Beautiful Wreck

by Kasey Lane

  She tried to yank her finger away, but he kept a firm grasp on her. “I told you—”

  “I know you don’t need anyone. I used to think that, too. And you know where I ended up with that keen philosophy? Fucking rehab. Don’t roll those big green eyes at me, senorita. I get that there’s shit you don’t want me to know. I respect that. And if you have someone else to call who can protect you, then knock yourself out.” When she didn’t answer he tugged her closer, dropping her finger and laying his hands on her shoulders. She tried to ignore the undeniable sharp stab of desire that ran through her body. Because they were not going there. Not now. Not ever.

  “No. I don’t have anyone to call,” she admitted. Her face flushed, feverish from the night, from his touch, from the truth, from the mess of her life smashed to the floor around them.

  He rubbed his thumbs slowly on her shoulders. “See? Progress. You’ll stay with me.” His voice sounded stretched, tight like a band ready to snap.

  Gabby bit her lip to suppress the smile threatening to break free. So call her shallow, but she couldn’t help the little surge of empowerment she felt. Geeky, gawky Gabby Alvarez was affecting bad boy Bowen Landry. And damn if that didn’t feel good. Even if he couldn’t be hers it still felt kind of awesome.

  “Ms. Alvarez, can we see you in the bedroom, please?” Officer Lyons’s voice called from the hall. The weird little bubble of intimacy that had started growing around them popped.

  Bowen followed her down the hall and any hope she’d had of salvaging her stuff and somehow finding the courage to stay there that night evaporated like water from the sprinkler on a hot summer day. Her bedroom was unrecognizable. Her yard-sale dresser was splinters scattered across the room. Her clothes were everywhere, or pieces of them. But when she took a step and her foot crunched over something she looked down to discover her one prized possession in jagged shards all over her floor. She dropped to her knees and scooped up a pile of ceramic shards. The once beautiful vintage Mexican folk art angel she treasured above all else was ruined. Destroyed. There would be no fixing it.

  “No, no, no,” she heard someone chant quietly, followed by a stuttering cry. Realizing the cry came from her, she took three deep breaths to center herself and stood. No more crying. She could handle this. She was the strongest woman she knew, the one with iron control on her life and her emotions. Enough of this sobbing in a man’s arms and battling with her hormones.

  “Ms. Alvarez, can you tell if anything is missing?” Officer Collins asked behind her.

  She laughed ruefully. “It’s kind of hard to tell. You know, since everything is in fucking pieces.”

  When she finally saw her bed she nearly gasped at what a mess it was. Or what was left of it. Dammit, she’d put that IKEA monster together herself the week after she’d moved in. She’d been so pleased and felt so grown-up: new job, new town, and real goddamn bed. How far she’d come from the terrified mouse of a girl she’d been the day she left the group home in San Jose for good. Now her little bed was not only hacked to pieces but also covered in some thick orange sticky liquid. Probably paint. Regardless, it looked like a scene from a cheap horror flick.

  The bed was a sad reminder that her past would never likely allow her to move forward. But, even worse and more gutting, was the ceramic shard of her grandmother’s angel now crumbling in her clenched hand. Her grandmother had died when Gabby was five so memories of her were shrouded in a gauzy haze of baking smells and music and laughter. Many nights after she’d been placed with the McNeil family, Gabby had clutched the angel to her chest, hoping Owen would be too drunk to darken her doorway with his bulky shadow. Praying the angel would somehow conjure the spirit of her dead grandmother and protect her from her creepy foster father.

  Most nights it had worked. And then it hadn’t. The first time he stepped a foot into her room Tammy McNeil had stumbled after him complaining about the barking dog next door with slurred words of disgust and apathy. Gabby shuddered, and shoved down the memory of the night no one had been home to stop Owen from entering her room.

  “Gabby, let’s wrap this up,” Bowen said quietly behind her. She hadn’t even realized he’d walked into the room, but his presence made her suddenly feel a little less cold, a little less alone. And that was fucking annoying in and of itself. “Then we’ll grab some of your things and go. Can you tell if anything is missing?” He pulled his phone from his jacket pocket and started taking pictures of her room. Her whole life was barfed up around them in a garish mix of color and wood and clothing. Everything she owned. Everything.

  She nodded and put the shards of her fallen angel in her hoodie pocket. The broken pieces were a direct reflection of what was left of her family. She wasn’t ready to let go of her grandma because once she did she’d really and truly be on her own.

  Turning to Officer Collins, she smiled weakly. “I’ll look around and see if I can figure out if anything is gone.” Might as well assess what she had left and then get out of this hellhole that had once been her one and only safe place.

  Chapter Six

  Gabby was tired. Not just end of a busy day, need to get to bed tired, but bone deep, zombie undead exhausted. The kind of tired she’d carried around for years and had gotten used to as par for the course until she’d moved to Portland and settled into her new life, slowly letting down her guard and allowing some semblance of happy ease into her body. She rolled over, trying hard not to make the old bed creak, and pulled a soft pillow over her head.

  It had been a long-ass day. The old fears she masked as anger and ambivalence had floated quickly back to the top, muscling their way to the surface of her skin and coating her in unease. Most people would take a mental health day after what she’d dealt with, but work had always been her happy place, her salvation, the one place in her world that made sense. When she traveled down the rabbit hole and got lost in code—numbers, patterns, beautiful logic—everything just worked. It was when she was forced to deal with the real world and all its messy feelings and weird social rules that she got lost and confused. Just another thing she’d never picked up because she’d never had a real family where a child learns that kind of subtle humanity.

  After the cops left earlier that night, she’d tried to salvage a change of clothes and some toiletries, anything. When she’d finally lost it altogether while sitting in a pile of shredded clothing, Bowen had pulled her up and led her by the hand back to his apartment. She’d been grateful for his silence and subtle guidance although never quite able to ignore his simmering disquiet that seemed to permeate the space between them. Gabby also hadn’t been able to avoid the tingling heat of awareness his touch burned into her skin every time he touched her. But she had been done. Done, done. And Bowen seemed pretty dependable. For a guy. For an alcoholic. For a human.

  “I insist,” he’d repeated for the third time when she’d refused to take his bedroom, instead planting herself on his worn, but comfortable couch where he’d made up a makeshift bed.

  “I’ve let you push and pull me around all night, but I’m not taking your fucking bed, pretty boy.” For emphasis she’d yanked the quilted blanket up over her shoulders.

  Bowen had knelt down in front of her with that half smile half smirk of his, and before she could respond he reached under the blanket and snaked one arm under her knees and the other around her back and lifted her. Her squeal didn’t drown out his low laugh. “Oh, little one, your ninja skills don’t have anything on my giant muscles.”

  She’d pounded his chest and tried to wriggle free before she’d remembered she’d had on his ridiculously huge T-shirt and a pair of panties with nothing else. No bra. No pants. Nothing.

  “Stop calling me that, asshole.”

  “I didn’t call you asshole.”

  “Little one. Quit calling me that.”

  “It’s just a nickname. Get over it. And you’re sleeping in my bed.”

  A flush had burned up her neck and spread over her face as her lungs seized, f
orcing all the air out in a gasp. Bowen had stopped mid-laugh, his face gone blank before he burst out laughing and tossed her on the bed. She’d clutched the blanket tightly so she didn’t expose herself, sputtering with anger and embarrassment.

  “I’m sorry. Really,” he’d claimed but doubled over gasping for air. Gabby had been thrilled he could laugh at her expense. Screw him and his stupid muscles, she’d thought.

  “I’m glad I amuse you. Now get out.”

  Bowen had choked back one final chuckle and tried to make his smile straight. “I am sorry. I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing with you.”

  She’d scooted up to the headboard and crossed her arms against her chest. “I’m not laughing, pretty boy. Get out.”

  “You’re such a sourpuss, Gabby. You should lighten up,” he said before turning and leaving the room, shutting the door lightly behind him.

  “As if,” she said to the empty room.

  “I can hear you,” he yelled and pounded on the wall. “Paper-thin walls, remember? And the remote for the television is on the nightstand.”

  Now she could hear him singing low and shuffling around the apartment, the soft sounds of cupboards opening and closing as he was most likely cleaning up the kitchen from the late-night meal of grilled cheese and tomato soup he’d made them.

  He was an insufferably bossy, sometimes surly, pretty boy who poked his nose in where it didn’t belong. And created the most beautiful and perfect-for-her tattoo. And held her while she cried standing in the rubble of her little life. And made her dinner and gave her his bed to sleep in while he slept on the couch.

  Dammit.

  She rolled over, punching the pillow before laying her head down again. Reaching for the pendant around her neck, she realized she should be used to the churning in her belly, and the thick band crushing the air from her lungs.

  Fear.

  Anxiety.

  Uncertainty.

  The springs of the old couch in the living room groaned, followed shortly after by the soft strumming of a guitar. Not something she recognized, but something sweet, almost hypnotic.

  Gabby opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. She should be used to this mess. Life on the roller coaster was all she had ever known. The constant up and down had become normal at some point. Well, until the last couple of years, anyway, when she’d been relocated to a group home and taken a couple programming classes at the high school she’d been moved to. That had been the beginning of the real changes in her life. She’d never forget the first program she wrote that actually ran and did something. For the first time in her life she’d felt taller, not completely useless. Her instructors had praised her and her classmates had asked her for help. For once, she’d fit in somewhere.

  After she’d aged out of the system, she’d worked as Bob Little’s bookkeeper and office person in San Francisco and lived in a small studio apartment near the shop.

  Bob and his new wife, Suzette, had been so kind and even insisted she attend a local community college and work toward her programming certificate. For two years life had been good. She enjoyed working for Bob and being part of his little family. And although she never told them what had happened to her at the McNeils’, that Owen McNeil had attacked her in her own room—her mom had been notified, but had never responded or even showed up to claim her—they knew her life had been less than ideal and tried to include her in theirs. She loved having her own apartment, her own space. But, more than anything, she loved school and programming.

  A cold chill ran up her spine and fingers of ice circled her neck as another memory intruded and took hold. While she’d been pretending she deserved a happy little life in San Francisco she’d forgotten to expect the other shoe to drop.

  But it had dropped and not with a hollow thud, but with a colossal hard and noisy clang in the form of her mother spewing drunken lies and accusations. And thus that happy portion of her life came to an end.

  Drifting off, she tried to push away visions of her mother showing up at her technical school graduation, but as the music from the other room swirled around her, she realized that maybe this was her happier place. Maybe she was more comfortable with the unease and chaos. She’d grown used to it; it had always been there, chasing her and grabbing at her heels. And it was back, gnashing its teeth and trashing her new home.

  Because hadn’t she known better than to let her guard down? She had, but she’d done it anyway.

  *

  Bowen stood at the sliding glass door watching as the sun peeked over the buildings across the street, slowly flooding the inky room in fiery red and golden light. He’d never been an early riser until he’d quit drinking. What had started out as restless insomnia had morphed into an early to bed early to rise routine. Unfortunately, his work and band practice schedule hadn’t adjusted yet so he walked around like a zombie until about noon after he’d downed a pot of coffee. Sometimes he worried he’d given up women and booze just to replace it with other addictions like caffeine and work. Most mornings he ran to the Y and worked out before the rest of the world woke up, but not today. He had no intention of leaving Gabby alone.

  He turned from the window and moved quietly around his apartment making coffee and throwing a bagel in the toaster when he heard his bedroom door creak open. Looking up, he stopped cold as a very tousled Gabby walked into the room stretching her thin, toned limbs. Long tangles of dark brown hair cascaded down her shoulders and hung in her eyes. Streaks of red and chocolate swirling around her head. She rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands and the T-shirt she’d borrowed from him slipped from one narrow shoulder, exposing the golden hue beneath and the top part of her stunning Bob Little tattoo.

  When she looked up and caught him staring her eyes widened, slightly, like she’d forgotten for just a moment to keep her guard up. And for just that moment she saw who she really might be. Or, maybe who she might have been at one time, before life had decided to fuck with her. Just as quickly the shield was back up and locked into place.

  “You have my underwear on,” he said flatly, attempting to hide his amusement—and arousal, if he was honest—at the image of her wearing his boxers. It was hilarious, really, the way his plaid underwear floated around her like a skirt. She was tiny, and he was…holy fuck…there was that sexy as hell tattoo of blackbirds taking flight on her damn hip. Or at least he could see the very top and bottom of what looked like a sizable tattoo. And once he’d seen it there was no unseeing it.

  “Quit staring at me,” she grumbled.

  “I’m not,” he lied. He wanted to haul her up on his lap and trace those dark shapes with his finger, and then follow it with his tongue.

  Christ, where was all this fucking lust coming from all of a sudden?

  “You are. And I really hope these are clean. They were in a stack of folded clothes in a laundry basket.”

  He smiled and dragged his eyes back up to her face. “They’re clean. Want a bagel?”

  “Good. And yes please,” she said sitting down in one of the two beat-up stools at the counter. “Can I help?”

  “Nope. Coffee?”

  “Is the space pope reptilian?”

  He laughed, nearly choking on the sip of coffee he’d just taken. “What? Was that a Futurama reference? I think I’m in love.”

  She snorted as he placed a cup and bagel slathered in cream cheese in front of her, then sat down. “What other sexy secrets are you hiding under all that sneering skepticism?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure I’m sexy as hell next to the usual chicks who sleep in your bed.” She began to pick apart her bagel.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked a little too quickly.

  She looked at him and raised her brows. Apparently his question confused her. “Uh, what do you mean what do I mean?”

  “Coy is not attractive on you, Gabby. Are you saying that I pick up trashy chicks?”

  Her checks reddened and she took a sip of her coffee, still slowly chewing her breakfa
st. “No, asshole, I meant I’m not the type of hot chick you usually have sleep over.” She rolled her eyes and took another bite, looking down at her iPad dismissively.

  He picked up her tablet and closed the flap. She groaned and looked at him pointedly. “Jesus, what is your problem? I was looking for apartments. And I need to email work and get a new laptop and find some goddamn clothes…and…” Gabby’s voice began to rise. “And I need to figure out why McNeil is coming after…uhm, never mind.” She stood, but he grabbed her hips and pulled her between his legs.

  “Hey.” He tipped her chin up, but she stood stiffly, her body a rigid column. “Look at me, please.” She glared at him. “Thank you. First, I don’t sleep around. Anymore. I’ve never had a woman stay the night here. That I can remember.” She laughed. Or she made a soft little sound like air escaping her body, but Bowen wanted to think it was laughter. A Gabby giggle so to speak. “You’re beautiful, Gabrielle—hasn’t anyone ever told you that?” Her eyes softened almost imperceptibly, but enough that he noticed before she looked away. “But who the hell is McNeil and why do you think he’s trashing your car and apartment?”

  She made a small surprised squeak and pulled from his embrace. “Don’t. Just don’t.” Of all the emotions he’d seen float across her face the night before, fear hadn’t been one of them. Until now. He hated the ashen look on her usually glowing complexion, but not enough to regret his question. No more fucking around, he needed to know just what the hell he was getting into with her. He wanted to protect her, make her feel safe, but he also wasn’t naive enough to ignore the fact that bringing trouble to his door could very well mean prison time for him. And if he went to jail he wouldn’t be able to pay back his sister and brother-in-law for his rehab costs. Not to mention abandoning Tony at the shop now that three of his artists were leaving on tour when Manix Curse hit the road.