by Mazzy King
I lift my chin. “Yes.”
Angelo curls his lip at me. He glances at his men. “Put her in the freezer for a while. Until I say so. As for the dog, he’s clearly a purebred Shiba Inu. I can sell him for a couple grand.”
“Don’t touch him,” I growl.
Angelo cocks his head. “I should get something out of this deal, shouldn’t I? Even if it’s a little bit. There’s nothing you can offer me to fix this situation, dear. So at this point, it comes down to what I want to do with you.” He snaps his fingers, and two of the men come forward and pick me up, chair and all, and haul me to the freezer door.
“I’d be surprised if you last an hour,” one of the men comments, and then they toss me inside.
The cold is brutal and immediate, made worse by the fact that I’m in a metal chair with handcuffs. I start trembling immediately.
They tried to kill me with fire, but it appears they’ll finally succeed with ice.
Part of me regrets it all. I wanted to be taken seriously as a writer. I wanted more from my career, to feel I was making a real difference. While I don’t regret refusing to back down from these violent bullies, I regret going about it as impetuously and irresponsibly as I did.
Rocco tried to tell me to go to the cops. I didn’t listen, thinking they wouldn’t do anything. Thinking I could handle the situation on my own, even after threats and a real attempt on my life. Thinking no one would help me.
I should’ve tried anyway.
I can’t hold the tears back—I’m not sorry for myself. I’m angry at myself. I think about the people I’ll leave behind who care about me. Who I care about.
Who I love.
Rocco’s face pops up in my mind. I didn’t get a chance to tell him the truth about my feelings for him, how they’ve grown, how I want a life with him and Chaplin. Now, in a single day, because of my actions, he’ll lose both of us.
The tears slip down my cheeks and freeze into icy tracks.
I close my eyes as my trembling grows more violent, praying for numbness to settle in so I can slip away easily.
Suddenly, from outside the freezer, there’s shouting. A lot of shouting. I can’t make out what’s being said.
And then there’s gunfire.
I flinch hard reflexively as bullets tink off the freezer door. It feels like it goes on forever. I have no idea how long it really lasts. When the gunfire and the shouting fade away, I hear sirens distantly.
Cops…
“Hey,” I try pointlessly to yell, but my voice is no louder than a croak. “I’m in here. Help…”
Now, there’s nothing but silence.
More silence.
Deafening silence.
And then…
A familiar howl-bark just outside the door, followed by the sound of nails scratching frantically.
Chaplin.
An instant later, the door is wrenched open. Tears froze my eyes shut, but the voice I wanted to hear most is in my ear.
“Rocco?” I murmur.
“You’re safe, Seline,” he says.
I smile weakly as dimness presses in around me. “I love you. I wanted to tell you that.”
His hands are so very warm on my face. “I love you too. I’m going to get you out of here.”
My world shifts as I’m hauled up. “Jesus Christ,” he says to someone else. “Get them off her!”
There’s a lot of movement. A lot of tilting and shifting. The air feels so much warmer, and an eager tongue laps at my cheek.
But before I can feel real happiness at being found, the dimness in my mind closes in on me and sweeps me away.
I wake up in a quiet, dark hospital room, brought to consciousness by the gentle blip-blip-blip of the machines I’m hooked up to. There are blankets piled on top of me and a heating pad down by my feet.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Rocco says softly at my side.
I turn my head toward him. He’s sitting in a chair pulled up to my bedside. His eyes are bloodshot and he looks exhausted, but he’s smiling.
“How long have you been here?” I ask. My voice is ragged and weak.
“Since they let me be here,” he replies.
“You should get some sleep,” I tell him.
He smooths my hair away from my face. “I will. When you come home.”
Tears gather in the corners of my eyes. “Chaplin?”
“Eating a steak at Darby’s house.” He smiles. “He’s due for another when we go home.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I should have—”
He rests a finger on my lips. “Don’t do that. You did what you thought was right. And, hey, you helped Port City PD bring down the mob. One piece of it, anyway. They were into some really bad shit. You’re kind of a hero.”
I smile. “Now I’m going to get a big head.”
“I mean, you sort of already had one to start with.” He lightly raps his knuckles on my forehead, and I laugh.
“Rocco, I love you,” I tell him, looking into his eyes.
“I love you, Seline,” he replies, and leans down to press a gentle kiss to my lips. “Even though the circumstances are awful, I’m so glad you moved next door to me.”
“Me too,” I whisper.
“What do you think about not renewing your lease next month?” he asks.
I lift my brows. “Looking for a roommate?”
He shakes his head. “Just want to share my life with the woman I love, that’s all. Plus, my dog seems to really like you too.”
I bite my lip, smiling. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
Epilogue
Rocco
Three months later
I walk out onto the back patio, carrying a brown paper sack, where Seline sits with her feet propped up on another chair, typing furiously on her laptop.
“How goes it?” I ask.
“It goes,” she says with a sigh, tilting her head back to accept a kiss.
I just got home from a busy Saturday morning, but my afternoon and evening are clear. It’s a beautiful, sunny summer day, and we’re going to grill this evening and have some friends over.
“You hear from Roxie?” I ask. “Did she find a sitter?”
Seline’s face scrunches up. “No. She won’t make it.”
I lift a shoulder. “She can bring her daughter here. I love kids.”
“I think there’s more going on,” Seline says, lowering her feet to the ground. “She’s going through it with her kid’s father. He’s understandably freaked since the fire, but he thinks she’s an unfit mother. She’s been trying to find a new place to stay to show him she can take care of their kid so he doesn’t take her to court.”
I frown. “That’s tough. Too bad we have neighbors now, otherwise she could stay next door.” Then something pops into my mind. “Hey, the duplex next to Maddox’s has been empty since Axel and his sister Blair moved into a new place together.”
“Really?” Seline lifts her brows. “He’s coming tonight, right?”
I nod. “Yep. We can talk to him about it then.”
“Great. In the meantime, can I have whatever you brought me in that sack?” She licks her lips.
“Oh, this sack?” I say innocently, lifting it. “Actually, this is mine.”
“You know better than to toy with me when food is involved.”
I chuckle, then reach in and pull out a gigantic fried corndog, coated in crispy flakes on the outside. “A deluxe corndog just for you, my love. With a tub of ketchup on the side.” I hand her a small plastic container.
Seline moans in delight, dunks the dog, and takes a bite. There’s mozzarella inside, wrapped around the dog, and the stringy cheese pull is impressively long. She expertly winds it around the length of the corndog, then chomps another bite.
I tilt my head. “I now know it’s possible to be sexually aroused by someone eating a corndog.”
She winks. “Just keep me in corndogs for the rest of my life, and you’ll reap th
e rewards.”
I laugh softly, watching as she finishes her treat with relish.
The weather is perfect—warm but not too hot or humid. The backyard, which has flourished since Seline moved in, is full of beautiful, sweet-smelling flowers I can’t identify, big bushes, and a cherry blossom tree she had planted. Together, we worked to reshape our patio and update the landscaping, turning this little place from a dwelling into a home. When we sell it one day to move into a bigger space, I hope the next owners will care for it as much as we have.
I glance back at her as she sits contented and quiet, her hand in mine, like she’s having the same thought. At our feet, Chaplin snoozes peacefully.
This moment…is perfect.
“Marry me,” I say suddenly, softly.
Seline whips her head toward me, hazel eyes wide. “What?”
I shrug one shoulder, reaching out to push a long lock of chocolate-brown hair behind her ear as the wind sweeps it across her beautiful face. “I said, marry me.”
It’s just so simple, so natural, so…perfect. It feels right. It feels like my entire life was leading up to this moment.
There’s no loud weeping. No cheers of onlookers. No applause.
It’s just me, and the love of my life, smiling at each other, holding hands.
She gets up from her chair and curls up in my lap, her arms around my neck. We kiss, deep and long. I don’t have a ring yet, but I will, very soon. A special one that won’t exist before I ask for it to, because Seline needs something that’s as unique and special as her.
“I’d love to,” she says in a voice that trembles ever so slightly. Then, she beams at me, and it takes my breath away.
I squeeze her hand, then kiss it. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
The End
4 | MADDOX
1
Maddox Brassard
I’m always struck when driving home from my job as a mechanic how the simple act of going home is so hard—for me.
Ever since I returned home from war last year, I’ve been struggling with that sense of home. What is home? It’s more than a physical dwelling. It’s that peace and contentment that settles in your heart, knowing all is right with your world. Things are the way they’re supposed to be.
But ever since my deployment ended, I don’t know how things are supposed to be.
I’m happy to be back in Port City. Happy to be back with my family, my sister Blair. My best friend Axel—both of whom, incidentally, fell in love while I was gone and are planning their wedding as we speak. I’m happy for them. I truly am. But it’s one more thing that changed when I wasn’t looking. One more thing that’s different than the home I left.
“Stop with the philosophizing,” I mutter out loud, cranking the heavy rock on the radio. I just need to get home, go a few rounds with the training dummy in my cramped backyard, eat some chow, drink a beer.
I used to love playing video games—Call of Duty, online with some pals I made across the world. Since I’ve been home, it’s been a little hard for me to get back into that game.
But maybe tonight, I’ll try.
I guide my silver Nissan pickup into my driveway, glancing at the duplex connected to mine that used to house my best friend and my sister. For a while after they moved out, I felt a sense of relief. I was too close to their new life together. I felt like I was intruding. But now that they’ve been gone for six months, it got lonely without them. I ended up buying my duplex, both sides, tired of having a crappy, unreliable landlord. I planned to Airbnb Axel’s side out, but I never got around to it. It would make the place that much more alien, and I’m already dealing with enough change as it is.
Then, a couple weeks ago, I got a new neighbor after my pal Rocco came to me with a favor for his girl Seline—her ex-roommate Roxie Calloway needed a place to stay after their apartment burned down in a fire. I agreed to sublet it to her. Other than handling the business side of things with her once, we really haven’t talked.
I see Roxie on her small porch now, having what appears to be a heated conversation on her cell phone. Her young daughter Lexi plays by herself in the driveway. Lexi waves to me as I get out of the pickup. I wave back.
“…really what you want to do, Sam? Really? I lost everything I had in that fucking fire. Everything. You’re such a heartless—”
She turns her back toward me and lowers her voice. I can’t hear what she’s saying as I walk to my front door, but her voice is low, hurt, harsh.
Yikes. I don’t want any part of that.
Roxie is a seriously beautiful woman. I noted that when I met her to sign the paperwork and hand over the keys. I’m a sucker for pretty hair, and she’s got this long, glossy dark mane that looks like pure silk. Her eyes are a stunning blue-gray, but so filled with sadness. She really looked like she’d been through hell and back.
But I don’t need any complications in my already complicated enough life. And it sounds like she’s got her hands full with whoever this Sam douchebag is.
Inside my house, I head to my bedroom to change out of my oil-stained shirt and toss it in the washing machine for tomorrow, along with my stained jeans. I’m the body shop manager at Roy’s Auto Repair, a family-owned auto shop I’ve worked at since I was a teenager. It’s a humble living, but I love working there. Roy held my job for me while I was deployed, even though that meant taking over my duties and managing the shop as a whole while I was gone. I’ll always be grateful to him for that. He’s getting up there in age, closing in on seventy, and I know he’s looking to retire. When he does, the shop will become mine.
Hopefully, not for a long time…
I change into basketball shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt I know I’m going to end up tossing off and head outside. I shove my wireless ear buds in, start my training playlist, grab a pair of MMA gloves, and start going to town on the training dummy. I used to train with Axel most nights of the week. He’s a true badass. Sometimes we sparred. I’m pretty sure he could kick my ass, but he’s showed me techniques that don’t make me an easy fight, should someone ever decide to try me.
I tune out the world, channeling all of the inner turmoil I can’t seem to shake into my strikes and kicks. I’ve only been at it for fifteen minutes or so when I feel a little tap on my elbow.
I whirl around, startled, and my gaze falls on the little girl from next door, Lexi. She has dark hair like her mom’s and big, round blue eyes. She wears a purple T-shirt, jean shorts, and grubby, tiny Chucks.
“Hey,” I say, trying to catch my breath and not sound as totally confused as I feel. “What’re you doing over here?”
“Can you help me?” she asks in a tiny voice. “Mommy’s still talking to Daddy and I lost Suzy.”
“Who, um, who’s Suzy?” I lift the bottom of my T-shirt and bend down to meet it and scrub sweat off my face. I don’t remember Roxie mentioning any pets on the application information. Sometimes people will avoid mentioning their animals so they don’t have to pay a deposit or pet rent, but I don’t require either. I understand the importance of the companionship of an animal. In fact, I’ve been thinking about getting a dog myself.
“She’s my doll,” Lexi says. “I can’t find her.”
“Oh. Uh…” I scrub the back of my neck awkwardly. “Sure. Let’s go look for her.”
Lexi’s face lights up and she leads me over to her side, chattering about the last place she saw the doll. It takes me about ten minutes of searching until I find her in one of the bushes bordering the side of the house.
Lexi gasps with delight, eyes going wide as she grabs my hand. “You found her!”
“Lexi!” a woman calls. “Lexi, where are you? I told you not to leave the driveway…”
I glance up as Roxie turns the corner. She sees us and sags with obvious relief.
“Lexi, what are you doing? Don’t bother Mr. Brassard.”
“He found Suzy,” the little girl says, holding up her doll. “He helped me.”
“O
h.” Roxie offers me a small smile. “I’m sorry. She’s always playing hide-and-seek with her dolls and then forgets where she hid them.”
“It’s totally fine,” I say. “I’m glad to help.”
Roxie shifts her fond smile to Lexi, who dances in circles with the doll, singing some little tune to her. “We really need to get to know some of the other kids in the neighborhood so she can have a playmate.”
I point up the street. “That yellow house up on the corner has two, a boy and a girl. The boy’s around ten, but I think the girl’s about her age.”
“Thanks.” Roxie glances up at me, her gaze going over my workout attire. She’s on the petite side. I stand at six-three, and I have close to a foot of height on her. “I hope she wasn’t interrupting you.”
I lift a shoulder. “It’s not a problem. How are you guys settling in? Like the place? Need anything?”
I can’t help the way I keep glancing at her mouth. Her lips are full, pouty, and the perfect complement to her otherwise delicate features. She’s just so fucking beautiful.
And she’s got baggage. Just like you do.
She gives me a tired smile. “We’ve got everything we need. Thank you again for leasing the place to us on such short notice.”
“Yeah, of course.” I lift a shoulder. “I just wish Rocco would’ve come to me sooner about it.”
“He and Seline are good people. I’m really happy for her.” Roxie glances away. “Well, I better get her in the bath, then feed her. Thanks again.”
I lift a hand. “No problem.”
She turns to walk toward her daughter. I turn to head back to my training dummy.
I don’t know why, but at the last second, I glance over my shoulder, and find her looking back at me too.
2
Roxie Calloway
I walk into the Belle View Home Design studio the next morning, my stomach balled up with anxiety. I get first-day jitters a lot, but since this is my third temp job in six months, the anxiety is always centered on whether or not I’ll be able to turn this into a permanent gig, and in the likely event I can’t, how long it’ll take to find the next one.