Vintage Volume Two (8 page)

“What happened?” I asked, my voice trembling as I pulled back to look at my dad’s injuries.

He shook his head. “Not now. Let’s get out of here.”

I nodded, and I turned to find Parker, who was right behind me. We ducked out of the diner, ran through an alley and around a corner, and there sat George behind the wheel of one of the limos we had arrived in just a couple of hours earlier.

Once we were settled into the back of the limo and on our way back to the hotel, I was ready for answers.

Parker spoke first. “So what does the other guy look like?”

I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t force it out. My dad chuckled.

“Do you remember Randy’s friend Carl?” my dad asked me

I nodded. Carl was always with Randy, and he always seemed like a total slime bag to me. Sort of like Randy, actually.

“He showed up. I kicked his ass.”

“How did he get past George?” Parker asked.

I sat silently, my eyes on my dad’s face. He was handsome as always, my daddy, but he looked exhausted, and the cuts and sores looked fresh and painful.

“The whole security team has pictures of all of Randy’s associates, but George ran down to pull the car around. I saw Carl first and laid in on him. Bruno is the one who broke us up and got George.”

“Where’s Carl now?” I finally asked.

My dad shrugged. “George and Bruno escorted him out.”

“Is that code for kicking his ass some more?” I asked.

My dad chuckled again, and then he winced slightly. “Yeah,” he muttered, and then he turned his attention to his phone while Parker stroked my hand in a soothing motion and I tried to look anywhere but at my dad.

The next morning, we were up early to head to the airport. I was flying home with my dad. Parker was heading back to LA with the band. Flashing Light ended up booking additional gigs on their own, and they wouldn’t be returning to LA for another two weeks.

I was thrilled for Parker and the success he was finding in his career.

But I was devastated to be away from him. I’d grown reliant on him for the safety he provided me, and I was scared to be without him while the Randy threat loomed largely in front of us.

I knew I’d have my dad nearby for protection. Unfortunately, that also meant Jadyn would be nearby.

I’d built up in my mind a million different ways that everything would be different when I returned home.

But nothing was different.

Everything was exactly the same as I had left it.

When I had left, I was in love with Parker and missing him already.

Now that I was back, I was in love with Parker and missing him already.

A lot had changed between us; we were “engaged” now, and he’d be back in a two short weeks so we could resume our charade.

Parker
.

Even as his name threaded through my thoughts, I couldn’t help but feel a little spasm in my chest just thinking of his brown eyes, his messy hair, the stubble on his jaw, the way he looked at me, the way his abs hardened under my fingertips.

I loved him, and being away from him made me realize how much.

I didn’t know what I had until it was gone. It was cliché for sure, but being away from him showed me how reliant I’d become on his presence.

It wasn’t
reliant
as in
dependent
. It wasn’t the dangerous dependence I’d had with Damien.

It was different with Parker. He provided things for me that I didn’t know I never had, and now that those things were with him on his bus in some other state, I realized how much I needed him.

I didn’t want the engagement to be a charade. I’d thought it more than once, but it was probably time to admit the truth to Parker.

The thing was…I wasn’t exactly sure how to do that.

How do you tell the man you’re fake-engaged to that you want to be actually engaged to him?

I was all for girl power, but I wanted the traditional fairy tale where the man asks the woman for her hand in marriage. That had already happened, but not the way I wanted it to. Not the way that counted. 

I immersed myself back into my job. Vintage appeared to be exactly the same as I had left it. In fact, it seemed like my absence was hardly noticed.

When I first walked in a few minutes before eight in the morning, I couldn’t help my yawn. I’d been used to sleeping in until whenever the hell I wanted to over the past month. I’d been used to an afternoon into night schedule. This was the reverse of that, and it was going to take some getting used to.

I stopped at the café and asked Heather, the café manager, for a cup of coffee. She handed it over, and I filled it with cream and sugar. I headed back to punch in, and then I met Tim up by the registers.

I took a sip of my coffee, and I watched as his eyes fell onto the ring Parker had given me.

I hadn’t really considered Tim’s reaction. I hadn’t really thought about Tim much at all, in fact.

His eyebrows rose, but he didn’t say anything. His gaze just stayed on my ring.

I broke the silence. “I'm, uh…engaged.”

He nodded. “I see that.” He turned his attention to one of those binders that held information that was a complete mystery to me. “Congratulations.”

His voice was soft. He was hurt, maybe because I hadn’t told him or maybe because it was confirmation that he had no actual chance with me.

“Thanks,” I said, and I headed down to the floor to start my daily routine.

Tim pretty much ignored me—not in an offensive way, but in a way that showed me that he was sad.

It was a fake engagement, anyway. I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t risk telling anybody. Even sweet, harmless Tim.

In my absence, Tim had taken on more hours, as had Virginia, and I couldn’t help but notice something was going on between the two of them.

It started in the afternoon. I was on the early shift, done at two, while Virginia was scheduled to start at three.

I’d been folding, my typical afternoon activity, when she came in about a half hour early.

Virginia tended to be one of those employees who rushed in through the door ten seconds after her shift was supposed to start.

So seeing her in early told me something was going on.

Tim was behind the register. The store was empty, and his eyes followed her to the break room the moment she walked into the store. They were obviously trying not to be overt about it, but I’d recently become much more aware of my surroundings. I’d recently started reading into every situation going on around me for fear of my safety. Tim and Virginia had nothing to do with my safety, but apparently my awareness extended beyond those things concerning just my protection.

Tim waited an appropriate amount of time and then pretended that he had something to do in back. I was dying to know what they were doing back there, but since I was the only employee in the front aside from Heather in the café, I knew I couldn’t head back to check on them.

An irrational part of my brain didn’t like it. I had no right to feel jealousy; Tim deserved happiness, but somehow seeing him with my friend Virginia grated on my nerves.

I always liked the fact that Tim nursed a crush on me, but now I was in his past. It was good for him, but it bruised my ego.

So I ignored the two of them, especially when they were giggling at the registers while I folded shirts, and I thought about my future at the store.

Vintage was my home, and I didn’t want to give it up. But while from the outside it appeared to be the same as it had been before I’d left for the tour, on the inside, something was different.

I didn’t hear about it my first day back, or even my second, but on the third day, I was in Barry’s office chatting about my schedule for the following week.

He had been showing me the schedule in his spreadsheet on his computer. I’d pulled a chair around to sit and look at the computer with him.

He’d excused himself to take a call on his cell phone when an email came through on his computer. He had one of those notification boxes in the bottom right hand corner of his screen that allowed previews of incoming emails. We had both been staring at the computer as we looked at the schedule, so I wasn’t exactly invading his privacy, but it wasn’t meant for me to see, surely. Only the first line of the email popped out at me before fading away, ending on a fragment, but it was all I needed to see to know that something was seriously wrong.

To: Barry Henderson

From: Ronald Sherwood, JD

Subject: Chapter 7 – Business Bankruptcy

Barry,

The documents are set to arrive at 3:00 PM. Call my

I drew in a deep breath. JD? I knew that JD indicated a lawyer. I’d seen enough paperwork around my dad’s house to learn that at an early age.

But why was Barry contacting a lawyer?

The subject line had mentioned bankruptcy. Was Barry filing bankruptcy on the store?

I had a short internal argument with myself as I heard Barry wrapping up his call. I wasn’t sure whether to be honest and tell him what I saw, play dumb, or figure out some way to help him.

And that’s when an idea struck.

If I was being honest with myself, the thought had taken root long ago, but it finally blossomed into an actual idea.

It hit me over the head, and once it was there, I was certain it was right.

I had access to plenty of money. My dad never made me want for anything. The only reason I kept working at Vintage was because I loved having a place to go, a job to perform, people to interact with despite my social reservations after Damien had left me.

And if Barry was filing bankruptcy on the store, all of that could be pulled out from under me. From under all of us.

But I could help Barry.

On the one hand, I could give him the money that would get him out of whatever mess he was in financially.

And on the other hand…

Maybe he wanted out. Maybe he was ready to just let Vintage go. And maybe I could be the one who picked it up from him.

I had plenty of good ideas, marketing strategies, and contacts. Maybe I didn’t have a college degree, but I could hire people who did, who had the knowhow to manage the business aspect while I managed the creative aspect.

Parker had pushed me to explore my ambitions, but in the moment I glimpsed the email I wasn’t supposed to see, I realized that they’d been sitting right in front of me the entire time.

All of that ran through my mind in the ten seconds it took Barry to end his call and walk back into his office. I still wasn’t sure if I should say anything to him, but the look on his face told me I didn’t have to.

“Roxy, can we talk for a minute?” he asked.

“Of course.” I stood and walked to the opposite side of his desk so we weren’t sitting together staring at the computer. This way, we could face each other for whatever conversation he wanted to have.

“You have always been like a daughter to me. You know that, right?”

I nodded. He’d always protected me. He knew my father was gone most of the time, so he became a pseudo-father figure to me in many ways.

“You’re the only one here I’m ready to talk to about this. I’m going to retire, Roxy.”

Retire
? He’s going to
retire
? What about the bankruptcy?

“I’m ready to let this place go. I’m ready to travel the world with Judy.”

I nodded. “You deserve it, Barry.”

I had about a million and one questions, starting with what the hell was going to happen to Vintage and its employees, but I stayed quiet. It wasn’t the time for me to admit what I had seen, but Barry was retiring and leaving Vintage in the lurch since clearly there was no money left to maintain it.

ten

Every single day, the monotony of folding t-shirts caused my thoughts to wander to the possibilities ahead of me. Was it really possible for me to buy this place? I looked around the store. The café did well, for sure. I already knew I’d add in a larger menu. As an employee, I knew the store fairly well, and I knew what it was missing. Pizza, for one thing.

We sold a variety of music memorabilia, and as I looked at my surroundings, I realized how little I actually knew. I had no idea who supplied the items we sold. I didn’t know how to manage the weekly schedule or how to assign bathroom duties or who managed money.

Truthfully, I hadn’t the first clue about how to run a business.

But I was dying to learn so that I could save Vintage.

I had to.

It was my first true love, the first thing in my life that had always been there for me. It owned a piece of my soul, and I didn’t have it in me to stand by and watch it crumble because Barry was retiring or filing bankruptcy or whatever was going on.

I was brought out of my thoughts by the jingle of my cell phone signaling a new text message.

I checked around me to be sure there weren’t any customers before taking my phone out of my pocket to read the text.

It was from Parker.

Three more days. I don’t know how I’m going to get through them.

I smiled down at my phone before firing off a response.
Any time tonight for Facetime? Or maybe phone sex?

Can’t we combine the two?

I blushed at the thought even as I realized how much I loved the idea.

Phone sex while we were watching each other? It felt forbidden and naughty. And kind of perfect.

Parker texted again before I had a chance to respond.
We’re on the bus tonight. But that doesn’t mean I can’t watch you.

How did a simple text turn into that?

Maybe. I miss you.

I miss you, too.

How are things going?

A customer was snaking his way through the aisles, so I stuck my phone back in my pocket.

“Do you have this shirt in a medium?” he asked, holding up a black t-shirt.

I always tried my best to be friendly with customers. This one had a sort of eerie sense about him, though. He was tall and well-built. He wore black pants and a black shirt under a black leather jacket. His hair was greased back, and he wore sunglasses over his forehead—not on his eyes and not on top of his head—like a douche. “All of our stock is on the floor, but I can help you check the pile.”

“I don’t need it. I just needed an ice breaker.”

I looked up sharply at him. In the back of my mind, I wondered where Tim was. Aside from Heather in the café, who was focused on blending something quite loudly in a blender, just Tim and I were working the afternoon lull. Tim tended to work in Barry’s office during our down time.

“An ice breaker?”

“Are you Gideon Price’s daughter?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I have a message for someone named Roxanna. Your nametag tells me you’re Roxy, which could be a nickname for Roxanna.”

A shiver ran through my blood. This was the first sign I’d seen of him since I’d been back, and I suddenly felt very alone.

“Who is this message from?”

He was silent.

I masked my fear as well as I could manage under the circumstances. I tried a different approach. “What’s the message?”

“He knows the engagement is fake. And you’re both fair game.”

“Get the fuck out of my store,” I said, my voice breaking like a teenager in puberty.

I didn’t want to show him my fear, but I couldn’t hide it.

He spun on his heel and walked to the exit. With a quick flick of his wrist, he lowered his sunglasses to his eyes.

I stood in place, shaking.

“You okay?” A voice pulled me out of my trance and I felt a warm hand on my shoulder. I spun around and my eyes met Tim’s.

I shook my head, unable to speak.

“What’s going on?”

I drew in a shuddering breath before attempting to answer. Tim waited patiently.

“A man came in and threatened me.”

“What?”

“My dad’s got an enemy. That’s all. It’s okay.”

Tim sighed. “It’s not okay. I should’ve been out here with you.”

“Why? It’s not your fault. You’ve never felt the need to be out here before.”

His face cooled slightly from the warmth he usually directed toward me. “Are you okay now?”

I nodded and turned back to the shirts I’d been folding before Randy’s crony came into my store, losing myself in my thoughts.

My dad was married to someone who he stole from Randy.

It only made sense that Randy would be after me because he had some twisted need for revenge on my dad.

Randy’s closest connection to me at the moment was his ex, the former porn star Jadyn Snow. And I still didn’t trust her.

Randy was after me—and according to the message, apparently Parker was on his radar, too.

An eye for an eye. My dad hurt Randy when he stole away someone who Randy loved, so Randy was going to hurt someone my dad cared about for revenge.

My dad and Randy had a history that surely went back further than my dad stealing Randy’s girl.

My dad had called it a “need to know” basis, and I felt like it was about time I was in the know.

Tim was up front at the register. “I’m going in back for a break,” I yelled, and without waiting for a response, I headed into the break room to call my dad.

“Hey CC,” he answered on the second ring. He sounded tired.

“Dad, some guy just came into the store with a message.”

“From?”

“Didn’t say.”

“Fuck.” His voice was a low growl. “What did he say?”

“That he knows the engagement isn’t real and that Parker and I are both fair game.”

He paused and drew in a sharp breath. “I think you need some time off.”

“I was just off for a month while I was on your tour. Remember? I can’t take more time off. They’ll fire me.”

“Then let them fire you. You don’t need that job.”

“Do you even give a shit about what I want?”

“Of course I give a shit. But I won’t take unnecessary risks with your life.”

“Isn’t that a little dramatic?” I was hoping he’d say that yes, he was being very dramatic. Instead, he abruptly changed the subject.

“Where the hell was Bruno?” he asked. Bruno had been following me pretty much everywhere in Parker’s absence.

“He looked like a customer. There’s no way he would’ve known.”

“It’s his job to know. I’ll talk to George.”

“Dad, it’s fine.”

“No, it isn’t. If it was fine, you wouldn’t have called me.”

He had a point.

I just needed Parker. I needed his strong arms around me. I needed him to tell me that everything was okay, that we would get through this, that Randy wasn’t a real threat.

Instead we were both in danger.

“I think it’s time for you to tell me what’s really going on, Gideon.”

“I disagree. And you know I hate it when you call me Gideon.”

“Can Parker and I come for dinner when he gets back? Maybe you can fill us in on some stuff?”

“I need to talk to Parker about some things anyway. Yes to dinner, maybe on the filling you in part.”

I sighed in frustration.

“I love you, CC.”

“You too. Even though you’re awful.”

I managed to elicit a tiny chuckle from my dad before he hung up.