Page 23 of Glamour and Grit

“It was just used in a robbery. You’re under arrest.”

“No! Justin, tell them! Tell them that it wasn’t me!”

But Justin just cowers in the bushes, unable to look me in the eye…

My eyes snap open and stare at a bewildering ceiling. Where am I? Oh, right. What Dane laughingly refers to as his compound.

I hate that fucking dream. It’s not even the way it went down. When the police arrived, they figured out pretty quickly I didn’t fit the description of the six foot two inch man who robbed the convenience store.

Justin hadn’t hid in the bushes, either. He’d run through the woods behind our house and stayed on the lam for about six months. That was actually the most peaceful time of my life.

But the dream remains as a sign I don’t trust my brother not to get me into trouble. As it turns out, that’s a pretty good instinct. This time, it’s more than just an inconvenience. It’s downright dangerous.

Maybe I should have tried to help Justin more when we were growing up. It’s not his fault that our mom got sick and was in and out of the hospital all the time. Our father was up at the hospital a lot, too, which left me to fill in the gap when it came to taking care of Justin. I was too busy pissing and moaning about my own life to give him the attention he probably needed.

I managed to make it out all right. But Justin is still running from the past and wrestling with his own shadow.

Wondering how long I've slept, I check my phone. Five hours, damn. Guess I was pretty worn out. Groggily, I get up and look for the bathroom and my host, in that order.

I don’t see him inside the house, but I do detect a trail of smoke snaking out of the food truck exhaust fan. When I open the door, I can hear music emanating from the truck.

I open the door, the aroma of cooking spices carried by the cool wind of the repaired AC. Dane stands at the stove, his massive back facing me. He has a laughing jester skull tattoo covering the middle of his back, flanked by a sea dragon and a wolf on each shoulder. I take a moment to appreciate both his physique and the artful aesthetics of his ink.

He doesn’t seem to have noticed me yet. I clear my throat and he still doesn’t react. I guess he’s closer to the music than I am.

I should say something to let him know that I’m here. All of thesudden all I can think of is how hot he looks without his shirt on. My lips move before I’ve fully formed a proper thought.

“I’ve always wanted to get a tattoo, but I'm afraid of the pain.”

He glances over his shoulder at me. Our eyes meet and for a moment nobody says anything. I feel like an idiot for saying that. Not a proper salutation by anyone’s measure.

“Tattoos hurt plenty, don’t let anybody fool you. But after the first one, the second one hurts less. And the one after that hurts less, and so on. By the time I got this dagger on my forearm last year, I barely felt it.”

“So your solution to being afraid of tattoos hurting, is to get more tattoos?”

He chuckles and motions for me to join him.

“Come on in, and shut the door. I finally got the air conditioning on.”

“What are you making?”

“Pork shoulder with goat cheese sandwiches. I’m afraid canned peaches are the best I can do for a side dish.”

“It smells fantastic. Can I help?”

He nods, a smile blossoming on his face. God, those eyes are just gorgeous. Like emeralds, shining in the overhead lights. It’s almost enough to make me ignore the chiseled magnificence of his muscled torso. Almost.

“That metal pan on the grill has melted butter in it. Can you brush some onto the buns?”

“Sure.” I go to pick up one of the buns. “This is still kind of frozen.”

“I know, once you butter them, put them on the grill. Hopefully that will warm them up.”

I do as I’m told, buttering the rolls and placing them business side down on the grill. Dane finishes seasoning the pork and lays a slab of lard down on his half of the grill. Once it melts, he dumps the ground, heavily spiced pork and steam hisses up toward the vent hoods.

“Were you able to find anything out?” I ask.

“Some. There’s a man named William Petty we’re trying to find. He has a connection to Moreno but he’s removed enough from the inner circle we can actually get at him.”

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