Counterfeit Love

"Sure I can."

"Angel, we don't know who this guy is, or what he is capable of."

"His name is Roger Contiga. He is a partially-employed divorcee with a crippling alimony payment due. No child support. He thinks that was because he was shooting blanks. But his wife actually had a copper IUD she never told him about. He is terrified of never accomplishing anything great, and is about two weeks away from a mid-life crisis where he gets up, grabs his keys, and drives to Mexico to start over again."

"How do you know that?" I asked, unable to help the awe in my voice.

"Nothing is as private as people want to believe. Anything you've ever typed somewhere lives forever. All it takes is someone looking for it."

"Why were you looking for it, though?" I asked, brows pinching, fingers and lungs itching for a cigarette. The patches were pure bullshit. The gum wasn't much better and came with the added bonus of making the tip of my tongue feel numb. The damn lollipops were the only thing helping me stay halfway sane.

The fact that I was quitting smoking because she told me to was a topic to tackle on another day.

"I like being prepared for anything," she told me, giving the words a nod for emphasis. "I find that knowing someone's secrets gives you leverage in tense situations."

"This doesn't have to get tense," I told her, figuring she'd seen enough violence for one day.

What can I say? I didn't like any old asshole picking on any old girl. But at the gym, seeing that asshole picking on this girl? It woke up something long-dormant inside me, something wild and uncontrollable, something I was sure I had left in my old life. Apparently, though, there were some things that it didn't matter how deep you buried them. They could always claw their way to the surface given enough time.

"Well, you never know," she said, shrugging, as I grabbed a bag off the back of my bike, taking off down the side street toward a towering apartment building that looked like it hadn't seen a single update since the eighties.

"Can dig up dirt on some poor schmuck from a decade ago, but you can't pick a lock, dollface? Even goddesses have their shortcomings, I guess," I added, reaching into my backpack for a lock-pick set I'd been carrying around since I was eleven or twelve.

"I don't typically do the dirty work," she admitted, shrugging. "I have always been the planner, the overseer."

"Sweetheart, life is a lot more fun when it's dirty," I told her, feeling the lock release, letting me move to stand, sharing a smirk with her before pulling the door open.

I didn't figure she could agree with that. Everything about Chris was neat and controlled--perfect, even.

There was a base part of me that couldn't help but want to messy her up a bit. Show her how much fun that could be.

Clearly, though, she was not in the mood.

She charged in front of me, nearly jogging down the hallway to get to the end unit.

"What are you doing?" she whispered to me when I slide away from the door, flattening against the wall.

"Maybe he's going to check the peephole. He sees me, he locks himself in the bathroom, and calls the cops. He sees you, he lets you in."

"That's ridiculous."

"Trust me," I demanded. I couldn't help but wonder if I didn't just mean that situationally, if I meant that as a general request, as an assurance. That she could trust me.

She rolled her eyes but lifted her hand to rap loudly on the door with her knuckles.

"I told you I can't afford any more cookies!" a voice growled as the chain slid, the lock disengaged, and the door opened a few inches.

I wish I could have seen the shock on his face when the door cracked open and he looked out to see her standing there.

Speaking from experience, hot women didn't just randomly show up on your doorstep. Life wasn't quite that fair. Not for any of us.

Roger Contiga had just won the life lottery.

He seemed to understand that, mumbling a quick apology, shutting the door, sliding the chain off completely, opening it.

"I can't afford the cookies on my waistline," he corrected, not wanting Chris to know how rough he currently had it. As if his shitty apartment building in a shittier part of town wasn't evidence enough of that.

This was the part where she was supposed to assure him that his waistline was just fine. But Chris was not the sort of woman to feed a guy pleasantries. Especially not to someone she thought was wasting her very precious time.

"Roger. We had a deal," she told him, brow arching up.

Unable to help myself, I pushed off the wall, wanting to see the guy's face as he realized he wasn't as lucky as he had been thinking a moment before.