Cadillac Payback: Rising Tide by AJ Elmore (grave mercy .TXT) 📗

in the space between, filling it with pungent scent and history. In some other world, I'd devour that straight-set mouth, and those excellent lines. In this life, I can't even move.

He leans forward, across the table, toasting against the shot I never picked up.

He says, “She didn't tell you?”

I slowly shake my head, one side to the other. Finally I find some little reserve of my resolve and pick up my shot. He's still holding my gaze with his, and there's a crease across his brow. I know this expression. Usually it's a response to me. It's about a sixty-forty split between concern and anger.

He says, “She's up to something.”

I clink my glass against his. Sometimes the double tap is the difference between a point proven and failure. We throw them back without another word. This time, he makes the tiniest grimace. So do I. This one, it's a little more bitter.

I pass the blunt to him, and say, “I think it's a test.”

He grabs the blunt, props his elbows on the edge of the table and takes a drag. I can see his collarbone peeking from the v of his shirt. I try not to notice, but the weed and tequila are winning.

He exhales, and says, “That's a given.”

Then he coughs a little.

There's something…challenging in the way he openly watches me, and the way he's so comfortable and sexual. The only thing that separates us is a glass corner. I fold my hands together on the table in front of me, a near mirror of his pose. What is this? Is this the legendary game he developed alongside my brother?

He takes one more puff on the blunt and passes. Then he says, “Or maybe she knows that Freddy wouldn't be here if you weren't.”

I can feel my eyes narrow, and there's nothing I can do to stop them. He's right, but that wasn't what I was going for. He uncaps the tequila, and my stomach turns. This is what was supposed to happen, right? He was the baby, set to learn or fail. And he's not failing. He never has.

More than anything, it kinda pisses me off that he figured it out way fucking faster than I did.

He pours two shots with the ease that comes from experience, and the bottle clangs against the glass tabletop when he sets it down. I watch his hands, not his eyes, but I can tell his attention has returned to me.

I eye the shots, and say, “I had that thought, too.”

I'm not looking at him. That could lead him to believe I'm bluffing. I don't believe he'd be easy to fool, and I doubt he believes I would bluff about this particular subject. I just don't want to see how goddamned delicious he is. And I don't want to think about how I haven't been laid in over a year. It was a self-imposed sentence, a pittance for my sins, but his presence is unraveling my resolve.

This was a terrible idea. How can I tell him to leave at this very moment, with shots waiting for us? I can't. I started this. What the fuck was I thinking?

I remember that I'm holding the blunt, and it's burning away. Not that wasting a little really means anything. I have an endless supply. Yet there's something inherently wrong about a blunt left burning idly.

I tap it against the ashtray, and pull my heavy eyes back up to Joshua.

He says, “Why are you telling me?”

“Because you deserve to know.”

I pass the blunt without hitting it. I wonder if he'll notice.

He takes it, holds it just as he holds the attention I gave him. I think he wants to speak, but he just picks up his shot and waits. Maybe I'm wrong, and he doesn't mean to say a word.

Three shots this close together, these days, is a lot for me. I won't say as much. I won't back down, this was my game to begin with. I grab my shot with a steady hand. Still, there's something that wants to be said, so I just hold mine, too.

Finally he says, “Moving him won't change that fact.”

I feel like he's baiting me, trying to get me to say something he wants to hear. Not tonight.

I say, “I know. But I'm telling you because it affects you. So I hope you're prepared to take a step up.”

The words come out pointed, with a little more sass than I intended. I guess it's just habit these days. Still, he bridges the space between us with his liquor, wearing a tiny, sardonic grin.

When I answer the toast, I don't feel like I won that round. The liquor burns on its way down, and I'm so high I could be floating. Josh passes the blunt.

I lift it toward my lips, and freeze. He didn't hit it either. I stab it into the ashtray instead, and that infuriating smirk is still in place when I look back to him.

“What's so funny?” I ask, falsely haughty.

He leans forward and rests his chin in one hand. He cocks his head to the side. He's only feet from me, too close, but it would give me away to scoot back now.

He says, “You invited me in, and now you won't even look me in the eye. What's the problem?”

How dare he call me out. My surprise runs straight through to my expression, too fast to hide it. For a moment, I'm dumb. I can't find any words or my voice. The tequila dulls the edges of my defenses and the lines that are drawn between us.

Finally I manage to say, “The problem is that you're gorgeous.”

His shock decimates his cocky grin, and something dark clouds his eyes. He said he wouldn't push to be something to me, and he wouldn't go unless I told him to. So far, he's kept his word, but I almost wish he'd cross the line. It's not a fair wish. Mine usually aren't.

After a long frozen moment, he