by Emilia Finn
“Sounds like a shitty deal to me,” he grumbles. “You haven’t mentioned love yet.”
My heart swells with something I’m not ready to think about. “You’re a romantic?”
“If by ‘romantic,’ you mean I don’t think people should be forced into a marriage with someone they barely tolerate, then sure. Call me Prince Charming.”
I smile. “Or Tarzan, perhaps. Anyway, no, I don’t think love was involved for either of them. Just a shiny toy for him, and a prison sentence for her. But a week out from her eighteenth birthday, this other guy comes along and decides he wants her more.”
“Did he love her?”
I sigh. “According to my family, he was a rat bastard, but if you listen to town folklore, you would be assured they were very much in love. The first guy, the one that wanted a shiny toy…” I snicker. “His name was Shane Tosky. He was my grandfather.”
He grins. “Ouch.”
“Mmhmm. And the couple that were in love…”
“Bryan and Nelly Kincaid.” Now it’s his turn to breathe out a happy sigh. “I remember now. This came up a few years back.”
“It did?”
“Mm. Rumor has it the first Bryan Kincaid was so fuckin’ witty, he dubbed your grandpa Turdsky.” His entire frame bounces with laughter. “So, maybe it wasn’t the cleverest insult, but it worked just fine for the times. According to my grandma, Grandpa decided he wanted her more, he promised a lifetime of love and burning-hot passion. So the day of her eighteenth birthday, they split and left town.”
I nod and, for some crazy reason, enjoy hearing this story without the usual bitterness.
I’ve been conditioned to hear about how Bryan Kincaid was essentially a thief. A horrible human being. Trailer trash. But hearing this Bryan tell it, I hear the love in his voice, the admiration. The appreciation for those choices made a half a century ago.
“They came back to town when my dad was a toddler,” he continues. “They were married, my uncle was already in her belly. And the world simply… kept spinning for our family.” He pauses. “Well… until he died.”
I swallow the shame that slides into my stomach.
I vow to never tell him how my family celebrated that day. I vow to never reveal how ugly the Toskys can be.
“Yeah, well…” I exhale. “The world spun for the Kincaids, but my family enjoys bitterness, so I was raised to have a natural dislike for your kind.”
“And we were raised to not even think about yours.”
“So cold.” I laugh. “Jesus Christ, Bry. That stung.”
He chuckles. “Sorry, Turdsky. But it sure as hell made me feel better.”
He leans to his left, and bumps his shoulder against mine. “I think these are done.” He lifts his hands from my leg, turns them over to make sure I’ve cleaned them well enough. When he deems them satisfactory, he taps my leg and drops the sweatpants into my lap. “Change into these, and I’ll help with your knees.”
“What?” My heart spins out of control. “You can’t be serious.”
“You helped me. I’ll help you.” He turns on the couch and faces the kitchen. “Swap your jeans for the sweats. I swear I won’t look.”
“But—”
“And don’t worry about the window. We can see out, but no one can see in.”
“Are you…” I look to the window. “Are you sure?”
He nods. “Positive. Trust me. My family ensures their houses have one-way glass. If they didn’t, we’d see way more than we want to on a daily basis.”
My top lip curls back with the thought. I don’t recall anyone in my family so much as holding hands. No kissing. No ass pats. And Bryan’s talking about…
“Do you mean you’d see someone having sex or something?”
He snorts. “Having sex, or… ya know… other ways to while away their time. My family came from the original lovebirds that split town in the dead of night and eloped out of love.”
Standing on jelly legs, I slowly unbutton my jeans with shaking hands and pray he’s telling the truth about the window. “I don’t think it was the middle of the night.”
“Hmm?”
I push my jeans down, and hiss when they pass over my knees. “The story I heard was that they left in the middle of the morning. But that’s just semantics at this point, I guess.”
I drop back to the couch and work on unlacing and removing my shoes. The second they’re off, I shove my jeans off, and flick the sweats out so I can stab my legs inside. They’re far too big, baggy, and when I stand to pull them up over my butt, I have to tie the drawstring extra tight so they don’t fall off.
“You’re done.”
“Uh huh.” I sit again and begin rolling the fabric up. “All done. You can look again.”
“Oh, I know.” He turns back with a filthy grin. “I wasn’t asking. I was saying ‘all done’. I could see you in the reflection of my TV.”
My eyes snap to the flatscreen on the wall. Then back to Bryan.
I swing an arm out and smack his shoulder. “You asshole! You douchebag asshole!”
“Stop hitting me!” Laughing, he grabs my wrists and dismantles my attack. “I was kidding! Jesus, psycho.”
“Really?” My eyes flick from him to the TV. Back and forth. Over and over again. “Promise?”
“I mean…” He chuckles. “I could promise. Or I could ask to see that ink on your thigh again. Because I think I jizzed in my pants a little bit.” He releases my hands, and tugs the drawstring open. “Lemme see.”
“Absolutely not.” Huffing with indignation, I go to work rolling my pants up. “I can’t believe you looked.”
He shrugs and sorts through the paraphernalia on the table. Cotton swabs. Antibacterial. “Chicks wear underwear to the lake every single day in the summer. Maybe if you were naked, I’d have been more of a gentleman.”
“How did you know I wasn’t naked beneath my jeans?”
He stops what he’s doing and grins. “It was a risk I was willing to take.”
“You’re an asshole. Not all of the rumors are false.”
Shrugging, he grabs my right leg with a strong hand and flips it over his thighs so I’m half sitting on him.
My heart stops, my throat goes dry, and my eyes bulge as he gently pushes the pants up past my knee.
As soon as he sees my torn skin, his smirk turns to regret. “I’m sorry for pushing you over.” His eyes come to me. “Truly. That’s why women really shouldn’t even go to the tracks. It’s dangerous.”
“Misogynist opinion.” I lean against his shoulder while he gently – far more gently than I did for him – works on cleaning up my skin. “Good to know. I don’t have to feel quite as guilty now for believing my family.”
“I’m not trying to be a misogynist,” he murmurs. “I’m trying to keep you safe. The people at the tracks almost always end up starting a brawl.”
“The people at the tracks?” I ask. “Or… you?”
He laughs. “Touché. But to be fair, I don’t mean to start the fights. I just end them. Doing my civic duty and all that.”
“If it was your civic duty, then you’d stick around when the cops raid.”
“Getting out of there when the cops arrive has nothing to do with the law, and everything to do with the healthy fear a smart man has of his well-equipped, fighting machine, sass-filled mother.”
He peeks at me over his shoulder, since he’s basically hugging my legs while he works. “Kit Kincaid is not a gentle, tea-sipping woman, Maddi. Maybe the women in your life are, but around here, they’re terrifying. We’re not stupid men. We acknowledge and respect the sex that rules our home.”
“Evie told me to get changed into shorts and a tank when I was at the gym last week.”
He grins. “Yeah?”
I nod. “I agree the women in your world are terrifying. I nearly wet my pants.”
He chuckles. “She was testing you. She wouldn’t have hurt you bad. She doesn’t get off on fighting people
that can’t fight back.”
“So…? She’d have knocked me out only once, then left me alone?”
“She wouldn’t have hit you at all. She’d have taunted until you peed your pants, then she’d tell you to clean up the mess. Thus declaring herself the alpha, and setting you in your place.”
Yup, terrifying.
“I heard she’s a bitch too,” I whisper. I hate how his body tenses. How my admission makes him angry. “Like I said, my family considers bitching a sport.”
He swallows, and goes back to work. “I guess it depends on perspective. My cousin is a sweetheart, but she’s loud. She’s loyal, and fierce, and protective. And I guess, if you’re not the person she’s protecting, you’d probably consider her bitchy. She can be obnoxious.” Finally, he smiles. “But you’ve said that about me too. We’re loud, Maddi. And we like praise as much as the next guy. But Evie would never be cruel. She would never be bitchy for the sake of being bitchy. And while we’re on the subject,” he rails, “my sister ain’t a bitch either. She’s sweet, and kind, and innocent. She’s often chilling in her mind, thinking about adventures and fun things, which, again with the perspective, possibly looks like aloofness on the outside. But she’s not ignoring people for the sake of being a bitch. Mostly she’s just thinking of something else, and she’s swept up in that thing.”
“I’m sorry I let my family influence the way I think of yours.”
He shrugs and goes back to work.
The way his large hands slide over my legs, the way his strong fingers probe my skin… it’s sensory overload. His almost whispers. His nearness. His touch. The smell of his home, his sweat, a little blood… together, it makes my stomach hot, and my brain a little slow.
“It’s not your fault they fed you that bullshit. And there’s no way in hell my family is completely innocent in all things. We’re flawed,” he repeats my words back to me from earlier. “We make mistakes. But we’re good people.” He smiles. “And now you have a chance to form your own opinion.”
I let him work in silence for a few minutes. I control my reactions when he accidentally hurts me, and keep my questions to myself, though I want to ask about his life inside a family that openly loves each other. I want to ask him what it’s like to pursue your dreams – racing, and fighting – rather than do something corporate because that’s what’s expected of a young woman considering the rest of her life.
Instead, I lean against his arm, and sigh when he accepts my weight with a smile. I study his face in profile, his strong jaw, his stubble that I can now personally attest to being spiky. I study the lines in his hair where his hat presses in, and the bruising that blooms under his eye.
Jackson hit him back.
I groan at the thought, and draw Bry’s attention as his hands gentle.
“Did I hurt you?”
I shake my head. “No. Mostly, I was thinking about Jackson.”
This time his hand presses against my knee and sends me shooting half a foot off the couch with a pain-filled screech. “Ow! Bry! Stop.”
He lifts his hands in surrender, and breathes heavily through what I’m certain is another surge of adrenaline. “I’m sorry.” He swallows. “Shit, Maddi. I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head, like he needs to shake poisonous thoughts from his mind. “I just…” He pauses. “Don’t talk to me about Jackson Price, okay? I legitimately hate that asshole. With my heart.” He presses a hand to his chest. “I truly hate him, and it makes me sick to think that you and he…” His shoulders bounce with disgust. “No. Don’t mention him. I don’t wanna know.”
“Okay…” My voice is just a whisper. A shaking murmur. “I’m sorry. Are you…?” I try to peek around his broad shoulder. “Are you done?”
I attempt to pull my legs back, but he only holds on tighter and traps me on his lap. “You don’t have to go,” he grumbles. “I’m not done, and I’m not ready to send you home to him yet. Just let me…” He clears his throat and leans forward to snag a large bandage. “I’m not done.”
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to explain this once I get home,” I whisper.
I swallow when he brings his eyes to mine. “How do I explain to my family that I came here with you? How do I convince them that the world isn’t falling?”
He only shrugs and goes back to work. “I don’t particularly give a fuck about making them feel better. You’re on your own with that.”
“You get mean sometimes,” I sigh. “Inside, you’re this big old marshmallow who’s so in love with a seven-year-old that he refuses to read her scribbles in a tossed aside notebook. God forbid you lose a child’s trust.”
“You don’t know her, so I guess I can’t expect you to understand.”
“You have children’s toys strewn across your living room. You’re so gentle while you work on my leg, but you’re also the guy that watched me undress after he promised he wouldn’t look. You’re a complete jerk when people are watching at the tracks, and the moment I mention my family, you turn into that same guy.”
He only peels the paper backing off a bandage. “I’m just me, Princess. I do what I do, and the version you get depends on your behavior when you interact with me. If you’re my friend, you’ll never find a more devoted protector. But if you sit on my couch and wonder how you’re gonna explain to your boyfriend that he’s a pussy without hurting his feelings, then I’m not all that inclined to help. But…” He switches my legs and starts again. “For as long as you don’t talk about them, we can be pals. And for as long as you’re my pal, I’ll patch up your knees, be considerate of your feelings, and fantasize about your secret ink.” His eyes flash. “Does it go around to your ass?”
I turn to the window to hide my blush. “I guess you’ll have to wait until I’m at the lake in my underwear to check.”
“I’m stronger than you,” he rumbles. He reaches around and drags my face back so he can look into my eyes. “I could make you show me.”
I scoff, and hate – I loathe! – how his eyes flick down to my lips. “You wouldn’t.” My voice sounds stronger than I feel. Surer than I really am. “You would never do anything that would hurt me like that. You like people to believe you’re a badass.”
He scowls. “I am a badass.”
“Says the marshmallow with a seven-year-old best friend and a massive soft side that you hide from everyone.”
“Thinks she’s got me worked out,” he huffs. He turns back to my leg and continues to work. “You don’t know anything about me, Turdsky.”
I scoff and release the tension that had wiggled its way into my chest. “I know that you’re about as witty as your grandfather. It would seem you haven’t evolved at all in two generations. But I have, because having you trash my surname doesn’t bother me the way it bothered my grandpa.”
“Shitty name,” he adds with a playful grin. “Lucky you’re a chick. When you marry someone with a better name, you can take it and shake off your humiliating history. I’m sure your future man will be courteous enough to never rub your unfortunate upbringing in your face.” He stops. Stares deep into my eyes and grins. “Super unfortunate history.”
“You’re such an asshole,” I chuckle. “And in my circles, Tosky is the name we’d want to hold onto. The Kincaids, on the other hand, should probably bathe more often.”
“Oh!” he laughs. “Wow. Now we’re dirty trailer trash? Holy shit, Maddi. Do I stink?” He lifts the arm I lean against, and sniffs his armpit.
Damn, damn, damn him for wafting his deodorant, and filling my lungs with the sweet scent of man.
“Nope.” He lowers his arm and winks. “No stinky. Nice try though, Turdsky.”
“You’re an ass.”
When he places the second bandage on my knee, I remove my legs from his lap and… well… I feel kind of lost.
Standing, I grab the waistband of my sweats when I remember he undid the cord. “Um…”
He sits back on the couch like he hasn’t a single problem in
the world.
He doesn’t! He doesn’t care one bit about explaining to my family why I rode in a Kincaid car.
“I suppose I should get going. Uh…” I look around the room. “I’ll call a cab.”
He nods his agreement, opens his legs wide, and spreads his arms over the back of the couch. Zero problems. Zero cares. “Okay.”
Embarrassed warmth spreads over my cheeks as I study my things strewn to the floor. My shoes, my bag, my jeans. The hat I was wearing now sits on the table. My phone is nestled deep in my bag, probably ringing like crazy, but going ignored.
“Madilyn?”
Biting my thumbnail, I look back into his chocolate eyes and frown. “Yuh?”
“Wanna watch a movie with me?”
I nod. I hate that I nod, but I can’t stop my body’s instinctual reaction. “Yes.”
“Bathroom is upstairs, second door on the left. Run, pee, then come down and prepare to zen the fuck out with me.”
“Okay!”
I break away with a childlike glee, and worry at the way my heart tumbles when his chuckle follows me all the way upstairs.
I wake the next morning with a dead leg and barely functioning lungs. Frowning, I slit my crusty eyes open and reject the bright sunlight coming through the floor-to-ceiling window.
I remain utterly still. Move my eyes only as I peek around the messy room and find my jeans still on the floor. My shoes. My bag.
My eyes widen when I find a pile of male clothes on the coffee table; jeans, and a cream shirt with bloody spots. My breath comes faster with panic.
Or at least, it tries to, but my lung capacity seems half of what it should be.
“Relax, Turdsky.” Bry’s deep voice slides into my brain, then his fingers brush over my belly. His heavy arm rests on my ribs.
He’s the reason I can’t breathe. And when I try to lift my leg, I realize he has one of his on top.
“Take a breath,” he warns in a sleepy murmur. “Don’t scream, or I’ll get mad.”
“Why am I… What is…” I ignore his keep still rules, and try to turn in place. “What the actual fuck?”