When I release him, he stares around the interior of the garage, then looks back at me. “So, you actually did it. You opened a shop like you always said you would.”
“This? I’m not working on cars, man. Just my own shit here. The garage was your dream, not mine.”
“I know what my fucking dream was. I’m talking about your tattoo shop in front, numbnuts. Are you gonna show me?”
“Hell yeah. Come take a look.”
I lock up the garage to give him a tour, falling into our old camaraderie even though we haven’t seen each other in more than a year. Our paths rarely crossed over the years even though we were both in the Navy, our deployments never quite aligning to put us in the same place at the same time.
Seeing what I’ve built through his eyes, I see for the first time how fantastic it is despite the daily struggle, and it allows me to forget the shit week I’ve had since Leo walked out my door.
We grab a couple beers from the shop’s fridge, and I open the garage again to let in the afternoon sunlight. It’s the most relaxed I’ve been in ages, yet his laser-focused gaze keeps sweeping around the garage, and I can’t shake the sense that he’s sizing it up for something specific. He’s always dreamed of starting a business rebuilding classic cars, so maybe that’s all this is, but the devious glint tells me it’s more than that.
I look over my shoulder at the big, mostly empty space. There’s an old catwalk along the back wall that spans the entire length of the cavernous garage. Above it stretches a row of windows and a pair of doors at either end that lead out from my loft apartment. I rarely use the set of stairs that lead down from my back door into the shop, since the lift is so much more convenient. I’ve got my weights and punching bag in one corner under the catwalk. Next to those are my tools in a series of toolboxes on a workbench, and other than my bike and my truck, the only other thing in here is a stack of old tires I haven’t bothered getting rid of piled in another corner.
“You want to help me haul those out of here and start working on restoring cars like you always talked about?” I ask.
J.J. sticks a toothpick between his teeth and eyes the tires, shaking his head. “Nah, not yet. I still need some seed money. You’re still all about the side hustle, right?” His gaze slides back to me, eyes narrowed and calculating. “Want to get in on some easy money? Make use of all this space?”
I’m on guard instantly. My brother’s version of a worthwhile side hustle is usually opportunistic, verging on criminal. When we were kids, he was the Tom Sawyer motherfucker who’d get other kids to do the heavy lifting while he reaped the rewards. One summer, his scheme was to start his own yardwork crew. That lasted all of a month until the younger boys he recruited got wise to him and mutinied. He still came out ahead, though, so I couldn’t fault him for that. And despite my ability to see through his schemes, he always shared the spoils with me and our younger brother Marco, and they never quite strayed into the realm of shit a gang would have had him doing.
When I don’t answer, he sits forward in his folding chair, and I brace myself for his pitch. “You don’t have to lift a finger, brother. Just give me access to this garage once in a while and pretend I’m not even here. Of course, if you want to be involved, you can be. That’s entirely up to you.”
“How much?” I know better than to ask, but I can’t help but think of the dark circles under Elle’s eyes when she talked about saving for college. If I can help my little sister sleep at night, maybe it’s worth the risk.
“Ten large a pop, just to sit on your ass and pretend you don’t see anything. If you’re game for heavy lifting, I’ll give you a bigger cut.”
“A bigger cut of what, exactly?” J.J.’s always skirted the edge of the law and managed to avoid getting caught. But the more lucrative the scheme, the more likely it is to be illegal as fuck—and if I wanted illegal, I’d have accepted La Valla’s invite a year ago.
Yet I’m in the mood to be a little reckless if it’ll help me get out of my head. Tattoos have been my outlet for a long time, but my close brush with Celeste, followed by Leo’s unceremonious departure from my life have left me with an itch for a little of the danger I used to flirt with covering a bomb squad in Afghanistan.
He tilts back, takes a swig of beer, and regards me with a serious expression that has my interest piqued. “Are you in or out? Ten grand can go a long way to renovating this place. Those old locker rooms in Mom’s studio could use new plumbing, maybe a whole makeover. Or you could finish your apartment upstairs. Or not.”
“I’d give every penny to Bean for school. Tell me what you’re planning and I’ll decide.”
He grins as if he’s already won, and he probably has. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my sister. It’s just a matter of living with myself afterward if it’s bad, but I’ve lived through worse than one of my brother’s schemes. J.J. probably wouldn’t drag me into anything that dangerous, but part of me hopes there’s at least some risk to what he’s about to suggest.
I’m not disappointed. He spins a story that I have every reason to believe, about his connections in naval munitions and how he’s hooked up with a local criminal who’s willing to move guns for the right price.
My brother’s the kind of
