“Well, I’m glad we got that all straightened out. I should be going now. After you clean up the fake spiders from my door.”
He smirks. “Are you saying you can’t go back to your place because there are fake spiders in front of your door?” I nod. I don’t care if they are real or not. They freak me the hell out. “So you’re trapped here?”
I narrow my eyes on him.
“I’m starting to think my plan worked out better than I expected.”NineDane“I meant to be up to film that spider prank for you, but after I collared that skip, I had plans with my brother than passed out. I didn’t plan on you leaving your place so late tonight.” I had turned on my alarm.
“What’s a bounty hunter do exactly?” Joy leans against the counter, a cup of tea in her hand.
“The technical term is skip tracer, and it just means that you’re retrieving someone who skipped out on their bail. You know what that is, right?”
“Money that keeps them in town?” she asks.
“Basically. The judge says that instead of serving your time in jail before your trial, you can go about your business, but you have to deposit money with us so we can coerce you to come back. No one can really afford the full bail, so they go to a bail bondsman, who fronts the entire amount while you pay only a fraction. If the person doesn’t attend the court hearing, the bond is forfeited, and the bondsman is out the money. I’m sent out to get that person back.” I flip a flapjack over. It’s never too late for pancakes.
“Do they usually not show up?” She appears genuinely curious. Her elbows are on the counter, and she’s leaning forward, listening intently. It’s really flattering, and my dick perks up in notice. He likes the attention.
“No. Only a few ever skip because they don’t want the bail bondsman after them, but sometimes people get drunk or high or scared and either forget or think avoiding court will make it go away.” I slide the cakes onto a plate and set them on the counter in front of her. One bottle of maple syrup and three fat patties of butter later, breakfast is good to go.
We dig in, both apparently hungry, so our conversation comes to a halt. As I’m scraping the last of the syrup off my plate, I ask her about her business. “How’d you become an influencer?”
A wry smile tips the corner of her left mouth up. “How does anyone? Sort of by accident. I’ve always been a heavy user of social media. Whenever something happened, I’d post a picture and tell a little story about how the picture came to be. More and more people started following me. When my follower count clicked over the hundred thousand mark, businesses contacted me wanting me to post things but”—she makes a face—“if you do too much of that, no one thinks you’re genuine anymore, so I only try to partner with companies that sell stuff I really use. I can’t really explain why people like my feed.”
I’ve been back-reading her posts the past few days. She’s funny as hell and doesn’t mind looking silly for her followers. I’m sure that’s why she’s popular.
“So what’s your social media account? You know mine, and it only seems fair if you share yours.”
“I haven’t posted anything.” I grab my phone, pull up the account I made, and display the screen for her to read.
“You don’t even have a profile pic,” she exclaims, taking my phone out of my hand. “Let me take a picture of you for your account.”
I gather up our dishes and put them in the dishwasher. “I’d rather you didn’t. No offense, but I gotta stay under the radar. I have a company that traces skips on social media, but I might do my own research now that I’ve opened my account. If I do, I don’t want my targets to see my face.”
“That’s too bad. You’d be good on social media. Girls would be sliding into your DMs and making all sorts of propositions. Actually, maybe you should just delete your account.” She turns off my phone and places it face down. “I should get going. Cece should be home soon, and I need to be there when she is.”
“Why? Does she turn into a pumpkin if you're not at home? Because I didn’t want to remind you, but you have a bunch of spiders blocking the way into your house, and you’re stuck here now. What do you want to do? Watch a movie?”
She shudders. “Thank goodness I have a back door.”
“I better go and make sure there are no spiders back there. They have legs, you know.”
Joy holds up a hand. “I know the ones in the front are fake, but they seem real and the more you talk about them, the more real they become. I won’t be able to sleep tonight at this rate.”