Return of the Bad Boy

by Paige North

  He looks over at me, grinning from ear to ear. “I didn’t bring you out here to do that,” he says sheepishly.

  “That’s okay. I did,” I tease, smiling smugly at his astonished expression. “What can I say? I love your cock.”

  “I love you, Katydid,” he murmurs, bringing my hand to his lips and kissing it as we lie together, staring up at the bright blue sky.

  Chapter 14

  We ride back to with Dax’s hand resting in its proper place on my thigh and both of us sporting shit-eating grins on our faces. I’ve been drunk before, but I’ve never felt so high. I’ve always been scared about the future. But this time, for once, I’m excited about the possibilities.

  He tells me that when the offer is accepted he wants to begin work on the place right away, and try to open sometime in the early fall. He’s talking a mile a minute about his plans, and I realize it’s the way he is whenever he’s around a car he loves. But even so, I’ve actually never seen him quite this excited.

  “My parents sold their house,” I tell him. “They’re closing at the end of August. I was thinking of getting an apartment in town, maybe near the bar.”

  “Above Murphy’s?” he says. “Fuck that. That’s no place for my girl. Why wouldn’t you just stay with me in my apartment?”

  My girl? I smile, about to have a heart attack for the second time that day. That’s almost as astonishing as him telling me he loved me. “Because you never asked me to?”

  He grins. “I’m asking you. Damn, girl. Stop waiting for me to ask if you want something. Just take it. Like I said, you own me. I’ll give you everything I have and then get you anything I don’t have yet.”

  Oh, hell, that invitation is like a thousand birthday parties, all rolled into one. Except that the only thing I want is him, and I want it forever. I shiver once again and the thought of his cock buried deep inside me and say, “I’m kind of hungry. I didn’t have breakfast.” Or dinner last night, or lunch yesterday afternoon. In fact, that sesame bagel I stole from Fowler was my last meal.

  But the truth was, for the past day, I’ve only had an appetite for Dax. But now that that’s sated, if only for a little while, I feel ravenous.

  “Why didn’t you say so?” He hooks a right into the Denny’s—the one restaurant Friesville has— and pulls the truck into a spot in the crowded lot. I push open the heavy door. I’m already tasting the Grand Slam breakfast I’ll be having when I realize that Dax is sitting behind the wheel, frozen with his hand on his seat belt clasp.

  “What?” I ask, giving him a playful nudge. “Come on, I’m starving.”

  “You want to go somewhere else?” he asks quickly, but it’s too late. I’m already following his line of vision past the windshield, across the lot to a Jeep parked a couple rows over, in the back of the lot. It’s my dad’s. He rides the Wrangler in the summer with the top down and what little hair he has left blowing around. I’m about to wonder aloud why he’s here when I see a head with long, shiny dark hair in the passenger’s seat.

  At first I think I made a mistake. It’s just another army-green Wrangler that looks very like my dad’s. But then I crane my head a little to get a better look at the driver. It’s my father’s same, sandy windblown hair, my father’s same ruddy face that begs for SPF in the sun, the same mirrored sunglasses he wears everywhere. He’s talking to the mystery woman very animatedly, smiling a toothy smile that was missing the entire week I spent at the house.

  Then he reaches over, locks the woman in an embrace, and they begin to make out.

  My whole body rockets off the seat. I’m going to be sick. Dax is already trying to pull away, but I push open the door with the truck in motion, causing him to slam on the brakes and the truck to lurch forward.

  “What the fuck?” I shriek as I jump from the cab of the truck and stomp past the rows of cars toward the Jeep.

  “Wait, Katie!” Dax is calling from behind me, but I don’t pay attention. I stalk forward, watching my father going at it with a girl I’ve already determined to be a floozy of the first order. He has his hands in her hair and they’re completely oblivious to me stalking up to them until I reach through the opening and shove his shoulder.

  He jumps sky high. “Katie!”

  “What the fuck, dad?” I scream at him. People in the lot turn to look at us, but I don’t care. “Is she why you and mom are getting a divorce? Her?”

  He holds out his hands. “Katie, I was going to explain—“

  “When?” I shout incredulously. “I was home for a week and you never told me anything!”

  He pats the air in front of him, trying to get me to calm down. “Look. This is Patsy. I’m not moving to Colorado like I said. Patsy and I are getting married as soon as the divorce is through, and we’ll be living here.”

  I stare at him in horror. “How long have you been doing this?”

  He presses his lips together, so I know the answer isn’t one I’ll want to hear. “Since last summer,” he finally admits.

  I explode. “So a whole fucking year?” I snort. “Sure you were going to tell me.”

  He’s speaking softly and rationally, like he usually does whenever something other than Dax Harding is the topic of conversation. It’s so false, so fake. Everything about him is just phony. “Look. Calm down, Katie. I never wanted to hurt your mother. But this just happened . . .”

  Just happened? Hell no, I won’t be calm. I refuse to. After everything he’s had with my mom, he’s going to throw it away for . . . this? I study the woman, who’s looking genuinely sorry for me, as if she played no part in tearing my world apart. Pathetic. I can see what men see in her—she’s young, probably not much older than I am, and pretty—but I never thought my own dad would be taken in by that. I never thought he would be one of those cheating, home wrecking low-down assholes. He was one of the few good guys. I had him on a pedestal, and now it’s crumbling before me. Mom was mom. His one love. They were a team.

  I open my mouth to say something. But nothing comes out. Instead, I stifle a sob and hang my head. I think of everything I’ve ever done, running away to Boston, all those years of school. For him. To please him and live up to his expectations and dreams for me. My daddy.

  “Oh, Katie,” my father says, sorrowfully. “I—“

  I yank my head up. “No! Don’t say another word. All this time you’re lecturing me about what a big mistake I’m making with Dax? Well, it turns out you don’t know a fucking thing about relationships, if you think this--” I wave my hand and the woman in the passenger’s seat “—is a good idea.”

  I grab Dax’s hand and make sure my father can see that I’m with him, that we’re together. “This is what a good man looks like, Dad. He’s smart and loyal as hell, which you’d have known if you’d just taken the chance to get to know him. But you were more concerned with being a phony snob then what truly makes me happy.”

  My father runs his eyes over him, the same distaste leaking from them. But whereas a week ago, that kind of disapproval would have torn at my heart, now it does nothing.

  He’s wrong.

  My father is one-hundred-percent, totally wrong. About everything, it turns out.

  “I thought you were everything,” I sob. “Everything I did, I wanted to make you happy. But Dax is a million times the man you are. You pretended to put me and Mom first, but it was a lie. Dax actually did put me first, and now that I know the truth, I’ll never fall for your lies again.”

  My father’s face is ruddy, stricken. Before, I’d do anything to keep that look from his face. Now, I’m numb to it.

  Dax wraps an arm around me and leads me back to the truck. I’m sobbing, oblivious to everything around me, but it’s all crystallizing in my mind. Why my mother looked as him as if she hated him. Why she told him he had no business lecturing me about Dax. Why she couldn’t stand to be in the same room as him. My stomach is suddenly twisted in knots and I can’t breathe.

  I’m not sure what happens during the next few
minutes. All I know is that I end up at Dax’s house. He lifts me gently out of the cab of the truck and carries me up to his bedroom, where he places me on the bed and holds me close, letting me sob against his t-shirt until it’s soaked through. He doesn’t say a word at first, but he doesn’t have to. He just doesn’t leave, and that turns out to be all I need.

  I fall asleep in his arms, and have nightmares of my father and the dark-haired woman, driving away from my mother and me. When I wake, he’s sitting on a chair across from me. “Hey,” he says. “We missed breakfast. You still hungry?”

  I wrinkle my nose. No, I’m nauseated.

  He sits down on the edge of the bed. “You want to talk about it?”

  I shrug. “What’s there to talk about? My dad is a hypocritical asshole of the first degree. You saw that yourself. Everything I believed was a lie.”

  “True. But don’t go too hard on him, Katydid,” he says. “It’s like, we’re all born thinking our parents can do no wrong, right? But sooner or later we find out that they’re human. I learned that lesson when I was six, when my dad came in drunk and smacked me across the face, and broke my tooth. Your dad kept up the illusion for twenty-two years. My hats off to him. He had a damn good run.”

  How can he be so understanding and kind after the way my father treated him these past few years? I have to let out a little laugh, because I realize that character shows in time.

  My father has shown his character, and Dax, one again—is showing what he’s made of. And it’s pretty good stuff.

  “Was I just stupid?” I sigh.

  “Nah. All it means that as far as parents go, you’ve got pretty good ones,” he says, smoothing my hair behind my ear. “And I saw that look in your eye, girl. Don’t do nothing stupid like disown him because of this, okay? Give it some time.”

  Truthfully, I had been thinking of sending my father a strongly worded letter, telling him what an asshole he was and that I never wanted to see him again. I swallow and decide that maybe Dax is right. I need to think on it some more. I nod. “I think I am hungry, actually,” I tell him. “Do you have anything here? I don’t really want to go out.”

  He stands. “You’re in luck. I just went shopping and the mutants haven’t raided the pantry yet. Bacon and eggs?”

  I nod, my mouth watering, and manage a smile. He cooks, too? How did I get so lucky?

  Chapter 15

  Eric and Tom stalk around the side of the newly purchased building, looking pissed off. “This rat hole will take forever to fix up,” Tom says sullenly.

  “Yeah. Like, how are we supposed to work on that? In our free time?” Eric snorts. “I’m not fucking giving up my one day a week off to come and clean up here.”

  Dax punches his little brother’s arm. “God forbid your lazy ass gives up Cheetos and Xbox One Sunday, Turk.”

  His brother scowls at him. I’ve been living at their house for the past week, and it’s true. Eric spends most of his free time in the living room, his butt plastered to the couch, drinking beer and eating junk food. The room would be covered with dirty dishes and fast food wrappers if it wasn’t for me and Dax. Tom is different, though. He’ll be the one who helps out the most. But if we have to deal with their murderous glances every time we talk about this place, we’re not going to get far.

  Dax must know this, because he rubs the back of his neck nervously, then rolls his eyes to the sky, about half-a-step away from total defeat. It’s just been bitch-bitch-bitch since he told them his offer on this place had gotten accepted. He looks at me and I smile encouragingly.

  “Sixty thousand dollars,” Tom mutters to the ground. “If we split it five ways, we would’ve each gotten over ten thousand dollars, dude. I could’ve gotten that Camaro I wanted in Hampton.”

  “A fucking Camaro, Spar, really?” Dax snaps. “Why don’t you fix up that heap of shit Charger you just had to buy last year?”

  Eric says, “You had no right to take that money and—“

  “Listen, you two. I had every right,” Dax says pointedly. “I’m twenty-five this week. The trust is in my name. I and I alone got to decide how we spent that money. You’re fucking lucky I didn’t take it and spend it all on a Camaro for myself and tell your sorry, ungrateful asses to fuck off. This is for us to build something for our entire family’s future.”

  Eric’s mouth snaps closed. He looks at the building again, narrows his eyes and shakes his head.

  Vincent is sitting in the cab of the truck, ear buds stuffed in, listening to music on his phone. We couldn’t even get him to leave the truck. At least the other two got out, if that can be seen as progress. Vincent didn’t even thank Dax for setting aside the money for his college education. Dax said he wants to go the Camaro route, too. He has a new girlfriend he’s trying to impress, so all he’s been doing is making back-handed remarks about how Dax can have me, but god forbid anyone else in the family tries to get some.

  Without warning, Dax bangs on the side of the truck. “Wob! Out!” he shouts.

  Vincent doesn’t move. He mutters something about sucking his dick.

  Dax’s face turns rigid. He stalks around to the side of the truck, pulls open the door, and yanks Vincent out of the car. Vincent, deer-in-headlights, stumbles into the lot, then as he’s trying to straighten, Dax grabs the wires for his ear buds and pulls them out of his ears. The three brothers straighten into military ranks immediately. They know not to mess with their older brother when he’s pissed.

  “I don’t give a shit what you three think,” he barks at them, glaring at each one in turn. “This is what’s going to happen. Whatever we have to do, even if it means giving up your fucking blessed Cheeto Sunday for the next few months, we’ll make it work. Got it?”

  They all look at each other and then nod.

  I grin and reach into the back of the truck, pulling out a broom, mop, and a crate with other cleaning supplies. Dax takes the heavy crate from me and starts to head into the apartment so we can get to work. Now that we’ve closed on the property, Dax and I have every hope of staying in the apartment tonight and making as much noise as we damn well feel like.

  Dax suddenly switches direction and comes back up to me. He smacks Vincent on the head as I struggle to bring in another heavy crate of stuff. “Help her, Fuckface,” he seethes. “For god’s sake, show that someone raised you right.”

  Vincent glares at me as he takes the crate from my hands. The rest of them do the same as they stalk past me.

  I whisper to Dax, “I think they think I pressured you into this.”

  He considers this. “They won’t for long.”

  I follow him into the apartment, where he drops everything on the ground, picks up a broom, and bangs it hard on the ground.

  “Listen. I made this decision. Alone. And why? The old garage is falling apart. It needs a lot of work. The building needs a new septic system and all the equipment is shit. We could either invest the money in fixing that place up, or we look forward. We move onto bigger things,” he says to them, waving his arms around, his green eyes fierce. “We have to embrace change. This place isn’t just my future. It’s our future. Not just Katie’s and mine. Yours, too. Katie is a part of this, like it or not. But if you don’t like it, know that I’m going to make your life a living hell.”

  Their gazes all drop to the ground, rather than look at me.

  “Got it?” he barks.

  They all nod half-heartedly.

  As Dax takes his brothers back to the garage to start the workday, I have to grin. I throw my hair into a ponytail and get started. I work like a woman possessed on removing the thick layer of dust from everything, opening the windows and getting the musty smell out, and scrubbing every surface of all the grime. By the time Dax comes back, the sun is starting to set. I smell the pizza the second he opens the door.

  “Food!” I scream, lunging at him like a charging bull.

  He holds up a six pack. “And beer.”

  He looks around the kitchen. E
ven with all my hard work, it still needs a lot more TLC before its presentable. From the look on his face, I know he’s not thrilled. “It’s slow going, but we’ll get there—I promise.”

  He looks down at the floor. He grins appreciatively. “Floors look great.”

  He unbuttons and sheds his work shirt, then drops the pizza on the counter and starts to wash his hands at the sink. It’s funny, he’s standing there next to a pizza, and I haven’t eaten all day, and yet what I’m drooling for right now is him. I wrap my arms around him from behind and kiss him on one exquisitely sculpted bare shoulder blade. His body is so rigid. “You think your brothers are okay with this?”

  He shrugs. “They have to be, right? It’s done. I just have to work twice as hard to make sure it ain’t a mistake.”

  I know he will. Without him, Harding’s garage would’ve failed years ago. He took it upon himself to manage the books when it was failing. He was the one who worked extra shifts to keep things afloat. He was the one who paid off the debts his father had accrued. He will break his back to make this work.

  I press my cheek against the searing warm skin of his back, then run my hands up his chest, to his tense shoulders. I work my fingers into his muscles, and he stretches his neck and back and groans against me, finally letting out that breath he’s been holding all day. “That’s magic,” he groans.

  I coax him to turn around so he’s facing me, and I drop kisses down on his chest, slowly tracing my lips over his nipples and the soft dark hair there. Then, smiling at him, I walk my fingers down to his belt buckle and in one quick motion, pull is belt open. His eyes widen in surprise.

  I unzip his fly, shoving down his pants and underwear, finding him hot and hard and ready. I wrap my fingers around him, and his body jolts upright. He lets out an animal growl of desire, his breath ragged.

  I sink to my knees on the hard floor.