Under Locke

by Mariana Zapata

  "Yeah..." I sighed.

  "But," he winked, "That 'go fuck yourself' was pretty dead on, Rainbow Ris."

  I had said that, hadn't I? Whoops.

  Slim smiled indulgently, erasing the last pieces of anger that had clung to my chest. He had a point. "You ever do that shit again though, and I'll hunt you down myself next time. You got it?"

  "Yeah, I got it."

  And just like that, I felt a little relieved. Staying angry was too much work. I needed to figure out how to apologize to Dex without completely rolling over in submission. I wouldn't give him that much.

  So when the phone rang a little while later, the chance fell onto... my desk.

  "Pins and Needles, this is Iris speaking, how can I help you?"

  A prerecorded message stated that I was receiving a call from an inmate at Byrd Unit.

  The name triggered a memory of my dad. Was that where he'd gone to jail before he'd met my mom? Something steered me toward a yes.

  I probably should have hung up, but I stayed on the line while the call connected and my brain ran. Was my dad in jail? I didn't think it'd been long enough from the last time he'd been in town but there was a chance.

  "'Lo?" a rough voice on the other end finally answered. It wasn't him. Ten years later, and I know I'd recognize his voice.

  "Pins and Needles," I answered in a weird way. Okay then, why would someone be calling the shop from jail?

  There was some shuffling before the man spoke again. "I need to speak to Dex."

  It hit me right then who was calling. There was only one other person in jail that would be calling Pins—Dex's dad. Crap!

  It wasn't my place to guard his calls or any aspect of his life but I made myself forget that. He'd been in such a terrible mood since I'd blown him off at the theater, and this would tip his off-balance scales. There was no way in any dimension of hell that Dex would want to speak to his father.

  "He's not available right now. I can take a message." A message that would be written in invisible ink.

  "I know that fucker's there," the man—the older Locke—grunted. "Put him on the phone."

  Oh. Hell. No. "He's not available right now. Would you like to leave a message?" I ground out in my best imitation of Dex when he was angry.

  "He's there. Put him on the goddamn phone."

  I pulled the phone away from my face and looked at it. Don't disrespect your elders, Ris. "I'm not putting him on the phone. If you want to leave a message, leave it. If you don't, then feel free to call his cell phone." Like he'd answer it. Ha!

  I might not be able to talk shit to the younger Locke, but the older man was in jail so he was harmless. At the moment at least.

  "What did you say your name was?" His voice had started picking up in pitch the angrier he got.

  I might do stupid things every once in a while but I wasn't dumb enough to tell him my name. "Would you like to leave a message, sir?"

  "What I'd like to do is talk to my goddamn—"

  I hung up with a little flourish, smiling indulgently to myself. Not even three minutes later, the shop phone started ringing again. I picked it up, only to hear the prerecorded message start playing, and I hung up again.

  The phone rang twice more but I didn't even bother picking it up those times. The shop was empty with the exception of The Dick in his office and Blue at her station. She wouldn't give a crap about me ignoring the phones.

  "Phone!" Dex yelled from his office.

  Like he couldn't answer the friggin' phone himself. Which in this case, was a good thing.

  "Don't answer it!" I screamed back.

  There was a brief pause before he yelled again. "Ritz! Phone!"

  Crap. I sighed and saved the work I'd been doing on Pins' website so that I could go talk to The Dick.

  I tried to mentally prepare myself to speak with Dex on the short walk into his office. He was sitting at his desk, messing around on the computer when I came up to the door.

  Then I thought better of it, took a step back, and peeked my head into the doorway instead. "Your dad was calling."

  He didn't jerk, flinch, or even blink at his computer screen. Instead, those intense blue eyes I'd grown so fond of drifted over in my direction almost incredulously. "What?" The question reminded me of verbal stalactite.

  "That was your dad calling. Or at least I'm ninety-nine percent positive it was him calling from Byrd Unit." I blinked, inching my feet further away from the door. "He was being rude, and I hung up on him."

  When he didn't say anything or give me a high-five for standing up for him, I started to think maybe I'd done something wrong. It was one of the biggest things we had in common: our mutual hate for what our fathers represented. The past and the dread of a similar future.

  "I'm sorry, Dex. I figured you probably didn't want to talk to him," I rushed out.

  Still, he said nothing and guilt pricked my tummy.

  "I'm sorry for doing it. If he calls again I'll—"

  "No," he breathed. "No. You did the right thing. I don't wanna talk to him."

  I nodded while we looked at each other. God, I really hated the awkwardness between us. Hated it. Dex had been my friend—was my friend. One of the only people I truly valued and trusted, and my idiocy had messed that up. Then his temper had stomped it down afterward. Why the hell did I hold onto these friggin' grudges with Dex?

  Life was too unpredictable to stay pissed off. I'd hate to wake up and not have him anymore and stress that I'd never get to tell him I was sorry. That was something I would never want to live with.

  If he didn’t like me, then he wouldn’t give a shit what happened to me, right? And the fact that he’d gotten so mad...well, it was a compliment I’d just been too stubborn to accept. I’d lived in the shadow of a man who really didn’t give a flying crap about me. What the hell was there for me to complain about? What was there for me to be so scared of? Caring and being attracted to a big shit of an asshole that had a barely controlled temper?

  I could do so much worse.

  So, shit. I needed to be an adult and bust out the big girl panties even if it killed my pride a little.

  "Look, I'm sorry that I went to Busty's. It was stupid but I was upset. I've been an inconvenience to people most of my life. My grandma went bankrupt paying for—," I hissed. That wasn't where I wanted to go with the conversation. "Things for me and I hated it. I don't ever want to feel that way again and ever since I lost my job in Florida, I feel like I’m reliving that.

  "You have no idea how much it sucks to have to rely on other people for everything." I rubbed my forehead and looked down. "I'm sorry that I put you guys in that situation. If it would've gone wrong, then I'm sure the blame would have been on you, especially since Sonny left you in charge of me like I'm a kid."

  My hands had started shaking just a little bit as I spoke. "I care about you a lot, you big jerk, and you hurt my feelings. So I'm sorry that I made you mad and made you worry, but I'm not sorry that I told you to ef yourself, okay? You deserved it."

  I didn't expect an answer, and I didn't exactly wait for one either. I shot him an anemic grin that was half-hearted at best and went back to work.

  My hands shook the entire time.

  ~ * ~ *

  "Baby."

  "Baby."

  I felt myself being moved, being pushed so that my face pressed against the back cushions of the couch I'd been sleeping on for the last week and a half. A big, warm body slowly curled up behind me, sliding an arm around my waist.

  "Dex?" I asked him in a hoarse voice, cracking my eyes open in the dark room. I must have been asleep for a long time by how dry my voice sounded.

  "Yeah," he muttered against my ear. The hand that had been over my hip slid up to touch my cheek with soft fingertips.

  I looked over my shoulder at him, trying to blink back sleep. "What are you doing?"

  Because really? What was he doing? Even after I'd apologized for something that wasn't entirely my fault, he'd kep
t giving me the silent treatment at the shop, on the ride home, and for the thirty minutes we'd been around each other as we ate dinner on the couch. Dick. The last thing I'd expect was for him to crawl onto the couch with me in the middle of the night ready to spoon.

  Not that I should complain, but still.

  Dex shifted his hips until my bottom sat right against his groin. "Can't sleep," he whispered for some reason. I couldn't be sure but I thought that he might have pressed his lips to my ear. "I've been a shit, babe."

  Oh lord, I wanted to answer back sarcastically but I kept myself from doing it. I also had to keep myself from telling him to get off the couch. Which was stupid because the alarms in my head were going off, telling me this closeness was a terrible idea.

  Then again, hadn’t I left my sanity in Florida? My sanity and my friggin’ brain.

  "I know I'm an asshole, babe. You know I'm an asshole." Dex punctuated each statement by moving his fingertips from my ear to my chin. "’Specially when I’m pissed." He dotted the ends of his sentences with sighs like the admission was painful or awkward for him, and I'm sure it was. The number of times he'd apologized in his life had to be as small as the number of guys I'd kissed.

  He smoothed his finger down the curve of my ear. "I don't know what the hell I'm doin' with you, you know that?"

  Oh boy.

  I shifted my head to look at him over my shoulder. "Me neither, Dex."

  The look on his face was smooth and as open as I'd ever seen. He ran his fingertip around my ear again, pulling goose bumps onto my arms. He repeated the motion a few times, his breath heavy on my neck.

  "Baby, you make me wanna kill every fuckin' guy that looks at you. You know what that's like?"

  I remembered how awful I felt seeing him with his arm around the redhead. Ugh. I felt honest enough in that moment to nod.

  He slipped a hand over my neck, palming it with the full length of his big palm. "My goddamn head hurt when you said that shit-head put his mouth on you. And you know what I couldn't quit thinkin' about? How much that sonuva bitch would’ve loved to hurt you to get back at the Club and your pa, baby.

  "When you told me that you went to Busty's...I lost my damn mind." Dex ran a finger over the corner of my mouth, drawing me into a deep daze that had nothing to do with sleep. "I'm sorry I yelled at you like that. Sorry I hurt you, too. If somebody else would’ve done the shit I did to you, I'd cut their fuckin' tongue out, Ritz. Thought for sure Lu was gonna do that to me after you walked out," he chuckled darkly.

  Dex let out another sigh, settling in so close he was like a human blanket. "I fuck everythin' in my life up. Always have. But I like to learn from my mistakes and fix 'em. Should’ve said somethin' to you back at Pins tonight when you talked to my pa but I couldn't. I got a hard time gettin' over people lyin' to me, babe, but you doin' that shit and Liam showin' up just about gave me a stroke. Then you go off and watch out for me with my pa, and tell me you think that everybody thinks of you as an inconvenience. It kinda kills me."

  Damn it.

  It was my turn to sigh into the sofa cushion smashing my face so that I wouldn't make an embarrassing noise. "I get it—but getting yelled at like that was so embarrassing."

  He groaned this sound that was pure guilt. "Yeah, I know.”

  I didn’t say anything, earning a low grumble.

  “Won’t do it again," he added in that silky voice that wasn’t accustomed to apologies.

  “I think you’ve said that before.”

  The same sound made its way out of him. “Babe, I’ll try my best as long as you don’t lie to me again.”

  His damn honesty got me every single time. I sighed a little more exaggerated than what was necessary, remembering the callous tone he’d used. "You sounded like you hated me," I admitted, pushing my face deeper into the sofa back.

  Dex's hand reached up to pull me back, tipping my face over to see his. His gaze was strong, intent. "Don't ever think that. I might get pissed and I might take shit out on you but that—never. Never fuckin' ever, you hear me?"

  His face was solemn and honest. Truth stamped onto the lines of his lips and the placement of his eyelids.

  "I looked all over the city for you, Ritz. You think I'd do that for anybody else?"

  Him? No. No way. And the reality of that made me happier than it probably should.

  The sheer emotion that I felt from Dex, the worry, the need, the repent, was so foreign. And I was so broken in tiny ways that it made me feel small, more needy than I liked. I still didn’t understand this, understand him, but maybe I never would.

  “Hey...what happened to your face?”

  A low little growl curled its way through his throat. Ahh, hell. It was probably something related to me. “Let’s just say somebody else thought they could get away with sayin’ the same type of shit you do.”

  It was my whole ‘go fuck yourself’ spiel. I knew it. “Was it one of the club members?”

  His answer was another tiny warning growl.

  Yup, it’d been someone in the room with us. Oh well. If Dex thought I was going to change my mind and apologize for saying that to him, he had another thing coming.

  "We good?" he whispered into my neck.

  "Yeah." I nodded. "We're good."

  "Good. Good." His hips moved restlessly behind me, tipping forward in a jerky motion that felt like he was trying to get situated on the couch better.

  Only the issue was that we didn't fit. It was too narrow even when we were on our sides. So it came to no surprise when he didn't stop squirming.

  "I don't think this is gonna work, Ritz," he finally said after what felt like a shimmy against my butt that drove me face-first into the cushion.

  I groaned my response.

  He grunted, then he shifted, then he grunted again. "Fuck, this sucks."

  With a frustrated huff, the heat of his body disappeared before I felt his fingers sneak into my armpits and pull me back. "C'mon."

  "What?" I asked him as he kept pulling, dragging me off the couch. I planted my feet on the floor and pushed up to standing.

  "My bed."

  My joints locked. "Umm..." Laying down on the couch had seemed okay, but laying on the bed seemed like a whole different league.

  And he knew it because he rolled his eyes and tagged my hand with his. "Babe, quit thinkin' about it."

  "Ah...."

  Dex threaded his fingers through mine, pulling me. "What's botherin' you?"

  How about everything? Lying in bed with a shirtless Dex? The way my ovaries had been overheating lately? Holy crap. It wasn't like I could tell him that. It'd be like throwing chum into shark-infested water.

  "I've never—" I gulped.

  "You never what?" he grumbled out the words.

  Lord. I dug a finger into his rib cage, looking up at his tense face. "I've never slept in the same bed with a guy, Charlie. Besides you that other time."

  He did one of the last things I could have expected. Dex stared at me for a moment before dropping his head back and huffing at the ceiling. "You're killin' me, babe. You are fuckin' killin' me here."

  Dex tugged at my hand as he lowered his chin to look me in the eye. His free hand came up to grasp my chin. His expression was clear and serious. "We won't do anythin' you don't want. Promise. Just sleep."

  Oh man. I nodded at him loosely, trusting him implicitly. "Okay." My breathing hitched a little. “I don’t do this with all my friends, you know?”

  It was the sugary smile he gave me next that had me crawling into bed with him, even with my nerves all over the place. I mean, you only live once. And this was him. Someone who cared about me as much as I cared about him. I trusted him.

  And in that moment I wasn't scared or worried as I followed him to bed. But as we laid down, with all the anxious nerves in the universe pooling in my belly, he touched my forehead with his fingertips in the dark and murmured, “You gotta get it straight, babe. This ain’t just friendship to me.”

 
Chapter Twenty-Nine

  There was something most definitely on my ass.

  And my back.

  And my neck.

  It was definitely the thing on my ass that had woken me up. I usually wasn’t much of a dreamer when I slept, so when I felt that unfamiliar warmth kneading my bare ass cheek, I knew it wasn’t a dream.

  One thing I was sure of: I was on Dex’s bed and the sheets were down to my waist.

  I'd fallen asleep on top of them. I knew that without a doubt. Blinking away what felt like a coma, I looked over my shoulder to see what the hell was on me.