I wondered if it was an isolated incident. If I somehow allowed myself to unknowingly slip away from him emotionally, leaving him no other alternative but to stray just once.
I mulled the thought over for a moment. It did seem that we’d grown apart. We hadn’t been as intimate with each other. He lacked compassion. I failed to express my concerns, needs, and desires.
I promptly came to my senses. I wasn’t going to accept any of the blame. I’d done nothing. This was all him.
His dick. His decision.
“You know what sucks?” I asked, shifting my attention to him as I spoke. “Like, really sucks?”
He paused mid-sentence. “What’s that?”
“That I can’t get a refund,” I said dryly. “For the time you took from me. Four fucking years, Jared. You lied to me. You convinced me you were worthy of my time. You weren’t. Now, those four years are gone, and I can’t get them back.”
“Refund?” He reached for my hand. “We can fix this. All I did was—”
“You stuck your dick in a random stripper,” I argued. “Don’t try to make it sound like you forgot to put the toilet lid down. It wasn’t an oversight.”
“I was drunk,” he murmured. “And she wasn’t random. I knew her.”
“You knew her?” I nearly choked on the words. “That makes it so much better. Maybe you two should get married and have little stripper babies.”
Unwilling to listen to another word of his half-assed apology, I grabbed my purse and stood. “I got drunk last night, too. But guess what I didn’t do?” I gave a dramatic pause, but not for so long that he could respond. “I didn’t fall onto some guy’s dick.”
While he recovered from my tongue-lashing, I fumbled to find my keys.
He reached for my arm. “Reggie, just—”
I pulled away and shot him a you just fucked a nasty stripper glare. “Don’t you dare touch me with your disgusting hand. I don’t want stripper glitter on me.”
“Take some time and—”
“I’m going to work,” I snapped. “Get your shit out of my house. I mean it. I want you gone. The never-come-back kind of gone. Get your ridiculous furniture and whatever else you want out of here, leave your keys on the coffee table, and turn the lock when you go. If you leave anything here, I’ll light it on fire.”
I turned toward the door, took a few steps, and paused.
“Yeah.” I faced him. “I’m burning whatever you leave here, asshole. And, if you come back, I’ll have you arrested.”
“Arrested?” He shot up from his seat. “Reggie. I want to fix this. Where am I going to go?”
There were a lot of things he could have done that I would have forgiven him for. Shoplifting. A hit and run. A weekend-long heroin bender in Vegas with his friends from college. Stabbing a co-worker in a drunken rage.
Fucking a stripper?
Hell no. It was the epitome of slapping me in the face.
“There’s no fixing it.” I pulled the door open and glanced over my shoulder. “It’s over. Go buy a trailer house and move to the desert with your stripper friend. Goodbye. I never want to see you again.”
Wearing a look of defeat, Raymond glided across the sales floor. When he reached me, he raked his fingers through his highlighted locks and let out an exaggerated sigh. “The guy at the hat rack wants to talk to you.”
“Me?” I glanced toward the display of hats. A handsome man with a deep bronze tan looked in our direction. One of his arms was sleeved with tattoos. On the other, a few tattoos were sprinkled about. A bad boy, no doubt. I flashed him a smile before shifting my attention to Raymond. “Is there a problem?”
“Yes,” he said. “There are two of them. One, he’s looking for something we won’t be able to help him with; and two, he’s not gay.”
“You want everyone to be gay,” I said with a flippant wave of my hand. “What’s he looking for?”
“A hat.”
“What kind of hat?”
“A black flat bill.” He flipped his hair away from his eyes. “He said he bought one here ten years ago and he wants another one just like it.”
“Ten years?” I gasped in disbelief. “I doubt we’re going to be able to help him find another one. Especially not one just like it.”
He took a lingering glance over his shoulder. “When you talk to him,” he whispered. “Be careful.”
“Be careful?” I gave him a look. “What do you mean?”
He peeked in the man’s direction. “His eyes. They’re—”
“Is one of them wonky?” I said, interrupting him before he finished his thought. “If it is, I’m going to stare at it. I can’t help it.”’
“No,” he cooed. “They’re divine.”
The man perused the hats, seeming unsatisfied with each that he lifted from the display. I studied him as I approached. When I reached him, he looked up. Upon seeing me, he offered a shallow smile.
A quick glance at his brown eyes revealed a depth unlike anything I’d seen. I felt compelled to stare into them but refrained.
At least for the time being.
His hair was short, dark, and slightly unkempt. The style appeared accidental. The bold features of his face were deeply tanned from the Southern California sun. Although it was just after noon, a five o’clock shadow covered his strong jawline.
His stark white tee shirt hugged his athletic physique, and his tattered jeans accentuated a perfectly shaped ass.
If looking good was criminal, he’d be doing a life sentence in Pelican Bay State Prison.
“Hi. I’m the store manager,” I said, nearly stammering to find the words. “How can I help you?”
He lifted a hat from the display and looked it over. “I bought a hat in here about ten years ago and I need to replace it.”
“You’re hoping to find one just like it?”
He fitted the cap to his head and looked in the mirror. “I am.”
Some men looked good wearing a hat. He wasn’t one of them. “What did it look like?” I asked, hoping my chance of finding a replacement was nil.
He pushed the bill up. He pulled it down. He moved it one way, and then the next. Nothing seemed to satisfy him. The only thing that would have pleased me is if he took it off and never wore it again.
Thankfully, he removed it.
He looked at it like something was wrong with it. “Are you familiar with the ‘have a nice day’ smiley face?”
I nodded. “I am.”
The tattooed muscles of his bicep flared as he twisted the cap from side to side, inspecting it. He wasn’t a large man, but his stance and posture expressed a level of confidence that was undeniable.
His handsome looks were captivating, but the charisma that surrounded him had me intrigued much more than his looks. He’d no more than asked for a frowny-faced hat, and I wanted to hear his life story.
He hung the hat on the rack. “It was a black flat billed snap-back with a white embroidered face—like the smiley face—but it was frowning.”
I wanted to play no part in obscuring his handsome face with a ridiculous hat. “I’ve never seen anything like that here,” I said, stealing a glance at his colorful tattoos while he inspected another cap. “I’m guessing you could find one on the internet, or maybe have one made somewhere.”
“I’ve looked,” he replied. “I’ve found plenty of hats with frowny faces on them, but I want that exact hat. No exceptions.”
It would be an easy problem to fix if he would accept substitutes. Wanting an exact duplicate of a ten-year-old hat seemed silly. From what I could tell, however, he was dead serious.
“So, this is a big deal?” I asked jokingly.
He gave me a straight-faced stare. “One of epic proportion.”
I quickly looked away, avoiding being captured by his bottomless brown eyes.
I couldn’t believe it. He was serious. It was frowny-faced hat or bust. I mentally sighed and embraced the idea.
“Okay.” I replied, o
gling a distant display of surfer attire. “Let me ask corporate management if there’s any record of where we got the hats back then. Maybe I can find out who made them for us.” I glanced in his direction. “Can you remember when you purchased it?”
He looked me dead in the eyes. “Specifically?”
I stood statue-still, staring back at him like a mindless buffoon. Raymond was right, his eyes were divine.
“If you know,” I said, breaking his gaze. “It might help in the records search. No promises, of course.”
“Saturday, August 8th, 2009,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I purchased it in this very store. It had only been open for a week or so at the time.”
“Oh wow,” I exclaimed, shifting my attention to him. “You remember the date? Must have been a banner day.”
He stepped into my field of vision.
I was rarely at a loss for words. Never was more like it. Yet. I stood there, gazing into his deep brown orbs like I’d been hypnotized.
“So, you’ll see what you can do?” he asked.
Following an awkward glassy-eyed stare on my part, I looked away. I mentally shook my head, hoping to clear it of the carnal fog that was setting in. “Uh huh.”
In his presence I not only looked like a fool, I sounded like one, too. I glanced at his left hand. No ring, and no tan line where one should be.
Because the man of my dreams simply didn’t exist, my current preference was the businessman-type. Men who dressed like success, had a signature scent, were well-groomed, and often drove cars that were in line with their nine to five jobs that paid a high six-figure wage.
The hat seeking patron’s arms were covered in tattoos, he smelled like gasoline-dipped leather, and was wearing jeans that were at least a decade old. I doubted he’d made six figures in the last five years combined, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he drove a truck manufactured during the Vietnam War.
I knew men like him. Everything they did—from the clothes they wore to the words they chose—was deliberate. Their hand gestures, stance, and the gait to their walk was well thought out.
Men like him got me into trouble. Not with the law, but with myself. Telling him no wouldn’t be an easy task, and I knew it all too well.
I’d been with a similar man in the past. He feared nothing and no one. When he spoke, everyone listened. He rarely made demands. He didn’t need to. Confidence squished from the soles of his shoes when he walked, yet most described him as humble. He was passionate about everything he believed in, and he believed in me.
I went on a date with him to spite my father. He quickly became an addiction. The word no vanished from my vocabulary. I forfeited everything to please him.
Not because he asked. Because I couldn’t help it.
I couldn’t be in a relationship like that again. One night of sex wouldn’t hurt anything, though. In fact, sex with the handsome stranger could be the first step in my recovery from Jared’s infidelity.
“Let me see what I can find out,” I said. “If you’d like to leave your number, I’ll call you if anything materializes. I’m Reggie, by the way.”
Regardless of my findings in the frowny-faced hat search, I was sure I could text my way into a no-strings-attached arrangement for one night. Afterward, I’d likely forget about Jared and his affinity for strippers who were dressed like Disney princesses.
One side of the hatless stranger’s mouth curled up. “Reggie?”
“Regina. My mother named me,” I said. “I go by Reggie.”
He looked me up and down, as if scanning my likeness for future reference. The temperature in the store shot up ten degrees. Then, ten more. When he stopped undressing me with his eyes, he smiled just a little. “What’s your number, Reggie? I’ll send you a text.”
I felt myself flush. I gulped down the lump of apprehension that had risen in my throat and parted my parched lips. “619-447-1035.”
While I stared at him mindlessly, I heard my phone ding from across the store.
“There,” he said. “You’ve got my number.”
“What’s your name?”
“Tito.”
“Tito?”
“Taddeo,” he said with a smile. “I go by Tito.”
“I’ll uhhm. I’ll send you a text,” I stammered. “When I find something out.”
“Why don’t you check your schedule for Saturday night,” he said, lifting one brow slightly. “Text me and let me know if you’d like to grab dinner.”
I didn’t need to check my schedule. Fucking him was all that was on my to-do list.
“Yes,” I blurted.
He smirked. “You’re free Saturday night?”
“In all honesty, I’m fresh out of a toxic relationship with my boyfriend. I need a night out with a new face to give my recovery a shove in the right direction.”
“Define fresh,” he said. “How long has it been?”
I glanced at my watch. “Six hours.” I said, giving him my best innocent look. “Give or take a few minutes. He’s clearing his things out of my house now.”
“Are you over him?” he asked.
“Over who?”
“Your boyfriend.”
I gave him a look no differently than if he spoken to me in Swahili. “What boyfriend?”
He smirked. “I’ll see you Saturday.”
208
Tito
I reserved Sundays for anything that allowed me to escape the motorcycle club’s grasp. I spent the day grocery shopping, doing yard work, walking along one of San Diego’s many beaches, and sitting on my elderly neighbor’s porch, drinking beer.
“Hap” Rourke was a seventy-year-old widower, retired Marine war veteran, and an antagonist. What little time he didn’t spend in one of the three chairs that adorned his front porch was spent exercising.
The air of confidence that accompanied him everywhere he went—when combined with his physical stature—made him a rather intimidating figure, despite his age. He kept his snow-white hair short and his stories long.
Downsizing after his wife’s death, Hap moved next door into a small two-bedroom home. After unpacking his last box, he invited me over for a beer. As a result of his open-armed acceptance I spent a considerable amount of my time with him and his son, solving the world’s problems one issue at a time.
His son Braxton was born following Hap’s last tour in Vietnam. Interestingly, he possessed a self-professed ability to see deep into the soul of any living creature. He lived in Los Angeles but made his way to San Diego to visit his father once a week, without fail.
An intriguing man to say the least, Braxton dressed very nicely, drove an expensive SUV, and spoke very little if not spoken to. Unlike his father, he wore his salt and pepper hair long enough to style, and wore it in various fashions, depending on his mood. A slight growth of well-trimmed beard covered his jawline, giving him a rough I didn’t take time to shave this morning look. Combined with his confident gait, his looks caused warning buzzers to go off, cautioning those in his path that there was much more to him than the Armani suits he wore so well.
Nestled in the chair positioned at the center of the porch, I glanced over my right shoulder, at Hap.
We were playing a game of Fuck, Marry, Kill. The concept was simple and quite entertaining. Three celebrities were named by one of the players. The other players in the game were required to decide which of the three named celebrities they would fuck, which they would marry, and which they would kill.
“Who made this game up?” Hap asked, laughing. “This is the craziest shit I’ve ever heard of. Fun to think of, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t almost immoral.”
“Nothing immoral about fictitious fucking,” Braxton commented. “Like any of these women would fuck you anyway, Old Man.”
“Might be old, but my dick still gets as hard as a diamond,” Hap insisted.
Braxton rested the bottle of beer between his legs and gave a slow clap. “Guess I have something to look forward to when I�
�m seventy. Stroking my diamond-hard dick in the bathroom while I read the Tribune.”
Hap flipped Braxton the bird with his free hand while finishing his beer. When he lowered the empty bottle, he belched. “Fuck you, Son.”
Braxton brushed the wrinkles from his tailored sport coat and smirked.
Hap shifted his attention to me. His weathered face wore a look of concern. After a short moment, it faded. “Suppose I’d fuck Jennifer Anniston, kill Nicole Kidman, and marry Julia Roberts.” He pressed the heels of his palms against the arms of the chair and rose from his seat, flexing his biceps in the process. “In that exact order.”
Blindly, Braxton opened the lid to the beer cooler, reached inside, and lifted a bottle of beer toward Hap. “In that exact order? Why?”
“Wouldn’t want to cheat on Julia,” Hap responded. “Nor would I want to be murdering people after we were married, so it’s got to be in that order. Fuck Anniston, kill Kidman, and then propose to Julia Roberts.”
“Out of curiosity, why kill Nicole Kidman?” I asked, hoping to be entertained by his response.
Hap took the bottle of beer from Braxton’s grasp and paused. “My thought process on this one was simple,” he replied. “That Kidman woman closely resembles a skinny man with a bad nose job, her face looks like someone squeezed it in a vise. I can’t stand to listen to her. Every time she opens her mouth, I want to shove a rag in it. Given half an opportunity, I’d kill her just for the fun of it—”
“What if you saw her on the street? Today?” Braxton asked, interrupting Hap. “Would you go out of your way to kill her?”
“I wouldn’t kill her if I saw her at the 7-Eleven in the broad daylight,” Hap responded as if it were sheer fact. “But if she was behind the bar at midnight, I’d whack her in the head with a brick just so I wouldn’t have to see her at any more awards banquets. I’d smack her right in the schnoz. Ironic as hell that she’s included in this, because that woman annoys me more than any other person on this planet.”
Devil's Disciples MC Series- The Complete Boxed Set Page 108