Muffin Top

by Tabatha Kiss

  Hey, look, Roxie! It’s me! Fox! I’m home!

  I stand back and wait in the front hall while they all pile outside. My lips twitch, unable to forget the last time I saw him.

  It was my eighteenth birthday. The party was long over and all my friends had gone home. Fox and I were alone upstairs, standing in the hall outside his room. I said goodnight and started to walk away, but he grabbed my hand and pulled me back to him. I’ll never forget the rush of blood to my cheeks or the feel of his thumb sliding across my bottom lip.

  A kiss. Just one kiss. That’s all it was but I was hooked.

  He enlisted in the army the next morning and I never saw him again.

  I jolt out of my trance as Cora’s blood-curdling scream strikes my ears. I rush to the front door and throw it open to look outside. Cora’s on her knees in the circle drive. My father’s doing everything he can to bring her back up but she’s sobbing way too hard. Smith stands near them with his hand lingering above the gun strapped to his hip. They’re all looking forward at the car parked in the drive and the brown-haired man standing in front of it wearing a jet black suit with no tie.

  Fox.

  He looks up at me and I tremble in my shoes.

  “Get back inside, Roxie,” Smith says at me, holding up a hand.

  I ignore him and walk down the concrete stairs to get a better look at him, pulled down by curiosity’s strong grip. My father gets Cora to her feet and I pause near them, staring up into the brown eyes of a dead man.

  “Hey, Dani,” he says to me. His voice is deep, much more than I remember. He never had a beard either. His skin was smooth as butter back then. Now, it’s calloused and gray with wrinkles on the edges of his eyes. There’s a darkness in them that wasn’t there five years ago. That playful twinkle has completely vanished. Wherever he’s been… I’m honestly a bit scared to find out.

  Cora stumbles towards him. “Fox?” She reaches out and cups his shaggy face. “My Fox?”

  “Yeah, Mom,” he says, his eyes soft. “It’s me.”

  Tears stream down her face and she leaps up to throw her arms around him. “You’re home!”

  He hesitates for the briefest of moments before returning the embrace. His eyes wander back up until they fall on me again. “We need to talk.”

  Fox. The stepbrother that kissed me and bailed without saying goodbye. Back from the dead.

  You bet your ass we need to talk.

  Chapter 5

  Fox

  Bennett stares down the dining room table at me with his arms tightly wound across his chest. This hostile reaction to my homecoming isn’t the least bit surprising. He and I never exactly threw the old pigskin around together.

  My mother sits across from him with a stack of used tissues in front of her and Dani is across from me — just like our old family dinners, with the obvious exception of the middle-aged ex-cop lingering in the doorway behind me.

  “How is this possible?” Bennett asks me.

  “It’s a long story,” I answer.

  He shakes his head. “Better be a good one…” Dani’s eyes twitch in his direction, but she says nothing to argue with it. I don’t blame her. “Well, let’s hear it…”

  I look at Dani again and my eyes fall to the bandage covering her cheek. Snake Eyes could be on their way here right now. They could even be out front, wolves in paparazzi clothing. If that’s the case, it’s a possibility that they recognized me outside. I lean forward. “I’m sorry, but… it can wait.”

  “Like hell, it can wait, Fox,” Bennett snaps. “Do you have any idea what you’ve put your mother through?”

  “I can imagine,” I answer. “But right now… Dani is in danger.”

  She blinks. “What do you mean?”

  I point to her cheek. “The men that killed Senator Lamb,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “I have a history with them.”

  Bennett scoffs. “What kind of history?”

  I keep my eyes on Dani’s. “They’ll come back for you.”

  “Fox—” he continues, his voice growing louder. “What are you talking about?”

  “And they’ll kill you.” She stares back at me with wide, fearful eyes. Scaring her is the last thing I want to do but it’s the only card I have. She’s stared into Mercer’s eyes. I know she’ll believe me when I say he’s dangerous. “I don’t have time to explain everything. The best thing to do right now is to get you somewhere safe.”

  “She’s not going anywhere.” He points a finger at me. “Not with you.”

  “Bennett…” my mother scolds. “We should listen to what he has to say.”

  “Why?” he snaps back. “Go on, Fox. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t toss you out on your ass right now.”

  “What’s gotten into you?” she whispers. “This is my son!”

  He stares me down. “Exactly, Cora. He’s your son. A son that let us all believe he was dead for years. Every birthday, Christmas, and Mother’s Day. Isn’t that right, Fox?”

  “Well, surely, there must have been some kind of misunderstanding — some reason why he couldn’t contact us.” She looks down the table at me. “Right?”

  I can barely meet her eyes. “No,” I answer. There’s no point in lying about that. She sits back in her chair as even more silent tears fall from her eyes. Even Dani sits back in disappointment.

  “See?” Bennett says, throwing up his hands. “Son of the friggin’ year.”

  “I did it to protect you,” I say.

  “From what?”

  I look at Dani’s cheek again. “From them.”

  “Well, look how that turned out.” He gestures to her face. “A half a million dollars down the drain for plastic surgery.”

  “And I’m sorry about that, but… You need to let me take her somewhere safe. After that, I promise I will answer any question you have about the last few years. You just have to trust me.”

  “Trust you?” Dani’s voice quivers on her breath. “How the hell are we supposed to do that?”

  “Dani—”

  “We don’t even know who you are anymore.”

  “It’s me.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything, Fox,” she says, shaking her head.

  It crushes me. I expected this from Bennett. I expected tears from my mother. Of all of them, I expected Dani to be on my side. “They call themselves Snake Eyes, Dani,” I say. “The man that cut your face is named Mercer Black. They’re more dangerous than you can possibly imagine—”

  “Then let the authorities take care of it!” Bennett nods to the hired hand behind me. “You got ties in the department, right?”

  “They aren’t equipped to deal with something like this,” I interrupt.

  “And you are?”

  Dani sits back in her chair, a conscious effort to get farther away from me.

  “Yes,” I answer.

  He points a finger down and taps it against the table. “I’m not about to risk my daughter’s life on a dead man’s hunch.”

  My mother sobs quietly, unable to say a word.

  “It’s not a hunch,” I say. “They killed Lamb to send me a message. I know it sounds crazy, but I’m telling you the truth. It’s why I came back. If I didn’t, they’d kill her and—”

  “That’s enough,” Bennett interrupts.

  “Where have you been?” Dani’s stiff, dry voice cuts me off.

  “Like I said, Dani…” I sigh. “I will answer everything after I get you out of here.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you, Fox.”

  She means it. I can see it in her eyes. She’s always had the most expressive eyes. “Dani, please—”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “Dad’s right. You could have told us you were alive, but instead, you just let us wonder what happened to you. For years.”

  “I know, but—”

  “That wasn’t fair, especially after…” She stops, forcing her lips tight, but she doesn’t have to say it.

  “Dani, I’m
sorry.” I say it only to her, throwing every bit of my sincerity into it.

  Her eyes grow dark. “I don’t care.” She stands up from the table and her chair legs drag loudly across the wooden floor. “I can’t do this right now. I’m going upstairs.”

  “No, wait. Dani—” I stand but she holds up her hand.

  “Leave me alone, Fox.” She charges through to the main hall and Smith follows her out.

  Bennett rises to his feet. “You heard her, kid.”

  My mother pulls herself up but her eyes stay low. “I just need a minute…”

  “Mom…”

  She doesn’t stop for me. I listen to her shoes clack across the front hall towards the stairs, leaving me alone with my stepfather. “You’re making a mistake, Bennett,” I say. “She’s not safe here and your little rent-a-cop over there isn’t going to do a damn thing to protect her.”

  “I’ll get more of them then.”

  “It won’t be enough.”

  He laughs like a man chuckling at his kid for still believing in monsters under his bed. “I’ll decide what’s enough when it comes to protecting my daughter. Not you,” he growls. “Obviously, I need to remind you about our little arrangement.”

  “Arrangement?” I lower my voice. “I wouldn’t call you telling me to get the hell out your house an arrangement.”

  “I find it a little bit suspicious that the second something bad happens to her, you’re suddenly back from the dead, Fox.”

  “This has nothing to do with feelings I may have had for her—”

  “May have had?” he scoffs. “Please, kid. I saw the way you were looking at her. It’s the same way I caught you looking at her five years ago and I will not have you coming back into her life and mucking it up all over again. She’s a good girl with a good career and your little crush isn’t going to ruin that.”

  “You mean it won’t ruin your little money factory.”

  He flexes his jaw. “You’re out of line, Fox.”

  “That’s all she ever was to you,” I seethe.

  “She’s my daughter.”

  “Then let me protect her! She won’t be lining your pockets anymore if she’s dead.”

  “Get the hell out of my house, Fox. And this time, don’t come back.”

  Fucking idiot.

  Bennett has always been overprotective of Dani but in all the wrong ways. He treats her the way a real estate mogul values a new subdivision. She’s an asset to him, not family. Sure, he likes to throw the d-word around as much as possible, but it’s a novelty, nothing more.

  “You’re going to regret this, Bennett.” I step back into the front hall and my shoes echo across the marble floor. My pace slows as I pass the stairs, like a bit of muscle memory wanting to charge them. I look to the top and see the door to my old room at the top. I’ve always wondered if Mom kept it the way it was or if Bennett had it converted into a home gym that never gets used.

  She’s up there. Now. I feel the urge to veer off course and run up the stairs to appeal to her myself, but there wouldn’t be enough time before Bennett broke the damn door down.

  As I step outside, I see the flashing bulbs down the driveway. The paparazzi. I should be more concerned about my face getting plastered all over the internet. Who is this mysterious man going in and out of Roxie Robert’s childhood home? Is there a new love affair on the horizon?

  I keep my head down and throw myself into my rental car. My fingers clutch the keys in my pocket, but I don’t move. I didn’t come all the way home just to be booted out after an awkward twenty minutes. I can’t just pack it in and go back to Mrs. Clark’s guest house.

  My eyes jump to her window, pulled by a magnet, and I find her there. She’s discrete about it, only opening the curtain enough to peek her little nose through — that perfect snub-nose I thought about kissing a thousand times.

  The curtain pulls back even further. She knows I’m looking at her. We stare at each other for a few seconds and for a moment, I imagine her racing down the stairs and out the front door. I’d get out of the car and run to her and we’d hug and kiss. Cameras be damned.

  But happy endings are only for movies.

  She shakes her head and drops the curtain down.

  I still can’t go back to Iowa. I won’t leave her, no matter what the great Bennett Roberts and his team of moderately-trained cop monkeys want. There’s no way I will be able to live with the guilt if anything happens to her — although, it’d just be the cherry on top of everything else I’ve done in this life.

  I drive slowly out the front gate, curbing the urge to take out one or two paparazzi as I go.

  I won’t go far.

  Chapter 6

  Dani

  “Wait here.”

  I roll my eyes and lean against the wall as Smith enters my apartment alone. “I’ll bet you a thousand dollars there’s no one in there!” I call out.

  He passes by the door, traveling in and out of rooms with his pistol locked and loaded at his side. I heave a sigh of impatience. All I want to do is get in there, strip naked, and soak myself in a bath for two days.

  Fox. He’s alive. He’s home. And he’s even more handsome than he was when we were younger.

  I shove the thought away. He’s also bat-shit crazy.

  Snake Eyes? What the hell is that supposed to mean? They hurt me to send him a message? It’s a fucking cut. The guy turned around, recognized me, and thought it would be funny to mark up my face. That’s all. And what kind of name is Mercer Black anyway?

  “All good, Roxie.”

  I push off the wall and walk inside. “See?” I say, kicking the door closed. “I told you. Now gimme.” I hold out my hand for the money he owes.

  “I never agreed to that,” he says. He slides his gun back into the holster and pulls his jacket around to conceal it.

  “Lame,” I say. “Whatever — you probably don’t even have a thousand on you right now.”

  “Honey, no one has that kind of money on them at all times.” He raises an eyebrow. “Except entitled rich kids, of course.”

  I laugh. “Because I’ve never heard that one before.”

  Smith steps around me into the kitchen and plants himself at the table. I wait for a few moments, hoping it’s just a temporary rest of his feet, but he leans back with his phone in his hand.

  “What are you doing?” I ask him.

  “Go about your business…”

  “Why aren’t you leaving?”

  He barely glances up. “Because your father is paying me to be here.”

  “You’re staying the night?!”

  “Yep.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  He sets the phone down. “Look, kid. I don’t like this either. I got a family, too, ya know. But mine doesn’t have a crazy, bearded, dead guy running around that’s obsessed with me.”

  “He’s not…” I pause, realizing that I have no reason to defend Fox. “He’s just a little confused.”

  “Well, ‘pretty starlet found strangled in her own bed’ is the last thing I want to read about in the morning, so I’m staying here. Daddy’s orders.”

  I sigh. “Fine. I’m sure there’s plenty to eat in there.” I point to the fridge. “Just stay in this area. I’m going to take a bath.”

  “Don’t take too long.”

  I pause in the door frame. “Why not?”

  “Because you’ll get all pruney.” He peeks at me once before his eyes fall back to his phone.

  I walk away and I feel my stress spike a little more. Great. Not only is my hot stepbrother back from the dead, I now have to spend my evening alone with a middle-aged man haunting my apartment.

  I pause in the living room, sensing a bit more light than usual. My eyes fall to the windows and I notice the blinds are open. I usually like to leave them closed, but the maid must have opened them. Or Smith did. I shrug my shoulders and continue on into my bedroom, then into my en suite bathroom.

  I tilt the faucet and let the hot
water fall down into the tub. Steam rises, filling the air with perfect, gentle wisps. I start to unbutton my blouse, then pause when I realize the bathroom window shades are open as well. I don’t recall doing that, but it’s been a strange few days. Everything has been a crazy blur since the moment I watched Senator Lamb get shot. I remember the hospital and my father barking orders at the nurses and today’s consult with the plastic surgeon. It’s the little details that are gone. Post-traumatic stress, they told me. It’ll pass, they told me. Smile for the camera, they told me.

  I lock the bathroom door and slide my blouse off my shoulders.

  The water is hot — too hot — but it’s how I like it. If I’m not seeing red as I lie back in the tub, then it’s not hot enough. My toes curl and sweat breaks instantly on my brow. I lean back and lay my head on a folded up towel on the porcelain edge. With my eyes closed, I let my mind wander to places it never goes during my busy days. Places of peace and quiet and—

  Fox.

  I open my eyes and lick my lips.

  No. Not Fox. Think of something else. Anything else.

  It’s been there since the moment I saw him today; that irresistible thirst. I haven’t felt it since the day he left home and it was immediately replaced with seething hatred. He kissed me — on my birthday — and then ran off without even saying goodbye. Who does that? What reason could he possibly have? Did he hate it? He seemed to like it. Maybe I just wasn’t good at it and he was too much of a coward to let me down gently.

  I slap the water with my palm, annoyed that this topic has once again dominated my thoughts. It was five years ago. I’m a completely different person now and — by the looks of it — so is he. He’s not the same Fox I met when we were fifteen and my father started dating his mother. Back then, he was that guy. The popular kid in the halls with his backpack hanging from one shoulder and a hot cheerleader on the other. That devil may care attitude that everyone loved, teachers included. It’s what let him get away with so much with little effort on his part.