The First Last Boy(8)

"The doctor said to take the first pill within twenty-four hours of my period-"

"I don't want to know all the shit about your period. Just give me a  date." I knew I sounded like a jerk but it was my fear of damaging us  speaking. This was new territory for our friendship. I felt out of my  normal and part of me regretted saying I would have sex with her. It was  smarter to tell her this was a mistake but I didn't know that I was  strong enough to watch her walk away with some other guy.

She crammed the container back into her purse. "Dammit, Ryan. Is this  part of the asshole act you use to make sure girls don't waste their  hearts on you?"

"Who says it's an act?"

"I do, because I know you better," she snapped.

"You don't know the me you'll fuck."

"Whatever, Ryan." She turned around to stomp back toward her car.

Beneath the anger, there was a hitch to her voice. Any other girl, I  would have gone right back to wiping down the tools. But Tana wasn't any  other girl. I couldn't let her walk away.

"Hey!" I caught up to her before she could get into her car. I stuck my  hands in the pockets of my jeans to keep from reaching for her. "I  didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

"You didn't. I can separate sex from friendship, Ryan, and I can do it  without acting the way you're acting. If you changed your mind about  sleeping with me, all you have to do is say so." She sounded like she  had an attitude a mile wide and that she wasn't hurt, but I saw her  lower lip tremble slightly.

I didn't have a chance to respond to that because a black SUV pulled up  behind her car, blocking her in and when the driver's door opened, I  knew my past had just caught up to me.





Chapter Four

TANA



When the SUV pulled up and the driver's side door opened, Ryan's  demeanor changed. The expression on his face was one I'd never seen  before. He looked totally different. Hard and mean. Like he was about to  kick ass.         

     



 

"Don't say a word and don't react to anything anyone says," he warned.

I nodded and turned my attention to the guy walking toward us. He was a  skinny Asian guy, probably in his late twenties. Not handsome, but  eye-catching. His face was square, defined with all sharp edges like the  old comic book heroes. His pupils were so big, it looked like his eyes  were filled with black oil. He was dressed in black and every tattoo  lining both his arms was just as devoid of color as his clothes.

"Ryan. How you been, my brother?"

"What do you want, Chanos?"

"Am I so unwelcome?" He flung his arms out. "I can't pay my brother a little visit for old times sake?"

His gaze flicked to me and his eyes crawled over my skin. I shuddered.

"You traded up, bro. Nice. You wanna deal for the ‘ho?" Chanos reached  out his hand toward the side of my face and I clenched my teeth  together, fighting the urge to slap him.

His hand never connected with my skin. Ryan moved, putting himself between the guy and me. "You wanna keep that hand?"

Chanos' eyes widened with surprise and he lowered his arm. "You boned out and you want to talk that trash?"

"I didn't bone out. I took a bullet and we were clear."

"Yeah. We were. Then." He rubbed his forehead with his thumb. "Everybody  living happily ever after. But now, I'm missing a little something from  the warehouse where your dumbass brothers work and I think you might  know where it's hiding."

"That's not my scene anymore." Ryan put his hand out behind him when I  made a noise. He pushed me slightly to the side so that I was completely  covered by his body.

"Not your scene?" Chanos lips turned upward in amusement. "Mama Leena  has you in the church to spoon feed you some religion?" He raised his  hands toward the sky and shook them. "Hallelujah." He lowered his hands  and smirked. "Don't you know, boy, there ain't no redemption for  motherfuckers like you and me?"

I peeked up at Ryan's face. He yawned and crossed his arms.

That action made Chanos laugh. "You always were one cocky sonofabitch."  His laughter faded. "Street value thirty eight thousand. You think you  might know somebody besides yourself with balls big enough to walk out  with my product?"

I'd known Ryan long enough to know when something upset him and he  didn't want to let on. There was a slight shift in the way he stood, in  the way he curled his lip at one corner. "Can't think of anyone."

Chanos rapped his knuckles on the side of the SUV. The back doors opened  and two other guys stepped out. One black, one white, both with shaved  heads, baggy pants and lifeless eyes focused on Ryan. Their T-shirts  were caked with spots of what looked like dried blood. My stomach  churned.

"I wish I could accept that, but you know how it is." Chanos shook his  head. "You let one fucker slide and the next thing you know, there goes  the goddamn neighborhood."

"You want me to talk to him?" The white guy took a step forward right into Chanos' upraised hand.

"It's not necessary. My brother, Ryan, is a reasonable man. He knows  that when one family member owes a debt, they all owe a debt."

Ryan looked at the white guy with a sneer. "Still Chanos' bitch."

When the white guy took another step forward, Chanos warned him, "Ryan's  the king of bare knuckle hurt. I once saw him break a man's jaw who was  twice his size. Put that baby in the dirt begging for mercy. He'll fuck  you up the same if you touch him. Make you wish you were dead. Isn't  that right, Ryan?"

Ryan didn't answer and the guy looked at Chanos and then back at Ryan.

Chanos moved closer and looped his arm around Ryan's shoulder. "I think  you can ask some questions, yeah? Find out who's playing hide and seek  with my kilogram, for old time's sake, huh?"

"Yeah. Sure."

Chanos smiled and patted Ryan on the back. "See? I knew I could count on  you. Once a family, always a family." His dark gaze switched to me and  his voice lowered like the hiss of a snake. "And you know how much it  hurts to lose a member of the family." He made a twirling motion with  his hand and the two guys with him went back to the SUV. Chanos opened  the driver's door and looked at Ryan. "I'll be waiting."

As soon as the SUV was gone, I breathed out. "Losing a member of the family? He was threatening me."

"Uh huh." He was edgy, impatient.

"Because someone took drugs that belonged to him?" I wanted to hear Ryan  say it because I could hardly believe one of his brothers was messing  with a drug dealer.         

     



 

Ryan headed back to the garage and started turning off the lights. When  he was through, he came back to where I waited. "Why don't you go home  and I'll call you later?"

"I'm not stupid, Ryan. Something is going on with your brothers and that guy's drugs, right?"

For a second, I thought Ryan was going to tell me again to leave, but he sighed. "Yeah, something bad."

I rubbed my hands on my arms and shivered.

He shot me a look. "What's wrong?"

"Seeing that out there made me realize that even though you and I have  been friends for years, there's a part of your life I don't know  anything about," I said, hoping maybe he'd tell me what that part was.

"And it's going to stay that way."

Ryan should know I didn't blow off that easily. "You said you took a bullet. What did you mean?"

The impatience was back, stronger this time. He gave me a hard look.  "Tana, trust me when I tell you my past is a world you don't want to  know anything about."

"If it concerns you, I do."

He assessed me, his eyes going dark and then haunted. "You think you're ready for my world?"

His question was heavy with a meaning I didn't really understand, but I nodded anyway.

"Come inside." He walked back into the garage and without turning on the  light headed into the small office. Pushing open the door, he stepped  in, waited for me to enter and then slammed the door hard behind me. The  glass in the small window rattled and I jumped slightly. "Alright, rich  girl, I'll show you."

I hated when he called me that. Rich girl was a different world, a  different person. He was only saying it to try and get under my skin.  When he wanted me to stop pushing him for answers that bothered him, he  would needle me, trying to drive me away but this time it wasn't going  to work. "Show me what?"

Dropping his hands to his belt buckle, he unfastened it and slowly  unzipped his jeans. I breathed faster and jerked my gaze to his face.  "What are you doing?"

"Showing you the world you're so concerned about."

He pushed his jeans down to his knees and I gasped at the long, puckered  scar on the upper part of his right thigh. He tapped the area. "I took a  bullet meant for Chanos."

I tried not to focus on the hard muscles of his legs, on the outline of  what I could see he was packing in his boxers. It became harder to  breathe as a wave of desire slammed into me and I had to force my  attention away from the bulge. "You saved a life. Even if the guy is a  bad person like that dealer. That makes you a hero."