Kristen Ashley - Play It Safe

Casey was now close but he leaned back. “A cop?”

I nodded. “A cop.”

“He say shit to you?”

I shook my head. “No, but he took one look at me outside my hotel room and the guy accused me of hustling. I didn’t, the local guy who stepped up for me confirmed this but this cop is not dumb. We gotta go.”

Casey studied me.

Then he asked, “How much you win, Ivey?”

I sighed, then started, “Casey –”

“How much…” he leaned in this time, “ did you win? ”

“Five hundred dollars.”

He grinned and leaned back, muttering, “Fuckin’ awesome.”

“Casey, really –”

“Give me a hundred,” he lifted a hand, palm up. “No, hundred and fifty. I’m gonna buy my girl flowers.”

I stared.

I needed gloves.

While Casey was carousing, to stop from being bored, I needed books.

A man bled for me and if I was going to spend any of the money I won, it would be buying him another warm scarf. Or a hat. Or, I didn’t know, fifty candy bars. Or, maybe, sending some flowers to his Grandma who hated me then getting out of town which was what she wanted most out of me.

Casey spending a hundred and fifty dollars on some woman, absolutely not.

“Are you nuts?” I asked softly.

“Yep, I’m in love.” He shook his hand at me. “Lay it on me, Ivey.”

I shook my head. “No, Casey. Honestly, we have to go. ”

“You didn’t hustle him, cop didn’t hassle you, we’re cool and we’re solid, you got more money. We can stay another day, two.”

God!

My brother!

“Casey!” I snapped, his face twisted, he took a step closer, bent and got in my face.

“She’s special, Ivey. No shittin’ you, this one is different. I like her. You’re always whinin’ about findin’ somewhere safe, somewhere we can settle, somewhere we can take root. Maybe, you think, she’s the one, this might be it?”

That was it. That was my brother, Casey.

I was always whining about that, or I used to. I quit. Waste of breath.

But I used to do it all the time.

Stop the hustle. Stop driving here and there and everywhere. Stop keeping track of where we’d been so we could make sure to avoid going back. Stop living out of a hotel room, a suitcase. Have more than some clothes, a few books, some makeup and jewelry. Have a coffeemaker. Eat food you cooked not food cooked for you.

He never gave in. He never wanted to settle. He disallowed connection, especially for me, with a fervor that many would think was unhealthy but, what we went through, what I went through then what he went through for me, was definitely not.

Now, because he had found something he liked, it was a possibility.

As for me, Mustang was exactly where I wanted to be. I knew it. It was Gray but it was more than Gray. It was Janie. It was knowing the cops in town were good cops, or at least one of them was. It was that crazy restaurant blighting the perfection of the town square.

It was Gray.

And, for Gray, I had to get the heck out of there.

“Casey, I don’t want this to be it,” I lied.

“I don’t care. Lived my life for you. Minute Mom squirted you out, Ivey, I’ve lived my whole fuckin’ life for you. Now, you give me a goddamned day or two, a coupla hundred dollars and you let me live my life for me. ”

I sucked in breath and held his angry eyes.

He was not right.

And he was also absolutely not wrong.

I closed my eyes.

“I’m fallin’ in love with her, sis, I feel it.” I heard him whisper.

I opened my eyes.

Darn.

“I cannot give you a hundred a fifty dollars, Casey and you know it.”

He grinned.

“You get sixty, no more,” I said softly.

His hand darted out, curled around my neck, he pulled me in and kissed my forehead.

Then he let me go and smiled huge at me. “I’ll make that work.”

Darn.

Three and a half hours later…

I was in Mustang Library which was diagonal to the square opposite our hotel. It was a narrow, brick, freestanding building, attractive, the number in the cream mortar declaring it was built in 1928. Walk in, half flight of steps down to basement full of shelves, half flight of steps up to first floor full of shelves and more steps to another floor full of shelves.

As with the department store, I didn’t think Mustang could sustain a library, not one like this. But on the basement level, I heard a bunch of kids, young ones, so obviously the school did field trips there. And it couldn’t be said, perusing the shelves, there weren’t a variety of old folks obviously on fixed incomes looking for free entertainment, same with a few housewives whose husbands clearly had trouble making ends meet so the romance novel addiction couldn’t be assuaged by purchases but instead borrowing.

I was there to borrow but I didn’t have a library card. My book would make it to my purse. I read fast and I had all night. I’d return it in the outside return tray I saw when I walked in. I wasn’t a thief, I was a hustler. But even if I was a thief, I’d never steal from a library.

With love blooming for Casey and an indeterminate stay in Mustang, we had to be even more careful with money. This meant I couldn’t buy a book, definitely, or even any magazines which were really just throwing money away. I was not going back to the bar, no way. And if there was nothing on TV, which, from experience, there really never was, I’d need something to keep me from being bored.

I found my book, slid it into my purse and smiled brightly and openly at the librarian as I walked out. I might not be a thief but, as mentioned, I was a hustler. To hustle, you learned what to hide and what not to hide. Game face. If you acted flakey and secretive, the jig would be up.

I figured the same thing for illegally borrowing library books and I figured right. The librarian smiled brightly back and I took off.

Down the block, across the street and in the square, I saw Casey heading my way, big smile on his face with a huge bouquet of flowers in his hand. More than a twenty dollar bouquet which meant it was probably thirty or even, looking at it, forty. I had no clue. I’d never bought flowers or received them. But that looked like a lot of flowers.

This meant he was going to hit me up for more money.

Again.

I was considering asking him for the car so I could drive a couple of towns over (maybe three), find a bar and do a flash hustle. One-nighter, no Casey casing the joint, setting up the mark then calling me in. Just lots of bending over pool tables pretending I didn’t know what I was doing, lots of time watching stupid men drink whisky and watch me then I’d take their money. I did it and often. This usually didn’t pull down much. Sometimes twenty, usually fifty, if I was lucky and the guy was a moron with a wad of cash, a hundred or even two.

But I figured it was too hot. Who knew what Bud Sharp and his sidekicks were spreading around and how far that would reach? Also, who knew how long this crush would last for Casey and how long we needed to keep our noses clean.

Hells bells.

My brother was half a block away, still grinning like a loon carrying his flowers, heading toward me when suddenly I wasn’t walking toward him anymore.

Instead, an arm hooked my waist, my body shifted, my forward momentum shifted with it and I found myself slamming front-to-front into a long, hard frame.

I knew that jacket. I knew that scarf.

I looked up.

Gray.

He was grinning and his was huge too, dimple and everything.