“What about Anniston?” I asked. “Why not marry her?”
“Her nipples are always hard.” Hap raised his clenched fists to his chest and extended his little fingers. “Ever seen a picture of her when they’re not poking out there like a rigid pinkie finger?”
I laughed. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Means her boobs are fake,” Hap said. “I’m not marrying anyone with silicone implants.” He flexed his aging bicep. “I’m all natural and I expect my spouse to be the same.”
“Put the guns away, old man.” Braxton chuckled a sarcastic laugh. “Before someone calls the cops.”
Hap gave his swollen upper arm an admiring glance before lowering it to his side. “Kid at the Starbucks cut me in line last Wednesday, thinking I wouldn’t say anything. I grabbed a fistful of his shirt and yanked his ass away from the counter. I might be seventy, but I still got it. Made that spindly little prick apologize and go to the back of the line.”
“Damn it, Old Man,” Braxton snarled. “I don’t want to be driving down here and bailing you out of jail for smacking some college kid.”
“Wouldn’t call you to bail me out.” Hap gestured in my direction with the neck of his beer bottle. “I’d call the kid.”
“Good to know,” Braxton said with a nod.
“Your turn, Brax,” Hap said, taking his seat at my side. “Fuck, marry, kill. Let’s hear it.”
Braxton studied a man who was arguing with a woman in the driveway of a home across the street. She backed her car out of the driveway, screeching the tires as she pulled away. The man stood with his fists clenched, fuming mad.
As the man turned toward the home, Braxton responded. “Can’t stand Kidman, either,” he admitted, stroking the graying scruff on his jaw as he spoke. “I’d fuck her, though.” He shifted his eyes to Hap. “In the ass. I’d kill Julia Roberts, and, believe me, I’d be doing the world a favor. Her face looks like a horse. For clarification, I’d be fucking that Australian bitch in the ass until she drew her last, dying breath. So, technically, I’d be killing two of them, leaving only one to marry: Anniston.”
Hap gave me a confused look. “Can he do that?”
“Do what?” I asked.
“Kill two of ‘em?” He crossed his arms. “Because if we can do that, I need to back up to the last one and make a few changes.”
“I can kill two,” Braxton said before I had the chance to respond. “If one of them is an accident.”
Hap shot Braxton a glare. “Doesn’t sound like an accident. Premeditated murder, if you ask me.”
“Nope,” his son argued. “It’d be an accident. I know me well enough to know I’d fuck that ugly cunt until she quit breathing. It’d be accidental. I’d just be caught up in the moment.”
“It’s not an accident if you go into it knowing you’re going to kill her,” Hap said, his voice raising two octaves. “It’s murder.”
Braxton shook his head. “Accident.”
“Fine.” Hap said in a huff. “I want to go back to the one we did a minute ago, and choke that google-eyed Paris Hilton by accident.”
“Can’t choke someone by accident,” Braxton said. “Choking someone is murder. Ass-fucking someone to death isn’t.”
“Then I won’t choke her,” Hap snarled. “But it’s bugging the shit out of me that I let her live. I keep conjuring up images of her, and it’s making my stomach turn. I’ve got to kill her. Kill Paris Hilton, kill Khloe Kardashian, and marry the little Mexican girl, Mila Kunis.”
“She’s from Ukraine,” I said.
“Kunis?” Hap seemed surprised. “She’s not a Mexican?”
“About as far away from Mexico as she could be,” I replied.
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
With a satisfied look on his face, Hap rubbed his open palms over his gray buzz-cut while alternating glances between Braxton and me. “If Kunis is Russian, I’m feeling pretty good about this. So, kill, kill, marry. No fucking, except for the fucking Kunis and I are going to do afterward.”
Braxton shook his head. “Can’t kill two—”
“You did,” Hap complained.
“One was a fucking accident.”
“Well, while Kardashian is changing her Range Rover’s tire on the freeway, I’ll swerve over there and run her dumb ass over with my truck,” Hap said. “Then, I’ll accidently push Hilton off the edge of my balcony while handing her a glass of wine. That’s my final answer.”
“Three problems,” Braxton said. “First, you don’t have a balcony. Second, even if you did, you can’t accidently push someone off a balcony. If you push them, it’s on purpose. Third, Kardashian would never change her own tire. She’d have someone do it for her.”
“This is all fictitious horseshit,” Hap said. “I’ll play by the rules, though. I’m running over that dumb Kardashian bitch with my truck. Period. Maybe she’s walking down the sidewalk with one of her equally stupid sisters and I swerve over and get a two-for-one. Squash Khloe and Kim as flat as a couple of pancakes. I’ll spread Spandex, high-end purses, jewelry, designer clothes, and their remains for half a mile along Sunset Boulevard. With Hilton, I guess I won’t push her off a balcony. You and I’d be leaving that fancy restaurant in Hollywood you took me to. The one that British lady owns, SUR. Hilton would be coming in as we were walking out. Her crooked eyes would catch my attention. In this little fable, I’m wearing those fancy curvy-toed boots you gave me for Christmas two years back. So, while we’re coming out of the restaurant, her google eyes are distracting me. I catch one of those oversized boots on something, but I don’t know what it is, because I’m staring at her fish eyes. I stumble into her and push her off the curb in front of a gang banger speeding away from the scene of a drive by. He hits her with the front end of his ‘64 Impala and plasters that cock-eyed bitch from LA to Encino.” He clapped his hands together and offered his open palms. “Complete accident.”
“Drags her all the way to Encino, huh?” Braxton gave a nod. “I suppose that will work.”
“It’s fun to think about ridding this earth of the uppity reality show twits,” Hap said with a smile. “The reality is this: they’re a bunch of annoying bitches. We need better role models than a google-eyed hotel chain heir or a group of rich dip-shit sisters with fake lips and fat asses.”
“I’d like to climb inside your head for about three minutes, Old Man.” Braxton chuckled a dry laugh. “You’re a few slices shy of a full loaf.”
“You’re one to talk,” Hap spat. “You said you don’t like those dumb whores, either.”
“Oh, believe me, I’m in agreement on the Kardashians,” Braxton said. “In fact, I’d kill every one of those phony bitches, just to pass the time. Can’t stand the sight of ‘em. In fact, I escorted the Jenner girl to a function last year and I was tempted to push her in front of a speeding truck.”
“The billionaire?” Hap asked.
“No, her sister. The model.”
From my discussions with Hap, I knew Braxton worked with Hollywood types, but I had no idea what he did, specifically.
I cleared my throat. “Braxton, what is it that you do for work?”
He glanced in my direction. “I solve problems.”
“What problem did Kendall Jenner have that she needed your assistance?”
“A problem with proximity,” he said dryly.
Dissatisfied with his lackluster response I waited for further explanation.
He held my gaze while taking a slow drink of his beer. When he lowered the bottle, he let out a sigh. “She needed to parade alongside a group of five thousand screaming fans without having anyone get close enough to touch her.”
“You’re a bodyguard?”
He brushed lint from one of the lapels of his sport coat. “Like I said, I solve problems.”
I nodded in acknowledgement. “I see.”
“Tell him about your problem, Kid,” Hap said, waving his hand toward Braxton. “Bra
x knows people. All kinds of people.”
“I don’t have a problem,” I responded.
“It sure sounded like you did when you were whining about it this morning,” Hap said with a laugh. “Hell, you were nearly frantic. Like a teenage girl who’d dropped her phone in the toilet.”
I looked at Braxton and sighed. “My hat flew off on the freeway. Lost, and gone forever.”
Braxton stared for a lingering moment. “Sorry, I was waiting for you to continue.” He gave me a look of disbelief. “Is that it?”
“The hat was special.”
Braxton gazed across the street while rubbing the whiskers on his jaw. He appeared to either not have heard me, or he was deep in thought.
“Based on my experience in such matters,” he said, breaking the silence. “Here’s my professional opinion.” He gave me a serious look. “Get a new hat.”
“Told you he was a problem solver,” Hap chimed as if Braxton had formulated a cure for cancer. “See? Problem solved.”
I wished it was that simple. “The hat was more than special,” I explained. “Like a good luck charm. Maybe not so much a charm. It’s was more of a trademark. I’ve been wearing it for a decade.”
Braxton struggled not to smile. “You’re trying to tell me recovering from this loss is going to be difficult?”
It seemed strange hearing him say it. Nevertheless, the hat’s absence was causing real-life problems that I wasn’t prepared to deal with. Hopefully, replacing it would resolve most of them.
“I’m hoping to find another one just like it,” I said. “I’ve got someone working on it.”
Braxton retrieved another beer from the cooler. He twisted off the cap. “A hat expert?”
“Of sorts,” I replied. “She’s a manager at a clothing store.”
“He’s got a date with her Saturday night,” Hap interjected. “I might be more excited about it than he is.”
“Interesting,” Braxton said, looking me over while he sipped his beer. “You’ve been spending your Sundays here for damned near as long as the Old Man’s been living here. Never seen a woman at your house. In fact, you’ve never mentioned going on a date.”
“I rarely go on dates,” I said. “Just busy doing other things, I guess.”
“Just busy, huh?” He chuckled. “Busy? You waste six or eight hours every Sunday, right here.”
In some respects, I had two completely different lives. My life as a criminal with the motorcycle club, and my life at home. Short of someone from the club stopping by my home unannounced, I didn’t mix the two. Having that level of separation in my life was necessary. It allowed me to look at the activities in the MC as a job, not my way of life.
“Spending time here lets me unwind from a week of bullshit with the motorcycle club. It’s relaxing. I don’t have to think. When I’m here, I just exist. I enjoy it.”
He looked me over slowly, as if dissecting my response and searching through the pieces for fault. He pressed the web of his hand against his chin and rubbed his beard with his thumb and forefinger. “What makes this girl special enough to break your busy routine?”
“Her appearance, sense of humor, and the way it made her nervous when I looked at her.” I took a drink of my beer. “I liked those things about her.”
He watched the man across the street, who was pacing the yard while talking on his cell phone. “Describe her.”
“Brunette. Athletic build. Blue eyes. Thirty-ish. Just out of a relationship,” I replied.
“Just out, huh?” Still studying the man across the street, he set his beer aside and stood. “This year? This month? This week?”
“Sounds like it happened this morning,” I said, wondering what he found so interesting about the neighbor. “They broke up a few hours before we met.”
He laughed.
“What?” I asked.
“She’s using you to get back at him.” He glanced at me. “And you’re using her to find your hat.”
I suspected he was right on one account. On the other, he wasn’t completely right, but he wasn’t wrong, either.
I pretended to be surprised. “Why do you say that?”
When the neighbor walked inside, Braxton sat down and faced me. “You think giving her some dick will act as an incentive for her to find your hat. She’s a few hours out of a relationship. She isn’t going on a date because she thinks you fit the mold of her perfect man. She’s planning on using sex as a means of obtaining justice for whatever her ex did to end the relationship. You just happened to be the guy she picked. What were you wearing when you went into her shop?”
“Wearing?” It seemed like an odd question. “What I’ve got on right now.”
“She pegged you for a biker,” he said. “Her ex is probably a pencil-pusher. She’s scratching an itch, no doubt.”
“An itch?”
“The bad boy itch,” he responded. “Every woman has one. Some act on it, some don’t.”
“I asked her out, she didn’t ask me,” I retorted, taking exception to his remark. “She’s not scratching an itch.”
“She said yes because you’re the antithesis of her day-to-day routine.” He nonchalantly sipped his beer. “It’s not a stab at you. It’s just how things are.”
He acted like it was a common occurrence. He may have been the avowed psychologist of the group, but I wasn’t convinced. “You know this how?”
“I see it all the time.”
“In your line of work?” I asked, my tone clearly sarcastic.
“She’s planning on using you for sex, and that’s it. You don’t have to believe me,” he said, wearing a smirk. “But if I’m right, I want an 18-year-old bottle of Macallan to accompany you on your next visit.”
“And, if you’re wrong?” I asked.
He nodded toward the end of the driveway. “I’ll give you the keys to that Range Rover.”
209
Reggie
“A biker?” She coughed as if saying the word brought a bitter taste to her mouth. “This is going to be interesting. Hopefully he won’t hack you up into pieces.”
On most days, Mel was my best friend. Sometimes, albeit infrequently, she acted like she was my parent.
I opened her refrigerator door and peered inside. “He’s a biker, not the San Diego County Strangler.”
“Sport bike or American V-Twin?”
Apparently, Mel was a closet motorcycle enthusiast. I, on the other hand, wasn’t. I glanced over my shoulder. “What’s an American V-Twin?”
“An American V-Twin is a Harley or one of the Harley look-alikes.”
“Oh.” I went back to pilfering the fridge. “I dunno.”
“Did it have a low rumble or a high-pitched whine?”
“I haven’t seen it yet.” I opened a small Tupperware and smelled the contents. “When did you cook this?”
“Are there noodles in it?”
I studied it. It seemed noodle-like. “There’s some noodle-like stuff in it. Tomatoes. Meat. Cheese.” I gave it a closer look, and then poked it with my finger. “Yeah, they’re noodles.”
“Tuesday.”
“What’s today?”
“Sunday.”
I counted the days on my free hand. According to those in the know, it was on the cusp of being rotten. I tasted my finger. “Do you think they lie to us when they say three to five days?”
“When who says three to five days?”
“Whoever they are.” I smelled the container’s contents. “The food people. I think the organizations who give the warnings own the companies that sell the products. The pasta manufacturers want us buying new pasta instead of eating leftover pasta. It’s a farce.”
“I’ve eaten month-old pasta without getting sick,” she said, confirming my suspicion. “You’ll be fine.”
I dumped the contents into a bowl and put it in the microwave. While I waited for my early evening snack to reach the 160-degree safe zone, I faced Mel. “If dip-shit leaves anything at my hous
e, do you wanna help me light it on fire?”
Her eyes widened with excitement. “Hell yes.”
“I really hope he left something. Or, several somethings. Like those furry little slip-on loafers. Or that stupid fucking couch.”
She rubbed her hands together. “The green pleather one?”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“God, I hope he leaves that thing,” she spouted. “I hate that fucking couch. It makes me sweat and then my legs stick to it.”
“I can’t believe he talked me into buying it.”
“I’m just glad it’s finally over. It’s time to start a new life. Be single for a while. It’s fun.”
Melanie’s soon to be brother-in-law, Brandon, was at a bachelor party in Oceanside and had seen Jared at the strip club. After staying until closing time, Brandon and his friends stumbled into the parking lot, only to find Jared in the front seat of his car, balls-deep in one of the strippers. Brandon promptly called Mel. Mel, who detested Jared, informed me within seconds of receiving the news.
“It’s going to be weird not having him there,” I admitted.
Her brows raised. “He. Fucked. A. Stripper.”
“I didn’t say I was going to regret it,” I said in my defense. “I said it was going to be weird. The same kind of weird it’d be if I got rid of that lamp my mom gave me.”
“The ugly one by the door?”
“Uh huh.”
“Yeah,” she said. “It’d be weird if that was gone.”
I pulled the pasta from the microwave and plopped down at the table. While I picked at it with my fork, she sat down across from me.
“You don’t think it’s too early to be going on a date?” she asked.
It wasn’t uncommon for Mel to go on three dates a week. Granted, they were internet dating site hook-ups, but calling me out for going on one date with a man I met at work was complete crap.
“I can’t control what happens.” I gave her a look. “He asked me out.”
“Rebound relationships never last,” she said. “Ever.”
“Relationship?” I looked at her like she was crazy for even mentioning the word. Commitments with members of the opposite sex were the predecessor to deep disappointments. “I’m not going to be in a relationship with him. We’re going to screw. That’s it.”
Devil's Disciples MC Series- The Complete Boxed Set Page 109