Bounty(34)

While he was talking, Wood looked his way. “Jesus, Deke. Had no clue.”

“Ma eventually got a job, I was old enough, so did I. We got out. Took two months, but we got out. Worked and didn’t go back to school to keep us out of that fuckin’ place.”

“That sucks, brother,” Wood said quietly.

It fucking did.

It was the worst.

He could hack it. Deke could hack anything. He didn’t need much. Learned not to need it so his mother could live with not being able to give it to him.

But he’d fucking hated watching his mother suffer like that. Worry so bad, she never slept (and Deke knew she hadn’t because he didn’t and he heard her toss and turn in her cot in that fucking shelter). Kick her own ass she couldn’t give her boy better. Beg child protective services to let her keep him as she pulled her shit together.

He hated all that because there was a lot to hate.

And most of that hate was about him putting his dick where it didn’t belong and making it so his ma went through that.

Since there was no reason to reply to Wood, Deke didn’t.

“I get what you’re sayin’, man, but Emme’s family’s got money and she’s not like that,” Wood noted.

“Yeah, and Emme’s got Decker’s ring on her finger,” Deke returned.

“What I’m sayin’ is, your story sucks and you’re a brother, we’re tight, I hate knowing that happened to you and your ma. But still, not all kinds are the same as their kind. Emme’s proof of that.”

Deke looked to the lake.

“This Jus young? Old? Pretty? Married?” Wood asked.

“Young. Not pretty, fuckin’ pretty. No ring, no man I can see.”

“And she’s bringin’ you sandwiches.”

Deke returned his attention to Wood. “She likes the fire pit I built.”

Wood burst out laughing.

Deke looked back to the lake.

Wood was still laughing when he asked, “You that clueless?”

Deke turned eyes back to Wood.

“She’s into me,” he said quietly. “She tries to hide it but she gives it away a lot. I am not gonna go there, Wood. Even if she isn’t a cunt like most of her kind are, she’s not Emme. Shit, pregnant and Emme’s fightin’ Deck about letting her do some drywalling or whatever the fuck in that fuckin’ wreck of a house of theirs. Emme’s not like a lot of women.”

“This is true,” Wood muttered.

“Jus doesn’t work,” Deke kept at him. “I don’t even know what she does, except talk on the phone and spend money. Bangin’ the woman who’s payin’ my wages is fuckin’ stupid. It’s not gonna happen. Been there, learned that lesson the hard fuckin’ way.”

“Yeah you did,” Wood replied quietly.

Deke heard his words, didn’t acknowledge them because he didn’t need to and kept going.

“Job’s done, going there, unless the promise of her is a total lie, it’d be fuckin’ great. But I’d go in knowin’ there was nothin’ but a lot of fucking to get our fill and nothin’ on the other end for either of us. Got enough experience to know most women don’t like that shit. Women like her would like it less. So it’s not gonna happen.”

“Why would there be nothing?”

“Lot her place is on cost more than I’ve made, maybe in my life, Wood. Wherever she came from to get here, she doesn’t need to work, and trust me, she did not just win the lottery. Kinda money she’s got, you can smell it from a mile, sunk down deep in her bones. Would you be down with that?”

“Fucks me to say, I see your point,” Wood replied.

Deke’s gaze went to the lake.

“I see your point, Deke, but the woman’s bringing you sandwiches,” Wood said. “She might not be what those bitches treated you to. And if she’s into you, be cool.”

“Not bein’ a dick,” Deke told the lake, though he was, just enough of one to put her off.

He could be a bigger dick but she didn’t deserve it. He knew that even if he had no idea about her and the little he knew he wished he didn’t.

He also wasn’t being a bigger dick because when she was being cute, he didn’t have it in him. No one could be a dick to Jus when she was being cute, and if you didn’t wake her up, she was cute all the fucking time.

He didn’t share this with Wood. He also didn’t share that he still could not shake the fact that there was something familiar about her.

But Deke knew he couldn’t have met Jus before, and not just because she was so damned friendly, if he had, she’d be all over that.

Because he’d remember her, no way he’d forget meeting a woman like Jus, those eyes, that hair, those legs, that ass, all that fucking cute. No way in hell.