by Kira Blakely
“Tomorrow then?”
“Yeah, that would be great.”
“Cool. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Laura hung up, her spirits dropping slightly as she pulled into the parking lot of her job.
She leaned her head back against her seat, and said, “If she won’t go, I’ll go alone. I don’t want to, but I won’t stay here anymore. I can’t. I absolutely can’t. Not even for Lexie.”
As it turned out, she didn’t have to. Lexie’s Prince Charming pulled a move that made Lexie see him for what he really was – a selfish jerk – and so the two of them rented a place via the internet, packed their things, and headed off to the city in a haze of laughter and elation.
It was late evening when they crested the last big hill that led down a long stretch of highway to the city which dropped into a bowl-like valley. Lights flashed and gleamed. The vastness of those lights and the city that they outlined took Laura’s breath away. Pure joy filled her veins.
“Oh, my God!” Her tone carried her happiness. “Check it out, Lexie! We made it!”
“Yeah, I see.” Lexie’s tone held fear. Laura immediately sent Lexie a reassuring smile. They’d been friends – best friends – for a very long time. Lexie was the only person who knew just how badly Laura’s parents really treated her, and she’d always been grateful that Laura, who’d always been popular, had stopped the bullying Lexie had endured for so long, but she had never learned to stand up for herself, which often frustrated Laura.
Laura said, “It’s party time now!” and gunned the gas.
The city was a whirl of partying and work. Time flew by. A new neighbor moved in one day – a sharp and inquisitive young woman named Hope. Hope was a medical researcher, but most of her work in the early days of their friendship seemed to center on finding a cure for her and Laura’s massive hangovers.
As Lexie met and got into a relationship with Dawson – a billionaire internet tycoon – Laura and Hope started spending more and more time together.
They met one day for lunch, and Hope came flying up to the table, her stunning face alight with a smile. “Hey, Laura! Sorry I’m late!”
“Don’t worry about it.” Laura gestured to the menu she held in one hand. “I was torn between ordering a full-on feast and a salad anyway, and I’m still in doubt.”
Hope sat down. She said, “God, you’re so lucky. It wouldn’t matter what you ate; you’d stay thin.” Hope’s hand patted at her flat tummy. “I’m always in the gym, hoping to work off something.”
“You look great.” Laura meant it. “Hey, did you see that new bar opening downtown? That looks like a great place, and tonight’s their soft opening. Ladies get in free, and they have half-priced drink specials.”
Hope unfolded the menu. “I saw it. I have to work extra late tonight though, so I don’t think I can make it.”
“Damn.” Laura peered down at the menu, vaguely disappointed but also a little relieved. Lately, she’d felt a little ambivalent toward her lifestyle. Maybe it was Lexie falling so deeply in love with Dawson and having a real boyfriend. Maybe it was because all the guys she had dated here seemed to be the same guy.
Handsome, charming, and good to party with, but not at all interested in anything else. It seemed like every guy she met was too busy with a career or trying to get a career, or too busy holding out because there were just too many gorgeous women in the city who might be their next fast lay.
Hope asked, “Are you okay?”
Laura fiddled with the menu before setting it aside. “I don’t know. Mike broke up with me.”
Holly’s brow creased. “Were you guys dating or just hanging out?”
“I don’t know that either. I think that’s what has me so confused though. I mean, we kept going out, not just to bars and not just for hookups. It felt like we were actually dating, you know? Then, he stopped calling or texting. He went like, ghost or something.”
Hope set her menu aside and sipped at the soda that Laura had ordered for her. “Have you talked to him at all?”
“Yeah. This morning, I finally got a hold of him, and he gave me the whole ‘it’s-not-you’ spiel.”
Hope sat back in the chair. “Wow.”
Laura grimaced. “I know, right?” Her mouth snapped closed over what else she had been about to say as the server approached and took their orders. Once the server left, Laura leaned forward and added, “I don’t get it. I mean, I don’t even know if what we were doing was dating, and then I don’t know if I just got broken up with by a boyfriend or if I just got disconnected from a hookup. It’s sort of…I don’t know…weird.”
Hope said, “Yeah, I get it. I often think that I really need a real relationship, you know? But I’m so busy, and I like my life. I don’t know if I even want to put in all the time and effort something like that would take, and even if I did the guys in the city are so –”
“Terrible,” Laura finished. “The ones who want more than a hookup usually end up being sort of creepy. The ones who don’t want anything more than a hookup are cocky assholes. I mean, how do you find a good guy – one worth spending all that time on anyway?”
Hope shrugged, “Beats me. If I could answer that question, neither of us would be single or discussing how you may or may not have been broken up with by a guy you may or may not have been dating.”
Laura chuckled and reached for her soda. She took a long pull on the straw. “So true. And I had boyfriends back home. The kind that wanted to marry me, get me pregnant, and come home to a full dinner on the table and all that. No, thanks. That’s not what I want at all. I don’t want that, but I don’t think I just want to keep hooking up either. There has to be some kind of happy medium.”
Hope said, “Let me know when you find it.”
They toasted each other with their drinks, and Holly added, “So are you going to that new place tonight?”
“Probably.” Why not? It beats sitting at home, watching the same old movies and shows on Netflix anyway. Lexie had a big date with Dawson, so it also beat sitting at home alone.
Their food came. Hope had ordered a salad while Laura had gone all out and ordered a bacon cheeseburger and fries. Hope said, “It’s a good thing I like you. If I didn’t, I would totally hate you right now.”
Laura surveyed their plates and grinned. “I have an idea. Let’s split it. You take half my food, and I will take half your salad.”
“Not going to argue,” Hope said.
She didn’t. They finished the meal and then headed in opposite directions. Laura knew Hope had just gotten a huge grant from some large research group and was going to have to work a lot in the next few months to fulfill the obligations that went along with that grant, and she worried that now she’d have nobody to hang out with.
Maybe I should stay home more, she thought as she got into her car.
“No way,” she muttered to herself as she cranked up her car and headed out of the parking lot. “I hung out around the house enough to last me a lifetime. I came to the city to live, and I’m damn well going to!”
After work that day, Laura went home. The apartment was empty. Lexie had gone on her date with Dawson straight from the office it seemed. The idea of going out was hardly appealing, but the idea of staying home was even less appealing.
“Oh, screw it. I’ll just go, have a drink or two, and come home.” Laura strode into her bedroom to find an outfit suitable for a new club’s opening night. “I mean, it’s probably going to be lame anyway, and there probably won’t be many people there, but if I go to my usual place I’m bound to run into Mike, and that’s the last thing that I want. Really, what’s the worst that could happen?”
As she pulled out a set of skinny jeans, tall boots, and a silk blouse in a shade that would perfectly compliment her dark hair from her closet, Laura had no idea that her entire life was about to change in a drastic way.
She decided against driving just because her job was at stake. Getting fired was entirely unacce
ptable; she had to have that job if she was going to stay in the city, and there was no way in hell she was ever going back!
The cab showed up and she got in. The ride was long and boring, and she found herself regretting that she had taken the cab just because the fare was so expensive. On the plus side, maybe she would not have to pay the fare back home.
There was a thick pulse of thwarted desire in her body. Lately, she had been ‘dating’ that jerk, and what a waste of time that had been! He had not even been that good in bed, for God’s sake!
The cab let her out in front of the club. To her dismay, it wasn’t very packed and the doorman gave her a bored look before yawning out a demand for five dollars. She handed it over reluctantly. Maybe she was just wasting money she could be putting to better use.
She paid and went past the doorman, standing in the doorway and letting her eyes adjust while she looked around the place.
It was set up well, but the opening had not drawn a big crowd. There were about a half-dozen guys gathered around the two pool tables and a couple of skanky looking women hanging out near them. The bar’s tables were about a third full, and most of the people sitting there were not even looking at the empty and deserted dance floor.
A man seated at the bar caught her eye. He was hot and she paused, her brow wrinkling. She knew him from somewhere, but she couldn’t figure out where until one of the skanky looking women hanging at the pool table suddenly walked up to him and said something, making him turn his head so that the neon bulb overhead lit up his features.
Oh, right. Dawson’s friend. What was his name again? She thought to herself.
Ashton.
She took a seat at the bar, watching him and the woman. He didn’t seem to know her, but he ordered her a drink. She gave him a coy smile and said something that made him shake his head. Laura turned her eyes back to the bar just in time to see the guys at the pool table.
Her gut said trouble was about to happen. Not one of them had a happy look on their rough faces, and all of them were staring right at Ashton and the woman still talking to him.
1
Ashton
“KNIFE!”
The shouted word jolted Ashton back in time – back to the fight that sent Dawson out of school and Ashton into reform school.
The anger came surging up with the memory. He had bigger reasons to be angry than just the memory of a knife striking along his abdomen just then, too.
Gerald. The creep who’d once beaten Ashton into the dirt was now twice as big and even uglier than before. Gerald still had it out for him – that much was clear.
Ashton was the reason Gerald had spent five long years in a maximum-security lockup, and by the time he got out and back to the block, his dad was locked up and his street rep was shattered. Gerald’s dad had done the unthinkable and turned on his suppliers to get a reduced sentence. As a result, Gerald came home to nothing – not even a place to lay his head.
Naturally, it was all Ashton’s fault.
Gerald felt like if he had been free he could have taken over before his dad got too far gone to do anything more than front out big shipments of dope that somehow never got sold and before he could get locked up and rat on his suppliers.
Because his dad owed so many debts, Gerald couldn’t even get into the family business. Now he spent his life working at a low-wage job in a shabby garage down on the same block his dad had once ruled over.
Ashton groaned inwardly as he studied Gerald, the two guys flanking him, and the wicked gleam of the blade flashing in Gerald’s meaty grip.
He had time to wonder what kind of idiot he had to be to not only get into a fight with Gerald, but over the woman who was now cowering behind Gerald. Obviously, she was thrilled at this turn of events. She had her man and another dude fighting over her dubious charms.
Not that Ashton had really been interested in her at all. She’d sashayed up to him at the bar and cooed a few words in his ear. He’d bought her a drink mostly to get rid of her. Gerald had pounced and now they were all out here in the dimly lit parking lot: him against three guys, a woman who may or may not jump in, and a knife.
Great odds, if he’d been on the other side of it all.
On his side was him.
Oh, and her.
Her being that friend of Lexie’s. What was her name? Lori? Laura?
She’d come hauling ass out of the bar, all long legs in skinny jeans and high boots, firm breasts in a body-hugging sweater that also emphasized her flat midriff.
The perfect distraction.
And the last thing he needed right now.
Laura – that was her name he remembered just then – stormed closer, her glorious hair spilling across her narrow shoulders, the ends trailing across her tits. He had to restrain an urge to reach out and brush one lock of hair away from her right tit – just give her a smile and wish he could have had her before this wholly ignominious death thing that was about to happen to him in the parking lot of a club that was already showing all the signs of being a huge flop.
After all, the only people who’d shown up were Gerald and his crew, him and Laura, and the usual debauched set that swarmed to any bar offering half-off drink specials and free pretzels. And he had only come because he’d been driving by and seen the sign for the soft opening. It was a bar he had never been in, and he had been hoping to find distraction from his current bad mood and the case of the blues that had settled over him lately.
Well, he certainly wasn’t feeling depressed or bored. That was something.
Gerald gave him a lazy smile. Laura, who’d been the one to shout out ‘knife,’ took up a stance next to Ashton. The wind blew up just a little, giving him a whiff of her perfume – light, spicy, and somehow so sexy that, despite everything, his dick started to harden yet again.
It had begun to harden the moment she’d come running out the door of the club, breasts bouncing and face slightly red from exertion.
Laura said, “You want to fight one-on-one, that’s cool. But why you would think he wants her is beyond me. He’s here with me.”
The woman with Gerald stuck her dried platinum head out from behind Gerald. “Then he should not have bought me a drink!”
“You shouldn’t have asked for one. Believe me, I’m pissed at him for buying you a drink, but I’m more pissed that you came walking up and asked for one.”
What the hell was she doing? She had been sitting right next to him, and he had nodded at her. He remembered her vaguely from some party he had gone to at Dawson’s request and that she was Dawson’s girlfriend’s friend. That last was exactly why he hadn’t hit on her instead of buying the woman behind Gerald a drink.
Dawson was seriously protective over Lexie, his girlfriend, and if Ashton screwed over her friend he would have to hear about that from Dawson.
No, thanks.
“Go fuck yourself! You should keep your man’s dick in his pants then!”
Ouch. Ashton was busy watching Gerald’s hand and trying not to laugh at the sudden comedic turn that whole thing had taken.
Laura put her hands on her hips and said, “His dick? Are you fucking serious? When did you ever see his dick? He felt bad for you, and he bought you a drink. You know, sort of the thing any nice guy would do.”
Oh, God. He was going to laugh. No way was he a nice guy – not by any stretch of the imagination.
Blondie stuck her head back out and gave Laura an imperious middle finger. “Yeah, you keep on thinking he wasn’t totally into me?”
“Oh? And you’re such a tramp you were willing to ditch Prince Charming there if he had offered you more than a drink? For real, guy, that’s the woman you think you need to fight over.”
Uh oh. Gerald’s eyes narrowed. “What are you saying about my girl, you bitch?”
“Don’t call her a bitch,” Ashton was no longer tempted to laugh. He was mad as hell. He stepped closer, disregarding the knife now. “If you’d kept your freak on a leash and off the guys in t
he club, you wouldn’t be out here in the parking lot trying to defend whatever she passes off as her honor.”
Gerald’s hand moved. Ashton’s stomach sucked backward. A thin stream of some vile smelling stuff flew past his face and he closed his eyes as soon as his brain told him what it was.
Mace!
Laura had just maced Gerald!
Gerald screamed, but he didn’t drop the knife. Ashton, never one to waste an opportunity when the odds were so stacked against him, drove his right foot right into Gerald’s balls. Naturally, Blondie was the first to come out swinging. Ashton ducked away. Laura responded by whipping out the mace again and sending a jet of it into Blondie’s eyes.
The two guys with Gerald rushed in. Gerald was on the ground, holding his balls with one hand and the knife with the other. If he got up, it was over.
He need not have worried. Laura dropped the empty can of mace and stuck a hand into her purse. The unmistakable sound of a Taser lit up the night just as the two dudes swarmed in.
One of them yelled and flailed around, then dropped, leaving Ashton with just one guy to deal with.
Way to level the odds!
Gerald was attempting to get up. Ashton managed to land a few punches and still deliver a brutal kick to Gerald’s thigh. The tased guy was down; Blondie was clawing at her face, and it looked like the best chance Ashton and Laura had to get out of there.
Fast.
He gave the guy looping punches toward his head – a hard-right cross followed up by a speedy jab to his gut. The sound of sirens approaching fast diverted his attention away from the fight.
Laura yelled, “Come on! Where’s your car? We have to go!”
She grabbed him by one arm. Ashton didn’t argue. He hurtled across the parking lot, aiming for his expensive sports car. He popped the locks with the remote and started it before he even got the door open.
Laura ducked into the passenger seat. Unbelievably enough, she was laughing! Now, there was one hell of a woman. He studied her more closely despite the need to watch where he was going. He knew she was friends with Lexie, but why hadn’t he paid more attention to her before, even if she was?