Fries Before Guys

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  “Put this on,” I ordered.

  She did, fitting it onto her head as if she was pissed.

  Which she might have a right to be.

  “Umm, hey, Avery.”

  Avery turned to look at a girl that was in a cheer uniform, then turned away without replying.

  “Is this your brother?” the girl teased.

  Avery turned then, her eyes hot as she stared at the girl.

  “You damn well know that I don’t have any brothers and sisters,” Avery snapped. “Just as you know that I don’t like you. So why are you talking to me?”

  The cheerleader laughed, which pissed me off.

  She looked like a vindictive little bitch.

  “How’d it go in the counselor’s office today?” the cheerleader pushed. “Are you having issues again?”

  I caught Avery’s arm and squeezed. “You ready?”

  Even though I wanted to hear the answer to the question the cheerleader just asked, I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be able to listen to the answer.

  Because that cheerleader was pissing me off, and her words weren’t even directed at me.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  Avery’s jaw was tight as she nodded once.

  “Let’s go then,” I said, getting onto the bike.

  She followed shortly behind me, her feet hesitant as she moved.

  “There are some foot pegs.” I picked one ankle up and put it on the peg. “There’s one in the same spot on the other side.”

  Since my bike really didn’t have the room for an extra ass to be sitting on it, I had to urge Avery closer.

  “Closer,” I ordered. “Press your thighs against mine.”

  She did, trying to leave room.

  But in the situation we were in, I wasn’t going to let her leave any room.

  First, I didn’t like the way the bitchy cheerleader was sneering at Avery. And second, I wanted her pressed against me.

  It was possible that I’d taken advantage of the situation and forced her to hold on to me, but dammit if I didn’t want her wrapped around me like a weed.

  Avery did as instructed and practically pressed against me from thighs to chest.

  “Now hold on,” I ordered.

  She placed her arms around my waist and held on, and I started the bike.

  The very few people who weren’t paying attention to us as we got on the bike now were, because my bike was loud as hell and drew even the faculty’s attention that were busy heading to their cars.

  I put the bike into gear and then started off, being careful of all the teenagers who were dumbasses as well as obeying the speed limit.

  The moment that we were no longer in the school zone, though, I opened it up.

  Avery’s arms tightened around my waist and she let out an excited laugh, causing me to go just a little bit faster.

  Sadly, when the turn to her house came into view, I took it.

  Because no matter what I was feeling, my original assessment was the right one.

  Avery was too young.

  I’d had that hammered home by picking her up today from her high school.

  The girls there staring back at me, one of those being one in a cheerleading uniform, were young. They had petty problems and even pettier attitudes. I was sure Avery wasn’t like that, but she lived in that world.

  I didn’t.

  By the time we arrived at her house, I’d talked myself down off the ledge again.

  The ledge that was getting taller and taller, and harder and harder to get down from.

  It was like a black hole.

  Each time I thought I had myself under control, I realized that I most certainly didn’t.

  As I pulled up into her driveway, my eyes took in the high grass and the even taller weeds that surrounded the flower beds.

  I resisted the urge to ask her if she had someone to help her mow.

  But she answered that question for me when she got off the bike and handed me her helmet.

  “This place looks like a nightmare,” she murmured, pressing her hands against her face as she warmed her cheeks back up. “Thank you for the ride, Derek.”

  I looked at her, frowning.

  “Why does it look like a nightmare?” I asked, not able to help myself.

  “I can’t get the weed eater started to save my life,” she admitted. “I’ve tried and tried and tried. And as for the grass, I have no way to transport gas to and from my house. So I haven’t been able to mow because I haven’t been able to figure out a way to get a gas can full of gasoline in my car just yet. Its trunk space is minimal at best. And when I tried to drive down the road with the trunk open, I broke something in the latching system and now I have to tie it down…”

  I held up my hand.

  “I’ll see if I can bring it by tomorrow,” I said. “Or my dad can drop it by.”

  She looked at me in surprise.

  “That’s not necessary. Thanks, though.” She turned her back on me and started walking up the driveway. The spot where she normally parked her car was empty, but her parents’ vehicles were there.

  “Avery.”

  She stopped and turned slightly to face me.

  “Your dad has a truck,” I pointed out. “Why not use it?”

  She swallowed hard. I physically saw the pain start to overtake her.

  “I…” She looked at her dad’s truck.

  It wasn’t new, but it definitely wasn’t old like her car was.

  And her mom’s car was even newer than her dad’s.

  “I can’t,” she admitted. “I just… I just can’t.”

  With that, she walked inside and didn’t look back.

  Chapter 4

  Uncircumcised? At least you have one hoodie she can’t steal.

  -Derek to a fellow officer

  Derek

  Three weeks later

  “Did you get her yard mowed?” I asked curiously.

  My dad and I had been switching off on mowing and weed eating Avery’s lawn.

  I’d also spent the better part of a weekend getting her car tuned up and fixed enough that she could drive it without any problems in the future.

  Hopefully the very long, far away future.

  Not that she realized all that I’d done to it.

  She’d thought that I just replaced the battery on it, which she insisted on paying for.

  And as far as she knew, my dad was the one doing the mowing of her lawn.

  And since he was her dad’s police chief, she was okay with that.

  She was not okay with me doing anything for her.

  Something in which she’d told me when I tried to show up the next morning with a gas can full of gas and asked to help her with her weed eater.

  The only thing she’d allowed me to do was start her weed eater.

  I’d then watched her struggle with the too-big machine for half an hour before I’d asked to take over. When she wouldn’t let me, I’d called my dad, who’d been able to talk some sense into her.

  The next time that I mowed, it was while she was at school and couldn’t stop me.

  My dad had taken the next time seeing as it was winter break.

  “Yep,” he said. “That girl is so fuckin’ stubborn, I swear. Reminds me of your sisters.”

  I definitely wasn’t reminded of my sister when it came to Avery Flynn. Not even close.

  My thoughts were purely erotic in nature. And to have those thoughts about my sister would be downright disgusting.

  “O’Malley is being executed today.”

  I looked up sharply at my father and inhaled deeply. “No shit?”

  The trial had been a slam dunk.

  Rader, as well as ten other cops, had been serving an arrest warrant when things had gone downhill with Jorgan O’Malley.

  Jorgan O’Malley had missed his court date. The court date that would also be for the murders of over sixteen pe
ople. All over six states.

  The icing on the cake had been the murder of Rader, Avery’s father.

  Where Jorgan might’ve stood a chance before, all the unknown, unnamed people he just so happened to kill that he came into contact with as he hitchhiked across the South couldn’t condemn him fully. However, with the death of an officer trying to bring him in with an arrest warrant, Jorgan signed and sealed his fate.

  They’d sentenced him to death.

  That death, apparently, was happening today.

  “When?” I asked curiously.

  My father looked at his watch.

  “Four in the afternoon,” he answered. “They usually take place in the morning, but apparently someone asked for an afternoon death, and the warden granted it. I’m not sure why.”

  Interesting.

  “Is anybody going?” I asked curiously.

  Dad shot me an amused look.

  Of course, there were people going.

  The man had killed a cop. There would be cops there out the ass.

  Not to mention the fact that Texas hadn’t executed someone in a really long fucking time. That was going to bring the curious people out just to witness the execution.

  “Do you want to go?” I asked.

  I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go.

  To be honest, I’d seen plenty of men die. Plenty of men be executed for their supposed crimes while overseas.

  I wasn’t really interested in going.

  Not unless my father was, and only then if he thought he needed me there.

  “Can’t,” he said. “I have a meeting with the town council this morning about staffing, budget cuts and new laws they’re putting into place.”

  I winced.

  “That sounds like a whole lot of fun,” I said as I shoved the rest of my toast into my mouth. “What time do you have to leave?”

  It was an hour and a half later after leaving my dad’s place that I found myself parking my bike.

  I walked into the bank with my eyes firmly on the teller that was my favorite.

  She was an older lady with graying brown hair, a sweet smile, and the understanding that I wasn’t a child anymore. The other two still treated me like I was Luke Robert’s kid. Not my own entity.

  That, and they talked a whole fucking lot. And I didn’t have time to sit there and chit chat.

  I had about a half million things to do today, one of those being running to the hardware store before they closed for lunch.

  And, seeing as it was now eleven fifteen, I’d be pushing it since they closed at eleven-thirty for lunch.

  “Hello, dear,” my favorite teller, Dorrie, said. “How are you?”

  I handed her a check that my father had made out to me for buying him a couple of new packages of golf balls. I hadn’t really intended for him to pay me back, but the man was insistent.

  And I knew that if I didn’t go and cash the check, the damn man would just write me another one and do it himself.

  So that was what I did.

  “…really sorry, Avery. I don’t know how he let this happen. But…just know that I’m here if you ever need anything.”

  I turned around at the familiar sounding voice.

  Gordon Bishop, the branch’s loan officer and a man I’d graduated with, was talking to a crying woman. She had her hands over her face and she was sobbing into them.

  I felt something in my gut clench at her sorrow, and absently took a step forward, not sure what I intended to do, but knowing that I needed to do something.

  Then she removed her hands from her eyes and my heart skipped a beat.

  Because that sobbing woman was actually Avery. My Avery.

  I’d, of course, heard Gordon call her Avery, but I hadn’t put two and two together until I’d seen her face.

  What the hell?

  “What’s going on, Gordon?” I asked, not sure how I ended up where I was, but glad that I’d subconsciously done the thing I was going to do anyway.

  Avery’s breath hitched, and she burst out crying all over again.

  I looked at Gordon, feeling something sick crawl into my gut.

  He shook his head. “It’s private.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from what I did next.

  I had to do it.

  Reaching forward, I drew Avery’s small body into the curve of my arms, wrapping her up tight.

  She only cried harder.

  I’d seen this girl cry way too much.

  Way too fucking much.

  The first time that I’d witnessed her crying had been the day that her mother had been taken back into surgery to harvest her organs. I’d been coming to visit my dad, unsure why he was at the hospital but determined to see him first since I’d just arrived home from deployment. Hell, I’d still been in my fatigues and had sand in places there shouldn’t be sand.

  But I’d wanted to see my dad. So I’d gone to where he was said to be.

  I hadn’t had a clue what I was walking into when I went to that hospital.

  Had no fucking clue that, by taking that first step onto the surgical wing, I’d be entering into a sixteen-year-old’s life.

  Sure, it was on the periphery. But I was still in it, nonetheless.

  Over the course of the next two years, I’d be doing my level best to stay away from her, yet she was always right there.

  Her parents’ deaths. The funerals. Funerals of another officer not related to her. Once at my dad’s place when she was taking my sister’s college graduation photos. Then once more when she took Katy’s wedding photos.

  And more so lately.

  It was getting exhausting trying to stay away from her when fate kept throwing us together.

  “Avery,” I said. “What happened?”

  She pulled away, her hands going to her eyes as she tried to get herself under control.

  “My parents were apparently in a lot of debt,” she said, voice shaky. “I guess I never realized that anything was even wrong. Both of their funerals were already paid for. Hell, they were even planned. They got some money for life insurance, and I paid off their cars and all their medical bills that accrued while sending a hefty lump sum in to cover the house for a couple of months while I got my head on straight. I kept getting notices in the mail, but I guess I figured that there was something going on with their estate, so I put it off because I just had so much other stuff to do… and they were notices that I was in foreclosure. I thought I was doing the right thing, paying off their medical bills. I had no clue that they were so far in debt, though. No clue.”

  My stomach sank.

  So on top of losing her parents, she was now losing the house that she’d grown up in.

  “There’s too much to pay that I just don’t have. So I’m going to have to move out.” She looked away. “I’m going to have to go. I… thank you, Gordon.”

  Gordon didn’t say you’re welcome.

  Why would he say he was welcome for having to kick a nineteen-year-old girl out of her house who had just lost both of her parents?

  He wouldn’t.

  “Avery, wait,” I said, taking a step to follow her.

  But I was stopped by the teller calling my name to give me my cash from the check.

  When I turned around after gathering my money, it was to find Avery already pulling out of the parking lot.

  I turned to Gordon.

  “How bad are we talking here?” I asked curiously.

  Gordon looked sick to his stomach.

  “There were two liens out on the house. One reverse mortgage. It’s bad,” he said. “They owed about four times what they would’ve originally paid for it.”

  I closed my eyes and felt tension rise in my shoulders.

  “God, that girl just can’t catch a break,” I said, feeling like I’d just taken a sucker punch right to the stomach.

  “She told me she had to skip school today to meet with me,” he said, eye
s haunted. “She was already having to leave early to go to Huntsville, she said, to make me feel better. But I don’t feel better. That kid… I hate myself for what I had to tell her.”

  I did, too.

  I slapped him on the back and said what I would’ve told him if it were anybody else.

  “You do what you have to do, Gordon,” I told him. “Nobody made her parents make that decision. You were not responsible for this.”

  Avery wasn’t, either. Which was what sucked the most.

  Gordon nodded once. “Have a good one, man. I need to go grab some lunch.”

  I cursed and looked at my watch.

  It was already too late to get over there.

  Meaning I’d either have to drive into Longview to get what I needed or hope that I had enough time after my meeting today to make it over before they closed.

  The moment I got out of the bank, I called my dad and told him what happened, down to the very last detail.

  My father was silent for a long moment before he said, “That’s… that’s fucked up.”

  I agreed.

  “What’s in Huntsville?” he wondered.

  “The only thing in Hunstville is the…”

  “Oh, fuck,” Dad cursed.

  I could hear him moving around as if he was standing from his desk chair and it slammed into the wall behind his desk.

  “I’ll go,” I said. “Find her and keep her here.”

  But when I got there, she was already gone.

  I called my dad back.

  “Guess I’m going to watch an execution after all.”

  Chapter 5

  Roses are red, violets are blue. I love queso and tacos, too.

  -Avery’s secret thoughts

  Avery

  I’d never been to a prison before.

  The sheer number of hoops that I’d had to jump through to even get into the prison itself was amazing.

  Then I’d gotten into the viewing room to find it jam-packed, even an hour early.

  I squeezed my way in, found a small sliver of a bench on the very front row, and sat down.

  The older man at my side looked at me nastily, and I turned around and gave him a glare right back.

  He opened his mouth to say something, probably to ask me to move, when I felt a warm hand press down on my shoulder.