Page 13 of A Brother At My Back

5

Tiffany…

I wasn’t resistant to any of the suggestions he made about changing how I did things for my safety. The schedule was an easy enough fix, and so were the regular texts and calls checking in.

That morning, he’d eaten, said his thanks, and told me he’d be back later after some sleep. We’d traded numbers and he’d gone. I’d locked the door behind him, done the dishes, taken a long, hot shower, and had, by some miracle, gotten some more sleep of my own.

I woke up to a knock at my door and a quick look out the peephole had revealed his frightening tattooed face. I felt muscles I hadn’t realized I’d tensed loosen at the sight of him and I wondered at that for a moment, hesitating before I opened the door. His melodic voice floated through the wood asking, “You all right, Girl?”

No, but it would be a waste of breath explaining it, so I went with the polite little lie. “Yeah, I’m okay,” I said after opening the portal to the outside world. He gave me a one-sided grin, a dimple creasing on the cheek unadorned by the deep blue whorls of ink and I sort of just knew that he knew exactly what I’d been feeling.

“I’m here now, eh. Nothing’s gonna getcha.”

I tried a brave smile in return and said, “You’re a little early, I just woke up. Let me get dressed and throw some costumes together, come on in.”

“Yeah, I wanted to have a look at your door again, take some measurements.” He pulled a measuring tape out from his leather jacket’s front pocket. Whipping the yellow tape out, he efficiently went about measuring the inside door jamb.

I blinked in surprise and asked, “Oh, yeah? What’s that for?”

He pulled a stub of a pencil from one pocket and a little notepad from his other one and marked some things down. Placing the pencil between his teeth, he answered from around it, “Gonna reinforce this with some metal stripping, make it so it takes more than one swift kick to get her open. A few screws and she’ll be right.”

“Thank you. I thought the more locks the better.”

“They don’t hurt,” he said affably, pulling the pencil from between his teeth as he jotted down another measurement. “This’ll be better.”

“When can you do it?” I asked and he smiled.

“When I come pick you up tomorrow. Get here a little early, get it done and you’ll be good to go, eh?”

“Sounds good,” I murmured and laid out a final matching bra and panty set on my bed. I put hands to hips and considered the sets I’d laid out, the masks I had at the club in my locker, and the shoes I had to pair them with under the bed. Makeup ideas were already swirling through my brain as well. The better I looked, the better the tips, the faster I could leave all this bullshit of taking my clothes off and fucking for money behind.

“Costumes, eh?”

I grimaced a little. “Sounds a lot better than underwear or lingerie. Not my first choice in a line of work, but it does pay the best. I was on a tight schedule before to get the fuck up out of this town in five years; it’s even worse now they’re letting Silas out early.”

He nodded and asked, “Where y’ headed?”

No one had ever really asked me that before, not even my best friend, Delia, who I still needed to call ? Shit!

“Hold that thought?” I asked.

“Sure, what’s up?”

“I forgot to call Delia, she’s my best friend.”

“Best get that done then, yeah?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, I’ll only be a minute.”

“Sure, sure.”

I went for my cell on the tabletop, the screen lighting up to a dozen missed calls or texts and I phoned her back. She picked up on the first ring and I could hear she was driving.

“Oh, my god, girl! I am totally on my way over and was about to call the police!”

“No, it’s okay, I’m fine, Lia.”

“Where are you?” she demanded.

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