Page 2 of Too Cursed To Kiss
Six months hadn’t changed much. His apartment stank of cheap perfume, man sweat, and my broken dreams. I’ve always had a keen nose for picking out scents, and this was the perfect moment to regret my genetics. Gentry was probably leaving me to do his little errand while he was on a hot date in some alley. Breathing through my mouth, I tore off the pink note taped on the wall by the door:Take my gold pen to Tyre. I’ll pay you later.
“That wasn’t the deal, Gentry,” I said to the empty room. Goddamn him.
Delivering the pen made no sense. The ugly hunk of gold was Gentry’s maternal grandfather’s, and it might be the only thing he cared about. So why the hell did he want it dropped off to Tyre? My mind raced like I was listening to my favorite true crime podcast. What was Gentry up to?
Tyre, one of Portland’s leading meth dealers, ran a nightclub called The Signet as a front. I had no interest in ever seeing him again, and Gentry knew that. If I hadn’t been onehundred percent sure Gentry would make good, I would have trashed his place and left.
Gentry and I had been really great together, for about two days. I never should have moved in with him. I learned fast how lust had nothing to do with common sense or love. It had taken the cheating bastard all of a week before he brought home a rotating selection of pretty junkies to play with. Nothing like being humiliated to smarten you up. Gentry was hot, in that old-guy silver fox sort of way, but he wasn’t worthy of me. It wasn’t all bad. In my slide to Portland’s crime underworld as a drug dealer’s arm candy, I’d learned to pay attention, show up, and stay alive. All great traits for the PI that someday I hoped to be.
I walked deeper into hell, otherwise known as Gentry’s living room. Apparently, he still had a lifetime membership to Slobs-R-Us. His desk overflowed with unopened mail, crumpled paper, and something crusty I wasn’t touching, but the antique pen was in the drawer where he always kept it.
How a pen oozing ink out of its cap was worth four bills to deliver was beyond me. I wrapped it in the pink note and stuffed it into my purse. Still hungry, I made my way to the kitchen, wiping my ink-covered hand across the back of Gentry’s leather couch. He’d probably never notice, but it was satisfying.
The kitchen light crackled, then died when I turned it on. I tugged my shirt up over my nose to block the stench from the dishes piled on the counter, marginally pleased they were shrouded by shadows. The pizza in the fridge wasn’t worth the risk, but I hit pay dirt in the freezer. The Belly-V vodka cried out for me to pour it over Gentry’s bed and set it on fire. There were lots of words to describe me, but idiotwasn’t usually in the lineup. I controlled myself, took the bottle, and hightailed it out of there.
CHAPTER TWO
Acouple of times, I could have sworn I was being watched, but it was hard to shed a year of paranoia à la Gentry. Too much of his funk had rubbed off. I was determined to never again date a man I couldn’t trust. The string of men, or rather the lack of trustworthy men in my life, had become a standard not to uphold. My grandfather had left my grandmother for another woman, I’d never even known my dad, and well, let’s say my luck with boyfriends had left scars.
The drive across the center of Portland turned into one long swearing fest, with two near accidents and one full stall. It was truly a miracle the fuel pump hadn’t completely failed yet. Said a lot for the tenacity of the Dodge. It didn’t give up. We had that in common.
It was close to midnight by the time I pulled into a quasi-parking spot.
I leaned back on the cracked vinyl headrest.What the fuck are you doing back here, Harlan,ran through my head. I looked forward to wiping the last twenty-four hours out ofmy memory with Gentry’s vodka, a bowl of ramen, and some classic noir, preferably with a femme fatale.
I was starving, and the last handful of cheese crackers did nothing to settle my stomach. With a glance in the rearview, I ripped the elastic out of my long burgundy-tipped brown hair and re-smudged my dark brown eyeliner. This wasn’t a goddamned fashion show, but I made an attempt to maintain standards. It was a club after all.
The door of the crap-mobile opened with its signature screech of metal on metal. Grabbing my purse, I unpretzeled my Amazonian frame out of the car, then glanced at my cell. It was almost dead because the car charger only worked if you jiggled it. I jammed the phone into my pocket and tore a fingernail.
Jeezus. At least it wasn’t bleeding.
Chewing off the broken tip, I crossed the street. The Signet Club represented my former life, which had pointed directly to a gravestone,Do not pass Go. It had taken watching the kingpin of our last deal crumple in a bloody puddle of his own shit to smarten me up. Ditching Gentry and pretty much everyone I knew had been the best decision I’d ever made, but endless hours standing behind a goddamned cash register turned every muscle-screaming step into a reminder to keep on the straight and narrow. Since Mama died in jail, breaking the law had always been a specter. But feeling the pain of an upright existence was better than ending up as a dumpster corpse, and I had no intention of dying anytime soon.
Squealing guitar and a throbbing drumbeat seeped out through the pumpkin-spice painted doors. The bittersweetness of clove cigarettes lingered in the air from the few goths hanging outside the club entrance.
Fluffing my hair, I made eye contact with the broad-shouldered bouncer. His buzz cut was as fresh as he was.
“Cover is fifteen,” he said, his attention flicking from my chest to my face.
There was no way I was paying a cover. “I’ve got business with Tyre.” I flashed my old Signet Club card and my driver’s license at him, along with a smirk that said,Fuck off. The hulk of a man huffed and studied the photo and date but opened the door. A fresh cloud of clove-scented smoke blew across my path before I made it over the threshold.
Coughing, I shot the smoker an angry look. The tall, lanky goth guy had his back pressed against the brick wall. His dark, shoulder-length hair swung back as he turned, revealing sunglasses, pale skin, and a chiseled jaw.
My pulse quickened as his long gloved fingers pressed a cigarette to a lush bottom lip. He tilted his head, lingering on the sucking, then blew another cloud of smoke. I paused on the threshold, my blood thrumming. I hadn’t had decent sex in months, and my type didn’t come along often, but I liked guys who spelled trouble. So I went in before I did something I’d regret.
In the gloom, my walk from the door to the bar turned into a stumbling weave between half-filled tables. The throb of the bass pounded in my chest. A few emo-goths swayed on the sunken dance floor, and in front of the stage, some black-clads thrust air-fists in time to the beat that sadly didn’t smother the screeching vocals of the lead singer.
All surfaces of the club were flat black except for the mirror behind the narrow bar running the length of one side. Downlights with centers shaped like the letter S illuminated circular patches on the streaky black paint. I slid onto a barstool and beckoned to Jules, the bartender, who was chatting up a guy at the other end. Jules and I went back, way back, to places I’d rather forget. I didn’t do the girlfriend thing. My life had never been stable enough, or so I explained. The truth was, I’d learned early in life how getting too close to people was a great way to get screwed over. Trust was a fool’s game. But Jules and I had hit it off. We were both survivors in a world full of assholes.
The diamond in her nose caught the light. It was her version of an emergency cash stash. “Harlan! We weren’t expecting you.”
Jules knew I’d never set foot in this place unless I needed to see Tyre, but her curtness cut me. It had killed me to ghost Jules, but there’d been no way I could get a clean start and still have ties to the old life. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t expecting me either. Slide me a brown, and tell Tyre I’m here. I’ve got something for him.”
“Already have, darlin’,” she replied, her dark braid bouncing as she popped the top off the ale I preferred. Back when I still did illegal runs for cash, I’d worked for Tyre. Somehow after all the sketchy stuff I’d done, I didn’t have a police record. I think that’s another thing Gentry had liked about me. I’d been squeaky clean but ready to party. Now I was poor but law-abiding and forever marred by my descent into Portland’s underworld.
The beer went down cold but slammed hard on top of the cheddar crackers. Not a great choice for my sensitive stomach. Gut churning, I hopped off the stool and made my way to Tyre’s private table.
A shiver crawled up my spine, like someone walking over my grave. I glanced over my shoulder. The clove-cigarette guy had come in. He had sunglasses on, which was damned weird, but I could swear he was watching me.
