“Clobber?” Alex laughed, crossing his arms over his chest and admiring the way her hip popped out with too much attitude for that petite body to hold. If this woman’s ass got any firmer he would need restraints to hold himself from giving it a good squeeze. Where did that come from?
“Yeah, you know. Like The Thing?” Grocery store man chimed in, grinning. He had insanely bright eyes. My libido is going crazy. I’m even looking to men now it’s been so long since I’ve fucked anyone.
“I know but I can’t believe she just used that word in a sentence,” he joked, trying to keep himself from getting hard at the sight of these two beautiful people. Straight…I am straight.
“I know many words,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Anyway I came out to make sure you weren’t going to beat the shit out of the punk—better?—and my co-diner here came out to find me. And then we sort of just stopped to watch the show. You going to find some Boy Scouts to scare, now?” she teased, half turning to go back inside and giving Alex a better view of the perfect ass he was clearly having trouble not staring at like some creepy freak.
“Co-diner?” he asked, ignoring the Boy Scout comment and giving in to his need to tease her further. “You couldn’t just say your friend or boyfriend?” Alex knew he was being an asshole but he couldn’t help it. It was just too easy.
“Yeah…we just met today so those options are clearly not appropriate,” she muttered sarcastically, tugging at her braid and shifting from foot to foot to keep warm.
They looked like they’d known each other for much longer than she indicated. They just seemed so natural together. “Thanks for trying to talk the kid down. I appreciate it. Although I would have kicked him out even if he had gotten down on his knees and apologized to the entire dining room.”
“What did he do?” asked the man. Holy crap, Alex couldn’t get over those eyes. Were they sparkling? He could have sworn there was some sparkling going on.
“Harassed my hostess, who also happens to be my cousin’s daughter.”
“Is this a family-owned place?” Smurfette asked, pointing behind her.
“You could say that.” Alexis smiled with pride. He still couldn’t get over the prideful feeling of having something he had built on his own. “It’s my place, and my family helped open it.”
“This is your diner?” Smurfette asked with an excited bob he couldn’t help but grin at. He noticed the grocery man chuckle with a similar reaction. “I hope your burgers are good. I’m starving.”
“It’s after midnight,” her co-diner remarked with a smile.
“Yeah and I just got off work.” She poked her belly. “The beast must be fed.”
“What do you do?” Alexis asked her, walking back toward the diner with them.
“Tattoo artist,” she said.
“Nice. If you’re any good, maybe you can do my first tat. I’ve been thinking of getting one.”
“Sppff! If I’m any good. If your burgers are any good maybe I’ll give a five-cent tip.”
“Lady, you ain’t never had burgers as good as my burgers,” he said, making his New York accent thicker. “I’ll get you two a table and then you can decide for yourselves.”
It wasn’t until Alexis had personally sat them, taking them through each of the twenty burger options and explaining why each one was the best burger in the world, that he realized the desire in his belly was still churning and it ramped up every time he looked at the man and the woman.
As he went to the kitchen to personally prep the sides and pick out the burgers, he thought to himself that he should probably learn their names.
* * * *
Colton was a little confused, if not aroused. Which was confusing in itself. After taking his dad home, he had tried to get him to talk about who the girl with blue hair was, but he just clammed up. His dad had only ever clammed up like this when asked about the details of the night he was paralyzed. As much as Colton didn’t want to admit it, he knew the two incidents had to be connected. To this day, he was sure his father hadn’t told him all the details of the night, but if this girl was the key to putting all the puzzle pieces together, he would do anything to get her to offer up information.
He was also crazy hungry after hearing about twenty of what sounded like the world’s most amazing burgers. He really wanted to talk to the owner of the diner more, his dark grocery store rendezvous stranger. He wanted to look into those black eyes and run his fingers through that silky, slightly sweaty black hair, then squeeze those amazing biceps. Holy shit those biceps. Holy shit that ass! He wanted to bite that ass. He wanted to fuck that ass. He wanted to bite and fuck the girl’s ass, too. Which was part of his confusion.
He wasn’t confused about wanting both a man and a woman. Colton had known he was bisexual since his teenage years. What was confusing was that he’d never had such a strong need for more than one person in a matter of hours. And now they were both in the same building and he couldn’t stop the erotic images flashing through his brain of the man and Bleu, one sucking his cock and the other sucking his balls. Oh fuck, he needed to adjust his jeans to make room for his now unyielding hard on.
“So…” Bleu began, looking toward the kitchen where the dark-haired grocery stranger had disappeared. Colton still couldn’t believe it was him and he now had some frame of reference for him that didn’t involve a grocery store. He had often fantasized of seizing that man by the lapels of his jacket and shoving him against the displays, thrusting his tongue past those lips and tasting him, cereal boxes falling down amidst the chaos of their passion. OK, so maybe he got a little carried away about it, but it was still hot. Add to that a little fireball with blue hair and curves for days, and the fantasy went from hot to volcanic.
“So,” he replied, eyes flicking to her hair and back. “Bleu?”
“Yeah?” she replied, thinking he was addressing her.
“No I mean…your name is Bleu…and your hair is blue?”
“Yeah.” Her response was monotone, clearly familiar with this line of questioning.
“Seriously?” He couldn’t help but laugh, placing his palms on the table.
She rolled her eyes. “Yeeaah. Don’t ask.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I like the hair. I really like it. But your name is Bleu!”
“B-L-E-U,” she clarified, shrugging out of the leather jacket and revealing a simple, long-sleeved black T with a long silver chain dangling over her breasts. “It’s a Cajun name. Anyway, what kind of name is Colton? You realize your nickname is also a term for a baby horse, yeah?”
“We’re talking about your name, not mine. It doesn’t matter how it’s spelled, it’s still pronounced Blue and you opened a huge can of worms with that hair color.” He liked how the blush in her cheeks offset the color of her freckles, making them more pronounced. He’d like to lick and kiss those freckles till the blush spread throughout her body. “But I really do like the color. This might sound crazy but it just suits you. You can call me Colt, by the way.”
“You want me to call you baby horse?” she joked. He stuck his fingers in his water glass and flicked some liquid at her in response. She grinned, dodging the halfhearted attack.
“OK.” He decided to accomplish what they came here for. “Just tell me this horrific thing you have to tell me so that we can get past it and treat this like a date.”
Her shocked hazel eyes locked on his and the blush became even more pronounced. Unfortunately, the cute shock melted into what was clearly guilt. She shook her head in denial, looking like she wanted to bolt.
“No. No date. This is not a date and I’m sure I’ll be paying the tab, which I deserve, after you storm out when I tell you why I am the reason your father is in a wheelchair.” She tensed, no doubt waiting for some sort of shocked reaction.
Colt just furrowed his brow. “My father was shot by an alcoholic who was beating his child on the roof of their house. How could that have possibly been your fault?”
She took a dee
p breath, then looked him square in the eyes. “Because it wasn’t the asshole’s house that your dad was called to that night. It was the bar across the street.”
“What?” He’d never heard this before.
“I, as I told you, am a drug addict.”
“You said you were clean.”
“Once a drug addict, always a drug addict. The fact that I haven’t taken so much as a Midol in nine and a half years doesn’t make a difference.”
He didn’t like how she brushed aside her accomplishment of getting clean and staying that way. “It does—”
“It doesn’t. Trust me, I’m sort of a pro on this. Anyway, that night was the low of the low points for me.” She laughed morbidly at herself. “There were a lot of lows. I had taken a bunch of different shit, walked to the bar near my house and then proceeded to drink for about fifteen minutes before the world began to crash around me.”
“You overdosed?”
“Um…more like had a psychotic episode. I don’t remember it exactly, but apparently I smashed the bottle I had been drinking from and—”
“Did you hurt someone?” He leaned forward, wanting to know not only about the missing puzzle pieces of his father but why this beautiful young woman looked as though she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. Then he remembered the scars on her ears, and he knew she hadn’t hurt anyone other than herself.
She shook her head, not meeting his eyes. “No, just me.” She took her hair and pulled it back from around her face. It was then that he saw the scars around both her ears in better detail. They almost looked like burn scars, distorting what used to be her ears so thoroughly they were pretty much unrecognizable. If it weren’t for what remained of the tips of her ears, which looked like someone had cut or shredded them, he wouldn’t have known what had happened.
“Holy shit.” They both turned to see dark-haired-grocery-stranger-now-diner-owner with four plates of food balanced precariously on his arms. He quickly placed the food on the table and sat next to Bleu to inspect her ears. She tried to fluff her hair in front of them once more but he swept it back.
“Hey!” she cried, not wanting him to see and flicking her hands out to ward him off. “Boundaries, dude.”
“I’m sorry.” He pulled back before Colton could tell him to back off. “I’m sorry. I just…this is really weird.” He looked between Bleu and Colton, a lost, somewhat confounded expression on his face. He scratched his sexy five o’clock shadow, floundering for something to say.
“It’s not weird. They’re just scars,” Bleu said defensively.
“No, I don’t mean your scars. Shit. I’m sorry if you thought that’s why I reacted. Please tell the rest of the story and…oh fuck,” he muttered almost manically, making Colt a little nervous about leaving Bleu on that side of the table with him. “What are your names? I heard some of what you were saying and I just…I just need to know.” The guy looked like he was in pain waiting for their answers.
“Bleu Leroux.”
“Colton Evans.”
“Any relation to Officer John Evans?” His eyes squeezed shut, looking like he dreaded the answer.
“My dad.”
“Fuck. Sorry. Please continue.” He settled into the seat, clearly intending to listen to their very personal conversation.
“What the hell is going on?” Bleu asked, looking back and forth between Colton and the hot diner owner.
“Just please continue, Bleu. But wait…Blue?” he asked, breaking his agitation to make fun of her name. It annoyed her but she relaxed at the familiar banter.
“Ugh. Spelled B-L-E-U.”
“Yeah, still weird. Keep talking.”
She continued in a rushed manner, annoyed at the interruption and just wanting to get it over with. “So I shoved the fucking glass shards in my ear and Dan, who owned the bar, called your dad after calling 911, knowing he was home and that he lived nearby. Your dad came to the bar and was able to staunch the bleeding. He saved the majority of my hearing. He saved me. I also began to puke up everything in my stomach, which was just acid and Vicodin at that point, and he turned me on my side so I wouldn’t choke on it.” She swallowed, shivering at the memory. “If I hadn’t been some fucked-up junkie, your dad would never have been called there to help me.” The brashness left her voice and there were tears in her eyes when she finally looked back at him. “I’m so, so sorry, Colton.”
“Why won’t Dad talk to you?” he asked, not addressing the story just yet.
“I don’t know, honestly. At the beginning, when he and I were in the same hospital, I would creep over to his room and try to thank him for saving me. I was weak as a newborn at that point, having just detoxed, but someone told me he was there and I knew I owed him my life. I have been trying to tell him thank you for so long. I would do anything just to speak to the man who turned my life around. I want to prove to him that his sacrifice wasn’t for nothing, that I’ve made something of my life and I’m helping others like he helped me. For some reason he won’t talk to me, he won’t see me.” Dark-haired-stranger reached over and squeezed her hand, seeing she needed the comfort. She smiled in thanks.
“I had no idea,” Colt said, taken aback by this revelation. Why had his father never said anything? In the end, it didn’t change much, he had still been shot and he was still paralyzed. What was so important about keeping this woman from their knowledge? “None of us had any clue. I don’t even know if my mom did. None of us knew about you. We thought the call was for the abusive father. We were eating dinner when he got the call.”
“I’m sorry, but this is so crazy.”
“Stop.” He reached for her hands across the table and gripped them, enjoying how petite she was, even during this mess of a situation. “Stop this. I don’t know why you did drugs, what excuse you gave yourself to make it OK to find that sort of escape. You didn’t know that would happen. You couldn’t have possibly known my dad would see the asshole across the street. Anyway, if he hadn’t gotten that call for your case, that kid would probably have been beaten to death by his dad…and you would have died. You’re right though, look what you’ve done with your life since then. You’re amazing. My dad would think so to if he would pull his head out of his ass. Although I think that’s just a symptom of old age. Head-in-ass syndrome. Be careful, it’s contagious.”
She smiled sadly, appreciating his attempt to cheer her up. “Thank you for your understanding.” She looked at the diner owner, who during her story had placed his arm around her shoulders for comfort. “Want to tell us why you look like you’re as torn up about this story as we are? Who are you?”
“Uh.” He cleared his throat, snatching up Bleu’s burger and taking a bite.
“Hey! That’s my burger. You’re stress eating!”
“I’ll make you more.” He chewed and took another bite, seemingly anxious as to what their reactions would be. Not unlike how Bleu had been stressing moments before.
“Listen, grocery store guy, if you don’t tell us what the fuck is going on we are gonna tell the owner some weirdo is impersonating him.”
He grinned slightly then took a drink from her water.
“Grocery store guy?” Bleu asked Colt, eyebrow popped in question.
“We’ve seen each other at the grocery store before.”
“So you know each other already?”
“Not by name…” Colton looked at Alex expectantly. “Speaking of names?”
He put down what was left of her burger. “My name is Alexis Mirskii.”
“Holy shit.” Colt heard Bleu murmur over the cacophonous buzzing going on in his head. Mirskii…the name of the man who shot his dad.
“Fuck.” Colton curled his fingers into fists, feeling the bite of nails against his skin. He tried to temper his anger, tried not to blame or lash out at this man who was no more the villain than Bleu had been. His control, unfortunately, could only be stretched so far. “Do you know where your father is? If you know, and you’ve been hid
ing him, that’s harboring a fugitive—”
“Do you think I want to know where that bastard is?” Alex said calmly, not even retaliating against Colton’s misplaced anger. “If I knew where he was, I’d be the first one to report him to the authorities.”
He couldn’t believe he was sitting across from the son of the bastard who shot his father. And what’s worse? Colton had been fantasizing about this guy for months and he turned out to be the boy on the roof this whole time. He wanted to be pissed at him, wanted to think the guy had been deceiving him somehow as they had waved to one another in the grocery store aisles. But back in the real world, Colton only had to take one look at how racked with nerves the guy looked to make him remember that he had been a kid at the time. A teenager who was being beaten to death by his own father. It wasn’t his fault. It would never be his fault.
“You’re the boy?” Bleu asked gently after Colton calmed a bit and began to focus. Bleu was brushing a strand of hair out of Alexis’s face, making him turn to look at her. The tender gesture tugged at something in Colton’s heart, reminding him of the strange and sudden lust that seemed to amplify when he watched these two together. “The one on the roof?”
“I heard the sirens at the bar and looked out my window. The people coming out of the bar were saying that some girl had gone crazy—” He looked at her apologetically but she waved him on to continue. “I wanted to get closer to know what happened. My dad never liked me hanging out on the overhang above the porch. It was also an easy escape route that I used so I could get away from him.”
“So that night wasn’t the first night he…” She trailed off, hesitating to complete the sentence.
“Beat the ever-loving shit out of me?” He grinned morbidly. “No. But I’m pretty sure it would have been the last if your father and Rob, the bouncer at the time, hadn’t stopped my dad and saved me. Colton,” Alexis said, finally turning those inky eyes back to him. “If I hadn’t gone out on the roof—”
A Different Kind of Perfect (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 4