Lie to Me (7 page)

I forget all about my job. I forget all about how dangerous Alex Wolfe will be if he doesn’t get what he wants. I forget about everything except what I need to do for Harlow.

Fuck, I want her.

My muscles are coiled up tight with the effort of holding back, because the truth is I know I have to earn it. That’s fine. That’s as it should be. I’m not afraid of hard work. But my blood burns me and my bones feel like they’ll crack under the pressure, because everything in my primal being knows where I should be right now. And it’s not watching her from far away.

I should have been here all along.

And instead I have to watch her frown down at her phone, have to watch her face fall in that faint blue light, fall in that way I haven’t seen in years. And then some asshole in a skull cap is right on top of her at the bar, hollering at her, hassling her, trying to flirt like he doesn’t see or doesn’t care that she obviously just got some very bad news.

What is wrong with people?

I don’t consciously walk over to the bar. It’s like I’m there instantaneously, grabbing Skull Cap’s arm, pulling him back and away from her. He tries to yank his arm free and it makes me smile.

“Hey, what’s your problem?” he asks me.

I stare down at him, rolling my shoulders, feeling the weight of all that muscle I spent years earning.

“Go. Somewhere. Else,” I say.

He looks like he maybe thinks about arguing, but not for very long. He looks into my chest, his eye level, then slowly looks up. Then he mumbles something that sounds like an apology and disappears back into the crowd.

I’m a big guy.

I straighten my tie and turn, finally, to Harlow. She’s staring at me with her mouth open, having no idea how beautiful she is even when she’s annoyed.

“Are you kidding me?” she says.

I grin at her. “Me? Have you seen the people in this bar? Or out on the street? Tell me they’re not trying to be funny.”

Harlow’s suppresses a smile. “I wondered if you’d have a stroke, checking out the new neighbors.”

“I thought I might’ve, and that’s why I was seeing a bunch of glow in the dark Muppets walking around.”

These new hipster guys, they seem to like neon colors. But you know what? That got a laugh. Harlow Chase forgot to hate me long enough to laugh.

But then she remembers.

“What are you doing here?” she says, her tone hard again, sharp. Like a weapon.

I don’t flinch. “I’m here to see you.”

“Well, get out.”

“No.”

We stare at each other across the bar, Harlow raising her chin up the way she does, the blue glow from her phone illuminating her face, giving her away. She’s upset. I look right back at her, steadily, and I don’t know what happens; maybe she can see what I’m feeling in my face, that I just want to fix it, to help, that it’s still me, it’s still her Marcus. There’s that same thing that happened back by the bridge, that same way the air changed, the sound changed, like the world slid sideways and snapped back into place, where it should have been all along. Me and her. Together. I want to reach out and touch her but I hold myself back, just savor the feel of this thing between us.

“What’s wrong, Lo?” I ask her.

“Besides the fact that you won’t get out of my bar?” she says. “None of your business.”

“We can disagree about that,” I say, leaning over the bar. The closer I get to her, the stronger I feel, and I think about hopping over, picking her up, burying my face in her neck. Goddamn. “But I can still help.”

She works her jaw, and I can tell she’s grinding her teeth. “I don’t want your help,” she finally says.

“You need it, though.”

“How the hell would you know?”

I study her for another second, give her a look, like come on, you know the answer to that. “You don’t look like that unless you need help,” I tell her. “Because you hate needing help.”

She’s stung that I know this, that I can still read her face. And I have to admit it isn’t fair.

“Fuck you,” she says softly.

I glare at her. “Are you going to tell me, or do I have to stand here until you cave?”

Harlow looks at me, her lips pursed, and then she sighs. She knows I really will just stand here until she tells me. She used to call me her pit bull, I was so stubborn. Still am.

And she’s still smarter than me. Knows when to pick her battles.

“The septic tank at the house is apparently busted,” she says, her tone flat. “Septic tanks are also apparently expensive.”

And she turns to wipe down a part of the bar that’s already clean, not wanting to have to look me in the eye any longer, as though the conversation is over, which tells me all I need to know.

“You don’t have the money?” I ask.

She stops, freezes, like that hurt her. Then she looks back at me, standing up as tall and straight as she can, so I can see how she’s kept her body up, her skin luminescent in the low light. I feel like an asshole for noticing, but I think most men would. Then again, most men are assholes.

“I have the money,” she says, and she’s gone full ice queen.

“But?” I say.

“But I was going to spend it on something else,” she spits out. “You know, like people do with money.”

“What were you going to spend it on?”

“Jesus Christ, Marcus, can’t you just leave me alone?”

“I should tell you, Lo, that’s the one thing I’ll never do again,” I say.

She stops.

Those big blue eyes lock on me while the rest of her just…stops. I can tell she’s holding her breath. Waiting. Not sure of what to say, what to think, what to feel. She blinks and it looks like there’s water in her eyes, and I know I got through to her, said the thing she wanted me to say, and maybe also the thing she never wanted to hear. Maybe it will always be this way with us now, the thing you love and the thing you hate all wrapped up in one.

So there’s that moment when she’s just looking at me raw and exposed, and believe me when I say it takes all my strength not to jump over that bar and take her in my arms. Just to hold her. Just to feel her skin against mine. Just to say I’m sorry in the one moment in time when she might actually believe me.

But then it’s over just as soon as it came on, and Lo is pissed. She’s mad that I can still get to her like that, that I can still pierce her defenses, all the way through to the parts of her she keeps hidden away. And she’s right, it wasn’t fair.

But love isn’t fair.

“Go to hell,” she says.

“Already there,” I shoot back.

She laughs bitterly and turns to get a rack of glasses out of a Hobart machine, steam billowing out, swallowing up her face and giving her a little break. I can see the muscles in her arms flex as she lifts the rack and sets it on the bar, not looking at me, like she’s just going to go on with her shift.

“I’m not going anywhere, Lo,” I say. “And I know you’re not gonna call the bouncers on me.”

“Yeah?” she says, looking up. “How do you know?”

“Because I do. I know you.”

Harlow slams the door to the Hobart closed and she’s even more mad because I’m right again. She would never ask someone else to take care of her problem. That, and part of her doesn’t really want me to leave.

I can see that part fighting to get out.

“Just tell me, Lo,” I say. “I can help.”

Harlow spins back around, her face all twisted up, tears in her eyes. “Fine, you unbelievable asshole. It’s Dill,” she says. “The money was for Dill, Marcus. For this special genius programming camp he got into so he can finish the video game he’s been making. I saved up all year. And now instead he’s going to get indoor plumbing. Hooray for me.”

When I see how upset she is, I know immediately that I’m going to take care of it. The only question is how I’m going to convince her to let me do it. She won’t take my money. Under no circumstances will she just take my money and give nothing in return; it’s not how she’s wired. And that pride, that toughness would rear up all over again. The idea that she owed me anything at all would keep her up nights.

Even worse, I can’t tell her the truth about what I think might have happened to her septic system, or she’d really go ballistic. I wouldn’t blame her, either. But that’s why I came here, right?

To lie to her in order to help her.

It’s just that now I have the opportunity to get something out of it, too.

“I’ll pay for it,” I say.

She rolls her eyes.

“You didn’t let me finish,” I smile. “I’ll pay for it, on one condition.”

There. Now she’s taking me seriously. She’s looking at me like she’s about three seconds away from jumping me, but there’s that shine in her eyes, too. She understands this kind of game. Maybe even misses it. When fighting, arguing, becomes like a dance.

“What?” she says.

“You see me every day until Dill comes back from his camp,” I say. “Not for five minutes or anything like that, either. All day, as much as you’re off. Every day.”

Harlow stares at me. She laughs a little, shaking her head.

“Unbelievable,” she says.

“Nah,” I say. “You knew I’d do something like that.”

She nods. I’m right. I can see she hates it. And I know she hates even more that maybe she kind of wanted me to say something like that.

Then Harlow comes right up close to the bar, so there’s only this thin plank of wood separating us, and she leans right over it, and I have to try damn hard not to look at her perfect breasts pressed up against the bar.

She looks me dead in the eye and says, “Marcus, do you really think there’s even the tiniest chance I’ll ever forgive you? That I’ll ever, ever trust you again?”

“Yes, I do,” I say, and dig my fingers into the wood in front of me. God, I want her. I want to be her everything. “Do you?”

She says nothing. Just chews her lip, and watches me.

I lean closer, and rest my hand on hers, the first time I’ve touched her in five years. She feels warm and magnetic, my hand more alive than any other part of my body, my fingers tingling. I put everything I have into it when I say, “So then lie to me, Lo.”

She doesn’t move her hand.

She almost looks like she’s going to cry.

And then we’re interrupted, some woman coming in behind Harlow, penciled on eyebrows raised to the sky, saying, “Harlow, everything ok?”

Harlow snatches her hand back like she needs to keep it safe, rubbing the skin where I touched her. “It’s cool, Shantha. Just someone I used to know.”

That was for my benefit. Yeah. That’s ok. I’ll be someone she knows again. I nod at this woman called Shantha, who’s looking at me like I might be a criminal, and reach over to grab some napkins. I write my phone number down in big black letters, because I know Harlow deleted my number a long time ago, and give it back to her, folded up.

“Think about it, Lo,” I say, knowing she won’t be able to resist in the end. Even if she didn’t need house repairs, even if it weren’t for the way she needs to be the best mother Dill never had, she wouldn’t be able to resist the opportunity to make me pay, to make me tell her the one thing I can’t tell her—why I left. She’s going to torture me, especially when she finds out I won’t tell her. I’ll deserve all of it.

I hold onto the napkin one second too long, making her look back up at me, just so I can say this: “I’m not going anywhere.”

When I walk out of there, it’s with the knowledge that I’m walking on the razor’s edge. Alex Wolfe and everything he’s capable of on one side. The love of my life on the other.

chapter 5

HARLOW

I only lasted about half an hour after Marcus left before Shantha sent me home from the bar.

“You’re useless.” She smiled at me.

“I’m sorry, I just—”

“Go home, get some sleep. Or call that unbelievable hunk of man and don’t get some sleep, whatever works.”

I had to try to force a smile. Shantha saw through it. But she didn’t pry, because Shantha’s always looking out for me, just hugged me and sent me on my way.

Which is why I’m home early with nothing to do but think about Marcus’s offer.

And think about Marcus himself.

Seeing him up close, talking to him—it feels like I’ve been drugged. My head is swimming in memories of Marcus, in sensations of Marcus, and it’s outrageously unfair because what I should be thinking about is how I’m supposed to provide for Dill. And about how I’m evidently failing at that.

I made myself a promise when I got custody: I would not touch our inheritance except for medical emergencies or similar, because otherwise it would be gone way too soon, and it’s not like I had a lot of career prospects at the time. I still don’t. You make decent money bartending at some places, but one, I don’t work at those places, and two, I don’t pick up enough shifts, since I want to be home when Dill is at least some of the time.

So we get by, and my life is made immeasurably easier knowing we have a cushion in case disaster strikes again, but I will not break those rules. I will not.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about it, though, before Marcus’s offer.

Marcus. I thought I almost caught his scent when he leaned across the bar to get close to me. It made my heart stop.

I shake my head and pry the bottle cap off a beer, expertly hitting the garbage can on the other side of the kitchen. Dill’s asleep, has been for a few hours. The house is quiet. I kick off my shoes, take a swig of my beer, and head to the master bath.

I never moved into my parents’ master bedroom when I took possession of the house. Just couldn’t do it. So I’m still in my old room, and Dill’s in his. That doesn’t mean I don’t take advantage, from time to time, of the swank bathroom my mom insisted on having put in. I mean, my mother would kill me if she thought I was letting all that marble go to waste.

I run the water and strip, saving the rest of my cold beer for when I’m submerged in the hot water, and the brief chill on my bare skin reminds me of what I felt when he put his hand on mine.

Damn it. I can’t even be naked without thinking about Marcus.