The Risk Page 13

  Gina

  “Does my hair look ok? What about this outfit?”

  I posed seductively in front of my phone and tried a few poses until I started to feel goofy.

  Janie Neader, my best friend, was looking back at me through video chat. She pretended like she was making a very difficult decision.

  “I already told you that you look fine,” Janie finally said with an exasperated look on her face.

  “I know, but I want to look super fine!”

  “Ok, then you look super fine!” Janie said throwing back her head with a giggle. When she giggled I swear to God she sounded so much like Steve Urkle, snort and all.

  Of course she denied this to the core.

  “I am just so nervous,” I said starting to pace back and forth. I hated being this jittery, mostly because it was making me sweat about to ruin my makeup.

  “What are you so worked up about? It’s only your brother’s friend who has known you since you were like two,” she said.

  “Ugh, would you quit reminding me of that,” I said. “I’ve always had a crush on him.”

  “I know,” Janie said. “You never shut up about him in grade school. It was weird and annoying.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just want this dinner to go really well. I don’t want Joe to think that I’m the same spazoid geek I used to be.”

  “Hey, you were never a spazoid to me. I almost went nuts when you moved away,” Janie said. “In fact I can’t stand it that you are not spending tonight with me. You barely arrived back in town. We have so much catching up to do.”

  “We’ve been doing that all week,” I reminded her. “Now, who is getting obsessive and weird?”

  “I never said obsessive,” Janie replied. “But now that you mention it…”

  “Shut up,” I laughed. For some reason I had a strong urge for a cigarette, and I didn’t even smoke. It just felt like something that might calm me down. I thought for a moment about borrowing one from Ronnie.

  Great, smelling like an ashtray will be a great way to impress Joe.

  I hated my inner voice so much sometimes. Mostly, because it was always right.

  “Would it make you less nervous if I came to dinner with you?” Janie asked.

  “No,” I replied. “That would make it worse. I need Joe to focus on me.”

  “Well, excuse me,” Janie said mockingly. “I doubt I’m Joe’s type.”

  I glanced at her and laughed. “You are so hard on yourself.”

  Janie was studying to be a forensics tech and she looked every bit the stereotype of a science nerd. Which she was.

  I heard the car pull up outside and a moment later the door shut.

  “He’s here!” I said jumping up and down a little. I was suddenly aware that my bladder felt full, but I’d gone to the restroom three times in the past hour.

  “Awesome!” Janie said. “Keep me on video chat and carry me down so I can say high. Maybe I’ll flash a boob or two. What do you think?”

  “No! You are insane!”

  “I know,” Janie laughed. “I’m sick; I need help.”

  “Well, you aren’t going to get it tonight,” I said. “Wish me luck. I’ve got to go.”

  “Later,” Janie said.

  I signed out of the video chat and checked myself out in my full length mirror. I had tried four outfits and settled on the second one. I thought it was the right choice. It wasn’t too flashy, not too fancy, but also not just lounging about casual.

  “Alright, let’s go,” I said to my reflection.

  * * *

  Was he giving me the eye?

  My eyes locked with Joe’s for a moment before I looked back down at my plate, toying with the idea of putting one of Ronnie’s psychotic spicy enchiladas in my numb mouth. My God they were hot. But they were still better than anything I could whip up. Cooking had never been something I enjoyed. No, eating was something I enjoyed.

  I took another bite and prepared myself for the taste of the sun. The hot sauce hit my tongue and wafted its spicy scent up into my nostrils. Crazy hot, but it was so good.

  When Joe had first laid eyes on me coming down the stairs there was a strange feeling in the room. It felt like I was suddenly moving in slow motion, my eyes fixed on him, and his eyes locked rigidly on mine. A tiny smile began to form at the corners of his perfect mouth, widening with every step I took. At first I wasn’t sure if it was just because he was happy to see an old friend, or if there was something more there.

  I wanted there to be something more. God, please…

  As I stepped off the last step Joe wrapped his arms around me and then pulled back to look me over.

  “I can’t believe how much you’ve grown up,” Joe said.

  “Well, if you still had a personal Facebook page you probably wouldn’t be so surprised,” I teased. “When are you going to grow up and join the twenty-first century?”

  “Hey, I only use social media for work. I’m too busy for anything else,” Joe said. “Plus I had those stalkers.”

  I felt my eyes growing wide. “Stalkers?”

  “Yeah, it was a few years ago,” Joe replied. “Don’t worry about it.”

  I glanced at Ronnie trying to decide if he was joking or not. Ronnie just shrugged.

  After introductions we sat down to dinner and so far everything had been going fantastic. It really was like the hangouts we had when we were younger. Of course, back then I was the bratty kid sister. Hopefully I had outgrown that moniker.

  The way Joe kept stealing glances at me with that look in his eyes led me to believe I had.

  God, he looked good. I’d been following him online any way I could, watching his fight career, checking out YouTube videos of his fights. Pleasuring myself to those videos…

  I smiled, embarrassed by the thought.

  If Joe only knew…

  I couldn’t help it. The man was so sexy, and watching him work in the ring turned me on to the point I had no choice. I loved to watch him work. His skill, his precision, his ripped muscles working together in perfect harmony and flow to execute their mission of destroying his opponent, the sweat dripping off those muscles making them glisten even more.

  I was getting so wet just thinking about it.

  “So, what are you majoring in, again?” Joe asked.

  “Oh, um Psychology,” I said.

  “Wow, that sounds cool,” Joe replied between bites of his enchilada. “Are you planning to be a headshrinker?”

  “Nah, I’m not getting a medical degree. I don’t think I could live with talking to people all day who need drugs.”

  Joe laughed, almost choking on his food.

  “Don’t die, dude,” Ronnie chided him.

  Joe took a long swig of his beer.

  “Alright then,” he said. “I didn’t realize you had developed such a sense of humor since you’ve been away.”

  I looked at him surprised. “Hey, that isn’t nice to say. Are you trying to tell me that my old jokes weren’t funny.”

  “I’m not trying to tell you,” Joe said. “I’m pretty sure I did tell you.”

  “Jerk,” I said playfully hitting him on the arm.

  Joe winked at me with a laugh.

  I noticed Ronnie’s expression suddenly got very serious.

  I didn’t want to hear it from him. Ronnie had given me a pep talk earlier about not starting anything with Joe. He had always known about my crush, and honestly I was pretty sure Joe did too, much to my embarrassment. But I had been a kid then, so I didn’t really care anymore.

  But now, I just wanted Joe to like me back.

  “So, what are your long term plans then?” Joe asked as he got up to get a beer out of the fridge. “Want one?” He asked pointing to me.

  “Hey!” Ronnie said. “She’s nineteen.”

  “I would love a beer, Joe,” I said. My eyes narrowed into slits and glared at my brother. What the hell?

  “You above the law or something?” Ronnie asked.
>
  “Oh, please, Mr. Saint,” Joe said handing me the bottle. “Since when did you become all “Law Abiding Citizen”?

  “Since it involves my kid sister,” Ronnie said.

  Joe sat back down and smiled at me as I took a big drink of the beer. I was a nineteen year-old college student. Did my brother really think that beer was foreign to me?

  “To answer your question, Joe,” I continued, “I am planning on becoming a counselor.”

  “Right on,” Joe said. “After all the blows to the head I’ve taken I’ll probably need some counseling.”

  I wanted to laugh hard, but I didn’t want to appear too giddy.

  “I’ve seen your fights online,” I said. “It looks like you do most of the hitting to the head.”

  Joe smiled. “Well, I do catch a stray one every now and then. But I’m still pretty, so I guess not too many.”

  “Well, someone thinks highly of themselves,” Ronnie teased.

  “Joe’s not the only one who agrees he is very pretty,” I said locking eyes with Joe. I felt a seductive look come over me and a seductive charge coursing through my body right then.

  “Give me a break,” Ronnie said. “And what the hell has come over you saying crap like that? I’m eating for God’s sakes.”

  “Well, we didn’t mean to make you feel left out,” Joe said. “Ronnie, you are very pretty too.”

  “HA!” I couldn’t hold back the laughter. “There it is!”

  Ronnie smiled widely. “I don’t need the confirmation. I know I got it going on.”

  He stood up then and did some stupid little dance for about ten seconds.

  “You’ve seen your brother fight,” Joe said. “This is what happens when you really get hit in the head a lot.”

  Ronnie leaned back and shook his head. “Dude, this ain’t cool ganging up on me.”

  I leaned over and touched my brother’s arm gently. “I’m sorry, bro,” I smirked. “You feel better now? We didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  Joe was laughing his head off. I was laying it on so thick.

  I wished Joe would lay something thick on me…

  A blush came over me at the suggestion.

  “You guys both suck,” Ronnie said. He stuffed the last bite of enchilada in his mouth and took his plate to the kitchen. “You guys want more?”

  “No,” we both replied in unison.

  “God, my mouth is on fire,” I said.

  “Mine too,” Joe concurred. “But the enchiladas are not the hottest thing at this table.”

  My blush intensified as I looked downward. A moment passed, I regained my composure and felt the jolt, sexual desire moving through my loins. My eyes returned their steely gaze.

  I was so ready…

  “So, I guess you like the changes I’ve undergone?” I asked softly.

  “Oh, that is the understatement of the year,” Joe replied. “Ronnie told me you’d grown up, but you are officially stunning.”

  “Well, thanks. I do try,” I teased.

  “Too bad, we can’t do anything about it…”

  I looked deeply into his eyes and smiled slightly.

  “Oh, why is that?”

  Joe laughed. “Wow, you’ve become a beautiful woman and a bit of a bad girl, too?”

  “Well, I think you should decide how bad I am after a bit more research…”

  I let my words trail off as I fingered the neck of the beer bottle, moving my hands slightly suggestively up and down before bringing the bottle to my lips and engulfing the mouth of the glass, kissing and sucking it.

  Joe’s eyes grew wide, his hands were clenching and unclenching into fists with tension, and I thought I saw a bead of sweat on his forehead. He wanted me, badly. I loved it. I had waited so long to see that look in his eyes.

  “You know why we can’t,” Joe said. “Ronnie would be furious.”

  “He would get over it and learn to deal,” I said.

  Joe smiled. “No, he would never forgive me for betraying his trust. I would lose my best friend.”

  I sighed.

  I knew that Joe was right. Ronnie had always been weird about me dating to begin with, but when it came to certain types of guys he would become enraged if he saw me even talking to them.

  He’d warned me about my ex. And he’d actually been right.

  But I knew Joe. I’d grown up around Joe. He was one of the good ones. Although, I knew he did have a reputation as a bit of a ladies’ man. He’d never really settled down with anybody and going by rumors you could find on the internet he could have been described as a player.

  I knew all of this, considered it, and decided I just didn’t care. There was something about Joe that always made me feel so safe. I just didn’t think I would ever have that with anyone else.

  But Ronnie would never approve. He knew Joe better than anybody, besides me, and he had made it abundantly clear that he would do whatever he could to make sure this did not happen between us.

  “Alright,” Ronnie said returning from the kitchen with his plate piled high once again with more enchiladas.

  “Dude, how can you eat that much hot sauce?” Joe asked.

  Ronnie had immediately begun drenching his enchiladas in hot sauce. The man practically drank the stuff and would drown any food in it. He had an addiction, I believed.

  “It’s the only way to eat it,” Ronnie laughed.

  It wasn’t long before we were back into the groove of conversation, the three of us bantering and chatting about anything and everything silly.

  It was a great time.

  But at the end of the evening as Joe walked out of the house and said goodbye to me I felt different. I felt that something had changed between Joe and myself during dinner. I’d laid my cards on the table and basically told Joe that I was very interested in pursuing this mutual attraction we had going on, and although I know he said we couldn’t, he never said he didn’t want to.

  Ronnie was the only thing in the way. He was never going to change his stubborn mind. He was too much like our dad.

  But I had a feeling that with time Joe and I would find a way to overcome this.

  There were ways of dealing with Ronnie.

  Chapter Twenty

  Joe

  I turned the key in the lock on the front door to the gym with a heavy sigh. It had been a long day, but rewarding all the same. I started a class of brand new students this morning and a few of them actually showed promise. On top of that we signed up several new fighters in the area, one of whom was an up comer I was going to keep my eye on. We seemed to hit it off pretty well.

  But I was beat tired and could think of nothing else except a hot shower and a cold beer. Well, almost nothing else.

  Ever since the other night Gina’s beautiful face had been imprinted in my mind. She was definitely not the teenager I remembered as being Ronnie’s brat sister all those years. And the way she had matured and grown so comfortable in her sexuality and her confidence was damned sexy.

  I’d thought long and hard about what we’d said to each other in that short time where we were alone while Ronnie was in the kitchen prepping to give himself a coronary. It was appealing on so many levels. I mean, what if Gina and I really did decide to give it a good go? What if it worked out? The timing of everything was perfect.

  But then there was the obstacle of Ronnie, which I’m not sure how much of an obstacle it really was. I knew him better than just about anybody, so I knew how much he loved and protected his little sister, but sooner or later he was going to have to realize that she wasn’t a little girl anymore and that eventually a new man would enter her life who would take over the role of the protector.

  Not that she really seemed to need much protection. Gina was a tough girl. I loved that about her. I’ve always been a tough as nails type of a guy, if I wanted to get serious about a woman then the truth of the matter is she was going to have to be as tough as me. I needed a girl who wouldn’t put up with my arrogance. Yes, I can
be as stubborn as a mule sometimes and I don’t back down.

  Gina just might have been the woman who could put me in my place when the time was right.

  I unlocked my truck, and threw my jacket into the passenger seat. I was just about to climb in when I noticed something strange out of the corner of my eye.

  A group of nefarious-looking men were standing around in a circle about a half block away from the gym. They were all standing in front of Ronnie’s car. And as I observed more closely I could see that standing in the middle of the group of men, circling around him almost like vultures was Ronnie.

  I stood there watching for a moment, not wanting to do anything rash just yet.

  The men were talking as they continued to walk around Ronnie. At first glance it almost seemed like an ambush of some kind. Just when I was about to run over to intervene and help my friend a man from the group stepped out of the circle so he and Ronnie were face to face. He smiled and put his arm on Ronnie’s shoulder in a very big brother kind of way.

  I took a deep breath, feeling the tension easing out of my body. What the hell was happening here?

  Ronnie seemed apprehensive but still relaxed from what I could see under the light of the half busted street lamp above them.

  As the man turned slightly towards the rest of the group that I recognized who he was.

  Victor Silas. The head of the gang known as “The Cobras”.

  My heart sank about a foot in my chest. What in the world was Ronnie talking to these guys about?

  The Cobras were a dangerous local gang on this side of town. They were nefarious for a lot of robberies, gang style beatings, and there were rumors that they regularly killed those who crossed them. And they were getting more powerful by the day it seemed. I remembered when my uncle Bob used to talk about them when he was on the police force when I was a little boy. These guys were not to be involved with and they definitely weren’t to be crossed.

  What sort of trouble was Ronnie in? I could only imagine. Ronnie could be a pretty secretive guy but I was sure he’d always had a good head on his shoulders. Surely if there was anything major going on in his life I would have been the first to know about it.