CHAPTER 11:
Sam woke up feeling gross… not just surface gross, but really crap-level disgusting. He hadn't taken a shower or changed clothes in roughly two days, and after hiking across a mucky wilderness, lying in a fish-smelling truck bed, and sleeping in a stranger's car, the grime was catching up to him. Then again, it was also the first time in two days he'd gotten a good night's sleep, so in spite of the dirt he was actually feeling pretty good when he unstuck his eyelids…
…until he turned and saw a woman stretched out in the passenger's seat.
Sam's body, already stiff from the awkward sleeping position, went rigid. With his eyes remaining fixed on the intruder to make sure she didn't move, he began to reach for the knife tucked into his jacket. Before he could pull it out, however, he was interrupted by a yawned: "I see you've noticed our new friend."
Sam's head whipped around. He winced as his neck cricked.
"Gavin," he growled, reaching up to rub the sore spot. "You did this?"
"Did this?" Gavin repeated indignantly. He'd already been awake and sitting up, and now he crossed his arms over his chest. "Dude, this—" He nodded towards the sleeping woman. "—is an essential step in my ingenious plan, which I kindly set up for us last night while you were busy dreaming about unicorns and sugar plum fairies."
"I don't dream about—" Sam scowled as he realized the more important aspect of Gavin's statement. "Wait, you left last night?"
"I came back," Gavin pointed out, face scrunched in a way that made it clear he wanted to move on. "Now do you want to wake her up so we can talk strategy, or do you like watching her sleep as much as she liked watching you?"
"What?" It was too early for this. Sam's brain felt more like pouting and glaring than anything else — it certainly wasn't up for sifting through all the crap Gavin was throwing at it — and Sam felt sure that Gavin knew this and was toying with him on purpose. Stupid demons.
Confirming Sam's suspicions, Gavin shook his head with the outlines of a smirk. "Nothing," he said. "Just wake the girl up."
With a last glare for the demon, Sam turned towards his new human companion. In the time it took his hand to travel from its resting position by his side up to her shoulder, he performed a quick scan… kind of short, at least partially Latina, nothing close to drop-dead-gorgeous but not unattractive either. Dressed in baggy sweatpants and a studded jean jacket, she probably wasn't the type of girl who liked to be messed with, and so, even though he was a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier, Sam found the woman a little intimidating. He hesitated before letting his palm fall the final two inches to tap her upper arm.
Before she'd even opened her eyes, she swatted him away — it had become a subconscious gesture after so long with her boyfriend — but she didn't apologize when she looked up and realized that, for once, Mr. Asshole wasn't the guilty party. Instead she said, "Oh, it's you."
Sam pulled his hand back quickly. "Hi," he said.
Gavin snorted and clapped one hand down on either seat back. "Dude," he smirked, "she's not gonna bite your fingers off."
"Touch me and I will," the girl snapped back. She slapped Gavin with her fire-eyed glare and then swept it over to Sam. "I'm here for the gig and then I'm out. No fucking around."
Sam's eyes widened, more in surprise than anything else, and it took him a moment to work up a response. When he did speak, all that came out was: "Okay." Mentally kicking himself, he wondered how it was he'd ever gotten into Stanford. Had he been smarter back then? 'Cause right now he sure felt like a fucking idiot. Cursing the sluggish morning pace of his mental cogs, and cursing Gavin for putting him in a position that required thinking so early, he narrowed his eyes back at the demon. "Do you mind explaining what's going on?" he asked sourly.
"Sure, dude." Gavin was smiling like a cat with a mouse's tail pinned under its paw. Sadistic pleasure… so sour… so sweet. His lips curled further. "Alexa, this is Sam. Sam, this is Alexa." He motioned between the two with one lazy hand before returning it to its resting place on the back of Sam's seat. "And I'm Gavin. I've brought us all together on this fine morning for the culmination of my glorious and long-anticipated plan to earn a couple grand… which," he added, shooting a quick glance at Sam, "we could just as easily steal."
"No stealing," Sam said flatly.
Gavin held up his hands. "Exactly why we're here."
Alexa was looking between them with slanted brows. The hard set of her mouth said plainly that she wasn't interested in conversational foreplay. She wanted the rundown of the hard facts, and she wanted it now.
"Alexa here," Gavin continued, "is the third piece in our hustling set up, and this is how it's going to work. Sam, we're going to dress you up like a total prick if we can: nice little sweater, khaki pants… the stereotypical rich kid look. Alexa will be your very cool, not-super-interested lady friend." He turned to Alexa to clarify, "You're not going to be a prick. Sam, as we all know, is the douchebag here."
Sam rolled his eyes and smacked off the hand that had reached up to pat his shoulder. Gavin pulled back quickly, smirking. "Then," he went on, "Sam is going to pretend to get totally smashed. This whole time you need to be acting more and more obnoxious," he told Sam. "You want them to really dislike you. Alexa, you on the other hand are our dude-magnet. Act like Sam's getting on your nerves, and, when we catch ourselves a pool opponent, come on strong. We're selling that if they keep winning the games, they'll win you, too… because, I mean, money and sex, right? We're hawking the two most basic human vices here."
"So," Sam cut in, "it's fundamentally the same as the initial plan but with a bit of window-dressing?"
Gavin's dark lips folded into a pout. "A plan without window-dressing," he proclaimed, "is like a cake without icing… It's too dry to eat."
"It worked fine in the past," Sam muttered.
"Well, we're making a better cake now."
"And it's just the one bar?" It was Alexa who'd spoken, causing both Gavin and Sam to spin about in surprise. Neither had expected her to break her moody silence until it became absolutely and inescapably necessary. Her voice, Sam noticed, was low for a woman's, and kind of gruff. Much as he hated to admit it, Gavin had known what he was doing when he picked her up. Physically attractive or not, polite or not, Sam couldn't deny that there was something deeply sexy about the girl. In her voice, the way she moved, the way she glared… it was impossible to avoid mentally undressing her. Embarrassed by this image, Sam glanced away with a blush.
"No," Gavin said. The way his eyes slipped down from her face made it clear that Sam wasn't the only one picturing her naked. "We're probably not gonna be able to get the bets over a couple hundred, so we'll have to hit a few establishments tonight if we want to make it worth our while." He refocused on her face with an unapologetic twist of his lips. "I was thinking we'd head up highway 4 to Vallecito and then on to Murphys. Depending on what type of time we make, we might even get into the park."
"The park?" Sam said, trying to shake the pinkness out of his cheeks.
He'd been asking Gavin, but Alexa was the one who answered. "Big Trees. Part of Stanislaus National Forest," she said, eyes hard. "You're not a California boy, are you?" Although she said it like a question, she obviously already knew the answer, and it made Sam twitch a bit in his seat. He was supposed to be in charge of this little group, but here he was with two people (or one person and one demon technically) who both had a much better grasp of the state's geography than he did, which meant they had a much clearer idea of where they were actually going. It made Sam feel like he was losing control, and he didn't like it one little bit.
"No. Um… Kansas," he admitted.
"Dude, that sucks," Gavin said, nose scrunching in honest sympathy.
Sam looked away out the windshield as he grumbled, "It's not so bad."
Gavin smirked. Even Alexa's lips twitched as she watched the big man sink into a pout like a six-year-old child. Clearly, his home-state pride had been wounded.
Gavin longed to goad Sam further about the sad fate it was to be born in Kansas, but he put it aside as a source of later entertainment; they had bigger fish to fry right now. Like, was he ever going to get out of these stupid pajamas? For fuck's sake, he didn't even have shoes! And, God, could he use a shower!
As it turned out, this wasn't as much of a problem as he'd anticipated. When he brought it up, Alexa's black-eyed glare took on a glint that could only be described as evil. She didn't smile exactly, but one side of her upper lip twitched as if she were devouring a very sweet piece of candy. A little bit of sugar dripped into her gruff voice as she said, "I still got the key to that asshole's house, and I have to go pick up my stuff anyhow. I say screw it, let's pick up some of his other shit, too."
Gavin liked this plan.
Sam didn't. Stealing, he pointed out. The whole idea behind the hustling was that they weren't going to steal.
"Hey," Alexa said. "That's my shit, too. My fucking money helped buy his clothes and his soap and pay his fucking mortgage, so I'm entitled to go get my bit back. Yeah?"
Sam still didn't like it, but, between arguing with Alexa and giving in to questionable morals, he would happily take the path to hell… Less frightening. So he put the car into drive and listened to the girl's snapped instructions as she steered them towards her boyfriend's — sorry: ex-boyfriend's — house. It was a sad affair, almost more like a sleeping RV, now welded to the earth, than an actual home. Trash was strewn here and there in the tall brown grasses that fenced it in, and it smelled like the septic tank was leaking.
Well, shit. Motel rooms sure as hell beat this piece of crap.
Once Alexa was out of the car and couldn't see, Gavin made a face at Sam. "Dude," he said. "We might have to keep her on. I mean, I may be a demon, but even my feebly fluttering conscience says we can't dump her back here."
"Yeah," Sam said as he leaned forward to squint at the slouching shack through the windshield. "You might have a point." He swept his eyes over the whole sad lot once more, and then asked, "You think we should follow her?"
When Gavin didn't respond, he glanced back, only to find that the demon had already gotten out and begun picking through the trash towards the house. Sam rolled his eyes, slipped off the seat, and slammed the door behind him. Stupid demons!
Inside, it turned out, was a bit nicer. There was a slightly chemically Febreze scent, which wasn't great, but it beat the septic tank by a longshot. The walls had peeling patterned wallpaper, taped-up notes, and photos. A few candles perched on top of various shelves and cabinets, and the morning light sparkled softly through the windows.
Sam followed Gavin (who was following Alexa) at a slight stoop. The roof hung low here, and, in the cramped space, he had the nerve-racking feeling that he was going to knock something over at any second. Small steps, arms tucked tight into his jacket, he moved from the first room to the second. Aside from the bathroom, this turned out to be the only other room in the house — a bedroom — one thick mattress in the corner and two chests of drawers against the opposite wall. Alexa spared it only a brief glance, eyes flicking from drawers to floorboards to mattress without emotion as if all her ties to the place had already been severed. Then she pointed towards the bathroom.
"You two should shower first," she said, mouth never shifting from its hard line. "I'll pull the clothes together. What exactly d'ya want for the gig?"
"Sam, you shower," Gavin commanded. He glanced over his thin shoulder with a smirk. "You smell the worst." Turning back to Alexa, he said, "I'll help pick out the outfits; it's my plan after all." And then, as if realizing something, he cocked his head at her. "I take it we're stealing your ex's clothes for me and Sam?"
Alexa nodded shortly.
"Sweet," Gavin grinned. Without hesitation, he bent over the closest set of drawers and began tugging them open one by one.
Sam felt a slightly guilty twinge pinch his stomach. Whatever Alexa said, it was still stealing… At least he didn't have to watch. Instead, he slipped around the edge of the room towards the tiny bathroom that Alexa had indicated. Showering sounded beyond amazing right now, and he was going to focus on that instead of their crime, so, as soon as the door was firmly shut behind him, he began to strip without hesitation. The two-day-old clothes smelled almost as bad as the leaking septic tank, which was saying something, and just being out of them made him feel about five times cleaner. The water sputtered and hissed for the first few seconds when he turned it on as if it knew he was trespassing, and in continuing protest refused to heat up all the way, but Sam didn't mind much. He made a face at the metal showerhead (which glared back through the rapidly building condensation), got in, and scrubbed like there was no tomorrow. It was only after he'd gotten out and dried off that he realized he didn't have any clothes. Correction: he had clothes; he didn't have any clothes that he was willing to put on, which in the end amounted to the same thing.
"Gavin," Sam called through the thin, condensation-streaked wood of the door. "D'you have the outfit together yet? 'Cause I kind of need something to wear."
"Chill, dude," the demon's voice vibrated from the other room. "Almost there." Understandably, Sam assumed this was all Gavin was going to say… but he was wrong. There was an evil grin pervading the demon's tone as he added, "So Sam, tell me… are you a boxer or briefs guy?" And then, on a stroke of inspiration, "No wait! I know. Man out on the fringes like you? I bet you just say fuck all and go commando, right?"
Already flushed from the water, Sam's cheeks dipped to an even deeper pink. "Fuck you," he growled, but he couldn't do anything more because he was stuck in the bathroom. He just had to stand there with his dripping hair and damp towel and wait in mortification for Gavin to bring him whatever shitty-ass clothes he was going to bring him.