Shane (Mallick Brothers 1)

Coffee in hand, I put whatever I brought with me that night on the desk. Some nights, it was as simple as a crossword puzzle or a book. Other nights, it was nail files and polish. That night was a deck of cards. Sure, I could play solitaire on the computer, but I was old school when it came to card games.

There really was no telling how busy you were going to be. There was no set of rules that said Saturday night was hopping and Tuesdays were slow. There was no apparent rhyme or reason to when the masses would be horny apparently. So I always made sure I brought something to do in case it was a slow night. The last thing I wanted was to fall asleep out of pure boredom. Fee may have been a pretty lenient boss, but I was pretty sure she wouldn’t pay me to catch up on my beauty rest.

As it turned out, though, it was a medium volume night. I would get a call then have between fifteen and thirty minutes between the next, sometimes longer. While a part of me might have wished to have nights where I got paid purely to paint my nails, the smarter, slightly greedy part of me knew that while I got paid a decent hourly salary, I also got commission on the actual calls. So the more I got, and the longer I could make them last, the more I made. So while, with my salary, I could afford my bills, it was definitely worth a few more “oohs” and “ahhhs” and “fuck me harders” to get some extra lining for my pockets.

Not that I spent it on stuff; I made sure I buried my urge to shop when I left my old life behind. I needed the money to sock away. Just in case. It actually shocked me how much money it had taken me to get to Navesink Bank and set up shop. You thought of the big things: the gas, the first month of rent, the deposits for the water and electric and gas. But you forgot the incidentals like the connection fees and the fact that some landlords required not only first and security, but last month too. Also, food. Food was where I really screwed it up this time around. I was close to going hungry by the time I started making money, having not factored in the fact that even if I landed a job the same day I moved somewhere new, a paycheck was usually two weeks away.

So when I made way more money than I needed for basic needs, I put the rest away into a hole I burrowed into the mattress on my bed. It wasn’t the most inventive place to hide money, but it wasn’t the obvious places like the freezer or toilet tank either.

I had a fair amount, but not nearly enough.

Fact of the matter was, there was always a chance of needing to get the hell out of dodge again. I wasn’t going to even pretend that I was a pro at starting over, at hiding out, at flying under the radar. I wasn’t. I had been as careful as I knew how to be, but I had no idea if that was careful enough. If it wasn’t, then I would need as big a nest egg as possible to get me from Navesink Bank to wherever I needed to head next.

So I was happy to be busy.

I had just hung up a call from one of the furries freaks, having to meow like a kitten when he jerked off, making mewling noises, around midnight when I heard the back door slam close.

And let’s just say that I wasn’t so far removed from my past to not jump to conclusions. My hand went automatically for the heavy fabric scissors that were in the holder with the pens. They were fabric scissors because the older woman who had my desk during the day actually sewed clothing for her grand babies while she worked.

I slipped my fingers into the handles, taking comfort in the weight and length of the shears, as I raised my arm and stood to face the back of the building.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I snapped, hand falling down by my side, but my heart not quite getting the memo that someone wasn’t coming in to drag me back to hell. “Are you stalking me?” I asked, looking at Shane as he walked in casually, tucking the keys to the building into his back pocket.

Of course he had keys.

“Cocky much?” he asked with a smirk, reaching into another pocket and pulling out a different key.

“Yeah, I noticed the new door. I also noticed I was the only person in the building who didn’t get a key under their door,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. Then something rushed out before I could contain it. “Why’d you change the door?”