Less Than Nothing (3 page)

What’s his angle? Stop staring at him like you lost your puppy and think, girl! What does he want? Because they always want something.

“Listen, Derek. Thanks for the coffee, but we need to get something straight. You said you need to make some money. Guess what? Me too. And you playing on the same block I am is kind of like putting two Starbucks next to each other. Bad for business all around.”

He nods as he sips his brew appreciatively. Agreeing, as far as I can tell. “How much do you make on a good day?”

My eyes narrow. “None of your business.” Then whatever chemical imbalance has afflicted me takes over again. “Why?” I silently curse myself even as the word trips out of my mouth. Maybe I’ve got a tumor? Because I’ve never felt like this before, and this isn’t my first day on my own, yet I’m giving him more rope.

I try to tell myself that I’m coaxing him into revealing his evil plan, playing out line to lure him in, but the part of me that hasn’t been imagining Derek with his shirt off – maybe washing a classic car with a lot of suds and a big sponge – isn’t convinced.

“I drag in twenty on a bad day, fifty on a good one,” he offers.

Crap. Which is exactly what I’m afraid of. Not
afraid
, really, but what I suspected. My best day I made thirty-two bucks, and I still remember it like I’d won the lottery on my birthday.

“Great. So you don’t need my block. You’re doing fine wherever you were.” Actually, I’m thinking maybe I should follow him and find out where he’s been pulling down that kind of cash. And then break his fingers. Or his guitar. Or both.

“See, Sage, that’s the thing,” he says with that crooked grin, and my stomach flip-flops like a beached fish. “I’ve got to find a new spot, because the cops ran me off the last one, down in the financial district. Dicks. This one doofus in particular’s made it his life’s mission to ruin my day.”

I take a long swig of my coffee, enjoying how it’s warming me, and debate possible responses. I decide to show him some steel instead of rolling over on my back and wagging my tail. I set my cup down on the coffee table and give him my best ‘I couldn’t care less’ shrug.

“Life’s a bitch, and then you die. You still can’t share my block.”

He’s spending altogether too much time staring at my chest, which confirms that I was right about what he wants. I’m about to say something when he leans forward.
Oh, brother. Here it comes. Will it be, “Your eyes are like glittering diamonds,” or maybe, “Let’s settle this by wrestling”?
Whatever it is, even though my body’s betraying me, I still have some say in the matter, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to play along any longer. I’ll shut him down so fast he’ll think a piano landed on him. Because I know that look.

“Is that a harmonica?” he asks.

Color flushes my pallid cheeks, and I feel like a total ass clown. He’s not imagining whipped cream all over my boobs – he’s looking at the tip of my mouth harp glinting out of a corner of my pocket. When I answer I sound like I gargled live ants, and I have to clear my throat.

“Yeah.”
Very impressive, Sage. You’re making big points. He’s probably terrified by your intellect and resolve now, will hand you the dollar he made and apologize for choosing the wrong block, and the whole thing will be settled.

“You any good with it?” He doesn’t seem to notice my sudden restlessness. My eyes stray to his mouth, and I can’t help but note that his lips are generously proportioned. Lush, even. I get a mental snapshot of him in a magazine ad wearing nothing but underwear, black and white, wind tousling his unruly hair, pouting…and I knock my coffee over when I reach for it.

“Shit,” I exclaim, watching a buck thirty-five’s worth of Ethiopian Curse soak the sports pages and a couple of sections of a month-old
Auto Trader
. I lean forward to do damage control and try to ignore the harsh stares from the two baristas working the counter.

I stand, sensing every eye in the place follow my march of defeat to the counter, and accept a handful of paper towels, feeling about an inch tall. When I make it back, Derek’s sopped up the worst of the mess with the papers. I do some token cleanup, and we move to the trash at the same time. I’m again keenly aware of how tall he is and how good he smells.

I should probably mention that living on the street, hygiene’s problematic at best. So the fact that he smells not only clean, but too damned good for words, is totally surprising. I manage a shower every other day or so, sometimes at Todd’s, sometimes at my friend Melody’s when her mom isn’t home, but I’m an exception. I can practically taste the Irish Spring freshness when he brushes my arm, sending an electric current through my body, which is now in full-blown revolt against my attempts to rein it in.

“Damn. Sorry about that,” I say. I could crawl under the couch now, I’m so mortified.

“It happens,” he allows graciously as we return to the sofa. “Tell you what, if I dig into my retirement fund, I can probably afford one more. Will you accept it as a peace offering?”

I look into his emerald eyes, searching for any indication of trickery, but there is none. Only a look of amusement that infuriates me, for some reason. I wonder if he’s wearing colored contacts. Nobody’s eyes can be that vivid a green.

“I don’t need a peace offering. I need you to agree to find someplace else to take your act.”

“So that’s a yes?”

I wonder whether he can hear my teeth grind. “Whatever,” I say. Another brilliant rejoinder. Maybe the tumor’s pulsing or something, pressing on a vital area of my brain, and I’ll black out soon and be spared any further humiliation.

Derek approaches the counter, and even as I seethe, I notice that he’s got the fluid stride of a jungle cat. The vision of him shirtless springs to mind again, and I take a deep breath. When he comes back, I’m going to drink my coffee, make him agree to bug off, and that will be the last I see of him.

He reaches into his other pocket and fishes out a fairly thick wad of bills, peels one off, and pays for the drink. I frown. He’s got money – so what was the whole nickels and dimes to pay for coffee about? My guard instantly goes back up. I don’t know what game he’s playing, but it’s over as of now. I’ve already wasted valuable earning minutes.

Spilling coffee all over everything. But that’s not the point.

He looks over from the counter and moves to the creamer station. I’m about to join him when he shakes his head as he tears the tops off six sugars and dumps them into the cup, along with the last of the cream and a generous helping of everything on the bar. When he returns and offers it to me, I reluctantly accept it and taste it.

“How’d I do?” he asks, standing uncomfortably close. Okay, maybe not that uncomfortably.

“I’ve tasted worse.” It actually tastes like ambrosia. Something about the ratio of nutmeg to vanilla, maybe. Better than when I made it. I realize he must have been paying close attention when I’d done so, which sends an involuntary thrill up my spine.

“Good.” He sits next to me and fixes me with a stare that makes me feel completely vulnerable. I raise the cup carefully to my lips again and take another long sip. “Since you accepted my peace offering, hear me out. I have a proposition,” he says.

“I’ll bet you do.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

He actually laughs, and his whole face lights up. “Hey, relax, would you? I mean a business proposal.” Something about how absurd he obviously thinks making a pass at me would be burns in my gut like a hot ember, but I don’t trust myself to croak out another stupidity, so I nod and slurp my coffee, waiting to hear what he has in mind.

He runs a hand through his thick hair and squares his shoulders, and I realize he might be a little nervous, too, even though he seems to exude confidence with every gesture and word. “Okay. This is just an idea. If we’re both making around the same money, have you ever thought about trying it with another voice and seeing how that works?”

I think about it, but not that hard, because he totally took me by surprise again, which makes one too many times in a short period. Nobody catches me off balance, and this guy seems to do it effortlessly.

I purse my lips. “I can tell you how it’ll work. Half the money I’d make on my own.”

“How do you know?” he asks, his voice soft.

“It’s simple math. Same number of prospects, two musicians. Divide by that number. I don’t need a calculator.”

“Maybe, but your math is based on an assumption. That we wouldn’t make more as a dynamic duo than we would as solo acts.”

“Right. It’s a safe assumption.”

“Not necessarily. At least, that’s not how it worked out last time I tried it.”

“Last time?” Crap. He’s sucked me in again. Stop. It. Now
.
No more questions! Shut him down and get it over with.

“Yeah, back home I had a partner in crime. We actually made a lot more money than we ever did on our own.”

“Back home?”

“Yeah. Seattle.”

“Really?” Derek’s a long way from Washington. “Why didn’t you stay there, if you were making bank?”

He laughs again. “I wouldn’t say making bank. But I did okay.” He drinks the last of his coffee and sets the empty cup down on the arm of the sofa. “It rains nonstop in Seattle. I decided to head south. One street’s the same as the other after a while.”

“It rains here, too.”

“Not in the summer.”

“Summer won’t last forever,” I say, voicing my inner fear. My tone must have cut a little too close to the surface, because his gaze softens as he nods.

“True. But it’s here now, so might as well make the most of it, right? Besides, I’m not planning on being around much longer. Maybe a week. So this would just be a short period.”

“Where are you going?”

He ignores my question and rises, carries his cup to the trash, and pitches it in like a basketball player. When he returns I’ve made up my mind, but I still have a question.

“You’re carrying around a lot of money,” I try, framing it as a statement.

“Oh, that? Yeah. That’s my savings. It’s not that much, and it’s got to last me a while. I try not to spend any of it, but this seemed worth it,” he says with disarming frankness.

I feel like a complete loser. He’s made enough to save. Mine’s gone as soon as it hits my guitar case. I’ll freely admit I’m lousy with money. Budgeting isn’t one of my strong points.

“You didn’t have to buy me another coffee, Derek,” I start, but his smile stops me. “What?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“Really. What is it? What did I do?”

“I like the way you say my name. That’s all.” Bam. Right cross to the jaw. With a hell of a follow-through. “How about giving it a try for a few hours, until lunchtime, and seeing how we do? If I’m wrong, I’ll make up the difference. What do you make by one on a weekday?”

Damn him straight to hell for being so reasonable sounding. He could probably sell toasters to penguins.

I calculate quickly. On a good day, maybe five dollars. Most of my money will come in the afternoon, maybe another whopping ten or fifteen bucks before it gets dark. “Usually? At least ten.”

He nods. “That sounds about right. So let’s give it a whirl till one, and if we don’t have twenty bucks to split, we’ll call it a day and the difference is on me. If we have at least that much, or more, then it is in our best interests to forge an accord,” he says, his voice overly formal.

I can’t help but smile. He’s kind of a goofball, for all his model looks and snake-oil-salesman charm. He’s actually not as confident as he pretends, I can see now. Which makes me feel better and at the same time…is endearing.

I give him my black-belt ninja-level eye roll, which has the power to destroy worlds. It has no effect. Damn him again for his superpowers. I’ll have to try something else.

He interprets my silence as an opportunity to keep pitching the idea. “You’ve got nothing to lose. It’s risk-free.”

A thought occurs to me. “What happened to your last partner?”

His face grows serious. “I had to kill him and eat him. It was a long winter.”

“He?”

“Don’t look at me like that. He was actually quite tender after a couple of days. The secret’s in the marinade.”

I find myself laughing against my will, and he joins me, the dimples back in full force. I so want to say no, just to do it, but I’m also thinking it couldn’t hurt to give it a try. If he’s right, it might be the first Monday ever that I clear more than twenty bucks.

“Seriously. What happened?”

His expression darkens for a nanosecond, and then he brightens again. “He didn’t make it south. Stayed in the old country.” He watches me expectantly. “So how about it?”

“You have the cash to cover any shortfall?”

“I’m toting fat stacks. That’s how I roll.” He throws a hand sign that looks like he’s trying to make a shadow bunny. I giggle and then stop myself. I’m having too much fun, and Derek’s the enemy. Or at least, an adversary.

Isn’t he?

I nod and stand, avoiding spilling this time, and drain my coffee. “What if I say no?”

“Then we’re going to be duking it out on the same block.”