SMITH (The Beckett Boys, Book One)

by Olivia Chase

  It wasn’t until the yelling that I woke up again.

  My eyes snapped open and Zack was already leaping out of bed, pulling on his boxers as the yelling intensified.

  Oh my God.

  My father was in the apartment—not just in my apartment—but in the doorway of my bedroom. He stood there, looming larger than life, and he was a large man, even though he was in his sixties—he still had the vigor and intensity of a younger man.

  Gray hair lay in thick waves across his head, and his bushy eyebrows waggled almost comically as his nose and cheeks flamed red. “What the hell is going on? Who the hell is this in my fucking apartment?” he screamed, his voice booming.

  I grabbed my blanket and pulled it up over my bare breasts. “Dad, get out of my room!”

  “This is my room,” my father said. “I own this house. Your mother and I own this house, remember.”

  “Get out! I need to get dressed,” I said.

  He gave Zack a long, crazed look. “You. Outside with me,” he said.

  Zack folded his arms. His back muscles clenched. “I’ll do what Caeli wants me to do,” he said.

  Zack turned and looked at me as if asking for my response.

  I swallowed, mumbling. “You can go out there while I get dressed.”

  He nodded, agreeing, but his jaw flinched. He grabbed his pants and shirt and quickly put them on, his movements efficient and fast. There was no sense of panic or embarrassment, merely annoyance.

  He straightened, gave me one last look, and I mouthed ‘I’m sorry’ as he turned again and walked out of the bedroom.

  My father held the doorknob, glaring at me. “I’ll be waiting out here with Prince Charming,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  And then he slammed the door so hard that one corner of my poster flapped against the wall, as if in protest.

  I felt my cheeks burning and tears stung my eyes. How humiliating.

  And frustrating.

  Why was my father letting himself into my apartment? Yes, he and my mother were technically my landlords, but I paid rent and was entitled to some basic privacy.

  They’d done this kind of thing before, but never had it resulted in such an embarrassing and ridiculous scene.

  But now I was stuck.

  I could hear my father talking to Zack, questioning him, interrogating him as my father was known to do when he got upset.

  Most of their conversation was muffled, I could just hear the tone of my dad’s voice—insistent, gruff, arrogant—and then Zack’s lower voice, answering in monosyllabic grunts, after which there would come a lengthy pause before my father’s voice resumed its questioning, pushy tone once more.

  This wasn’t going to end well, and it made me increasingly nervous.

  I got into jeans, shoes and a sweater, running my hands through my hair and putting it back into a quick ponytail with a hair tie, before finally walking out of the bedroom and facing the firing squad.

  My father stood outside the bedroom, arms folded.

  Zack had put on his coat and seemed all too ready to leave as quickly as possible, and I could hardly blame him.

  “Your friend and I were just getting acquainted,” my father said, making it obvious he was less than impressed.

  Zack sighed but didn’t speak.

  “You have no right to just let yourself into my apartment, Dad.” I pushed a stray hair behind my ear, tried not to show how afraid I was.

  My father snorted. “I tried to call you. Your mother texted you over and over again. We were worried. So finally I came over and let myself in—and look what I find.”

  “I’m an adult.”

  “Are you, now?” he said, sneering. “Good. So why don’t you be an adult and tell me all about what you did last night at the restaurant.” His eyes flicked to Zack and then back to me, and my heart began to race.

  “I should go,” Zack said, his body tensing, as if he was readying to fight if necessary—a cornered wolf.

  “Yeah, you should,” my father said, giving him a glance that could have killed.

  But if my father wanted Zack to leave, then he obviously didn’t have a clue that Zack was the man who’d beaten up my cousins.

  “Sorry about this,” I said to Zack, as he started towards the door of the apartment.

  He turned and glanced at me. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  My father laughed. “Just keep moving, pal. I don’t think she needs any help from the likes of you.”

  Zack didn’t even glance at my father. His eyes stayed locked on mine. “Are you okay, Caeli? If you’re not, just say the word.”

  I remembered his strong arms holding me, drawing me closer in the night—and the way he’d protected me from my bullying cousins. He was doing it again, right now, letting me know that I didn’t need to let my father do this to me.

  “Actually, Dad, I think maybe you should leave,” I said, summoning all of my nerve. I’d never in my life had the courage to stand up to him before now.

  He stared at me, incredulous. “What the hell’s gotten into you? Huh?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well figure it out. Because all I know is your uncle wants nothing to do with any of us and he says it’s your fault. Heck, I couldn’t get but two words out of him. He just texts me, “ask Caeli.” And nothing else. Won’t pick up the phone, won’t say anything to me.” My father’s temple had a vein throbbing in it, pulsing as his face reddened almost to a purplish hue. “So what do you have to say for yourself? Something must’ve happened last night for your uncle to basically disown us.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know exactly.”

  “She doesn’t want to talk about it, so leave her alone,” Zack said from behind my father.

  My Dad wasn’t exactly a shrinking violet, and now the veins bulged in his neck. “Caeli, you better tell your little friend to make a hasty exit or he’s going to wish he’d never laid eyes on the inside of this apartment.”

  “Dad, calm down.”

  “Caeli,” my father said, speaking more slowly, “this is my apartment. We’re renting it to you, and if you keep defying me, I’m going to kick you out and then you’ll be homeless.”

  “No she won’t,” Zack said. “She’ll come with me.”

  I stared at him, my mouth dropping open. I had no words, because I was truly stunned that he would say that.

  I don’t even know you, I thought.

  “Oh, right. Go with Prince Fucking Charming, over there,” my father said, cocking a thumb back and gesturing over his shoulder. “I’m sure he’ll treat you right as rain, Caeli. Seems like a real normal guy to me. I bet he’s a doctor, an attorney, right?”

  “I’ll treat her better than you do,” Zack growled.

  His entire posture had changed and now I could tell that he was close to exploding.

  My father sensed it and seemed to freeze. “Fine,” he said through grit teeth. “You want her? Fucking take her.” He stared at me. “You get the hell out of my house, and don’t come back until you’re ready to treat me and your mother with some respect.”

  I wanted to say I was sorry, to tell him to calm down, to apologize for getting everything screwed up and ruining it all.

  But then I thought about the fact that I’d stopped my own plans of finishing school to work so that I could help pay off my parents’ debt to my uncle, and that I’d even lived in this apartment to pay them rent on top of working for my uncle.

  I’d sacrificed so much to help them, and they just acted as if they were entitled to it all, as if it was them doing me a favor.

  I wasn’t the one who got so deep in a hole that my uncle had to bail me out. I wasn’t the one who sacrificed someone else’s future so that I could maintain my old life.

  It wasn’t me who got us into this, and it wasn’t my job to be on the hook for it now.

  So I didn’t say anything to my father.

  Instead, I did what he asked me to do.

  I left.


  There was nothing but silence as I walked past my father and followed Zack as he headed out the door. I grabbed my purse, which contained my money, credit cards and cell phone.

  I knew I should have taken at least some clothes and toiletries, but any more time spent in the company of my father risked me losing my nerve and completely collapsing, begging him for forgiveness.

  My parents had always made me feel like I somehow owed them something, just by the mere fact of my existence.

  And if I stayed in the apartment for even another minute, I was going to fall apart and that would be just another chapter in the same old book. So I left, and Zach and I went out into the new morning together.

  When we got outside and headed toward his truck, I stopped momentarily.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “You don’t have to take me anywhere.” I smiled a little as he turned to face me, his beautiful green eyes squinting a little.

  “I told you to come with me. I don’t just make empty promises,” he said calmly.

  “I know, and it was so kind of you—more kind then you could even realize. But that doesn’t mean it’s fair for me to accept.”

  His lip twitched up at the corner as if amused. “Does your old man always act like that?”

  I thought about it. Shrugged. “Mostly, I guess.”

  “So let him sweat it out for a change, then,” Zack said, grinning now. “Come on,” he said, nodding up to the window above. “See, he’s watching us right now. Imagine how much it’ll chap his ass when he sees you getting in the truck with me.”

  I thought about it, glancing up and seeing my father’s shadow in the window.

  “Maybe you can drive me to my friend’s house,” I said, smiling wider. “He’ll assume I went with you, and that’s bad enough.”

  “Get in, then.” He walked to the front opened the door to the passenger side for me.

  I inclined my head, blushing a little at his unintended chivalry. I got into the cab of the truck, noticing how it smelled of Zack, and also a little scent of pine.

  It was a nice, cozy smell.

  Zack got in the driver’s seat and started the engine. A cloud of smoke billowed out behind us and then we pulled away from the curb.

  It was a strange feeling watching my apartment—my home—fade into the distance as I drove away from it with this strange man who’d done things to me last night that were previously unthinkable.

  I was afraid to look over and see his expression, to truly acknowledge whatever was happening.

  “So, my friend’s house is just a few minutes from here,” I said nervously, clearing my throat afterwards.

  “Why do we need to go to your friend’s house?” Zack said, shifting gears.

  “Well…you can’t be serious about me staying with you.”

  “I have an apartment not too far from here.”

  “Yes, but—“

  “You’re welcome to stay with me as long as you need.” He sat there, his one hand dangling over the steering wheel, casual. His eyes were on the road.

  I couldn’t help but once again admire his body, his handsomeness, but also his calm and cool demeanor that I couldn’t have pulled off in a million years.

  Zack was one of those guys—the type that made you feel like he could handle absolutely anything, like he was literally unafraid of the world.

  Meanwhile, I felt afraid of nearly everything most days.

  “I don’t know,” I said, mulling over the idea for the first time. I dug my thumbnail into my teeth and then bit down on it. “This seems crazy. We don’t even know each other.”

  “Isn’t that what makes it fun?” he said, finally glancing at me and flashing a grin.

  “Well, tell me about yourself then,” I said. “Like, where are you from originally?”

  Zack sighed. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t like talking about my past.”

  “Are you in trouble or something?”

  He didn’t respond for a moment. “Just not interested in going there. You needed a place to stay, you got one. But I can’t promise anything else.”

  “Cool,” I said, wondering what this meant.

  We drove in silence for a bit and then Zack’s phone began ringing. He answered it brusquely. “Wild,” he said into it, holding the phone to his ear.

  There was a voice blabbering but I couldn’t hear the words.

  And then Zack nodded. “It’s early,” he said. “I’m there if they got the money.” A few seconds later, he asked for an address, nodded, then hung up. He tucked the phone back into his pocket. “Detour,” he said. “I need to stop off and do some work, pick up some cash.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “It shouldn’t take long,” he said. “It’s a little early in the day for it, but I take the work whenever it comes in.”

  I didn’t know what he was talking about. I checked the time on the dashboard of his truck—the clock read 10:07am. I wondered what kind of job he was bringing me to—I hoped he wasn’t a drug dealer or something.

  After another minute or two driving in silence, I spoke again. “Is this illegal?”

  “Sort of,” he said.

  “Then I don’t want any part of it.”

  He laughed. “It’s not that kind of thing. You can’t get into any trouble for it.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Actually, I am,” he said, laughing again, shooting me a quick look of amusement as he stepped on the gas and shifted gears again.

  After a little bit, we pulled up in front of a home on a residential street.

  Zack turned off the car and grabbed the keys. “Ready?” he asked me.

  “Should I wait in the truck?”

  “Probably,” he said, then got out and slammed the door shut. He started toward the yard, which had a chain link fence around it. There were some people in the back yard waiting for him.

  A few of them were holding up their cell phones, clearly filming Zack.

  I grew curious.

  Maybe he sings for birthday parties? Maybe he’s a famous DJ?

  A clown?

  Maybe he skateboards or juggles.

  I couldn’t think of much else that made sense—why he would just show up at some house and get paid and filmed like he was some kind of celebrity.

  I got out of the car, slowly heading toward the back yard to see what was happening. When I approached the fence, I saw that a crowd of about fifteen or twenty young men (with just a sprinkling of three or four women) were standing around drinking beer.

  There was a large keg standing on one end of the lawn near the porch.

  Zack was stripping off his jacket. He said something to one of the men, who approached and showed him a roll of money. Zack glanced at the money and nodded approvingly. Then he took off his shirt, baring his muscular, tattooed torso to the crowd.

  Oh my God. He’s a male stripper.

  I felt revolted and entranced.

  Then I saw another man, much bigger and even more muscular than Zack, also with his shirt off. He was even more heavily tattooed, and he also sported a thick Mohawk dyed blue.

  The larger man was throwing punches at the air. His eyes were wide and insane.

  The crowd formed a semi circle as the big blue haired maniac squared off against Zack. Zack rolled his shoulders and gave a quick smile and a nod at the blue-haired monster.

  The man holding the money got between them momentarily, raising his voice to the audience of beer swilling hicks in the backyard. “Okay, y’all, this contest is simple. No holds barred—anything goes. First man to tap, ask to stop the fight, or get knocked the fuck out loses. Last man standing wins and gets the money.”

  He backed away and someone handed him a cup of beer and he drank it, squeezing the roll of bills in his other hand.

  I couldn’t believe this was real. If I wasn’t watching it in real time, I’d assume this was staged—a hoax, a joke.

  A bunch of young men drinking warm beer and stan
ding around a muddy backyard, paying to watch two strangers beat the crap out of each other.

  But that didn’t explain why Zack was there. I could tell he was intelligent, and he was clearly hot enough to be a model. He could get money a different way, and yet he chose to do this.

  Why?

  But my ruminations were interrupted by the commencing of an actual fight in front of my eyes.

  The onlookers began raucously cheering, whooping and hollering as it began.

  Mohawk walked briskly towards Zack, hands up as if to block punches, but Zack wasn’t throwing any punches. He backed away, slowly, his own hands down at his sides, moving his head ever so slightly from left to right, as if taunting the bigger man.

  Mohawk grinned, revealing a mouth shy of a few teeth—his dental health couldn’t have been exactly encouraged by this sort of activity.

  Mohawk seemed to tire of chasing Zack, stopped and stood there, waving at him with both hands. “Come on,” he shouted. “You wanna fight or you want to run, pussy?”

  The crowd cheered, but some people whistled and booed.

  Zack stopped and then moved forward suddenly, ducking as Mohawk threw a hard but ultimately slow, wide, looping punch that missed by at least two feet.

  Zack threw a hard punch to the bigger man’s gut, hitting him just below his ribcage, collapsing him sideways from the pain and force of the blow. As Mohawk began to try and protect his body, he brought his hands low, and then Zack pivoted and threw a vicious punch that landed with a thud on the jaw that could be heard echoing out into the neighborhood.

  The punch separated Mohawk from his senses completely, and he fell sideways to the dirt in one violent mass of unconscious flesh.

  His head bounced off the ground and then he rolled onto his back, legs kicking out straight as if he’d been electrocuted.

  Zack stood there, watching him momentarily.

  The crowd had fallen deathly silent, as if the brutality and finality of the contest had dismayed even the most bloodthirsty observers.

  As a couple of guys lifted Mohawk off his back and into a sitting position, his eyes opened and he shook his head. They seemed to be explaining to him that the fight was indeed over.

  Meanwhile, Zack approached the man handling the money. Outstretching his hand, Zack still seemed to radiate danger.