus, stop,” Mary yelled at him. “Here.” She handed Lille the bag that she’d carried to the beach and went after the suicidal white thing, who was facing off two of the bigger females, bouncing excitedly on stiff legs as they eyed him malevolently.

Mary scooped him up before he lost his other eye and came back to Lille, laughing.

“He’s nuts.” Mary shook her head, and the two of them joined Lille in the narrow hallway that led to the living room. There was a door to the immediate right of the hall that Lille hadn’t noticed when she’d been in the house earlier.

“What’s this room?” She opened the door and stopped suddenly.

“Right now?” Mary chuckled at Lille’s horrified expression. “It’s kind of a catch-all.”

“It’s a disaster.” A piano was buried beneath broken pieces of furniture, boxes, and piles of clothes.

Mary nodded. “It didn’t look that bad before the break-in, but they really damaged the piano, so it’ll have to be repaired. I haven’t gotten around to it yet; neither Max nor John plays piano, though Max plays the mandolin.”

“Does he?” Lille pressed her lips together. “You wouldn’t be attempting to make him look good in order to get us together, would you?”

Mary shrugged and looked innocent.

“I’ve already decided to fuck him,” Lille remarked casually, “so you needn’t bother.”

“You have?” Mary set Atticus down on the floor, where he promptly sat and looked adorable. Lille couldn’t help grinning at the little shit. He’d made her forget about her dread, which had been ridiculous anyway.

“Yes, of course. He’s gorgeous and completely shallow. We’ll get along splendidly, so long as he does what he’s told.”

Lille heard Mary snort as they made their way to the living room. Lille dropped the little cooler and the beach bag onto the couch and went into the kitchen for some ice water. She heard Mary following behind with the little white dog at her heels.

Mary sat on one of the barstools at the center island while Lille located two glasses.

“This is a great kitchen,” Lille commented, admiring the granite countertops as she filled two glasses with ice. “You have lemon?”

“In the fridge,” Mary answered, sounding distracted.

Lille cut the lemon into slices and expertly garnished the glasses with them before turning to Mary and setting one in front of her, then she waited patiently for Mary to spit out whatever she had to say about Max.

Mary pulled her lips in and pressed them together, squinting her eyes like an assistant about to impart bad news to an evil boss. “Max is not really the does-what-he’s-told type,” she offered carefully.

Lille looked smug. “Sweetie, no offense, but you don’t know much about men.”

Mary nodded and poked her lower lip out, considering. “Well, that’s true, but I’ve had him, and he’s not a big fan of the domination thing.”

“Really?”

“Yep.” She sipped her water, cool as a cucumber.

Lille leaned back against the counter behind her and folded her arms, still holding the glass in front of her. “How was he?”

Lashes fluttering coyly, Mary continued to sip her water. “He was . . . very good.”

“But John is better,” Lille said.

Mary sat straighter, her face suddenly serious. “No. John is John. There is no comparison.”

Lille wasn’t sure she understood exactly. A man was a man, in her experience; some could fuck and some couldn’t. But Mary wasn’t like her.

“Well, if he’s not willing to play with me, I’ll find someone else. I always do.”

Mary nodded, her face carefully expressionless. “Yeah, you two are alike that way.”

“See,” Lille said, aware that Mary didn’t approve, “it’ll all work out just fine. Now, grab my iPad, I want to show you some ideas I have for the website, and something else.”

Mary set her water on the counter and hopped off her stool to get the iPad out of Lille’s beach bag when a phone rang.

“Max?” Lille heard Mary ask. She came back into the kitchen holding the iPad in one hand and her phone to her ear with the other.

She handed Lille the iPad and perched on the stool again.

“Sure, I could do that. I’ll call John and let him know. I think Jordan and the new kid are scheduled to work at the Box tonight, so it should be okay.”

Lille frowned at Mary, who held up a finger. “Yeah, we’ll be there at five. . . . I don’t know, let me ask.” She looked up at Lille. “Max wants to know if you’re any good at bartending.”

Lille knew her friend pretty well. “That’s not what he asked.”

“It’s close.” Mary shook her long brown hair impatiently. “Do you?”

“Yes,” Lille answered, short and clipped, “but he’ll owe me one.”

“You’ll owe her one,” Mary told him, and blushed bright red a few seconds later. “I’m not telling her that,” she said, and hung up with a smile.

“What did he say?” Lille tried to sound bland, but curiosity had her standing a little straighter.

Mary was still blushing, but she was grinning, too. “He said you can have all eight, meaning inches, and that I should back him up on the measurement.”

Lille felt her own lips twitch and chastised herself silently for being susceptible to rascally charm. “Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Back him up?”

“Oh, no,” Mary scoffed, and Lille nodded, disappointed, although length wasn’t everything.

“He’s bigger than that,” Mary finished after a beat, and let out a peal of laughter at Lille’s expression.

CHAPTER
Four

From the street, the storefront of the Fetish Box looked like a charming white gingerbread house, complete with a front porch and a picture window. The pink neon lights and the half-naked mannequin in the window told a different story. Lille knew the front window had recently been replaced and could see where the white paint around the trim looked brighter and newer.

Inside, it mostly resembled an overturned jewelry box. There were empty shelves where stock had yet to be replaced, but fantastic statues and objects of fetish art covered every available flat surface, glittering with delicious promise. Mary had asked the employees to get the new stock opened so Lille could start thinking of how she wanted everything displayed.

The room, once lit with sparkling chandeliers and colored Tiffany lamps, now seemed a bit bright. John had brought in a couple of old lamps from his apartment upstairs, but he looked forward to seeing what Lille planned to do with the place. Before the break-in, there’d been heavy curtains, statues, and plush chairs with cushions to give the entire room the ambiance of a sheik’s harem. The floors were a honey-colored wood and the walls were painted deep purple.

John was unpacking some of their more expensive vibrators when he heard the bell ring above the door.

“Whose idea was that?” Lille asked, her lips curved, amused, as she pointed to the sign on the door. It read: “Open. Cum In.”

“Jordan’s. Jordan Ancelet. One of the employees. He should be here before we leave for the pub. Hey, baby.”

John smiled at Mary, whose pale skin was glowing and a little pink from her visit to the beach. She was carrying Atticus in one arm; he was squirming eagerly to be put down.

Just behind her, Lille was scanning the room, taking it all in while simultaneously identifying the exits, the obstacles, and the security cameras mounted on the walls. John noted her behavior, wondering what caused such hypervigilance in a woman like Lille.

Mary set Atticus down, sliding her sunglasses up into her hair and bending to set him down on the shiny hardwood floor. He scrambled quickly to John, who bent down and caught him, letting the crazy little guy lick him eagerly before he set him down with a quick fluff of his champagne-colored ears.

“Second place to a dog,” Mary teased as she hugged John.

John stroked her hair, which was slightly tangled from the wind. “He was here first, and he’ll pee on my laundry pile if I piss him off.”

Mary pulled away and smiled widely. “How do you know I won’t?”

“Hmmm, I guess I don’t.” He smiled affectionately, looking over her shoulder at Lille, who was wandering among the racks of clothes.

“Some of this is great stuff.” She fingered a silk kimono with an art deco pattern of turquoise blue, yellow, and black.

Mary twisted in his arms to look at her friend.

“You should see the costumes. Some of them are great.”