Dirty Deeds(8)

You would think that with my past and family I would want the safe and mundane, and I guess I craved that in most aspects of my life, but when it came to love, I wanted to be blown off my feet. Hell, I think I just wanted to feel what love was, period.

It looked like I wasn’t going to find it here.

“Are you doing okay?” Luz asked, giving me that concerned look again. “Should we take you back?”

“I’m fine,” I said before I knocked back the rest of the beer. With the painkillers coursing through my system, it was all hitting me a little fast, but I didn’t care.

When they both just stared at me, I rolled my eyes. “I said I’m fine. Really. Hit and run aside, I’m fine.”

Luz raised a brow but didn’t say anything. I took out a few pesos from my wallet and plunked them down on the table. “I’d go up and buy the next round myself, but I don’t exactly feel like crawling on my hands and knees in this place. Do you mind getting me a refill?”

She got up but left my money on the table. It was true, every time we went out I was usually the one paying for their drinks and food and little gifts. It’s not that I made more money than them, both Luz and I were paid the same, I just liked to do nice things for them. Who else would I spend my money on?

“Are you really okay?” Dominga asked quietly after a moment.

I gave her a look. “Is this just about the accident or is there something else?”

She rubbed her lips together in thought before saying, “I’m worried about you. About … who did this.”

“The police said it was a random event … shit like this happens.”

“First of all,” she said, “the police can’t be trusted. Second, shit like this does happen, but it rarely ends up with the driver being shot in the head. Don’t you think that’s weird? It has to be connected.”

Of course I thought it was weird, but I’d spent the last week in the hospital thinking about it, and I wanted to put it to rest.

“Even if it is connected, the guy who hit me is dead. Don’t you think that means someone is looking out for me? If anything.” I caught her eye and quickly added, “It’s not Javier. Believe me.”

Luz and Dominga knew all about my brother. I mean, everyone in Mexico knew about him, but only they knew that we were related. I didn’t talk about him much, mainly because I didn’t have much to say – Javier kept his life very separate from mine and for good reason. They weren’t exactly happy that I was connected to someone so notorious and regarded him with constant suspicion and disdain, even though they had never met him. Though, for all his charm, I think they’d be even more scornful if they had met him.

“So then who?” Dominga went on. “It just can’t be an accident. And if it is, why would this other person shoot him? It makes no sense and you are being way too cavalier about all of this.”

“I’m not being cavalier,” I told her. Suddenly I felt very tired. “I’m worried, very worried. But for tonight, I don’t want to be worried.”

“Yeah, Dominga,” Luz said, giving her the stink-eye as she appeared at the table, placing our drinks down. “Give her a break.” Luz grinned at me and slid my beer over. “You’ve got us both tonight. You’re safe. Let loose.”

“Oh, so now I’m allowed to let loose?”

She looked me up and down. “You can’t get too loose with the way you are.”

I took a big gulp of beer, challenged. “We’ll see.”

An hour later, I was feeling a lot looser. Two more beers had helped with that as well. They also tipped my bladder over to the breaking point.

I pushed back my chair and attempted to stand up, but suddenly Luz was beside me, holding me by the arms.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked.

“I’m trying to go to the bathroom,” I told her. “You don’t need to come with me.”

The two of them exchanged a look. “I won’t go with you into the stall, but you should probably have some help getting across the room.”

The bar at this point was completely packed, and people were being rowdy, drunken idiots. I nodded and leaned on her, not willing to risk it on my own. I’d probably be bounced against the wall and stepped on by dancing jackasses.

Eventually we made it to the washroom. It was dirty with wet floors and no paper towels, and had a line of slurring girls with smudged makeup waiting to use the two stalls. Luckily someone took pity on me and let me use it ahead of the line, even though there were a few disgruntled murmurs in the crowd. Even totally beat-up and obviously injured didn’t mean I got a free pass.