“For that? You’ve got to be kidding me.” He leaned back against the wall she’d abused, giving it a quick glance to make sure her fury hadn’t cracked it. “Is your foot okay?”
“Steel-toed boots, just like yours. I was imagining it was Felix’s face.”
“I figured.”
“I threw my lot in with Felix about a year and a half ago,” she went on, surprising him. Though he didn’t know her that well yet, he had a feeling Alice Halliday had never been the happily open and sharing type. “After his mother died and he graduated from college, he just sort of…I don’t know. Drifted. Dropping in and out of jobs that never fit right. Never seeming to care about anything other than pumping iron at his favorite gym and taking selfies of his ginormous biceps.”
Loki snorted. “Fuck me.”
“Then Felix’s gym went up for sale. Like that,” she snapped her fingers, “he bought it before anyone could blink, much less point out that he didn’t have the first idea how to run a business. He loved that gym, so that was that. He was going to make it happen.”
“And you bought into that?”
“I bought into being there to help Felix if he needed it. I thought as long as I was there, I could help him succeed.” She slumped back against the wall beside him and hit the back of her head against the wall in obvious self-punishment. “A year and a half of my life, wasted. God, I’m stupid.”
“Living your life for someone else is always stupid, but look at it this way—lesson learned. You’re smarter now, so that shit’s never going to happen again.” When she didn’t answer, he decided a change of subject was the way to go. “What were you doing before you threw in with your foster bro?”
“I couldn’t afford to go to Northwestern once my college fund vanished, but I could still go to community college and get some kind of technical degree, so that’s what I did.”
“What would you have done if you’d been able to go to Northwestern?”
All emotion drained from her face and she shrugged like she didn’t care. “I’d always dreamed of being a lawyer. But dreams are stupid, so I’ve learned not to give a damn about shit like that.”
Unreasonable anger at Felix fuckface and his dying mother swamped him. “That fucked-up foster family of yours screwed you over but good, Stems. They took so much from you. Don’t let them take away your dreams, too.”
“Sometimes life is better without dreams, Loki. Besides, it’s not like I gave up on life. It took me a while to get enough money to work my way through community college, but I did finally get there. I’d just completed an associate degree in Criminal Justice, and I have several credits in forensics and statistics. I was in the process of applying to the Police Academy when Felix bought the gym out of freaking nowhere. That’s when his sister Joelle and I decided I could take a little time to help him get established, while still getting a solid paycheck to pay off the last of my student loans.”
“Student loans that you shouldn’t have had to take out if your foster bro hadn’t fucked up everything.”
She shrugged in a weary kind of way that told him that particular thought was no stranger to her. “I told myself that it was all part of my training. I’ve spent this past year and a half getting certified as both a personal trainer and a self-defense coach, instead of doing what I’d intended—join the Chicago PD and focus on establishing a career in law enforcement.”
“The police.” A bark of laughter escaped him, and he looked to the shadowed concrete ceiling above them for strength. “Fuck me.”
“What?”
“You, wanting to be a cop. Colgraves and cops are like cats and dogs. Toothpaste and orange juice. Bieber and everything else. We just don’t mesh.” He studied her profile and marveled that even in the greenish fluorescent light in that underground world, she was still one hell of a looker. “Or, at least we never have in the past.”
“Yeah, well, I’m no cop, so it doesn’t matter either way. All I am is a jobless loser, because Felix announced today that he’s closing the gym and declaring bankruptcy, just like his old man. He also weaved together that bullshit story about you rolling him for the payroll. That was why I went over to his townhouse in the first place this morning. I, uh, found that I didn’t have enough funds in the bank to cover my rent.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, my landlord was a real prince about it,” she said so bitterly he couldn’t help but think that of all things, her landlord had definitely not been a prince. “Naturally I wanted an explanation as to why Felix hadn’t paid me the money I was fucking owed. I think you know what he told me.”
That made him snarl. “No wonder you were so pissed you wanted to knock my block off.”
“I don’t get pissed.” Then she took a shaking breath and again clutched her hands together in a way that made his own fingers hurt. “Let me rephrase. I try, every single day, to never get so pissed that I lose control. Come to find out, being penniless, jobless and soon-to-be homeless pushes me beyond my breaking point. For that, I’m truly sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Anyone would’ve lost their shit over this.”
“No. Not me. I can’t afford to ever lose my shit.”
“Why not?”
But she only shook her head, her lips compressing into a tight line. “He bet the payroll, didn’t he? Felix, I mean. He bet the payroll on himself.”
Honest to God, if he ever found himself face to face with this Felix fuckface again, he’d break whatever intact bones he had left. “Probably.”
“That was my money. He gambled it all away on the fight he had with you, and now I’m literally broke. He’s left me with nothing.”
Hearing her state out loud what had been done to her caused a surge of fury that flowed through him so fast it took his breath away. “What a dumb fuck.”
“For believing in Felix after what happened when he was in college? Yeah, I guess I am.”
“No, not you. Him. Felix fuckface. I still don’t remember him, but I’m sorry I wasted my time on such a useless piece of shit.”
“You and me both. Unfortunately, the time I wasted on him was about a year and a half of my life, and it’s landed me even deeper in the hole than when I began. I still have a student loan and other bills hanging over my head, but now I’m also behind in my rent, and the landlord says that I now owe another month’s rent plus a late fee—something that’s not in my rental agreement, but whatever. And I have no job. In fact, I have no idea where I’m going to be living a week from now.”
There was no holding back the snarl, so he didn’t even try. “That sonofabitch fleeced you, then was so spineless he chose to blame his shit on me instead of copping to it like a man. Gotta say, it’s a fucking wonder you didn’t beat my head in earlier.”
“No, that was wrong of me, Loki. I’m so ashamed of myself for that loss of control that I can’t even look at you.” A harsh sound escaped her before she sagged against the wall with a defeated sigh. “None of this was your fault. If you’re not going to have me arrested for assaulting you, maybe you could do me a favor and just forget I exist.”