by Finn, Emilia
“No.” Laughing, he points off to the side of the road. “Please just stop a sec. It’ll take less than a minute.”
Frowning from behind the giant glasses, Laine pulls off the deserted road and brings the heavy car to a stop. Kane doesn’t wait for her to tug the handbrake up, he simply jumps over the door and sprints toward the welcome to town sign.
Assuming he’s taking a leak, Laine makes herself busy digging around in the glove compartment by my thighs, but I catch a glimpse of him as he stops in front of the sign. He shoves his hand in his pocket and comes out with something in his grasp, and before I can guess what it might be, he reaches up and starts writing on the sign.
I snort.
He’s graffitiing.
“Alex is gonna shoot you for that,” Jess shouts. Sitting on her knees, she watches her man write on the brown sign with black permanent marker. “Kane Bishop! Stop it. As your lawyer, I’d rather not see you commit crimes.”
Barking out a laugh, he re-caps his marker and pushes it back into his pocket, then runs back to the car and jumps in like what he did is perfectly normal. “Let’s go.”
“What was that?” Laine turns in her seat and glares. “Why did we stop so you could defile public property?”
“Because we can. Because we need to. Go! It’s one thing to commit a crime. It’s another to still be sitting here when the law drives by.”
“We are the law!” Jess snaps. “Alex is the law.”
“Alex can suck my dick,” he laughs. “Let’s go. You.” He grabs Jess and pulls her around until she’s half in his lap. “We should get married.”
“You wanna marry your lawyer for free counsel? Not the best foundations for a marriage, Bishop. What if I jump ship after drawing up a pre-nup that leaves you with a loaf of bread and only your shorts?”
“Doesn’t matter what you take, so long as you stay to eat the shorts with me.”
Laine shakes her head and pulls back out onto the road. “Are you sure about this?” She changes gears and grins until her glasses lift. “You sure you wanna spend your precious vacation time with these fools?”
I turn to the front and get comfortable on the roomy bench seat. There’s only so much staring my glasses will hide. “Sure, we’re going to the beach. What’s not to love? And I’m adjusting to the fact Jess’ tongue is usually in someone else’s mouth these days.”
“It’s not as weird as you’d expect, right?”
Laughing, I slump in my seat until my legs drop open. “It’s a little weird. The Babysitter’s Club sure has grown up.” When her brows pull tight, I add, “Plus, I haven’t taken time off since high school. I reckon I kinda deserve it, no? Surfing. Sleeping in. Sounds perfect, right?”
“We surf first thing in the morning, rookie. You cannot sleep in and surf.” Laughing, she steers with her knees and pulls her long, whipping hair around to tuck it under the strap of her top. “You gotta pick which one you want more, then you gotta get your shirt off.”
Fuck me.
Brand new images flash through my mind. I’ve been imagining this vacation all week; her driving, laughing, singing and dancing around a bonfire.
But now I see me there, too. I see her swimsuit. I see my missing shirt.
And I see me making a fool of myself.
Maybe this wasn’t my best idea.
“Maybe I’ll sleep in.” Leaning forward, I dig through the glove compartment for a spare hat. Two can play at the hiding-our-thoughts game. “And if I change my mind,” or figure out a way to duct tape my dick down without it hurting, “I’ll come out.”
Every step I take, every sentence I breathe, is like navigating a field of live landmines. Blindfolded. With a limp. And maybe a fucking chihuahua nipping at my heels.
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what’s going to spook her. But every second thing I say is met with a frown.
“I never took you for that guy, Ang. The guy that would sleep in instead of live. You surprise me.” She pulls onto the freeway and speeds up to match the minimal traffic ahead. “I totally expected you’d be up early to catch the waves. Or hiking. Even building sandcastles.”
“You wanna build sandcastles?”
The girl who couldn’t get her hands clean not so long ago wants to dig in the sand?
“I dunno.” She nervously pushes her glasses up when they slip down her nose. “I just meant, digging my toes into the sand would feel nice. Swimming at sunset. Looking at the stars at five in the morning.” A second shrug. “Sounds like heaven to me.”
She’s not wrong; with her, it would be heaven, but until I can get my shit under control, being lazy is better than rocking a fucking boner while she swims.
One sure way to break whatever tentative happiness she clings to right now is to walk around the way I did the first day at Spence’s.
A boner. At a fucking gun range!
Could I be more inappropriate?
“Oh.” She leans forward and turns the music up. “I love this song.”
After dropping in for coffee and gas at Dolly’s, we hit the road and drive for hours.
We drive through town after town, and every single time we pass the ‘welcome’ sign, Kane resurfaces from whatever filthy things he’s doing to Jess and demands we stop.
Each time we’ve stopped, it’s always been fifty or so feet from the sign. He’d jump out, sprint across the space, defile the sign, then come back with an odd grin on his face, and each time, whatever he wrote was too small for me to read.
But Laine’s learning. She anticipates his request at each town, which means she parks closer and closer, and now we all watch with narrowed eyes while we try to make out what he’s writing.
“He’s gonna love this.” Snickering, Kane jumps over the side of the car, plops in beside Jess, and goes back to eating her neck.
“Who’s gonna love this?” Jess pushes him back. “What are you writing? Who’s he?”
“Jay.” Opening a bag of potato chips, he stuffs his mouth full, and when we don’t go back to minding our own business, stops mid-chew and frowns. “What?”
“Jay?” Jess pulls his face around. “What are you writing for Jay?”
He pulls a chip from the bag and offers it to Jess. “Drive, Twink. We’ve got more towns to defile today.”
Laine rolls her eyes, but she pulls back onto the road.
“Jay was always the one that had a problem with authority,” Kane starts.
“Really?” I turn. “You’re kidding me, right? There were two of you, and you were the more law abiding of the two?”
He snorts. “Well, I mean, neither of us let a motherfucker disrespect us. But of me and my brother, he was the one who needed a little more direction. He was easily tempted to do bad shit.”
“He was DEA!”
Kane grins. “Yeah. He was a good guy, and he wanted to do good things. He joined the force with plans to take the filth off the streets, to save people from the dangerous stuff. He was doing it. He was a good agent. Jay was directly responsible for removing more than sixteen billion dollars worth of ecstasy and cocaine off the streets over his career. Sixteen billion. He was good at what he did, but still, he didn’t gel well with superiors that had sticks up their asses.”
“Mmm.” Jess teases. “I wonder if that runs in the family?”
He snorts. “Shush. I guess we could say Jay was more of a vigilante cop. He was employed legitimately, but he did things his own way when he could get away with it. Which was often. Our army dad pushed us toward something important, so I was ATF, and Jay was DEA. Since Jay and I trusted each other and not many other people, we were often pushed together, with Eric as our handler. He was just someone we picked up in our travels. Lucky for us, he had reach. Lucky for him, he had no stick up his ass.”
“Okay…” Jess steals the bag of chips and leans back until Kane pulls her feet into his lap. “So Jay had authority issues?”
“He really did. He didn’t have a problem with the law a
s it stands, but he had a problem with how it was enforced. People are let off because of lawyers,” he tickles under Jess’ knee, “or Eric would pull us back for one of a billion reasons that Jay disagreed with.”
“So he was a cop, he disliked law breakers, but when he had to break the law to get justice…”
“Exactly.” Kane slides his hand along her leg. “So I’m defiling public property for him. This vacation is all about healing, right?” He meets Laine’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Let’s call a spade a spade. We’re living on borrowed time, we’re escaping the shit, we’re going to the beach, and we’re gonna stand in the ocean until we get all the poison out. The Twink has her demons, but she’s shaking them off like a fucking boss. Jessie lived through bad shit last year; she needs to decompress. I’m here to mourn my little brother. And I don’t know your secrets, man…” His eyes meet mine. “But I see the fire in your eyes. I know you’ve got ghosts, and I know they dig in deep. You’re a giant ball of repressed shit, and you won’t feel better till you let it out. I know you guys have other friends back home, I know I’m the bogie, but the four of us share something in common; we’re like prisoners of war, and we’re finally seeing the real world again. It’s time to live. It’s time to start fresh until the air we breathe is clean again.” He digs a hand into his pocket and pulls out the marker. “And since Jay can’t do it, I’m gonna help him break the law one last time. A last hurrah. It’d make him smile that I’m pissing on every town we pass through.”
“That’s kinda beautiful.” Jess leans forward and pulls him in until their lips touch. “I love you a little bit more for doing this. Can I do the next one?”
“The next stop?”
“Yeah. He saved me. He carried me away and saved my life. I wanna do one for him.”
“Okay.” I watch as he stares into her eyes, before turning around and leaving them in peace. “He’ll like that, Blondie. He had the hots for you, anyway.”
One second, I’m trying to ignore the couple in the back, give them their privacy, and pretend my sort-of-little-sister isn’t doing indecent things with a criminal. And the next, Laine’s hand lands on my thigh and nearly rockets my heart through my chest.
My eyes shoot to hers. “Um–”
“Can you open these?” The weight of a candy bag in my lap becomes apparent. “I can’t do it one handed, and Jess’ hands are full.”
I throw my head back like she hit me. “Ew.”
She snickers. “You’re right, that was gross. It was funny while it was funny, then it was gross but I was already committed. By then, we’d come too far.”
“Way too far.” Pretending my leg isn’t on fire from her touch, I tear the bag open and close my eyes when it explodes and candy lands all over the seat.
“Good job, Alesi.” Giggling, she snatches up a piece and shoves it into her mouth. She chews like a cow; mouth wide, stupid smile, in love with the open road and her life. “Here, catch.” She picks up a piece and tosses it at my face.
“What the fuck?” I laugh when it bounces off my cheek and lands back where it started. “Don’t throw food at me!”
“You were supposed to catch it! Try again.” One handed, she drives and prepares her second shot. Watching me, the road, me, she chews her candy and tosses the next piece.
It catches the wind above the windshield and whips into the backseat.
Laine dissolves into a puddle of giggles when it hits a squealing Jess. Sliding her hand over the seat between us, Laine fists enough candy to keep me going for weeks and dumps it in my lap.
Right on top of my cock.
“There you go. Eat up. Its your favorite kind.”
I think this trip might kill me.
I thought about it all week. Wondered. Watched. Wished. But now that it’s here, I wonder if I made the biggest mistake of my life – going on this vacation with her, where her brother isn’t here to chaperone and no one is being the responsible adult – I’m terrified this trip might be a breeding ground for bad choices, and if I drop the ball for even one second, if I kiss her plump lips even once when they’re so near and inviting, I might break her.
I might break us.
What’s worse than not being with Laine?
Losing her forever.
Suddenly, the friend-zone doesn’t seem so bad.
23
Laine
Time To Get Serious
“I feel like a fool! He doesn’t even notice me.” I throw my hands in the air and glare at the couple across the booth. The second Angelo declared he was going to the toilet, my smiling demeanor and ‘everything will be okay’ attitude vanished. “I look like a spastic mule trying to give him the come-hither eyes, but he doesn’t even know I exist!”
“Come-hither.” Snorting, Kane fusses with the sugar packets on the table. “Trust me, Twink, he knows you exist. He definitely notices you.”
“He doesn’t! I don’t know how to do this. I feel like an idiot every time I talk to him, because my flirting is more like a mentally defunct rhinoceros trying to tap dance.”
He chuckles. “Rhinoceros trying to dance. You know how to paint a picture. Ever consider writing children’s books?”
“No!” Petty – because that’s who I am when not getting the attention I’m looking for – I mess up his neatly lined packets of sugar. “I don’t wanna write books. I want to go home, because this entire vacation is ruined!”
“Ruined?” Jess rolls her eyes. “It just began, dummy. How is it ruined?”
“I shouldn’t have invited him. Ang and I are friends, we’re good friends, but now I’m making it weird, because my flirting is stupid and he probably thinks I’m having an epileptic seizure. He’ll take me to the hospital before he takes a hint.”
Jess shakes her head and gently pries Kane’s sugar packets away when he begins lining the granules up in straight lines. Her eyes never leave mine as she digs around in her handbag before setting the permanent marker in front of his hands. “He’s a man. You’re a woman. I have it on good authority we’re sexy as fuck.”
“Yeah you are.”
“I’m a little sister! He doesn’t see me.”
Kane lifts a brow. “He sees you, I promise. He’s just not sure what to do with you.”
“I don’t believe you.” I let out a sigh when our waitress delivers our drinks; milkshakes for the ladies, soda for the guys. “I think this was a giant mistake, because now you two are going to have an amazing vacation, and I’m going to feel like a fool and probably hide away until it’s time to go home again. I shouldn’t have asked him to come. I should’ve just left the status quo, maybe dropped him a text or two while away. Flirt via text; that’s way easier.”
“No, Baby. Text is in writing, and once you send it, it’s out there forever. That can never be undone. In person is way easier, because if you fuck up or trip over, it’s forgotten three seconds later.” Jess leans across the table and takes my hand. “Body language is powerful. You can do all the flirting you need without a single word; shake your ass, smile, tuck your hair back. Then watch the magic happen when you tuck his hair back. Touch him. Touch his arm. Bat your lashes. I promise, it works.” She turns to Kane and flutters her lashes, which results in an instant laugh and a noisy kiss. “Just keep doing what you’re doing, Baby. We’ll keep doing our thing, so then he’ll feel bad that you’re out in the cold.”
“Awesome! A pity hang. He’s obligated to be nice to the third wheel, lest I turn suicidal again.”
“Stop it!” No longer smiling, Jess smacks my hand against the table. “Pull your panties up, grow a pair of ovaries, and stop whining. He likes you, Laine! He’s a man, he has a dick, and you’re beautiful. If you stopped feeling sorry for yourself for half a damn second, you’d notice the way he looks at you. The way he sits with you. The way he feels just as awkward as you, because he doesn’t know how to flirt either. Jesus.” She turns to Kane. “We never had these problems. We didn’t flirt, we skipped a bunch of steps.�
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Kane remains unaffected by my public breakdown. He simply flashes a grin and presses another kiss to Jess’ lips. “We had other shit to focus on, so banter and flirting just wasn’t something I thought about. I was more concerned with keeping you alive.”
“And I was trying to get you a job flipping burgers.”
He snorts. “So maybe we need to make this more dangerous.” Kane’s eyes meet mine. “No time for overthinking when bullets are flying. Let’s turn the stakes up higher.”
“You can’t shoot him, Bishop. You don’t have my permission to do that. He’s clueless, he’s blind, but he doesn’t deserve to die.”
“No.” He winks when Ang steps out of the restrooms across the diner. “Don’t sweat it. I won’t shoot him, I’m just gonna nudge you virginal idiots in a direction that might end with dancing rhinos.”
“Shut up.” I lean forward and take my straw between my lips. “No more words. I’m leaving tomorrow, you guys keep going without me.”
He scoffs. “Not fuckin’ likely. Ang!”
I allow my long hair to curtain my face and hide my eyes when he drops down in the booth beside me.
He smells good; he smells like the garage, but in a pleasant way.
“Did you guys order yet?”
“Nope.” Kane sits back and pulls Jess against his chest. “So it’s getting kinda late. We were gonna put in another couple hours tonight, but the girls are tired.”
“Yeah?” Ang turns toward me and works to catch my eyes. “You’re tired?” I refuse to look. And I absolutely refuse to acknowledge the boot that slams against my shin.
“I can drive if you want,” he offers. He turns back to face Kane and Jess. “Laine’s been going all day, so it’s probably my turn.”
“Nah.” Kane nods toward the parking lot. Or more accurately, to the horror movie motor inn on the opposite side of the freeway. “We’re stopping for the night. It’s been a big day, so we’re calling it. We’ll start early tomorrow, and if we get going before the sun, we’ll get to the coast by bedtime.”