by L. E. Bross
If I went back to prison, I couldn’t do that.
And I’d be damned if some fake-named chick was the one who pushed me over the edge. Not after everything I’d done. I inhaled and exhaled, counting to ten each time like the prison shrink taught me.
When I felt calm enough to stand, I climbed into the truck. The envelope Arnold gave me was still on the seat. A little wrinkled now where Fancy’s hot ass had been sitting on it. It all seemed a little too ironic.
The engine jumped to life when I turned the key. Inside the envelope was the address to where I should go. Should. Arnold told me I had to stay five hundred feet from Sara, but he didn’t say anything about driving by her house. My old home.
I pulled out into nonexistent traffic.
It was a stupid-ass idea, but I still made the turn onto Miller, and then again onto Maple, slowing down when the sign for Garden Grove Estates came into view. The gold paint was faded and peeling, and weeds grew up all around the ridiculous name. Like a fucking trailer park was some kind of classy country club.
I rolled to a stop and stared at the dirt road that would lead me right to Sara. Tenth trailer on the left. I could find my way there drunk, in the middle of a moonless night. I didn’t make the turn, even though every fiber in my body screamed at me to do it.
Davis knew what my truck looked like. If he saw me behind the wheel, he’d call the cops. I had no doubt about that. The warden told me that he and Sara had been notified that I’d been let out early, so I knew he’d be watching for me.
I stared up the dark road for a few more seconds, the anger inside building. When the tension reached a breaking point, I shoved down on the gas and fishtailed away in a spray of gravel.
I needed to get this shit out of my head.
I needed to forget.
I swung the truck back toward the bar. There were plenty of willing women there. I didn’t need some stick-up-her-ass bitch ruining my first night on the outside. I’d go back, get drunk, find a willing piece of ass, and celebrate that fact that bars no longer defined who I was.
CHAPTER FIVE
Avery
“What time did you get in?” Shari asked me when she stumbled into the kitchen the next morning. She looked like a raccoon as she made her way to the coffeepot.
“I was home before you, you slut.”
She flipped me off, then sat across from me at the table.
It had taken an hour, a bottle of wine, and a long hot shower before I’d calmed down from the exchange with Seth. I almost asked the cabdriver to turn around so I could apologize, but then the anger would come racing back and I’d be pissed off all over again.
What the hell right did he have to ask me my name right in the middle of that? It was supposed to be a one-night thing. Even though I’d never done that before, I was pretty sure the details weren’t all that important.
I’d wanted to forget Grant last night, and Seth had been doing a fine job of helping me too, right up until he changed directions on me. Shari never mentioned the possibility of rejection midhookup.
Instead of a hot breakfast of screw-you-Grant, I was floating in a bowl of cold, lumpy oatmeal.
“What are you so grumpy about this morning, anyways? Mr. Tall, Dark, and Brooding didn’t live up to your expectations? Seth looked like he’d be good for more than a couple of minutes,” Shari said, interrupting my train of thought. “Guess I picked the right boy to go home with, then.” Her grin widened and she winked at me. “How was Ryan, you ask?”
I cringed because Shari had no filter when it came to talking about her one-night stands. She really had no filter when talking about anything at all. Ironically, my father loved Shari, said she was a perfect example of poise and composure. If he knew what a filthy-talking enabler she really was, he’d probably keel over from a heart attack.
I jammed my hands over my ears like a five-year-old. She reached over and pulled them away.
“His tongue was like a fucking machine. I didn’t know I could come that many times.”
“Oh, my God, stop! There is a line.” I drew an imaginary line on the table. “You. Crossed. It! I don’t need to know how many orgasms you had!”
“Oh, man.” She pulled my hand into hers and stroked along the back of it. “Poor Avery. He finished and didn’t take care of you? What a selfish prick.”
“What? No. We never even made it to his place.”
Her eyes got round and a grin pulled her lips up in the corners. “You nasty girl. Did you do him in his truck?”
Heat blazed up my neck. Technically no, because nothing happened. But I would have. If he hadn’t acted like a complete asshat.
“You did!” Shari screamed. “You rode that ride right in the parking lot, you bitch.”
I stood up and pushed my chair in. “I can’t handle unfiltered Shari this early in the morning. I need to take a shower.” I looked over my shoulder right before I left the kitchen. “And for the record, nothing happened. He was a jerk and I called a cab.”
Her face fell. “Oh, honey. I’m sorry.”
It was real pain I saw in her eyes.
“No biggie. Not like I’ll ever see his face again.”
She closed her eyes. “It was a pretty nice face, you have to admit.”
I grumbled and headed to my bathroom. It had been a damned fine face. Then he went and ruined it all by opening his mouth. How pathetic was I that I couldn’t even go out and have a one-nighter with some stranger?
I stripped down and stepped into the hot spray of water, hoping to wash away some of the failure clinging to my skin.
I wonder what my father would do if I became a lesbian.
I pulled into the parking lot of the Public Works building at exactly 5:55 A.M. Monday morning. There weren’t designated parking spots, and half the lot was taken up by big green garbage trucks, so I slid my Beemer into a spot marked VISITORS.
Last night I’d made Shari help me figure out what the heck I was supposed to wear for community service. We were both stumped. I even Googled it, but there wasn’t anything helpful there either.
I’d finally settled on black Diesel jeans and a soft black T-shirt cut low in the front but still tasteful. I wasn’t sure what I’d be doing exactly, so I’d decided to wear my low black Chucks instead of heels. My hair was braided, and I’d replaced the teardrop diamonds in my ears with smaller studs. All in all I felt pretty confident in my choice of outfit. I even left the house early enough to swing through Starbucks to get a grande fat-free cappuccino.
I carried my to-go cup up a set of concrete steps that led to glass-fronted double doors. A couple of guys leaned against the building, cigarettes in their hands. I ignored them behind my sunglasses.
The lobby was small but clean, and a woman sat behind a desk a little farther in. She smiled when she saw me.
“Can I help you?” she asked in a pleasant voice.
“I’m supposed to ask for a Rick Parker?”
Her demeanor changed in an instant. I swear she looked down her nose at me. “There.” She waved her hand to the left and promptly ignored me.
I looked over to find a dozen people lounging in plastic chairs, one with his back to me staring out the huge window. Most were dressed like they’d just rolled out of bed, and I only counted one other female among the group, a tiny girl who looked about twelve, with bright pink hair and about a dozen hoops running alongside her ears.
A couple of the guys stared at me with interest, and a middle-aged man openly leered at me. My skin crawled and I turned away from his gaze.
On the table in front of the group was a pile of bright orange somethings in plastic bags. What the hell were those?
“Okay, it looks like we’re all here now,” a deep voice boomed. An older man strode into the room with a clipboard in his hand. “I’ll tell you all this once, and only once. I call roll at six on the dot. You’re a minute late walking through my doors, you get marked as absent. I’m sure you all know what that means.” His gaze swept
over the group, and I heard a lot of grumbling. “I want everyone to take a jumpsuit from the pile, don’t bother looking for a size, they’re one size fits all.”
I held back when everyone except the guy at the window reluctantly took one. Orange jumpsuits were what those people I saw beside the roads stabbing trash wore. I walked up to who I assumed must be Rick Parker.
“Do I need one too? I assume I’ll be working here in the office, correct?”
His amused gaze swung over to me. “And you are?”
“Avery Melrose. I’m supposed to do three hundred hours of community service. Answering the phones serves the community, if I’m not mistaken.” Several curious glances shot to me, even though I had tried to keep my voice down.
“Ah, yes, Melrose.” Rick chuckled and pretended to be checking something on his sheet. “It seems we already filled all our community service reps slots, so I’m afraid you’ll have to take one of those jumpsuits and join the rest of us today.”
A couple of snickers echoed around the lobby.
I leaned closer. “I don’t think you understand, Mr. Parker. There is no way I can work with . . . them. I’m sure you take personal safety very seriously around here.”
He took my arm and steered me away from the group. Finally, he saw the sense in my words.
“Miss Melrose, I can assure you that your personal safety is the utmost important thing to me today. In fact, when I got out of bed this morning, knowing I had to come to work and supervise a bunch of delinquents, I thought to myself, ‘Rick, you make sure that everyone feels comfortable today.’ ”
My mouth fell open.
“Little girl, I see a dozen just like you through here every year. I know who you are. I get files on every single one of you. In here, between six A.M. and two P.M., you are just like them. You aren’t any better or worse. You’re all the same to me. Now go get a jumpsuit and throw it on, because the bus is leaving just as soon as I take roll.”
Heat burned my face. My feet were rooted to the floor. Everyone else had pulled the horrific-looking jumpsuits on over their street clothes by now. It looked like a pumpkin had thrown up everywhere.
Bright orange did not look good on anyone.
Rick called out names, and less-than-enthusiastic voices answered. I grabbed a plastic bag and ripped it open. The stupid thing was polyester, for crying out loud.
“Seth Hunter.”
“Here,” a voice called out.
I froze. That voice. Shit. The universe could not possibly hate me that much. I held the jumpsuit in my hand and glanced over to where the voice came from. The guy from the window had his orange suit pulled up and secured at the waist, the top hanging down around his hips.
A dark gray T-shirt hugged his muscled back, and I saw the tattoos crawling over his arms.
Shit, shit, shit.
“And Avery Melrose, we already know you’re here, Princess.”
This time, I heard actual laughter.
“All right, everyone, load up.” Rick walked toward the doors, and through them I could see an orange bus waiting. What the hell was with all the orange, anyway? “Miss Melrose, if you would be so kind as to put the goddamned jumpsuit on, we can all start our day. Unless you’d like your personal assistant to get you a fresh coffee before we go, Princess?”
Rick stood with his hands on his hips staring at me. Rage burned inside me, and the heat crept up into my cheeks. I tossed my unfinished coffee into the trash and stepped gingerly into the hideous outfit, yanking it up over my arms.
The rough material scratched along my skin, but I pulled the zipper up until I was encased in orange like everyone else. I lifted my chin and stormed past Rick, who held the door open.
The bus smelled like old gym socks, and I slid into an empty seat near the back. Immediately, I turned so that my back was to the aisle. My father was insane if he thought I was going to spend three hundred hours in an orange polyester jumpsuit, doing who knows what.
The seat next to me shifted, and I felt someone sit down. There were thirteen of us. There had to be at least two dozen seats on the bus. What the hell?
The bus hissed and jerked forward, and we pulled out of the parking lot.
A familiar scent drifted toward me, and I turned even farther away. Because it brought back unwanted memories of what he tasted like, felt like under my hands.
He leaned over, and I felt his shoulder brush against my back. An involuntary shudder raced through me. Go away.
He stayed quiet until I couldn’t take it anymore. I rounded on him, eyes narrowed in a glare.
“What?”
He looked at me from the corner of his eye and crossed his arms over his chest, a wicked gleam in his eye.
“Nothing. Just . . . Fancy meeting you here.”
CHAPTER SIX
Seth
What the fuck was I doing?
There was an entire bus of empty seats to choose from, and I sat down next to her. Next to the stuck-up bitch who blew me off—unfortunately, not literally—Saturday night.
I’d tried to write her off after she stormed away, even went back into the bar, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the way she melted against me when we danced. And how she tasted when we kissed. A pretty brunette made it clear she’d be more than happy to go home with me that same night, but I declined.
Obviously being behind bars had fucked with my head more than I knew.
I’d gotten to the Works building about a half hour early because my truck, the piece-of-shit beast Ryan had been taking care of for me, didn’t want to start this morning, and when she finally did, I didn’t want to take the chance that she’d crap out on me again. Not showing up for day one of community service would be about the worst thing that could happen right now.
I had enough shit going on to deal with.
Waiting for a call back from the dozen lawyers I’d left messages with on Sunday was at the top of the list. It was a long fucking shot, finding someone who could take on my case, but I had to do something.
I’d been on edge all afternoon, staring at the prepaid cell phone I’d picked up at the corner grocery store.
And then . . . fucking Fancy walked into the lobby of the Public Works building. When she took off her sunglasses, I thought I was seeing things. She even brought a goddamned Starbucks coffee with her. Her perfectly manicured fingernails wrapped around the cup when she scanned the room, barely glancing at the rest of us. Like we didn’t even matter.
Tiny diamonds sparkled in her ears, and I would bet the measly amount of cash I had they were real. Even her jeans were designer. Stripper, my ass. Maybe a high-paid escort, but not someone who twirled topless around a pole.
Then, when she opened her mouth, all kinds of crazy came out. She actually expected to answer phones like some kind of secretary as her CS instead of picking up trash like the rest of us.
I almost laughed out loud listening to her.
She acted like she was better than everyone there. Except she wouldn’t be here, riding this godforsaken bus with the rest of us, if she was.
“So they must pay dancers a lot if you drive a Beemer and wear diamonds in your ears. You must be one of those that do private dances, huh? Rich old guys with hard-ons for pretty young things like you? Or maybe a sugar daddy?”
“Fuck you,” she snarled.
“Almost did, sweetheart, remember? Against my piece-of-shit truck too.”
“You’re an asshole.” She tilted up her chin and turned away from me to look out the window. I knew her type. Christ, I should have seen it Saturday night, but my dick had been doing all the thinking for me.
“Sugar Daddy couldn’t buy your way out of this, huh? Too bad for you, Princess.” I was being an ass, but I couldn’t stop myself. Everything in my life was shit right now, and some bored spoiled brat had tried to use me for her own amusement Saturday night. Fuck that. Been there, got the T-shirt, and was never going back there.
“What the hell is your problem?” She jer
ked her head around and glared at me. “I didn’t ask you to sit here. In fact, there is almost an entire bus full of empty seats. Why don’t you slither along and find another one?”
I made the mistake of meeting her pissed-off gaze.
Fuck me. Her eyes were stunning.
Bright blue that faded into baby blue around the edges. The black in the middle grew bigger, and she looked away. The longest fucking eyelashes I ever saw shadowed her cheeks. She had on minimal makeup, not like the other night, and it suited her so much better. There was even a light sprinkling of freckles dotting her nose.
Why the fuck was I noticing her freckles?
Or the way her pulse flickered in her neck. Erratic and quick.
I wanted to run my tongue over it again.
No, I didn’t. I didn’t want to touch her at all. God, she smelled good. Flowers and vanilla. What the hell was wrong with me? Why didn’t I get up and move right the fuck now?
“I obviously thought I would never see you again,” she said, waving her hand as if she were dismissing me. “So let’s just pretend that we don’t know each other and get the next three hundred hours over with without speaking to each other again, okay?”
Her condescending tone ignited the anger that always simmered just below the surface. It had been there since that night with Sara and Davis. No way in hell was this chick getting off that easy.
I leaned over, and her eyes widened slightly. Her lips opened just enough to allow a quick release of air. “I would, Avery, but how can I just pretend we don’t know each other when I’ve had your tongue in my mouth and your nipples between my fingers?”
It took a second for my words to sink in, but when they did, she growled, a low sound that sent all the blood rushing to my dick. I shifted to ease the sudden ache. Thank God for the loose orange overalls.
I should have fucked that brunette.
“If I had any leftover doubt you were an asshole, this would definitely take care of it.” Anger radiated from her, but I saw the way her pupils dilated when I dropped my gaze to her lips. God, she was a hellcat. I bet she was fucking amazing in bed. That was something I wanted to find out.
