Three Hot Wishes (Fantasy Come to Life - Magic in the Real World Novel) (20 page)

Sloane

"But I need this job," I told my boss Frank for what must have been the hundredth time. "I know I ditched the bar when it was busy. I know I shouldn't have run off like that, but you can't just fire me!"

"I can, and I have," he said, giving me a little shrug that told me the conversation was going to end soon, most likely by him getting one of the bouncers to drag me out kicking and screaming.

"But that's bullshit!"

"Look Sloane, you know you did the wrong thing. You just fucking admitted it, right?"

"Yeah..."

"So where does that leave me?" He reached out and tapped the dog-eared roster on the clipboard hanging from a hook on the wall.

I didn't know what to say. I'd busted my ass for this place, worked longer hours and more difficult shifts than anybody. I'd never asked for anything, not even when most of the other staff had called in 'sick' on extremely short notice because they wanted to head off to some concert, leaving me to work twelve hours straight without so much as a break.

But Frank didn't care about that. He knew how shit it was here, and he'd never done anything to fix it. I was crazy to think he'd be sympathetic now.

But still, I had to give it one last try. "Frank, just listen to me. This job pays my bills. It puts food in my mouth and clothes on my back. I'm stuck at school all day, which means I don't have a lot of options when it comes to employment. I admit I screwed up, and it won't happen again. Can't you just give me a second chance?"

Frank didn't say anything. I could see that he was considering it. Outside his office the music banged on the wall hard enough for the pulse of it to make its way in here, and as I waited for my boss, a man notorious amongst my coworkers for cutting corners and talking out of both sides of his mouth to make a decision on my fate, a sick little twist in my gut warned me about what was about to happen.

Frank had decided. I could tell by the way he stood up that things had changed, and even as I took an instinctive step away I realized that I was putting the door to get out of his office even further away. He adjusted himself in his pants, and I knew without having to look that he was hard.

For me.

I felt a rush of hot bile threaten to swim up my throat, and I shook my head with determination.

Frank unzipped his pants.

"No way," I said forcefully. "Not going to happen."

"Come on, little girl," this man old enough to be my father said to me, his voice almost soft enough to get lost in the music of the bar.

Almost, but not quite.

"Never."

He frowned. "Just give it a chance, huh? You think you're the only piece of ass around here who said no at first? You go have a talk to a couple of your friends after and then they'll come clean. They've been polishing my knob and letting me get my dick wet in exchange for the cherry shifts for years. Now it's your turn, Sloane."

I didn't know what to say. There weren't words to derail this train, and if there were, I didn't know them. I let Frank take another step closer to me, and when he looked down at zipper to fish out his dick, I balled up my fist and let him have it.

My Dad had hit me so many times that I'd learned how to take a punch and how to give one, and I gave Frank a big fat sucker punch right then and there, a solid uppercut that connected squarely with his nose and instantly covered my fist in a hot squelch of blood.

It staggered him, and he forgot about getting his dick out pretty fast, covering his nose with both hands. "You bitch," he tried to yell, though his voice sounded strangled in pain.

I lashed out with my foot and caught him exactly where I needed to, his hard, skinny penis flopping lewdly as I kicked him in the balls hard enough to drop him to his knees.

I thought about trying again, but escape was my goal, not kick Frank's ass.

Besides, I knew how this went. I'd hurt him, but surprise wasn't on my side anymore. In a couple of seconds a heady combination of rage and adrenaline would push the pain Frank was feeling aside, and then he'd be on his feet and on me before I could get away.

I rushed past him, scrambling for the door. I reached for the doorknob, only to have a chunk of the wall near my head seem to explode, showering me with bits of plaster and wood.

Confused, I risked a look back at Frank.

He was aiming a gun at me.

"Not so fast," he said, his finger on the trigger taking up all of my vision. "We still have a little negotiating to do, don't you think? I think I owe you something."

Angel

"Just go and find Sloane, wherever the hell she is," I told the bouncer, a dude I'd seen around the block over the years. He was big enough, and maybe, just maybe if he played his cards right he'd go somewhere. But right now, he was a nobody talking to a somebody, and no matter how much he bitched that his boss and Sloane were having a conversation, we both knew it.

"Sorry man," he told me. "It don't work like that."

I nodded, even though I wasn't agreeing. "It's Jai, right?"

He looked surprised that I knew his name, but you don't get to where I am by forgetting the people around you, especially when you might be squaring off against them some night, be it sanctioned or otherwise.

I grinned. "Jai, cut me some slack, huh? I told this Sloane chick to hang on to my keys so I didn't drive drunk. She's a nice enough girl, yeah?"

Jai nodded.

"So she did me a favor. But now my fucking cab's here, and I need to get my keys back. I'm not asking for her number or her address or anything like that. I want you to take me to her. That's it."

He gave it some thought.

I jumped in to sweeten the deal. "You looking for a spot on the circuit? Maybe hoping to bust your knuckles against some heads, make a name for yourself? I can help with that. Help me out here and I'll throw your name around at Cut."

Just the mention of Cut made his eyes light up, and I knew I had him. It was the best boxing gym in Brooklyn, and if you weren't training there, you weren't worth a mention. "Yeah?"

"Hell yeah. Somebody will bite. Man, I heard Jamel's looking for a new sparring partner. Imagine that, bro."

Jai's big, white grin spit his black face. "Man, that sounds dope."

I pointed past him, back at the bar. "So get me to my girl, huh? My cab's not going to wait around forever, and I don't think either one of us want to see me go from offering opportunities to making threat, yeah?"

That did it. Jai did the smart thing and motioned for me to follow him as he shouldered through the crowd.

I gave myself a mental pat on the back. Talking my way to Sloane had been easier than I'd thought, but then again things are often easy when you have something somebody wants. Jai wanted to box, and I could put him in a place to do it.

Enough said.

He lifted the hinged section of bar that separated customers from staff and then led me down a hallway to an office. "One of the girls said she was in here with Frank," Jai told me.

"Cool." I opened the door without knocking or asking permission. I could tell by the look on his face that I'd taken Jai by surprise with my boldness, but he didn't try and stop me.

I have to admit, I was still buzzed, but the instant I opened that door, it was as if a cold wave had broken over my head, washing all of the fuzz along with it. My senses were on high enough alert now that they let me do what I'd been unable to do all night, ignore Sloane. She was right in the doorway, and I looked past her and saw a guy that could only be Frank on the other side of the little room. His nose was bleeding and his dick was hanging out.

I smelled gunpowder, and an instant later I spotted the gun, a little cheap Chinese piece of shit that Frank was frantically trying to stash, now that he'd been interrupted.

"Boss, I didn't-" Jai said from behind me, but I held up my hand at him without looking to cut him off.

"Let's go," I told Sloane.

She didn't argue. I let her walk past me and felt her hover there, unwilling to go too far.

"Frank?" I asked.

"Yeah?"

"You know who the fuck I am?"

He nodded slowly.

"Did you touch her?"

Frank shook his head so hard I thought it may just fall of and roll under his desk. "No! She hit me, Angel, then kicked me while I was down!"

"And the gun?"

He looked away, refusing to meet my gaze. "I was just trying to scare her. I've got a business to run. I can't have my employees walking all over me. If she went out there and bragged, God knows what kind of a mutiny I'd have in this place..."

"Frank, do you know why they call me Angel?"

He paused, suddenly afraid that he didn't. It was the grown up version of that moment when you walk in to class and the teacher announces a test you haven't studied for. "Because... Because of your last name?"

I shook my head. "You think my Dad gets called Angel, just because he's an Angelino too? What about me Mom, or my baby sister. You think they get called Angel, just because people are too fucking lazy to say all the syllables of our last name?"

"No!" he practically shouted. "No!"

"They call me Angel because I'm hard to hit. I'm pretty, you see? Even if you do connect a couple of times, you can't knock an Angel down, you know?"

He nodded, though I wasn't sure he was getting it.

"I'm telling you this Frank as a favor to you. Sloane doesn't work for you anymore. You won't be bothering her again, because if you do you're going to be answering to me. You got it?"

I left without letting him answer, turning my back on his pathetic dick and his shitty peashooter and taking Sloane by the arm to guide her out.

Sloane

"How did you know I was in there with him?" I asked, once we were outside in the cold.

"The bouncer's a friend," he said, tossing the big black guy that had escorted us to the exit a nod and then pointing down the street. "You going to let me drive you home?"

I shrugged. I couldn't really refuse, not after what he'd just saved me from. There was every chance Frank had just been trying to scare me, to reinforce his role as the big bad boss of the bar, but...

But that was bullshit, and I knew it. If I was honest, Angel had come in at exactly the right time. There was no telling what would have happened if he'd been even a minute later than he'd arrived.

"Well?" he asked, pointing at a shiny new Jaguar that probably cost as much as the four years of college I was currently trying to wade through.

"There's no way you're driving. You're drunk, Angel. It isn't safe."

He thought for a moment, and I was sure he was going to argue with me. I wondered how I'd get his keys away from him, if push came to shove, but Angel surprised me by simply reaching into the pocket of his jeans and handing them to me.

"You drive, then," he said.

"What? It's New York, Angel. I don't even have a license!"

He shrugged. "If a cop pulls you over, they won't give you any shit once you tell them you're doing me a favor."

I took a step back and crossed my arms across my chest. "You really do think you're hot stuff, don't you? A modern day Untouchable..."

"Just telling you the truth. There isn't an officer out there who wants that kind of trouble, not if all they get out of it is giving some poor girl a ticket for driving without a license."

"Poor girl?" I almost threw his stupid car keys back in his face. "Listen, just because your Daddy has money or whatever doesn't give you the right to be a jackass. I may be poor, but that doesn't make you better than me. Not by a long shot."

"I didn't mean it like that," he said. "I'm drunk. Cut me some slack, huh?"

I shut up. He had a point. I knew I was sensitive about my upbringing, but I could tell that I'd jumped to a conclusion just now and crucified him for using a harmless little word 'wrong'.

I looked down at the keys in my hand. The Jaguar was a big, powerful machine. I wasn't even sure I could drive it whether I wanted to or not. The last time I'd gotten behind the wheel of a car it had been a little hatchback Corolla almost ten years ago.

I sighed. If I didn't drive, I knew Angel would. The guy may have been a pushy jerk for most of the night, but he'd saved me from Frank.

I owed him. I'd just have to drive slow and be careful not to hit anything, all the while crossing my fingers that we didn't stumble across a cop.

"Get in," I told him reluctantly.

He did as I asked, going around to the other side and climbing into the passenger seat.

I got in too. Fortunately it was easy to adjust the seat and the steering wheel to suit me, though when I turned the key in the ignition the throaty growl of the engine intimidated me.

"You're sure about this?" I asked.

No answer.

I turned to Angel, only to find that he'd managed to pass out in the midst of buckling his seat belt.

"Shit...," I muttered, leaning across him and fumbling for the belt. This close, it was impossible not to admire his incredible physique. Even unconscious like this, snoring like a drugged mule, the broad muscles of his chest and his chiseled abs were as hard as rocks.

I bit my lip, instinctively inhaling his scent. Sure, there was liquor on his breath, but under that was the clean, honest bite of aftershave and a hint of sweat.

I felt myself bushing again, and found my hands lingering on his body as I secured the seatbelt.

Then I fished his registration out of the glove compartment and scanned it for an address. If it was nearby, I was going to assume it was where he lived.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I saw that the Jag was registered to the Ritz hotel, though whether that meant they'd loaned it to him or he was using the expensive hotel as a permanent address I didn't know.

Whatever. At least I knew where I was going...

Once finished, I turned back to the wheel, remembering to take off the parking brake before checking my mirrors, signaling, and pulling tentatively out into the nonexistent traffic.

For a moment, driving down the streets of New York in a car I could never afford with a man far too handsome for my taste and far too aggressive for my comfort level, I wondered who I was.

I'd always prided myself on not needing any of this crap, but I could tell how seductive it was to have your needs met, to have the respect or fear or whatever these people felt toward him.

I let myself pretend I belonged for as long as it felt right, and by the time I got to the Ritz and left Angel with the doorman and the doorman with the keys, I was done with the fantasy.