“And what? You decided to come on over and fix the poor weak little girl?” I sneer, thanking the waitress when she gives me a new drink.
I down my almost-flat rum and coke and moan when the new one is fresh and cold with just the barest hint of lime the way I like it.
“Nope. I’m just curious as to why a woman who once swore to live like it was her last day is sitting in a bar on a Thursday night, re-breaking up with some loser who hasn’t grown his first pube yet, and snarling at anything that moves. Like I said, Mika, it isn’t like you, and it’s curious. So, why don’t you just cut the shit and talk? What harm could it do?”
Uh, what harm? This coming from the guy who told me the first time he met me a few months ago that I was playing the cancer card when I moved in with Leila and didn’t have a job the next day?
Uh, let me see…why wouldn’t it turn out harmful for me?
“What do you care anyway, Hawk? You don’t even like me, and don’t argue. It’s blatantly obvious. You leave whenever I walk into a room. You are always rude to me and snappy when I’m with your family. And let’s not forget that you humiliated me in front of your parents when they invited you to dinner and you told them you’d rather eat nails than be around me.”
That hurt, okay? I may have a tough outer layer, thanks to the illness I had to endure for so long, but I have feelings, and he hurt mine. I don’t know what this guy’s problem with me is, but I am no glutton for punishment, and I’m not about to confess and bare my soul to him just so he can call me a loser.
“I don’t dislike you. I just don’t understand why you lie to everyone you purport to love on a daily basis,” he says reasonably, at least sounding that way even if his statement is complete crap.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Hhhmm,” he drawls, taking another glug of beer while watching me glare at him darkly. “That brokerage job? Never existed. The test results the doctor gave you last month? Unlike everyone else you conned, I actually looked at the readout. It’s two years old.”
Oh crapsickles. He’s right, but give me a break. The insurance that I get working for Wylder’s only kicked in recently, and I wasn’t about to shell out fifteen hundred bucks to see a specialist all the way in Ohio. So, what if I stayed at home for two days and used an old test? I was just so tired of always doing what makes everyone else happy instead of living my life.
I don’t want to think about having cancer every day for the rest of the life God gifted me with. Is that too much to understand?
“Oh, and you haven’t ever lied before to get everyone off your back?” I ask, hating that I feel shame when he keeps staring at me steadily.
“Sure, but not about something this important, Mika. You have to know that—”
“What? They love me and only want what’s best for me? That having me reminded every six months of a time that was a living hell for me is better than them sitting at home wondering if the big dreaded C is back? What about me, Hawk? What about what it feels like for me to constantly be reminded of it? Do you think I enjoy chewing myself up for two days twice a year waiting for those results?” I ask, wanting him to understand because no one else will and this feeling is just such a burden now.
Yeah, I do feel bad for lying, and yes, I wish I could have gone to that freaking doctor just to make them all feel better, but no one, not one of them, ever offers to go with me and be there in that moment when I wait to see the doctor’s expression.
Not one of them will ever understand that I go through terror every single time, my first thought not for me but those who will have to watch me go through that again.
“No. I think it’s hell for you, and I know that after you come back from having those tests done, that you walk around in a daze for days. It must be hard for you, Mika. I get that, but my question wasn’t about you lying, babe. I asked why you lie to them. If you don’t want to do this shit twice a year, then don’t, but tell them that, and tell them why.”
Oh, he says it so easily, but he doesn’t understand what will happen if I do that. Mom will start crying, Dad will call and cuss me out for being selfish, and poor Leila will just give me a hug and say it’s okay. But inside, she’ll never stop wondering.
“I can’t do that, Hawk. You just don’t understand, okay? My family went through a lot when I was sick, and now that I’m not, they just…they worry constantly. And I feel guilty because if…”
I can’t finish because I really don’t want to talk about this with him. I want to finish my drink, go home, and watch Grey’s Anatomy before I have to go to work in the morning.
“If?”
“Look, Hawk, I really appreciate you coming over and taking the time to psychologize me and everything, but I’m done talking about this with you. It’s none of your business, okay?” I say, finishing my drink off in inelegant gulps before standing and waving the waitress over to pay.
Hawk drops a few bills on the table and rises too, grabbing my hand when I go to pass him.
“I’ll drive you home, Mika.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“You aren’t. You just had two double rum and cokes. You can’t drive.”
Shit. I’m not even a little tipsy right now, but he’s right. If I drive now and get pulled over, it’s a DUI and lockup.
“Fine! Just don’t do that talking stuff in the freaking car, okay? I don’t want to talk about this,” I warn, stomping to his big black truck and hopping up when he opens the door.
“Okay,” he says equably. “Tell me why you broke up with the blond baby,” he laughs, starting the truck but just sitting there with one arm on the wheel while looking at me.
Darn it. It’s none of his business, and I don’t want to talk about that either, but I look back at him and see that hard determination he’s always carrying around and flinging at people, and I am not in the mood to fight with him now.
He’d win. Hawk always wins his battles, and besides, it’s not like it’s a huge secret.
“We didn’t gel, okay? He wants partying and fun and sex in a tent at a music festival. He wants threesomes with his girlfriends and me.”
“And you?”
Why are his eyes so penetrating, I ask myself, looking back at him in the darkened truck and seeing him, the man, not the scary-ass guy I avoid at all costs.
God, the man is sexy, I think, licking my lips when it sinks in that I could so want him. You know what I want? Good sex. That sounds bad and like I’m loose or something, but it’s true.
All I want is to have some good sex with someone who won’t try to marry me the next morning and swear their undying love as if what we did was magical.
I want an easy relationship with a man who understands me and doesn’t hear that I had cancer and freak out like everyone else does. I want to live my life without people watching me under a microscope as if any minute one cell will mutate and I’ll just drop dead.
And yeah, I think as the rum and coke settles and makes me languid, I really want Hawk. Have wanted him for a long time. But telling him that…not a good idea.
I see the man at least four times a month, minimum, and then only that little if he’s out of the country on a job. Otherwise he’s always around. Growling and grunting all over the place. Mostly at me.
“I want to go home,” I say after a beat, turning to face forward and look out the windshield into the darkness.
Hawk sighs and starts the truck without argument, a new development for him because the guy doesn’t just give in this easily. It makes me stop to wonder why, but I shrug it all off, just glad that he’s not pushing me tonight.
Yeah, I want him. I have wanted him since I saw him. The man is big and has all this dark-brown, almost-black hair that he wears just a little longer on top and curls a little over his eyes. Eyes a deep, light blue, unlike his brothers, who have darker shades. Leila jokes that his eyes are lighter because he’s so cold, and I laugh, but I think I like them more.
The drive
is done in silence, and I grab the door handle when we get down my street, ready to jump out and thank him as soon as the wheels stop turning.
I don’t get to though because he grabs my arm before I can move and leans over to pull the door closed. His face comes very close to my boobs, so close I feel my nipples tighten up when his warm breath breezes over them.
The position takes only a second, but I feel him, and I’m so aware of him when I look up, pulling away because if I don’t, those rum and cokes will make me do something I shouldn’t.
“Hawk.”
“Why? Why are you so sad and alone, Mika?” he asks, locking the doors with a push of the button when I growl and go for the handle again.
I’m trapped, and he’s looking at me in a way that tells me I’m not going anywhere unless I talk to him and confess all my disgusting feelings.
I really do not want to, not tonight when I feel vulnerable and horny and a whole mess of things that I don’t want to feel.
Sad and alone? I don’t feel sad and alone. I just feel stuck. I feel as if I’m trapped in a life I don’t understand and can’t get out of. I want…more, and I don’t know how to get it or even what more is.
I’m stuck, but explaining it to Hawk of all people is not happening, not tonight, not ever.
“I’m not sad and alone, asshole. What is this? Why the sudden brotherly interest?”
He pauses and looks down at me because, yeah, he’s massive compared to me and blinks.
“I’m not your brother.”
“Nope. So, let me out, and mind your own goddamn business.”
He narrows his eyes at my snarl but releases the doors, and I bail out with a muttered curse when I almost fall, catching myself and blushing as I slam it closed and go for my door.
I get inside without incident and lean back against the closed door, not bothering with the light. I’m relieved that Hawk hasn’t pressed for more, the man usually much harder to shake than this.
He’ll be back though, of that I am certain though I can’t say why.
Chapter Two
Hawk
I push myself harder, bench pressing what feels like an elephant before Jake helps me lift it to the bar and comes to toss me a towel and bottle of water.
I’m sweating, my arms and legs are on fire, and I’m just plain annoyed and mad at the world today. I didn’t sleep for shit last night after I took Mika home, my need to go back and fix her making me lie sleepless all night.
“What’s up, man?” Jake asks after the silence becomes too hard.
People usually can’t be around me and stay quiet. It makes me tense because sometimes I just want silence, but for whatever reason, people get antsy when I don’t talk.
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Hawk. This is me, my brother. I’m the one guy you don’t intimidate, and I don’t give a shit if you get annoyed or growl and scowl at me. You’ve been a worse asshole than usual lately.”
I drink my water in huge gulps and swipe the towel over my brow and nape, leaning my elbows on my knees. I’m tired and yet unable to stop thinking of Mika.
She looked so despondent last night I almost left the truck and went in there after her. I may not like being around Mika for reasons of my own, but she’s family, and when family is down, you give them a hand and pick them back up.
“It’s Mika,” I mutter, tossing the towel away and looking up at him where he’s sitting on the bench across from mine.
Jake is one of my best friends. Between him and Leila, I’ve hit my quota at two, and I aim to keep it that way because the truth is that I don’t give a damn about being Mr. Popular or having a gaggle of people hanging on my ass.
Mika though. For reasons I won’t explore, I feel as if I can’t just walk away from her when it’s clear she needs someone. Not that I’m exactly that ideal person to be around her, not with the shit I feel and think every time she’s near.
But no one else is stepping up. I understand that she’s not about to burst Leila’s love bubble, and I get that Lay herself doesn’t see anything at the moment but Lyon and the life they’re building together.
Love is a strong emotion that sorta blanks out everything and everyone else when you’re just feeling it for the first time or renewing it again. I get that, but now, with Lay not being around for Mika, every time I see her, she seems so…dull, as if the shine is wearing off day by day.
One of the things that I liked about her from the get-go was her loudmouthed attitude and her ability to laugh and cut people down with just a word.
It’s hilarious to see a woman standing five three, if even that, making a grown man tremble in his boots. I can only do that because I’m a big, scary SOB with eyes that can freeze a soul.
Mika does that because there’s just something about her attitude that lets a man know she’ll fight dirty and take a chunk of you without a thought.
Now, though, she’s just so uncaring. I see her sitting in her office on whatever site Lynx and Pop are working, doing her job but just being there on autopilot, as if she’s functioning but not really there at all.
I don’t like it. I don’t know why or why I should even care. The woman irritates the shit out of me when she’s flitting around with men and laughing about her vibrator being the better option.
She’s too saucy and sassy and, yeah, blasé about life for my liking, especially for a woman who almost died. It pisses me off whenever I see her, and I have to witness the lack of caring and regard she shows when, to my way of thinking, she should be climbing mountains or doing something truly great in thanks for the miracle of her life.
And here I am, feeling like an ass because she’s hurting and I can’t fix it.
“What’s up with Meek? She still going out with that ass?”
“Nope.”
I laugh as I say it and catch Jake’s eye, my own sparkling with the memory of her parting shot to the patrons of that bar. Lesbian. The woman is hilarious.
“Thank God. Brass met him when they bumped into her at some music thing a few weeks ago, and he did not like the little shit. He was drunk almost all weekend and treated her like a piece of ass. Brass only stopped from killing him and dragging him into the bushes because Mika slapped the guy at one point and split.”
“Yeah, well, he didn’t get the message, because I saw them at Hendricks last night and she had to reaffirm her lack of like in a very pointed way. He’ll be trouble. I just know he’s not going away without a good beating,” I grunt, going over to the dumbbells and grabbing a ten pounder to keep working out.
“Want me to send Brass to have a talk with the fool?” Jake snarls, jumping on the elliptical and going at it.
“Nah, she’d just go nuts about us interfering.”
“Yeah, but do we want some crazy asshole bugging her? Mika is family. She’s always there to help out. She babysits for us all the time, and my boy loves her. I’d just feel all wrong not doing something about this when I know she’d drop everything to help out if need be.”
“That’s true. It’s the one thing about her that doesn’t grate on my balls. The woman is a menace, and she has no filter, but she’s a sweetheart,” I grunt, doing a few reps on both arms and then jumping on the treadmill.
Jake laughs at that, and I find myself having to stop a grin just thinking about the outlandish stuff that woman says.
“I like her, Hawk. I love your family, and Leila is great, but Mika is just special.”
Don’t I know it?
“Yeah, but I don’t know, man. I always expect to get back into town and see her doing something with her life, and all I get is the same old schlepp. She goes to work, busts balls, and then home again. Lyon says she doesn’t even go out all that much anymore and she just gives Leila the brush-off when they invite her out with them. That isn’t her.”
Which I should not care about, I tell myself for the thousandth time, pushing myself at a dead run as if I can escape the thoughts that haven’t left my head.
/> “Maybe she’s just not into partying anymore. It does happen, you know. How old is Meek now? Twenty-four?”
“Twenty-seven,” I grunt.
“See? A lot of chicks don’t feel the party at that age. Hell, my own woman stopped giving a damn about that when she hit her twenty-second, and then it was all hearth and home and home-cooked meals for me.” He grins.
Lucky bastard.
“Yeah, maybe.”
But it doesn’t ring true for me. I’ve watched her over the last few months without letting on, and I see her, really see her, unlike most people who just see what she puts out there. Not that I’m blaming Leila for not noticing. She loves Mika, and she’d be on this in a beat if she knew her little sister wasn’t happy.
But I see it, and it’s angering me that I can’t just let it go. I shouldn’t care. I have a good life that makes me happy. I work and kick ass on a regular basis, ridding the world of scum, in direct opposition to what I was doing just a year ago, being a heavy for my brother Bear’s crime outfit.
Now that we’ve killed the men who murdered my sister, Sparrow, and all the Wylder brothers have their women, we’re just a normal family. Bear dismantled his outfit despite protests from the government, and he runs the agency we all work for, contracting out for private and military based clients who need our certain set of skills.
Most days I’m off in some foreign locale helping to kill, capture, or disappear a terrorist or some criminal asshole who’s set on hurting others.
I love my job most days, and I love coming home to the little house I bought from Lynx’s girl, Teeny. I have a good life, and I’m content. Maybe that’s why seeing Mika drifting around like a ghost is pissing me off.
I may look gruff and grumpy most of the time, but I like my family happy. And Mika is not happy.
“Let it go, Jake. I’ll talk to Leila about it sometime this week and see if she can’t get a bead on what’s happening with Mika.”
WYLDER Page 60