Burn It Up(56)

“Now we need to talk about Grossier, though. You and him.”

“Casey? What about him?”

“You two. What are you?”

“He’s my boss. And my friend.”

“Tell me straight—you f*cking him?”

She bit her tongue to quell a reflexive lie. She nodded. “Yeah. What about it?”

“I just want to know who he is to you. Who’s coming in and out of my daughter’s life.”

Who she thinks her daddy is, Abilene read between the lines. “He’s a good man.” Or he was now, she trusted. What he might have been before . . .

“I know he wants you safe,” James said. “But I also know he’s been inside, and I don’t know what for.”

“Neither do I. And I don’t want to.” All she knew was that it had been during his time in Vegas, so probably something to do with gambling.

“He’s coming around our daughter, so I goddamn do.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Yeah, I am. Because everybody knows exactly what it is I’ve been up to. And that I’ve done my time. But what do you really know about this guy? Really?”

“I know he treats me good. And that he cares about the baby.”

James flinched at that. Had to sting, knowing a stranger had been filling those shoes in his absence. Sleeping with his ex, caring for his child. Whatever came next, and for however long the present situation was reality, those two men would have tension. Some real ugly, heavy tension.

“You’ll just have to get good with him,” Abilene said. “Because he seems determined to be there for me.” As her lover, just for now, but as her boss and friend long after they quit sharing a bed, she hoped. Though would Casey still be so devoted, if James told him the truth about her?

“It’s not about my feelings,” James said evenly. “It’s about what’s best for the kid.”

He’d cooled himself off, and she did the same. She’d owed him answers and handed them over. But in all fairness she owed him a little more.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “For keeping you in the dark. And for how I was when we split.”

“Not much to be done about it now.”

“Except to apologize. So I’m sorry. You know, I stole from you, when we broke up.”

“Three hundred dollars,” he confirmed.

It was technically three hundred and thirty that she’d taken out of his wallet, and he knew that, no doubt. She’d heard him on the phone with his customers, and he quoted people their debts right down to the penny, with interest. That he wasn’t hung up on the thirty bucks reassured her. It hinted that she was still a person to him, not a transaction.

“I’m sorry I took it,” she said.

“Don’t be, for f*ck’s sake. That’s nothing. Just a final f*ck-you, and I was happy to let you have the last word, if the payoff was me stitching my life back together in peace after you ripped it up.”

“I’m sorry, all the same.”

“You needed it more than me. Long as it went to groceries or rent and not dope, what the f*ck do I care?”

“I bought a car with it,” she said lamely. The same heap she drove now. Two hundred fifty she’d paid, and used the rest for gas and a few meals. Not much of an investment, but it had been her first taste of freedom in months and months. It had carried her as far as Fortuity before the gas ran out. Dead broke and hungry, she’d asked the waitress at the diner if she could maybe get some food and wash dishes in exchange. She’d been offered a job instead, and here she’d stayed.

“So what’s next?” she asked him.

“What’s next is that I meet my daughter. And after that we figure out where you two’ll stay, and how to pay for it.”

“I can worry about that. I’ll be going back to work soon.”

“You’d never have needed to stop if you’d been straight with me.”

And here she stood, at the edge of what she feared most. Here she stood, ready to hand this man a knife and beg him not to use it on her. “James . . .”

“What?”

“I have a favor to ask you. A big one. One that matters way more than money to me.”

“So ask it,” he said, never one for a preamble.

“Please don’t tell anyone about how things were, when we met.”

He stared at her. “So you do get how f*cked-up it was, then? You get exactly why I was so f*cking eager to find you, make sure everything was okay over here?”

“I do, okay? Just promise me. Please.”

“You don’t want him to know how you were. He thinks you’re some f*cking innocent little girl who got mixed up with a big bad man, doesn’t he?”

“Don’t gloat. Just promise me you won’t. If he finds out, it should be from me.” And the only circumstance under which she could imagine telling Casey the truth was if they somehow fell in love, got serious with each other. But with his criminal past keeping Abilene at arm’s length, and Casey’s own mysterious misgivings, she trusted that was a conversation she could keep on avoiding, likely indefinitely.

“You’re f*cking right; you should tell him,” James said. “You want to be good for our daughter, you practice what you’re preaching. Be honest with a man for once in your life.”