Crescendo

be easier on everyone if we just—I want a clean break. I’ve thought this through.” I hadn’t. I hadn’t thought this through at all. I hadn’t meant to say these words. But a small, horrible, and despicable part of me wanted Patch to hurt as much as I was hurt. “I want you out of my life. All the way.”

After a heavy beat of silence, Patch reached around me and shoved something deep into the back pocket of my jeans. I couldn’t tell whether I’d imagined that his hand had stayed there a half beat longer than necessary.

“Cash,” he explained. “You’re going to need it.”

I dug the money out. “I don’t want your money.” When he didn’t take the outstretched wad of cash, I slapped it against his chest, meaning to brush past him as I did, but Patch caught my hand, trapping it against his body.

“Take it.” The tone of his voice told me I knew nothing. I didn’t understand him, or his world. I was a stranger, and I’d never fit in. “Half the guys in there are carrying some form of weapon. If anything happens, throw the money on the table and head for the doors. Nobody’s going to follow you with a pile of cash up for grabs.”

I remembered Marcie. Was he suggesting that someone might try to knife me? I nearly laughed. Did he honestly think that would scare me? Whether I wanted him as my guardian angel was irrelevant. The fact of the matter was, nothing I said or did would change his duty. He had to keep me safe. The fact that he was here right now proved it.

He released my hand and tugged on the door handle, the muscles along his arm rigid. The door closed behind him, quaking on its hinges.

CHAPTER 6

I FOUND SCOTT LEANING ON HIS POOL STICK AT A TABLE near the front. He was studying a spread of billiard balls when I walked up.

“Find an ATM?” I asked, tossing my damp jean jacket on a metal folding chair pushed up against the wall.

“Yeah, but not before I swallowed ten gallons of rain.” He lifted the Hawaiian hat and shook out the water for emphasis. Maybe he’d found an ATM—but not until after he’d finished whatever it was he’d been doing in the side alley. And as much as I would have liked to know what that was, I probably wasn’t going to find out any time soon. I’d missed my chance when Patch had pulled me away to tell me I was in over my head here at the Z and should run along home.

I spread my hands on the lip of the pool table and leaned in casually, hoping I looked completely in my element, but the truth was, my heart rate was high. Not only had I just come off a confrontation with Patch, but no one in the near vicinity looked remotely friendly. And try as I might, I couldn’t sweep away the memory that someone had bled out on one of the tables. Was it this one? I pushed up from the table and brushed my hands clean.

“We’re just about to start a game,” Scott said. “Fifty dollars and you’re in. Grab a cue.”

I wasn’t in the mood to play and would have preferred watching, but a quick scan of the room revealed that Patch was seated at a poker table in the back. Even though his body wasn’t directly facing mine, I knew he was watching me. He was watching everyone in the room. He never went anywhere without making a careful and detailed assessment of his surroundings.

Knowing this, I tried on the most dazzling smile I had inside me at the moment. “I’d love to.” I didn’t want Patch to know how upset I was, how much I was hurting. I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t having a good time with Scott.

But before I could head over to the rack, a short man in wire glasses and a sweater vest came up beside Scott. Everything about him looked out of place—he was groomed, his pants were pressed, and his loafers were polished. He asked Scott in a voice almost too muted to hear, “How much?”

“Fifty,” Scott answered with a touch of annoyance. “Same as always.”

“The game has a hundred minimum.”

“Since when?”

“Let me rephrase. For you it has a hundred minimum.”

Scott went red in the face, reached for his drink on the table’s edge, and tipped it back. Then he retrieved his wallet and crammed a wad of cash into the front pocket of the man’s shirt. “There’s fifty. I’ll pay the other half after the game. Now get your bad breath out of my face so I can concentrate.”

The short man tapped a pencil against his bottom lip. “You’re going to have to settle your account with Dew first. He’s getting impatient. He’s been generous with you, and you haven’t returned the favor.”

“Tell him I’ll have the money by the end of the night.”

“That line wore out its welcome a week ago.”

Scott stepped closer, crowding the man’s space. “I’m not the only guy here who owes Dew a little.”

“But you’re the one he’s worried won’t pay him back.” The short man pulled out the cash Scott had tucked in his pocket and let the bills flutter to the ground. “Like I said, Dew’s getting restless.” He gave Scott a meaningful raise of his eyebrows and walked off.

“How much do you owe Dew?” I asked Scott.

He glared at me.

Okay, next question. “What’s the competition like?” I spoke in hushed tones as I eyed the other players scattered around the various pool tables. Two out of every three were smoking. Three out of every three had tattoos of knives, guns, and various other weaponry climbing their arms. Any other night and I might have been scared, or at the very least uncomfortable, but Patch was still in the corner. As long as he was here, I knew I was safe.

Scott snorted. “These guys are amateurs. I could beat them on my worst day. My real competition is in there.” He shifted his gaze toward a corridor that branched off from the main area. The corridor was narrow and dim, and led to a room that glowed a luminous orange. A curtain of beads hung across the doorway. One intricately carved pool table sat just back from the entrance.

“That’s where the big money plays?” I guessed.

“Back there, I could make in one game what I make in fifteen out here.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Patch’s gaze flick to me. Pretending not to notice, I reached into my back pocket and took a step closer to Scott. “You need a hundred total for the next game, right? Here’s … fifty,” I said, quickly counting the two twenties and ten Patch had given me. I wasn’t a big fan of gambling, but I wanted to prove to Patch that the Z wasn’t going to eat me alive and spit me out. I could fit in. Or at least not get pushed around. And if it looked like I was flirting with Scott in the process, so be it. Screw you, I thought across the room, even though I knew Patch couldn’t hear me.

Scott looked between me and the money in my hand. “Is this a joke?”

“If you win, we’ll split the profit.”

Scott considered the money with a lust that caught me off guard. He needed the money. He wasn’t at the Z tonight for entertainment. Gambling was an addiction.

He swiped the money and jogged over to the short man in the sweater vest, whose pencil was furiously but meticulously scribbling numbers and balances for the other players. I stole a glance at Patch, to see his reaction to what I’d just done, but his eyes were on the poker game, his expression undecipherable.

The man in the sweater vest counted Scott’s money, skillfully lining up the bills so they all faced the same direction. When he finished, he gave Scott a tight-lipped smile. It looked like we were in.

Scott returned, chalking his pool stick. “You know what they say about good luck. Got to kiss my cue.” He stuck it in my face.

I took a step back. “I’m not kissing your pool stick.”

Scott flapped his arms and playfully made chicken noises.

I glanced to the back of the hall, hoping to confirm that Patch wasn’t watching the humiliating scene unfolding, and that was when I saw Marcie Millar saunter up behind him, lean in, and cross her arms around his