“Find him a house,” I whisper to myself as I leave the alley and walk towards my street. Probably so he can share it with Carla the burrito bitch. I hate her. Why does she get a date with Spencer every damn week and I get nothing? I hate her and I hate him.

But a smile leaks out as my toes splash through a puddle on the sidewalk.

Because I will have the last laugh today. And I can’t wait to see his face when he finds out what I’m doing.

Chapter Three

VERONICA

By the time I make it back to my apartment, Rook is waiting for me in the Shrike truck, I’m sopping wet from head to toe, and my feet are f**king freezing.

“What the hell?” Rook says as she gets out of the truck and jogs over to me. “What happened to you? You just dashed out the back without a word.”

We trudge up my stairs together, then I unlock and open the door and hold it open for her. I’m already wet, she’s still fairly dry. Might as well keep her that way. I close the door behind me and hang my soaked jacket up on the coat hook. “Spencer was texting me all morning and I didn’t answer, so when I looked out the window and saw him coming across the street, I panicked and ran.”

Rook laughs. “That plan work out well for you?”

“Ha ha,” I say as I walk to the bathroom. “I’m gonna take a shower because I’m f**king freezing. Then we can go.”

“Sounds good,” she calls back from the kitchen. “I’m gonna raid your fridge, mind?”

“Nah,” I say back. “Go ahead. Be out in a minute.” I head into the shower and start the water.

Spencer was right when he came over here last week. The only time he’s been over here. He called it a dump. And it is.

Granted, my family home is sorta dumpy too, but at least it’s from my relatives. The windows were cracked from baseballs me and my brothers threw. The linoleum in the kitchen is stained and chipped from decades of Vaughn feet walking over it. The banister is missing spindles because Vann got his head stuck between them when Vic was in charge, so Vic just pulled one straight out thinking he was gonna get his ass kicked if we couldn’t all be accounted for when our dad got home.

Yeah, that’s home.

But this… well, I lied to Spencer. I stuck up for this place because he made me feel poor and trashy. He was right though. It’s a crappy place. The floorboards beneath my feet in the bathroom are probably all rotten with water damage. They sway when you walk. I might fall through the ceiling one of these days. Good thing no one is living below me. I have no idea what this place used to be. I’ve lived in Fort Collins my whole life, but I never paid any attention to these old buildings on this street. They were shops, I think. They look like storefronts with giant picture windows and mail slots on the doors.

The water finally runs hot and I peel off my wet jeans, toss them in the hamper, and then struggle out of my top and bra. I feel… used. And even though Spencer and I have had some pretty… interesting… sex during our relationship, it’s never made me feel unclean.

I mean, he likes the dirty talk, so he’s called me names during sex that would earn him a punch in the teeth any other time. I’m used to his particular brand of heat. But he’s never used me like this. He’s never used sex against me to get something he wants. That part of our relationship has always been normal.

Sure, I get a little hysterical when we fight. I’ve been known to throw a wine bottle or two at his head. But he’s a good ducker. I’ve never actually hit him.

And he can predict my violence pretty well. He pins me down and dirty-talks me back into reality and then things are all good.

It’s been a long time since he had to pin me down. And not because I’ve been rational. He just hasn’t paid much attention to me for almost a year. After that altercation with Rook’s ex, Jon, last summer, Spencer was almost back to his old self for a few weeks. We saw each other a couple weekends, he took me to Rook’s birthday party at Antoine’s studio, we f**ked when we could manage to meet up, since we were living in two separate towns.

But then… after all that shit went down with Rook and Ronin and those weirdo human traffickers, Spencer was back to his distant self. And since that time, it’s only gotten worse. We work less than a mile from each other. We should be having lunch breaks together every day. We should be living together out in that farmhouse of his, riding into town every day in his Shrike truck, drinking our coffee on the road as we chat about our day.

But things haven’t turned out that way.

That thought alone is enough to start the tears.

I pull the ugly shower curtain back and step into my old and cracking tub and try to accept what my life has become. I should be thankful. Lots of people have it worse than me. I have a place to live, I have a job—two actually. I’m still working at Sick Boyz, my family’s tattoo shop. Even though Spencer gave me this great job as his personal assistant, I can’t just quit my tattoo job. I have regular customers who are depending on me to finish up their work. I’m booked solid three days a week for the next two months. And that’s just the big pieces—the backs and chests I’ve been working on. I told all the guys with sleeves they had to go to one of my brothers or I’ll be stuck there forever.

So yeah. It’s hardly fair to complain when I have two jobs that collectively pay me almost fifty-five grand a year. That’s not a bad paycheck for a twenty-three-year-old with no real prospects. I mean, I have an art degree, but come on. It’s an art degree. How much did I expect to get out of that?