Growing and Kissing (28 page)

Sean turned to me and took hold of me by the shoulders. “You’re
not
nobody,” he told me, and he said it in a voice that allowed no argument. He almost looked angry that I’d said it and that made my heart flip-flop. “Look,” he said. “Most of this shit is just attitude. We don’t have fucking resumes. You’re a grower because you
damn well say you’re a grower.
Attitude. Like I have to be a scary fucker.”

I swallowed. “But you
are
scary.”

He glanced at me. “That still how you think of me?”

We locked eyes. “No,” I said at last. “But I can’t
be
scary. I’m the least scary person in the world.”

“You don’t have to be scary. That’s not what we’re selling you as.”

“What
am
I?” I asked.

“The brains. And you don’t have to pretend about that.”

I felt my heart swell.

Footsteps descended the stairs. Sean grabbed my waist and pulled me close, his big hand sending pulses of heat through my dress. “You listen to me,” he ordered, and his words were like rough-edged slabs of granite. When he spoke like that, you
listened.

He put his mouth close to my ear and his voice changed. The words were still hard, cold stone but each one seemed to glow cherry red at its center. “You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. Smarter than me, smarter than Malone, smarter than anyone in this whole fucking game. You remember that.”

I swallowed and nodded.

The guard returned, unclipped the velvet rope, and led us upstairs.

Louise

Malone was big, like Sean had said. Muscle-big, like he might have played football before the fat had built up. Even now, his shoulders seemed to fill most of the width of the couch, stretching out his suit jacket. And he was black—in the reflected stage spotlights and the flickering candles, his skin looked almost blue-black. But I barely registered either of those things.

The only thing that mattered was the man’s sense of menace.

I’d thought Sean was intimidating, at first—sometimes, he still was. But he was scary in the way a big, strong attack dog with snapping teeth is scary. The violence he promised was somehow natural...
honest,
if that made any sense at all in a criminal world. It came from his muscles and his determination to do the job he was paid to do.

Malone put out an utterly different aura: you got the sense that he’d kill you because you’d displeased him, and the violence would be ugly and abstract, meted out by his thugs or at the end of a gun. At first, I thought of a boa constrictor, especially when I saw his huge hands, heavy with rings, which looked as if they’d easily crush a neck. But as he sat there motionless as an onyx statue, watching the stage from his private balcony, I realized what he really reminded me of: a huge, venomous spider. This club—this whole side of LA—was his web. He was powerful enough that he could simply sit there on his couch and his prey would come to him.

The guards waved us to the front of the balcony, where there were a couple of low stools. When we sat down on them facing Malone, our asses were almost on the floor and our heads were down below the level of the balcony wall. It was so that we wouldn’t spoil Malone’s view, I guessed. It also meant he loomed over us, even the massive Sean, and I was sure that wasn’t an accident.

It took a full minute before Malone acknowledged us. When the band ended their song and the applause rang out, he finally lowered his eyes to Sean. “Mr. O’Harra,” he intoned, his voice a deep bass boom that felt like it echoed off my ribcage. “What the fuck are you doing?” He said it with a lazy, poisonous malice that let us know how cruelly he’d kill us if the answer was wrong.

To his credit, Sean’s voice didn’t so much as waver. “I got a good deal for you. Weed. A lot of it. Fresh new supply, no problems with the law, just a nice fat crop ready to be sold.”

Malone’s lip curled in displeasure. “I know what you’re offering, you Irish prick. I asked what you were doing. You’re a fucking blunt instrument, like your goddamn hammer. You suddenly think you’re sharp? Running around town making deals?”

I tensed, ready for that anger of Sean’s to explode. No way would he be able to just sit there and take that. Hell, I was mad on his behalf: I’d seen how much more to him there was than smashing things.

But although Sean’s shoulders set and his hands curled into fists, he said, “No, Mr. Malone. Just a one-time thing, then back to normal.” He jerked his head towards me. “She’s the brains.”

Malone kept staring at him and I realized it was a test. He’d wanted Sean to prove his deference to his master. And Sean had sucked up his pride and done it.
For me.
To ensure the deal came off. I glanced across at him desperately, trying to communicate my thanks. He nodded.

And now Malone turned to me. It was like watching a huge stone statue come to life: only his head rotated, as if I didn’t warrant moving any more of him. “And who the fuck are you?” he asked. There was a flicker of interest in his eyes: the fact I was a woman in a business run by men bought me maybe five seconds before he got bored. It was all down to me.

And I messed it up.

I swallowed. “I’m Louise Willowby. I grow stuff. And I’ve got—I’m growing this stuff that’s going to be—It’ll be really good—”

Malone held up one massive hand, palm facing me, and I stopped talking. He turned back to Sean. “You do good work,” he grunted. Each word was like the launch of an iceberg, huge and unstoppable. “That’s the only reason I’m letting you out of here without a beating. Jesus, I should have them take that fucking sledgehammer and break your legs with it, wasting my time like this.”

Sean’s eyes flared with fury and I thought he was going to spring at Malone...but then he glanced across at me and lowered his gaze to the floor.
He’s scared of me getting hurt!

Malone, meanwhile, had tilted back his head and was unscrewing the cap from a small white bottle. Physostigmine, for glaucoma—my grandma used to take the same stuff. He was taking his goddamn medication, as if he’d already forgotten about us.

As he started to drip the drops into his eyes, the guards came forward to throw us out. I thought of Kayley. All that time I’d spent at the grow house when I could have been at her side, and now it was all for nothing. We had no buyer and I was going to have to stand by and watch her die—

I jumped to my feet. “I’m a grower,” I said, loud and clear. “I’m a grower, goddamn it!”

Malone kept his head tilted back, but he looked down his nose at me. The guards had nearly reached us, now.

“I’m not like the others,” I told him. “I’m using stuff I learned in college, straight out of NASA, stuff that your guys won’t pick up on for years. They use the same fertilizer all the time; I change the ratios of phosphorus and nitrogen, depending on the stage of the plants’ growth. I raise the nitrogen while the plants are young, then switch to higher phosphorus while they’re flowering, then back to higher nitrogen. That means more THC per leaf—it’ll be a smoother, cleaner, more intense smoke.” Hands grabbed my arms. “I know my shit so, goddamn it,
listen to me!”

Malone slowly lowered his head to look at me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the nearest guard flinch at the way I’d spoken to him. Their hands tightened on my arms, digging in—

Malone lifted his hand and I was released. For several seconds he just stared at me. At last, he said, “You got a big fucking mouth. Is this weed really going to be all that?”

I swallowed and nodded. “Yeah. It’s really going to be all that.”

“It better be. Lennie said you want five hundred large for three hundred pounds. That’s some premium shit. Is it really premium shit?”

I set my jaw and stared right back at him. “It’s premium shit.”

He drew in a long breath, searching for any sign of weakness in my face. Then he said, “You grow your crop. If it’s really like you say...then yeah, I’ll buy it.”

He nodded to the guards and they hustled us downstairs and out of the club. It was still raining but nothing like as heavily as before. As we stepped out into the night, Sean and I looked at each other with the same relieved-but-disbelieving expression. Had we really...
done it?

We had. We had our buyer.

“I’m proud of you,” he told me.

I flushed. “I surprised you in there, huh?”

He looked at me steadily. “No. I knew you could do it.”

I bit my lip. “I’m proud of you, too. You didn’t get mad, or smash anything.”

He glowered. “I nearly did, when he wouldn’t listen to you. I was ready to throw him off his fucking balcony.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. Just the feel of him, his warm solidness, through his leather jacket made me go heady. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

And then we were leaning into each other, twisting our heads to kiss. It was oddly slow and tentative: every time until now, we’d kissed because we’d lost control. Now, in the darkness, with the rain pattering softly on our heads and shoulders, I felt like a teenager working up the courage to kiss for the very first time.

With a boy she
really, really
liked.

Our lips met in a slow dance, tasting each other, experimenting. His hands slid into my hair and it was magical, one of those lift-you-up kisses I thought you didn’t get once you were grown up. For a minute or maybe more, we just kissed, slow and romantic and goddamn
perfect.
When he finally drew back from me and looked into my eyes, I grinned like an idiot.

Only then did we think about the possibilities. His hands knitted with mine and he squeezed.

“You can’t come back to my place,” I said. “Kayley—”

He nodded quickly. “We could go to mine.” He checked his watch. “But I need to go to the grow house, soon.”

I put my hands on his chest, tracing the shape of his muscles. The mood was sliding, very quickly, from romantic to scorching hot. “The grow house is closer,” I mumbled.

His hands skimmed down my back. “The grow house
is
closer. You could get a cab home afterwards....”

I swallowed as his hands reached my ass. I had to have him:
now.
I raised my hand in the air. “Taxi!”

***

We almost fell through the door of the grow house with Sean trying to work the zipper of my dress. “It’s stuck,” he mumbled into my neck.

“Don’t break it!” I panted, clawing at the buttons of his shirt. “It’s not mine!”

Sean kicked the door closed...and a white envelope that had been on the mat wafted into the air.

“What’s that?” I asked, dodging a kiss.

“Don’t know,” said Sean. “Don’t care.” He kissed me, long and hard, and started to work the dress up my hips.

It took every bit of willpower I had, but I tore my lips away from him. “Wait!” I said. “Who’s writing to us? Who even knows we’re here?” I grabbed the envelope from the mat and tore it open.

Sean huffed and growled while I read the letter. “What?” he asked impatiently.

I read it again. And again. The words refused to change.

“
What?”
asked Sean again, worried, this time. He’d seen my expression.

“It’s from the realtor,” I said. “They’ve sold the land the house is built on. They want us out in seven days.” I glanced around at the plants. “And they’re coming to inspect the place tomorrow morning.”