by Linda Kage
“Sure,” I muttered. “Let me clean up first.”
***
“So what’s up with you and Professor Girlfriend? I’m guessing you guys split since we’ve all had to rearrange our schedules for you and now I’m stuck on suicide watch.”
I glared over at Pick from the passenger seat of his car, some souped-up classic he had no-doubt fine-tuned to perfection. “You’re not on—look, I’m not going to do anything to myself. I’m fine. But yes, we’re...” The word caught in my throat and I had to rasp, “…over. It’s been a week, but I’m past it.”
Okay, I wasn’t past it at all. But I no longer felt the urge to get drunk and crash her class anymore. That was, if she still had a class to crash.
Shit. The guilt slammed into on me all over again. She was gone, and it was my fault. I wiped a hand over my face, surprised to find my fingers shaking.
“Then why are Larry and Curly still worried about you?”
“Because they’re pussies?” I guessed with a disgusted sigh. “How the hell should I know?”
“Well, what happened?”
Drumming my fingers against my knee, I turned to gaze out the side window.
“Might as well tell me,” Pick cajoled. “I’m going to bug the piss out of you until you do.”
I sighed and glanced at him. “Some anonymous person sent a picture of us together to my coach, and she got axed.”
“Well, fuck,” Pick breathed out quietly. “Why didn’t you get into trouble, too? Or did you?”
My jaw hardened. “The picture only revealed her face. Mine was cropped off.”
“Wait. Then how did they even know it was a student she was banging? If they couldn’t see you, she could’ve been fucking anyone.”
Grinding my teeth, I pushed up my sleeve to show him my tattoo. “Back in October, about a dozen of us got these the night before our big national championship game. It was the only clear thing you could see of me in the shot.”
Pick glanced at the tat, read it carefully, and snorted out a laugh. “National champs? Didn’t you guys lose that game?”
“And didn’t I say we got them the night before?” I muttered, pushing my sleeve back down to cover the humiliating mistake, a mistake that had ended up costing Aspen her job.
“So, the girl got stuck with all the heat, and you just...let her take the fall...by herself?” Pick shook his head, disappointed oozing off him in waves.
“No,” I growled. Fisting my hand, I slammed it down on his dashboard. “I did not just let her take the fall. By the time I’d found out what had happened, she was already gone. Ten and Hamilton managed to talk me out of confessing to Coach. But that’s what I should’ve done. Damn it. Instead, I went to Aspen’s boss and tried to talk him into bringing her back. Big fucking mistake. Let me tell you. Coach would’ve just kicked my ass off the team and pulled my scholarship.”
“But not this prick,” Pick guessed.
I shook my head. “Nope, not this prick. When he learned I was the guy in the picture, not only did he refuse to reinstate her, but he refused to reprimand me. He’s a big football fan, you see. So I threatened to leave school and drop out of the team if he didn’t bring her back, to which he in turn threatened to go public if I even acted like I was going to leave. So, now she’s gone, and I’m stuck here in order to save her reputation and make sure she doesn’t lose all chance of getting a job anywhere else in the country. But in the meantime, yeah, I look like a complete bastard for letting her take all the heat for our relationship.”
“Man.” Pick shook his head and blew out a low whistle. “That’s harsh. Sucks to be you right now.”
“Yep,” I muttered, turning my face away to look out the passenger side window again.
“And you haven’t heard from her at all since that went down?”
Emotion overwhelmed me. I wanted to hit something again. Or break down like a pussy and cry. “No. I’m pretty sure she left town. She won’t answer her door, and her mail has been piling up.”
“You don’t think she would hurt herself, do you?”
White hot panic roared through me. I glanced slowly at Pick, giving him the death glare. “Well, I hadn’t...until now. Jesus, she wouldn’t—wait. No. Her car’s gone too. If she was in the house, her car would still be there. She’s okay.” She had to be okay.
“Unless—”
“Jesus, Pick,” I snapped. “Stop freaking me out. She’s okay. She just needs some time.”
“Well, if you ever need to get into her place, just to check and make sure, I know how to jimmy a lock.”
I shook my head. “God, man. Where’d you learn a handy trick like that? The state pen?”
“I never went to the pen, ass wipe. It was county lockup for, like, two weeks. And, no, I didn’t learn how to break and enter in jail. You meet all kinds of interesting kids when you grow up in the foster care system.”
I knew he’d done some time because he’d mentioned having to meet with his parole officer before. But... “I didn’t know you grew up in foster care.”
“Yep. From birth until I graduated out of it at eighteen.”
With a shiver, I wondered what would’ve happened to me if my mother had been any more of a crappy parent then she’d been. I could’ve grown up in the same kind of life as Pick had. Hell, my little brothers, and maybe even Caroline, still might fall into that fate if I didn’t watch myself.
Fuck, I should definitely call and check in on them.
“Here we are.” Pick pulled to the curb of a split-level apartment complex behind a vintage jeep.
Rubbing my face, I followed him from the car and toward the opened bay door of a garage. As we approached, voices filtered out from inside.
“Oh my God. Alec? What’re you doing here? How did you even find me?”
Pick caught my arm before I could step inside. After pulling me back a foot, he peeked around the corner to spy on whoever was talking. Curiosity getting the best of me, I crowded up beside him to look as well. The pregnant, blond cousin of Lowe’s girlfriend stood there, her arms wrapped around her baby bump as some rich-looking douche hovered over her. He looked pissed, while she appeared to be shocked senseless.
“Mason told me you were here,” her visitor answered her.
“You think he’s her baby daddy?” Pick whispered to me. I began to shrug when she spat, “Well, he shouldn’t have bothered. Because I haven’t changed my mind. I’m not getting rid of this baby.”
“I talked to your parents, Eva—”
“Oh, well, you know what? I talked to my parents too. And I know exactly what their position is. I wouldn’t be here in BFE Illinois, sponging off my cousin if they hadn’t kicked me out because I refused to get an abortion. And since I’m still here, Alec, I guess that means I haven’t changed my mind. So, sorry for your wasted trip, but you came for nothing. You can turn around and go right back to Florida.”
Alec gave a low chuckle and stepped ominously close to her. When Pick tensed beside me as if he wanted to intervene, I glanced sharply at him and grabbed his arm.
“Don’t. This is their fight, man. They obviously have issues to work out. If you get involved and break your parole, you’ll land right back in jail.”
Pick wouldn’t take his steely glare off Eva’s baby daddy, but he didn’t move away from me either. He just popped his neck, probably to relieve some tension and kept watching the scene unfold with narrowed eyes.
“You’re really going to play this all out, aren’t you?” Alec hissed and caught Eva’s arm, making me tighten my grip on Pick to restrain him. “Fine, I’m willing to play. What do you want, E?”
“This isn’t a power play for me to get a pretty toy, Alec. The only thing I want is my child.”
“Bullshit! What happened to the girl I met who said kids gave her the willies?”
“You knocked her up. So I guess I’m just going to have to learn to adjust.”
“Good for you, Tink,” Pick whispered, nodding his hea
d in approval and smiling at the pregnant chick. “Good for you.”
“Jesus Christ,” Alec shouted inside the garage. “Why can’t you just take care of this?”
“I am! I’m going to stay here and take care of my baby, like a mother should.”
“A mother? Oh, my God.” The douche let out a belly laugh. “Are you even listening to yourself? This is not you. You’re not mother material, Eva. You’re a fucking spoiled, rich cunt.”
When Pick bristled, I tugged him closer to me, keeping him reined in. “Don’t do it.”
“Just because I didn’t plan on this ever happening, doesn’t mean I’m going to brush it aside like a minor inconvenience. I’m keeping my child.”
“Well, I can’t allow you to do that.”
Fuck. That didn’t sound good. From the muscles in Pick’s arm tensing under my grip, he didn’t think so either.
“Why not?” Eva shot back, glaring up at him, and clearly not alarmed by his threat. “I’m not asking you to do anything. In fact, I don’t even want you involved.”
Alec jerked her closer to him, and this time, I had to use both hands to keep Pick from charging. “How stupid do you think I am? Of course, you’ll ask. You’ll get the law on your side, too, and you’ll fucking bleed everything from me. You could hold this over me for the rest of my life, suck me dry with some bullshit child support, make me pay for all kinds of shit I want nothing to do with. And I refuse to let you get away with it.”
She gave a long, tired sigh. “Alec, believe me, I will not do that to you. I don’t want anything from you. Actually, if I never saw you again, I would be overwhelmed with joy. I’ll even sign a piece of paper, saying so.”
“See, now.” Alec shook his head and laughed softly. “I’m having trouble believing that. I know you, remember? I know what a conniving, manipulative bitch you are. And I refuse to let you continue this.”
“Well, I’ve changed.” Eva huffed out a sound of aggravation and tugged at the grip he had on her arm. “People can change, you know. Now...let me go.”
“Not until you agree to get rid of it.”
“Never!”
“Then you leave me no other choice.”
Everything happened at once. Alec shoved her against a wall with enough force that I lurched forward right along with Pick to help her out. Eva’s pained gasp haunted my ears as her douchebag baby daddy braced one forearm across her throat to choke her into place while he reared back his other fist and punched her in the stomach. Repeatedly.
She screamed, and screamed, and screamed. It echoed through my ears, telling me I’d remember that scream in my dreams for years to come.
Christ, the crazy bastard was serious when he said he wasn’t going to let her keep her baby.
Pick roared out an animalistic sound of denial and lunged past me, beating me to the bastard. Surprising Eva’s attacker with his shout, he ripped Alec away from her and spun him around.
“What the—” Alec stumbled, off balance.
Pick didn’t bother to introduce himself. He snatched up a wrench that had been sitting on a nearby table and wound his arm back before swinging and catching Alec square in the face with the business end of his steel.
Now it was the douchebag’s turn to scream. He grabbed his nose, and blood flew. Pick kicked him in the knee, making him stumble back into the wall of the garage not too far down from where Eva had crumpled to the floor, cradling her stomach. Then he pressed the flat side of the wrench hard against Alec’s throat with both hands. Face immediately turning twenty shades of purple, Alec clawed at Pick’s fingers, seeking oxygen.
“You just messed with the wrong girl, pal.” Pick kneed him in the stomach, right where Alec had hit Eva in hers.
I grabbed his shoulder to pull him off. But he wasn’t coming off.
“Doesn’t feel so good when it’s done to you, does it, fuck face?” Pick kneed him again, this time in the balls.
“Enough!” I had to use everything I had to yank him back, and I still barely managed to pull him away, wrapping both of my arms around his torso and giving a good, hard heave. But, Jesus, Pick was a hell of a lot stronger than I took him for. He might not have my mass, but there was a fuck-load of pissed-off muscle packed into his lean frame. I could only drag him a yard or two away before he absolutely resisted and tried to go back for more.
Alec choked out a sound and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He doubled over and folded to the ground.
“Touch her again, and I’ll kill you,” Pick roared, struggling against me. “Got it? I will fuck you up beyond all recognition.”
“Jesus,” I muttered, yanking on him harder to shake some sense into him. “Stop.”
That’s when Lowe finally decided to show his lazy ass up, opening the garage door from his house and shouting, “What the hell?”
“A little help,” I shouted back, still struggling to hold on to Pick.
When Pick spit at Alec, a wad of phlegm landed on the guy’s arms he was using to shield his face.
“Damn,” a struggling Lowe panted from beside me when he took one of Pick’s free arms to help propel him backward. “What the hell just happened?”
Pick pointed at the bleeding pile of wasted space cowering on the garage flood. “He hit her. In the stomach. He fucking hit her baby.”
Stunned silent for a good two seconds, Lowe finally said, “Eva?”
Remembering her, we all three turned to where I’d last seen Eva clutching her belly with her legs folded like broken table legs.
Crouching in front of her, Lowe’s woman grasped Eva’s shoulders. “E?” Reese’s voice trembled. “What happened? Are you okay? Oh, my God. Mason. She’s hurt bad.”
“I…I think I’m bleeding.” Breathing erratically, Eva removed her hand from her stomach to look down.
I looked down too and almost passed out when I saw the red drops splatted onto the concrete under her.
“Shit.” If the bastard had succeeded in killing her kid, Pick really would destroy him.
“No! No, no, no.” Shoving away from us, Pick nudged Reese aside and squatted in front of Eva. “Tinker Bell?” he said as gently as I’d ever heard him speak to anyone.
Eva lifted her face and stared at him from large, water-stained blue eyes. She looked so frightened and full of pain, I gulped down my own rising panic.
“Pick?” she whimpered his name in confusion as he slid his arms under her.
With a forced smile, he nodded. “Hey, beautiful. You want to take a ride with me? I got a real fast car, and we can get you taken care of in no time.”
She sobbed and moaned, then buried her face in his shirt as her fingers clutched fistfuls of his sleeve. “It hurts.”
“I know, baby. I know.” Crooning, he pulled her a little closer and scooped her into his arms before standing up and turning toward me. “Well?” he demanded when no one moved. “Let’s get her to the hospital.”
“But…” I shook my head and glanced at the possibly unconscious guy slumped on Lowe’s garage floor. “What about him?”
“Fuck him.” Pick glared at Alec. “He can rot there and die for all I care. Did you not see him punch her in the stomach?”
“Yeah, but…shit.” I ran my hands through my hair, not used to dealing with this kind of mess. “Shouldn’t we call the police or something?”
“Someone can call them on the way to the hospital. Now let’s go. She’s bleeding.”
That seemed to startle Lowe into action. “Come on.” He grabbed Reese’s arm, and they dashed toward Pick’s car. “Jesus, I can’t believe this is happening.”
That made two of us. I hurried along behind them, abandoning the half-dead baby daddy.
Reese rushed ahead to open the door for Pick and Eva. Gnawing on her lip, she glanced back toward the garage. “What if he’s gone by the time the police show up?”
Pick glanced at her before he ducked his head and slid into the backseat with Eva. “Then I guess I won’t have to go to ja
il for beating the shit out of him, will I?”
Reese swerved her attention back to me, her blue eyes wide with fear. “Will he really go to jail? For defending her?”
“Umm...” I winced and scratched the side of my neck. “He is on parole.”
“Shit,” Lowe muttered. “Fine. I’ll stay here and clean this up.” Grasping Reese’s shoulders, he spun her to face him. “I assume you’re going with Eva?”
She nodded and rose up on her toes to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I love you. Be careful.”
Seeing them like that immediately made me think of Aspen. The crack in my chest broke open a little wider. Slapping the roof of the car as I opened the driver’s side door, I called, “Let’s go. Time’s wasting.”
Reese hurried into the front passenger seat, and I turned the key. When the engine roared to life under me, I met Pick’s gaze in the rearview mirror.
He nodded in silent permission. “She’ll go as fast as you tell her to.”
So I put the pedal to the floor, and we screamed down the street in the direction of the nearest hospital.
Across the bucket seat from me, Lowe’s woman was silent, chewing on her fingernails as Pick murmured something every once in a while from the back to the girl curled in the fetal ball on his lap.
“What is he on parole for?” Reese finally asked me a quiet voice.
I shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me.”
She nodded and went back to biting her nails.
We made it to Ellamore General in record time. I pulled up to the emergency room entrance, and a couple orderlies came out with a wheelchair when they saw Pick drag a bloody Eva from the backseat. They swept her off, and the three of us left to wait loitered helplessly in the entrance.
Reese paced the floor, sending text after text on her phone, while Pick—his shirt and jeans a bloodstained mess—slumped in a chair and closed his eyes, his face pale and mouth drawn taut. I camped out against a nearby wall and crossed my arms over my chest.
And we waited.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting.” - Haruki Murakami
