Badd Ass

by Jasinda Wilder

  I didn't cry on the flight home.

  Nope, nope, nope.

  Chapter 11

  Zane

  It had been almost two months since Mara left, and I was still fucking miserable. I was a complete bastard to my brothers and a jackass to the customers, to the point that when Bast and Dru got back from their honeymoon, Bast told me to cut the bullshit attitude or find a new job. So I dug deep, and pretended like shit was hunky fucking dory.

  But it wasn't.

  I shouldn't have let Mara leave like that. I knew it in my heart, in my soul. But how could I have asked her to stay? What would she do? You can't base an entire life, a whole new relationship on knowing someone for a week. That's stupid. I may not know dick about relationships, but I know they don't work like that.

  They just don't.

  To make matters worse, after the first month of misery, I finally broke down at three a.m. and drunk texted Mara. Spent a fucking hour composing that message, deleting and starting over, reading and re-reading a thousand times, tweaking it until it felt right.

  Me: I miss you. What if I said I regret letting you leave?

  When I finally hit the blue send arrow, the message popped up in the thread in the blue bubble; "Delivered."

  I stared at the screen for twenty fucking minutes, and it never changed to "read." I passed out, and when I woke up, it was still delivered but not read.

  Two days later, still unread.

  A week, two weeks, and she never read the fucking message.

  I called her, right on the two-month mark. The phone rang and rang and rang.

  "Hey, this is Mara. Leave a message and I'll get back to you."

  I let out a sigh right as the voicemail beeped. "Hey. Um, this is Zane. I--just call me back, okay? Please?"

  I threw my phone across the living room of the apartment so hard it smashed against the wall. Bast, in the kitchen pouring a mug of coffee, glared at me.

  "What the fuck is your goddamn problem, Zane? You've been a complete shithead for two months. What happened?"

  "She left, and I let her. And now she's not returning texts or answering calls."

  "Then it's done, man. I'm sorry." He came into the living room and handed me a mug. "Can't really say much to make you feel better or to fix it. Other fish in the sea, time heals all wounds, all that is just bullshit. Hurt is hurt, man."

  "Fuck the other fish, I want her," I growled.

  "Then go get her?"

  "How? I don't know where she lives, I don't have her address, and she's not answering her phone."

  Bast snorted. "Did you forget about your youngest brother? You know, the one who was recruited by the NSA?"

  "Oh. Right." I stood up and kicked at Xavier's door. He opened the door and blinked at me sleepily. "Xavier, I need you to--"

  He turned away from me without a word, rummaged through some papers on his desk, and returned with a printout bearing Mara's full name--Amarantha Lucille Quinn--and a San Francisco address.

  "About time, you pussy," Xavier groused, shoving the paper at me. "Printed this two and a half weeks ago."

  And then he shut the door in my face.

  Bast was smirking over his coffee. "He may not need much sleep, but when he is sleeping, he really doesn't like being woken up."

  "Clearly," I said, reading the address over and over again, compulsively, as if I could conjure the woman out of the words.

  "Suggestion?" Bast said.

  "What?"

  He pointed at the window, indicating the docks, where the sound of an airplane's propeller could be heard coughing into life. "Go catch Brock. He's headed to Seattle to see that mystery girl of his. He'd probably take you to San Francisco if you asked him really nicely."

  Barefoot, shirtless, wearing nothing but a pair of gym shorts, I jogged outside into a cold early fall rain. Brock was in the pilot's seat of a single engine seaplane, flicking switches and glancing at a clipboard, a headset over his ears. I jumped onto the float and threw myself into the passenger seat.

  Brock didn't look up, didn't miss a beat. "Need a ride to Frisco?"

  I nodded. "I can chip in on the gas."

  He flipped another switch. "Might I suggest a shirt and shoes, at least?" He shot a grin at me. "I promise I won't leave without you."

  I ran back home, changed into jeans, a T-shirt, hoodie, and combat boots, and stuffed a few things into a backpack and then ran back to the seaplane. When I was seated, Brock indicated to the second headset and then backed the aircraft away from the dock.

  When we were airborne, I glanced at Brock. "So...your girl lives in Seattle, huh?"

  He nodded. "Still not talking about her. I don't want to jinx it. This is my first visit to her. Maybe if this goes well, I'll share. Until then, I'm keeping her to myself."

  I shrugged. "I get that. You been talking to her?

  He nodded. "We FaceTime every night."

  "So would you call that...sex-timing?" I said, smirking.

  He rolled his eyes at me. "It's not like that."

  "Isn't this the girl you fucked six times in one night?"

  "Yeah," he said, grinning, but then quickly sobered. "But we decided that if we were doing a long distance relationship, sexting or whatever, even via FaceTime, would be cheapening what we had, so we're waiting until we see each other. We're trying to do this right, since it's new for both of us."

  I made a surprised face. "Wow. That's...impressive, actually. Respect, brother." I held out my fist, and he tapped his knuckles to mine.

  He shot a look at me. "So, what are you gonna say to Mara when you see her?"

  I sighed. "I've been scripting it out in my head, and I can't come with anything good."

  Brock snorted. "How about the truth? 'Hi, Mara. I was a dumbass for letting you leave. Will you please move to Ketchikan to be with me?'"

  "But how can I ask that of her? We barely know each other."

  Brock shrugged. "Yeah, well, sometimes you don't need to know each other to know each other, know what I mean?"

  "As stupid as that sounds, it does make sense."

  "Just play it as it comes, dude. Don't over think it, and don't let your head get in the way. Sometimes what we think we know is true or right or possible has little or no relevance to what really is true or right or possible." He adjusted one of the dials, and then glanced at me again. "Arthur C. Clarke stipulated that the only way to discover the limits of what is possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

  "And there's the pithy quote I've been waiting for," I joked.

  "Hey, don't knock my storehouse of pithy quotes," Brock said. "If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense."

  "Sure, but how does that help me know what to say to Mara?"

  "It doesn't. It just means you never know what she'll say unless you ask."

  "Oh." I frowned. "And if she says no?"

  "Then you get shitfaced in Frisco and I'll pick you up before I go back to Ketchikan."

  "I kind of smashed my phone," I said.

  "How very mature of you," he deadpanned.

  "Shut up."

  "You shut up," he shot back. "You're a big boy, you can figure it out."

  Going through BUD/S all over again seemed like an easier prospect than this, but I wasn't one to back down from a challenge, especially not when it involved a woman like Amarantha Quinn.

  I felt stupid. I had a dozen roses gripped in one fist, and a stomach full of butterflies. Stepping off the elevator, I resisted the impulse to turn and run, which was dumb as fuck, since I hadn't turned and run from anything in my life.

  I made my way slowly down the hallway to apartment 14B, and knocked on the door.

  "MOMMY! SOMEBODY'S HERE!" I heard a small female voice say.

  "I'll get it, sweetie. Keep eating your lunch," I heard a woman say.

  There was the rattle of a chain lock and then the door opened, revealing a pretty young woman of maybe thirty, wearing stained black yoga pants and a white t
ank top, braless, her breasts heavy and her nipples prominent behind the thin cotton. She had a baby on one hip, her hair in a messy ponytail, and she glared at me angrily.

  This was not Mara.

  "If those are from Harry, tell him to shove them up his ass," the woman snapped. "He wants to talk to me or see me, he has to crawl his slimy ass here himself."

  I blinked at her venom. "Uh, sorry. I'm not from Harry."

  The woman sagged. "Oh. My bad. How can I help you?"

  I struggled to figure out what was going on. "This is apartment 14B, right?" I rattled off the rest of the address. "Do I have the right place?"

  The woman nodded, glancing down as a curious young girl of three or four peeked from behind her. "That's us."

  "So...obviously Mara Quinn doesn't live here anymore."

  The woman shook her head, her expression sympathetic. "Sorry, no." She winked at me. "But give me those roses and come on in, and I can pretend to be Mara for...oh, twenty minutes. You're hot."

  "Thanks, but...no."

  She nodded, understanding. "Sorry, honey. We've lived here for a little over two weeks now. I think the previous tenant, your Mara, must have moved unexpectedly because I'm still getting a lot of her mail."

  I sighed in defeat, rubbing the back of my neck. "Gotcha. Well, sorry to have bothered you."

  "Sorry I couldn't help more."

  I nodded and turned away, still carrying the flowers. I stopped, hesitated, and then jogged back to 14B, just as the woman was closing the door.

  "Here," I said. "Take 'em."

  She smiled, and I saw a vibrant, beautiful woman, one I'd have been interested in had Mara not consumed my attention.

  "Thanks," she said, happiness suffusing her features as she accepted the roses. "My dick of an ex-husband never gave me flowers even once."

  "You're really beautiful, you know," I said. "Your ex is an idiot."

  She blinked at me. "Sure you don't want to come in? It's almost nap time in here."

  I laughed. "No, but thanks. I'm flattered."

  "Mama? What's a dick?" The little girl said.

  Her mother didn't miss a beat. "Your father. And you can tell him I said so, next time you see him, assuming he shows up for his visitation."

  I backed away. "If things don't work out for me, maybe I'll be back."

  The woman sighed wistfully, hiking the baby higher on her hip. "I'll be here, dreaming of it."

  I left, phone-less, Mara-less, and hopeless. Brock had said he'd be back in three days, which gave me three days alone in San Francisco. Would have been fun at one point, but now?

  All I wanted was to see Mara. Which, clearly, wasn't going to happen.

  I booked a one-way trip back to Ketchikan. Row 16D, window seat, alone.

  Flying commercial sucked.

  Chapter 12

  Mara

  I staggered through the front door of the Seattle apartment I shared with Claire, barely standing on my feet. It was just past eleven in the morning on a Friday, and I'd just left work. I'd been battling bouts of extreme nausea all week, and then this morning I'd barely made it to the bathroom before spewing all over a toilet--on, more than in, unfortunately, and I considered myself fortunate that I'd even made it to the bathroom. I fought it as best I could for another few hours, but my new boss had finally sent me home. I caught a cab, even though Claire and I only lived three blocks from work, because I'd known I wouldn't be able to make the walk.

  I made it through the door, crashing back against it, sweating, gasping, and moaning in pain. My whole body was screaming at me to lie down, sit down, anything. Sleep. I dropped my purse on the floor at my feet and staggered toward my bedroom.

  Slowly, exhaustedly, I swiveled my head on my neck to peer blearily at my best friend. I blinked through the dizziness, and then blinked some more, because I wasn't sure what I was seeing; I was feverish, after all, so maybe it was a fever dream?

  Claire, home from work early, or, considering the scene in front of me, not having gone in at all.

  Claire was on the couch.

  Completely naked.

  Sitting reverse cowgirl on top of a man. His hands were on her breasts, his thighs on either side of hers. Claire's hands were on his thighs, and she was leaning forward, staring at me like a deer caught in headlights.

  "Hi, Mara," she said, feigning a pretense of casualness.

  "Claire. What--um. What are you doing home?"

  "Having sex with my boyfriend, obviously." She eyed me. "What are you doing home?"

  "Sick," I said, clutching at the wall to stay upright.

  The guy Claire was riding had stayed silent so far, and being hidden behind Claire from this angle, I couldn't see his face. But then he tilted to one side, and I slumped fully against the wall.

  It was Brock.

  As in, Zane's brother.

  "Hi, Brock."

  He lifted his chin at me. "Hey, Mara."

  I stared for another moment, because I was sick enough and heartbroken enough and confused enough that it hadn't fully registered yet. "So...you're the guy? Claire's mysterious local from Ketchikan? Sex six times in one night guy? The pilot?"

  Claire blinked at me. "You two know each other?"

  I nodded heavily. "He's--Brock is Zane's brother."

  Claire blinked owlishly. "He...what?" She twisted to glance at Brock. "You are? You're Zane's brother? As in...the guy Mara spent a week with? The reason she's been moping around for the last two months?"

  Brock hesitated a moment, glancing at me, then at Claire. "Um. I feel like maybe we need to have this conversation when Claire and I aren't...you know...mid-coitus?"

  "Good point," I said, and continued stumbling toward my room. "Wake me up when you're done fucking."

  I closed my door, collapsed on my bed, and tugged the pillow over my head, because I could hear Claire and Brock slamming the couch back against the wall, and Claire moaning, and Brock groaning, and I didn't need to hear Zane's brother having sex.

  I fell asleep, fighting memories of Zane.

  I was woken by Claire shaking my shoulder. "Mara, wake up."

  "Hnnnggg."

  "We need to talk."

  "Sick."

  "I know." She smoothed my hair away from my face, tugging a strand out of my mouth. "But I think you're gonna wanna hear what Brock has to say."

  "No."

  "Mara." She slid to kneel on the floor so her face was in front of mine. "I really, really, really think you want to hear Brock out."

  "Fine," I groaned. "But in here. Sick. Can't move."

  "Okay. Stay here. Be right back."

  "Claire." I forced one eye open, and Claire stopped with her hand on my doorknob. "Brock is a great guy."

  She smiled at me. "I know."

  A few minutes later, Claire came back in, Brock in tow. She sat on the bed beside me, pulled me so my head was lying on her lap, and Brock took a seat on my desk chair.

  Brock started to talk, stopped, sighed, and then started over. "So, Zane has been a fucking mess without you."

  "And you've been a fucking mess without him," Claire said.

  "So?" I mumbled, my stomach roiling.

  "So, I kind of made a detour to San Francisco on the way here," Brock said.

  I frowned. "San Francisco is, like, not even remotely on the way to Seattle from Alaska. It's way, way, way out of the way, in fact."

  He nodded. "Yeah, obviously, but Zane asked me to fly him to San Francisco. So I did."

  I blinked, my heart managing to skip a beat at the same time that my stomach lurched into my heart. "But I'm here."

  "He texted you, and then called you, but you didn't answer."

  I swallowed hard. "I lost my phone, and my contract was up anyway, so I got a new phone and a new number with a different provider when I moved up here."

  "Well, Zane is in San Francisco, looking for you."

  "But...I'm here."

  "And Zane was so upset when you didn't answer your phone that h
e threw his against the wall and smashed it."

  "Zane went to San Francisco? To find me?" I asked again.

  Brock nodded. "Sure did."

  My shoulders shook, and I blinked back tears, and then sobbed. And the sob shook something loose in my stomach, and I had to lurch off the bed and stumble-run to the bathroom to puke. But I'd already puked up everything I'd eaten, so all I could do was dry heave bile.

  I felt Claire beside me, holding my hair back. "You've been sick a lot lately," she remarked.

  I nodded. "It sucks. It won't go away. I think I've beaten it and then it comes back."

  A beat of silence. And then Claire, her voice oddly tense and quiet. "I just had a thought. You're not gonna like it, and it's probably stupid and crazy and dumb."

  I heaved again, and then felt the nausea subside enough that I could sit up and wipe my mouth. "What?"

  "You've been getting sick pretty much every day for the last week, right?"

  "Off and on for longer than that."

  "And correct me if I'm wrong, but for the most part you've only been getting sick...in the mornings."

  I slumped sideways against the tub. "Ohmygod."

  "Right?"

  Tears trickled down my face. "No. No-no-no. No. No no no no no no."

  "When was your last period, honey?" Claire asked, her voice soft and sympathetic.

  "I had one right after I got back from Ketchikan, and then this month..." I thought back. "I just had a period. It was light and spotty, but--"

  "The one right after Ketchikan, was it normal?"

  I twisted to pillow my head on my forearms on the edge of the tub. "No," I moaned. "It was light and spotty too."

  Claire patted my shoulder. "I'll run to the corner store for a couple tests."

  "What the fuck do I do, Claire?" I sobbed.

  "Take a test, first."

  "Or seven."

  "Or seven," Claire agreed. "And then you take a breath, and think, and then you go see Zane."

  "But...but--"

  Claire smoothed her hand in circles on my back. "You know I'll be here with you every step of the way, right? No matter what."

  I couldn't answer, on account of being too busy bawling my eyes out.

  Chapter 13

  Zane