“They might,” he says. “But I think they know it all already. In fact, a lot of them were there to see it happen.”
“So I guess you just know everyone and everything.”
“Not everything,” he says, working my hipbones lightly between his thumb and forefinger, the sensation not searching this time, but seeking, a tease of a touch. I know I should tell him to stop, but I don’t want him to. “I don’t know your name.”
“Why should I tell you my name?” I say.
“I want to make sure I use the right one when I’m alone in bed later.”
“I find it hard to believe you go to bed alone.”
“What are you proposing?” he says as I feel a vibration on my leg. It’s nearly unnoticeable at first since my whole body seems to be vibrating from the sensation of being this close to Ryder again, until I realize it’s his phone, tucked in his jean pocket.
Leaving one hand casually draped on my hip, he pulls out the phone with the other. “Yeah?” he says into it.
While he takes the call, I take in the state of affairs on the desk behind him. If there’s an organizing principle here, I can’t determine it. There’s a balance sheet next to a pile of invoices, a handful of receipts that seem to be in no particular order, a list of one-word names—“Miller” and “Crutcher”—in a date book with a system of check marks and minuses.
I wonder if the names are fighters. And if they are, I worry about what the minuses mean for them, or someone like Jamie, who’s putting money on them.
“Fucking Brightfield. Just bring all the files here,” Ryder says into the phone. “And be discreet. I’ve already got an accountant in handcuffs, I don’t need you next to him.” He digs his fingers into my side as the tenor of the conversation becomes more agitated. “Unless you became a CPA and I missed it, there’s nothing else to do. Get here as soon as you can.” He hangs up the call, squeezing me a little between his legs as he runs his hands through his thick, dark hair. He tips his head back and closes his eyes.
“Personnel problems?” I say.
“Something like that.”
“I thought you knew all the cops.”
“It wasn’t my dirty laundry he got caught with,” Ryder says.
“So you don’t cook your books?”
“Believe it or not, tiger,” he says, “I do follow some rules.” He stands, and we’re so close our torsos touch as we breathe. “Though I prefer to have other people follow mine.” His hands brush my wrists, lingering on the inside where my pulse is, quickening as the memory of him pressed against me the other night in my bedroom floods my brain.
Focus, Cass.
I take a step back, breaking from his touch, and look up at him. “I can do it,” I say. “I can do your books. I have an accounting degree and I was the bookkeeper at my dad’s auto shop. I’m good at it and I’m trustworthy. And you don’t have to pay me. Just put it towards Jamie’s debt.”
“How sweet,” he says. “Big sis wants to save the day.”
“He doesn’t have the money,” I say. “And I’ll be damned if you’re taking my house.”
Ryder crosses his arms, taps his lips in contemplation. “Why are you doing this? Protecting him?”
“He’s my brother,” I say. “What can I say? I’m loyal.”
“If you’re so loyal,” he says, “where were you when he was going down this rabbit hole?”
“I was,” I start to say, unsure of how to start this conversation so I can finish it my way—without details. “I was away for a little while.”
“Prison?” he teases. I don’t smile back.
Of a kind. “Abroad. I was living in Europe.”
“Traveling?”
“No.”
“Modeling?”
I laugh. “Not hardly.” I shake my head.
“Sex work?” he says. He twists his mouth like he’s enjoying this game. “You know, it’s legal in some countries over there.”
“I do know,” I say, riled up again. “And no.”
“So,” he says, his eyes wide with amusement at my rekindled temper, “why’d you come home?
I glare. “I just needed a change. A fresh start.”
“Wasn’t being in Europe a change?”
I put my hands on my hips. “What does this have to do with Jamie?”
“You know, I think you should consider whether he’d do all this for you,” Ryder says. “Give up his fresh start to save your ass. Because I don’t think he would. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s fair to you.”
“Being family isn’t always about being fair,” I say.
Ryder sits in the chair on the other side of the desk, taking off his blazer. He clasps his hands together and rests his forearms on the desk’s edge. Through the white sleeves of the shirt, I can start to make out the tattoos that envelop his defined arms, all the way up his strong shoulders, this rule-breaking fighter always lurking just below the surface of the rule-following businessman, like a secret identity.
“Well, working for me is all about being fair,” he says. “You should know that.”