Page 14 of Fish out of Water
“How do you know that’s mine?”
“You live here, Julia. You know exactly how I know it’s yours.” He pointed at the door. “Open it before you find out who those men are the hard way.”
“Ugh.” I stabbed my key into the lock. “You are a pain in the ass, Grant Servantes.” I bumped the door open and went in with Grant following right behind me.
“I’ma pain in the ass?” He locked the deadbolts before spinning to face me, the envelope I pulled from Mr. Frazier’s mailbox in one hand. “I’m not the one who stole a mailbox key from a fish tank.”
Chapter Four
Grant
“I DIDN’T STEAL anything.” Julia made a grab for the envelope. Surprising me enough that she managed to snatch it away from me. “Mr. Frazier asked me to get his mail. That means this is mine.”
Her claim was short-lived.
I rushed her, gripping her wrist and holding it steady while I plucked the envelope away. “You’ve been relieved of your duties.”
“You can’t do that.” She pressed one hand to the stomach I could still almost feel against my palm as she glared at me. “Mr. Frazier—”
“My Uncle Vito will be just fine letting me step in for you.” I slapped the envelope against my open palm. It was thick and heavy, which meant this might be worse than I realized. “I’ve got it under control.”
“Do you?” She worked a little closer, eyes watching me close enough I was pretty sure she was going to try to come at me again. “Because it seemed like you ran away from those guys in the mailroom.”
“What I did was get you the hell out of there before they realized what was going on.” I leaned down so we were eye-to-eye. “Unless you wanted to stay and chat with them.” She didn’t know who they were. I could tell the minute they walked in. Julia stiffened up, her blue gaze locking on the two men she knew didn’t belong there. “But you don’t know them, do you?”
Her chin lifted. “They could have been someone’s sons.”
I was getting real tired of her holding out on me. “Do you know what’s in this envelope?” I held it up between us, lifting my brows as I waited for an answer I knew wasn’t going to come. “It’s money, Banana Pants.” I tore open the flap. “And right now it looks like you were trying to steal it.”
She scoffed. “Are you calling me a thief?”
“I’m saying that anyone looking for this money would have thought you were trying to steal it.” I pulled out the stack of bills and held them up. “And they would have…”
My eyes refocused, zeroing in on the cash in my hand.
It was a stack of hundreds. Way more money than Vito usually ended up in trouble over. “Hell.”
I shoved the money back into the envelope.
“Maybeyou’retrying to steal Mr. Frazier’s money.” Julia lifted her leg to grab at the mangled flip-flop hooked around her ankle, hopping along behind me as I walked to the window above her sofa and lifted a blind slat to peek out. “Maybe you’re not who you say you are at all.”
She wasn’t as far off on that assessment as she could have been.
“What do you want from me?” I scanned what I could see of the property outside, dropping the slat back in place when there was no sign of the two men who stood out like a sore thumb. “I showed you a picture of me and Vito together, which is more than I can say about you.”
“You’re in my apartment.” She threw her arms out at her sides. “Clearly I’m his neighbor.” She walked behind me as I went to the door and squinted out the peephole. “And I had a key to his place.”
“So did I.” It was a fact she was choosing to ignore. “So if it doesn’t count for me it doesn’t count for you.” The fish-eye scope of the hole made it impossible to see much more than a couple feet on each side, but it appeared we managed to keep whoever that was from following us to Julia’s apartment.
Which meant I could make a clean, guilt-free break from her.
I turned around to find her scowling at me, full lips pressed into a frown, blue eyes narrowed.
She was different from most of the women I chose to spend time with. There was something about her that was…
Realer.
In another time and place she was exactly what I would have chased.
