by Cassie Wild
She’s too young for you, I told myself. She’s too innocent for you.
I knew all of that, could practically see it in her eyes. But part of me wanted her, anyway.
No. Not for you.
Closing the door behind me, I leaned back against it and stared straight ahead at absolutely nothing.
Trice was sweet and had an innocence about her that I’d never experienced.
She definitely wasn’t for the likes of me.
I only gave myself a few minutes to try and pull myself together. I didn’t want to leave her alone for too long. It wasn’t like there was anything she could do, and while I had cash stashed in the place, I didn’t see her as the kind to steal.
When I walked back out, she was leaning against the elevated counter of the breakfast nook, studying the menus from the two Chinese places I liked. She frowned the second she saw me, but before I could ask her what was wrong, she said, “There’s an awful lot to choose from. I have no idea what to get.”
“Just get your favorite then.” She blinked at me. “Sweet and sour chicken? Kung Pao?”
“Ah…” She bit her lip. “I don’t think I’ve ever had Chinese food. That sounds terrible, I know. But…”
I almost asked her where she’d been living all her life not to have had Chinese food, but I stopped myself, taking a good look at her. The tennis shoes on her feet were seriously worn. I couldn’t really see any other obvious signs, but a few of the guys in the club had come from a life where they hadn’t had a whole lot.
I had no idea what it was like to be so broke that I couldn’t afford some Kung Pao chicken every now and then, but then again, while there had been plenty of times when money had been tight after Dad had gone to prison, there’d never been a time when I was walking around with the heels of my tennis shoes duct-taped up, like she was.
“Start with something basic,” I suggested. “Sweet and sour chicken. Almost everybody loves sweet and sour chicken.”
“That sounds good.” She smiled then, and the smile was the sort that would take a guy’s breath away.
Not for you, I reminded myself. Not for you.
I took the menus from her and dumped them in the drawer, using my cell to call Happy Lin’s, my personal favorite from the two, and I put in an order, adding a few other things that I figured she should try. What kind of guy was I to deny her a chance to try crab Rangoon and spring rolls?
While we waited for the food, I turned on the TV and gave her the remote. “See if you can find anything you like,” I told her. “Want a beer?”
“Ah. Yeah. Sure.” She took the remote and aimed it at the TV, and I listened as she went through the channels. I turned back just as she settled on one and put the remote down, staring raptly at the TV.
“Captain America. I approve,” I said easily, hoping to see her smile again.
She glanced at me sheepishly. “I still haven’t seen all of it. Sometimes, I catch bits and pieces of it on TV, but not all of it.”
“You’re kidding me.” I passed her the beer then moved over to the entertainment center and dug through the alphabetized cases until I found the Blu-Ray version. “This is halfway over. We’ll start from the beginning.”
“Oh, you don’t have to–”
“I consider it a patriotic duty.” I got the movie set up and moved back to the couch, glancing at her out of the corner of my eye. “Besides, Trice, don’t you want to see all of it?”
She was quiet a moment, then said, “You know, I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s Lane. Now…let’s watch the movie.”
A couple hours later, the decimated remains of the Chinese takeout sat next to several empty beer bottles on the coffee table in front of us, and I looked over as the credits – and the extra scenes – came to an end.
Trice looked bleary-eyed, and she covered her wide yawn with a hand.
I laughed. “I hope that’s not your opinion of the movie.”
“Oh, no.” She rolled her eyes and grinned at me. “It was great. And the way it ended…?” She rubbed the heel of her hand over her heart. “That was…sad.”
I thought about it, then shrugged. “Yeah, in a way, I guess. But hey, he’s alive, right?”
“There’s more to life than just living.” She made a face at me.
Abruptly, I wanted to haul her against me and kiss her again – really kiss her.
Her second yawn was probably the only thing that kept me from leaning over and doing just that.
“You’re exhausted,” I said softly.
She lifted a shoulder, her cheeks turning a pretty shade of pink. “It’s been a rough couple of days.”
“You want to talk about it?” I hoped she said yes. I wanted to know who had been chasing her.
But she just shook her head and looked away. “I’m away from it now. That’s all that matters.”
It. I wanted to ask her to explain what it she was away from, at least. But I didn’t have any right to her explanations.
“Okay. Look, you’re tired. Why don’t you go use my bathroom and do…whatever? I can give you a t-shirt to sleep in, okay?”
I told myself to ignore the heat that washed through me at the thought of one of my shirts lying against her dusky gold skin. Just as I told myself I wasn’t going to think about her lying in my bed while I was out on the couch, either.
Nine
Trice
Sunlight in my eyes woke me up.
A headache pounded in my temples, and I sat up carefully, cradling my head in my hands as I sat on the edge of a wide, soft bed. Too wide and soft to be mine.
“I’m not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” I muttered, trying to remember where I was.
I had a few vague flashes from last night – sweet and sour chicken, beer. Chris Evans fighting Nazis.
Riding a bike, sitting behind a guy who could give Chris Evans a run for his money.
I hadn’t gotten drunk, had I?
Slowly, I got up and made my way to the doorway, then down the hall, looking around. Things seemed vaguely familiar, but it wasn’t until I spied the man lying on the couch, a sheet tangled around his waist that my mind cleared and last night came into sharp, full-blown technicolor.
The guy on the couch was Lane.
He’d saved me from whichever one of Ephraim’s goons had been chasing me yesterday.
Then he’d brought me back to his place, fed me Chinese food while we watched Chris Evans save the world.
And yeah…I’d had a couple of beers. But just two. I remember stopping at two so I wouldn’t feel like shit today. I still had a headache, but it wasn’t a hangover headache. I’d had one of those before, and they were awful.
I’d snuck my way into a couple of clubs, had gotten drunk a time or two. With my life, it was hard to resist the temptation when it was offered. But last night, today…I didn’t want to risk it. I had to keep my head clear and be ready to move.
And today I had to call Suria.
But first…
I edged a little deeper into the room, my eyes still on Lane. Maybe I should do something to thank him.
While I showered, I threw my dress from yesterday into the dryer along with a dryer sheet. I had other clothes I could wear, but I’d packed mostly jeans and t-shirts, and if yesterday was anything to judge by, it was going to be horribly hot again.
The dress would be cooler.
Wrapped in a towel, I poked my head out of the door and listened, hoping he wasn’t awake.
I didn’t hear any noise, so I hurried to the dryer, just down the hall from the bathroom and pulled it open, grabbing my dress.
I all but ran back to the bathroom and eased the door closed behind me. I’d loathed taking his t-shirt off. It had been soft against my skin and smelled of him, but I couldn’t exactly go through the day just wearing an oversized black t-shirt, could I?
Once I was dressed and had restored the bathroom to rights, I slid out of the bathroom and headed to the kitchen. I found
everything I needed in the fridge and got breakfast started. While the bacon was sizzling, I started a pot of coffee, hoping the caffeine would do something to help knock the headache pounding against my brain.
“Whatcha doin’?” a sleepy voice asked maybe ten minutes later as I nipped off a cup from the pot of coffee.
Turning, I saw him standing by the breakfast bar, looking in at me with sleep-fogged eyes, his hair rumpled and his chest bare.
My mouth went dry.
He had a winged tattoo inked across the upper part of his chest, and his skin had been turned golden by the sun. My hands itched to touch. Me, who’d rarely even noticed guys was suddenly itching to touch this one. Wow. Had my silent sex drive decided to kick into awareness on me like…fast.
His eyes moved past me to linger on the stove where the bacon sizzled, awareness coming into his eyes. The scents of bacon and coffee could do that to a person.
“Are you making breakfast?” he asked, then scratched his chin, looking embarrassed after stating the obvious.
“Yes.” I smoothed my dress down and turned back to the stove. “I wanted to say thank you. For helping me out. So…um…thanks.”
“You don’t need to thank me,” he said, voice brusque. “But I’m not about to say no to food I don’t have to cook myself.”
I bit back a smile as I used the fork to push the bacon around in the skillet. I didn’t know why anybody would say no to breakfast. My belly rumbled on cue, and I studied the bacon critically, decided it needed a few more minutes before I started the eggs.
“Want some–” I turned to look at him. The words froze in my throat because he was standing less than a foot away. “Um.”
He cocked a brow and leaned past me to open a cabinet.
My heart lurched up into my throat as his naked chest swayed closer, within touching distance. I could reach out, touch him…so easy…
Curling my hands into fists, I kept them at my sides and watched as he pulled a cup from the cabinet.
“Oh, I was going to get you a cup if you wanted,” I said, watching as he poured himself some coffee.
“You don’t need to wait on me.” He frowned as he lifted the cup to his lips, then glanced at the stove. “How long will it be? I got time to shower?”
“Yes. It’ll be a few minutes still.” I spun back around and busied myself with my own coffee, taking a series of small sips since it was still so hot. I stayed facing away until I sensed he’d left the kitchen.
The image of him was emblazoned on my mind though.
Wow.
He was just kind of…wow.
I had way too much going on in my life to go and get distracted by a hot guy – okay, the hottest and most intimidating guy I’d ever met.
The bacon popped.
The sound made me jump.
“Get your act together, Trice,” I told myself, grabbing the fork and stabbing at the meat in the skillet.
He emerged from the bathroom just as I’d finished with the eggs and toast, and I dished him up a plate, turning it over to him before serving myself. We sat at the breakfast nook in silence as we ate, and once he was done, I took care of the dishes.
“You don’t need to do that,” he said, protesting as I carried them to the sink.
“I don’t mind,” I told him. I kept the water running in the sink as I rinsed the plates off, mostly to fill the silence, but partly out of a hope that he’d leave it alone and let me finish the job in peace.
He’d spent the better part of the meal watching me from the corner of his eye. He was good at it, but I still noticed, and I was jumpy enough without the increased scrutiny.
He didn’t leave.
Instead, he slid from the stool and moved to the counter where a few pieces of bacon still lay. He picked up both and took one, offering me the other.
I turned off the water and hesitantly reached out, taking the slice from him and nipping off a bite. He finished before I did, and then surprised me by taking care of the plate, and we wrapped up the chores in a companionable silence that felt almost too easy. I tried to imagine Ephraim doing domestic chores, and the idea almost made me choke.
Once we’d put everything into the dishwasher, I asked, “Can I use a phone? I want to call my cousin and see if she can come get me.”
Ten
Lane
Waking up to find a pretty girl in the kitchen making food was something a little out of the ordinary for me. I occasionally brought girls back here – not too often, but on occasion. Still, I didn’t let them spend the night, and I was more likely to go back to their place as anything else.
Trice wasn’t one of my girls, though.
Watching her move around the kitchen, the pretty blue dress drifting around her hips and flowing loosely to her calves made me think about any number of things. Almost all of them were about the kind of things I didn’t – or couldn’t – have.
Like her.
A girl like her needed somebody nice and neat, somebody who didn’t have a father in prison and a mother who was shacking up with somebody else in an attempt to cling to her glory days – which was why she was doing it. Mom didn’t want to go back to just being on the sidelines of the club. She’d been the president’s old lady. She liked the power that came with that, and she didn’t want to lose it.
Trice should be with somebody with a much neater past than what I had.
I told myself this time and again as we ate, but I still couldn’t keep from sneaking glances at her from the corner of my eye. She finished before I did but didn’t get up. Once I pushed my plate away, she slid from the stool and collected both of our dishes, and I frowned at her as she walked away.
“You don’t need to do that,” I told her.
She rinsed the plates off, facing away from me as she said, “I don’t mind.”
Well, hell. I wasn’t going to argue with her, but I couldn’t exactly just sit there, either.
Spying the leftover bacon on the plate near the stove, I got up and took one piece, offering her the other. She accepted, and while she was eating it, I took care of that dish, then moved onto the next.
Cleaning wasn’t high on my list of things I enjoyed, but I also didn’t like living in a pigsty, so it was a necessary evil. I could always do what some of the guys in the club did – have one of the girls who hung around the bar do it, but that wasn’t my style.
We found an easy rhythm to work together, and once we were finished, Trice finally looked at me for more than ten seconds.
“Can I use a phone? I want to call my cousin and see if she can come get me.” Her big, dark eyes rested on mine, and for a few seconds, I felt lost in them. So lost, that I didn’t entirely understand what she was asking at first.
She kept watching me expectantly, and I finally managed to get my brain to reconnect to my mouth. “Yeah. Sure.” I gestured to the phone in the kitchen and moved back into the living room, oddly reluctant to leave just yet because I wasn’t ready for our time together to end.
Sitting on the couch, I pulled out my cell phone and opened my mail, going through and deleting shit, reading a few emails, deleting more, but my mind kept wandering toward the sound of her voice as she spoke.
“Suria, it’s me…listen…”
Stop listening, I told myself.
But I didn’t.
“I’m…not at the house now. I left last night, and I stayed the night with…a friend. I need you to come pick me up.” She hesitated a moment, then continued to talk. “There’s a Mexican restaurant on…”
I willed my brain to tune out the sound of her once more, focusing on the phone I held in my hand. Delete, delete…maybe delete…
“…wait there for you, okay?”
I slanted a look toward Trice from the corner of my eye. I didn’t want her leaving yet.
I didn’t know what the deal was, other than the fact that I kept thinking about her sweet smile and how easy it had been to just sit and watch a movie with her the night before. When
had I last watched a movie with a girl with no plans of getting in her pants during or after?
Not that I’d mind getting in Trice’s, but I already knew that wasn’t going to happen.
“…you soon. Love you, Suri.”
She hung up the phone, and I allowed myself to look her way. “I guess she wasn’t there?”
“No. I had to leave a voicemail. It’s okay.” She moved toward the backpack she’d left on the floor near the door. “I guess I should go. I’m going to meet her at the Mexican place we passed on the way here.”
Rising, I started toward her. “I’ll take you.” I’d have a few more minutes with her at least. “It’s not the best neighborhood to be walking around in if you’re not familiar with it.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she protested, her teeth playing with her lower lip. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“I insist.”
My phone rang just as I grabbed my keys. The sight of the name on the screen made me wish I could just throw the phone off a cliff, but I answered, keeping my voice level. “Hello.”
“We need to talk about yesterday, Lane,” TU said in a low, flat tone.
“We already talked about yesterday.” I wasn’t surprised that he was calling. I’d expected it, really. But I wasn’t inclined to put up with his bullshit today. Lately, I was feeling less and less inclined to put up with him at all.
“That wasn’t a conversation. Come to the bar. Now. I’ll be waiting.”
He disconnected, and I eyed the phone for a long moment before shoving it into my pocket. I blew out a disgusted breath and glanced over at Trice. “When do you think your cousin will be there to pick you up?”
Trice shifted from one foot to the other. “Probably not for a while. She’s been staying in Monterey.”
“Good. I’m still going to drop you off, but I’ve got a stop to make first.”