I turned and walked out, swallowing my surprise. Gray never gave in that quickly. Instead of feeling triumph, all I could feel was dread.
Amy had been right. This was some kind of big score. The kind that made five hundred bucks look like nothing.
And Gray wanted me there. Bad enough to give in. That meant he not only needed a driver, he needed the best getaway driver there was. Which—I had no illusions about it—was me.
For TV’s? I didn’t think so.
I had the sinking feeling I was fucked. But there was nothing I could do. Because if I bailed on Gray, it would be Max who paid for it.
Just get in the van and drive. Point A to Point B. Just get it done and walk away.
I got my money and headed home to Shady Oaks, wishing I could believe it.
Chapter 4
Olivia
My sister, Gwen, was waiting for me when I got home from work. She was sitting in the open corridor outside my apartment door, texting, wearing cowboy boots, a checked shirt tied beneath her breasts, and a tiny denim skirt, cowgirl style.
She looked up at me and stood when I approached, tossing back her blonde hair. Gwen and I looked like polar opposites—she had our mother’s blonde hair and blue eyes, while I had our dad’s dark looks. No one who saw us together ever thought we were sisters, even when Gwen wasn’t dressed for work.
“God, I’m so hungry,” she said by way of greeting. She was twenty-four, a year younger than me, but she looked about nineteen, which was perfect for her line of work. “Do you have any food?”
“I think so,” I said, letting her in to my place. “Help yourself.”
She walked past me into my kitchen. I pulled off my blouse and skirt, walking into my bedroom to find something else to wear. I always felt like a frump around Gwen—just the sight of her made me want to change my clothes. I found a clingy, comfortable jersey skirt and a t-shirt and put them on, sighing with relief to get out of my work clothes.
I came back out of the bedroom to see she’d popped the top of a can of Pringles and was digging in. “Mom called me,” she said.
“Yeah? What did she want?”
Gwen rolled her eyes. “To convince me to come back to LA, of course. She thinks I’m wasting my talent. She says she can hook me up with Billy, her agent.”
I dug some Pringles out of the can she was holding and opened the fridge, searching for something to drink. “I know she means well, but do I have to tell you that’s a terrible idea? Mom’s a little out of touch, and Billy is a hundred years old.”
“You don’t have to tell me.” Gwen crunched a chip. “I like what I do. And I like it here. LA sucks.”
We were in a position to know, since we were born there. Both of our parents were actors—Mom in a sitcom that had a run of success in the late eighties and early nineties, and Dad as a bit player in a couple of big costume epics. Dad died in a car accident when I was two, and Mom still missed him. She never acted again after her sitcom run, and instead had lived off the residuals and the money left by Dad. She was a good mom, kind, well-intentioned, not a Hollywood hot mess at all, but she’d lived in la-la-land so long that both of her daughters took her career advice with a grain of salt.
Though, glancing at Gwen, I couldn’t really say that either of us had set the world on fire, career-wise. I was a junior graphic designer—of which there were approximately ten million in San Francisco—and she was a strip-o-gram girl, going from birthday party to bachelor party, doing cheesy acts and taking her clothes off. Gwen had always loved to perform—she was a showoff, singing and dancing from an early age. But she’d never had the ambition to make it big. She claimed that being a strip-o-gram girl was actually fun. I could see why our mother was at least trying to get her to do something else, though acting in LA wasn’t it.
“So, what’s up?” she asked, digging in the Pringles can. “You didn’t come from the bus stop. I thought your car was busted?”
Leave it to Gwen to zero in on the one thing that left me tongue-tied. I’d woken up this morning, wondering if that ride with my hot neighbor—Devon, his name was Devon—was a dream, only to find my car key on the floor in front of my mail slot. My car had started up just fine. He must have stayed up late to fix it. In the rain. For nothing. For me.
I didn’t know what to make of that.
“It was. But now, it’s, um…” Oh, hell. She’d get it out of me anyway. “My neighbor fixed it.”
Gwen’s eyes went wide. “Your hot neighbor?”
I winced, regretting the day I’d actually told her about him. “Yeah, that one. His name is Devon. He gave me a ride home from class last night.”
Gwen put down the chip can, taking this in. “You met him?”
I shrugged, trying to make it look casual instead of giving away how hyped-up I was just thinking about last night. I grabbed another chip before she could finish them. “It was just a ride, that’s all.” I realized how that would sound in my sister’s dirty mind, and glared at her before she could say anything. “In his car.”
“Except it wasn’t just a ride, because he fixed your car.”
“He offered. He’s a mechanic. He said he didn’t want any money.” I glanced out the window at the closed, dark door of his apartment across the way. “I should thank him.”
“You so should,” Gwen said, a mischievous look in her eyes.
I rolled my eyes. “Jeez, Gwen.”
“Why not? Does he have a girlfriend?”
That made me blush, remembering his words: I have old-fashioned, one-handed sex. Alone. “No, he doesn’t.”
“Then what’s the problem?” She was grinning now, in her element. “Liv, you should get laid. It’s easy. Just drop your panties and get on. I promise he’ll feel properly thanked.”
She was doing this on purpose, I knew. I was the older sister, the less wild one, and she liked to watch me squirm. I also knew it was a bit of an act. As sexy as she was, Gwen didn’t sleep around. She was choosy. A guy had to jump through hoops to get anywhere with Gwen.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, shocking her back.
Her eyes went wide again. “Okay, now I have to see this guy.”
“You’re about to,” I said, glancing at the window again. “His car just pulled up. He’s coming home from work.”
She loved that, of course. We turned my lights off and she positioned herself next to the window, angled so she could see out but no one looking in could see her. I positioned myself on the other side. It was lame, and dorky, but it was funny too. Gwen and I had been apart for a few years while I’d been in art school and she’d been in acting school, but now we lived in the same city, and we saw each other often, and I had come to appreciate it. It didn’t seem to matter how different we were, how different our lives currently were. She was my sister, and in a crazy way, she totally got me.
“Holy shit,” she said when Devon came around the corner from the parking lot. “That?”
“Yep,” I said. Then I forgot about Gwen and watched him. Jeans, work boots, black zip-up jacket that hugged his body. Tousled hair. Those big hands that had felt rough and warm against mine. I remembered that he’d promised to tell me what his tattoo meant if I let him fix my car.