Whiplash: A Sports Romance

by Tabatha Kiss

  I glance at his cheek. “Not fast enough.”

  “Mercer called it my trophy,” he continues. “He wouldn’t let me get it fixed. Just let it bleed, he said. It’ll look cool.”

  “Why do you cover it up?”

  He keeps his eyes on the road. “Makes it easier to forget about, I guess.”

  We turn off the street and enter a small parking lot behind an old, brick building. A pink neon sign flashes above the entrance with several letters missing. I squint at it, trying to decipher the store’s name.

  “Fawn’s Pawn?” I read. “Who’s Fawn?”

  “It’s her last name.”

  I sit back. “Your gun dealer is a woman named Caleb Fawn?”

  Fox pulls his seatbelt free. “Wait here.”

  “Wait here?” I repeat. “No way. I want to meet your gun girl.”

  “No.” He pushes the door open and steps outside. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  “Fox—”

  “Dani.” He bends down and stares at me through the open window. “Stay here.”

  I sigh and fall back into my seat. “Fine.” I reach for my sunglasses.

  “Keep them on,” he warns, pointing a stiff finger at me.

  I hold up my hands in surrender and he walks off towards the pawn shop.

  Here we go. Bantering like siblings.

  This is going to be one strange road trip.

  Chapter 9

  Fox

  “Back again so soon?” Caleb’s thick, pink lips grin at me as I step inside the shop. “I’m starting to think you’re falling in love with me, Fox.”

  “You think every man that walks in here is falling in love with you, Caleb,” I fire back.

  “All except my father,” she quips. “May he rest in pieces out back.”

  I chuckle. I’ve forgotten how much I enjoy Caleb’s dark brand of humor. “Bit slow today,” I note, glancing around the abandoned shop.

  “It’s still early. The weirdos don’t come around until the afternoon…” Her lips curl. “Usually.”

  I stop at the counter in front of her and take one last glance around the shop to make sure we’re alone. “I need a few more things from your back room.”

  “Buy or trade?”

  “Loan.” She raises an eyebrow and I tilt my head. “You know I’m good for it, Caleb.”

  “You’re good at a lot of things, Fox. Returning my stuff, not so much. Guns, ammo, phone calls…”

  “I died.” I shrug.

  “How convenient for you.”

  “Come on, Caleb. I said I was sorry.”

  She chews on her lip with crumbling resolve. “I know… but I reserve the right to feel bitter about it for a little while longer.”

  “I don’t blame you. Please, Caleb. One tiny loan and I’ll have Boxcar wipe out some of your debts. It’s a fair trade.”

  She scoffs and brushes her auburn bangs away from her eyes. “You still hanging around with that prick?”

  I throw up my hands. “He’s useful.”

  “So are lobotomies. Still wouldn’t recommend one.”

  I smile. “Help me out and I’ll tell him I found you spread eagle with some beefcake in the back room. That outta piss him off.”

  She finally drops her head and lets out a smooth breath. “What do you need?”

  “A few boxes of those Win Mag rounds, a bowie knife, and that Model 60 I saw yesterday.”

  She hisses. “That’s my special occasion gun.”

  “I wouldn’t ask for it if it weren’t one.”

  “Going hunting?” she asks with a raised brow.

  “More on the defensive side this time.”

  “What are you defending?”

  “Bit of unfinished business.”

  “Let me guess…” She leans forward to speak with a deep whisper. “Black hair? Red lips? Scary-looking gash on her left cheek?”

  I pause. “What makes you say that?”

  “Because she followed you in here and it’s pretty obvious she doesn’t give a shit about my antique fishing lures.”

  I turn around to see Dani standing in the corner behind a tall tower of lures. “Dani—”

  She twitches at my tone, but a smile creeps to her lips. “Hey.”

  “I told you to stay in the car.”

  Dani wanders over to the stand next to me. “And I objected to it. You’re not my father.”

  “Go back outside.”

  “No.” She looks at Caleb. “Hello.”

  “Hello, there…” Caleb greets her with a knowing twinkle brushing her green eyes. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  “I just have one of those faces,” Dani says, shrugging.

  Caleb bites her cheek. “Uh-huh.”

  “So, how do you know Fox?”

  I hang my head in annoyance. “We don’t have time—”

  “Army buddies,” Caleb answers.

  Dani’s eyes grow wide with interest. “You were in the Army?”

  “Once upon a time.”

  “You’re not anymore?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  Caleb grins and her eyes fall on me. “Got boring without old Foxy here.”

  Dani twists in my direction. “Foxy?”

  “Can you please just go take a look around?” I ask Dani, gesturing away from the counter. She rolls her eyes and wanders off, once again lingering around the fishing lures with zero interest. I turn back to Caleb and she tilts her head at me. “Don’t encourage her, Caleb.”

  She laughs, her lips dancing into a long grin. “I should have known. Who else could bring you back from the dead, Fox?”

  “It’s a complicated situation…”

  “Yeah, no shit.”

  “Please don’t tell anyone you saw her,” I add.

  “Fox, come on. It’s me.” She leans forward, lowering her voice. “If this was all about her, why didn’t you just say so?”

  “Because it’s a—”

  “Complicated situation,” she finishes with a happy sigh. “Take whatever you need.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m sure Boxcar will prove his usefulness once more.”

  “I’ll make sure he does.”

  Caleb’s eyes follow a trail behind me, ending with a presence hovering over my shoulder. I glance to the side and Dani’s elbow brushes my ribs.

  “I want a gun.”

  I spin in her direction. “You what?”

  “I want a gun,” she repeats, her little blue eyes sparkling with innocence.

  “No.” I shake my head. “You don’t get a gun.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you don’t know the first thing about handling a gun, Dani.”

  “Yes, I do,” she claims. “I did thirty hours of training with L.A.P.D. officers for Backseat Driver.”

  I blink with disbelief. “Backseat what?”

  “Backseat Driver. Come on, you saw it. Everyone saw it.”

  “I saw it,” Caleb grins.

  “See?” Dani points at her.

  I play dumb, bringing annoyance to her eyes. “I don’t have time to watch movies, Dani.”

  “Just ask my dad if you don’t believe me,” she sighs with frustration. “Or we can throw up a target and I’ll prove it right now.”

  I glance at Caleb’s amused face then back at Dani. “No. You can’t have a gun.”

  “My life is in danger, Fox. No offense to you and your skills but I’d feel much safer if I were armed.” She looks at Caleb. “I want a gun — and not a dinky little .22 girl gun. I want a 9mm Glock.”

  I turn back to Caleb in defeat. “And a Glock for the lady, please…”

  Caleb turns with a grin. “I change my mind. I like her.” She walks off into the back room, snatching a black duffel bag off the wall as she goes.

  “She didn’t like me?” Dani asks. “Why didn’t she like me?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Dani.” I glance at her again and she looks u
p at me with those perfect eyes. “Thirty hours?”

  She smiles and my knees turn to jelly.

  “Here you go.” Caleb drops the black bag onto the counter.

  “Thanks again, Caleb.” I grab the bag, taken back by its surprising heft.

  She grins at Dani and holds out a Glock by the barrel. “And for you…”

  Dani steps forward to take it but I snatch it away from her and drop it into the bag with the rest of it.

  Caleb chuckles. “If you get busted with it, you didn’t get it from me.”

  “As always,” I mutter. “Come on, Dani.”

  “And if I don’t get my Model 60 back, I’ll kill you myself.”

  I shrug. “I’d just come back.”

  “Yeah, yeah…”

  Dani lingers behind me and waves to Caleb. “It was nice to meet you.”

  “Take care of him for me,” Caleb replies, flashing a quick wave in return.

  Dani gives her a short smile before following me outside. “What did she mean by that?” she asks me.

  “Nothing,” I answer, popping the trunk open and setting the black bag inside.

  Dani hovers over my shoulder with her arms crossed. “I sensed some friction there…” she hums. “You wanna talk about it?”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  She slides in closer as I inspect the bag. I grab the bowie knife and smile at the ankle holster Caleb tossed inside, along with enough extra ammo to take down a small army. That’s her style, I suppose. All or nothing.

  “Did you two have some sordid, desert love affair or something?” Dani asks.

  “No,” I answer, zipping it closed.

  She scoffs. “Oh, come on.”

  “We didn’t,” I claim. “She and Boxcar, however…”

  “Who’s Boxcar?”

  I close the trunk. “Boxcar is our next stop.”

  “The guy in Denver that can decrypt the drive?” I nod and gesture for her to get back in the car. We walk around opposite sides and climb in. “What happened between them?”

  “Caleb and I met Boxcar in Afghanistan during my second tour.” I start the car and the engine roars with life. “We received intel that an American journalist with knowledge of a secret weapons cache was being held captive in a warehouse in Kabul. We go in but find nothing. No enemy combatants, no weapons, no journalist. Just Boxcar and his laptop. The roof collapsed on the building, trapping him inside. Turns out, he hacked our equipment with a distress signal so we’d come dig him out.”

  Her eyes narrow. “Why make up a story about a weapons cache?”

  “Because he thought we wouldn’t come otherwise.” I shrug. “Honestly, he was right.”

  “I can’t imagine the top brass being happy about him wasting their time.”

  “Oh, they weren’t. Boxcar was a good hacker but hacking government equipment is generally considered a no-no. Instead of shipping him back to the States to do jail time, they assigned him to our unit as a civilian intelligence freelancer.”

  “And he and Caleb hit it off?”

  “Not at first,” I chuckle. “Box is a bit of a card but by far the smartest person I’ve ever met. And Caleb… she doesn’t fuck around.”

  Dani smiles. “I got that vibe.”

  “Last I heard they were done but if you talk to them separately you can just see it. They aren’t really done.”

  “Sounds romantic.”

  “Try telling them that.”

  We take off down the road, passing through early-morning traffic at a snail’s pace. Dani leans back in her seat, her eyes flush with deep, silent thoughts until we make it out of Los Angeles. Every so often, her eyelids flutter closed and she leans her head against the window. She didn’t sleep much last night. Neither did I.

  Even now, in the most innocent and vulnerable of poses, I can’t keep my eyes off of her. I’m not sure why I lied to her last night. Here we are, closer in proximity than we’ve ever been in our lives and there’s no one around to intervene. We could have picked up where we left off five years ago and part of me thinks she wanted to. Maybe it was just the booze in her or the adrenaline from getting attacked but there was something in her eyes. I don’t want to act on it in case I have it all wrong.

  I can’t imagine losing her twice in one lifetime.

  ***

  “Can I drive?”

  My eyes drift left to look inside the window of a passing truck. “No,” I answer. There’s a man driving it with a small girl in the passenger seat. No real threat there.

  “Why not?”

  I look at Dani. Her sunglasses sit on top of her head, buried inside the short, black bob. She was passed out asleep just ten minutes ago, but her eyes show a fresh, wakeful enthusiasm now. “Because no.”

  “That’s not a reason.”

  “You’ve never heard Bennett say because I said so before?” I joke.

  “Of course. It’s his catchphrase.”

  “Do you even have a driver’s license?”

  “I do, actually!” she says, chuckling softly.

  “Have you ever used it?” Fast movement brings my eyes to the rearview mirror. A black car makes a dangerous pass around a vehicle a few hundred yards behind us. I grip the wheel, preparing for the worst.

  “A few times,” Dani answers. “Although, come to think of it, I’m not exactly sure where it is…”

  I laugh. “All the more reason to let me drive, Dani.” The same black car revs its engine and weaves around us. The driver is young. Male. Red, puffy eyes. Not an assassin. Just an idiot. I loosen my grip on the wheel.

  Dani lays her head back in defeat. “Can I listen to the radio then?”

  “I’d prefer silence.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need to concentrate.” I glance over at her again. She bends forward to slip her shoes and socks off. “You should leave those on, just in case.”

  “Fox, it’s been almost eight hours,” she points out. She stretches out her tiny toes, wiggling them free. I force myself not to stare at the ballerina-like arches of her feet. “If someone were following us, we would probably know by now.”

  “That’s not necessarily true.”

  “How so?”

  “Dani, please just sit quietly and let me do what I do.”

  She laughs, throwing her head back. “Damn, Fox…”

  “What?”

  “So serious.” Her laughter continues.

  “How you find this so amusing, I’ll never understand.”

  “I’m sorry…” She tries to stop laughing but her lips twitch. “I don’t know why I’m laughing… This is all just so…”

  “Surreal?” I suggest.

  “Fun.”

  I look at her with wide eyes. “Fun?”

  “Not fun,” she says, biting her lip. “Just… I don’t know what I mean. I guess that says something about my life, though, doesn’t it? Having a near-death experience is what it takes for me to have fun.”

  “Oh, come on. You have access to everything in the world. Any girl would kill to be in your shoes.”

  Her smile drops. “I can’t argue with that.” She falls silent and looks out the window. The setting sun casts an orange glow on her face, but I catch the darkness hiding behind her blue eyes.

  I look back to the road and my stomach lurches with hunger. Has it really been eight hours? I’ve forgotten how quickly time flies when all my senses are on full alert. “You hungry?” I ask.

  “Starving.”

  I smile. “Okay. We’ll stop soon.”

  “How much further do we have?”

  “We’re about halfway to Denver,” I answer. “We should get there around two or three in the morning—”

  “Can we stop for the night?”

  I shake my head. “We should continue through the night, Dani.”

  “You’re exhausted, Fox.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Fox…” she leans over and points at her face, “look at who you’re
talking to. I’m Roxie Roberts. I know a little something about exhaustion and even more, I know what it looks like when you try to hide it. The only difference is that I have a fully-staffed cosmetic team to hide the dark circles under my eyes.” Her finger swoops around her face, drawing little ovals beneath her lashes.

  I glance up at the rearview mirror. She’s right. I might not feel it now but once the buzz in my nerves wears off, I’m sure I will. “We’ll see how I feel after we eat.”

  “Or you can just let me drive.”

  “No.”

  She laughs. “Damn, I thought that would work…”

  I smile and look over at her again. She lays her head back with her eyes drifting out the window. Her lips stay locked in an upturned grin, almost like she doesn’t even realizing she’s smiling. I’m scared to look away, knowing that sooner or later it’ll fade along with this moment.

  Fun, eh? It’s been a while since I’ve had it. I almost didn’t recognize it myself.

  ***

  “Pancakes, please.” Dani’s eyes grow wide as she says it, displaying a powerful desire hidden behind her shades.

  “Coming right up.” The waitress flashes a strategic, tip-bait smile and walks away to put our order in.

  I take a long sip of coffee, relishing in the caffeine boost. “Pancakes, eh?”

  Dani slides her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose. “Dad rarely lets me have carbs,” she explains. “I might as well have them while I still can.”

  I lean back in the booth. “Why do you let Bennett control you so much?”

  Her eyes fall. “Let is a pretty strong word.”

  “Dani, you have more than enough means to cut him off. It’s not like either of you will be on the street if you do.”

  “I just…” Her teeth scratch her bottom lip. “Never mind. It’s stupid.”

  “No, tell me,” I urge.

  She takes her time. Her elbows bend and move as she slides her palms along her thighs beneath the table. “I don’t know anything else. He’s all I have and… he’s done a pretty good job at reminding me of that fact.”

  Classic Bennett. What better way is there to keep a leash on her than to give her no other alternative than to follow? “You’ll adapt,” I say. “The world isn’t as scary as he makes it out to be.”