SPEED (A 44 Chapters Novel Book 2)

by BB Easton

  Dave held up his middle finger as he chugged his beer.

  When we walked into the kitchen, I saw what Harley was talking about. There, on the table, was a pizza box and a store-bought chocolate cake that said, Happy Birthday, on top in red icing. My breath caught as I swung my head around to stare at Harley in disbelief.

  My eyes stung. Why did my eyes sting? Oh my God. Was I going to cry? I should know. I was used to crying after the shitastic few months I’d been having but never because of something happy. The utter sweetness of it caught me completely off guard.

  Harley shrugged and said, “You said you just got your license. Figured you just had a birthday, too.”

  Cool be damned. I launched myself at him. Harley caught me and stumbled back a step or two as I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, squealing, “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” before planting a chaste kiss on his cheek.

  Or at least I tried to give him a peck on the cheek. Before my lips could make contact, Harley gripped my ass a little tighter and intercepted my innocent kiss with his sly, smiling mouth. The energy shifted. The ground shifted. And my pulse shifted into fucking overdrive as I held my breath and let him kiss me. Harley’s expert lips parted mine. His graceful tongue slid across and around my own. His lip ring teased me, and when my scattered wits finally came back together, I captured that damn thing between my teeth and gave it a gentle tug—just like I’d been dying to do all day.

  “You were right, bro,” Dave’s voice, muffled by pizza, said from somewhere behind me. “Bitches love birthday cakes.”

  Harley broke our kiss just long enough to grab an empty beer can off the counter and throw it at his brother.

  Dave blocked the projectile and laughed. “Are y’all gonna eat or just fuck right here in the kitchen? ’Cause, if y’all are gonna fuck, I should probably make some popcorn.”

  Oh my God.

  I buried my beet-red face in Harley’s neck and held on for dear life as he hurled another half-dozen cans at his brother. I inhaled him shamelessly from my hiding place. He didn’t smell like sweat and motor oil like I’d thought he would—he smelled like gasoline and leather seats. The combination made my thighs tighten around his narrow hips involuntarily.

  Giving my ass one last squeeze, Harley took a step forward and set me down in one of the rickety aluminum chairs at the kitchen table. The pizza box was open, and two slices were already missing, thanks to Dave. Harley pulled a couple more beers out of the fridge and handed me one, taking the seat to my left. There, we ate and drank and smoked and talked and laughed and laughed and laughed for hours.

  The guys said they were renting the house from their uncle and had been living there for a couple of months. They had three younger half-sisters who still lived at home with their mom and stepdad. I learned that Dave worked at the Army/Navy surplus store and had had the same job since he graduated from Peach State High. I also learned that Harley had been on his own since he was seventeen.

  “This motherfucker got kicked out of school and kicked out of the house on the same damn day!” Dave slapped his knee and coughed out a laugh as he passed the blunt he’d just lit to Harley.

  Harley took a drag and shrugged. Exhaling, he said, “She didn’t even care that I got expelled. Mom just wanted me outta the house because she had so many goddamn kids.”

  “Oh, I heard about that!” I said, shaking my head when Harley offered me the blunt. Pot was about the only drug I ever turned down. That shit made me sleepy as hell. I don’t know how my parents smoked so much of it. “Didn’t you get kicked out of school for punching the principal in the face?”

  Harley and Davidson looked at each other, then burst out laughing in unison.

  I took another swig of Natty Ice and watched them with a tipsy smile on my face. They were so fucking cute. Dave had this boyish smart-ass Southern charm while Harley was all tattooed, muscle-car-driving, motor-oil-in-his-blood man, but when they joked around, they were almost the same person. And, since Harley and I were almost the same person, that made the three of us a set of peas in a fucking pod.

  Dave leaned over and clutched my forearm. “Get this shit…get this shit…” he cried through his giggles. “Harley didn’t punch Principal Jenner. Principal Jenner fucking punched Harley!” Dave pointed at his brother and erupted into another bout of laughter. “Jacked him right in the fuckin’ jaw!”

  Both guys were practically crying, but I didn’t get the joke.

  Looking at Harley in shock, I said, “He punched you? You could have fucking sued him! You could have gotten him fired!”

  “Nah,” Harley said, waving me off. “After what I said I did to his mama the night before, I had it comin’.”

  “So after he got expelled, I told everybody Harley punched Principal Jenner! Now he’s fuckin’ famous!” Dave said, shoving Harley in the shoulder. “He got so much pussy after that, it was insane!”

  I’d heard about all the pussy he’d gotten, but I didn’t ask about that. I didn’t want to know.

  Harley just looked at me with those puppy-dog eyes and shrugged. He didn’t deny it. And, with a face that cute and a body that hard, he didn’t need to.

  Glancing over at the clock on the microwave, I realized that it hadn’t changed since the last three times I’d peeked at it. Still said 9:05. And it was still blinking.

  Fuuuuuck.

  A sinking feeling washed over me as I tore through my purse, looking for my phone. I found it within seconds and illuminated the screen. It read 10:28.

  “Shit! I have to go!” I chucked my phone back in my bag and scrambled to find my car keys. Glancing across the table at Harley and Dave, who obviously didn’t understand the sudden urgency of the situation, I said, “I have to be home in thirty minutes or my dad’s gonna fuckin’ kill me.”

  I stood up, but Harley immediately wrapped his thick hands around my waist and pulled me down onto his lap.

  “Don’t go,” he whispered into my ear, nuzzling the sensitive skin just below it.

  My body melted into his on contact. God, it felt good to be held by a man. I’d missed that, more than I’d realized. I wanted so badly to stay and explore every ounce of promise held in those two words, but instead, I said, “Harley, I have to. I have a curfew,” pressing on his chest to help my tipsy ass stand back up.

  Harley snaked his bulging, colorful arms around my body and held me tighter. “Nope. Sorry. You’re just gonna have to tell him that I’m your daddy now.”

  “Harley, for real!” I said, slapping him on the chest. “I have to go!”

  Dave laughed. “If she’s calling anybody Daddy around here, it’s gonna be me. I mean, I am the one who bought her that birthday cake.”

  “Ugh!” I wriggled out of Harley’s embrace and sprinted for the back door like Cinderella at the stroke of midnight.

  As I scampered down the splintered stairs and into the pitch-black night, I realized that Harley and Dave had probably never had a curfew growing up. Nobody had been waiting up to make sure they got home safe. From the sound of it, the only thing their mom had been waiting around for was a good excuse to kick them both out. The thought made me sad and also explained why they were acting so nonchalant about me being late.

  As I fumbled to unlock my door in the darkness, I heard the back door slam shut and heavy footsteps, taking the stairs two at a time, behind me.

  Fuck. I don’t have time for this.

  I turned around to see the outline of Harley jogging across the yard toward me, backlit by the glow of the house. Even his run was sexy. Long strides. One hand holding the waist of his low-hanging Dickies. The chain attached to his wallet catching the moonlight as it bounced.

  “Sorry I ran out like that. I just really have to—”

  Harley closed the distance between us and caught the rest of my apologetic words in his mouth. He kissed me fervently. His hands were everywhere. My breathing, erratic. I wanted to wrap my legs around his waist again. Let him take me right
there, out in the open. I wanted nothing in between us but the humid summer air and the sheen of sweat on our skin. I wanted him. The man who, in a single day, had breathed life back into my deflated soul. But if I didn’t get the fuck home, I wasn’t going to be seeing him again for a very, very long time.

  “Harley,” I rasped into his welcoming mouth. “Harley. I have to go. Please.”

  Harley released my bottom lip with a pop and furrowed his brow. “Can I call you?” he asked, breathless. “I have your number on file at the shop.”

  I nodded, fumbling behind me for the door handle. “Thanks for today. It was the best day I’ve had in a really long time.”

  It might have been the best day of my life, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. Not yet at least.

  “Me too,” Harley said, giving me one last lingering peck as I pulled my door open. “Drive safe, lady.”

  As I peeled out of there, I looked at the clock on my dashboard—10:42. Fuck my life.

  I had eighteen minutes to figure out where I was and how to get home, which I estimated was at least half an hour away. I managed to retrace my steps back to the Waffle House, and from there, I followed signs to the only highway I knew—the one that led due east out of Atlanta and straight through my town.

  I raced home, tipsy on beer and high on Harley, going fifteen to twenty miles per hour over the speed limit the entire way. I didn’t even turn on the radio. I just replayed the last ten minutes of my life over and over in my head with a big, dumb smile on my face. Once I was out of the city, I switched to back roads, downshifting in the middle of the turns, just like Harley had taught me that afternoon.

  I pulled into my parents’ driveway with one minute to spare, stalled out in my designated parking spot, and practically dived across the threshold as the clock struck eleven. Gasping for air, I poked my head into the living room where my paranoid, insomniac, conspiracy-theorist father spent his nights smoking cigarettes, polishing his guns, and watching CNN.

  “Hi, Dad! Night, Dad!” I chirped before running up the stairs and locking myself in the bathroom.

  The old me would have spent the next half hour in there, throwing up all the pizza, birthday cake, and beer she’d consumed. She wouldn’t have been able to rest until the damage had been undone. The new me, however, had other reasons for locking herself in the bathroom. Reasons that involved thoughts of Harley’s oil-stained hands on her pale, freckled skin and a showerhead with a massage setting.

  I needed something to do. I was going out of my mind checking my phone every five seconds waiting for Harley to call.

  I’d bitten off all my fingernails, applied and reapplied my makeup, worn a path into the carpet next to my bed from pacing, and smoked at least a pack of cigarettes—and I’d only been awake for an hour. I’d even called in to work to see if I could pick up some extra shifts. I knew they’d say no, but it was worth a shot.

  I was so restless. I’d gone from going to school full-time, working part-time, and spending every other minute with Knight to working twenty hours per week and spending the other hundred and forty-eight staring at a TV screen and wondering if I’d ever be able to feel again.

  Well, I was feeling again. Feeling like I wanted to jump out of my fucking skin.

  The night before had been more fun than I’d ever had. Don’t get me wrong; I’d had plenty of fun in my sixteen years, but it was always the bad kind of fun. The kind of fun that ended with somebody getting hurt. Or getting into a fight. Or brandishing a weapon. Or getting pregnant. Or vandalizing a drug dealer’s car. Or dying. Or getting arrested. Or going to the hospital. Or having a bad trip. Or puking up malt liquor all night. Or running from Latin gangsters. Or having to walk three miles to Juliet’s house at two a.m. with no jacket. That was how my nights of “fun” usually ended. And I guess my night with Harley could have ended the same way if I’d gotten busted going twenty miles over the speed limit with beer on my breath. But I hadn’t.

  Because Harley was an angel.

  That was the only explanation. Harley was a golden-haired angel delivered to me from the universe to apologize for the utter shitshow my life had become after Knight kicked his way into it.

  The gods must have been like, Damn, that really went sideways fast. Our bad. Here’s a tattooed, muscle-bound, baby-faced sex machine to make up for it. Oh, and we’ll even gift wrap him in a vintage Mustang. Our treat.

  But if he were really a gift from the cosmos, then why hadn’t he fucking call—

  “Hello?” I almost dropped the glittery Nokia that hadn’t left my hand all morning as I scrambled to answer it. “Hello!”

  “Hey, lady.” The gravelly sound of Harley’s voice and the lazy smile I could almost see on his face had me squeezing my eyes shut and pressing my lips together in an attempt to suppress the girlie squeal that was about to burst out of me.

  “You called,” I squeaked in disbelief.

  Harley chuckled. “Of course I fucking called. I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  Blink, blink.

  “BB?”

  “Huh?” I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry. You’ll have to leave a message. BB is dead right now.”

  Harley’s laugh danced through my head and into my heart and tickled my fucking soul.

  “Is she alive yet?” he asked.

  “Let me check…nope. You killed her pretty good.”

  “What about now?”

  I smiled so big my face hurt. “Um…”

  “I was really hoping she’d come see me at work today.”

  “What time?” I blurted out.

  Shit. Lost my cool again.

  “Around four? I get off at five, and this afternoon is looking pretty slow.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I mean, I’ll see if I can reanimate BB by then. She might want to eat your brains though, so just be prepared.”

  Oh, good save, I thought, rolling my eyes at myself.

  Harley chuckled and said, “Tell BB she can eat any part of my body she wants.”

  I blushed crimson at the innuendo in his voice.

  “See you at four, little zombie,” he said before hanging up.

  As soon as I finished writhing on the floor, I decided to go to Juliet’s house. I could help out with the baby and kill a few hours before I got to see the man of my dreams again. Maybe Jules could even take a nap while I was there. Her bitchy ass needed one.

  I threw on a pair of ripped jeans, shoved my feet into my combat boots, and reached for the Dead Kennedys tank top hanging in my closet. Then, I immediately snatched my hand back as unwanted memories began flashing like a slideshow behind my eyes. Holding Knight’s hand. Wearing his jacket. Walking from his tattoo shop in Little Five Points, where we’d spent the night, over to Boots & Braces, the store where he bought all his imported skinhead clothes. The sketchiest warehouse I’d ever seen. The one rack of punk T-shirts that the owner said was there for “profiling purposes.” The tank top in my hands and my lips on Knight’s cheek when he dropped me off at work.

  I slammed my closet door and stared at the wooden surface, breathing hard. “No,” I said aloud to no one but myself. “Not today.”

  I stood there until my heart rate returned to normal and the unshed tears receded. Then I picked my favorite Dropkick Murphys tank top off the floor, shrugged it on, and got the fuck out of there.

  Going to Juliet’s house had been the perfect distraction. It’s hard to be a spiraling nervous wreck when you’re holding a sleeping newborn. I even took it upon myself to give Romeo a bottle—with help from Juliet’s little brother—so that his exhausted mama could nap longer.

  Evidently, that had been the wrong choice.

  Juliet woke up an hour later, refreshed but practically drowning in her own milk. She was leaking like a faucet from missing Romeo’s scheduled feeding. Too bad the little guy was still in a milk coma from the bottle I’d given him and couldn’t help her out. The time had finally come—time to figure out how to use the goddamn breast pump.


  I read the instructions out loud and tried to stifle my giggles as Juliet mashed her giant boobs into the suction cups. When she was finally ready, I flipped the switch…and the loud, cartoonlike pumping sound had us both laughing our asses off. It was all so fucking ridiculous. So ridiculous in fact that I was almost late getting over to the garage.

  I saw him the second I pulled into the A&J Auto Body entrance. Harley was standing out front, smoking a cigarette, and goddamn did he look good. Dirty good. Oil-smudged-wifebeater-and-a-pair-of-dark-gray-Dickies good. The sight of him had my stomach doing backflips. I couldn’t believe that superhumanly sexy thing had kissed me. Twice.

  When Harley saw me pull in, he smiled and gestured into one of the bays with two fingers. I followed his lead and entered the garage, concentrating hard on not stalling out again.

  As soon as I killed the engine, Harley came around and opened my door. He was sweaty and filthy, and I didn’t give a single fuck.

  “Hey, lady,” he said, leaning into the car and pressing a lingering kiss to my lips.

  The second the cool metal of his lip ring touched my skin, my eyes slammed shut and my core tightened like a coil. I wanted to suck his tongue into my mouth and run my fingers through his wild blond hair, but he was at work, and I was too chickenshit.

  As he pulled away with a smile, Harley popped my hood by pulling a lever under my steering wheel that I hadn’t even known was there. Walking around to the front of my car, Harley propped up the hood and looked inside.

  “Hell yeah,” he said as I came around to see what all the fuss was about. “I found a cold air intake in the back, and it looks like it’ll fit.”

  “In English, please,” I said, still smiling from that kiss.

  Harley grabbed something off the tool chest behind him and turned back toward me. “This thing. Your engine. More horsepower.”

  “Ah, gotcha,” I said. “Is that why you wanted me to come see you? So you could stick your doohickey under my hood?”

  “I love it when you talk dirty to me,” Harley said with a smile, snaking one arm around my waist and pulling me toward him.