by Marie James
“We need to go,” he says grabbing his boots and beginning to pull them on.
“Yeah,” I say grabbing my own shoes. “I was just thinking you have better things to do with your time.”
He stops tying his boots and cups my chin gently but insistently.
“Right here. Right now. With you. Is exactly where I want to be.”
His eyes dart from my eyes to my mouth and back again. Despite the warm summer sun washing over us through a break in the trees, a shiver snakes down my back. This man is electric.
“Kiss me,” I say all but begging.
Just like he did last night, only with less hesitation, he leans forward and ever so softly brushes his lips against mine.
Warmth engulfs me as he pulls away and caresses my cheek with the pad of his thumb.
“So fucking beautiful,” he says almost reverently.
I lift my hand to cover his. He notices my engagement ring, and his face falls slightly before he can stop it. Clearing his throat, he pulls away and finishes tying his boots.
“I meant we need to go because the whole time you were napping, your stomach was growling. You were upset when you came back to the table at the diner, and you just pushed your food around on your plate. You must be starved.”
He’s talking quickly, feeding me information and more than likely hoping I will forget the semi-intimate moment we just shared. I know he's being considerate. He sees the ring. He sees how upset I get over Alec, but he’s in the dark about our relationship. I need to explain to him what Alec and I had. I know it will be brutally painful for me, but I don’t want him backing away from me because he thinks I’m a grieving fiancée. I’m grieving yes, but just not in the capacity he thinks.
“I could eat,” I say with a lightness to my tone.
He stands and helps me up with an extended hand. We turn to walk back into the house, but he never pulls his hand from mine. Our fingers are twisted together comfortably like it’s the most natural thing in the world for us.
He releases it once we step inside, and he locks the door behind us. I follow him to the kitchen and watch as he waters a few house plants in the window over the sink. When he’s finished, he carries the crackers trash from feeding the ducks out of the house and puts it in the outside trash can after setting the alarm on the home and securing the door.
Rather than handing me the helmet as he’s done the other times I’ve gotten on the bike, he scoops it up and places it on my head, maintaining eye contact with me. I look up at him and continue to memorize his handsome face even long after he’s done with the strap on the helmet, enthralled by him.
The double beep of someone setting an alarm on the car breaks into our moment. He shakes his head slightly as if he’s just coming awake from a trance. My stomach growls embarrassingly loud.
“Right. Food,” he says climbing on the bike and standing it up so I can climb on behind him.
I wrap my arms around him, and once we’ve hit Main Street, his hand is against mine on his stomach just like it was on the ride out to the house.
***
“I promise, I’ll never doubt you again,” I tell Kid before wrapping my lips around my straw.
“I appreciate that. When I said half chocolate, half strawberry was the way to go; I meant it.” He takes a long drink of his as well.
“Seriously, this is the best milkshake I’ve ever had.” I adjust the napkin around the old school metal shaker cup, so I can pull it closer.
“Try this,” he says dipping a small French fry into his shake and offering it toward my mouth.
He hisses when my lips touch the tips of his fingers and groans when I moan in appreciation at the decadent taste of sweet and salty as it hits my tongue.
I watch him in fascination. More throat clearing. More shifting in his seat. I love that I affect him. If I had doubts yesterday as to whether or not he was attracted to me, he’s more than cleared that up today. He’s still maintaining his distance though, and that’s driving me crazy. The first guy I’ve ever felt an all-out attraction to, and he acts as if he can’t let it go any further than just spending time together. He slips up occasionally. The kiss. His response to the French fry. But then he catches himself and pulls back again. It’s frustrating, to say the least.
“Emmalyn loves the fry and shake combo as well,” he says changing the subject from my throaty moan to something more neutral. “I still can’t convince her of the shake mixture though. She’s a chocolate girl through and through.”
“I was too, until today,” I say with a wink that brings a smile back to his face. It seems to calm him, bring back the playfulness that disappeared a minute ago. I want to laugh. I’m the teenager; he’s the former Marine, and I feel like the seductress, and he’s acting like the inexperienced virgin. The dynamic is strange but somehow rejuvenating at the same time.
“What’s the story with you guys?” It seems like a simple question. I know she’s with Kincaid. I really want to ask about the redhead, but I’ll save that for a later conversation.
“Em had a rough time before she came to the club. It’s not really my story to tell, but Kincaid assigned me to keep an eye on her when he and the other guys had to leave a couple times for work.” He shrugs his shoulder as if it’s no big deal, but I can see the affection he has for her in his eyes. “We grew pretty close. She’s almost like the long lost sister I never knew I wanted.”
“What do you guys do for work?” He opened the door; I’m walking through it.
“Contract work mostly. Recon and recovery mostly.” He dips another fry into his shake, and I’m saddened when he pops it in his mouth rather than offering it to me.
“Sounds very 007.”
“Seems that way on some jobs. What do you want to do when you get older?”
I laugh. “I never considered anything short of getting married and leaving Farmington with Alec.” I can’t help the sad smile that creeps up on my face; it goes hand in hand with the pain in my heart that shows up each time I think about never talking to my best friend again.
“It’s easy to see how much you loved him,” he says gently.
I nod.
“Did you guys talk about children?” He groans at his own words. “Fuck, Khloe. I shouldn’t have asked that.”
I chuckled lightly at his reaction. “No, we never spoke of children.” I sigh knowing how difficult the truth is going to be to say. I almost feel like I’m betraying Alec. Not because I’m beginning to like Kid, but because I promised to keep his secret.
“My relationship with Alec wasn’t…. traditional.”
His brows knit together in confusion.
I take a long drink of my shake and only pull the straw away when the fine edge of a brain freeze begins to burn behind my eyes. I watch him take in my words and wonder what kind of wild scenarios are running through his head.
“Alec was gay,” I say finally putting him out of his misery.
“That makes sense then.” Now it’s my turn to look confused. “I heard your foster father belt out some derogatory comment at the hospital.”
“Yeah,” I say looking into my melting cup of chocolate and strawberry swirl. “Apparently we didn’t have as many people convinced as we thought.”
“You were his cover,” he says.
“And he was my ticket out of town. Don’t get me wrong, we were best friends first. The other plan just sort of bloomed from there.”
“How did that work out for your boyfriends, or his… partner for that matter?” He swirls a fry in his shake. The action is less about eating and more about distracting himself while he asks difficult questions.
I laugh. “There were no boyfriends. For either of us.”
“You abstained to keep your cover?”
I smile wide. “Abstained? I haven’t…” I clear my throat. “I didn’t abstain.”
“So just more like secret rendezvous. A no strings kind of thing?”
“What? No. You don’t have to abstain
from something you’ve never done.” He gasps; I continue. “I mean Alec and I tried once, but it never got past kissing. It was just too weird for both of us.”
His face is white as a ghost, so I do what I’ve always done in uncomfortable situations, I continue to talk. “I mean I had a sort of boyfriend sophomore year. I tried the whole blow job thing once, but he said I sucked.” I chuckle lightly. “I mean like sucked in a bad way, not the good way that he was hoping for.”
“You’re a virgin?” he finally manages.
If I weren’t so embarrassed, I’d find the look on his face quite comical.
Chapter 16
I can’t believe my damn ears. A VIRGIN! I don’t know if I should be more excited that she’s untouched or disgusted that my dick is hard at her words, and she’s only seventeen.
“Yes,” she answers. “It’s not like something I’ve been holding onto or waiting for love and marriage. It’s just… I don’t know. I’ve not been presented with many options to… dispose of it.”
“You’re almost eighteen,” I mutter. Hell, when I was in school fifteen and sixteen seemed like the age to ‘dispose’ of virginity as she put it.
She laughs softly. “I know that makes me almost like a unicorn or something. Some mythical creature everyone knows about but never sees, but I assure you, I’m not the only one in existence.”
I smile at her candidness.
“For a long time after the awkward make-out session with Alec, I thought maybe it was me. He was questioning his sexuality, but at the end of the day, I figured he just wasn’t attracted to me.” She shrugs.
I huff, loudly. “Fat fucking chance, Khloe. If Alec turned you down, he sure as fuck was gay.”
She smiles brightly as if it’s something she’s longed to hear for a while.
“How exactly did the whole marriage idea come about?”
Her eyes fill with mischief. “You’ll think I’m stupid.”
“I promise I won’t. Tell me,” I prod.
“We watched The Proposal.”
“I’m not familiar. I presume it’s a chick-flick?”
“Yeah. It has Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. Alec and I both watched it for that fine hunk of man candy.” I laugh at her awe of the movie star. “Anyway. In the movie, the woman is going to get deported. She comes up with a plan to say she’s engaged to an American to keep that from happening. The idea kind of stemmed from there. We were already acting like a couple in public to keep the mean ass kids at school from bullying him. When he graduated a year ahead of me, we had to figure out what we were going to do to get out of this town.”
“So he went in the Army while you finished up your last year in school?” She nods at my accurate deduction.
Now that is a dedication to the cause, especially if neither one of them would date other people to keep the lie going.
“He didn’t feel like he could come out. Not in this disapproving town anyways.” She shrugs as if agreeing to marry someone and not having any other type of physical relationship was no big deal. “We were best friends already. We spent every waking hour together. It seemed like a perfect plan, but then…” Her voice trails off breaking at the end, betraying her sadness.
“It didn’t work out,” I finish for her. My heart breaks as I watch her swipe away a few tears from her face.
“Sometimes I wonder if he died because of our lie. Like we somehow set things into motion that the universe couldn’t let happen.” She looks me straight in the eyes for an answer I don’t have to give.
“Sweet Girl,” I say reaching across the table and offering her my hands. “That’s not how war works. This isn’t your fault; it’s not his fault either.” She smiles, but the soft tears keep falling. “I’d take every ounce of your pain if I could.”
“That’s a lot of pain,” she says after a long moment. “I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”
***
“I hate even having to do this,” I mutter as we drive down the pothole-riddled road.
“Yeah,” Snatch says from the passenger seat of the truck. “I wouldn’t want to be stuck dealing with that chick either. Hot enough to tempt the devil himself.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” I take a quick glance at him trying to determine if he’s somehow got his sights set on Khloe. I don’t want trouble to start with a brother from the club, but I won’t tolerate one of the guys even looking at her like she’s some club whore.
He chuckles.
“I mean I hate having to go to this soldier’s house to try to get her things. I can’t imagine what his family is going through.” I turn my gaze back to the road, having found no hint of lustful thoughts of Khloe on his face. “I feel like an asshole.”
“They should understand, man.” That’s all he offers, but I know families that have lost a loved one aren’t always rational.
Khloe told me earlier that they gave her a day to get out of Alec’s apartment. She didn’t say as much, but I know that part of her wanting to end her life had to do with knowing she had nowhere to go. That was set into motion with Alec’s parents’ insistence that she not be there when they returned the following day. Loss of a child or not, I think it’s pretty fucked up.
We pull up outside of a modest brick home. I verify the address I got from Shadow. We’re in the right place.
“You want me to go with you?” Snatch asks from beside me.
“Naw, brother. I may need help getting her things if they still have them, but I can handle knocking on the door. I’m not trying to get shot.”
He laughs because he knows exactly what I’m talking about. Excluding his face, Snatch is covered head to toe in tattoos. Large gauged holes are through both ears big enough I could drive a matchbox car through. He’s a great guy, but his appearance turns away even the hardest thugs some days. I don’t want to intimidate Alec’s parents; I just want them to give me Khloe’s things.
I make my way up the sidewalk and knock on the door firmly.
The door opens a crack, but the chain at the top prevents it from opening all the way.
“Can I help you?” a woman asks with a heavy Spanish accent.
“Hi, Mrs. Sanchez. I’m Dustin Andrews.”
“My husband is not home.” I see her eyes sweep over me, and then she shuts the door in my face.
I raise my hand to knock again, growing frustrated at her rudeness. The door is pulled open again. Only this time the chain has been pulled off.
“You’re with that group of lovely men that held the BBQ for my Alec,” she says pointing at my leather cut.
“Yes, ma’am.” I smile because this looks like it may go better than I’d originally planned for. “I’m sorry for your loss.” Shitty words I know, but what else do you say at a time like this?
“Thank you,” she says wringing her hands together. “What brings you by today?”
“It’s my understanding that Khloe Devaro was living in the apartment with Alec.” She darts her eyes up to me.
“Yes, that’s correct. I heard she hurt herself to get attention at the memorial. Who does that?” I can see her hackles are rising, and that isn’t going to help anyone.
I bite my tongue to keep from asking her how someone could pretty much throw a young woman out on the street after the death of her friend.
I nod. “She’s very upset at the loss of Alec.”
“She’s upset she lost her free ride,” she counters.
I roll my lips between my teeth and take a calming breath.
“I’m here today, Mrs. Sanchez to see about getting her things she left at the apartment.”
“I was going to throw them out but saw reason when Alejandro suggested we donate the items. No sense in throwing out decent clothes when there are people in town who could use them.” She steps back into the house. “They’re in the garage. I have to open it from the inside.”
She closes the door, and I walk toward the garage, waving at Snatch to come help me. I don’t know how much
stuff we have, but I’m willing to load up an entire house just to put a smile on Khloe’s face.
I hear the rumble of the garage door and watch as it slowly ascends.
“They didn’t throw them away?” Snatch asks rubbing a rough hand over his forearms.
“Thankfully, no,” I say as Mrs. Sanchez enters the garage from an inside door. “Those bags there,” she says pointing to three trash bags of clothes.
“This is everything?” I ask. How does a seventeen-year-old girl only have three bags of belongings?
“That’s it,” she says curtly.
I nod and scoop up two bags, leaving one for Snatch to grab.
“Thank you, Mrs. Sanchez.” I’ll ask Khloe to inventory her stuff tonight. If anything’s missing, I’ll be back. Grieving or not, you don’t take advantage of others.
“She ruined our son,” she calls out as we walk down the driveway. “She’ll ruin you, too.”
I ignore her and continue to the truck.
Chapter 17
I didn’t ask Kid what he was planning to do when he brought me back to the clubhouse. I didn’t want to be alone, but after spending the entire day with him, I didn’t feel like I had a right to continue to monopolize all of his time.
It’s been hours since he left saying he had some things to take care of, and I hate the loneliness. I hate hearing the other people in the house laughing and joking with each other. I’ve always been the outsider to protect myself, to stay away from the people who wanted to do nothing more than insult me to make themselves feel better.
I was an outcast with Alec, and that suited me just fine. Now I’m in the middle of a clubhouse with people I don’t know, alone. I know if I went out and joined them they wouldn’t be petty assholes like the kids at school; they’re all adults and seem to be past that immature bullshit, but I sit alone in my room, torturing myself with loneliness.
The TV is on but turned down low, and I’ve finally decided to go to bed. The sun is down, so that seems late enough. I hate that I want to sleep all the time, but when I sleep, I don’t hurt as much. My dreams are of Alec and the fun times we had just hanging out and goofing around. Last night I dreamed of Kid.