He nodded. “We FaceTime every night.”
“So would you call that…sex-timing?” I said, smirking.
He rolled his eyes at me. “It’s not like that.”
“Isn’t this the girl you fucked six times in one night?”
“Yeah,” he said, grinning, but then quickly sobered. “But we decided that if we were doing a long distance relationship, sexting or whatever, even via FaceTime, would be cheapening what we had, so we’re waiting until we see each other. We’re trying to do this right, since it’s new for both of us.”
I made a surprised face. “Wow. That’s…impressive, actually. Respect, brother.” I held out my fist, and he tapped his knuckles to mine.
He shot a look at me. “So, what are you gonna say to Mara when you see her?”
I sighed. “I’ve been scripting it out in my head, and I can’t come with anything good.”
Brock snorted. “How about the truth? ‘Hi, Mara. I was a dumbass for letting you leave. Will you please move to Ketchikan to be with me?’”
“But how can I ask that of her? We barely know each other.”
Brock shrugged. “Yeah, well, sometimes you don’t need to know each other to know each other, know what I mean?”
“As stupid as that sounds, it does make sense.”
“Just play it as it comes, dude. Don’t over think it, and don’t let your head get in the way. Sometimes what we think we know is true or right or possible has little or no relevance to what really is true or right or possible.” He adjusted one of the dials, and then glanced at me again. “Arthur C. Clarke stipulated that the only way to discover the limits of what is possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”
“And there’s the pithy quote I’ve been waiting for,” I joked.
“Hey, don’t knock my storehouse of pithy quotes,” Brock said. “If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.”
“Sure, but how does that help me know what to say to Mara?”
“It doesn’t. It just means you never know what she’ll say unless you ask.”
“Oh.” I frowned. “And if she says no?”
“Then you get shitfaced in Frisco and I’ll pick you up before I go back to Ketchikan.”
“I kind of smashed my phone,” I said.
“How very mature of you,” he deadpanned.
“Shut up.”
“You shut up,” he shot back. “You’re a big boy, you can figure it out.”
Going through BUD/S all over again seemed like an easier prospect than this, but I wasn’t one to back down from a challenge, especially not when it involved a woman like Amarantha Quinn.
I felt stupid. I had a dozen roses gripped in one fist, and a stomach full of butterflies. Stepping off the elevator, I resisted the impulse to turn and run, which was dumb as fuck, since I hadn’t turned and run from anything in my life.
I made my way slowly down the hallway to apartment 14B, and knocked on the door.
“MOMMY! SOMEBODY’S HERE!” I heard a small female voice say.
“I’ll get it, sweetie. Keep eating your lunch,” I heard a woman say.
There was the rattle of a chain lock and then the door opened, revealing a pretty young woman of maybe thirty, wearing stained black yoga pants and a white tank top, braless, her breasts heavy and her nipples prominent behind the thin cotton. She had a baby on one hip, her hair in a messy ponytail, and she glared at me angrily.
This was not Mara.
“If those are from Harry, tell him to shove them up his ass,” the woman snapped. “He wants to talk to me or see me, he has to crawl his slimy ass here himself.”
I blinked at her venom. “Uh, sorry. I’m not from Harry.”
The woman sagged. “Oh. My bad. How can I help you?”
I struggled to figure out what was going on. “This is apartment 14B, right?” I rattled off the rest of the address. “Do I have the right place?”
The woman nodded, glancing down as a curious young girl of three or four peeked from behind her. “That’s us.”
“So…obviously Mara Quinn doesn’t live here anymore.”
The woman shook her head, her expression sympathetic. “Sorry, no.” She winked at me. “But give me those roses and come on in, and I can pretend to be Mara for…oh, twenty minutes. You’re hot.”
“Thanks, but…no.”
She nodded, understanding. “Sorry, honey. We’ve lived here for a little over two weeks now. I think the previous tenant, your Mara, must have moved unexpectedly because I’m still getting a lot of her mail.”
I sighed in defeat, rubbing the back of my neck. “Gotcha. Well, sorry to have bothered you.”
“Sorry I couldn’t help more.”
I nodded and turned away, still carrying the flowers. I stopped, hesitated, and then jogged back to 14B, just as the woman was closing the door.
“Here,” I said. “Take ‘em.”
She smiled, and I saw a vibrant, beautiful woman, one I’d have been interested in had Mara not consumed my attention.
“Thanks,” she said, happiness suffusing her features as she accepted the roses. “My dick of an ex-husband never gave me flowers even once.”
“You’re really beautiful, you know,” I said. “Your ex is an idiot.”
She blinked at me. “Sure you don’t want to come in? It’s almost nap time in here.”
I laughed. “No, but thanks. I’m flattered.”
“Mama? What’s a dick?” The little girl said.
Her mother didn’t miss a beat. “Your father. And you can tell him I said so, next time you see him, assuming he shows up for his visitation.”
I backed away. “If things don’t work out for me, maybe I’ll be back.”
The woman sighed wistfully, hiking the baby higher on her hip. “I’ll be here, dreaming of it.”
I left, phone-less, Mara-less, and hopeless. Brock had said he’d be back in three days, which gave me three days alone in San Francisco. Would have been fun at one point, but now?
All I wanted was to see Mara. Which, clearly, wasn’t going to happen.
I booked a one-way trip back to Ketchikan. Row 16D, window seat, alone.
Flying commercial sucked.
Chapter 12
Mara
I staggered through the front door of the Seattle apartment I shared with Claire, barely standing on my feet. It was just past eleven in the morning on a Friday, and I’d just left work. I’d been battling bouts of extreme nausea all week, and then this morning I’d barely made it to the bathroom before spewing all over a toilet—on, more than in, unfortunately, and I considered myself fortunate that I’d even made it to the bathroom. I fought it as best I could for another few hours, but my new boss had finally sent me home. I caught a cab, even though Claire and I only lived three blocks from work, because I’d known I wouldn’t be able to make the walk.
I made it through the door, crashing back against it, sweating, gasping, and moaning in pain. My whole body was screaming at me to lie down, sit down, anything. Sleep. I dropped my purse on the floor at my feet and staggered toward my bedroom.
Slowly, exhaustedly, I swiveled my head on my neck to peer blearily at my best friend. I blinked through the dizziness, and then blinked some more, because I wasn’t sure what I was seeing; I was feverish, after all, so maybe it was a fever dream?
Claire, home from work early, or, considering the scene in front of me, not having gone in at all.
Claire was on the couch.
Completely naked.
Sitting reverse cowgirl on top of a man. His hands were on her breasts, his thighs on either side of hers. Claire’s hands were on his thighs, and she was leaning forward, staring at me like a deer caught in headlights.
“Hi, Mara,” she said, feigning a pretense of casualness.
“Claire. What—um. What are you doing home?”
“Having sex with my boyfriend, obviously.” She eyed me. “What are you doing home?”
“Sick,” I said, clu
tching at the wall to stay upright.
The guy Claire was riding had stayed silent so far, and being hidden behind Claire from this angle, I couldn’t see his face. But then he tilted to one side, and I slumped fully against the wall.
It was Brock.
As in, Zane’s brother.
“Hi, Brock.”
He lifted his chin at me. “Hey, Mara.”
I stared for another moment, because I was sick enough and heartbroken enough and confused enough that it hadn’t fully registered yet. “So…you’re the guy? Claire’s mysterious local from Ketchikan? Sex six times in one night guy? The pilot?”
Claire blinked at me. “You two know each other?”
I nodded heavily. “He’s—Brock is Zane’s brother.”
Claire blinked owlishly. “He…what?” She twisted to glance at Brock. “You are? You’re Zane’s brother? As in…the guy Mara spent a week with? The reason she’s been moping around for the last two months?”
Brock hesitated a moment, glancing at me, then at Claire. “Um. I feel like maybe we need to have this conversation when Claire and I aren’t…you know…mid-coitus?”
“Good point,” I said, and continued stumbling toward my room. “Wake me up when you’re done fucking.”
I closed my door, collapsed on my bed, and tugged the pillow over my head, because I could hear Claire and Brock slamming the couch back against the wall, and Claire moaning, and Brock groaning, and I didn’t need to hear Zane’s brother having sex.
I fell asleep, fighting memories of Zane.
I was woken by Claire shaking my shoulder. “Mara, wake up.”
“Hnnnggg.”
“We need to talk.”
“Sick.”
“I know.” She smoothed my hair away from my face, tugging a strand out of my mouth. “But I think you’re gonna wanna hear what Brock has to say.”
“No.”
“Mara.” She slid to kneel on the floor so her face was in front of mine. “I really, really, really think you want to hear Brock out.”
“Fine,” I groaned. “But in here. Sick. Can’t move.”
“Okay. Stay here. Be right back.”
“Claire.” I forced one eye open, and Claire stopped with her hand on my doorknob. “Brock is a great guy.”
She smiled at me. “I know.”
A few minutes later, Claire came back in, Brock in tow. She sat on the bed beside me, pulled me so my head was lying on her lap, and Brock took a seat on my desk chair.
Brock started to talk, stopped, sighed, and then started over. “So, Zane has been a fucking mess without you.”
“And you’ve been a fucking mess without him,” Claire said.
“So?” I mumbled, my stomach roiling.
“So, I kind of made a detour to San Francisco on the way here,” Brock said.
I frowned. “San Francisco is, like, not even remotely on the way to Seattle from Alaska. It’s way, way, way out of the way, in fact.”
He nodded. “Yeah, obviously, but Zane asked me to fly him to San Francisco. So I did.”
I blinked, my heart managing to skip a beat at the same time that my stomach lurched into my heart. “But I’m here.”
“He texted you, and then called you, but you didn’t answer.”
I swallowed hard. “I lost my phone, and my contract was up anyway, so I got a new phone and a new number with a different provider when I moved up here.”
“Well, Zane is in San Francisco, looking for you.”
“But…I’m here.”
“And Zane was so upset when you didn’t answer your phone that he threw his against the wall and smashed it.”
“Zane went to San Francisco? To find me?” I asked again.
Brock nodded. “Sure did.”
My shoulders shook, and I blinked back tears, and then sobbed. And the sob shook something loose in my stomach, and I had to lurch off the bed and stumble-run to the bathroom to puke. But I’d already puked up everything I’d eaten, so all I could do was dry heave bile.
I felt Claire beside me, holding my hair back. “You’ve been sick a lot lately,” she remarked.
I nodded. “It sucks. It won’t go away. I think I’ve beaten it and then it comes back.”
A beat of silence. And then Claire, her voice oddly tense and quiet. “I just had a thought. You’re not gonna like it, and it’s probably stupid and crazy and dumb.”
I heaved again, and then felt the nausea subside enough that I could sit up and wipe my mouth. “What?”
“You’ve been getting sick pretty much every day for the last week, right?”
“Off and on for longer than that.”
“And correct me if I’m wrong, but for the most part you’ve only been getting sick…in the mornings.”
I slumped sideways against the tub. “Ohmygod.”
“Right?”
Tears trickled down my face. “No. No-no-no. No. No no no no no no.”
“When was your last period, honey?” Claire asked, her voice soft and sympathetic.
“I had one right after I got back from Ketchikan, and then this month…” I thought back. “I just had a period. It was light and spotty, but—”
“The one right after Ketchikan, was it normal?”
I twisted to pillow my head on my forearms on the edge of the tub. “No,” I moaned. “It was light and spotty too.”
Claire patted my shoulder. “I’ll run to the corner store for a couple tests.”
“What the fuck do I do, Claire?” I sobbed.
“Take a test, first.”
“Or seven.”
“Or seven,” Claire agreed. “And then you take a breath, and think, and then you go see Zane.”
“But…but—”
Claire smoothed her hand in circles on my back. “You know I’ll be here with you every step of the way, right? No matter what.”
I couldn’t answer, on account of being too busy bawling my eyes out.
Chapter 13
Zane
Six hours and three stopovers later, I dragged my ass into Badd’s Bar and Grill. It was ten p.m. on a Friday, so the bar was packed and chaotic. The twins were set up in a corner, jamming, Canaan on an acoustic guitar, Corin on one of those drums that was a box he sat on and slapped with his hands, each with his own mic. Bax and Bast were tending bar, Lucian and Dru serving tables, Xavier bussing.
They all saw me shuffle through the door, and Bast immediately flipped a rocks glass in the air, set it on the service bar, and poured a hefty measure of Bulleit, nudging it in my direction. I made my way through the crowded floor to the service bar and slammed back the bourbon.
“Brock texted me,” Bast said, leaning close to be heard over the hubbub.
“She wasn’t there,” I said, ignoring his statement.
“I know.” Bast grabbed me by the shirt and hauled me so we were nose-to-nose. “She moved to Seattle.”
I shrugged. “Okay.”
“Which is where Brock is.” He let me go and smoothed out my shirt, a weird, shit-eating grin on his face.
“Okay.”
Bast shoved my shoulder. “Think, dumbfuck.”
I scowled at him, exhausted from a long day of travel and even more exhausted from disappointment. “If you’ve got something to say, then fucking say it, Sebastian. I’m in no mood for bullshit games.”
“Brock is in Seattle, because his new girlfriend is in Seattle.” He paused. “And Mara is in Seattle.”
“And what’s your point?”
Bast hissed in disgust. “How do you think Brock knows Mara is in Seattle?”
I stared at him for a moment, and then it sunk in. “Oh. Ohhhhh. He saw her?”
Bast tugged his phone out of his back pocket, unlocked it, and handed it to me.
In a gray bubble was a message from Brock: So my girlfriend is Mara’s best friend, Claire. Mara is in Seattle. I’m in her living room with her right now.
I groaned, handing the phone back. “Fuck me. Of course B
rock’s new girlfriend is Mara’s best friend.”
Bast grinned. “So now you can go see her.”
I shook my head. “If she wanted to see me, she would have answered my text. She would have answered my call, or returned it. She would have fucking mentioned she was moving.” I trudged, depressed, upstairs, ignoring Bast’s attempts to call me back, to talk sense into me.
I wasn’t interested in sense.
A fist pounding on my bedroom door woke me up the next morning; I peered at my clock: 9:08 a.m.
“What?” I snarled.
“Get your mopey ass out of bed, you stupid lazy motherfucker,” I heard Bax shout. “Someone’s here to see you.”
“Unless it’s Jack Daniels himself with a barrel of bourbon, tell them to go away.” I rolled over and pulled the blankets higher.
“You really don’t want that,” Bax answered.
“The fuck do you know about what I want?” I growled.
“In this case, more than you,” Bax said.
“Zane, get out of bed and come out here.” That was Brock.
“Thought you were in Seattle with Claire.”
“I was. And now I’m here, and I didn’t come alone.”
“Tell Claire I said hi,” I said. “Now shut the fuck up and leave me the fuck alone.”
“Open the door in the next three seconds or I kick it in and drag you out of bed,” Bax shouted.
I didn’t bother sitting up. “I’ll break your goddamn kneecaps if you come in here.”
“One.”
“I’m serious, Bax. Don’t do it. You’ll just hurt yourself worse, and then I’ll hurt you even more.”
“Two.”
“I’m fucking serious, asshole.”
“Three.” There was a pause. “Okay, I’m kicking the door down.”
I heard a loud thud, and a splintering sound.
“Ow.” I heard Bax groaning in pain. “Ow, my leg, ow, ow, ow, fuck my leg—fuck, my leg, ow.”
I ignored it.
Another kick, more of Bax shouting in pain, and I laughed despite myself. “Can’t even kick down a flimsy door in one kick?” I taunted. “Pussy.”
And then I heard another voice. A softer one. A more feminine one. A sweet, familiar voice. “Bax, stop. You’ll reopen your injury. I’ll go in there. This is a private conversation anyway.” I heard my doorknob rattle. “Zane? It’s me…it’s Mara. Open up, please.”
Badd Ass (Badd Brothers Book 2) Page 18