Page 50 of Tony

It’s like she has this spell over me. I thought hate-fucking her was the answer. I really did.

I get what that says about me. I get it. I’m a douche. People should just start calling me Jesse Boston, that’s how much of a douchebag move this whole thing is.

And that’s fine. I’m not going to deny that I’m an asshole. I’m not even going to deny that I came here to use her to fix myself. I’m not like Alonzo in the girl department—who, for the record, is insane and possibly stupid for dating a girl online for two years and then pledging his undying love to her the first time they meet in person.

Unlike him, I get out. And I get around. I’ve dated a lot of tourists over the years. Not to mention Spring Breakers. But I don’t get attached to people. I certainly never got attached to Belinda. Not even back when she was called Rosalie.

Even then it was just a slightly different version of what’s happening between us right now. One that came with a lot more fucking, but still, it was the same. We fight like mortal enemies and then we fuck.

It was sick. It still is. I don’t even like her!

She has always possessed this innate pull that kept me coming back. A sort of gravity. And I guess I had the same pull for her. Because she hung in there for years. She put up with me the same way I put up with her.

But this? What I’m doing right now? Spying like a creep in the bushes on the side of her garage apartment just so I could get inside information on the future relationship status of a girl I don’t even want to be with and a guy who elicits a desire to smack him in the teeth every time he beams that stupid charming smile at me?

What the actual fuck am I doing?

Why can’t I just walk away?

I have no answer to that question. I can’t even make up a lie to tell myself, that’s how illogical this whole trip is. So I just wait there on the back side of the garage, hidden in some overgrown hedges like a damn cat burglar, looking up at her window for many more minutes than I can reasonably pass off as a ‘safe’ amount of time before I start formulating a plan to sneak off the Vaughn property.

“Fuck it,” I whisper, then stand up, pull myself together, and start creeping along the side of the garage towards the front of the house. The lights are still on inside the mansion, so I’m careful. The last thing I need is one of those crazy brothers to come out here with a shotgun.

I’m just about to step out of the shadows and make a run for the driveway when I hear a familiar yipping sound and freeze in place.

A few seconds later I see that same annoying little dog from yesterday, this time being walked by someone completely different. Not the girl, a guy. But not the same guy as last night, either. This one is wearing a suit.

I check my watch. It’s four thirty-seven AM. What the hell is this guy doing? Walking this dog at this hour, in a suit?

I dunno. Maybe he works far away and this is his usual dog-walking time.

That could be right.

In fact, it probably is right.

But there’s a little nagging feeling inside that. The kind of feeling that begs you to pay closer attention to things. Because something is off.

The man doesn’t stop in front of the Vaughn house even though the little dog is resisting its early-morning walk. He tugs on the leash, making the dog yelp in surprise, then kinda drags it along until they both disappear on the other side of the front hedge.

I take one cautious look at the Vaughn house, then bolt for the driveway and hide behind the hedges until I see the man and the dog turn left at the next block.

I have learned to trust that gut feeling when it presents. I’m in the smuggling business. I risk serious prison time twice a year. And even though the FBI has been tentatively on our side and watching our back for over a dozen of those smuggling operations, coming out the other side clean depends on wits and a healthy dose of suspicion.

And my gut is telling me that this dog is a clue.

To what mystery? I’m not sure. I just know he is.

So I follow them. And where do these two end up at the end of that trail? The coffee shop next door to Sick Boyz.

They linger in the alley behind the building both establishments share. And the dude stops briefly in front of the Sick Boyz back door, even looks around shiftily for a few moments, like he’s having some internal debate about breaking in.

I’m almost ready to step out of the shadows and ask him what the fuck he thinks he’s doing. But that gut feeling is back, telling me to chill. Telling me stay quiet and still and just watch a little longer.

And almost in the same moment, the back door to the coffee shop opens and the girl who was walking the dog that first time I saw it peeks her head out.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she whisper-yells to him.

The dog begins to yap again, jumping in the air like a typical terrier maniac.