“Cover for me,” Laurel said from behind her.
“Laurel,” Alix protested, biting off a warning. She hated this because she knew exactly what happened when Laurel and John slipped inside the back office and locked the door.
John watched his sicko sex videos, then returned to the video store all hot and bothered and gave Laurel ten minutes of his time. He left full of promises to take her out, which he had on rare occasions, paying her just enough attention to keep her dangling. The guy was a loser, but if Laurel didn’t see that, she wasn’t going to listen to anything Alix had to say.
“I won’t be long,” her friend promised, giggling as she hurried toward the back of the store, leading John by the hand.
At least it wasn’t busy. By nine in the evening, most people who were going to rent movies had already done so. There were only four or five customers browsing among the shelves.
Involved in her thoughts, Alix was surprised when she glanced up to find the very guy who’d been on her mind. Jordan Turner was standing at the counter.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Caught off guard, Alix needed a moment to control her reaction. She shrugged, then asked in as casual a voice as she could manage, “Can I help you?”
“Would you please check to see if The Matrix is available?”
“Yeah, sure.” Alix turned to the computer keyboard and typed in the movie title. Although no one would guess—she hoped—her heart was hammering wildly. She hadn’t expected Jordan on a Thursday night. He almost always came in on Tuesdays.
“I looked on the shelf, but there doesn’t seem to be a copy.”
“They’re all rented,” Alix told him, staring at the computer screen. “Would you like me to recommend another movie along the same lines?”
He considered her offer, then shook his head. “No, thanks.” He put Catch Me If You Can on the counter and paid for the rental. Before she could think of anything to delay him, he was gone.
Laurel reappeared at the counter, John in tow. She had a hickey on her neck and her blouse was misbuttoned. Alix glared at John who glared back, and whispered something to Laurel. Alix couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she could guess. Laurel shook her head adamantly.
John was out of the store a minute later but not soon enough to suit Alix.
“I’m meeting him after work,” Laurel informed her in a righteous tone. “He’s taking me to dinner.” Her eyes challenged Alix to say anything negative about John now, but Alix wasn’t taking the bait.
“He certainly seems to be in a good mood,” she muttered sarcastically.
“He is,” Laurel said. “He sold a car today and we’re going out to celebrate.”
“You might want to fix your blouse before you leave the store.”
“Oh,” Laurel said, looking down. Her fingers immediately went to work righting the last three buttons. “Thanks.”
Alix shook her head, and lifted a tray of videos to return to the shelf.
“I probably won’t come back to the apartment tonight,” Laurel said, “so don’t wait up for me.”
As if Alix would. “I’m not your mother. Don’t worry about it.”
“My mother wouldn’t care anyway. She dumped me with my uncle when I was ten. My nasty uncle, if that tells you anything.”
Laurel’s home life hadn’t been any better than Alix’s. They’d met a year earlier when they were both living day to day, mostly in hotel rooms, and not the kind that came with small bottles of shampoo, either. When you’re pulling down minimum wage, you can’t afford first and last month’s rent. It’d taken Laurel and Alix six months to get into their current place. You’d have thought they’d moved into a castle when they found the apartment. Between them they could manage the rent, but with all the neighborhood renovation, Alix was afraid they’d soon be out on the street. Rumor had it the apartment complex had been sold to the same company that bought the old bank.
The apartment was a dump, with sagging floors, a permanently stained bathtub and cracks in the ceiling. But it was the first home Alix had ever considered truly hers. All the furniture was stuff even Goodwill wouldn’t take. She and Laurel had collected it piece by piece over the past few months, through word of mouth and a couple of times right off the street.
Neither girl was in contact with her parents. The last Alix had heard, her dad was living somewhere in California but she hadn’t seen him in ten years and frankly she didn’t feel she was missing much. He hadn’t made any effort to find her and she had no desire to seek him out. Her mother was doing time for forging checks. No one knew that, other than Laurel, whom she’d told in a moment of weakness. Alix had sent her mother several letters but when she wrote back, all she wanted was for Alix to send her money—or even worse, get her stuff she shouldn’t be asking for.
Alix’s only other family was her older brother, but Tom had gotten mixed up with a rough crowd and ended up dead of a drug overdose five years ago. His death had hit her hard. It still did. Tom was all she’d had and then he’d gone and…given up. When she first heard, she’d been angry, so angry that she’d wanted to kill him for doing this to her. The next thing she knew, she was huddled on the floor, wishing she was eight years old again and could hide in a closet and pretend her world was safe and secure.
Without Tom, she’d faltered, become reckless and got into trouble. It took her a while to find her way, but she had. These days Alix was determined not to make the same mistakes her brother had. She’d looked after herself from the age of sixteen. In her own opinion, she’d done a fairly good job of staying sober and sane. Sure, she’d butted heads with the boys in blue a few times and been assigned a social worker, but she was proud that she’d stayed out of serious trouble—and off welfare.
“You got a call this afternoon,” Laurel informed her just before closing. “I meant to tell you but it slipped my mind.”
They could afford an apartment but not a phone, so all contacts were made at the video store, which annoyed the manager. “Who’d be calling me?”