by Emilia Finn
I feel none of that, because Mom’s happiness and safety is all I care about. Now that she’s got it, I feel only pleasure, and though it makes my stomach roll knowing Eric likes to eat cereal from her mouth on a semi-regular basis, I know it makes her happy.
I will never be the guy that begrudges my mom her happiness.
Pushing through the glass doors at the front of my building, I stop by the overflowing mailboxes and check mine. Taking out a stack with a groan of dread, I begin up the stairs and tear them open one by one. Electric bill, phone bill, a bill from the library, because I borrowed books and forgot to take them back.
I get to my floor within minutes, and in my hand, I hold bills totaling somewhere around the two-grand mark.
“Oh good,” I murmur to no one. The money I considered a bonus an hour ago, the money I haven’t even earned yet… “Gone.”
With a shake of my head, I push into my apartment and toss the offending stack onto my kitchen counter. I drop my keys, phone, and wallet beside it, lean against the countertop, and press the heels of my hands against my eyes. I’m destined for a lifetime of this. I’ll never be so poor that I’m going to starve, but I’ll also never get enough money to not have my stomach drop out of my ass every time I check the mail.
Someone is always going to have their hands in my pockets. There will always be someone willing to clip me on the jaw and take what I have. It’s the equivalent of the school bully stealing my lunch money every day. It’s just a gentle jab, just a fast clip, and then the wind from him running away with what little money I had.
I just don’t know how to break the cycle. I don’t know how to get ahead, and lord knows, even if I did miraculously win a tournament and have my bank plump with half a million dollars, it would only last a minute before the universe smites me down and tosses me back into the hospital for some asinine reason. It’s simply the way my life is meant to be.
The more money I have, the more problems will find me.
Being poor is almost a safety blanket at this point – stay poor, there’s only so much the lunch bully can take at a time.
My phone buzzes on the counter. One long buzz, then a short one-two. One long, two short.
I remove my hands from my eyes and wait a moment for the black dots to leave my vision. But once they do, my heart speeds. It skips, then it gallops, and if you asked my team if that’s healthy, they’d come back with a resounding nope, let’s get you in for an ECHO, just in case. But it’s Lucy, so I snatch my phone up and revel in my racing heart. I hit the accept button, and bring my phone up before I have time to get nervous.
I’ve known her half of my life, so I really shouldn’t get nervous. But, ya know… this sort of stuff rarely makes sense.
“Hello?”
“Hey.” Her bubbly voice, light and easy and so full of fresh air that my lungs finally expand the way they can’t without her, slides into my ear and makes me close my eyes. She’s overwhelming, she’s perfect. And she’s less reachable than the moon and all the stars. “Whatcha doing?”
“I just walked into my place.” I open my eyes again and cast a glance around my living space. Ratty couch, handmade coffee table, a million pills sitting in their allotted days of the week containers, so I don’t mess it up and count wrong. “What are you doing?”
“I was thinking of heading to Dixie’s for some ice cream. You wanna come?”
“You and the others?”
Please just be you. Please just be you.
“Not the others,” she answers on a quiet mumble. “I… uh… Ben and Smalls are here at the gym. If you wanted to see them, you could probably swing by and—”
“No, it’s cool. I’ll catch up with them another time.” Sleep is for the weak. I shove my wallet back into my pocket, push away from the counter, and snatch up my keys. “I could get some ice cream. You’re at the gym right now?”
“Yeah, but I’m walking out. I’ll meet you at Dixie’s?”
“Nah, wait there. I’ll do a drive-by and get you.”
“Are… Um… okay. If you’re sure.”
I was thinking about her sitting in my car only twenty minutes ago. Now I can have exactly that – well, minus the bit where I pull her into my lap and nibble on her delicious flesh.
“Totally sure.” I fix my dick on the way out the door, and pray it settles down in the next two minutes. “Be out front? Then we don’t have to stop and talk to anyone.”
Giggles. She fucking giggles and sends the beautiful sound shooting straight for my cock. “Sure. I’ll jump through the window and send my dad insane when he sees.”
“I’ll be your Clyde.” I skip down the stairs, through the front foyer with the mailboxes that bring nothing but bills, and back out into the November breeze until I slide into my car and crank the windows open. The breeze is fresh, cold, but not bitingly. I switch the engine on, then I hold my foot on the brake. “I’ll see you in a sec.”
“Drive safe,” she whispers. “Don’t make me worry.”
We hang up with no more words, I slide the ‘Cuda into gear, and then pull away from the curb with the kind of grin the universe usually frowns upon.
I’m gonna get my ass kicked for being this happy, but still, for now, I’m taking Lucy Kincaid out for ice cream, and I swear to myself, I won’t think about how Dixie’s ice cream costs a fortune. For Lucy, she can have triple scoop of the chocolatiest, thickest, most delicious dessert, and I’ll begrudge not a single cent.
I pull around the corner by the gym just minutes after leaving home, only for my foot to slip on the gas pedal when Lucy stands out front in booty shorts and an oversized sweater. If I didn’t know better, I’d assume she’s been dating some dude at college, and now she wears his sweater. But I do know better, so I know the hoodie that skims her thighs belongs to her daddy, or perhaps her brother, and she decided that she’d rather steal that than get her own.
Rollin Gym apparel is – apparently – communal as far as the women are concerned. They don’t want to select their own pieces from the piles and piles of merch in the storeroom. They’d rather steal someone else’s, ruin it when they tie them up in odd ways to make them fit better, then toss them back into a communal pile and take another.
Some would consider that rude… I kind of think of it as them wearing a hug all day long.
I pull into the gravel parking lot and slide the ‘Cuda out of gear, and while she studies the car with a wicked glint in her eyes, I do the same… but with her legs. Always her legs.
“Hey.” I pull up so the passenger door is just by her. “Jump in, Bonnie. Quick, before the law catches us.”
Laughing, she opens the door, seemingly oblivious to the loud squeak of the hinges as they move, and then she slides in with nothing but her phone in her hand. No bag, no wallet, no nothing but booty shorts, a fuck ton of tanned leg despite the weather, and her phone, in case she needs to call home. She fixes her seatbelt, wiggles her butt to dig into the seat and get comfortable, then she turns to me and flashes the kind of smile a man would be willing to do hard time for.
Her lips are slightly darker than the average for someone with her complexion. Like she wears a light layer of lipstick always. I know she doesn’t, because I’ve sparred with her a million times, watched her wipe a towel over her face to mop up sweat, and when the towel comes away, her lips stay that same shade that tempt me to lean in and bite.
One bite. One time. One fucking taste, and I could probably let the universe take me. By that point, I’m not sure I’d care – unless, of course, I want a second bite.
Her lips are bowtie shaped, plump on the bottom, and sit atop the sexiest – world’s most stubborn – chin.
“I got something on my face?” She brings a hand up and wipes. “What?”
“Nothing.” I turn away. “I… nothing.”
I can’t tamp down my smile. I can’t find the willpower to be less obvious about what I so desperately want, when it’s being used to not drag her across the seat
, so I merely turn away, slide the car into first and slowly roll forward.
Jimmy Kincaid stands at the front door now, arms folded, stony faced, and watches me drive his daughter away like he’s worried he might never see her again. Ben was always destined to get an easier time from the Rollers, since he’s spent half of his damn life protecting Smalls. He’s always had her back, and has pulled her away from trouble more times than we can count.
I’ve never purposely taken Lucy toward danger, but I’m no Ben. If something has gone wrong over the years, it was an almost sure bet I had something to do with it. If someone was in trouble, I was likely there. If someone was hurt, I was definitely there. Jimmy doesn’t have the same kind of certainty in regards to me that Aiden had when Ben drove up to take Smalls out for a ride.
I know I would never place Lucy in danger. But Jimmy is yet to be convinced, so he stands by the gym doors until the ‘Cuda rounds the corner. Only then does the heat pulsing against the back of my head slow.
“It’s so effing hot in the gym today,” Lucy grunts as soon as we begin to pick up speed.
She sits back and closes her eyes so the wind coming in the windows whips her hair back, and because she likes to hurt me, she lifts her feet to the dash, so her legs, bare right up to her panty line, torment me so much that I’m almost, almost tempted to reach out and touch.
I imagine sliding my hand along her toned calf. Massaging as I go, since I know they’re always tight from working out. Over her knee, ticklish, with the cutest cluster of freckles on the side.
My imagination runs wild, but in real life, I round another corner and take the extra-long way toward Main Street while Linkin Park sings on the wind. In my mind, my callused hand slides along her toned thigh and up to her apex. I’ve never in my life touched her in a way that could get us into trouble. I’ve thought about it since I was too young to even know what that stuff means, but I’ve kept my hands and thoughts to myself.
Today, in the close confines of my car where her bare legs weaken my will, my thoughts run wild. My throat turns desert dry, and my lips vibrate with need, so I duck my tongue out to moisten it and wish it was hers instead.
I look out to the street to make sure we’re not killing any innocent pedestrians as we go, then my eyes slide back to her, to her tiny waist, her supple chest. My heart pounds a heavy staccato against my diaphragm, but it’s not until I reach her eyes that it stops completely.
She looks straight at me, her chocolate eyes pulse into mine when I thought they were closed. Her deep brown orbs sparkle and search mine, and then she flicks her tongue out to wet her bottom lip.
Fuckkkkkk.
I almost groan out loud. I almost slide my hand into my jeans and make better the pounding that is set to send me to my grave, but I hold it all in, I turn back to face the road, and I cough to clear the lust from my throat.
“How was your session today?”
“Decent.” Her word is the vocal equivalent to a shrug. “I was expecting you, so when you didn’t show up, I called.”
“Sorry. I was working a bit today. Working again tonight, so I went home to chill.”
“You should have stayed home, then.” The wind continues to whip her hair into her eyes, so instead of winding the window up and locking the cold out, she leans forward, pops the glove box open and tugs out a pair of green framed sunglasses. Sliding them on, she turns to me, and breaks my heart a little when she cuts off my view of her beautiful eyes. “If you’re working tonight, and skipped the gym so you don’t get tired, then you probably should have ignored my call and stayed in.”
“I would never ignore your call.” I turn for just a second, flash a grin, then turn back to the road. “I’d only be home watching TV anyway, so this isn’t much different. Driving relaxes me.” I sit back, spread my legs wide and make myself comfortable. “It’s basically the same thing, but instead of watching NASCAR on a screen, we do it ourselves.”
She crosses her ankles on the dash and exhales on a relaxing sigh. “Don’t speed. This might have been a racecar in its former life, but now it’s just a regular car that’s not allowed to go above the speed limit.”
“You don’t trust me to not crash?” I grin. “Racing is in my blood, don’t you know that? Grandpa used to take his car down to Piper’s Lane all the damn time.”
She lifts a brow so high it pokes out the top of her glasses. “I know. Your grandpa and my grandpa used to hotdog around together, racing their buckets of junk, risking their lives. Aren’t we supposed to evolve beyond that? Get smarter with every generation, and all that?”
Smiling, I speed just a little as we head out of town, rather than toward Dixie’s on Main. “You’re super judgmental of your kin,” I laugh. “Driving fast is fun.”
“I don’t think so.” Bringing a finger up, she nibbles on the tip of her pinky and frowns. “I don’t think doing dangerous things is fun anymore. I’ve seen too much pain. It’s wigging me out.”
I’m positive she’s speaking about me and my pain, but I choose to believe she means the things she’s seen during the course of her degree to become a nurse.
Either way, I slow the ‘Cuda a little, and instead enjoy driving around with the cool wind whipping our skin. With a beautiful woman sitting right beside me, with her legs on show, but so I’m the only man who can see them. I’ll take this over anything else, and I won’t complain that instead of being my Bonnie, she’s my Miss Daisy.
“Dance today?”
She grins. “Could you tell I haven’t?”
I nod and turn the music up just a little. Not enough that we can’t speak and be heard, but enough so that the beat plays on the wind. “You seem a little anxious,” I hedge. “Wound up. I get like that when I can’t spar for a day, so I figure maybe you feel the same, but for dance.”
She grabs a long lock of her hair and plays with it as we drive. “I used to be able to work the anxiety out at the gym. I only needed to work out, ya know? Whatever got my heart pumping faster to flush the bad mood away. But I sparred today, and nothing. I was spoiled before, being able to work it off however. But now I need dance specifically.”
“Why’d you call me when you could’ve gone to the studio instead?”
She shrugs. Swallows. Studies the road ahead of us. “Not seeing you makes me anxious too,” she finally admits. “So I stood out front of my gym and wondered, left or right? Dance, or Mac?”
And she chose me. She fucking chose me.
When I find a safe place to do a U-turn, I do just that. I ignore her frown, perform the wide arc, and head back toward town. “Still dancing with a douchebag partner?”
She snickers and goes back to playing with her hair. “He’s not a douchebag. He’s actually really sweet.”
“Why don’t we know him?” I press. “We know every person in this town, every hidey hole, every everything. So why don’t we know this guy?”
“Because he moved here earlier this year. Soph wanted me to try a duet, so she found him, convinced him our little town had its charms, then brought him here and made him fall in love.”
With you?
“I’m sure she did,” I say, instead of what my mind would rather I scream.
We cruise back past the gym, and though Jimmy wasn’t standing at the door before, as we approach, he comes to it. Everyone knows my car because of the loud exhaust I’ve yet to fix. So he would have heard us coming from miles away, tapped on his sparring partner, and now he’s back at the door to make sure I didn’t dump his girl outside of town.
We pass onto the next street, then Main. Lucy’s hand slides down to her seatbelt buckle as we approach Dixie’s, but she stops and frowns when we zoom straight past.
“What are you—” She looks over her shoulder as we pass. “Where are we going?”
“Dance or me?” I pull onto the dance studio’s street, then into the parking lot outside the large building.
Cutting the engine, I turn to her with a grin. “You can have both. If
you’re ever wondering which one, just tell me, because there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t have both.” I tug the keys from the ignition, unbuckle my belt, then hers, and with a grin in anticipation of the show I’m about to get, I slide out and wait for her to follow.
“Wait.” She pops out her side and leans onto the roof of the car. “You’re gonna dance with me?”
“Ha!” I bark. “No, I don’t dance. But you can dance while I watch. You get to shoo that anxiety away, and I get to critique something I know absolutely nothing about. I enjoy doing that.”
Ignoring my jab, she rolls her eyes, slams the door, and comes around to my side until her shoulder bumps my chest. “You danced that other time. You did pretty good.”
“No, mostly I walked. Soph led us, and she ass-humped me so I’d move right. That was a one-off. No way could I do it again.”
“I could teach you.” She flashes a playful grin as we step up to the glass doors that boast ‘Ellie Solomon’ in large letters. We step into the lobby, and groan in tandem as the temperature strips away the chill that clings to our skin. “It wouldn’t be so hard.”
“You said you don’t have a dance partner when you’re in the city, because it would be too hard to have two of them. Something about rhythm.”
“Right, but we were talking about competition dance. I can’t learn the same routine with two guys and expect my timing to be right. But I could teach you something else. Something fun and sexy.”
“Sexy?”
Don’t get a boner. Don’t get a boner. Don’t get a b– Fuck!
“Sure. Every dance is sexy, if you’re doing it right.”
“Not the chicken dance.”
She scoffs, turns side on, and thrusts her sinful hips forward the way every child in the history of the world was taught when they were learning the chicken dance. “Every single dance, Blair.”