Page 28 of Always Salty

He shook his head. “Don’t kick ’em out just yet. I don’t mind staying with you until I figure it all out.”

I winced. “Don’t read my mail.”

His brows rose as I started gathering my things, and I quickly looked away.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“Just…” I hesitated, then deflated. “I’m fairly sure that I got a vacate the premises letter this morning, but I never got a chance to open it because I got a call from Cutter to come pick you up.”

He sighed.

“I thought you’d paid three years in advance?” he asked.

“I did, which locked me in with that lower price, but business is booming in downtown Dallas, and they can get three times that amount now than I originally paid. They want their apartment back and know I’m not willing to pay the extra bullshit price they’re going to set.” I gathered my belongings. “Just…don’t open it, okay?”

“I won’t,” he lied.

We both knew he’d open it.

My brothers were so damn nosy.

I might’ve had better luck not telling him about the mail at all, but they’d always been so into everything of mine that it’d been near impossible to hide anything from them.

“There’s cash in the drawer beside my microwave,” I said. “And there’s an extra card for my checking account with it. Feel free to use it.”

He pulled me in and placed a kiss on the side of my head. “I love you, kid.”

I winked at him. “Not a kid anymore, Copper.”

I immediately regretted the words because his face fell as he said, “Yeah. I know. I missed a lot.”

Feeling the lowest of low, I got out and headed inside.

Dorie met me at the door as she walked up from the side of the building where she must’ve scored a good parking spot or she walked to work again.

“Let me ask you this,” she said. “Is it completely stupid to walk around in the middle of the bad parts of Dallas and expect to make it home safely?”

I looked at her curiously as I said, “For a boy? You’d probably be just fine. For you or me? No. I’d never be that unsafe.”

She blew out a breath. “You’re killing me. This is an ongoing fight between my boyfriend and me.”

The rest of the night was spent debating whether a woman who was strong like us could stand a chance against a determined male attacker.

Me? I’d said hell no.

Her? She’d said that both of us could fight off anyone we wanted.

We agreed to disagree.

For Christmas this year, I want my back to stop hurting.

—Dima to Shasha

DIMA

Being the right-hand man of a Bratva pakhan should be a lot harder than it was, but it seemed my brother’s enemies were behaving themselves. Meaning, I was bored.

Which had to be why I looked into the cameras I’d set up at her place.

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