Page 4

FOUR

JACE

Heat blew upward from Ivan’s black car, which had been parked on the street for the last two hours. I waved my hand uselessly, then flipped a pack of cigarettes upside down and tapped one out, sticking it between my lips.

Ivan sat behind the wheel. “Changed your mind?”

I shook my head. “I can’t.”

Ivan snorted. “You have a weird value system, Jace.”

He didn’t understand that moving products wasn’t worth the risk. I’d be a liar if I said I hadn’t been tempted. Ivan paid his mules well, depending on what they carried. Personal-use weed was the most common and lowest-paid, but there were things people moved for a nice sum. If you were willing to cross state borders, you were eating straight from the pot of honey. Swap honey for gold if you moved shit in and out of the country.

But I couldn’t do it. Not yet, anyway. The lesson I had learned long ago was not to underestimate how desperate I might become.

“There are other ways to make money in this world, my friend,” Ivan said.

I ignored him. There were skills I could put to work, but I still had some change in my pocket before I had to think about it. “DJ still has eyes on him?” I asked.

“DJ is having some trouble, and he’s keeping a low profile,” Ivan said.

“I just need to know if things get out of hand,” I argued.

“Why do you care?” Ivan asked. “He turned you away.”

I rubbed my chin in thought. “He’s thinking about it.”

Ivan shook his head. “I don’t know why you think he’ll change his mind.”

Easton’s picture-perfect looks from his social media accounts had misled me to think he’d had it all figured out. The dark circles around his puffy eyes and the unkempt, shaggy mop of hair I’d seen today were anything but perfect. But he was still Easton—quick to get annoyed, reluctant to listen, but… “He always ends up doing what I want.” Or had, at least. But too many years had passed.

We had had a tense childhood, and our teenage years had only been worse. Easton would have been right thinking I’d hated him at first glance. What eight-year-old wanted a little brother brought home like a puppy in a box? He’d been seven when they’d adopted him, and he had been the fulfillment of all their dreams. Polite, timid, and cute as a button, Easton had gotten everything that I had longed for but didn’t know how to demand. The little attention I had been getting before his arrival was gone the moment they named him my brother.

Of course, he was no such thing. He was an orphan like me, and some cosmic joke had put us in the same house. He’d fought me about everything until we were a little older. Then, as his hatred for me intensified, I found ways of persuading him to do what I asked.

“But something’s up,” I said. “He’s not himself.”

“How would you know?” Ivan asked, aware that I had been gone for seven years.

I rolled my eyes. “He looks like a hot mess. That shit ain’t chronic. You only see that when something happens.” Had he been depressed for a long time, I doubted he would have looked so haggard. Besides, DJ had seen Easton around a lot over the last year. This was new. His roommate had moved out abruptly, and Easton went downhill.

We were silent for a while. I flicked my cigarette out of the window and rubbed my eyes. I figured Easton would be ready to see me again tonight. I needed his goddamn bed, and he would give it, but there was more to this. I hadn’t expected to be concerned so much about a guy who’d spent years actively hating me.

“Are you coming back with me or what?” Ivan asked.

I shook my head. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll stick around a little longer.”

Ivan had proposed letting me sleep in his car, but the nights were still warm enough that a bench would serve me just fine if it came to that.

It was late afternoon, and the heat was starting to let go. I picked up my backpack, thanked Ivan for thinking about me, and got out.

I would have gone back with him. I probably should have, too. The car seat was way more comfortable than the bench. Besides, sitting on the porch with Georgia and Ivan would have been a much more pleasant way to spend my evening than stalking Easton Harper.

But I had a hunch.

It was like a faint buzz of electricity somewhere behind my back. I could feel the hairs rising along my neck. It uncoiled itself in the pit of my stomach as I walked away from Ivan and the parking lot. The bag. The guys. It felt like something was brewing.

I wanted to say I was so selfish that I couldn’t afford Easton getting into trouble before he handed me his spare keys, but the truth was worse than that. I was beginning to worry that he was in more trouble than he could handle.

Now, I didn’t owe the fucker a goddamn thing, but I had a handful of good memories of him from a long time ago, and I hated to see him get screwed on my watch.