insincerity

"Hola, Leticia. ¿Cómo va el negocio?" Valentina greeted as she walked in. After coming here for so long she had grown fond of the proprietor.

"¡Hola, mija! Nunca puedo quejarme." Leticia responded, a warm smile on her pretty, round face.

"¡Ah, pero quejarse es una de las muchas alegrías de la vida!" She joked, pulling a ten dollar bill from her pocket. "Pediré el chorizo; quédese con el cambio."

Taking a seat at one of the plastic chairs that lined the wall for this exact purpose, Valentina waited as Leticia disappeared behind a curtain to make the food. She was alone, and tipping her head back against the wall, let her mind wander.

The smell of searing meat and the sound of Ranchera music brought to mind a taco place she'd been to a couple weeks back, and with a bristle of annoyance her mind wandered further still to lopsided smile and a somewhat devastating pair of blue eyes. She hated the way her stomach fluttered when he happened to enter her thoughts. He brought with him memories of a kiss she could not shake, his hands on her hips, the way he smelled of soap and faint cigarette smoke.

Valentina shifted her her chair, suddenly impatient.

Deal, he'd said, and since then all her attempts to smother the disappointment had fallen short. Especially the guy she'd picked up at a bar a couple nights later.

"Mija?" By her tone of voice, Valentina could tell this wasn't Leticia's first attempt to get her attention. The woman was eying her with a look somewhere between concern and curiosity, but before she could say anything the blonde stood up, thanked her, and turned to leave.

Half-jogging to cross the street, and the package tucked safely in his jacket, Caleb made his way through the streets of Jericho. Old Nora at the diner would have to wait until evening; their makeshift book club was due to the sweet woman's insistence on sharing her latest romance book obsession every time he ate there. Next thing he knew, he was reading one too.

He sat at the back of the bus and idly browsed through the list of songs on his music player, pausing at a familiar song and contemplating listening to it on his way to the meetup. But what good would it do? They already promised to stay away from each other, so he continued browsing for other songs.

'...I lost my virginity to this song. In the back of an old Ford Ranger in the middle of the fucking desert.'

It wasn't like she had a monopoly on the song, he argued, and it had already been there on his playlist, long before she shared that particular anecdote.

'Didn’t even last past the bridge.'

A faint look of amusement could be seen on his face as the familiar opening notes played; Caleb had yielded, leaning against the backrest in defeat as a random song was now going to remind him of someone indefinitely.

Where it began

I can't begin to know

But then I know, it's going strong

Caleb mouthed the lyrics to the song all the way to Phoenix, his fingers tapping along idly to the beat. He needed to be in the right headspace later, but for now, he indulged in remembering how good it felt having Valentina Falcone on top of him that night.

Always running a little cold, Valentina snatched a sweatshirt out of the pile of clothes that lives on the armchair in the corner of her room. Cool morning light caught dust motes in the air as she padded across the room to the adjoining bathroom to pee. Catching her reflection, she took a moment to peer at herself -- unruly blonde hair, eyes still heavy with sleep. She turned, lifting the hem of her sweatshirt to examine her butt. Had it grown? Had it shrunk? And which did she prefer? Satisfied with the self-critique, Valentina quickly took her medication, a birth control pill and ADHD meds, and made her way downstairs.

A can of wet food was opened with a snap that made Luna go wild, and after leaving the beast to her meal, Valentina turned on the morning news.

"It's going to be a scorcher today, folks as a high pressure system rollis in from our neighbors beyond the border. You can expect..."

She mostly used it for background noise as she went about collecting the ingredients for cereal, before sitting down only to find that the milk was definitely expired.

"God damnit," Valentina breathed, glancing over to find Luna happily lapping up her meal. Something on the way, then. She poured the milk down the drain, and ran back up the stairs to pull on a pair of shorts and an old band tee. The club didn't open until 1pm, but she had a couple of errands to run, and a meeting with her dad before heading in.

After throwing her hair up, and grabbing her car keys, she bent to give her cat a kiss on her fish-breathed little mouth, before heading out into the morning sun.

An old paperback book lay open on the table, and blue eyes absently read the page where he had left off some days ago; Caleb's brows furrowed as he tried to remember what had happened earlier.

'Women don't have a sense of humor. They don't need one. The Almighty made them as a permanent joke on men. From which one may logically deduce that the Almighty is a female.'

The fence scoffed lightly and set the book down before taking a mental note to discuss the chapter with ol' Nora down at the diner. Just then, his phone buzzed, and Caleb reached for it from the table to read the message. Nodding to no one in particular, he got up and made his way into another room just before the door leading to the shop.

A key was inserted, and a small storage room containing boxes of different-sized Manila envelopes could be seen from the hallway light. Caleb turned on the switch to a single light bulb as he rummaged through the packages, fingers feeling through the contents of one of the envelopes before finally opening it.

He observed the craftsmanship, the sheen on the document, and the placement of the seals; this particular order wasn't Caleb's handiwork, but rather a year-old request made by his uncle. Tony, a family friend of sorts, was a decent forger, but not quite like his old man was, and definitely not quite like Caleb, he thought.

The appointment was at 11:30, and as Caleb got out of the shower, a curse escaped under his breath as he remembered that his pickup was still at the garage, held hostage by an exorbitant fee. He already paid for the tow and the initial repair, but 'parts needed to be replaced' until the bill was worth another second-hand vehicle. It was a shakedown, yes, but with proper negotiations, Caleb hoped to bring the price down to something more manageable.

Images of smoke coming out of the hood of the truck and his half-hour trek in the direction of Phoenix were interrupted by a pair of green eyes staring intensely at him; Valentina Falcone looked at him with such scrutiny before leaning forward to claim his mouth, and Caleb couldn't help but press his lips together as he chased the phantom kiss.

His mind wandered to that night, grateful that she didn't leave his ass in Phoenix, instead dropping him off a little ways to where The Magpie was...something about making him walk as payback and not being seen together or something.

Caleb opened the closet to grab a shirt, and his gaze moved to his hand, seemingly looking for something that wasn't there. Sighing, the fence remembered the numbers scrawled for him to call a while back. He never did.

Shit. Should he have called her that time?

Valentina wanted to believe him, she did, but trust didn't come that easily for her. His answer only sparked more questions -- who was the contact? And in Pheonix? How far did his territory expand? What was he selling or facilitating? Could he be viewed as a threat by the Serpents? In the end, she had no right to interrogate him, and he had no obligation to confess.

The sun had dipped behind the buildings and a slight breeze had picked up, cooling the air around them. Valentina could feel a flush in her cheeks, due in part to the alcohol and the heat, and certainly not helped by Caleb. She needed a cigarette, and the woman pulled a somewhat crumpled and half-empty pack from her back pocket. Lighting the cigarette, she sucked in a deep lungful of tobacco. A headache was beginning to take root, and the nicotine rush dampened the edges.

She offered the pack to Caleb as her phone began to ring and, checking it, rolled her eyes before pocketing the cell once more. Evening was setting over the city, and Valentina had yet to decide if she would leave Caleb here. She felt inclined to, annoyed at the way she felt used, and complicit in his dealings. She felt silly. Played. And he hadn't called her -- she can't quite shake the fact that he never called her.

"I'll take you back to Jericho." She finally says, pausing to take another huff of her cigarette. She takes a step closer, shrinking the distance between them. "But I don't want to see you around, and I sure as hell don't want to chat if I do, okay?”

He tapped the crumpled pack for a stick, poised it between two fingers as Caleb kept his gaze on her. He nodded slowly, once, then again as he finally looked away to follow the trail of smoke from Valentina's cigarette. He seemed pensive, as though he was both agreeing to what she was suggesting and thinking of what other bullshit he could come up with.

Shadows cast on Valentina's face as the streetlights turned on, and his mind wandered to the feeling of the pressure on his mouth when they were kissing. But he shouldn't. She was, is, bad news.

With an exhale of what seemed to be resignation, Caleb closed the distance between them and stuck the cigarette between his lips. He leaned in close, tilting his head until the tips of their cigarettes hovered and flared a bright orange.

Stealing a glance at Valentina's face up close, a thought to pull her in and replace her cigarette with his mouth flashed in his mind. But Caleb stepped back instead, taking a deep inhale of the nicotine to soothe whatever hunger he was feeling for the tempestuous woman.

"Okay," he nodded in finality. "Deal."

She wanted to forget he was there -- no, she wanted to forget he existed. What was it about this man that kept him on her mind? Since they'd first met at his shop Caleb had managed to creep into her thoughts here and there, often with a huff of frustration. Maybe that was why he pissed her off so easily, she wasn't used to this invasion on her conscious and the memory of a kiss that she couldn't shake off.

So she tried to lose herself in the music, as she so often did. Already the alcohol was taking a hazy effect around the edges -- that spot between sober and intoxicated, a gentle hum. Others were dancing too, and among the growing throng, and with her eyes closed, Valentina didn't notice Caleb approach.

He grabbed her arm, and her natural reaction to yank it away grew half-hearted as he pulled her close. "What the f--." He cut her off, and Valentina allowed herself to be pulled through the crowd towards the exit. Caleb's grip was firm as he led the way, and the woman was again caught between the urge to pull away, and move her body closer still.

In the end the security guards were waiting for them at the exit, and Valentina was pleasantly surprised to find that they weren't drunk on their meager power as they led the pair outside.

After the darkness of the Planetarium, the afternoon sun was nearly blinding, and Valentina squinted shielded her eyes as she put some distance between herself and Caleb. He broke the silence first, and dropping her hand, the woman turned to face him. Maybe it was the heat, or maybe she hadn't been as tipsy as she felt amongst the music, but Valentina suddenly felt sober.

"Why are we here, Caleb?" She asked, cutting to the chase. "Hm? I saw you talking to someone, and you knew about...", she gestured to the science center, "...this. C'mon, don't fuck with me." She kept her distance as she talked, all too aware of the kiss they had just shared.

They moved erratically, with Caleb taking a few steps and stopping, then moving again when she did. A look of faint amusement struggled to stay hidden on the fence's features, and he was acutely aware of the physical distance between them now, unlike when they were kissing in the dark. Blue eyes flickered from her lips and back to meet her gaze, and Valentina's reaction forced him to focus.

"I'm not...I swear." Caleb insisted as he finally stopped walking, trying to sound more convincing this time as he faced her. "Had a contact to meet; that's all it was."

It was like trying to diffuse a bomb, with each wrong answer speeding up the timer above her head until it ran out and she blew up at him.

FACTS

Name: Caleb Price Faceclaim: Ryan Gosling Gender:  Male Age: 33 Occupation: Drug Dealing and Forgery (main), Occasional Fence Affiliation: Neutral Rank & Length of time with MC: NA

+ charismatic, efficient, meticulous - guarded, lonely, amoral

ABOUT

Triggers: Death, Drugs

While other fathers would spend time teaching their son how to ride a bike or play ball, Joe Price taught his son how to pick locks, try his hand out on forgery and other essential things every budding criminal might need. Sure, he still did all those things, but the head of the Price household believed in practicality. It wasn’t like Caleb Price would grow up to be an athlete earning millions or ride around his bike delivering newspapers and graduate to pizza delivery, Joe looked into the future and held his family’s destiny and demise in his own hands.

As far as Caleb knew, Joe was a fence with decent skills in forgery, he was indifferent to it at first but the boy displayed a prowess that excited his father and soon, he was helping out in the ‘family business’. Their garage was a storage for things that have recently gone missing and different folks often came knocking, but whenever the police showed up, the boy knew then that it would take days if not weeks til Joe resurfaced.

Things got serious when drugs got involved, the shed in the back became a makeshift meth lab and Joe and his new buddies would spend days cooped up perfecting their recipe. The money should have been good, but Joe was careless and things eventually caught up to him. Three shots in the back was all it took and Caleb was left to look after a younger sister while on the run.

So he left her, when the money eventually ran out and it became too dangerous to keep her, Caleb entrusted his only family to the care of strangers, an aunt and uncle on their mother side. He promised to send money and for a while he did, working odd jobs that were legal and keeping a low profile; Joe’s death should have been a warning to turn his life around but when his aunt and uncle complained that the money wasn’t enough, Caleb returned to what he knew best. Picking up where his father left off, the young man used favors owed to Joe to set him up with the right people; he could no longer be trusted in turning around stolen goods after failing to deliver on the deals when Joe died, but his forgery skills were still known and admired. It provided a steady flow of cash but Caleb wanted more.

Making meth wasn’t exactly rocket science but when a bad batch found its way to a highschool in Jericho, Caleb, like his father, was quick to disappear. Five were dead and a few others were hospitalized, curious teenagers who had no business trying out that kind of drug. But you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs and Caleb, with a stable and distinct recipe, resurfaced after a while and continued his business, making a name for himself– without ever putting his actual face and name out there.

Learning from his father’s mistakes, Caleb doesn’t deal drugs openly, preferring to have someone else take care of the distribution and sales. The man still keeps a low profile since the real reason as to why Joe died was never uncovered.

He never did get to come back for his sister, understanding early on that it was safest to keep his distance, though it can be argued that Caleb considered her a liability.