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  Paine didn't seem riled, if anything, he just smiled a little wider, showing off some pretty perfect white teeth. "You want some coffee?" he asked, standing before I even gave him an answer and moving through the back of the shop where there was an open door.

  "Ah, sure. Thank you," I said, leaning around the corner to see where he disappeared to.

  "You can come through. I'm not gonna hurt you." Yeah, well, he'd have to forgive me for not being entirely trusting of that fact given that those guys that were chasing me seemed to be, at least a little bit, afraid of him. I didn't know a lot about bad guys, but I was pretty sure that if the bad guys were scared of someone, that made him an even bigger bad guy. Even if he did have really nice teeth and pretty eyes. "Your non-boyfriend is on his way right now. Even if my intention was to hurt you, think I'd do it knowing that?"

  Well, he had a point.

  I glanced at the desk, grabbed the pair of scissors sticking out of a pen holder and tucked them into my pocket, making sure my shirt was down to cover them. You know... just in case. Not that I believed I was actually capable of stabbing someone, but who knew what they were capable when push came to shove. Then I walked down the short hall into the open door to... an apartment.

  Well, I wasn't expecting that. I thought storefronts with apartments usually had the apartments upstairs. But Paine had one behind it. I understood why his tattoo shop was on the small side, because his apartment was rather large. It was a loft, a completely open floor plan with dark blue walls and floors that had been finished in the darkest shade possible, just shy of black. The large California King bed was to the left with a plush white comforter; a living space was toward the center in the back of the room with a big sectional that looked like I could sink into and never come out and was in front of a massive television. The kitchen was u-shaped and looked pretty state-of-the-art with white subway tiles, white cabinets and white marble counter tops. I found myself wondering if he cooked. I also wondered why he lived behind his shop when he obviously had the money to afford a better place in a better part of town.

  Maybe he just liked being close to work.

  "How do you take it?" he asked, back to me, pouring coffee into mugs.

  "Milk if you have it." To that, he turned, brow quirked up. "What?"

  "No fancy shit?"

  "Didn't imagine you had sugar-free caramel syrup just laying around."

  "Not caramel, but I got..." he reached up into a cabinet, shuffling things around before coming back with two bottles, "toasted almond and... fuck... blueberry?" he declared with a weird inflection, face scrunched up.

  "I'll take blueberry," I said on a smile.

  "Seriously?"

  "Yeah."

  "In coffee?"

  "No, in my soup. Yes, in my coffee. That's what we're talking about, right?"

  "Caramel, mocha, almond... get that. Fruit in coffee? That's some weird chick shit," he said as put a few drips into my coffee with the milk I requested, stirred, then handed it to me.

  "Why do you have it if you don't drink it?" I asked, taking a sip.

  "Sisters," he said, shrugging as he leaned against the counter, holding his mug by the top despite the steam coming out of it. "They come over, drop off food shit like they live here so they can have what they like when they visit."

  "Is that frequent?" I asked, not wanting to fall into awkward silence.

  "A little too."

  "How many sisters?"

  "Two."

  "They're younger, right?" I asked.

  "How'd you know?"

  "You have that... tone people use about little sisters... like you're both annoyed but charmed by them."

  "Do you have little sisters?"

  "No," I said, inwardly cringing at the finality of my tone.

  He picked it up too, brows drawing slightly together. "So, Elsie with no little sisters, you going to tell me what you were doing out on the street at this hour, pissing off Third Street guys?"

  "Who said I pissed them off? Maybe they're just jerks who chase girls down the street."

  "Maybe, but the way you're evading answering me says otherwise."

  "How do you know those guys?" I countered, lifting my chin a little.

  His smile was at once devilish and charming and I felt the tiniest twinge of desire spark through my system. "Smart girl," he said, shaking his head.

  "How so?" I mean, I was smart, but he couldn't possibly know that.

  "You picked up on the fact that I don't want to talk about that particular connection like you don't want to talk about your involvement with them, so you brought it up."

  "So we're agreed- we can both keep our secrets."

  "Sure, but babygirl, a little advice..." he paused, crossing the kitchen toward me, completely taking up all my space as we came almost toe-to-toe. "Whatever you are doing involving them, stop. Immediately. You're pretty. You're smart. It would be a shame for you to end up in a casket."

  Well hell. I had been sort-of trying to convince myself that the guys weren't that dangerous. Stupid, I know. But I needed to believe I could deal with them, that I could fix things. And to believe that, I needed to think there was a way to reason with them or, at the very least, work around them without getting into too much trouble. Being chased, well, I could have maybe convinced myself that they wanted to stop me and figure out what I was doing. They might figure out I wasn't a threat and just let me go.

  But with Paine telling me that they would apparently have no qualms about killing me, well, it made it impossible to pretend ignorance of the danger.

  "Elsie," his smooth voice said, making my head snap up automatically. "Whatever it is, get out of it," he said, his hand raising and snagging some of the large amount of hair that had fallen out of my ponytail whilst running. He tucked it behind my ear, brushing the lobe and trailing his fingers down my neck slightly in doing so. And I totally shivered. Visibly, not just on the inside.

  "I..."

  My mouth clamped shut as his hand dropped, both of us looking out toward the door to the shop when there was banging.

  "Your not-boyfriend," Paine surmised as my hand automatically reached for my cell. It wasn't like him not to text when he arrived somewhere.

  But, he had. Three times. I must have been too distracted to hear the ding.

  "Must be," I agreed, slipping my phone into my pocket again and moving out toward the shop, taking a long, greedy sip of my coffee before placing it down on one of the desks. "Hey, Paine..." I said, turning back toward him, "thanks for, um, letting me in and for the coffee. I really appreciate it."

  "Don't mention it," he said, shrugging. But he was also advancing at me in an almost predatory way that made me go back a foot before his arm went around me.

  No, not just around me.

  His hand settled hard on my ass, squeezing for a second.

  My entire body froze, shocked, unsure how to respond. But the whole thing only lasted a total of maybe five seconds before his arm pulled back and I saw the scissors in his hand.

  "Like I said," he said, placing them on the desk, "smart girl. Now go out there to your not-boyfriend, go back to your safe little life and forget all about the Third Street guys. And me," he added as he brushed past me, unlocked the front door, and pulled it open to reveal Roman.

  Now, just because he was my not-boyfriend didn't mean I couldn't appreciate how good looking he was. Roman was a good six foot- maybe six-one. He was thin, but strong in a non-aggressive sort of way. Maybe it was fair to call it a swimmer's body. His chestnut-colored hair was slightly long on top, and brushed back then cropped close at the sides which only succeeded in making his classically handsome face even more striking. He had a straight nose, strong brow ridge, and very endearing brown eyes framed in thick lashes. He kept his face clean-shaven and he dressed well. Even after being woken up in the middle of the night, he was put together. He had on dark wash jeans that fit well and a white, thick-knit swea
ter with two buttons near the throat, which he left undone.

  "Christ, Else, you scared me," he said, gesturing with his phone in his hand.

  "I'm sorry. I didn't hear the ding," I shrugged, brushing it off. Though, in general, I was hyper aware of my cell. It was completely out of character of me to not answer right away, let alone at all.

  "Are you alright, you look a little..." he trailed off, giving me a smile I always found myself smiling back at, warm, teasing. "You're a mess, Else."

  "It's a long story."

  "That ends in a tattoo shop," he commented, jerking his chin toward the building I was standing in the doorway of. "Planning on getting some work done? Or have you already? Somewhere naughty? If so, can I see?" he teased and I found myself laughing as I stepped out into the street. I wasn't aware Paine had followed behind until Roman's eyes went behind me and almost... darkened. "Who is this?" he asked me, giving me a look I can only describe as probing before turning his attention back to Paine.

  "Oh, um... Roman... this is Paine. Paine, Roman. Paine is..."

  "A friend," Paine supplied, offering his hand which Roman took and shook hard before dropping like it burned him.

  "Well, Paine... thanks for keeping an eye on Else for me," Roman said, reaching for my hand and tugging a bit roughly as he turned toward his car parked right by the sidewalk, opening the door for me.

  When I chanced a look back at Paine, his lip twitching said a hundred different things at once. Not the least of which was: it sure doesn't look like he knows he's not your boyfriend. But then I was pressed into Roman's car and the door slammed, the blackout windows making it hard to see him anymore at all.

  Then Roman was in his seat and the car turned over and he shot off.

  Two

  Elsie

  "Whoa, slow down," I said, pressing hard into my seat with one of my hands on the dash. He had to be going sixty on the main drag, thirty above the speed limit. My stomach felt like it took up residence on the floor. "Roman, slow down!" I shouted when he didn't immediately take his foot off the pedal.

  "Else, what the fuck?" he asked, glancing over at me, his features looking tight like he was... angry? Why would he be angry?

  "I know. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have called. I should have gotten a cab. You have work in the..."

  "No, Else. Always, always call if you need a ride. That wasn't what I meant."

  "Then what did you mean?"

  Roman pulled the car off onto a side street, throwing it into park while somehow simultaneously un-belting and turning to face me fully. "I'm not being a snob..." he started.

  "Okay," I said, head tilting to the side a little.

  "You want to be in this part of town on a Friday or Saturday night, having drinks with the girls, having fun. No problem. All for it. But what the fuck are you doing at this hour in that part of town... alone?"

  I forced my lips to tip upward. "Not being a snob, huh?" I teased.

  "Elsie," he said, his tone firmer.

  "Don't dad-voice me, Rome," I scolded. We'd never had that kind of friendship. If anything, we always encouraged each other to do wild things, to push the boundaries, to do things that would cause raised eyebrows. But, then again, we generally did those things together. I couldn't think of anything, aside from losing my virginity at the tender age of fifteen, that I had ever done without him at my side. Maybe that was what this was about. He was feeling left out, excluded.

  And, in a weird kind of way, I was pushing the boundaries without him. But I wasn't doing it for the raised eyebrows or even the rush of adrenaline. I was doing it because I had to. And I was keeping it from him because I had to do that to. So, for the first time in probably our entire friendship, I had to lie to him too.

  "I'm not dad-voicing you. I'm trying to understand what is up with you lately."

  Of course he had picked up on that too.

  I'd been off.

  I knew that. It was something that couldn't be avoided. I was more scatterbrained, less easy to get in touch with, secretive. All things that had never been qualities I had before.

  "Fine!" I said, throwing my hands up in mock frustration. "I was looking into tattoo shops for us. You ruined it!"

  Roman's head tilted, his brows drawing together slightly. "Tattoos? For us?" He said it in a way that implied I might as well have suggested we get septum piercings and wear them with huge bull rings every day.

  "For our friend anniversary. Twenty-eight years next month," I said, thinking of my birthday. That was the first time we met. We have pictures of us lying side-by-side on the hospital bed the afternoon of my birth, Roman a mere ten weeks older.

  To that, Rome's face softened. A sweet smile pulled at his lips. "What did you have planned?"

  "Honestly? I hadn't gotten that far." I hadn't gotten that far because I had just come up with the idea. "I was just looking around."

  "Else... why after midnight? That shop didn't even look open."

  "Paine's, ah, he's very busy. Popular. He couldn't fit me in any other time. I don't know a lot about tattoos so I had a bunch of questions."

  "Where was your car?"

  Crap. Of course he would ask that. It was a good question. I loved my car. I drove it whenever possible. It was a recent purchase and I was proud of myself for being able to get that kind of financing on that kind of car without a co-signer, without having to involve my father. That being said, it was the kind of car that stood out. It was last year's Porsche 718 Boxster S in Miami Blue paint. It was more than a down payment on most people's houses. It was not the kind of car you drove into the slums when you were trying to not be seen. Or, you know, have it stolen.

  And that was exactly what I was going to go with, even if it made slightly less sense to use it when talking about the industrial part of town. It was believable enough.

  "I didn't want to bring him into that part of town. You know how I feel about that car. I took a cab. But um... the driver was really creepy. I didn't want to get stuck with him again on the way home..."

  "Aw, Else, glad you called then," he said, satisfied as he moved back into his seat, pulling his belt, and putting the car back into drive. "Let's get you home. You have work in the morning too."

  So then we were driving, me flicking impatiently through the radio stations while Roman tried to fight for the songs he liked and I largely ignored him.

  There were two sets of townhouse developments in Navesink Bank, one was a typical middle-class sprawling development full of families and the occasional single man or woman. They were perfectly nice and I had done a walk-through of three different units before my father got wind and threw a fit. And, see, that sounds pathetic given my age, but then again... you don't know my father. Edward Bay was intimidating, if not downright terrifying, when he was in a good mood. So when he was ticked off, or personally offended like he was when I wanted to get a middle-class townhouse, he was wet-your-pants scary. Why was he personally offended, you ask? My father was a successful businessman. By that I mean he made the kind of money that bordered on obscene and he liked to live like he did. He liked to flash his wealth around. So he was insulted when I refused to dip into my trust fund and drop half a million dollars on a house way too big for one person to live in.

  From there, I put up a valiant effort to profess my independence and stick to my guns. But, well, my father made a career of browbeating men and women far greater than me.

  So I had a townhouse that cost half a million dollars that had two extra bedrooms I had no need for, a state of the art kitchen I had no skills to cook inside of, and a HOA fee that was the cost of a nice two-bedroom apartment in pretty much any town surrounding Navesink Bank.

  I'm not saying it wasn't nice to live in a beautiful townhouse. I wasn't a fan of falling into the 'poor little rich girl' trope. I was lucky; I knew that; I had always known that. That being said, some gifts came with clauses and mine was feeling forever under the thumb of a man who I had spent
my entire life trying to free myself from. It meant that he would always feel he had a say in my life decisions, my career decisions, and pretty much anything else I did that he felt might reflect back on him.

  Roman parked in the driveway in front of my garage where my car was stashed away. Each townhouse in the neighborhood was two stories and part of a three-home section. The two on the ends had pitched roofs and shutters, the one in the center with a flat roof and a extended picture window. The bricks on the fronts were also in a pattern in colors: Regency brick, Dover, then Orleans. I had a house on the left with the pitched roof, the shutters, and the Regency brick. I might have resented the money coming from my trust fund, but it was a gorgeous house.

  "Do you want to crash here instead of driving home?" I asked as the car idled. We each had stuff stashed at each other's houses for the occasions when one of us got too tired or too drunk to drive home. He had an entire dresser in one of my guest rooms. I had half a closet in one of his.

  "You don't mind?" he asked, facing me and I noticed how tired he looked for the first time.

  "No, of course not," I said, shaking my head. "You can always stay."

  With that, I climbed out of his car and made my way over to the stairs that led to my front door, reaching under my shirt for the key I kept around my neck before Roman came up behind me. It was another thing that he would find out of character. I had a janitor's key chain I usually carried, fifteen different keys on it that I considered everyday essentials to have on me. So just having the key to my door, not even the deadbolt key, around my neck was weird. But I was worried about the keys jingling while I was looking around in the slums.

  I hit the code for the security and stepped inside. "Haul it, Rome. I don't want to call the security company again," I called, flicking on the lights as Rome came inside and closed the door. He hit the code for me as I moved to kick out of my flats before I remembered Paine's comments about me bleeding all over my shoes.

  The entryway was wide with a white staircase leading upstairs and crown molding. To the left was a large living room painted in a soft blue-gray and decorated with gray sofas and chairs and white accent furniture. There was a television mounted over a fireplace I had never used. The living room led into a small enclosed sun room off the back of the house. To the right was a dining room in a slightly darker shade of blue with a white dining set and sideboard. The dining room led into the kitchen off the back, white cabinetry and walls with stainless steel appliances and a massive island.