“What?” I shook my head, confused. “No. Why would you think so?”
He held my eyes for a long moment, and though I tried to figure out what he was thinking, I found no clue in his expression. “Never mind,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.”
I took the glass of wine he handed me, then took a sip. I considered dropping the whole thing. He was right, after all. I wasn’t staying. In three weeks, I’d be gone. So what did it matter if I never dug beneath that tarnish to see the man hidden inside?
Except it did matter. I wasn’t entirely sure why, but it mattered a lot.
“Is it because of the kind of business you’re in?”
“You mean the strip club?”
“I mean whatever you do that makes you not a safe bet.”
He leaned back against the counter and took a sip of his own wine, his eyes never leaving my face. “I think I know a certain FBI agent who’s been putting ideas into your head.”
I licked my lips, suddenly unsure that I should have opened this door. “Listen, never mind. I don’t want to spoil dinner.”
“I haven’t even put the steaks on yet. We have time.” He put his wineglass down and crossed the galley so that he was opposite me across the bar. “What did Kevin say?”
I considered avoiding the question, but knew Evan well enough to know that he’d press. “He said that the FBI was watching you. That you’re into all sorts of shit. He wasn’t specific.”
“And you believe him.” There was no emotion in his voice. No anger. No nothing. Just a question, spoken in a monotone.
“I didn’t say that. All I want to know is why you’d tell me that you’re not a safe bet.”
“Because it’s the truth,” he said.
“Evan …”
“What?” His tone had barely changed, but somehow it was harsher now. “You want me to fill up your glass and tell you a bedtime story? Something that excites you? Something that makes you feel close to the kind of guy who can make you feel wild?”
I looked away, because that was what had started all of this, but now I wanted so much more.
“Something fast-paced, right? Maybe the story of a kid whose family went to shit when he was still in high school? Who turned to doing whatever the hell he could to make a buck in order to keep his family from having to live on the streets. Drugs. Stolen merchandise. Stolen cars. Whatever he could think of. And maybe this story’s a tragedy, do you think?”
He was speaking fast, but every word was measured. As for me, I was holding my breath, taking in every word, understanding that he was giving me a view of the inside of Evan Black, and I was doing my damnedest to see the truth behind the tale he was spinning.
“Maybe he gets arrested and sent to one of those teen work camps. The whole scared straight bullshit. But let’s not write a typical ending. Let’s not have it really work. Let’s touch on some irony. Let’s have our boy meet some other kids. Two others, and they become tight. But scared straight? Not hardly.”
Cole. Tyler.
I remembered Jahn telling me that the three had met at some camp when they were teens. Holy shit.
“And then when the three got smart,” he said, leaving the kitchen area and circling the bar, “they learned how to dodge the system. How to take risks. How to do whatever they needed to do to get by, because they all three knew that the universe doesn’t play fair.” He was right in front of me, all heat and power and control. “And if the universe doesn’t play by the rules, then why the fuck should they?”
“They shouldn’t,” I said as my pulse pounded in my ears.
He stroked my bare arms as I stood there feeling exposed despite the fact that I’d slipped the short-sleeved cover-up on over the tiny bathing suit. “You don’t want a safe bet, Lina,” he said, his voice low. “Do you?”
“No.”