Hot Summer Lovin’ Read online

  Unfortunately, or rather, fortunately, if she was saying what I thought she was, my lack of understanding also extended to my boss. The purple-haired woman was in my face, probably chewing me out in that foreign language.

  Korean. I’m pretty sure it’s Korean. I bit on the inside of my lip as if I were listening attentively, my eyes wide and hopefully shining with innocence. What I had done to deserve another chewing out, I didn’t know.

  Although, I could also have been getting a serious promotion for all I knew. I was really, really clueless about what the woman was blabbering about. She ended the rant with something that sounded a lot like “you understand?”

  I nodded as if I did understand her, flashed her my brightest smile, and went right back to doing what I had been doing before she’d started shouting at me: absolutely nothing.

  Flopping back onto the vacated seat at my supposed station in the hair salon, I lifted up my phone and kept scrolling through it. Just as I was about to tap out a text to my friend to ask what we were doing after work, she strolled her fine ass into the salon.

  “Thank God you’re here,” I said to Valerie, standing up from the chair and giving her a dramatic eye roll before jerking my head in the direction of my purple-haired boss. “I think I was just getting a pineapple rammed up my ass, but I’m not too sure.”

  Valerie’s hazel eyes sparkled as she tucked a strand of her short jet-black hair behind her ear. “Did she at least use some lube this time?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t know. I still haven’t mastered Korean. If that’s even what it is.”

  “No phlegm shop.” My boss glared at me, her wide brown eyes darting between my friend and me, her brows knitted tightly together. “Work now.”

  “Did she just say ‘phlegm’?” Wicked amusement danced into Valerie’s eyes, and knowing her as well as I did, I knew she was about to do something that would make things worse if I didn’t put a stop to it.

  “I think she said ‘no friends’ not ‘no phlegm.’ Technically, I don’t think you’re allowed in the shop,” I mumbled before flashing my boss a simpering, sweet smile. “She’s here to buy something.”

  “I’m not here to buy anything,” Valerie snapped beside me, but at least she’d kept her voice so low that I was fairly certain only I had heard her. I wasn’t sure how much it mattered since I didn’t think anyone in there spoke much English, but I appreciated her effort, nonetheless.

  My job was boring as fuck, but it was a job and I had bills to pay just like everyone else. “I know. Come on, let me show you some of the products just to get her off my back for the next five minutes.”

  “What happens in five minutes?” She followed my lead to a shelf near the window, but she didn’t bother actually looking at the bottle of shampoo I picked up and pretended to be telling her about.

  “My shift ends.” I set the bottle back down and picked up another. “What do you want to do after work?”

  “Drink,” Valerie said without taking so much as a second to think about it. “As much as it takes to scrub my mind of everything I had to scrub today.”

  “Your job sucks donkey balls.” Mine wasn’t much better, but at least I wasn’t subjected to the same horrors Valerie was on a daily basis. “Whose idea was it for you to start cleaning houses again?”

  “Olive’s.” She rolled her eyes and dragged her inked hand through her hair. The tattoo on the back of her hand was one of her newer pieces, which meant I would have to step up my game in the very near future.

  My entire left arm was covered in a sleeve of colorful ink, but it didn’t extend to my hand. Yet. Could be fun, though. “Are your five minutes over yet? I’m suddenly feeling the urge to give our little Olive a piece of my mind. This was one of her worst ideas yet.”

  “Nah, do you remember that time she made us sit through that self-defense workshop for the entire holiday weekend?” A quick glance at the clock behind the counter told me my shift was officially over. Thank fuck for small mercies.

  “Yeah. That was pretty awful.” Valerie followed me back to my station so I could grab my purse from the drawer, then simply smiled at my boss when she realized my friend was leaving empty-handed.

  Boss lady shot me a glare to accompany the little tingle of guilt that traveled through me. “Next time she’ll buy something.”

  She clicked her tongue at me, and with a shake of her head, went back to styling her client’s rainbow-colored hair. Valerie grabbed my arm and led me out of there, knowing full well that I was in the midst of an attack of conscience.

  The attacks had cost me too much money already, since they always led to me purchasing shit I didn’t really need and couldn’t afford, like the fifty-dollar bottle of shampoo I had left behind on the shelf that I suddenly had the intense urge to own as a way of making up for Val’s visit.

  She only released me once we were a safe distance away from the salon, walking through the mall to the diner where Olive worked at the other side of the street. “Do you know what time Mother Goose gets off her shift tonight?”

  “No clue. It should be soon, though. She started around the same time as I did.” Our friend, Olive, also affectionately referred to as “Mother Goose” by Valerie and me whenever Olive wasn’t around, was the only one of us who actually liked her job.

  Olive had earned the nickname years earlier since she was like the mother figure of our merry little band of misfits. The responsible one to Valerie’s bad girl and my live-in-the-moment attitude.

  Although her shifts generally lasted around the same length of time as mine did, Olive often volunteered to stay a couple of extra hours. She claimed to need the overtime pay, but I knew that it was more than that. She just couldn’t stand leaving her boss in hot water if someone didn’t show up or needed a shift to be covered.

  “Let’s hope she’s almost ready to go and not planning on staying late again,” Valerie echoed my own thoughts before pushing her way into the diner and holding the door for me to follow her inside. “There’s a margarita somewhere out there with my name on it.”

  “Amen to that, sister.” I spotted Olive and slid into our regular booth to wait for her. She smiled as she rang up a young couple’s order.

  Valerie took a seat across from me, sighing heavily before pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes. “No, I’m being serious about that drink, or more than just one drink. I need to scrub all memories of today out of my head. The house I cleaned was insane, and yet their stupid teenage son doesn’t use his huge ass shower to rub one out and spare me the horror of having to clean his sheets and his Kleenex. Oh no, he left the tissues strewn all over the floor.”

  “What?” I shuddered, actively trying to keep my brain from picturing what she had said. It was difficult, since I tended to think in pictures, but this was one picture I really didn’t want. “That’s fucking terrible.”

  “I know.” She groaned, folding her arms across her chest. “I fucking hate my job. I don’t think I can keep doing it.”

  “I hear you. I’m not too keen on staying on at Salon Scream-at-Heidi either. It’s not as bad as your job, but since I can’t understand the clients, I always end up having to wash people’s greasy hair and sweeping it away once the other stylists have cut it.”

  “They’re still not letting you actually cut people’s hair?” Valerie shook her head even before I had a chance to answer her question. “That’s ridiculous. You did that … course thing.”

  “I know, but I doubt a five-day workshop is adequate training to be able to do the work they do.” If I was being honest, I had to admit that I was a little in awe of what the actual stylists at the salon could do. Women walked in there looking like absolute shit and walked out smiling and looking like they had just signed a new lease on life.

  If I were the type to have dreams for my life, becoming a real stylist might have been near the top of my list. I didn’t waste time on dreams, though. I lived for the here and now, taking each day and making the best of it, inste
ad of planning for a future no one was guaranteed to even get.

  Valerie pursed her lips and shrugged. “If that’s true, then why did they hire you to begin with? They knew you had no formal training or experience.”

  “They hired her because she came cheap for the grunt work and it’s likely they knew they would never have to pay her any commission on bringing in new clients.” Olive slid into our booth beside me, pulling off her apron and folding it neatly on the table in front of her. “What are you two complaining about now?”

  “We hate our jobs,” Valerie informed her, quickly recounting the horrors of her day while I fought the urge to cover my ears and recite the “Pledge of Allegiance” simply so I wouldn’t have to be subjected to this story again. It was hardly fair to do it, though, given that poor Valerie had actually lived it and she was reliving it as she told the story. “I’m quitting. I can’t do this anymore. It was awful, Olive. Awful.”

  “And I still haven’t so much as touched a pair of scissors unless it’s to soak them in whatever that chemical mix is my boss is always making me clean them with.”

  “The fact that you still don’t know what that mixture even is explains why you haven’t touched a pair of scissors in any other capacity.” Olive released her long brown locks from her rubber band and ran her hands through her hair to smooth it out. “Would it kill you to put in some effort at work? You might find you even enjoy it if you do.”

  “Doubt it. I can’t understand a word anyone says, and I don’t have any real training, Olive. I gave it a try, but I just don’t think it’s going to work out.”

  “So what do you two suggest we do then?” Olive arched a dark eyebrow and propped her elbow on the table. “You can’t both just quit your jobs. We’ll lose the apartment if you do.”

  “We live in the seediest area in New York City,” I said, “which is no small feat considering how many seedy areas there are. Losing the apartment is hardly going to break my heart.”

  “Living on the streets will break mine,” Olive retorted to me and crossed her arms. “Since none of us have much savings, we will end up on the streets if we don’t make rent. We’ve been over all this before. We have nowhere else to go.”

  “That’s not entirely true,” Valerie hedged before rolling her head back and looking at the dirty ceiling of the low-income diner for a second. “Your mom had that summer home. We could go live in it.”

  “That’s in Florida.” Exasperation dripped from Olive’s tone. Not surprising since this was far from the first time we were having this particular conversation. “I have a job here and the commute from Tampa to New York is a little rough to get to work every morning.”

  “You should go,” an unfamiliar voice piped up from behind us. When I spun around in my seat, I realized it had been Olive’s boss who had spoken.

  She was an older woman and she’d told Olive some stories about what she’d gotten up to in the sixties, which Olive had then shared with us. The chick was a damn legend in our apartment.

  A sudden burst of excitement swept through me. All of the other times we’d had this discussion it had been just us, but if Olive’s boss backed us up it was possible Olive might just change her mind.

  “Seriously, Olivia. Go to Florida, have some fucking fun for once in your life, my dear girl. If you ever come back, your job will be here waiting for you.”

  Valerie’s jaw dropped before she composed herself enough to applaud the diner’s owner. “Thank you. Finally, someone who might be able to make Olive see some sense. Come on, girl, what do you say?”

  I reached for Olive’s hand and pulled it away from her chest to unfold her arms. “Yeah, Olive. Come on, what do you say? Let’s give Florida a try. You know Val’s been dying to get out of the city, and if your job will be here if we ever do come back, then what’s the harm in giving it a try?”

  Two minutes of needling later, Olive released a deep sigh and glanced back at her boss before she finally started nodding. “Okay, Florida it is then. I really, really hope you guys know what we’re doing because I have no fucking clue.”

  Chapter 3

  Will

  Stale coffee being served should be illegal. The coffee shop around the corner from my place was conveniently located, but holy shit was their coffee terrible. I took a sip of the dark-brown swill—because even as awful as it was, it was still caffeine—then sighed after swallowing it down.

  I had to be at another legitimate job in less than an hour for a new client that Mrs. K had referred to me, but Rayce wanted to meet with me first. Fucker was late, though.

  Since I had no intention of running late on the first job for a brand-new client, I pulled out my phone to call my former foster brother just as a newspaper dropped onto the table in front of me.

  Robbers Run a Muck. The headline prompted me to roll my eyes and push the paper away as I lifted my gaze to meet Rayce’s. “You’re late.”

  “I’m also awesome.” Rayce smirked and slid into the booth with me, signaling to the kid behind the counter to bring him a coffee. “Why are we pointing out the obvious?”

  “I have to get to a job in less than an hour. What’s up? Why did we have to meet?” I glanced around the coffee shop, satisfying myself once again that none of the other masochists subjecting themselves to the kind of punishment I associated with bad coffee were listening in on us.

  Rayce mock pouted, jerking his head at the newspaper. “I bring you great news and all you want to do is run off on me?”

  “How is that great news?” I frowned at the newspaper before looking back at him. Our robberies were, predictably, often reported on. As far as I was concerned, great news would have been no story in the paper. “It’s just another news update filled with nothing but bullshit.”

  “Exactly.” Rayce’s smirk morphed into a proud smile. “They have nothing on us, bud. All these years that we’ve been doing it, and they still got jack shit. There’s no trail, no nothing.”

  Pulling the newspaper closer to me again, I scanned the article before sitting back and taking another sip of my shitty coffee. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. We must be doing something right if they still don’t have anything.”

  “We are.” He nodded to the server who brought his coffee, waiting until the guy hurried back to the counter before he continued. “At this rate, we’ll become fucking legends. Decades from now people will still be talking about this string of robberies where no arrests were ever made.”

  “I don’t want to become a legend, Ray.” I huffed out a sigh, tired of rehashing the same old crap. “I just want to save what I have as a rainy-day fund and grow my business. You know that.”

  Rayce tilted his head, wrapping his tattooed hands around his cup of swill. “I couldn’t do this without you, Will. I know you want out, but you know that I need you. You’re the only one I can really trust.”

  “What about the new guy?” Rayce and I had been a team for a long time. Occasionally, there were one or two people who would join us, but they weren’t permanent members of our team. I still didn’t know why they hadn’t been the ones to join us on the last job. “He’s dangerous, Ray. He came this close to pistol whipping a fucking old-timer.”

  I held my thumb and forefinger a hair’s width apart to demonstrate my point. “The only reason why he didn’t do it was because I stopped him. You know how I feel about violence. I won’t condone it, and I won’t be on a team with a guy who can’t control his temper.”

  “We need someone dangerous on the team, Will. You don’t condone violence, and I don’t want my DNA lying around all over the place. He’s necessary for when we need someone who’s willing to do what needs to be done.”

  “He’s the kind of dangerous that’s going to get us caught. He might still be a newbie now, but those kinds of personalities don’t become tamer over time.” I wasn’t in the habit of challenging Rayce on these kinds of decisions, but I felt strongly about this. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly feel l
ike spending the next couple of decades in a cage.”

  “Neither do I.” He sipped his coffee, a thoughtful look in his eyes. “I’ll keep an eye on him, I promise.”

  “So, we’re keeping him on the team?” Clearly, Rayce planned on ignoring my advice. I hadn’t expected anything else, but I still felt a stab of irritation in my gut.

  Rayce shrugged. “I’m telling you, we’re going to need someone like him on the team. I’d rather bring someone in now, so we can get to know him before the day comes when we actually need him.”

  “If you were planning on ignoring me, why did you want to meet?” Dropping my eyes to my watch for a quick check on how much time I had left before I had to get to work, I drained the last dregs of my coffee.

  “I have your cut from the last job.” He tipped his own cup back and then slammed it down on the table once it was empty. “Thought you might want it before I spend it.”

  My eyes narrowed, but I also knew he was just fucking with me. Rayce was religious about keeping everyone’s cuts separate. We’d heard of too many teams that had been caught or split up because of greed.

  “I’ll get it from you later. I need to get to work.” I stood up, pulling my wallet out of my pocket to slap a bill down on the table. “I’ll give you a call when I’m done, okay?”

  Rayce rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “Seriously? I want to give you ten times the money you’re going to make on this job, if not more, and you don’t want it?”

  “It’s not about that and you know it. I just don’t have time right now.” I started to walk away, but Rayce’s strong grip circled my wrist.

  “Why are you doing this, Will?” He had asked me that question many times before, but apparently my answer just wasn’t sinking in. Before I could tell him that, he released my wrist but kept his eyes on mine. “You could be helping me plan the next job. You’d get more of a cut that way. Ditch this job and earn some real cash, man.”