Page 19 of The Woman in the Garage

I had quite the track record when it came to relationships and crushes.

There was, of course, Johnny, who screwed everything that walked, including me. He also took money from all of us after said screwing. I’d been paying for sex without realizing it—for a year. And, God, it wasn’t even money well spent.

There’d been my work crush—a guy who worked at the gym across from my store—who my coworkers and I watched get hauled away by the cops for nearly beating his best friend to death with a hand weight.

Then there was Robby, who I’d dated on and off for about two years. Only to realize that the reason we were so on-and-off was because hiswife—that I obviously didn’t know existed—had a baby, and he felt guilty for a few months every now and then, and broke things off with me to go back to them.

I’d seen them all out together as a family on my birthday night—the same birthday he told me he couldn’t spend with me because he was on business in California.

“Did I lose you?” Santo asked, snapping me back to the present.

“You did,” I admitted, shaking my head.

“To where?”

“Oh, just all the times when I completely misjudged a man,” I admitted. Why bother lying? “So, okay. You had a deal with my uncle. Does that deal… roll over to me?”

I really hoped it didn’t. But I didn’t think I was in the position to try to make any demands or anything. I mean, this guy was inthemob. You know… cement shoes and sleeping with the fishes mob.

“Yes,” Santo confirmed, but there was regret in his voice, like he felt bad about that fact.

“Okay,” I said, exhaling hard. And I could have sworn, just for a second, his gaze slipped down to my chest at the motion. Though that was surely just wishful thinking. “Well, I guess protection isn’t a bad thing, right?”

“Right,” he agreed. “If anyone starts hassling you, if you get robbed, anything like that, you call me, and I handle it.”

“Like… handle it?” I asked, picking up my pen and making a stabbing motion in the air with it.

I was being dead serious.

But Santo threw his head back and laughed.

“Oh, sweetheart, you’re making this a hell of a lot easier than I thought it would be. The chances of me stabbing someone over stealing shit are low, though. No worries.”

“Okay then,” I said, sitting back, pretending not to notice the waymyheart fluttered each time he called me ‘sweetheart.’

It was just a pet name.

He probably used it on all women.

I needed to get a grip.

“Well, I guess all I have to ask is how often I have to pay you.”

I mean, things weren’t exactly loosey-goosey around there, money-wise. But there was a little extra money.

Did I have some of that money earmarked for repairs and upgrades around the garage? Sure. But I could, I don’t know, go online and learn how to do the repairs myself, find stuff second-hand. It could still look a million times better on a much smaller budget.

“Not what you have to pay me?” Santo asked, head tipped to the side.

“Fifteen hundred,” I said, keeping eye contact, not wanting him to try to change the agreement just because he thought he could.

“How’d you know that?”

“I saw your last name on an old piece of paper with that amount. Now that I know the details, I figure that’s what the arrangement is. Is that weekly?”

Please say no.

“Christ, no. No, babe, that’s monthly.”

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