“It was probably just a prank, or meant for someone else. It just annoyed me because of the way the party ended. Gunshots are terrifying when you experience them in person.”
She bit her lip and didn’t agree or disagree with me. I entered my password and then froze. The screen was blue . . . not good. I looked up at Dovie over the monitor and tried to keep from screaming.
“My laptop has a blue screen.”
She blinked and got up to walk around the side of the table so she could look at it.
“Uh-oh.”
I gulped and turned it off and started it back up. Still ugly, glaring blue.
“Shit.”
She squeezed my shoulder. “That’s bad.”
“You have no idea. My entire college life is in there. My paper due tomorrow, all my notes, and if I want any kind of shot at passing Math Theory, I need everything that the blue screen just swallowed. This can’t be happening.”
I barely resisted throwing the entire thing on the floor and tap-dancing all over the pieces.
“You can probably recover the stuff on the hard drive.” She was trying to sound optimistic, but it wasn’t helping.
“Well, that’s one problem that might be solved, but I can’t afford a new computer.” I didn’t mean to say it, it just slipped out.
Dovie had been to the house; she knew that at one point in time my parents had been pretty well off. It sounded dumb, not having money for a new computer when I lived in a nice suburb and drove a BMW, but the truth was I HAD to keep my job at the restaurant if I wanted to keep my car, if I wanted to finish my degree. There was no more money. Between Mom’s medical bills and whatever Dad was doing in the stock market, we were lucky to still have lights on in the house.
“And I don’t have the time or the energy to try and fit in a second job to pay for one. This sucks.”
I shoved my fingers through my hair and rubbed the heels of my palms into my temples. All that stuff I shoved down on a day-to-day basis rose up in the back of my throat, threatening to choke me. Really, how much more could one person be expected to endure? Why was the universe trying to break me?
“Can I offer a suggestion?”
I looked up at her and she was twisting one of her curls around her fingers, a telltale sign she was nervous. I knew I wasn’t going to like whatever she had to say.
“Sure, as long as it doesn’t involve me working a corner in the District.”
The District was the part of the Point where girls a lot younger than me practiced the oldest job in the world. It was where men went to have a good time and spend money on women who would forget them as soon as they had that same money in hand. I had never actually been to that part of town, but it was legendary and really the last resort for too many.
She smacked the back of one of my hands when I put them back on the table, and scowled at me. “Stop being ridiculous. Look, I know you and Race aren’t exactly buddies.” She paused and I rolled my eyes. Of course we weren’t buddies. I couldn’t be buddies with someone I wanted to strip naked and crawl all over. “But he is good, like scary good, with computers. You could ask him to look at it for you. I bet he could fix it, no problem.”
Great. A solution that would be financially helpful, but would test my already-frayed resistance where her golden god of a brother was concerned. Like I stood a chance after that kiss. I grumbled under my breath and threw my hands up in surrender.
“Give me his number and I’ll call him.”
She made a face. “It’s not exactly that easy to get ahold of him anymore. He has a bunch of different numbers for the different things he’s into, and he doesn’t check his personal phone that much because, really, I’m the only one that calls him on it. I’ll just tell him to swing by the restaurant and have a look at it for you.”
Again, irrefutable proof that I had no business crushing on Race Hartman. I had no clue what to do with a guy who had to have multiple cell phones to run his different criminal ventures out the back door.
“All right. If you think he wouldn’t mind.”
She smiled again. “He won’t mind. He’ll do it because I’m asking him to, but he likes you. He always has.”
“How is that possible? I’ve never encouraged him in any way.” In fact, I went out of my way to discourage him at every turn.
She smirked at me and grabbed her bag and her phone. “Race is a difficult guy to explain. The choices he’s made, the things he’s decided to take on . . .” She trailed off and shrugged helplessly. “He isn’t scared of a challenge, scared of working his way around obstacles. Look at his best friend. Bax never trusted anyone, never let anyone matter, except for Race. He’s just the kind of guy who works his way into where he wants to be.”