by Karen Renee
Smoke came out of Wreck’s nostrils. He didn’t respond.
Har threw out a hand. “Well? You’re accusing me of shit, what is it I’m doing?”
“I’m not saying. I’ll say it at church. With all the brothers around.”
Har looked over his shoulder toward the couches. He saw Layla lounging with her legs spread, straining the hem of her denim skirt. Her eyes darted away the moment he focused on her and he knew she’d been watching them.
A small smile curved his lips when he turned back to Wreck. “How is Layla? I know she used to suck cock like a champ, but it’s been a while for me with her. She’s also got a thing for gossip instead of pillow talk.”
Wreck’s eyes narrowed and he stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray. “Fuck this.”
“No, fuck you, Wreck. You let snatch come between you and your President, that’s low even for you,” Brute said.
Wreck turned away with his middle finger in the air.
“What can I get you, Prez?” a prospect asked from behind the bar.
Between this and losing money at the casino, he should have stayed home tonight, but the temptation of Stephanie was too much.
The blonde and brunette had returned, but the blonde edged closer to him than to Brute.
Har took her in fully. Brown eyes, full lips painted bright pink, face made up, a jade-green dress hugging her curves. Those tits were huge and probably fake, but he didn’t care. He could damn sure have his way with her, many different ways at that.
He smiled at her, but slid his eyes to Brute. “You planning a threesome? Or can I take one of these women off your hands, brother?”
“Whatever you want, man.”
Har’s eyes slid back to the blonde. “Are you interested, honey?”
She smiled, her teeth gleaming. “Sure.”
“You like whiskey or vodka?”
Her eyebrow jumped. “Tequila’s better, but I like vodka.”
He turned back to the prospect. “Get a bottle of vodka from the freezer, and bring it to my room.”
Taking the blonde’s hand, he led her to his room. Once there, she immediately cupped his crotch with one hand and pulled him by the neck to her lips. He kissed her and forced himself not to compare her to Stephanie.
The prospect knocked while Har was making out with the blonde. He tore his head away and hollered, “Come in, leave it on the dresser.”
When he heard the door close again, he got busy with the blonde. Imagining she was Stephanie the entire time, and feeling like a royal bastard.
Chapter 10
You're the Worst
Stephanie
I HADN’T SEEN HAR IN the past three and a half weeks, but I had heard him in the house. Once it became clear he was avoiding me, I returned the favor. It wasn’t mature, but if he wanted it like that, then that’s how it would be.
Though, the way he’d made me come played on my mind daily. I wanted more of that in the worst way.
My vibrator should have given up the ghost by now, I was using it so much. But as I had learned so long ago, I could rely on my battery-operated-boyfriend while men, not so much.
I knew Har was coming and going, not just because I heard him, but also because of the fridge. A prospect showed up every Wednesday with his groceries. The first time, the prospect had scared the shit out of me. I probably scared him, too, since I was in the kitchen with a butcher knife at the ready.
“Sorry, sorry, Stephanie. Har said he would let you know about me comin’ by. Guess he didn’t do that.”
“Sure didn’t. Sorry about the knife. I’ll get out of your way,” I had said, and went to my room.
Now, as I rode down his street, I was thinking about how lonely it was being in that damn house, and didn’t notice the maroon GMC Acadia in the driveway until I had already pressed the button for the garage door. Thus, I couldn’t ride by and wait for this person to leave. In fact, for all I knew, Har was there entertaining someone. But, as I pulled my bike up the drive, I saw Har’s bike wasn’t in the garage.
Great.
I took off my gaudy pink helmet and dismounted my bike while a woman got out of the SUV.
She took off her sunglasses and I recognized her as Har’s mother. “Who are you?” she asked.
“Uh...” I stalled.
“Surely, you know your name,” she said in a motherly tone.
I wanted to ask how she didn’t even remember me, but a girl went through lots of changes from ten to twenty-five. Seemed Mrs. Walcott hadn’t aged a day in the last fifteen years, though. Her long wavy hair framed her face and her green eyes looked at me with curiosity.
“I’m Stephanie Combes, though you knew me when Mom was married to Sam Vaillant.”
She closed the distance between us, her eyes scanning my face and recognition struck. A reluctant smile crossed her face. “Yes, I remember you and your sister, but only you hung around with your stepbrother and Michael.”
I nodded.
She looked to the side for a moment. “Now, you’re living with him. And he’s never had a woman live with him before.”
I shook my head. “I don’t live with him.”
She chuckled. “You opened his garage and rode that bike in here like you live here.”
I smiled. “Yes, but... well, it’s complicated. Do you want to come inside? I made sweet tea last night. I can fix you a glass.”
She nodded. “That sounds nice, and you can explain how you’re not living with my son.”
I let her precede me into the house and hit the button for the garage door.
She set her glass of tea down and swallowed. “You make good tea.”
“Thank you.”
“So, how is Michael?”
My brows furrowed because surely she would know how her son was doing. They were close, as far as I knew. “He’s good, I think. Haven’t seen him in weeks.”
She squinted one eye at me. “You’re living in his house, but haven’t seen him in weeks?”
“I’m not living-with-him living with him. He had an empty bedroom and let me move my stuff in when the ceiling collapsed at my old place.”
Her eyes widened. “So he was coming to see you?”
“He was there when it happened, but just as a friend.”
Her lips pressed together, and I suspected she knew I wasn’t telling her everything.
I heard a key unlocking the front door and I wondered who Har had sent over here now. It was Thursday so I knew it wasn’t a grocery delivery, but Mrs. Walcott paid no mind to the door opening.
“You always had a crush on Michael,” she said, just as Har strode to the kitchen doorway.
My eyes widened, partly at what she said, but mainly at how Har looked. He didn’t have stubble so much as a borderline beard. It gave him a different air, and my jury was out as to whether it was good or bad. His hair looked shorter, his cheeks had plenty of color, but I had no idea if it was from the sun or the wind. Probably both.
I looked to his mother. “Uh, no. It’s not like that, Mrs. Walcott.”
“No?” she asked.
The look on Har’s face held the same curiosity his mother’s had earlier. I expected him to keep silent and hear my response to his mother, but to my surprise he bailed me out.
“Thought I told you to call before coming here, Mom,” Har said.
She turned around. “I realized that once I parked the SUV, honey. I was pulling your number up when the garage door opened. Quite a surprise to see a woman ride a motorcycle up your drive, let alone into your garage.”
Tension filled the room as Har stared at her for a while, and I cleared my throat. “Well, I’ll just leave you two alone. It was nice to see you again, Mrs. Walcott.”
One of the many things I loved about Har’s kitchen included the two ways to exit the room. I slid to the side and hurried through the living room to my bedroom. It sounded like Har chuckled at me, but it could have been my imagination.
WHEN I VENTURED OUT of my
room at dinner time, the house was silent, and peeking out the front window I saw Mrs. Walcott’s SUV was gone. Har hadn’t ridden his bike inside the garage earlier, but when I looked out the door to the garage, I noticed his bike wasn’t there either.
Seemed I had the place to myself, yet again.
I shook my head and pulled up an internet browser on my phone. Staying here was nice, especially since it was rent-free, but I wasn’t going to overstay my welcome. I double checked the addresses and made a plan. August would end in a little over a week, so if I was lucky, I could find a place in time for September.
The prospect had brought something for Har in a large cardboard box. He’d left the empty box in the garage without breaking it down. I snagged it and took it to my room. Moving thoroughly sucked balls, but if I had anything to say about it, this would be the last time I moved for twelve months.
I packed the box, folded it closed, and set it alongside the wall. I told myself to ask a couple cocktail waitresses to keep an eye out for liquor boxes since those tended to be sturdier.
My stomach growled and I warmed up a container of lasagna I had put in the freezer weeks ago. After I ate, I washed my dishes, took a shower, and lounged in bed reading a paranormal romance novel on my phone.
At eleven o’clock, I received a text from Har.
If you took that box from the garage to pack your shit, you better think again. ’Night.
I arched my brow at my phone. His observational skills surprised me, though I knew they shouldn’t have. The smart-ass in me couldn’t be denied and I texted him back.
How do you know I didn’t put it in the recycle bin all nice and folded up?
Twenty minutes passed without a response. I turned my bedside lamp to a lower setting and my phone chimed.
Because I just checked, Combes. Pull a stunt like that again, you’re gonna pay.
“Whatever,” I whispered and turned out my light.
In the morning, I went into the garage and hit the button to open the door. As the door rolled up, I saw Har’s bike missing and my bike had a flat tire.
“What the fuck?” I seethed.
I didn’t have a shift today, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have apartments to tour or rental applications to fill out.
“Goddammit,” I sighed.
On my phone, I pulled up the Uber app and priced a ride to the nearest apartment complex and bit my lip. It was just over ten dollars one way, which meant I was looking at another ten dollars to get back. Twenty dollars just to get to one property would set me back a little, but multiply that by four and I had a hard time justifying it. Most apartments had application fees and eighty dollars went a long way toward those expenses.
Shaking my head, I looked more closely at my rear tire and noticed the valve stem cap was missing. My hands went to my hips and I turned around my eyes scanning the floor of the garage. The cap sat next to the large recycle bin.
“You are joking,” I whispered.
I yanked my phone out of my pocket and called Brute.
He answered within the first ring. “Hey, Steph! How’s it hangin’?”
“Flat is how it’s hanging. Any possibility you can let me borrow your truck?”
My former stepbrother had the good grace to act shocked and confused. “Run that by me again? You want to borrow my truck? Have you ever driven a truck?”
His question jogged my brain enough for me to scan the road. Har’s beat-up truck sat at the curb.
I smiled. “You’re right, Brute. Bad idea. You have a nice day. I’ll call an Uber.”
He was speaking, but I hung up and beelined it inside. It wasn’t cool to take Har’s truck, and it would be uncomfortable to rummage around his bedroom in search of the keys. But he should’ve known better. After all, I had been nosy as a girl, and he’d accused me of being that way still.
Sometimes you get what you ask for.
Fortunately, Har kept his bedroom neat as a pin and the keys to his pick-up were right on the dresser. That was unfortunate for the nosy side of me who had looked forward to rooting around in his nightstand and other things, but I had wheels and a girl couldn’t ask for more.
Har
LAST NIGHT, HE’D BEEN in the kitchen when the light shining from beneath her door went out. An hour after her light had gone dark, he quietly opened her door. With nothing but ambient light, he could still see the box had been closed and nudging it with his foot he knew it was full to the brim.
It shouldn’t matter to him if she left, but something made him want her in his house. When he found her with his mother, he thought that feeling would evaporate, but seeing her and Mom together had intensified his belief she needed to be here. Yet he had no idea why that was, no matter how much he tried to figure it out.
Har hadn’t flattened someone’s tire in years. But doing it to Stephie’s bike gave him a perverse sense of joy. That joy stemmed from the reason he had the road name “Harmful.” Deep down, he knew deflating her tire would cause himself as much harm as it caused her, but he did it anyway. He looked forward to her reaction.
When Brute got a call from her at ten in the morning, Har grinned. Brute’s question of whether she’d ever driven a truck made him choke with laughter. The quickness with which Stephanie ended the call surprised him.
With a grin at his brother, he said, “Gotta run, man. Put her out of her misery.”
Brute laughed as only a stepbrother would.
Fifteen minutes later, when Har pulled onto his street, it looked different. Then he noticed his truck was missing. He swung his bike into the garage and closed the door. Inside, he found his spare set of keys to the truck were gone.
“Damn, is she smart,” he muttered.
Times like these made him miss one of his high school buddies who had gone through the police academy, but left the Biloxi Police Department for the FBI. Nothing would be better than Stephie being pulled over on a stolen vehicle claim, but he couldn’t do that to her. And not just because his buddy wasn’t around to do him a favor – no matter how unethical it would have been.
He had half a mind to take a folding chair to the driveway and wait for her, but it was too hot and too humid for that shit. Instead, he went to the living room and flipped to the sports channel.
She’d be home soon enough.
WHEN HE HEARD THE GARAGE door open, Har sauntered to his bedroom doorway. His bike sitting in the garage would alert her to his presence so he had no way to surprise her. The door opened and she shot daggers at him with her eyes.
“I do not understand you, Michael Har Walcott!”
His head dipped in a half-nod. “Could say the same thing about you, Stephanie Miss Priss Combes.”
Her eyes bulged and he fought laughing. “I am not prissy!”
“Tomato, tom-ah-toe. Too prissy to fill your tire back up.”
Her arms folded on her chest. “Yeah. Convenient how that suddenly took care of itself.”
He shook his head. “Not convenient. Took a fuck-ton of my time to put your tire back to rights.”
That was a lie since it only took him thirty minutes, but she didn’t need to know that.
Her lips flattened and she poked a finger at his chest. “Serves you right, since you deflated my damn tire to start with. I don’t understand, Har. I don’t need to be mooching off you. I’m trying to move out, and you do shit to keep me here! Why?”
“You don’t need to leave.”
“How can you say that? I’m costing you money! Your water bill has doubled for sure, your electric bill can’t be far behind it. Either I contribute toward that, or you stop fucking with my efforts to move out.”
“Not doin’ that.”
“Why?” she cried, like he was zapping her last ounce of patience.
“Why do you want to leave so bad?”
“Why do you want me to stay?”
“I’m doing you a solid letting you stay here. No rent. No nothing. Bonus, I know someone’s here when I’ve got to stay a
t the clubhouse or make a long run. Which is why you don’t need to pay me rent.”
She blew out a breath with her eyes closed. Those eyes remained closed longer than he liked, but when she opened them, he did not like what he saw. Sheer frustration.
“I need to move.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“I need to.”
He shook his head. “Don’t buy it. Why do you need to?”
Her lips pressed together into a line. Seeing her irritated expression, he knew what she was getting at.
“Mom was right about you,” he said in a low voice.
Her eyes blazed at him. “No.”
His eyebrow cocked. “So you didn’t have a crush on me?”
“That doesn’t matter. I need to move on, be on my own.”
“Why?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, Michael!”
“Stay,” he said in a patient tone.
“Why won’t you let me go? You’re the worst.”
He frowned. “How am I ‘the worst?’”
She leveled serious eyes at him and arched a brow. His jaw clenched at how much better she did it than Blondie back at the clubhouse three weeks ago.
She held up a hand to tick items off. “First you kiss me and say it’s because you felt like it. Then you propose sex without strings when I told you that’s a myth. The very next day you shove your hand in my pants making me come on the goddamn floor of all places, and then I realize I’ve been played. Except when I’ve had time to think about it, and I ask if the no-strings thing is still on the table, you make it clear it is not. Now you’re asking if I had a crush on you, and you’re keeping me from moving. All of that makes you the worst!”
He knew there were many points he should make in response, but his smart mouth got the better of him. As usual. “I shoved my fingers in your hot, tight, wet cunt and made you come – spectacularly, by the way - and you’re griping about it being on the garage floor. And you don’t see why you’re ‘Miss Priss?’”
She clenched her teeth together, if the tension in her jaw was any indicator.