by Wild, Nikki
“Got a good-lookin' surprise in there for ya, boy,” Grinder said. I knew no one had the guts to tell my pop that his much-treasured handle had new connotations in the world of dating apps. If he knew that his name was fairly synonymous with gay sex, he'd probably dig his own grave and lie in it waitin' for his body to give out. He didn’t care enough to hate a man for bein’ gay, but he wouldn’t want it as his namesake, that’s for sure.
“Oh yeah? How's that, pops?”
He held out a cig and I took it, even let him light it for me with his shaking hand. Gotta make the old man feel useful. I owed him enough.
“Ah, you'll see,” he said, a twinkle in his eye that I hadn't seen in a hot minute. I was intrigued. I could hear the boys inside, doing a bit of roaring. It probably wasn't a broad. No broads around here were worth getting excited about.
“Dutch in?” I asked.
“Ayup,” Grinder said with a scowl. He'd never say it, but my pop had no love for Dutch. Even after twenty years leading the Crusaders, and doing a good job of it, the old man still saw some jacked-up kid with eyes bigger than his stomach. Plus, I think he always wanted me to step in as VP, and when Dutch picked Blade, Grinder took it as a snub. Thought the club owed him something better than the same old shit, after his years of service. He may have raised me to be the enforcer, but he knew I could do more, and he wanted more for me. I loved him for that.
We smoked in silence for a bit. Grinder wasn't a wordy man. Don't know where I got it. My ma, I guess, though I never met her. She didn't run off or kill herself with drugs; she just got cancer. Bad luck for everyone. Pop never took another woman for more than a week or two. I grew up callin' a lot of ladies Ma.
“I'm in, then,” I said, stubbing out the smoke and clapping Grinder on the back. He grunted in acknowledgment. I stepped into the bar. Everything faded out all at once.
The first full, coherent thought I can remember having was: she’s got more freckles now.
Of course, before my mind processed that thought, it was busy processing her. Green eyes. Black hair. Looking fresh as a fuckin' springtime daisy with a smile on her face and laughter on her lips. Freckles. Fuckin' freckles. Bex Carter, the only girl to ever break my heart. Fuck me twice and shove me in a coffin, I was dead on my feet, looking at her.
She didn't notice me at first. She was chattin' with some of the old guard, those who remembered her best as a scrawny pre-teen with knobby knees and a penchant for Werther's Originals. Now, she was all woman. The tight black shirt she wore showed off her chest, looking much fuller than I remembered. And hips like the bend in a river, seamless and flowing. The kind of body an old witch puts on when she wants to seduce the young prince. The kind of body that'll drive a man half crazy.
When she finally saw me, I saw my own reaction reflected in her face. The way those perfect lips dropped open and shrank at the same time, the eyes gone wider than humanly possible, the cheeks flaming up so red it almost – almost – took care of those damn freckles.
Did I look as good to her as she did to me? I reckon I did, by that blush. I wasn't thinking of anything when I ran my hand through my hair, which was long now. Showin' off, subconsciously, I guess.
When she moved, it felt like some game had begun. Except I didn't know the rules. She came towards me, putting a smile where her look of shock had been.
“Cross,” she said. Her voice seemed deeper than I remembered. Huskier. Sexier. “It's so good to see you.”
I realized pretty quick that she was fixin’ to hug me, so I spread my arms and let her. Anything else would have been weird. She smelled like travel and wind and vanilla. She smelled like Bex. Fuckin' Bex.
“What're you doin' here, girl?” I asked, pulling away, holding her at arm's length. I studied her, she studied me. Like you get to know the player on the other end of the chessboard, so you know what move he's gonna make next.
“Ah,” her eyes slid to the side, then back to mine. Did I see some pain in there? Did it make me feel like hurting someone? “I'm in a little bit of trouble and Dutch said I could come back, cool off, and try to make some sense of it.”
“Trouble?” I dropped my arms. “What kinda trouble?”
“Ex-husband trouble,” she said, wincing away from my gaze. Shit. Those words were little bombs in my ears. I barely even heard the ex part. It was all just husband.
“You got married?”
I watched, enthralled, as a section of her perfectly red lips disappeared beneath her teeth. Is it crazy to say she'd always had adorable teeth? Small and white, like little Chiclets. I used to love running my tongue across them, all smooth and tastin' just like her...
“Ten years, Cross,” she said, voice soft, lip a little bit redder where she'd bitten it. “It was ten years.”
And whose fault was that, I thought bitterly, remembering’ her promise, the one she broke.
“I know,” I said, trying not to sound defensive and sounding defensive as hell. “I wasn't sayin' shit about it, just askin'.”
“Well, then, yeah,” she said. “But, you know...here I am. So it wasn't like it was a great decision.”
“He hit you?” I could feel something rising in my chest, something that had no right being there after so many years. Anyone who'd hurt this girl would get a quick and dirty introduction to the butt of my Colt. Anyone who even thought of layin' their filthy hands on my girl would...
Not my girl, I reminded myself. Don't need a girl, not even this one.
“No,” she said. “Not...not really.”
“Not really?”
Why was I pressing her? I didn't want to know – I didn't want to feel any worse than I already did, and I was sure to feel worse with each word from her mouth. I ought to have changed the subject. But I had to know. She sighed, blew upwards so her bangs lifted from her forehead. I remembered how she did that when she was frustrated. That was even cuter than her teeth.
“It's complicated,” she said. “He never hit me. But I almost wish he had. Then I could go to the cops. Not that I've grown any fonder of the 5-0. But Jase, he just wants to drive me crazy. He has a lot of threats. He gets pretty graphic, what he's gonna do to me. How much he hates me. What I deserve. He calls. Changed my number five times, he keeps calling. Calls every damn night, tells me he's watching, and he is. I can see him, out the window, sitting there, watching. Telling me what he's gonna do...”
“You tellin' me you're runnin' scared from some dude who talks a blue streak but ain't put his money where his mouth is?” I couldn't believe Bex, my Bex, born and raised around men who'd sooner gauge your eye out with a spoon than ask you to move out of their way, could be intimidated by some jackass mouth breather. But the minute the words came out of my mouth, I knew they were the wrong ones. Bex's face shut down, her pretty mouth screwed up like a Christmas bow: but I knew for damn sure, once she opened it, nothing sparkly and fun would come out.
“Fuck you,” she spat. Honestly, I liked the sound of it. She was still Bex, after all. “You don't know a damn thing about it. You got all this...”
She reached out, grabbed my bicep, squeezed it. Shit. Why'd she have to do that?
“...to protect you. I ain't got shit, except my Beretta, and you can't very well go shooting people for stalking you. Especially not when you're too poor to afford a lawyer. So, yeah, Cross. I'm runnin' scared from a man who never touched a hair on my head, except as a husband touches a wife.”
And again, she'd done it a-fucking-gain. Still holding my bicep, talkin' about another man touching her, a husband. Like she wanted me fired up and ready to blow. I was halfway there the minute I saw her, and she just kept inchin' me forward.
“Sorry,” I said, and brushed her hand off my arm. Had to, because the longer her little fingers stayed curled around my bicep, the more I wanted to show her what those arms could do. Like throw her against the wall, lift her like a rag doll, and hold her up while I buried myself inside her. I'd only gotten better with time, and I wanted her to learn
it. “You're right, doll. I don't get it. I don't get what it is to be a woman, and I like keepin' it that way.”
“Good,” she said, firm, nodding. “Now are you gonna get me a drink, or am I gonna have to explain that to you, too? See, when a man and a woman get together, and they've got some re-acquainting to do, it's nice to have a bit of whiskey in between them, 'cause time can leave some jagged edges, and good whiskey is very smooth.”
I smiled. She still had that poetic way about her. Poetry on her lips, and in her eyes, green as an Irish meadow. With her black hair hanging in a fringe over her forehead, she would have made a good muse for Joyce. Maybe even give him a run for his money, if she'd been born in different circumstances, where she could have blossomed.
“Darlin', you keep on explaining the whole world to me,” I said, slinging an arm around her shoulder and leading her towards the door. “We got all night, and a lot of whiskey.”
Bex
“Do you remember when we stole that telescope from the school lab and...”
“Oh God, yes! We saw that old couple down the street going at it like dogs in heat! How could I forget? An image like that...”
I literally shuddered, laughing at the same time. It was certainly one of the more traumatic memories of my childhood. You never do forget your first eyeful of 80-year-old tits...or 90-year-old balls, for that matter.
“Hang low, sweet chariot,” Cross sang, a wicked grin on his face. I started laughing all over again, and held onto his arm to keep from falling off the stool. That was a bad idea. He was so...firm! It was like rock climbing. Not that I'd ever do anything so hare-brained, but I could imagine how that solid rock would feel under your fingers. Except Cross was warm to the touch, blood flowing in and over and around that wall of muscle. Hot, rushing, masculine blood...
I had to control myself. My laughter died to a content hum and I signaled for another beer. Okay, so maybe I didn't want to control myself. Not when he still looked as good as the day I left him – better, even, despite the scars. He had longer hair now, dirty blonde and tousled. And those eyes, bluer than anything on God's green earth. Still that five-o'clock shadow ringing his smirking lips.
It wasn't just Cross' traffic-stopping good looks that was driving me straight down the bottle. The booze was making it much easier for me to deal with the guilt in my stomach. I could blame the nausea on the whiskey until the sun came up.
I had hoped Cross would be different. That, like Dutch said, he'd be shady, and grim. But he wasn't. Not a bit of him was different than the Cross I loved when I was a teenager. Still rowdy as all hell, still never without a smile on his face, still handsome as the devil and twice as tempting. Still knew just how to make me laugh.
“Well, now, let me see...” Cross said, staring into his beer like it was a crystal ball. “You heard about Ducky?”
“Ducky!” I hadn't forgotten about my other best friend from childhood, but I hadn't wanted to ask, either. I didn't want any bad news. “I haven't heard anything about Ducky...he make it out? To Las Vegas?”
Cross shook his head, rolling his eyes at the same time.
“Hell no,” Cross said. “If he had an idea, it would die of loneliness.”
I scowled; Ducky always did make Cross' ass itch. I knew it was just stupid, boyish jealousy. Cross didn't feel it was “right” for his girlfriend to have another boy as her best friend. I told him to stuff it then, and I'd tell him to stuff it now.
“Shit,” Cross said, winning me over again with that smile, putting his hands up in surrender. “Sorry, darling. Just force of habit. No, Ducky does alright for himself. He's managing that feed store down on Crockett. He's out of town now, I think. Some convention. He'll be excited to see you when he gets back, though.”
“Oh,” I said, confused. “Is that the big news?”
“No,” Cross said. “The big news is that he and Mary Samuels got hitched.”
“No!” I covered my mouth with my hands, damn shocked out of words. Mary Samuels was not the kind of girl who would shack up with someone from our side of town. Well, maybe she'd shack up, but just to piss off Daddy for a little while. She was, as they say, shitting in high cotton.
“Yup,” Cross beamed. “I never had much love for Duck, but I gotta say, he pulled that one off smooth as peanut butter.”
“Kids?” I leaned in, momentarily forgetting everything in my surprise.
“One on the way,” Cross nodded, taking a sip of his beer.
“Well, screw me sideways and lay me down to rest...” I shot Cross a dubious look over my own beer. “I'll believe it iff'n I see it, Cross DuFrane.”
See? Being back in Cutter was bringing out the trash in me again. But talking to Cross wasn't like talking to his pa, or Dutch, or any of the other old-timers. Their accents were thick, jagged, harsh on the ear. Cross had a more refined way of talking, new southern. Easy, slow, thick as molasses. Forget the biceps and the six-pack abs; his tongue was always his best muscle. Not just for speaking, either.
That was the beer and the whiskey talking. Even so, I knew that eventually, I would have to get him bedded down. I didn't think he'd get to trust me any other way. My stomach turned twice at that thought. Now, I covered my mouth with my hand to make sure I didn't throw up.
“You alright?” Cross' concern showed in his eyes. I nodded.
“Just gotta....” I didn't finish my sentence, but rushed straight to the bathroom. There, I unloaded all three shots and four beers into the toilet, coming up for air only when my stomach was empty as Mother Hubbard's cupboard. Shit. I couldn't do this. There was no way I could do this. I couldn't keep on lying to Cross. Every word out of my mouth was a lie. Every time I touched him, it was a lie. If the guilt didn't eat me alive, the shame would.
“You done?”
Dutch's voice chilled me to my core. It came from outside the stall, echoing off the bathroom's tile. He'd followed me in here? I must have been too busy being sick to notice...
“I expect you'll want to wash your mouth out pretty good before you go back out there,” Dutch said. “I'm gonna leave you some gum here on the sink.”
What the hell was I supposed to say to that? Thanks?
“Dutch, I don't...”
“Shut up. Get out here.”
Well, this sure as hell wasn't the same Dutch who'd come to me first, all polite and smiling. I felt my body obeying him, rising from the floor, flushing the toilet and coming to stand before him. He was red-eyed as hell, his face streaked and cracked with wrinkles, his lips chapped.
“Here are some things I ain't ever want to hear comin' out of your mouth: don't, can't, won't. I'm not trying to scare ya, honey, but we gotta establish these ground rules. I've been watchin' you out there, and you're doing mighty good. Keep it up. 'Cause I'm gonna keep watchin' ya. Get it? There's never gonna be another moment that I ain't watchin' ya. Not 'til this is done. So keep your don'ts and your can'ts and your won'ts to yourself. Hear me?”
“Yes,” I said. Fuck! I should have known! I should have known! Getting back in business with Dutch was never going to be smooth, never going to be easy. He had the whole club at his back. I had nothing. If Cross learned why I was really here, he wouldn't save some spit to keep me from dying of thirst.
“Good girl,” Dutch said. “Now, make yourself purty again. Your next round's on me, and I'm makin' his a double. Loosen them lips, right?”
“Right,” I said, hating the meekness in my voice. Bullies. All of these assholes were just bullies. When I was a kid, I had Cross and Ducky to stand up against the bullies. This time around, I was alone. Worse, this time around, I was on the bully's side. I went to the sink after Dutch left, washed my face and rinsed out my mouth, took some of the gum. I avoided looking into the mirror until the last possible moment. Did I recognize her, the woman looking back at me? The traitor? I didn't want to, but I did.
Outside, back at the bar, I found another round waiting for me – just as Dutch had promised. And Cross, grinning, lif
ted his shot towards his president, waiting for me to do the same, thanking Dutch for buying the round. He had no fucking idea. I wasn't sure I could keep my own drink down, but I managed it, somehow. Burned a hole in my stomach. I deserved it, and much worse. As Cross turned back to slam his empty shot glass on the table, I noticed something on his cut I hadn't seen before.
“Now, how'd you manage to get a set of these?” I asked, reaching up to touch the patch, proudly displaying a pair of broken wings.
“Ah, now that's one hell of a story, sugar,” he said with a grin. “Bloody as shit, too. You sure you can handle it?”
“I'm sure,” I said, knowing he wouldn't accept any other answer.
“Well, I was out on Birch Road, and you know how that pavement winds like a figure eight. Black as pitch, moon nowhere in sight. No stars to speak of. This was four years ago. I was on my Indian. She was a beaut, handled like a dream, but she was no damn match for this Camaro and its leakin' oil. I was comin' round a turn, smooth as could be, but all of a sudden I feel her sliding out from under me. I didn't know what the hell was happenin', but I knew it wasn't good.
She had her heart set on layin' down, so I let go, and she threw me 75 feet across the tar. And I caught up with that damn Camaro. He saw me bite it in his rearview, was slowing down and fixin' to stop, and I found myself lookin' up at his engine block! It was the last thing I saw, before the pain knocked me out. Friction burned clear through my quilts. That's where I got this beautiful souvenir...”
He stood up then, and lifted his shirt up, turning so I could see his ribs and back. A big, nasty scar ran diagonal across his flesh; it was ugly and red and angry-looking. But holy fuck, did the rest of his body make up for it. Inked everywhere ink could go, abs like a mountain range, muscles so thick and tight they looked fake.
When I finally managed to drag my eyes away from his body and back to his face, his grin had me blushing and blinking fast.
