Give Me Something (4 page)

“
Exactly what I said.”

What a conceited asshole.  What could possibly make him think I was even remotely interested in dating him?  “Whatever you say, buddy,” I quipped, rolling my eyes. 

“You'll see,” he smirked as he grabbed my hand back in his and pulled it to his lips.  I froze at the contact of his mouth on my skin.  He slowly pulled his face up to mine and started to back away.  He took a step back, letting my hand fall, and added with a wicked grin, “Buddy.”

I watched in disbelief as he turned and headed back toward the party.  Nick's the only guy that had ever left me speechless, and it really pissed me off that Tucker had just managed to do it.  The lack of control I'd just experienced with him was not something I wanted to experience again.  Control was the one thing I had going for me.  I'd been in control of my own life for a long time now, and I didn't need some smug bastard to come along and tell me otherwise.

CHAPTER 3

The next morning I felt the sunlight beaming in through the window.  Before I opened my eyes, I let the thoughts that had kept me up half the night replay in my mind.  Nick and Tucker took up equal time.  I was tied up in knots over everything that happened with Nick and the unsettling way my night ended with Tucker.  His ocean colored eyes threatened,
or was it promised
, that I would be his girl.

“
What are you smiling about?”
Smiling?  Why would I be smiling. 
I realized that the voice asking the question wasn't in my mind. I opened my eyes to see Nick sitting at the foot of my bed.

“
What are you doing here?  I can't believe that you have the nerve to show up here after the shit you pulled last night,” I snapped, sitting up quickly.

“
Whoa, killer.” He laughed, handing me the iced coffee he was holding.  “I'm sorry about blindsiding you like that.  I should have talked it over with you before the party, but I saw an opportunity and I took it.”

I snatched the drink from him and pulled the straw between my lips as I tried to make sense of what he was saying.  “What are you talking about?”

“You know.  Roping in the mark.” He took a drink from his coffee cup.  “Might I add, that kiss was very convincing. I knew if he saw you kiss me he'd want you.  Just another entitled rich kid.”

I placed my hand over my face and squeezed my thumb and forefinger against my temples, willing my mind to decipher Nick's words.  When it finally clicked, I moved my hand down under my eyes and my jaw fell.  
Kid
was definitely the right word.  I was expecting a middle-aged egomaniac with too much money to know what do with, not a good looking young guy. I had to say the next phrase out loud to convince myself that this wasn't a dream.  I whispered in to my palm, “Tucker's the mark.”

Nick's chuckled, still oblivious to my confusion.  “You were perfect.  He came back to the party last night and demanded I tell him what was going on between us.”

“He did?  What did you say?”  I eagerly waited for his answer because I was wondering the exact same thing.  I knew he felt something when he kissed me.  It wasn't just for show.

“
I told him nothing,” he replied quickly.

“
Oh,” I said, dropping my head, and shifting my focus to the frayed edge of my sheet, mindlessly twisting the thread with my fingers to avoid looking at Nick, all the while wondering if I'd woken up in the Twilight Zone.  I was sure that what happened between us was real.  I decided to hide my stupidity from Nick.  That must have been what he whispered to me before we kissed.  I was so lovestruck that I let myself get caught off guard.  Nick moved up to the top of the bed, placed his arm around my shoulders, and pulled me back with him to lean against the headboard.  I let my head fall against Nick's shoulder knowing that I needed to get it together.  I'd agreed to help Nick.  I had to help him get the money.

“
You know you're my favorite person, right?”

“
I know,” I said, settling into him.  “This is going to be hard, Nick.  Tucker is in a completely different league than the guys I'm used to dealing with.”  He was so different. I was used to balding, overweight men, not exceedingly beautiful guys like Tucker.

“
Wait.” My hands clenched his shirt as I sat up to look at him.  “He knows my real name.”  Never once had I used my real name during a job.  Not to mention, I always wore a wig and applied fake tattoos or glasses or piercings, anything to hide the real me.  “I can't do this.”

“
You can do this.” Nick placed his hand on my cheek and pulled my face up so that my panicked stare melted into his brown eyes.  “It will be fine.”

“
No.” I shook my head as the anxiety rose. “He knows who I am.  I've never used my real name. What if, when it's over, he turns me in?!”

“
Lila,” Nick said calmly and brushed a piece of hair from my face, “you can do this. 
We
can do this.  It doesn't matter what name you use, or what disguise you're in.  You're good at this.  Do you remember how nervous you were on the first big job that we pulled?” 

I thought back to when I was seventeen.  I remembered sitting in front of the mirror, for what seemed like hours, adjusting my brown wig and applying and reapplying enough makeup to make me appear at least twenty-one.  I was beyond scared.  Nick reassured me that the job would be simple. Even thought Nick had just turned eighteen, he convinced the manager at some hole-in-the-wall bar to let him DJ.  He'd been working a few months when he noticed Mitch Laswell.  The forty-something day trader was always dressed to the nines, always had a different girl on his arm, and always carried a big wad of cash.  Nick started asking around about him and he found out that Mr. Laswell like to bring his mistresses to the out
of the way establishment.  We planned it out for weeks.  I'd catch Laswell's attention, convince him to go back to my hotel with me and, right before anything happened, Nick would storm in pretending to be my holy-rolling husband.

“
I do,” I remembered.  “That job was way easier than I thought it was going to be.”  Laswell fell for my routine hook, line, and sinker. “The look on Laswell's face when you stormed in that door and started shouting Bible verses at him was priceless.”  Nick played the part of tormented husband so well.  He even dropped to his knees and started to pray for our sins at one point and insisted that he take Laswell to his wife to confess and ask for forgiveness. The guy was so flustered at the idea of admitting his transgressions to his wife that by the end of Nick's rant, Laswell opened his wallet and pledged every dollar in it to the church as penance for his sins –  $3,348 to be exact.  I didn't feel bad for him. What kind of person carries that much cash on them anyway?

I fought back the tears as I doubled over laughing. “Have you ever even been to church?  Where did you learn the Bible verses?”

“Google,” he chuckled before turning the subject back to Tucker.  “See what I'm saying?  You were nervous then and that job went off without a hitch.  You can do this.  It doesn't matter if you're Cami or Grace or Lila.” He pulled me into his arms and I inhaled him between panicked breaths.  He always smelled so good.  The very essence of him calmed my nerves.   I could do this.  For Nick.

“
Okay.” I let myself fall deeper into his hold.  I felt his hand stroke through my hair.

“
Good.  I promise I won't let anything happen to you.”  In that moment, I believed him.  Nick had always protected me.  He'd saved me from the pitiful existence I lived before and given me a life worth living.  Before Nick, there was no college or cars, or money.  We may have had a sketchy way of getting it, but I least we were secure.  I owed it to Nick to see this through.

 
I lay there in silence as Nick rambled on about how great it was going to be to pull one over on Tucker.  Amidst Nick's berating, I learned that Tucker had just inherited his father's company, Kline Implements.  His father had made a name for himself in the buying and selling of farm equipment around the world.  A combine was to James Kline what a skyscraper was to Donald Trump.  Unfortunately, his heart wasn't as strong as his business sense.  He suffered a heart attack while jogging a few months ago.  Now, his only son, Tucker, was the heir to his fortune.

My heart broke a little for Tucker.  Even though my father and I weren't close, the idea of losing him unexpectedly was awful.  Just when I thought my heart couldn't hurt for him anymore, Nick informed me that Tucker's mother had also passed away when he was little.

“Tucker is literally the only Kline left,” Nick smirked.  “This is going to be such an easy take.”

I sat up and looked at him with disappointment.  “Don't you feel bad for him?  Both of his parents are gone.”

“Shit happens,” he responded cavalierly.

“
That's an awful thing to say, Nick.”  Maybe Nick didn't feel bad for Tucker because he never knew his father.  His mother, Evelyn, never told him who the sperm donor – Nick's words, not mine – was. She said it was the one thing in her life that she'd wished she could change.  I didn't think that she meant she regretted having Nick.  I thought it was more about the mistake of falling for a guy who couldn't love her back.  Evelyn was in the exact same line of work that I was in even though she'd never admit it.  In fact, she's the reason that Nick and I knew so much about conning in the first place.  Everything we knew we learned from watching her.  She bounced between sugar daddies like it was no one's business, but she swore that she loved every one of them.  We took notes on how to sweet talk, flirt and lie with the best of 'em. 

“
Why are you so concerned about this?” Nick asked with a look of disbelief.  “You're more heartless than I am about shit like this.”

“
I'm not heartless.” I furrowed my brow at him.  When I let myself, I could care about people.  It was just easier to shut all that off.  Emotions could ruin most things.

“
Come on, Rae,” he said with a tilt of his head.  “How many widowers have we gone after?  This isn't that different.”

“
It's totally different.  Those were grown-ass men who cheated on their dearly departed wives frequently.”    

“
You're right,” Nick said, softening his tone.  “Maybe it is sad that his parents are dead, but he's still just as arrogant as he was the day I met him.”  And just like that, he was back to ripping him apart.  “I'm telling you, Rae, he's as rotten as all the other scumbags.  I've seen it firsthand.  He's a stuck-up, spoiled brat who's had the world handed to him.  And,” he added with vigor, “I've never seen him be faithful to a girl.  He's with a new one every weekend.”

“
Okay,” I said and tried to convince myself that what Nick was saying was true.  Plus, this was one job, one mark.  I could do this.  Get the money and run.  If that meant tolerating Mr. Full of Himself for a few months then so be it.

$$$

Nick left me with a folder full of everything I needed to know about Tucker.  I scattered the contents across my bed. I began studying the copies of bank receipts, lists of his favorite activities, photographs, both professional and candid.  The pictures revealed a little bit about what Nick had told me.  He drove an expensive truck, with what appeared to be some major alterations, like big tires, tinted windows, and a bunch of other over-the-top stuff.
Farm boys and their trucks, I would never understand
.
There were dozens of shots of him with different girls.  All of them were beautiful. The unwelcome feeling of jealousy started to creep in. 
Why did I care who he'd dated?  I didn't even like him
.
I forced it aside and took his taste in women as a compliment.  He must have thought I was just as pretty as they were. Why else would he have asked me out? 

I never thought I was beautiful.  White trash pretty, maybe, but never beautiful.  Nick, on the other hand, saw something in me that I apparently missed.  Right after we started hanging out, Nick would tell me to flirt with a waiter to get us free food, or sweet talk a cop out of a parking ticket.  With him whispering directions in my ear, like “bat your eyes” or “touch his hand,” it worked.  Ninety-nine percent of the time.  One gay movie theater attendant threw off my whole average.  And, That's how this whole thing started.  We saw the reaction I had on the opposite sex and started upping the ante.  With a whole lot of practice and the access to money for clothes, hair, and makeup, I became beautiful and we moved from blue collar to white collar.

From the amount of zeros on Tucker's bank receipts, his wealth far exceeded what I had imagined. I realized that Nick had been compiling this information for a while. Since last year, at least.  It must not have been a coincidence that they were roommates.  Another one of Nick's attributes was making sure that he had uninhibited access to the subject.  Nick had already duped Tucker into thinking he was a good enough friend to live with.  This was the most work I'd ever seen him put in.  He really wanted to make this work. Perhaps there was more to the story of their relationship than Nick let on.  For some reason, staring at the piles of collected information in front of me, I felt that this job was a little too personal for Nick. 
I shook off the uneasy feeling that was looming in the back of my mind.  Nick had never lied to me before and he'd known Tucker a lot longer than I had.  If he says he's no good, I had to believe him. 
Right?