by Abby Knox
Zara
The record shop was fairly dead that morning, and Zara didn’t much feel like sorting through Dusty’s receipts.
In fact, she didn’t feel like doing any of her usual responsible tasks. She was feeling quite the opposite.
The only appealing thing to her was sitting in her mom’s cushy armchair in the listening corner, where she could sit with her legs tucked under her and stare dreamily out the front window at the back of Kai’s head. She didn’t feel like having coffee, eating, or doing anything besides staring, with a stupid smile on her face.
She was just about to drift off to the sea breeze that wafted in through the propped open door while listening to Kai play “Ripple” by the Grateful Dead. She didn’t know what it was about, but there were words about sunshine and water and cups being full and it seemed to match how she felt.
It was a good thing Dusty wasn’t here. She’d be pumping Zara for details.
And then the flowers came; a delivery of a dozen dark purple tulips.
“These were the closest flowers I could find to black,” Kai said when she stepped outside to thank him.
He set down his guitar in its case and towered over her, putting his arms around her bottom and lifted her up off her feet to plant on her a sweet, deep, long, passionate kiss.
“Get a room!” some passerby shouted good-naturedly.
Zara swooned so hard, she could feel her panties nearly going up in flames.
Kai laughed, “Perhaps this is the kind of kiss that belongs indoors.”
“Screw it,” she replied. “It’s summertime and I’m in love.”
Kai growled and lifted Zara up so she was sitting on the window sill. He planted himself between her legs and pressed against her, his back to the street. He wanted her to feel the rock hard need she was building inside his woven hemp shorts.
When Kai finally came up for air, she murmured and stroked his two-tone blond locks. “Thank you for last night.”
He replied, “I want you to know I meant what I said. I. Love. You.”
Everything turned to jello.
And then she realized what an idiot she was.
“Oh my god. I can’t believe I didn’t say it back. Well, not officially. I love you too.”
“I know. Get inside and get your ass into the listening booth.”
She looked at him sideways. “Why?”
“Just do it, woman.”
“OK, but at least let me shut the door. That way we can hear if a customer comes.”
Chapter 16
Kai
Inside the listening booth, lined with heavy curtains to help block out outside sounds, Kai put a record on the turntable. He then turned to Zara and put a set of large, old-school headphones over her ears.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer, but pulled her close. He could Prince singing about the girl in the raspberry beret. He lifted Zara’s top, stretching her lacy black bra to one side to reveal one breast. He claimed it for himself. It did, after all, belong to him now. He did the same with the other breast, as Zara gasped, her chest, neck and face blooming red for him.
“You’re insatiable,” she said, her eyes closed, lips parted.
“I could make you come like this. Right here. Right now.”
“I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to try.”
His mouth owned her, his tongue swirled, his thumbs teased, his teeth grazed. All of it combined made Zara squirm.
“Kai, I want to touch you,” she whispered, biting her lip. “I want you to feel what I’m feeling.”
“Later,” he growled against her chest. Instead, he teased and squeezed until she was almost out of breath.
He kept it up until she let out a knee-buckling orgasm. He caught her up in his arms and spread soft kisses across her chest, up her neck and down her jawline.
Just at that moment, the front doorbell rang out the cutesy version of the Ozzy tune.
“Customers,” she gasped.
Kai helped straighten her mussed hair as she adjusted her bra and shirt to cover her breasts once again. He growled at seeing her perfect tits disappear. Hopefully she could make this annoying customer disappear and they could get back to business.
Kai followed Zara out of the listening booth. He was about to fade into the background, but then he caught the look on Zara’s face.
She was staring at the customer who just walked in.
Her bottom lip started to tremble.
“Dad?”
Whoa.
Chapter 17
Zara
The large, gray-haired man gestured to Kai. “Who the fuck is that?”
“Walter, what are you doing here?”
Kai took a step forward and instantly had his arm protectively around Zara.
She had not seen her biological father since she was seven years old, and now here he was.
“I go by ‘Dad,’ thank you very much.”
Zara shook her head. “I barely know you. A dad is not someone who cheats and controls women. Who isolates a woman from her family. What is it you want?”
“Just got out on parole and wanted to say hello. Dusty here?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t have to give you any information.”
Walter huffed. “I suppose she’s not here, or else you wouldn’t be slutting it up in here with this pothead.”
“Sir, you need to watch what you say,” Kai said, his voice calm but full of warning.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Walter, this is Kai,” Zara said.
“Kai what?”
That’s when Zara realized she couldn’t remember his last name from his driver’s license. She felt like such an idiot.
She opened her mouth to speak, then glanced over at Kai.
“It’s none of your business,” she said.
“Stormcloud,” Kai said.
Walter and Kai stood like columns and stared each other down. Zara needed to de-escalated the situation.
“OK. Walter, I’ll tell Mom you stopped by. Is there a message I can leave with her?”
Walter didn’t answer but kept staring at Kai.
“I’ll wait,” he said.
“She’s not coming back today. She might not be back for a while.”
“Oh, did she abandon you, too?”
Kai took a step forward. “Sir, it’s time for you to leave.”
“I don’t think so. Seeing as old Dusty’s got something that belongs to me.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Come on, Zara, don't be naïve. You know she stole my money to move here and live her fancy life. My money and … well, some other shit that you don’t need to know about. I had a private investigator track her down,” Walter said.
Zara laughed bitterly. “Some P.I. Took him what, 13 years to find us?”
“I hired him last week when I got out of jail.”
“Leave now, and maybe I’ll be nice and not slap you with a protection order.” she said.
Walter looked as if he were considering his options. “Fine. I’ll be back. But tell that bitch I want my money and that memorabilia she took, and I’ll leave the both of you alone.”
Zara was incredulous. “What memorabilia?”
Walter scoffed. “Hell no. You think I’m gonna tell you so you can go and hide it? I wager your about as crafty as your old thief of a mother.”
Chapter 18
Kai
Normally a peace-loving fellow, Kai felt nothing but white hot rage at this asshole.
He knew his type. Unpredictable. Dangerous. Conniving.
The look on Walter’s face, the tone in his voice gave Kai the feeling that he was amped up and ready to cause mayhem.
He reminded him of Bob.
Bob was the whole reason Kai had to leave Oregon.
And he wasn’t about to let that trauma get the best of him. He had to stay calm.
When Walter finally left, he turned to Zar
a. “Babe. Don’t worry. I got this. He is not going to even come in the door or speak to you or even look at you if you don’t want him to. That’s my promise.”
She smiled up at him with those red lips and kohl-painted eyes. “You’re such the boy scout.”
“Don’t even joke, Zara. I don’t trust that guy. First blush, he’s no good. Sorry to say that to you about your biological father, but…”
Zara scoffed. “Oh, please. He’s a piece of shit.”
Her words echoed his thoughts. But he had a hunch she wasn’t spilling everything. “What’s going on in your head?” he asked.
She smiled. “Nothing. I’m fine. Just seeing him again kicked up a lot of muck that has been dormant for a while, you know?”
Kai growled and wrapped her in a big bear hug.
Was it time to tell her the whole truth?
“Babe,” he started. “I …”
“What is it?” she asked.
“…I just want you to know I’ll be here for you, no matter what. I don’t want you to worry. OK?”
She smiled. “I do trust you. Don’t get all emo on me now, I can’t be with a tortured soul.”
He winked and wrapped her back up into another hug; their lips found each other and erased all the bad energy that remained.
Chapter 19
Zara
Her call went right to her mother’s voicemail. Again. “Mom, me again. I’m OK. I just miss you. Juice up your phone please, before I put out a missing person’s report. And FYI, Walter’s here. Well, not here. But he’s in Sea Grove. Yeah. So there’s that. Anyway, I guess I’ll try calling Marti later to track you down. Love you.”
Dusty was known to let her smartphone sit around without any juice in it on the regular. Zara sighed and set her phone down on the night-table. It was probably too early for Dusty to be awake anyway.
It had been a day since Walter had shown up, but Zara was trying not to let her guard down. Maybe he’d given up and crawled back under whatever rock he’d come out of. That would be nice.
Zara chose to focus on the moment. And in this current moment, it was Monday. Vinyl Vixen was closed, along with many other businesses on Beach Avenue, as was the tradition.
She was planning on spending the whole day in bed, sleeping, having coffee, working on her secret project (making business cards for Kai, just in case anyone with clout happened to listen to his music and liked it) and then exploring all as-yet-unexplored sexual positions with Mr. Insatiable.
Maybe they could head up to Monterrey and pick up a copy of the Kama Sutra at a used book store.
She woke to a tickling sensation on the inside of her upper thigh. She sighed.
When Kai spoke, the sensation of his voice sent vibrations and tingles all through her most sensitive place. Her skin rejoiced every time his lips were near.
“Babe, I made coffee.”
“Hmmm. My favorite four words.”
“And then,” Kai said, “ we’re going to have a picnic on the beach. Maybe a bonfire later on. Lots of making out.”
She grinned. “OK, but when do we get to go back to bed and have more of the yummy sex?”
He nipped at her inner thigh with his teeth. “I thought that was what was happening right now?”
They never made it to that picnic or the bonfire. Instead, they spent the day devouring each other and keeping each other warm in her bed.
Zara appreciated all the ways in which Kai refused to leave her side. But honestly, didn’t he need time to himself to tackle all of the projects around the building that he had promised to do for Dusty?
When Kai finally fell asleep again late that afternoon, spent, satisfied and snoring, Zara slipped out. She was starving and needed some sustenance.
Along the way down Beach Avenue, she inhaled the salty air and called Dusty again.
Voicemail. Again.
Everything along Beach Avenue was closed, so she ventured farther than she should have, to the fancy new gas station convenience store close to Highway 1, where you can order food made to order right from a touch screen. She ordered some tacos, burritos and about five other things that were sure to put her and Kai into a food coma. After she placed her order, her eyes fell on the dining area that advertised “free wifi.” There sat a black-haired fellow in the corner booth.
Walter. Shit.
“Funny you should stop in,” Walter said with a sneer as he stood and walked toward her, a little too quickly for her comfort.
“What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be working on a Monday afternoon. Like, isn’t employment a condition of your parole? I’m just guessing.”
Walter shrugged off her questions. “That guy is a fraud. That boyfriend of yours? He’s a murderer.”
Zara reared back. “What the fuck, Walter. Are you high or drunk?”
“I’m only high on life because I did my time and I’m a free man. Your man, on the other hand, has never paid his debt to society.”
“You're insane.”
“Am I? My P.I. friend and I have been digging up the dirt and your boyfriend shot a guy in Oregon. And then he just left the state. Did he tell you all of that?”
Zara had to work to keep her chin from quivering. But she’d be damned if this imbecile was going to make her cry. “Oh that guy? Yes. Of course I knew all that. Now get out of my face before I call your parole officer.”
Before she grabbed her food and stalked out, Walter hissed, “Say hi to your mom for me. Tell her to give me a call. I can wait as long as I have to.”
Zara walked back up the street in a daze. She didn’t know where to go or who to talk to. Fortunately, the phone rang and determined the rest for her.
“Mom? What’s going on?”
“Oh baby, I’m on my way home right now. You got distracted on your last voicemail; you forgot to hang up the phone and I heard everything. I heard what Walter said. Listen. I am so sorry. I knew Walter was getting out of jail soon but I didn’t think it was, like, yesterday. And I really didn’t think he could find us so fast. I just got … so distracted … up here at Galen and Marti’s.”
“And what have you been doing while I’ve been getting harassed by the village idiot?” Zara’s tone was reaching beyond sarcastic and bordering on nasty. She did not care. She was pissed.
“Zara, honey, I went to Santa Barbara to hide something that I took when you and I left him.”
“Ma, I don’t want to talk about any of that. Why am I hearing that Kai shot some guy in Oregon?
Dusty moved along. “I’m on my way home and we can talk in person.”
Zara could not believe it. Her mother didn’t even seem shocked. She also wasn’t denying the accusation of Kai shooting somebody.
“Ma, tell me what the fuck is going on?”
Dusty sighed. “OK. A few days before you came home from school, Kai showed up looking for a place to perform his music, and we got to talking. I found out he shot his uncle. It was very sad. But he was protecting his aunt. He caught him hitting her. Kai was working for a private security company in the neighborhood. He told me the whole story. I guess … I assumed he would have told you by now. But I checked out his story and it was all true. So I knew if Walter showed up, he could protect us. I asked him to keep an eye on the shop and on you while I was gone.”
Zara could not believe what she was hearing. Had everyone been lying to her for the last two weeks?
It was time to go for a walk and think about things.
Chapter 20
Kai
You ready to tell me the truth about Portland?
Shit. It wasn’t as if Kai wasn’t going to tell her the whole story. He was waiting for the right time. What the hell was going on? The memories suddenly came flooding back and clouded his thoughts before he could think through how to respond to Zara.
The patrol car’s flashing lightbars reflected in the damp pavement. The blood. The screams. The fists. It was all over now.
He had brought murder to this
quiet, gated retirement village.
But that asshole uncle of his would never lay a hand on Aunt Jo again. Kai had made sure of it.
True, Kai never should have been the one to respond to the situation at that address he heard over the police scanner. He knew he should let the police handle it and stay in the security gatehouse, where he worked nights.
He had known going in exactly what was happening. Bob was using his fists to get his point across.
Kai turned off his security radio to silence his colleagues’ warnings against him going there.
When he arrived, he parked his car to block the end of the driveway in case Bob decided to drive off.
Kai slammed his car door shut and approached the front door. He didn’t even knock. Proper protocol was out the window.
He bolted toward the sound of angry voices, and entered the kitchen, gun drawn.
It was over before Bob could hurt her again. No more of her resisting pressing charges. No more court orders that don’t work.
In the end, the police investigation cleared him of any charges. But using a gun to kill a bad guy — a real life human being — is not what it’s like in the movies.
It changed him.
The security company let him go. He went to counseling.
Kai spent months putting his life back together, taking odd jobs here and there. Working his ass off to take care of Aunt Jo, now that she’d lost her husband and the second income he had provided for her.
But she pushed him to leave town and find himself.
“You need a change of scenery,” she said. “This place has too many bad memories. Go somewhere sunny. Follow your heart. Play your music and find your happy.”
“My home is here with you,” he had protested.
Aunt Jo smiled. “Go be in the sun with people your own age, and don’t come back without some babies for me to squeeze.”
Kai had thought he’d found his happy in Zara. And now she was likely to kick his ass all over Beach Avenue for not telling her the entire truth.
