“Doc, I’m hurt. You know how very serious of a person I am,” Preppy said with his hands over his heart.
“So you’re saying if I do this, forge the documents you need, then what, you’ll let me stay there when Mirna goes to Sarasota? That’s blackmail.”
“I know you’re upset but there’s no need to be racist.”
“Seriously!” I said. “What, you want me to rent it from you?” I asked, shocked by what I was holding. I didn’t give a damn about Mirna’s possessions or her house, and I could understand why I wouldn’t be the best choice to handle her affairs, but that didn’t mean it still didn’t sting.
“No, not like rent it from me.” Preppy shook his head. “If this works and we get Max back, then the house is yours, free and clear. I’ll sign it over to you and you’ll never have to worry about not having anywhere to stay ever again. And before you jump to any conclusions, I didn’t weasel the house from Mirna in some scam where I forced her to marry me or anything. I didn’t even know she was transferring the title. She just sprung this on me today.”
I was quiet for a moment. Glancing down at the paper, then out at the water again and again, without a single clear thought about what had just happened registering.
“If it helps any, your forgery skills are top notch. Where did you learn all that shit?”
“Wowed?” I asked at his strange compliment.
“Yeah and I’ve never really been WOWED before. Okay, maybe once, but it was during American Ninja Warrior, and that guy who won was an amputee and god damned war hero. You’d have to be made of fucking stone to speak during the commentators touching tribute while the camera zoomed in on his prosthetic leg and the star spangled banner played in the background.”
Her face contorted like she was about to be sick. “It’s not a wow at all. It’s not something I’m proud of, one of many things.”
I scoffed. “We’ve all done shit we’re not proud of, but for most people that involves getting drunk and doing something fun that someone else disapproves of. Most people’s ‘shit their not proud of file’ doesn’t involve forging complicated documents, though. I mean, is forgery the new thing all the kids are doing? Maybe not, because if it were a new thing then there would for sure be a porn parody about it already and since I haven’t come across anything titled Teenaged Asian Forgers Take it Real Deep, I don’t think the forgery trend is going to be all the rage anytime soon.”
“It was mostly Conner. He was always trying to literally print money. I just picked up a few things along the way,” I admitted. “I’m going to pay her back every last cent, plus interest, you know,” I said. “I know that’s THE lie a lot of users tell themselves and others in order to follow through with whatever bad idea they had in mind, but I really am going to pay her back.”
Preppy pushed off the hood. “I believe you,” he said, with actual sincerity in his voice. “Think of how much faster you’ll be able to do that when you don’t gotta worry about a roof over your head.” He held out his hand. “Deal?”
Preppy was right, as much as I hated to admit it. I took his hand. “Deal.” When I tried to let go, he pulled me between his legs and wrapped his hands around my waist. “A handshake is so informal. We should seal this deal with a fuck. That sounds much more official don’t you agree?”
I shook my head.
I pushed off his shoulders. “You know, sometimes I’m not sure when you’re serious.”
“Oh, well that’s easy to figure out. I’m always sometimes joking in a way that’s honest.”
“Totally cleared that up.”
“Glad I could help,” Preppy said as we both got back in the car. He started the engine.
“I could go to prison for this you know,” I stated, and although I intended for it to be an argument, I found myself smiling.
Preppy blew out a breath. “Minimum security, doesn’t even count.”
“I can’t believe I just agreed to forge documents when I told myself I’d never do it again,” I lamented.
Preppy put the car in reverse. “Don’t think of it that way then.”
“How would you have me think of it then?”
He wagged his eyebrows. “Think of it as coloring outside the lines.”
Fifteen
DRE
“Where are the shoes? I thought we’d agreed that you’d wear the FUCK-ME heels?” he asked, when he saw me sitting on the rocker on the front porch in a pair of 50’s style, denim, high-waisted cut off’s with buttons on the front and a white ‘wife-beater’ style tank top that showed a small sliver of skin on my midsection. I’d opted for plain white Keds instead of my precious heels, which I seriously considered bubble wrapping for safe keeping.
“We didn’t agree to anything of the sort.” I stood up, and Preppy’s eyes dropped to where my shorts stopped high on my thigh and instantly, I regretted wearing them. “Besides, they didn’t really go with the outfit.”
“In my head you agreed to wear them. Actually, you agreed to a lot of things in my head. You want me to tell you about it?”
“Nope.”
“You really are a fun-sucker, Doc.”
Ten minutes later, he was dragging me through the woods in the back of Mirna’s house. The same woods I’d ran through when I ran from him weeks ago. “And you wanted me to wear heels?” I asked, stepping over a fallen tree branch. “Where are you taking me, anyway?”
“NOW you ask?” Preppy asked, turning around with a look of surprise on his face. “There is a man dragging you through the woods, with god-knows-what on my twisted mind, and now you think to ask where we’re going? I hate to say it again, Doc, but you’re kind of shit at this life thing.”
“Working on it,” I muttered.
“I’ll help you,” he said, ducking under a low growing bush. “First lesson, don’t go into the woods with men you don’t know because more than likely they have plans that end with your parts being scattered across several counties.”
“No following strangers into the woods,” I said, summarizing his lesson. “Check.”
“Number two, no candy from strangers.”
“What if they’re in a really cool van and parked by my playground?” I asked, with mock stupidity. “And they have Reese’s?”
“Well, then that all depends.”
“Depends on what?” I asked, as we finally found our way clear of the jungle of foliage.
Preppy stepped out into the clearing, turning his face up to the sun. “If the creepy guy in the van is me or not.”
Where most of Logan’s Beach is flat, the clearing was rocky on all sides with a large pond in the middle. Jagged rocks and piles of hard shell created a slope to a rocky perch ten feet or so above my head and twenty feet above the water below.
Preppy took off running up the slope but I stayed put, wondering what on earth he was up to.
I thought our funny banter about life lessons was a good step toward having a good time. I was ALMOST looking forward to the rest of the day, but the second Preppy pulled off his shirt I knew it was all a big fucking mistake. Even with only his naked back in view while he set his shirt neatly on a nearby rock, I knew I was screwed. But when he turned around and I was given a full view of his upper body, I considered heading back to the tower for another dose of a life reality check.
Because he COULDN’T be real.
He was complete and utter…perfection.
PAINFULLY so.
Colorful tattoos were inked over most of his skin. His defined abs flexed when he stretched his arms over his head. His biceps and forearms were lined with veins. He even had one of those V things that ran into his jeans and had me licking my lips like he was a steak and I was a hungry lion.
Which I wasn’t. I was the weak hurt lamb, wasn’t I? How the fuck did that movie go again?
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me? I thought, unable to tear my eyes away from the man, who with the removal of one item of clothing, had turned from looking like a hipster-professor
type…into walking sex.
“Why am I kidding you? ” he asked. That’s when I realized I’d not exactly kept that thought to myself.
There was no way to hide my staring, and since I couldn’t rip my eyes away from his body I decided to go with the truth, no matter how painful it was. “Seriously, THAT’S what you’ve been hiding under your LEAVE IT TO BEAVER clothes?” I asked, as he stood on the very edge of the ledge where the sunlight highlighted every bit of his perfection. He looked like one of those tattoo models on the cover of INKED magazine. Was it too much to ask that he have lopsided nipples or a beer belly?
“Like what you see, Doc?” Preppy asked, rubbing his chest, slowly sliding hands down his abs, gyrating his hips like some sort of erotic dancer. A move I’d never found attractive…until right then. Shit, there wasn’t much I’d found attractive before Conner and I started on our road trip to hell, and the first stirring of any kind of desire in over a year comes courtesy of the devil in a bow tie.
Man, I really was fucked up.
“God, no” I said, finding my voice. “I mean, what kind of person would like that?” I asked, twisting my face in disgust. “What I meant was that you’re like seriously disgusting. You should just cover…” I waved to his bare chest, “all that up,” I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes. “If we were in public, there would be people puking everywhere at the sight of you. So gross.” By the time I was done with my rant, Preppy’s smile had grown so big it was blinding.
Without warning he shoved down the waistband of his pants. I quickly turned around so he wouldn’t see the redness creeping up my neck at the thought of him without his pants on, and I kept rambling, “Do a sit up for Christ’s sake, before you go flashing your flabs all over the place.”
Preppy’s chuckle echoed over the water. “What was that, Doc?” he called out, “You want to sit on my face?”
“I am so fucking screwed.” I muttered, keeping my voice low, but he heard me anyway.
“Not yet, anyway,” he said.
“What the fuck?” I asked, turning around. “Do you have fucking sonic hearing? Or maybe sonar, like a dolphin?” Preppy was perched at the edge of the ledge, dressed only in a pair of black boxers.
With one last wag of his eyebrows in my direction, he held his nose and jumped off the rock, hugging his knees tightly to his chest. “Cannnnnnnon Baaaaaaaalllll!” he yelled, until he connected with the water, sending a huge splash raining down over me. I guess I wasn’t staying dry after all.
I was wiping the water from my eyes and realized that was a huge mistake when my eyes began to sting. “Shit!” I said, stumbling around blindly.
I heard the water dripping onto the rocks and Preppy’s feet as he padded over to me. “Here, stop,” he said, taking my face in his hands and tilting my chin up so he could inspect my eyes. “The pond is salt water, it connects underground to some of the canals around here and salt water is a bitch on the eyes. Open your eyes and blink as much as you can and as fast as you can,” he ordered, and I listened. It stung at first, but after a minute the stinging sensation eased up as a mixture of salt water and tears dripped from my eyes.
“Thanks,” I said, focusing on the man above me, his hair and beard dripping with water, droplets beading on his chest.
He kept his hands on my face. “You’re next, Doc,” he said, in a low suggestive voice. “I want you to get nice and wet.”
“Do you ever say anything that’s NOT dripping with innuendo?” I asked, pulling away from him and turning around to pull my now wet hair into a high ponytail. I heard Preppy padding back up to where he’d hung his jeans, and then the sound of his buckle as he got dressed.
I made the very big mistake of whipping around too quickly, not realizing that Preppy was standing right behind me, and again I slammed right into his hard wet chest. Even worse, when I put my hands out to cushion the impact, they landed low. TOO LOW. And right on something very large and VERY hard in the front of his pants.
He shrugged. “Probably not, but I can’t say for sure, being as I don’t really keep track of that kind of shit,” he answered, following my gaze which was still locked on the crotch of his pants and the huge bulge pushing out the fabric.
“Ummm…” I said, diverting my eyes.
Preppy laughed and reached into his waistband. Just as I was about to turn tail, thinking that I was about to come face to face with little Preppy in all his glory, he pulled out a pistol. “It’s just my gun,” he said, tucking it back in then wringing the water from his hair. “Although, the other weapon I’m packing down there is just as impressive.”
“Why do you have a gun?” I asked, without thinking of how stupid my question really was. Maybe, if he ever put his god damned shirt back on, my case of stupid would turn back off.
“Why do I have a gun?” he repeated, like it was the ridiculous question that it was. “'Cause throwing bullets by hand isn’t exactly effective.”
“You carry that all the time?” I asked, curious.
“Every day that ends in Y.”
“Why? Because you’re a criminal?”
“Really? We going there, Doc? ‘Cause last time I checked, heroin wasn’t exactly legal.” He leaned in closer like he was sharing a secret, whispering, “Neither is robbing your grandmother.”
“Fuck you,” I spat, the lightness between us growing heavy in the span of a few words, like an anvil had been dropped on top of us.
“Gladly,” he responded. “But you’re just as much of a criminal as I am.”
“No. I don’t do the things you do,” I argued.
“No, but you know about the shit I do. That makes you an accessory. Keep them coming. This is fun.”
I growled, growing frustrated with both the company and the fact that I couldn’t find the break in the brush where we’d come in. I set my sights on the rocks protruding from the perch where Preppy had just jumped in the water and started climbing them. I didn’t know where they lead, but anywhere else was the only place I needed to go. “I knew this entire day would be a mistake.”
“You can’t go anywhere, Doc,” Preppy said, sounding bored.
“Oh yeah? And why the hell not?” I asked, finding my footing and pulling up. One step down. I looked up. About seventy to go.
“You can’t go anywhere ‘cause you’ve got nowhere to go,” he answered. Although, I knew what he was really saying, that without him keeping my secret from Mirna, I couldn’t stay there. “Truth hurts, don’t it?”
“The truth?” I asked, growing more irritated by the second. I growled when my foot slipped from a rock. Holding on tighter I tried again, this time landing my foot on a smooth rock that felt like it would hold. “What would you know about truth? About honesty?” I asked, looking back over my shoulder where, unfortunately, he was still shirtless, his thumbs tucked into his pockets as he watched me climb. Even though we were arguing, his gaze was fixated on my ass until he finally decided that my face was also worthy of his attentions. “All you’ve been doing is playing games and toying with me. First, you act like you want to kill me, and then you act like you’re saving me, then you’re ignoring me completely, and now you want to take me out and pretend like you haven’t been playing some sort of game with me that I never agreed to play!” I shouted, just as the rock I thought would hold gave out and I slid the foot and a half I’d climbed back to the ground. I hit the rock with my closed fist and surprised myself when I made a dent.
“First, I said you couldn’t go anywhere not because I was being a dick, but because that type of rock you’re trying to climb crumbles like chalk and doesn’t hold much weight.” I let my forehead fall against my rock nemesis.
“SECOND, I think I liked you better when you were all crying and weepy over your shitty life, because this stubborn-chick thing is starting to be a real pain in my dick,” Preppy said. “And last, but not motherfucking least, I may be a lot of things, Doc. A criminal. Sure. A very good dresser. Absolutely. A man with a huge cock. Fuck, yes
.” His face grew serious. “But I’m no fucking liar.” For the first time, there was no joke behind his words. No cocky smile or punchline to follow.
“Yeah?” I asked, just as an idea hit me. He’d put me in my place by throwing the H back in my face, and maybe it was time I put him in his. “Then let’s find out,” I said casually. I hopped back down the rocks and marched right back up to Preppy, who looked amused as all hell as I crossed my arms over my chest and tapped my foot on the ground.
“Oh yeah? How do you think you’re gonna prove that?” I couldn’t wait to wipe that smirk right off his face.
“SHOW ME.” I demanded, pointing to his crotch.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Preppy said, biting his bottom lip.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to fuck you. I want to see it. ALL of it. NOW. Since you say you’re not a liar, and I’ve been hearing about this monster cock, this thick dick, this whatever the fuck you seem to want to call the third man living in your pants, it occurred to me that you’re probably only talking about it so much because you have some sort of complex about it. Like the way short men are aggressive, or the way older men buy sports cars.” In my head, I’d already won this challenge and was well on my way back to Mirna’s where we could pretend the entire day never happened. “The way I see it, this is me.” I took a step toward him, pushing my index finger into his chest. “Calling your bluff.” I lowered it and pointed again to his pants. “Now strip.”
Preppy took a step back and, for a second, I thought he was going to tell me to fuck off. I was already planning my victory ‘flipping of the bird’ when he slowly tipped his chin up to me, accepting my challenge. He again removed his gun and set it on a rock.
“What do I get if you’re wrong?” he asked, hooking his thumbs in his pants and boxers, like he was about to pull them down. Yeah, definitely a move by someone who was bluffing. I was calling him out on his, and now he was calling me out on mine.
KING SERIES FIRSTS: King, Lawless & Preppy Part One Page 57