Low Down & Dirty Read online

  “Dude”—I slap the bar towel over my back—“you are not asking Low out for a date. She’s—she’s busy.”

  “Fine. I’ll ask her when she’s not busy.”

  “Not happening. Let’s drop it.” I swallow hard as a crowd bustles through the door. Business has been picking up steadily, but not as quickly as I’d like. “Any bands take the bait?” I texted Brody this morning and told him to get on it. I plan on implementing all of Low’s ideas starting with the music.

  “I’ve got three lined up for this weekend. All of them said they’d love a steady gig.”

  “Sounds good. Maybe we should do two and they can rotate—that way we won’t have a night without music.”

  “Perfect. So, when are you going to admit you’re into her?”

  I glance up, wild-eyed, and stop swabbing down the bar midflight.

  Axel walks in, looking his usual dapper self, and heads over with that shit-eating grin he’s infamous for.

  He ticks his head to Brody. “What’s with the cat who ate the canary look on his face?”

  Brody bounces with a laugh while crossing those tree trunks he calls arms. “I’m just waiting for him to admit he’s into Low.”

  “No.” Ax closes his eyes a moment. “She’s too good for you. She actually smiles voluntarily and happens to like people.”

  I scowl at the both of them. “I smile when I damn well feel like it, and I happen to like most people.” Another group comes through the door, but it’s the couple that flanks them that sends my blood pressure rising. “Like I said—most people,” I mutter.

  Brody and Axel follow my gaze, and the three of us stare at my brother as he helps Mer off with her coat.

  Brody grunts. “Must be date night.”

  “Must be.”

  The waitress helps seat them, but Chip nods to where we stand and makes his way over.

  “Crap.” I slap the bar towel over my shoulder once again and can’t help but note it’s about the right size to fit around his neck. I can’t help it. My blood still boils whenever he’s around.

  “What’s up?” He stuffs his hands into his pockets. He’s still dressed from a day at the office, monkey suit, silver tie, Mer’s favorite color, and I glare at it for a moment.

  “We thought we’d check the place out.” He gifts me a painful smile as if it were an apology. Chip and I were always understandably close, but we were also one another’s greatest enemies. I blame our father for that. As wonderful as he was, and as much as we loved him, he did one horrible thing I would never want to repeat with my own children. He pitted Chip and me against one another from the get-go. Instead of being one another’s cheering section, we were staunch competition. My father bred competitive behavior in us until it ate us up like a parasite. There wasn’t anything Chip and I weren’t competing for. If there was one last bread roll at the dinner table, we were sparring over it. Perhaps that’s why what went down between us and Meredith didn’t feel as strange as it looked to the outside world. But vows were exchanged. Inappropriate sexual relations were had. It’s a hell of a lot different than chasing after a bread roll. However, at the end of the day, that competitive spirit must have felt the same—at least to Chip. He won. He can have her. This is one contest I’m happy to concede.

  Brody clears his throat. He and Chip are still close, but he’s just as pissed at him as I am—or at least I was. My fury has gone down several notches since Low stepped onto the scene.

  “We were just discussing Levi’s love life.” Brody sneers over at my brother, and the discomfort level rises a dozen degrees.

  “Nice.” Chip nods. “I like Evie. I think the two of you click. There’s something fun about her, something charming. She reminds me a lot of Raven.” For as much as his words sound spot-on, he drags them out as if they were a eulogy. “Nice place.” He gives a quick glance around. “I guess I’d better head back to my seat.” He plods off like a man headed toward the guillotine, and judging by the fact he’s stuck having dinner with Mer, he just might be.

  Ax slaps his hand over my shoulder. “Your brother is a broken man, dude. And who the hell is Evie?”

  Brody lifts a brow. “That’s code for Low.” He glances back at the unhappy couple. “Levi, man, I hate to sound like this, but you have to know you escaped a fire.” Brody was never a fan of Meredith’s.

  Axel nods into the idea. “I work with her, and I’m terrified to be in a meeting with her for longer than five minutes. I’m sorry she put your balls in the blender, but let’s face it—between her or Low, you’ve got the better end of the deal.”

  Brody hops off the stool and heads for the kitchen. Axel helps himself to a beer.

  And I just stand there, staring out into space, my head completely enveloped in that gorgeous blonde hurricane that tore into my life. My heart picks up pace, my body floods with heat as a memory of that kiss comes back to me. She’s beautiful, and sweet, funny, and kind. Hell, Harlow Hartley is perfect in just about every single way—and she’s mine. My heart thumps at the thought, loud and proud.

  “Shit.” I take a staggering step back. She is mine, and I don’t want to lose her. Low is perfect in every way, and all I want to do is spend every free moment with her. She’s all I think about from eyelids open until I’m knocked unconscious later that night, and then she’s there dancing around in my dreams, making me hungry for her in every single way. I meant what I said to her. It’s as if she’s heaven-sent. Low and I belong to one another.

  And then it hits me like a five-ton brownie. I’m in love with the girl. I can’t see a day in the future without her smile in it. I’m gone, toast, head over fucking heels.

  My body goes numb with shock as the revelation sinks in. “I’m in love with Low,” I whisper.

  Then, overhead, like a twist that only fate can provide, a warm song blares through the speakers as Bertie Higgins belts out that old familiar tune—“Key Largo”.

  I blink up at the ceiling. It must be fate.

  Low and I are happening.

  For the first time in what feels like a decade, everything in me soars at the thought.

  I’m in love with Low.

  I start grinning like a loon, and I can’t stop.

  Don’t want to.

  Nail It

  Low

  At a spaz past three, I get a panicked text from Lex asking me to meet her at Hallowed Grounds asap. And since it’s well before my shift starts at The Sloppy Pelican, I take her up on it.

  I spot her in the corner with her sunglasses hung low while meditating over a latte. I order and pick up my own drink before heading over. She looks snug in a black leather jacket, cropped and cute. Her hair billows over her shoulders like a pair of dark crimson clouds, which is apropos considering she’s sort of a walking catastrophe. So am I, but that’s beside the point.

  “What’s up, chica? You finally ready to pony up those Benjamins?” Okay, so I’m sort of kidding, but I’m sort of not. Five hundred bones might make me feel better about that whole imprisonment thing—brief as it might have been.

  She rolls her eyes, and I can’t help but note how much they glow against that gunmetal shadow she’s layered on. Lex’s eyes are a honey hazel/green combo that siren out at you—like a warning.

  “Here.” She pulls a wad of bills out of her purse and quickly counts it out. “Two hundred fifty bucks. We’re halfway settled. That good enough?”

  “For now.” I snatch the bills before they magically dive back into her wallet. “So, what’s the deal? You sounded frantic. Did Neiman Marcus run out of your favorite cashmere sweater?”

  “It’s June.” She glares at me a moment. “Everyone knows you don’t purchase cashmere until the fall.” She plucks a lipstick out of her purse and swaths a fuchsia coat over her lips. Honestly, it’s a color not many people could pull off, but Lex has all of that dark drama going for her, and it just takes her beauty to an inhuman level. “It’s my ex.”

  “Axel!” I perk right up as I take a s
ip of my mocha frap. “I totally love him by the way. He’s got a great sense of humor and those eyes. Wow. You can see forever in them.” I give a wicked wink her way, and that look of horror on her face says it all.

  “Would you stop? I honestly don’t care if you’re banging him on the side.” She scowls at me a moment because we both know she’d nail me down by way of my vagina if those sexual shenanigans were really happening. “How are things going with Levi, anyway?”

  It’s nice to have a friend to have a good one-on-one with. God knows I can’t even hint of a romantic connection with Levi to Raven.

  “Things got serious as all hell last Saturday night.” I give her the quick rundown in real-time. “And since we both work the night shift, and well, Levi essentially works every shift, we’ve been making out hot and heavy whenever we can steal a minute.”

  Her jaw goes slack. “What about his Johnson? You’re still in separate beds? Either the two of you have superhuman willpower or this Raven chick wields a mean whip.”

  “Definitely that.” I make a face just thinking about my bestie. “Suffice it to say, there have been one too many cold showers happening at headquarters. I don’t care how humid Hollow Brook is in the summer. It sucks dunking your naked flesh in ice water. That never feels good.”

  Lex barks out a laugh. “Oh, grow up! Fuck the guy already, would you? Even I’m getting hot and bothered thinking about it.”

  “Oh my gawd!” I do a quick glance at the crowd. “There are children in this establishment. I don’t know what they taught you at Barnes, but expletives do not fly in the real world.” I lean in with a vengeance. “Save it for the bedroom—where I’m sure you’d like to pin Axel to your headboard!”

  She sucks in a breath, those raccoon eyes of hers round out in horror before closing, and her entire person sags as if it might be true. “For the record, I don’t do expletives. That one was strictly in your honor.” She smirks out the window. “And can we not mention what I would and wouldn’t like to do to my asshole of an ex.”

  “Aha!” I’m quick to point a finger at her. My phone buzzes over the table and does a little twirl. “It’s a text from Raven.” I glance up at Lex, and we share a quick grimace. As much as I hate to go behind my bestie’s back on anything, I prefer to be on her good side. “How’s it going?” I read. “Do me a favor and keep an extra eye out on Levi. I can’t find anything on this skank Evie Slater!” My mouth falls open as Lex and I take a moment to gawk at each other.

  “What are you going to do?” She takes an expectant sip of her drink as she gives a giddy shiver.

  “I can see you’re pretty broken up about this.” I begin typing back to my bestie. “Will do! I doubt she means anything to him.”

  She texts right back. “Chip says they’re joined at the crotch,” I whisper. “It’s a done deal. Next time you see her, send me a picture.” I roll my eyes over at Lex. “Right. Like that’s going to happen.”

  “You know.” She lifts a perfectly lacquered, perfectly pointy, and might I say lethal, fingernail at me. “If she’s asking you to snap a picture, maybe she’s asking her brothers, too. I mean, she seems pretty eager to get the lowdown on who this skank might be.” She strums a dark giggle. “Once a girl gets an itch, there’s nothing she won’t do to satisfy that—”

  I cut her off before she can get to the end of the tired euphemism. “You’re right!” I snap a quick picture of her and hit Send right back to Raven.

  Looks like I found one after all!

  “You did not just do that!” Lex dives for my phone, but I hold it up out of her reach.

  “I did, and she’s texting back. She must have a lot to say. Let’s count how many ways she can call you a skank!” Lex and I wrestle it out just as my phone pings, and we both slump in our respective seats, curious as all hell.

  “Well?” Her eyes are back to the size of dinner plates.

  I glance down and frown. “Wow, she’s beautiful. She is definitely an upgrade from Meredith. She looks like she’d be fun to hang out with, too. I can’t wait to meet her. Do you think she’ll like me?” I stick my finger down my throat and pretend to hurl, although the feeling is hauntingly real.

  “Sounds like she’s my new bestie.” Lex takes an aggressive bite out of her cookie, and I’m quick to snatch it from her grip.

  “Let’s get one thing straight. Raven is my bestie and should she come to town and meet you—well, you’d love her, too.” I toss the cookie right back in front of her. “There. You’ve got two friends now. I bet that’s two more than you had before I sat down.”

  Her left eye comes shy of winking. I can tell under that dark beauty she’s percolating like a kettle. “Nice. And you’ve got one.”

  “You mean two.”

  “I mean one.” She lifts her brows with delight as if she’s cornered me. Lex is a hard ass, and I think that’s honestly why I put up with her. If my mother trained me to do anything, it’s to love a hard ass. “Once Raven finds out you’ve lied, cheated, and stole her brother, you’ll be deficient one very best friend.”

  “Ouch.” I swallow past the Raven-sized lump that’s spontaneously settled in my throat. “Touché.” Thoughts of Raven chasing me around Hollow Brook with the working end of her stiletto play on a loop in my brain. “So, what was the big emergency? You have another ploy to land me in handcuffs?”

  “More or less.” She bites down on that bloated bottom lip of hers, and her features soften. Lex goes from badass to ass-in-a-sling in a single bound. “My boss let me know The Sloppy Pelican put in for another review. Apparently, they’re in the throes of redoing their entire menu and they’d like a piece done on them in about a month.”

  I take a mock bow. “You can thank me for that. I’m personally redoing the menu. Honest to God, they had the boring food disease. Trust me, I saved them from a sure and sudden death. Most new restaurants specialize in closing, and that’s exactly the train the TSP was boarding.”

  “You’re responsible, huh?” she growls my way. “I should have known. You do realize I can’t do this.”

  “Why in the hell not? So what if Ax might be there? Say hello and get over it. Let him see how stunning you are. Wear a low-cut top and drive him to the brink. We’ll laugh about it over sangrias.” I give a silent applause. “I’m updating things on the bar end as well. Plus, I’ll be there. You can use me as your security blanket.”

  “Puh—lease.” She scoffs out the window. “You and Levi will be rutting in the corner by then. The last thing on this planet I want is to come face-to-face with that man—Axel, not the one you’ll be rutting with.”

  Thoughts of Levi and me naked and hungrily humping behind the fake bird of paradise makes me hot in all the right places. “You really think things will move that quickly?” I’m salivating just thinking about it.

  “Only if you’re human.” She grunts. “Look, in a month you’ll be me, and I’ll happily give you the remainder of what I owe, not to mention an extra two-fifty.”

  “No way. I’m not going down that thorny road again. Not to mention the fact the boys that own and run the place know exactly who I am. Face it, you’re stuck with this.”

  She lunges forward and snaps up my wrist. “Then make sure he’s not there.” Those hazel eyes quickly morph into twin pleading doves. “I’ll do it. I’ll be quick and efficient. Just lock that boy in the freezer if you have to.”

  “First of all”—I carefully pluck myself free—“he came sniffing around the first time you were supposed to be there, because he obviously wanted to see you. Don’t you think that if he can get over the past—so can you? Put your big girl panties on and suck it up, sweetheart. Believe me, you’ll feel tons better once it’s over. Whatever this worst-case scenario you’ve got strumming in your head—trust me, it’s about as far from reality as you can get. You might even have a blast.”

  “A blast, huh?” She glowers at me as if she’ll have anything but. “You’d better pray I like the food.” She toasts me with
her drink before sashaying out the door in her spiked Steve Maddens.

  The food will be excellent.

  Her luck may not.

  Sunday rolls around luxuriously lazy, inspiring Levi and me to dance in the kitchen blaring “Key Largo” while whipping up a double batch of chocolatey goodness for the cheesy ’80s movie marathon we’re about to partake in. Oh, who are we kidding? We’re going to drown ourselves in chocolate before drowning in each other. Who knows? Tonight might even be the night.

  Levi has been bedroom eyeing me, eye fucking me—call it what you will—but this slow dance we’re embroiled in, his rock-hard chest pressed to mine, those ocean-deep eyes beaming down over me, that lewd grin slowly ticking to life—it’s all I can do not to let the damn brownies burn the house down and drag this man to bed.

  My phone blinks to life, and that tense knot that’s been brewing in my stomach ever since my last encounter with my bestie gets a little bigger. I haven’t exactly confessed to Levi that I sent Raven Lex’s picture, partially because of his proximity to her ex. How did my life get to be a complicated version of six degrees of separation? I glance over at my phone. It’s not Raven. It’s Lisa.

  “It’s my sister.” I sigh as I pick it up to see what threats will be lobbed my way now.

  Dinner is at five. Fried chicken and mashed potatoes. The girls are baking a cake. You still love me, right?

  It takes a minute for me to wrap my head around what the heck she’s talking about, and then it hits me in the face like thirty-four birthday candles.

  “Oh God, I’ve almost missed my sister’s birthday!” I look to Levi in a panic. “Come with me.”

  “What?” Now it’s his turn to panic. “What do we tell her?” He flicks a finger between the two of us.

  “That I picked up a really cute hitchhiker?”

  A dark rumble of a laugh strums from him as he pulls me in close and lands a kiss to the softest spot on my neck. “I think maybe tonight is the perfect night to test the waters—as far as sisters go. How about we go for the truth?”