Smoldered

by Rachel Blaufeld

  Asher kissed me lightly before getting up and disposing of the condom.

  By the time he came back, I realized what a mistake I’d made. “You have to go now. I’ll contact you when I think we should proceed with telling Quinn.” I stood up, wrapped myself in the robe lying on the chair next to the bed, and walked toward the door. Steeling myself, I said nothing more, keeping my emotions at bay.

  “You’re kidding me?” Asher barked from behind me, but I kept walking.

  Once at the door, I opened it and slowly turned back. “No, I’m not. Good-bye, Asher.”

  He made his way toward me wearing only his jeans and boots, his shirt shoved into his jeans pocket, pulling down the waistband just the right amount to off his perfectly shaped V leading to the promised land.

  Dragging my gaze from it, I prayed I didn’t go back on my words as I stood motionless at the open front door, waiting for him to leave.

  If I thought Asher’s face was furious earlier, that was before I saw his current expression. “I’m leaving,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’ll play this shit your way. But I hope you know, I’m not leaving Florida without my son or my woman.”

  And then he was gone into the night.

  I slammed the door shut without a clue how he got to my place or how he would leave, and told myself I shouldn’t care.

  This Is No Game of Beer Pong

  Mike

  Las Vegas

  I PACED the perimeter of my condo, the lights of the Las Vegas Strip flickering in the background, an almost empty bottle of Jack in hand, my cell phone on rapid redial in the other. Taking the last swig of whiskey from the bottle, I threw it across the room, the glass making contact with the stainless steel fridge and shattering all over my kitchen floor. There was a sound, someone shouting an evil-sounding nervous laugh. It sounded a lot like me.

  It is me.

  Thankfully, I was home alone and no one was around to bear witness to how fucking ridiculous I was acting. I should have never allowed Asher to get on that flight to Miami. I should have gone with him, but I couldn’t get my head out of my ass with Lynx refusing to leave the party she was working in order to help me.

  Stubborn woman. Dumber man.

  How was it that I was emotionally involved with an escort? I was a sorry excuse and a pathetic piece of shit who refused to let his girlfriend do her job, which was screwing other men, while my only true friend in life boarded a plane to royally screw his life up.

  The whole damn episode could have been avoided if I would have just confronted Natalie that day after I met Quinn for the first time. I could have set the record straight, helped the situation rather than destroying everything and everyone around me.

  My luck was shit.

  I stomped over to my liquor cabinet, my feet still laced in my high-tops, although at some point I had ripped my shirt off my body. When? I couldn’t recall.

  I was a raving lunatic in jeans, basketball shoes, and no shirt, in hot pursuit of more booze to drown out my memory of the day I ruined everything for Natalie…and Asher…and me…and Lynx.

  That one night when I went out to have a good time, ended up meeting a girl I actually liked, and crossed too many lines to count. Leaning over to peruse the selection of booze in front of me, it all came back to me…

  I HADN’T had such a good time in…ever. Holy crap, I’d been missing out big-time while shacked up with Rochelle. While I was curled up on the balcony of Clay’s hotel suite with Lynx, I’d pushed the knowledge of her being an escort to the far recesses of my mind. She’d been the best company I’d ever had, and I hadn’t wanted it to end.

  But it had to when her phone chirped with a text. A single fucking text. At that moment I hadn’t known that little message would rock my world; as far as I knew it just marked the end of my time with the girl in front of me, and I hadn’t wanted that.

  “Oh, it’s my neighbor,” Lynx said. “I help her take care of her son, and she needs me to meet him at home.” She looked closer at her phone, squinting at the time. “Shoot, it’s the morning already.” We’d been so caught up in each other, we barely noticed the sunrise.

  I racked my brain, trying to come up with some excuse to stall her, to not let this girl slip away into the early morning light. “Can I drive you home?” I asked, hoping she hadn’t brought her own car. Parking was pretty pricey at the fancy hotels.

  She flipped her long braids behind her back and said, “Really? That would actually be awesome. I gotta get back quickly. My neighbor thinks I’m at home—she doesn’t know about this job. If you could run me back, then I’ll be there on time to meet her little boy. He’s coming with his grandma.”

  “Yeah, no problem.” I stood up and held a hand out to help her up.

  She held up one finger and said, “One sec. Let me confirm I can do it.” After sending a quick text, Lynx stood up and straightened her clothes, tossing on a sweater before readying to go. The girl looked radiant even after pulling an all-nighter on a balcony, sitting on a crumpled blanket, sipping wine.

  Walking through a suite full of hungover pricks sleeping it off, we quietly made our way to the door. Down the elevator, through the casino where the clanging never stopped, without a single word to each other, we held hands, our tightly woven fingers saying it all. Once outside, the valet threw me my keys and we sped off into the sunrise like two young lovers with happily-ever-after spread out in front of them.

  Brushing off any feelings I had about being a stupid romantic, I asked her for her address and off we went. It sounded somewhat familiar, but I wasn’t able to place it until we pulled up in front. Just my fucking luck, Lynx lived right smack next to Natalie, and I quickly gathered it was her son we were heading home to meet. I had only driven by the complex a few times, checking that it appeared to be safe and well maintained—for Asher.

  And there he was, the mysterious boy I’d never met. Natalie had always kept him far from the club, and as I parked and Lynx jumped out to meet an older woman with a young kid in tow, I quickly understood why.

  I watched in horror as the woman I’d become smitten with ran over to a mini-version of Asher. My boss and closest friend, Natalie’s boss and part-time lover, the man who rescued women from awful situations and took care of them—that Asher.

  Only one thought ran through my mind. Holy. Fucking. Shit. Asher has a kid.

  Natalie had kept the boy away from us because one look at the kid and you’d know. He was the spitting image of Asher. Wavy blond hair curled around his face, and as he came a bit closer, I saw them. Silver eyes.

  Not having a clue how I’d control my expression, not to mention my emotions, I kicked my own shin with my heavy shoe to distract myself.

  Lynx was in the middle of a little intro. “Hey there, Quinn-man, what’s happening? This is my friend, Mike.” She pointed my way.

  I nodded, not trusting what might come out of my mouth if I opened it.

  “Hey, Lynx,” the older woman said. “Thanks a bunch. I have to get over to the nursing home to see my dad, and Natalie is tied up.”

  Yep, she was Natalie’s mom, all right. She had the same green eyes and tone of voice.

  “No worries, Mrs. P. And this is Mike.”

  Too choked up to speak, I managed another nod.

  “Hi, Mike. Nice to meet you.” Mrs. Parker turned on her heel and called over her shoulder, “Take good care of my boy, Lynxie. And make sure Natalie pays you time and a half. You got school bills to pay, make something of yourself.”

  Longingly, I wished it was me walking away, wishing this whole little meet-and-greet had never happened. I turned to face Lynx to find her crouched close to the ground, smoothing the little man’s blond curls behind his ear and giving him a kiss on the cheek.

  “Where’s Mom?” the little kid asked.

  “You know what? I don’t know, buddy. She just needed me and here I am, because no one I’d rather be with than you, Quinn. No offense to you, Mike,” she said with her gaze pingi
ng back and forth between me and Asher’s mini-me like she was at a tennis match.

  “None taken.” They were the first words I’d spoken since I got out of the car, and they came out tense and sounding like I had a frog in my throat.

  Lynx took a moment to shoot me a questioning glance. “Well, okay, I think I’ll take Quinn up to my place now. Thanks for the ride,” she said carefully, obviously trying to wrap up an awkward moment.

  “Um, sure,” I said before leaning in and saying in a more hushed tone, “I’d like to see you again.”

  “I’d like that,” she whispered back while being pulled in the opposite direction by the kid I was sure would end up destroying my life.

  My head spinning, I had to have just a few more answers before I left. Finally finding my voice, I said, “Hey, Quinn, want to check out my SUV? The tires are huge. I need to say a proper good-bye to Lynx, here.”

  That made the little kid stop pulling my target away from me and run over to my truck. I opened the back hatch and let him climb through the interior. Knowing he’d be busy for at least five minutes, I grabbed Lynx and pulled her behind the car, where we were blocked from his sight.

  “Mike, I can’t make out with you here!” Apparently she thought I wanted to kiss her good-bye, or more.

  I only wish.

  “No, I don’t want to make out,” I said, and when she lifted an eyebrow at me, I raised a hand to clarify. “Wait. That came out wrong, I do, but I got to ask you a question. How much do you know about Quinn over there? And his mom.”

  “Why? I watch Quinn for his mom, Natalie. She’s a good person. Single mom. Takes good care of her kid and keeps an eye out for my roommate, Trish, and me.” Her head tilted to the side as she studied me.

  “Natalie works for me.”

  “Wait,” she said, her voice rising. “You work at the Tunnel? You said you were a bouncer, but didn’t mention where.”

  “Shhh. I am a bouncer, well, head of overall security. At the Tunnel. My boss, Asher, is my closest buddy. Nat works for us. We take care of her, but she’s kept her personal life—and kid—from us. Doesn’t like to mix the two, and now I know why—” I couldn’t finish because Lynx interrupted.

  “Oh crap.” Lynx stomped her foot dramatically and pretended to smack her head. “She’s gonna be pissed that you were here then. We can’t say anything to Natalie. That woman is crazy protective of her son…and shit! Shit! Shit! She doesn’t know about my side job.”

  That little comment gave me a light-bulb moment. “Well, I’m not going to be the one to tell her. And you’re not going to tell her about me. Listen, that kid,” I said, flicking my chin to the inside of the SUV where Quinn was pushing every button in sight, “is Asher’s kid. There’s no denying it when you take one look at him. Natalie is hiding the boy for a reason, and you and me got to watch out for both the kid and her. Deal?”

  “Quinn’s dad? She’s never talked about him. Holy shit—you got a deal.” She leaned up on tiptoe and kissed my cheek. “You’d better go. I don’t know when Nat will be back or what she’s doing. This is strange, but nonetheless, go. We don’t want to get caught.”

  WELL, WE’D been caught, all right, which was why I was roaming my apartment like a wild animal desperate for a meal. But I wasn’t hungry, I was desperate for something to drink to help me forget my problems.

  Ransacking my wet bar, shoving bottles to the side, I continued to look for more of my booze of choice. When I found another bottle of Jack, I triumphantly snagged it, then set about trying to dial Natalie over and over again, but my phone didn’t work. It was fried.

  Taking my liquid courage, I moved into my office and grabbed the landline. I needed to warn her what was coming her way. Explain myself. Protect Lynx. Not only would this whole little scenario reveal Natalie’s secret, but Lynx’s too. Her involvement in this would be blown wide open, and now I was at fault for not protecting two women, a small child, and a grown-ass man.

  There was nothing I could do to stop the man. Once we left Beck at the bar, Asher had rushed back to the club, opened his safe in a rage, then held a fucking gun on me and waved it around in the air, threatening to use it if I didn’t get his ass on a private flight to Miami. He insisted I get Natalie’s address from Carson, and arrange for a driver because he was packing a bottle of scotch or two or three for the flight. He kept screaming, “You knew about this fucking shit, Mike? You let me walk right into this! You’re nothing but a cocksucker.”

  Brandishing the gun in my face, he yelled, “Move quick and do what I want, or I’m gonna blow your balls off.”

  Foolishly, I had thought he’d eventually give up on the whole search for Natalie’s baby daddy. Natalie was gone already, after all, and I figured he would get bored with Beck. That dude was about as straight-edged as they got.

  Who knew Beck, the loser, would drop that bomb about the threesome? It was bad enough to think that the two of them—a young Natalie and a much younger Asher—had got together the regular way back then, fucked, and she got knocked up. But this?

  I’d known about Asher’s coke problem back in the day and his penchant for ménages, but this news was like a fucking bomb being set off in the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard.

  And stupid me thought it would all just go away, like I dreamed Lynx would stop being a high-priced call girl, and my dad would stop screwing girls younger than me.

  Furious, I tossed back some more whiskey, and as fast as it went down my throat, it raced back up. I ran to the bathroom and threw up in the sink, emptying my stomach in the porcelain bowl before smashing the bottle into the counter. The heavy glass shattered, but it wasn’t enough. I kept slamming it into the marble until it was nothing but a bunch of cracked pieces of dust.

  With my hand bleeding, I slid down onto the tile floor. My head swirled like a tornado, the funnel of questions closing in and pouring down over me.

  Wrapping my hand in a towel, I lay all the way down on the chilled floor, becoming one with the lines of grout, studying the way they connected in a pattern, thinking my life was nothing like that. Instead, the intricacies of my screwed-up existence were as tangled and twisted as a spiderweb, and I was stuck in the middle with no way to get the hell out.

  Where is Lynx? Fucking some asshole?

  Where is Natalie? Fucking some other asshole?

  Where is Asher? Fucking up his life?

  Where am I? Helping nobody, that’s where. And I’m just fucked.

  Wet ’n’ Wild

  Natalie

  Miami, one month later

  ON THAT awful night a month ago, all I’d wanted to do was lie down on the hard floor and cry. As I lay there, sobbing my heart out, a tiny puddle of salty tears had formed on the floor by my face.

  I had shed tears for the young me, the one who foolishly thought she could make a man high on coke fall for her while having a three-way with a slut.

  I’d cried for Quinn and how his world would be shattered, blown to bits like one of the buildings in the action movies he loved to watch. All because I’d once been a stupid nineteen-year-old who couldn’t face the truth.

  Then I cried for the present-day me, the one who’d been busting her butt in Florida, making a new life, only to have it unravel in a matter of minutes.

  Why the hell did I ever bare my heart to Beck Hadley that night all those years ago? Why didn’t I have an abortion? And the sixty-million-dollar question for the jackpot—why the hell did I ever start up with Asher again?

  It was obvious. Asher made me do crazy things like play with fire, or emotions, or people I cared about.

  Since the night I threw my one-and-only out into the dark and muggy Florida night, I’d been minding my own business and doing my usual thing—working, taking care of Quinn, and zero socializing.

  Except now I was doing it all with Lynx living with me, and Asher renting a mega-house in a much fancier part of Miami.

  How I ended up with my old neighbor sleeping on my couch was still mostly a
mystery. Apparently, Lynx had met Big Mike at a party, and had introduced him to Quinn sometime after that. When I called Mike in a fury, wanting to know how the hell this happened, he kept stressing that he didn’t know Lynx was my neighbor when he first met her. Well, duh, I knew that.

  As soon as Mike saw my son, he knew who his father was. And knowing that, it wasn’t a large leap to realize why I’d actually kept Quinn away from the club. At least, he’d been right in thinking I wanted my son kept a secret, but those two idiots had concocted some plan to hide the whole meeting from me, thinking they could keep a lid on it. Hoping and praying that Asher would never be the wiser.

  The man we were all hiding from had gone out and befriended Beck. All the while, Bonnie and Clyde—I mean, Mike and Lynx—had convinced themselves that whole friendship would not end the way it did. Like a fucking train wreck, carnage all over the tracks, bloody and messy.

  I was pretty sure they knew the situation with Asher and Beck would blow up, but didn’t see a way out. Lying to themselves was a better way to go. Now Lynx felt tremendous guilt over it all, so she moved to Miami and here she was. Living with me.

  I also learned that the two of them—my old babysitter and my old bouncer—liked each other, but were in some sort of stalling pattern or never-ending fight. Over what, I didn’t know, and I didn’t have the time or energy to worry about it.

  What I did know was school was out for both Lynx and Quinn for the summer, and now my old neighbor/sitter was making amends by living with me, rent-free, and babysitting Quinn for nothing.

  Asher was a much different story. Shortly after the night he showed up banging on my door, I learned he was renting a monstrosity of a house near South Beach with marble pillars and gorgeous grounds. I knew because I drove by a few times. He kept his distance, didn’t beg to meet Quinn, biding his time wisely. Yet he spent every fucking night at the Peppermint Kitty, watching from afar, looming in the back, glaring at me and my clients. After my shift was done, he walked behind me to my car without a word, then followed me home and watched from a distance, peeling off when I walked inside my apartment. Every single night.