SPEED (A 44 Chapters Novel Book 2)

by BB Easton

  Reaching for the ignition, I turned my key one click to the right, just enough to illuminate the dashboard. The clock read 10:36.

  “Fuck! Harley, I have to go!” I said, shimmying my thong back into place and diving over to the passenger side to put my shorts back on.

  Pulling off the condom and tying it in a knot, Harley watched me flail in amusement.

  “What are you doing tomorrow night?” he asked, raising his voice over the din of the crowd and the engines behind us.

  “I have to work.” I pouted, buttoning my fly and adjusting my tank top.

  “Is it okay if I come by?”

  I glanced up and met his gaze. Harley wanted to see me at work?

  I smiled bigger than I’d intended and nodded.

  Tomorrow would make five days that week that Harley had found a way to see me. I couldn’t believe it. He seemed like the kind of guy who would wait five days just to call a girl back, but here he was, making plans with me again.

  I leaned over the center console and kissed him. Hard. Kissed him in a way that said, I want to see you again, too, and, Everything sucks when you’re not around, and, We should probably just go ahead and move in together.

  Then, remembering the time, I shoved Harley’s shoulder toward the door and said, “Now, go, goddamn it!”

  Harley chuckled and gave me one last little peck on the lips before opening my car door. He turned around to tell me, Good-bye, or, Good night, or Drive safe, but I slammed the door in his face before he could get the words out and cranked the engine.

  As much as I would have loved to cuddle and whisper sweet nothings with Harley for the rest of eternity, if I didn’t get my ass home, I was going to be spending that eternity grounded in my tiny bedroom.

  I slid the driver’s seat all the way forward and flipped on my headlights, ready to tear out of there…only to discover that I couldn’t see shit through my sex-fogged windshield.

  Son of a bitch.

  I tried to wipe a patch of the moisture away with my hand, but that only smeared the fogginess around. I turned my defroster on, but that thing would take several minutes to do its job. I even flipped on my windshield wipers in desperation, but that did nothing, considering that the fog was on the inside of the glass. There was no way around it. I was going to have to do the drive of shame.

  Instead of walking home after a one-night stand with mascara under my eyes and high heels in my hand, I got to drive past at least a hundred of Harley’s admirers, going about five miles per hour with a post-sex cigarette hanging out of my mouth and my mostly-shaved head sticking out of my open window because I couldn’t see through my fogged-up windshield. It wasn’t exactly my finest moment, but I can’t say that I was embarrassed either. In all honesty, after seeing the way those people revered Harley, I might have even felt a tinge of pride as I drove past the field of skanks shooting daggers at me with their eyes. Harley could have plowed any girl there that night, but he’d chosen me.

  And now, everybody knew it.

  A thousand dollars.

  It had taken me a full year of working nights and weekends at Pier One Imports to save up that much money, and there I was, staring at the same amount, earned in less than one minute at the track.

  I’d found the sweaty wad of cash stuffed in my purse when I got home that night. Ten hundred-dollar bills crammed between my cell phone and wallet. I laid each one out flat on my bedspread, then I arranged them into different designs. A sun. A star. A house with Benjamin Franklin peeking out the window.

  I stared at the artwork on the front, on the back, trying to commit every line and detail to memory. I knew I’d have to give the pretty little pieces of paper back the next day, but until then I was going to enjoy them. Hell, I might even tape them to my skin and wear them as pajamas. The fact that they were currency was completely irrelevant. They were gifts from Harley, and to me, that meant more.

  My hands arranged and rearranged the faded green parchment as my mind replayed the events of the night. I smiled, thinking about how easily Harley had hustled those douche bags. I smiled, remembering how I’d made his friends laugh.

  I thought about the way he’d ripped my fishnets open in the front seat of my car and how he’d said, “You have me, lady.”

  I wondered what that meant. Like I had him in my car, or I had his heart?

  I smiled some more. Then, I looked down at my absentminded creation and almost screamed.

  I threw the paper rose to the floor and covered my mouth with both hands. My eyes shot over to a plastic cup on my desk where a bouquet of similar-looking flowers sat, collecting dust. Flowers made from notebook paper. Flowers that had been intended to cheer me up.

  I could see Knight’s face, as if it were right in front of me, glaring at me with those glacial-blue zombie eyes from behind a fistful of notebook-paper flowers. Knight, my high school’s only skinhead, had followed me to detention that day. He could have gone home, let me find my own ride, but he hadn’t. He sat in detention right next to me, drawing me pictures and making me flowers to pass the time. No one had ever given me flowers before.

  That afternoon we got drunk together. We laughed. We teased each other. Then, Knight wrestled me to the ground and kissed me. I hadn’t wanted him to kiss me then, and after the way he’d treated me before he left, I didn’t want him to kiss me ever again. But in between our first kiss and our last existed a chunk of time when my whole world revolved around Knight’s lips. Making them smile. Trying to get them to open up and talk to me. Counting the minutes until they’d be back on my body.

  Looking down at the hundred-dollar bills on the ground, twisted and folded into an exact replica of one of Knight’s paper roses, I felt his presence in the room. I got still. My ears perked up, listening for the rumble of his truck in the distance. My nose twitched, searching for traces of his musky, cinnamony cologne in the air. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck shot up violently. My breathing all but ceased.

  You’re safe.

  He’s gone.

  You’re safe.

  He’s gone.

  You’re safe.

  He’s gone.

  But he wasn’t. The ghost of Knight remained, imprinted somewhere deep in my psyche, and it was haunting me from the inside out.

  I couldn’t focus at work. I had ten hundred-dollar bills in one pocket and a cell phone that hadn’t rang all day in the other. The battery was almost dead from my incessant checking. I only fluffed and organized the displays in the front of the store, making sure to face the main entrance at all times. We weren’t very busy for a Saturday, which was good, because every time the doorbell chimed I had a little heart attack.

  It was almost time for my break when I noticed a woman standing at the checkout counter. Looking around and realizing that nobody else was available to ring her up, I huffed and headed over. She was buying at least twenty-seven candles, and of course, she wanted each of them gift-wrapped separately. I usually loved gift-wrapping, but it forced me to stand with my back to the door, which was the last thing I wanted to do while waiting for Harley fucking James to make his appearance.

  After bagging the last gift box, I turned around and handed my bedazzled works of art to the customer with a huge smile on my face. Not because I was that awesome at customer service, but because a living fucking legend was standing right behind her.

  I’d never seen Harley in the wild before. Only at his work, at his house, and at places we’d gone to together. Standing in the middle of Pier One Imports, he looked as beautiful and dangerous and out of place as a full-grown Bengal tiger.

  My customer thanked me, then turned and walked around the tattooed Pegasus standing between her and the door.

  “How can I help you?” I coyly asked the disheveled blond standing with his fists in his pockets and a smirk on his face.

  Pulling something out of his pocket, Harley dropped to one knee and said, “You can start by marryin’ me.”

  Scrambling up onto the cash sta
nd, I peered over the edge to see Harley opening a black velvety ring box. Inside was a tiny white gold ring with a strip of tiny square-cut diamonds embedded within the band.

  I froze as my brain spun and sputtered, trying to process this fucked-up scene.

  He can’t be fucking serious. You should laugh. Obviously, he’s just messing with you. I mean, it hasn’t even been a full week!

  No! Jesus, don’t laugh at him! What if he’s serious? You’ll crush him!

  He’s not serious. Harley doesn’t do serious.

  But those sure do look like real diamonds. People don’t just go around handing out diamond rings as gag gifts, BB.

  Harley might. He gave me a thousand dollars yesterday just because I cracked a joke about it.

  You do have a point.

  Fuck.

  Say something!

  A small crowd had gathered around the cash register where I was perched on all fours, staring at a man on bended knee down below me.

  My manager cleared her throat from somewhere behind me and said, “Um, BB? Why don’t you go ahead and take your break now?”

  Great idea.

  “You got it!” I chirped, leaping off the cash stand and grabbing Harley by his outstretched hand.

  He flashed me a megawatt smile, obviously amused with himself and the little spectacle he’d caused, and allowed me to drag him out the front door and around to the side of the building.

  Once we were away from prying eyes, I turned and faced him. “What are you doing?” I whisper-yelled, afraid that I would actually scream the words if I tried to use my regular voice.

  Harley grinned. “I told you the day you came into my shop that I was gonna ask you to marry me.”

  “No, you said you would ask me to marry you if I wasn’t so young.”

  “Well…you’re older now.”

  “By like a week,” I giggled. “Where did you get that?”

  Harley pulled the ring out of the fuzzy black box and held it up. “The pawnshop next door to Dave’s work. The owner owes us…some favors.” Harley’s smile faded and his eyes narrowed, but he recovered quickly. “I saw this little guy and thought it might actually fit your skinny-ass finger.”

  While I stood with my mouth hanging open, Harley slid the tiny band onto my wedding ring finger. He was right. It fit perfectly.

  I stared down at my hand, still unable to tell whether or not Harley was kidding. He hadn’t told me he loved me or even called me his girlfriend yet, which were kind of prerequisite steps before proposing marriage, but he had asked me to move in with him. Although I was pretty sure he’d been kidding about that, too. Now he was giving me a diamond ring simply because a shady pawnshop owner owed him something?

  It was all beginning to add up. Harley was just a big, impulsive kid who liked to play with really expensive toys.

  “Harley, do you even know my name?” I asked, looking up at him with a sideways smile.

  “Yes, BB,” he said, mischievous blue eyes sparkling.

  I rolled my eyes. “No, my real name.”

  “It doesn’t matter what your real name is”—Harley bent down so that we were nose-to-nose—“because pretty soon, it’s gonna be BB James.” He wagged his head from side to side a little and gave me a peck on the lips before standing back up.

  “Brooke Bradley James,” I corrected, flipping my hand over to see if the diamonds went all the way around. They did, and they sliced right across the faded tattoo that I had almost forgotten about underneath.

  “That sounds like three people.” Harley chuckled, pocketing the velvet ring box and digging around for his cigarettes and lighter.

  “Yeah,” I quietly agreed, staring at the gray smudge that had once resembled the silhouette of a knight on horseback.

  Five months ago, when Knight had given me that tattoo—branded my wedding ring finger with his name—I’d been one hundred percent sure that he and I would be together forever. That our relationship was as permanent as the ink on my skin. Well, I’d been right about that part. Knight had put my tattoo in the one place he knew wouldn’t last, and just as it began to fade, he disappeared too.

  Now there I was, wearing another man’s ring before Knight’s mark had fully left my skin. Or my soul. It felt wrong. Knight had no right to have that kind of hold on me—not after the way he’d treated me, broken me—but he did just the same.

  Before I realized what I was doing, I pulled the trinket off my finger. Handing it back to Harley with a fake smile, I said, “You’re gonna have to do better than that if you want to get with all this,” motioning down the length of my skeletal body with my free hand.

  Harley laughed and took the ring from me, completely unfazed by my rejection. Dropping it into his pocket, he pulled me close and smiled against my mouth. “You’re right,” he said, his voice lowered. “And I’m gonna keep askin’ till you say yes.”

  Not knowing what to say, I kissed him. I kissed him for thinking of me and for making me smile. I kissed him to say I was sorry and to thank him for putting me somewhat back together. And I kissed him to distract him from the lit cigarette I was about to snatch out of his hand.

  Harley and I smoked and laughed and lazily made out on the side of the building until it was time for me to go back in.

  “Hey, next time, you can park behind the building in the employee lot if you want. That way, you won’t have to worry about the Boss getting dented by a runaway shopping cart or something,” I said, hinting that I hoped there would be a next time.

  Harley smiled. “Smart and beautiful. I knew you were perfect. C’mon.” He turned and pulled me by the hand toward the front of the building.

  “Where are we going?” I giggled, digging in my heels.

  “To the courthouse,” Harley said, casting a devilish smile over his shoulder at me.

  “Harley, it’s seven o’clock on a Saturday. I’m pretty sure the courthouse is closed.”

  Turning to face me with a look of triumph on his face, Harley pointed the butt of his Camel Light at me and said, “That’s not a no.”

  Goddamn, he was cute. I was beginning to regret giving that ring back. Being Mrs. Brooke Bradley James was sounding better and better by the minute.

  “Harley, I have to go back to work,” I said, tugging him toward me and changing the subject.

  Harley wrapped his big hands around my bony shoulders, dropped his forehead to mine, and said, “Nope.”

  “Yep.”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  “’Fraid so, buddy.”

  Harley shook his head, causing my head to shake back and forth, too. “Never.”

  “Are you gonna pay my car payment and insurance when I get fired?” I asked, immediately regretting my question.

  I remembered what had happened the last time I made a joke about money. The consequences were burning a hole in my back pocket. I covertly slipped the wad of cash out of my jeans and slid both hands into Harley’s front pockets, depositing the money along with them.

  “That car will pay for itself, lady.”

  I pushed up onto my tiptoes and kissed Harley, effectively ending the conversation. “Thanks for coming to see me,” I whispered against his mouth.

  “Anytime,” he said, giving my ass a squeeze before releasing me to sprint toward the store’s front entrance.

  When the sliding doors opened, I could see on one of the decorative wall clocks that I was ten minutes late getting back from break—a fact that was not lost on my manager, who was giving me the stink eye from behind the register.

  Shit.

  I smiled at her innocently and began busying myself with some bullshit by the front door so that I could watch Harley walking away. He was all long legs, tattooed arms, smooth swagger, and blond sex hair, and I was sending him away with a pocketful of my rejected gifts. What the fuck was wrong with me?

  My question was answered a moment later when the throaty rumble of an approaching diesel engine caused my body to freeze—along with all of its basic funct
ions. I watched the parking lot in horror, screaming at Harley from inside my fleshy prison to get the fuck out of there. As he cranked up the Boss and pulled out of the parking lot, a delivery truck pulled in and drove around to the back of the building, taking the sound I’d thought belonged to Knight’s monster truck along with it.

  He’s gone.

  You’re safe.

  He’s gone.

  You’re safe.

  He’s gone.

  You’re safe.

  I’m fucked.

  For the remaining two hours of my shift, I floated around Pier One Imports in a giddy fog. I accomplished next to nothing, which was nothing new, but at least I did it with a smile on my face for a change.

  “Looks like somebody finally got laid.”

  Craig, the only Pier One employee less productive than me, plopped down on a wicker settee next to where I was in the process of rearranging the entire Mountain Mist candle collection. He crossed his long, slender legs and leaned forward, studying me with eyelashes that went on forever. His Afro was cut short and bleached blond, just like Sisqo’s. Based on the number of times I had to hear him sing the “Thong Song” per shift, I’d guess he was a pretty big fan.

  I looked at Craig, and a smile split my face in two.

  “I knew it! You been mopin’ around this place for months, girl! Then today you come in here wit’ a little pep in yo step”—he snapped his fingers in the air for emphasis—“and I just knew. That girl got herself some D.” Craig stood up and placed his splayed hand over his heart. Then he leaned in so that no one else would hear. “But when that man showed up wit’ a gotdamn diamond ring, I was like, Shiiiiiit. B must ha’ dat bomb-ass pussy. Good for you, baby.”