by T L Swan
Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring.
“Pick up!” I snap. I wait for her voicemail, and then I hear her cheerful, husky voice.
Hi, this is Tully.
Leave a message.
I pause for a moment. “Tully, this is Brock. Call me.” I hang up, sip my beer and turn my attention back to the television, unimpressed.
I don’t wait for chicks to call me back. They always fucking answer my calls. This is annoying.
I had plans for us tonight.
10:00 p.m. now, and I glare at my phone on the coffee table. So, she’s not fucking calling me back, hey? What’s her problem?
This is a first.
I walk into the bathroom and tear off my clothes to get into the shower.
I let the hot water run over my head and down my face as I stare at the tiles.
An uncomfortable feeling comes over me as I scrub my body aggressively.
Fuck her, then. I don’t need this shit.
I do my last chin up and pant as I fall back to the floor, taking a quick glance at the front door of the gym.
With my towel, I wipe the perspiration from my face and neck. I check the time on my phone and stare at it for a moment.
It’s 9:30 p.m. on Monday night. Tully’s not here like she was all last week. She hasn’t called me back and I’m getting majorly pissed off.
What is her fucking problem?
I put my earphones in and lie back on the weight bench to do some flies.
I push the weights into the air as replay the last time I was with her here.
She was happy to see me, and then she met me in the bathroom. I was naked.
Then we…
I frown.
Maybe I was too much for her?
An uneasy feeling sweeps over me again. It’s the same one I’ve had since yesterday, and I don’t like it one little bit.
I push the weights into the air angrily. The sex isn’t her issue. It can’t be. She loved it. She loved every damn minute of it.
She came like a fucking freight train.
Then, why?
Maybe she’s got a boyfriend. I sit up and drink my water from my bottle as I contemplate that for a second.
I narrow my eyes and stare into space. No. If she had a boyfriend she wouldn’t have let me kiss her in the public bar the other night.
Fuck me. Fill me up. Her words come back to me. Oh, she wanted it, all right. I didn’t imagine that.
I sit up and stare at my phone again, clicking through to find her name. My finger hovers over her number.
Do I call again? Fuck it.
I dial her number and I sit, waiting as it rings out again. I clench my jaw. I dial again, and this time I wait for her voicemail.
Hi, this is Tully.
Leave a message.
“Tully, it’s Brock. Stop playing your stupid fucking games and call me back,” I snap. I hang up, stand, and grab my bag, heading straight for the door.
When she does call me back she’s getting a fucking mouthful.
I’m not putting up with her shit. I storm out of the door and throw my bag into my car. My phone rings and I scramble to pick it up. But the name Ben lights up the screen instead of hers. Fuck’s sake. I answer in a rush. “What?” I bark.
“Jesus, what’s up your fucking ass?”
“Nothing. What the fuck do you want?”
“I’m calling to see if we’re training in the morning, you fucking moody bitch.”
I roll my eyes. “Yep. See you at 5:30.” I hang up, annoyed, and scroll through my phone until I get to her name. My finger hovers over her name again.
No. Don’t call again.
I bite my thumbnail as I stare through the front windshield of my car, my leg bouncing as I think. I don’t know her surname. I don’t know where she works. I don’t know where she lives. I have absolutely no way of finding her unless I look her up on my work computers, which I have warned my staff against ever doing. It’s instant dismissal to trace someone and invade their privacy that way. I narrow my eyes, clench my jaw, and start my car in a temper.
I should have dragged her back to my house that night. What was I thinking, letting her leave? My fury begins to boil.
I can’t pursue this any further unless she calls me back or comes to the gym.
The ball is completely in her court.
And it fucking pisses me off.
I push the heavy weights up with my legs. It’s 6:00 a.m. now, and I’m in the gym with Ben, my closest friend. He’s not my closest friend because he’s been my friend the longest, because he hasn’t. But Ben was in love with my sister Bridget for five years from afar. He called me every week to check in on her and put her wellbeing in my hands. During that time, and with all those late-night phone calls, our guards were completely let down with each other.
We talked about shit that we don’t talk about with anyone else.
I suppose, because he had to share his weakness with me, I have shown him mine in return, it has grown into a deep understanding of each other.
He thinks like me, he feels like me. We just get each other.
He probably knows me better than anyone, and at a time like this, when I’ve got something on my mind, it’s impossible for him not to notice.
“Spill,” he says.
I push the weight in the air.
“Spill what?”
He gives me a sarcastic glare. “You’ve been a cranky bastard for two days. What’s your problem?”
“I don’t have a problem.” I huff as I stand.
He takes his place on the bench. “Bullshit.” He does his set.
I lie back down to do mine. “I’ve got the shits with that chick, that’s all.”
He frowns. “Who? Miranda?”
I roll my eyes. Miranda is a girl I see sometimes. She’s trying to make friends with my sisters to get to me and it annoys the hell out of me. “No, not fucking Miranda. I’m off her.”
Ben frowns.
“That chick from here. Tully, the hot redhead.”
A smile crosses his face. “Oh, her.” He sips the water from his bottle.
I clench my jaw. It annoys me that she’s so hot.
He lies down to do his set. “So, what’s the problem?”
I shrug. “You tell me. We hooked up. It was smoking hot and now she’s not returning my calls.”
“This is the time we talked about the other night when you didn’t close?” he asks.
“No. I saw her again.”
He smirks and raises a brow. “And?”
I shrug.
He smiles. “Where?”
“Here.”
“Did you close?”
“Slammed the door shut.”
He chuckles and does another set. “And now she’s not answering your calls?”
“Nope. And I don’t fucking get it.”
He thinks for a moment and we move to another weight bench. “Well… what happened?”
I shake my head. “We hooked up, it was white hot, she fried my fucking balls, and now she’s disappeared.”
He frowns. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” I think for a moment and I push the idea out of my head.
“What?”
I shrug. “I lost my head a bit.”
“You were rough with her?” He frowns.
“Rougher than I meant to be.” I run my hands through my hair. “She was just blowing my fucking mind, you know?”
He watches me carefully. “Did you hurt her?”
“What?” I shake my head. “No, I didn’t hurt her. She was fucking loving it.”
My face falls. “It was her…” My voice trails off.
“Her what?”
I wince. “I popped her cherry.”
His eyes widen in surprise. “She was a virgin?”
“No. God no.” I exhale heavily. “Anal.”
His face falls and he stares at me, deadpan, and then, as if unable to believe what he’s hearing, he bursts out
laughing.
“What?” I snap.
“You met a good girl in the gym, you fucked her up the ass in a public toilet, and you have to ask why she wants nothing to do with you?” He laughs out loud. “You are so fucking stupid.”
“She… she loved every minute of it,” I stammer.
He shakes his head in disbelief. “You can’t just take whatever you want from good girls like her.”
I frown.
“How long has it been since you were with a nice girl?” He stops what he’s doing. “A really good girl who doesn’t fuck around?”
I stare at him. I haven’t been with a good girl for years. I’ve forgotten the last one. I like my girls bad to the bone. “What relevance does that have with anything?”
“Everything.”
“Why?”
“Because you can’t take a good girl the way you want to. Not the first time, anyway. Not the first twenty times, actually.”
“What do you mean? That’s ridiculous, I’ll take them how I want them, and they’ll fucking love it.” What a ridiculous notion. I’ve never had a woman not want to come back for more.
“You have to train them up, they aren’t wired like us. You have to train their body and mind to take us how we want to take them,” Ben says.
“That’s bullshit. She loved it, came like a fucking freight train.”
“If she loved it, she’d be back for more.”
I stare at him, my mind a clusterfuck of emotions.
“Man.” He shakes his head. “If I tried that shit on Didge straight up I would have been dumped in a second flat.”
“You had to wait? I can’t believe that. Why would you wait for something you both want?” Wait. Didge is my sister. Disgust fills me. “I can’t believe we are having this conversation.”
He rolls his eyes, frustrated with my stupidity. “That’s the thing. Good girls aren’t wired to know that they want it. You have to show them how much they actually do. Slowly.”
I shake my head. “That’s not it. I know that’s not it. You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m telling you, she loved every minute of it.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Maybe? But, I married a good girl. Stan married a good girl—your sisters—and we both had to wait to do what we wanted in the bedroom.”
I curl my nose, crease my brows and groan out loud. “I do not want to know what you and Stan do to my sisters, and I don’t fucking wait for anyone. I do what I want in the bedroom, when I want.” I walk towards the bathroom.
“Brock!” Ben calls. I turn back to him.
“You fuck bad girls how you want because they only want your cock.”
I stare at him for a moment. “And what do good girls want?”
His eyes hold mine. “Your respect.”
“Got a minute?” Miller ask as he knocks on the door of my office. It’s later in the day, and my conversation with Ben has been at the front and centre of my thoughts all day.
“Yeah, what’s up?” I look up from my computer. “Take a seat.”
“I just got the records in,” he says as he falls into his chair.
“Ah, okay. Hang a sec.” I pick up my phone and dial the extension. Ben picks up. “Ben, do you want to come in here for a second? Miller has something.”
“Sure thing.”
Moments later, Ben walks in and takes a seat. “What did you find?”
“Okay,” Jes says as he opens a manila folder with the records inside. “So, I did a trace, and according to bank records, Mr. Chancellor withdrew money from an ATM on George Street on the days he made the calls to that number.”
“Same ATM machine?” I ask.
“Yep, every time, which indicates he went somewhere close to this autoteller.”
“Did you run the checks?” Ben asks.
“Yes. We hacked the hotels within a five-mile radius to see if we could get any idea on where he was going?”
“Any luck?”
“Not under his name, but on each day that he made a phone call and withdrew cash, a hotel room was booked at the Star Casino in the name of Webber.”
“Every time?” Ben frowns.
“Yep.”
“Bingo.” I smirk. “Dumb fuck used the same name.” I shake my head. “Honestly, some people are so thick. We need to get security footage from inside the hotel and find out who he was meeting.”
“Do you want to go down there now?” Jes asks.
I turn back to my computer. “Yeah, give me ten to finish this report.”
Jes stands. “Okay, meet you downstairs.”
It’s Thursday and I’m sitting in the car as I wait for Ben and Jesten to come out. I call Tully’s phone number for the fiftieth time this week.
My anger is at an all-time high.
How dare she not answer my calls? Who the fuck does she think she is?
The phone drops out without the call going through, and I narrow my eyes.
I dial again, and it does the same thing. She’s blocked my number.
She wouldn’t.
The boys come out and get into the car. I put my hand out to Ben who is now sitting in the passenger seat. “Give me your phone.”
He opens it and hands it over. I type Tully’s number into his phone and listen and it rings first go.
“Hello,” she answers.
My fury explodes. “Are you fucking serious?” I growl.
The phone clicks as she hangs up, and I punch the steering wheel with force.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jes cries from the backseat. “What the fuck, man?”
I rip the car into gear and take off out of the parking lot. I’m so angry right now, I can’t even see straight.
Ben’s clearly trying hard to stop himself from smiling as he stares through the windscreen, but I glare at him anyway.
“Who was that?” Jes asks from the backseat.
“Boss man got dumped.” Ben smiles sarcastically.
“Fuck off,” I snap as I take the corner with speed. “I do not get fucking dumped.”
Ben chuckles. “Oh, really?”
My furious eyes turn to him in the passenger seat again. “Don’t fucking bait me today, Statham. I’m in the mood to kick some serious ass.”
Ben and Jes chuckle, thinking this is a great joke.
We drive downtown towards the police station. The traffic is everywhere. “Fucking move!” I yell out the window.
“Jesus. Calm down,” Ben mutters under his breath.
Some idiot is pulled over to the side and is letting someone out. I put my hand on the horn. “These fucking idiots have no idea how to drive!” I yell out the window.
“Take a fucking chill pill,” Jes urges from the backseat.
I glance over to the sidewalk. There’s a restaurant there with tables and chairs out in the sun with parasols shading them. It’s packed with people.
I put my hand back on the horn. “Hurry the fuck up!” I yell out the window.
I glance back over to the restaurant and catch sight of something, and then I narrow my eyes. You have got to be kidding me?
Tully is sitting at a table with a man, eating lunch.
My anger explodes, and I yank the handbrake on. “Circle the block.” I get out of the car.
“What the fuck?” Ben snaps. “What are you doing?”
I leave the car in the middle of the road and I storm towards the restaurant. I barge through the door and up to Tully’s table.
Her eyes widen when she sees me. “B-brock?” she stammers.
I look down to the man she’s with. I’ve never been so angry. I grab him by the scruff of his neck.
“Leave. Before I fucking kill you.”
Chapter 6
Tully
Holy fucking shit, no.
“Brock!” I cry. “What are you doing here?”
“Move, fucker!” He growls at Rourke as he tears him from his seat and throws him to the side. Rourke falls onto the floor before he quickly scrambles to his
feet.
My eyes widen in horror. “Brock, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I don’t.”
Rourke goes to say something and stand up for himself, but Brock turns towards him like the devil, daring him to try. Rourke frowns, and then shrivels in fear. His eyes flick between the Brock and I. “I’ll wait outside for you, Tully.”
I glare at him. Wimp.
Brock falls into the seat opposite me and sits back in the chair. He lifts his chin and glares at me. My heart begins to race, and perspiration heats my armpits. He’s radiating thermonuclear energy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so angry.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I fold my arms in front of me. “Don’t you dare treat my friend like that.”
He leans forward and puts his elbows onto the table. “Shouldn’t the question be: what the fuck are you doing?” he growls in a whisper.
“I’m having lunch, what does it look like?”
Brock clenches his jaw. “Who’s that fucking guy?”
“None of your business,” I snap.
He slams his hand onto the table and I jump. “Do not fucking infuriate me, Tully.” He growls again. “And why the fuck aren’t you taking my calls?”
I narrow my eyes at him. Of all the nerve. He’s obviously never been rejected before and he’s seriously shocked. Well, I’m not playing his game.
“Because, I’m not interested.”
His eyes blaze with anger. “Now tell me the real reason.”
“What?” I whisper angrily. People are starting to look over at us now. I lower my voice. “You are so fucking conceited. I didn’t enjoy it, okay?”
He glares at me. “Bullshit.”
I shrug, as if unimpressed. I just need to rip the Band-Aid off and be mean to get rid of him once and for all.
“It was incredible. I was there, Tully. I know how it felt.”
My eyes hold his. It really was. I force myself to shake my head.
“You’re delusional. It wasn’t that great, Brock.”
“Cut the bullshit and tell me the truth.”
Of all the nerve, this guy is seriously out of line here. “Fine. It was okay. Very average, I guess.”