Crazy Eights (Stacked Deck Book 8) Read online

  “Shut up.” I thrust up from the recliner and leave the room to go in search of an ice pack. “Stop speaking about us like we’re a couple. You’re not helping. In fact.” I whip the freezer door open, snatch up an ice pack, then close it again with a slam. “You’re doing harm. I can’t have him, and that makes me sad. So stop being a prick about it.”

  “So, with all your free time,” that chick’s voice drones from the television. “What are your plans for the rest of the year?” I stop back in the living room just in time to catch the woman’s smirk. “Your mother was your age when she was pregnant with you, was she not?”

  Jamie’s eyes soften with love. “She was.”

  “Do you have a special friend in your life, Jamie? Evelyn is clearly paired with Ben Conner. Former heavyweight world champion, four time—”

  “I know who he is,” Jamie chuckles. “He and I ate at the same table every day this week. I know how many titles he held.”

  “And your sister is engaged?”

  Jamie’s eyes narrow just a little. “My sister is happily engaged to the man she’s loved since they were children.”

  “So that leaves you, right?” The woman digs, digs, digs. And though I’m disgusted at her intrusion, I still find myself lowering back into my chair in silence. “Your mom and dad were friends since childhood. Your sister and her fiancé too. Is there a special someone in your life that you’ve been hiding from us?”

  Jamie’s eyes snap to the camera. To me. I swear, he sees me just as clearly as I see him. “I had a very special someone, Miss Harp. We were children, we were very much in love, but then the universe tore us apart like an old boat in a hurricane. I don’t know about her, but I’m still trying to collect the pieces.”

  “Oh damn,” Will mumbles. “He’s going deep.”

  “Could she be watching tonight?” Harp asks with a twinkle in her eyes. “Could your special someone be watching right now?”

  “I don’t know,” he murmurs. “She might be.”

  “And if she is?” Harp presses. “Is there something you would want to say to her?”

  I remember back to when I was a child, to episodes of The Flash, where he would cross the screen as nothing more than a blur. That’s how it feels when a woman dashes into view. She stops in front of Jamie, presses her hands to his shoulders in an intimate way that makes my stomach cramp. Then she pulls him down to whisper in his ear.

  I have only a moment to be jealous. To want to rip that bitch’s hair out by the roots. To want to use her mahogany hair to swing her around. But then my brain catches up, and I find myself on my knees just two feet from the TV.

  Two feet from Jamie.

  Two feet from Sophia Solomon – my dancing hero – while she consults with Jamie.

  Then she’s gone again, her movement a blur, her hair the first and last thing we see, until Jamie looks down the barrel of the camera and straight into my soul.

  “I would say that I plan to travel this year. I would tell not only her, but the country, that I’m planning a cross-country vacation for the last few months of this year. And then I would warn her… I’m coming.”

  “Oh shit, Bubbles…”

  I drop back to my ass and press a hand to my pounding heart.

  “I have five hundred thousand dollars for anyone who can help me find her.”

  “Oh no.” I hyperventilate. “Oh no, oh no, oh no.”

  “Long, brown hair, blue eyes the color of unwashed denim. Bow lips, the best kind for kissing. Pert nose with the tiniest upturn.”

  I bring a hand up to touch my nose.

  “High cheekbones. Cat-like eyes. Not the full slant, but it’s there. It’s noticeable. Five feet six or seven inches tall. Rarely wears heels, so no need to factor that in. A hundred and twenty pounds, maybe one-twenty-five, if she’s been slamming down the cheeseburgers lately. She likes to dance, so maybe a mom who is watching this might recognize her as your kid’s teacher.”

  “Bubbles!” Will snaps.

  “No visible ink as of the last time I saw her. And if I know her like I think I do, I doubt she’ll have any now. She’s too cheap to waste money on frivolities.”

  “I am not cheap!”

  “She has a thing for jeans and men’s jackets. So in the winter, she’ll throw you off with her shape and weight. She wears a beanie in the winter, so I bet she’s a hat person in the summer.” He pauses for a moment. Grins. “Indians. I would lay good money on the fact she wears an Indians hat.”

  “How could he possibly know that?!” I shout. “Will!”

  “Her brother is an Indians fan,” Jamie answers my question. “So I bet she stole his hat long ago and never gave it back.”

  “What an ass!” I snap. “Now I can never wear my hat again.”

  Will sits back on the couch in what appears to be a mix of exhaustion and humor.

  Jamie ratting me out on national TV is going to get us both caught. Potentially killed. But at the same time…

  “He’s still crushing on you, Bubbles. And he just created a manhunt with your face all over it.”

  “Five hundred thousand dollars,” Jamie reiterates. “Here.” He points at his chin. “The cutest butt chin you’ll ever see. Find me the butt chin, or give me information that leads to her whereabouts, and I’ll hand over the reward money.”

  “Wow.” The interviewer finally comes back on screen with wide eyes and what may be a blush working its way along her cheeks.

  Meanwhile, I can’t catch my breath. I can’t cope. I can’t breathe at all.

  “What is so special about this woman? Apart from the chin thing.”

  He looks me straight in the damn eyes, and snarls, “She took something that belongs to me.”

  My gaze snaps down to the watch on my wrist. My mind swings to the wallet that sits buried in my bedside drawer.

  “She took something that is very important to me, and I want it back.”

  “You are in so much fuckin’ trouble,” Will chuckles. “Like, I should be pissed he just blasted you for millions to see. Because now we have all these fuckers who are gonna be looking for you, and undoing all of our hard work. But at the same time…” He grins. “His method is kinda gangster. I like it.”

  “Will!” I push to my feet and storm toward my brother with a closed fist. “You ass! We’re hiding, and he just put a price on my head.”

  “I sure hope all those hunters know he wants you alive and unharmed. Oh.” His eyes light up. “I wonder if I can drop you off there myself? I get to put you somewhere safe, and I can take the cash. It’s win-win, really.”

  “I’m going to dropkick you into next week. I swear to god.” I slam my fist into his meaty shoulder, then storm out of the room and into the hall. “I need a nose job!”

  “No point. Your chin is what makes his toes curl.”

  I burst into my bedroom and drop onto the side of my bed. “I hate you, William. I hate that you think this is funny!”

  “I thought I would be pissed.” He follows me in and stops at the doorway. “But he didn’t say your name. He didn’t say mine. He didn’t mention the cops, or Nate – and we know they know about that now. Everything he said was approved by Sophia, and we both know she controls all that shit. It also means, even with all her technology and power, she can’t find us on her own.” He purses his lips. “That’s kinda cool in itself. I feel like we should pat ourselves on the back.”

  “Will!”

  “He’s not looking to get us arrested, Bubbles. He just wants his girlfriend back.”

  “I said no. What we had is gone, and I’m not leaving you here to rot just so I can live it up on someone else’s money. That’s not how this is going down.”

  “Return yourself, claim your five hundred thousand, then you won’t be living on anyone’s money but yours.”

  I turn to him and growl. “Go. Away.”

  I want to cry. I want privacy. I want a minute alone to grieve the boy I fell in love with, the man who refuses to
set me free. I want to go back in time and undo what we did.

  I don’t want to regret the time I spent with Jamie, but if I knew then how much it would hurt now…

  Damn. I probably still would have done it.

  “Please go away, Will.” I bring a hand up to swipe beneath my nose. “Please leave me alone for a little bit. I’m exhausted.”

  “Bubbles…” He steps into my room despite my plea, and crouches down beside my bed. “I love you,” he begins. Such simple words, packed full of truth. “You are literally the only person on this planet I love. And I swear, I’m doing what I can to get us out of this mess.” He takes my hand and squeezes. “You’re so intent on not leaving me that you’re making my mess your mess. I’m searching for him. For Nate. I’m searching for the bullshit witness. I’m trying really hard to clear my name just so I can clear yours. But you could make my life easier if I wasn’t so worried about you being in the line of fire.”

  “If I leave you, you won’t work so hard to exonerate yourself. You’ll hide, and I’ll lose you.”

  “I’ll be around.” He reaches up and chucks my chin. “But I swear, my life would be a hell of a lot easier if I wasn’t always so worried about you. Every time I walk out that front door, I worry this is the time someone will follow me back. Every time my eyes meet anyone else’s – even the chick from the deli down the street – I worry that this is the time I’ll be recognized and turned in. If you weren’t here, then I could move more freely. I could think of you dancing with Sophia, teaching little kids in safety.”

  “I teach kids here! I’m safe.”

  We absolutely do not tell Will about Victoria, Zeus’, or Evan McGrady. That would be a bad tactical move on my part.

  “You work all damn night in the ghetto, Bubbles. You go to people’s homes for private dance tutoring. They keep you out till all hours like they don’t care that they’re eating into your sleep time.”

  “Some students have busy lives,” I pad my lies with another. “Some have regular day jobs, so they can’t train until the evenings. It’s reasonable.”

  “Seven o’clock is reasonable. Even eight. Not nine, or ten, or eleven. There’s no need for you to be tutoring at midnight.”

  “I have a lot of students. That’s how we pay the bills.” Partial truth. “I have a session at seven, but then I have to schedule someone else in at eight. And someone else at nine. I have to get through them all, or we don’t have money to pay the rent.”

  “You shouldn’t be paying our rent!”

  “Oh please. I’m twenty-three years old. I’m an adult, which makes us equals now. You carried me all our lives, Will. You did good, but now it’s time to share the load. Now please leave.” I scoot back on my bed and rest against the wall. “I want to be alone. I want to cry for a minute, and then I’m gonna shake off Jamie Kincaid, and get back to work.”

  “Work, being…?”

  “Finding Nate Hardy, finding whoever wants to get you into trouble, and then maybe finding me a date. Because we both know I need to move on from my ex.”

  “Bubbles…”

  “I might have a lead on something.”

  I think of Evan’s offer. Of his contacts, his ability to smooth things out for me.

  But then I think of the personal cost for such access to his world.

  A part of me acknowledges that, for Will’s freedom, it may not be too high of a price to pay. He sacrificed his whole life for me; it would only be fair that I do the same for him.

  As soon as he leaves my room and closes the door, I open my bedside drawer and take out my old phone, Jamie’s wallet, and the business card I stole from the front desk of Sophia’s dance studio.

  I have a new phone now, one that is in no way connected to the girl Jamie knew. But despite the myriad reasons I should have dumped this one, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let it go. Because tossing my phone away means tossing Jamie away. It means tossing his cell number. It means tossing our text message history.

  And in all these years, I’ve yet to find the strength to delete that part of my soul.

  Leaning forward, I reach back into the drawer and take out my old charger, and plugging it into the wall, I begin charging the device that hasn’t been turned on in years.

  I need him to let me go. To release me. To move the hell on and free me from the love he promised we would create together.

  He was right; we did it. But I had no clue back then what that would mean for me when I could no longer have him.

  Jamie

  Sometimes, A Guy’s Gotta Be Tactical

  “What the hell was that?” As soon as the cameras are switched off, and the press leave my family’s estate, my mom squares up and smacks my arm. “Jamie! What the hell are you thinking?”

  “I want to find her,” I grit out and rub my aching arm. One bad move on the mats, one overeager student, and a guy’s tendon tears right down the seam. “I need to find her.”

  “It’s been years! You need to stop. And you!” She turns on Sophia as the ballerina walks by. “You gave him the green light to pull that stunt. What the hell happened to not giving the media anything personal?”

  “He described a girl’s appearance.” She shrugs. “I said no names, no locations. And I talked him down from two million dollars. I did you all a favor.”

  “You put a price on her head!” Mom booms. “You made her a target, and I don’t know if you know, but people have hurt others for the shoes off their feet, for the lunch money in their schoolbag. Five hundred thousand dollars is life-changing to most, and now you’ve just mobilized an army of thousands,” she turns on me, “tens of thousands, who will want that cash. Do you really think they’re gonna be gentle when they find her? You know that girl has a bad attitude and zero inclination to be dragged around. So when they find her, and she tells them to fuck themselves, what the hell do you think they’re gonna do to her to get her to cooperate?”

  “Mom, I…” I didn’t think it that far through. “What do you care? She’s no one to you.”

  “She’s the girl my son is in love with, that’s who she is to me!”

  “I’m not in love with her,” I lie. “I just have a vested interest in her whereabouts. She has something that belongs to me.”

  “And when some old hick with a sawed-off shotgun grabs her off the street all for the sake of this cash, you’re telling me you’ll be okay with that? You’re not in love with her, you don’t even care that she remains unharmed?” Mom slams her hands onto my chest and shoves me back. “You selfish jerk! That’s so…” She grunts her frustration. “That’s so Kincaid of you! If she doesn’t want you, then she doesn’t have to have you! I love you, baby. I really do, and I want you to be happy, but how dare you blast her on TV like that?”

  “I didn’t show her face, Mom.” My voice cracks, and my heart swells with pain. “I didn’t say her name or anything.”

  “So these hicks are gonna grab all women with dimples in their chins? Cam isn’t the only one at risk now, and that’s on you!”

  “I’m doing my best, okay?” I swing away from her when my cell chirps on the counter. “I was in love with a girl, I miss her like I miss my fucking arm. And I need closure.” I stop when my daddy steps into my way. “I need closure! Don’t come at me about leaving her alone, because if you believed that, then you wouldn’t have spent fifteen years secretly in love with your wife before you told her how you feel.”

  I snatch up my phone. My heart comes to a complete halt, but my thumbs move fast as I unlock my screen and scramble to get to the text app.

  Cam: You don’t know what you’ve done, Jamie Kincaid. But it’s not cute! Make another statement, call the dogs off. NOW!

  “Mom!” I spin to my watchful crowd with what I’m certain is a pale face. “Mom! It worked.”

  “What worked?” She steps forward and takes my phone. But she only gets a second with it before Soph snatches it up and reads the screen with a smug grin.

  “It worked.
” She takes my cell to the opposite end of the counter and plugs it in to her computer. “Jamie, come here.” She passes the phone – cord and all – and goes to work doing whatever it is she does. “Talk to her. I need time.”

  My heart throbs with pain. My hands shake. Because this is the closest I’ve come since the moment I saw her terrified eyes as her car raced away.

  “Umm… I don’t…”

  “Ask her something,” Soph murmurs. “I’m working, but you need to open the lines again.”

  Despite how mad my mom is, she stands by me, so close that she wraps her arm around mine and rests her cheek on the ball of my shoulder.

  With shaking hands, dry lips, a scorched throat, I start typing.

  Where are you?

  Cam: No comment. But if you don’t make a statement and say that whole thing was a joke, then I will never forgive you. If you’re the reason my brother gets hurt, then I’m coming for you. An eye for an eye. Except I like Lucy. So I’m taking your eye!

  “Good,” Soph murmurs. “That’s helping.” She taps at her keyboard with lightning fast speed as her husband stands at her back. Jay’s brother stands beside him. Evie and Ben stand beside them. Bean and Mac… my whole family pack into this kitchen and watch my life tumble once more. “Ask her something else. Or better yet, get her to take your call.”

  And so I type: How do I know this is you and not someone who found your phone?

  Cam: You’re a poor little rich boy. You think you’re God’s gift to all women. You wish you were a heavyweight, but you don’t push too hard to get there, because then you’d have to fight Ben. And no matter how much you dislike fighting Miles and Mac, you really don’t wanna fight Ben Conner.

  Me: All publicly available information. Try again.

  Cam: I call you Secretary, or Lothario, or Full-Of-Shit. And you call me Quinn sometimes. Make the fucking statement, asshole.

  My heart literally aches with how fast it pumps. Dots float in my vision because of how fast my blood fires through my system. I’m talking to her! I’m literally fucking talking to her.

  Me: Asshole was never something you called me. You lose a point.