Games of the Heart

by Kristen Ashley

  I also saw No out of his room and he was staring at me, sleepy-alert too.

  I shook my head, whispered, “Stay up here,” then kept talking to Colt as I ran down the stairs. By the time I made it to the living room, Colt told me he’d be here “in ten” and he’d disconnected.

  Mike’s eyes came to me and the doorbell rang.

  “Me, cuffs then you get the door,” he ordered.

  I rushed to him, handed off the cuffs and ran toward the door telling him, “No’s up.”

  I was in the hall when I heard Mike shout, “No, down here!”

  I opened the door to see a uniformed police officer there. He opened his mouth to speak but I got there before him.

  “Mike’s in the living room. I think he needs you.”

  He moved immediately and I got out of his way. No nearly bumped into him as he rounded the stairs, his face pale, his eyes on me. The officer moved directly to the living room, his hand and mouth directed to the radio at his shoulder. I moved to No.

  “Your Dad caught some kids, vandals. They’re in the living room. Go to him, he wants you.”

  No nodded then took off down the hall.

  I was closing the door, not looking what I was doing when I met resistance halfway. I turned my eyes to it and saw another officer standing there.

  “Doin’ a perimeter search,” he muttered. “Mike okay?”

  I nodded, pulling the door back open. “Living room.”

  He moved past me and headed swiftly down the hall.

  I followed him.

  The next five minutes I focused on calming down and staying out of the way. I had to take time out of doing this when Rees hesitantly joined the proceedings. Then she stood close to me, holding my hand and watched like me, No joining us. The boys were now all sitting on the couch, hands cuffed behind their backs. One of the officers had gone out to his car. I kept my eyes on Mike who still was holding his gun loosely, his eyes glued on the boys and I could tell he was beyond pissed. He was livid.

  I was debating the merits of approaching Mike and gently taking his weapon from him because Mike’s couch was awesome, a big sectional, slouchy, comfy and bloodstains would probably fuck that up when the officer who did the perimeter search spoke and he did this to the boys on the couch.

  “Saw it outside, shit’s fucked up,” he noted, his voice rumbly. He was pissed too. One of his brethren had been targeted and it was clear he didn’t like that much. Then he asked, “What fucked up shit broke in your heads that makes you think that’s okay?”

  None of the boys spoke.

  Mike did.

  “I know you,” he said quietly, the quiet was a not a good quiet and I watched all three boys look to him. They were no longer looking belligerent. They had the attention of an angry Dad policeman holding a gun and now they were belatedly watchful. “I know you threw down with Fin. I know what you said to my girl. I know one of you tried to touch her.”

  Oh God.

  My hand in Rees’s got tighter.

  “Now you show up at my home, her home, my family’s home and do that shit,” Mike went on. “The bullshit you been pullin’ for months is not okay in any way. That shit outside is seriously not okay.”

  I was wondering what was outside at the same time not wanting to know when Mike kept speaking.

  “But I’m forced to do you a favor. See, I’m gonna make it my mission to be sure whatever punishment you get is the worst it can be. But still, I’m gonna have a sit down with Finley Holliday and I’m gonna see if I can talk him down from finding each one of you and ripping your good-for-nothin’ heads off.”

  Oh fuck.

  Rees’s hand got really tight in mine.

  The doorbell rang.

  “Stay here, both of you,” I whispered to the kids and took off down the hall.

  I opened the door to Colt, looked up in his serious eyes and informed him, “Living room.”

  He nodded, passed me and moved down the hall. I stepped out into the chill but still weirdly warm Indiana in April night.

  How I hadn’t seen it before opening the door, I had no idea.

  I saw it then.

  There was trash all over the bottom end of the front yard, the sidewalk and into the street. It was trash day the next day and No had rolled our bins out earlier. They were on their side, the bags open and all our garbage was strewn everywhere.

  But that wasn’t it. There were opened and unrolled condoms everywhere. Dozens of them. Dozens and dozens.

  I stepped out, scanned the area and stopped dead.

  My truck and Mike’s SUV were parked in the garage. In the drive was No’s beat up junker. And by the light of the streetlamps I could see spray-painted all over it crude penises and the words, Farmer Fin’s fuck buddy rides in this ride.

  I noticed another cruiser heading toward our house but woodenly, my brain feeling funny, heated, swelling, like my skull wouldn’t hold it in, my eyes feeling the same in their sockets, I turned and went back into the house. Then I walked to the door to the garage, opened it, swung in and nabbed my keys off the key holder that was on the wall. I pulled out, shut the door and walked into the living room straight to No who was standing close to his sister.

  I handed the keys and told him, “Go upstairs. Get dressed. We’ve got a long night. The minute your Dad or Colt tells you it’s all right, you pull my truck out and your car in. Yeah?”

  I saw curiosity mixed with alertness enter his face, he nodded, looked to his Dad who gave him a chin jerk then he took off.

  I walked in my short little nightie to where I could face the boys.

  “Dusty, you get dressed too,” Mike ordered but I looked down to the boys.

  “I know you three, I know exactly who you are, boys like you,” I said to them quietly. “And I know unless you make the decision right now, you will never change. You’re mean, useless, weak, pathetic rodents and unless you get your heads out of your asses, you will never be anything but mean, useless, weak, pathetic rodents. Not one thing good will happen in your life because you won’t deserve it. You’ll blame others but it’ll be you who makes that your reality. Right now, it’s not too late to stop being assholes. In a year, two, you’ll be fixed in that role for a lifetime and trust me, not anyone you know will think of you any differently. You’ll be known every minute you breathe on this earth to every soul who’s unfortunate enough to enter your atmosphere as the assholes you are. Wake up before it’s too late.” I started to move away but stopped and looked back at them. “And, personally, I hope Mike fails in his endeavors and Fin finds each and every one of you and teaches you the lesson you deserve to learn.”

  Then without looking at them again, I walked away, my eyes going to Rees and I called, “Come here, honey, let’s go upstairs.”

  She looked to me, nodded, we joined at the mouth to the hall and I walked her to the door of her room where I stopped her.

  “They’ve trashed the front yard and you aren’t helping with clean up,” I told her. “And when you go into your room, I ask you, please, do not phone Fin. Tomorrow, he can learn of this. Now, you read, you listen to music, you do whatever to settle down and go to sleep, but don’t call Fin and don’t look outside. Please.”

  “Is it bad?” she whispered.

  “Yes,” I answered honestly.

  “I can help,” she told me.

  “You can but you aren’t going to,” I told her. “Your brother and I have this.”

  “I –”

  “Go into your room, Rees, please. We’ll sort this.”

  “Is it about me?” she whispered, her voice trembling and I got close and took her hand.

  “Honey, the good news is, boys grow outta this stuff. The bad news is, you being so pretty, you have about three years left of it. They have no shot at you. They have no shot at being as cool as Fin. It ticks them off and they’re too young and too stupid to know how to deal. So they feel like making you pay for just being you. Sure, stuff like this happens amongst adults.
But by then you’ll have grown old enough and smart enough you’ll be able to handle it. Now, you let your Dad, brother and me handle it. And this is where you’re lucky because my guess is those kids down there have no one who cares about them enough to cushion them from anything. You do. Take advantage of it.”

  Her teeth worried her lip and they did this a while. Then she nodded.

  Then she said, “Okay, Dusty.”

  I nodded back, squeezed her hand and let her go.

  No came out of his room dressed and with his tennis shoes on. He gave me a look that told me he took his time to prepare for what he would see before hustling down the stairs.

  I turned to Mike’s and my bedroom in order to get dressed.

  * * * * *

  Mike hit the top of the stairs and saw the light coming from his and Dusty’s bedroom at the end of the hall. The door was slightly ajar and Layla was already nosing through it to get to him.

  He greeted her halfway with a rubdown then she trotted at his side as he walked the rest of the way.

  He barely had the door pushed open before he heard, “Please, God, tell me you threw the book at them.”

  He did not think he would smile so soon after what had happened that night and the fact that he’d spent the last two hours at the Station watching Colt explaining to three sets of angry parents that their children would not be released into their custody. They were being charged and they would see them in juvenile court the next day. Except Brandon Wannamaker who was eighteen. He would face his charges as an adult.

  But he smiled and this was not only at her words but that he’d come home at four o’clock in the fucking morning after dealing with that bullshit to see her in his bed looking like she was comfortable there, looking like she belonged there. She was smack in the middle, her back was propped against the headboard, her knees cocked and she appeared to be reading something.

  He’d waited a long, fucking time to come home from a shitty night dealing with shitty people to find a good woman in his bed waiting for him to get home and the beauty of that moment was not lost on him.

  Not in the slightest.

  Mike closed the door behind him, pulled the badge from his belt and tossed it on the dresser, saying, “They all have past run-ins with cops, there’s strong evidence they committed the other reported cases and they were caught in the act by me. The spray paint and another three boxes of condoms were found in their car as well as evidence that ties them to the other acts of vandalism. They’ve been detained and charged. Their asses are sitting in jail for the night and Wannamaker has reached majority. He’ll be facing charges as an adult.” Mike’s hands went to the buttons of his shirt as he explained, “It’s piddly shit, vandalism, destruction of property, but we can nail them on months of that crap. A judge won’t be lenient. Still, it’ll likely be community service. All of them have juvie files but Wannamaker just opened himself a sheet since his eighteenth birthday was a month ago.”

  “Community service isn’t the death sentence but I suppose I’ll have to find a way to live with that.”

  Still smiling, Mike tugged this shirt down his shoulders, glanced at the floor littered with Dusty’s clothes, thought about it for half a second then thought, fuck it, and dropped it on the floor.

  His hands went to his belt and he said softly, “Yard looks good. Thanks for doin’ that.”

  She nodded, reaching out to her nightstand to set her book aside and when she settled back, she replied, “No helped, as you know. What you don’t know is that you need to have a chat with him. Those boys hit school, he and his posse are gonna take action. Fin isn’t the only one who’s gonna lose his mind about this. No has already lost his. And I’m not talking about the unfun chore of picking up seventy-two condoms and, by the way, we counted. I’m talking about that shit on his car. And also not that his car is out of commission and why it is but what they wrote about his sister.”

  Belt undone, Mike nodded then he sat on the bed and went for his boots already knowing this would happen. His kids might fight but No loved Reesee and he was his father’s son. Shit was going to get ugly.

  He dropped a boot muttering, “I’ll have a word.”

  Then he finished undressing, tugged on the pajama bottoms he abandoned two hours ago and climbed into bed. Once there, he turned to his woman.

  “How’s Rees?” he asked.

  “Freaked, upset her brother and I were in the yard at two thirty in the morning cleaning up what I hope she still doesn’t know we were cleaning up. When I checked about half an hour ago, they were both out.”

  Mike drew in breath then rolled to his back and stared at the ceiling.

  Dusty rolled into him, pressing her soft body down his side and resting her warm hand light on his chest so he tipped his eyes to her.

  “They’re asshole kids, Mike,” she said quietly. “It took us less than an hour to clean up. The big thing is No’s car but he can use my truck. I’m rarely in it and I can use Rhonda’s car if I need to. She doesn’t go anywhere.”

  “Teenage war,” Mike replied and saw her blink.

  “What?”

  “Do you think for a second that anything I say or even you say is gonna stop Fin from seeking retribution?”

  She scrunched her nose.

  That meant no.

  “And do you think, even if I succeed in talking my son’s ass down, Fin corrals No, he won’t change his mind and go all in?”

  She pressed her lips together.

  That also meant no.

  “These kids are not good kids,” Mike told her. “I’ve seen a lot, Angel, and there are those you can look in their eyes and see that they might seek redemption. See that they might have somethin’ in them that’ll guide them to seein’ the error of their ways. The two minions do not have that. I’ll always give benefit of the doubt. Maybe someday they’ll sort their shit. But the decent person synapse does not fire for them. Wannamaker is a different story. Met his Dad tonight and he’s an asshole. Such a dick, swear to God, for a second I found myself wantin’ to take that piece of shit kid under my wing so he’d have some experience of a decent adult in his life. What’s broke inside him, his Dad broke. On top of that, he’s skinny, he’s got acne and if he didn’t become a bully, he’d be bullied. He looks in the mirror and for a variety of reasons does not like what he sees. It’ll take an act of God to sort his shit. This does not mean good things. Those kids get off on dicking with people. Fin and No without question, especially if their crews back them, can wipe the floor with those assholes. But that just begins bad blood that’s already simmering. I don’t find a way to nip this shit in the bud right now, we’re in for it. And whether you agree with this or not, normally, I’d let Fin and No deal. I’d advise but they’re both gettin’ older and they gotta learn to make the decisions that’ll lead them into the men they’re gonna be. What I do not like is that Rees is the target of their venom. That makes me jittery.”

  “You talk to Fin, I’ll talk to Fin with you and for good measure we’ll have Dad there. And I don’t know if you’ll agree to this or not but I suggest Rees be there. He looks to her to ease him. He cares about what she thinks. Honestly, of all of us, I think the person who he’d listen to most is her.”

  Mike looked back at the ceiling but he did it nodding. It was without a doubt that Finley Holliday had bonded with Mike’s daughter and thought the world of her. But this could swing two ways. She might talk him down or those kids might be persistent and Fin would do what he felt he had to do to protect her.

  Dusty was silent for a moment then she asked softly, “How did you nab all three of them at once?”

  Mike’s eyes went back to his woman. “Those kids are assholes but they’re not stupid. I didn’t go out the front, came at them from the side. They didn’t expect me and even if they did, they didn’t expect me to come from the side. When they saw me, they saw I was pissed. I trained my weapon on them and told them not to move a fucking muscle. They didn’t. Then I told them
to get down to their knees. They did. I searched them for weapons then I told them to march their asses into my house. They did that too.”

  Her eyes drifted and she muttered, “I would have run.”

  “And you did that shit to my yard, you woulda got shot at.”

  Her eyes sliced to his and she asked, “You would have shot them?

  “No, I would have shot at them and scared the shit out of them. They might have gotten away but they’d be runnin’ in dirty jeans.”

  She grinned at him, her hand sliding up to curl around his neck and her face getting closer as she whispered, “My alpha protective hot guy.”

  “Don’t fuck with a man’s yard.”

  Her grin got bigger.

  “Or his son’s car, no matter it’s a piece of shit.”

  Her grin turned into a smile.

  “Or his daughter.”

  Her smile died, her face got soft and her fingers tensed at his neck.

  Mike lifted a hand, curled it around the back of her head, pulling her to him and feeling her soft hair gliding across his skin. He touched her mouth to his then released the pressure and caught her eyes.

  “Shuteye now, darlin’. I’m wiped.”

  “Me too,” she whispered then pulled away to roll toward her light.

  Mike reached toward his and saw Layla was lying on the floor by his bed. No longer bed dog, now she was watchdog.

  Shit, he loved his dog.

  Instead of reaching to the light, he reached down and patted her rump. She twisted her head around to give him a look of appreciation but settled back, her eyes to the door, when he reached for the light, plunging the room into darkness.

  Instantly, Dusty snuggled into him again and Mike shoved a hand under her to wrap his arm around her waist.

  “I hope all this gets sorted before Hunter, Jerra and the kids get here for spring break next week. It would suck, vandals, kids fighting, sisters on a rampage, etc. was going down when we should be visiting and having fun,” Dusty remarked.

  “I get the sense, it’s not sorted, they’ll deal,” he replied.

  “This is true,” she muttered, settling with her head on his shoulder.

  “Sleep now, honey.”