For me, money has always meant survival. A means to get from one place to the next. But now, they’ve got me thinking…
About a gorgeous girl I met briefly who has made her way into my head, and I can’t get her out.
What am I thinking?
I focus my attention back on the blueprints, channeling the clean focus I need at this stage of a job. But it’s not there. All I feel is the empty house I’m going back to tonight.
“Yo, Chris?” I look up. Danny’s watching me, burrito paused mid-bite. “You good?”
“Fine.”
“You’re spacing out, brother.” He takes another bite. “That’s not like you.”
He’s right. It’s not like me. I don’t space out. My mind doesn’t wander. I’m always focused on the job. That’s what keeps me alive. What keeps me free. But for ten seconds just now, I wasn’t thinking about the job. I was back in the bookshop, sitting in the leather chair, watching a stunning girl with chestnut hair and warm brown eyes hand me a cup of coffee.
“What you spending your cut on?” Marco asks. “New car? That cabin in Colorado you mentioned?”
A cabin in Colorado. I said that once, years ago, after a job in Salt Lake City. I was just speculating on what it would be like to live somewhere clean and quiet, no neighbors and no history. Nobody who knows my name. Danny remembers because Danny remembers everything. Especially things you wish he’d forget.
“Haven’t decided yet,” I reply. Which is the truth.
I haven’t decided yet because there’s no reason to. No one in my life is pushing me for anything. Danny has Lisa. Marco has Carmen and the girls. I don’t even have parents. Dad died in prison when I was fifteen, and Mom ran off with some drug dealer six months later.
All I’ve got is a bag full of cash and a lease I can break with a phone call. A million bucks to me is just another million bucks in the stash. It can buy things but not the one thing that truly matters. Someone to share your life with.
No strings. No attachments. Nothing that could potentially land you behind bars.
My mantra runs through my head like it always does, but for the first time in years, it doesn’t quite land. Because underneath it, where my discipline lives, something else is taking up space. Something with a cute laugh that I only heard once but can’t stop replaying.
Avery.
I almost bit her head off when she handed me that coffee. In my line of work, random people coming up to you and asking you personal questions isn’t a good thing.
I wanted to tell her to leave and never come back. Not because I didn’t like her being there but because I liked it too much. Because for the few minutes we spoke, I forgot about blueprints, the vault, and the ten-minute window to escape.
She cut through my walls with ease, like she was cracking a vault. And that thrills me, but it also scares me.
I roll up the blueprints, say goodbye to the boys, and drive off. I drive home in silence, but my thoughts aren’t quiet. It hasn’t been quiet since she sat down in the chair in front of me. I think hard about my future. Where it could go. What it could be. And then, I make a decision.
Not a big one. Nothing dramatic. Just a quiet shift inside on how I do things.
This will be my last job. After the bank, I’m done. Out. Over ten years without a bust, and I’m walking away while I still can.
Danny and Marco have it right. A life isn’t a life if there’s no one in it. It’s just a schedule. One job to the next. Fake IDs and empty houses. Nothing real.
I don’t want an exit strategy anymore. What I want is a reason to stay.
Two days later,I go to the bookstore at noon. I’ve been up since four a.m., thinking about her long legs, the curve of her neck, and the way she saidI’m not most people.
That’s for sure.
I park and wait, watching the shop door, checking my mirrors and entrances to the lot. Old habits die hard. Three minutes later, she comes out.
Hair down, wearing a patterned yellow sundress, and carrying a canvas bag over her shoulder. She’s beauty incarnate. Despite my self-control, blood starts rushing between my legs, awakening desires I’ve managed to suppress for a long time.
A thought strikes me like a blade. I don’t even know how old she is. She’s definitely young—far younger than me. I can never tell with girls in her age bracket, but she’d better be over eighteen because those curves have got my heart pounding.
She stops and glances around like she’s looking for someone. Me maybe?
