Page 25 of Play Dirty (Brooklyn Dawn 1)

He shoved his wallet into his pocket. “I can’t believe I’m getting blamed for your bullshit.”

I followed him to the truck around the front of the house. “Angel did that shit around your kids. That’s unacceptable.”

“I agree, goddammit.” He slammed his door.

I opened the passenger side and hopped in as he gunned the engine. “Does your wife know it’s after five? Is there anything still open in this godforsaken town? Aren’t the small town folks cleaning up after dinner and putting their nightclothes on before their two hours of telly, possible fifteen minutes of missionary sex, then lights out?”

“You’re a bastard.”

I shrugged and snapped my seat belt in place. “At least I can last longer than fifteen minutes. How about you, boyo?” When he didn’t answer, I relaxed in my seat. “There’s nothing wrong with a quickie sometimes, so don’t feel bad about yourself.”

“Considering you’re applying for monk status, I think you should shut your mouth while you’re ahead.”

My default setting was silence, so it wasn’t a hardship. Sunset was sitting on top of us already. Fall had soundly trounced summer into submission. Hell, outside it was closer to pre-winter. Even so, I warmed my hands on the vent for just a few minutes before flicking the heat down to a normal level.

Logan seemed just as deep in thought as I liked to pretend to be, so the silence wasn’t an uncomfortable one. I didn’t know what the hell we were going to do to fill Angel’s slot.

Most of the Christmas project had hinged on her rising fame. Her breakout single and the two songs we’d released from her upcoming EP were breaking the damn internet.

Now?

While we had a decent lineup for the album, they were all the same people we normally included. A few of the usual singers had cycled out due to previous commitments, but when I’d started working with Angel earlier this year, she was a star on the rise. I was damn choosy about whom I worked with, and luckily, I had enough money to be as discerning as I pleased.

Angel was the first artist I’d actually been excited to work with in a damn long time.

I tipped my head back against the headrest. I’d thought she was smarter than most. Wise enough not become a statistic in the music and fame grinder.

Shocker, I was wrong.

She’d been pushing back the recording of this song for months. Now I knew why.

I cracked my knuckles, my thumb worrying over the scars on my left hand absently. When Logan took a left off his access road instead of a right into town or toward the highway to civilization, I slanted a look his way.

“Where are we headed?”

“A friend’s workshop.”

“I am not in the mood for people.”

“It’s not really a social call. Besides, Jacob isn’t exactly a conversationalist. You should get along.”

“Great.”

We drove on a teeth-jarring road toward a clearing. A surprising amount of farmland filled the limited scope of Logan’s truck lights. Instead of going toward the main house, he took a gravel road toward a barn.

“Did you call ahead?”

“Nope.”

“And you know he’s out here?”

Logan jammed his gear shift into park. “He’s always out here. The old man is either in the store, the field, or out here. He never sleeps.” He got out of the truck without another word and left me to either stay or follow.

I was tempted to hold my ass in the truck, but it was fecking cold. Which he knew.

Bastard.

I hopped down and followed the golden light to the open doors. The whir of an electric blade of some sort marred the silence of the night.

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