by Harley Stone
“Uhoh. You’re home early. Not a good sign.”
No, it wasn’t. Still fuming from my talk with Bull, I marched into the adjoining kitchen and found Monica preparing dinner. Feeding eight grown adults meant she spent a lot of time chopping veggies and kneading bread. The rest of us helped when we could, but the purpose of the shelter was to provide a landing pad while we sought schooling and jobs to better our lives. Most of us only made it home long enough to eat and sleep.
Today, Monica was preparing a roast roughly the size of a small country to feed our horde. Crowded with potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, garlic, she had at least a quarter of a cow rubbed in spices and ready to go. The sight of it made my mouth water. She opened the oven and paused, arching an eyebrow at me. “Debrief me, babygirl.”
Operation Make Bull Admit His Feelings for Me had been a total flop. I rolled my eyes so hard they dried out. Bad idea. My vision was still a little blurry from the optometrist, and for a second, I didn’t think my eyeballs would roll back into place. Luckily, they did, giving me the chance to shift my focus back onto the important topic of my non-existent relationship with Bull. “Ohmigod. He is such an asshole.”
“That good, huh?”
I snorted. “I don’t get it. He likes me. I know he does. He just refuses to admit it. Why? Is there an award he’s trying to win for keeping his hands off me or something? Has it become an Olympic sport? Do I have the plague?” I raised my arm and looked it over. “Smallpox? Is my flesh falling off?”
She fought a smile and picked up the roast. It had to be heavy, but I didn’t dare offer to help. Monica had been mastering her prosthetic, and she sure as hell didn’t need me doing shit for her. “I see no leprosy or smallpox. Just a beautiful, frustrated young queen.” She slid the giant pan into the oven, and then gestured toward the dining room. “Come. Sit. Tell me all about it.”
With Monica and Stocks at the helm, the once dilapidated old shelter had come a long way in the past two years. We’d been renovating the hell out of the place, replacing the roof and flooring, updating sketchy old lighting and electrical boxes, and painting everything in warm, comfortable colors. Monica had named it The Castle, because she only took in queens who’d had their crowns knocked off by life. She gave us a safe place to sleep, provided three square meals, and pushed us off our asses, encouraging each of us to do something amazing with our one wild and precious life.
And it was impossible to make excuses to a one-armed badass who courageously practiced what she preached. Trust me, I’d tried.
Although Monica was all about straightening our crowns, I didn’t think The Castle was a fitting name for the shelter. I’d never been in a castle, but they seemed cold and pretentious to me, and our home was anything but. Warm, cozy, and full of yummy food smells, the shelter was now every good thing I remember about my grandma’s house. After she passed away, I never thought I’d experience this sense of safety and belonging again, but Stocks, Monica, and the rest of the Ladies First crew had made it happen.
I owed them more than I could ever repay, and I couldn’t wait to finish my apprenticeship so I could start giving back.
Sitting in the chair beside Monica’s, I dropped my head, planting my face against the cool surface of the table, and sighed dramatically. “The friend zone is a black hole from which there is no escape.”
Monica chuckled. “So says Google.”
A recent internet search for ways to get out of said friend zone had yielded that answer. At the time, I’d refused to accept the wisdom of Google as fact, but it was proving to be far truer than I cared to admit. This black hole was like a commercial grade vacuum and I was nothing more than a speck of dust. “It’s worse than I could have imagined. He didn’t friend zone me, he… he little sister zoned me.”
Skepticism filled Monica’s eyes as she watched me. Then she shook her head and let out a low chuckle.
Her laughter stung. “It’s not funny,” I said. “The man I’m desperately and irrevocably in love with sees me as his little sister. If anything, this is tragic. My life is over. I might as well go find a convent and become a nun now.”
“Our little Lily is always so dramatic.” Visibly struggling to control herself, she patted my hand affectionately. “I’ve seen the way he watches you. If he’s sister zoning you, it’s some sort of backwoods Ozark kind of family.”
I snorted, cautiously hoping she was right. Replaying the scene from the bar in my mind, I’d had him. There was nothing brotherly about the way Bull had responded to my flirting. He wanted me.
So, why the hell wouldn’t he take me?
“Fucking sister zone. As if the friend zone wasn’t bad enough,” I lamented.
“Sister my ass.” Monica started singing the dueling banjos from the movie Deliverance in a compilation of do-dos. She was a ridiculous human being, and just being around her made me feel better. “Goddamn, you play a mean banjo,” I quoted.
“I bet you can squeal like a pig,” she quoted back.
“What’s going on here?” Stocks asked, his tall frame filling the doorway to the living room. Tall, with dark hair and the kind of muscles guys develop through service in the Marines, dozens of hours of physical therapy, and two years of hardcore home remodeling, Monica’s husband was handsome. He was also one of the best men I’d ever known. Crossing the room to join us, he brushed a kiss across Monica’s forehead. She closed her eyes, looking so damn blissful from his affection it made my chest hurt. The way his fingers slid down her arm, maintaining every second of contact they could until he stepped away said far more than any sappy poem or declaration of love.
Monica looked from him to me and raised her eyebrows. “He got a real pretty mouth, ain’t he?”
I cracked up. No matter how bleak my love life was, I wasn’t dead yet, so that was funny.
“Quoting Deliverance, huh?” Stocks asked. “Must be serious. One of you better start squealing like a pig.”
Monica winked at him. “Later.”
“Gross,” I grumbled.
As Stocks puttered around the kitchen, Monica watched me like she was trying to figure something out. Finally, she asked, “Are you high?”
“What? No. Why would you even ask that?” Drugs had never been my thing, and Monica knew why. Drugs would also get my ass kicked out of the shelter, and I didn’t relish the idea of being homeless.
“Your pupils are huge.”
“The lighting in here sucks,” Stocks said, coming to my defense. “I was thinking we should add some LED recessed lighting across the ceiling here.” He pointed up.
“It’s not that dark.” Monica’s stare didn’t relent. “What’s going on with your eyes?”
I dropped my head into my hands, preparing to admit yet another failure. “I’m not high. I had an eye doctor appointment before I met with Bull. I read that guys are more attracted to girls with big pupils, so I let the doctor dilate them.”
“I don’t think that’s a thing.” Stocks took a glass down from the cupboard and filled it with milk.
What did he know? Monica had hooked up with him the first time she’d met him. She’d spotted him across the room and decided he was gonna get lucky. I’d heard their story more times than I could count, and I was certain he didn’t need to learn any secrets of the opposite sex to win her over. “It is a thing. Trust me, I’ve been researching.”
Monica laughed, shaking her head. “I can’t believe you got your eyes dilated for a guy. Never heard that one before.”
“First of all, I didn’t do it for him. It’s been years since I had an eye exam, and it just so happened that my appointment was right before I was scheduled to meet up with Bull.” Okay, I’d scheduled the appointment around our date so I could see if Bull would find me more attractive with my eyeballs dilated, but she didn’t need to know that little detail.
Her amused expression told me I wasn’t pulling any wool over her peepers. “So, you had your eyes dilated. What else?”
“The
better question is, did it work? Did Bull find your dilated eyes irresistible?” Stocks popped one of Monica’s home baked cookies into his mouth and chewed.
“My girl doesn’t need to have her eyes dilated to be irresistible. Bull just needs to pull his head out of his ass.” Monica narrowed her eyes at Stocks. “And dinner’s in the oven. Better not ruin your appetite, Butter.”
They came up with the weirdest nicknames for each other. This particular endearment was due to Stock’s level of smoothness, or lack thereof. Smooth like butter, he was not, yet she found his attempts endearing.
“This is just an appetizer.” He snagged another cookie before joining us at the table. “You know how I am, babe. Whatever spread you put before me, I’ll eat.” He winked at her.
I pretended to gag at the innuendo.
Monica flashed him a wicked smile and patted my hand. “What else, Lily.”
“I made eye contact, held his gaze, brushed his knee with mine. I even patted his leg.”
“And?” Monica gestured for me to continue.
“Isn’t that enough?”
“I know you’re holding back. You can’t play a player, babygirl. Spill.”
Some things were too embarrassing to share with the woman who was more of a mom to me than my biological mother had ever been. But I didn’t see a way out of it. Monica was relentless, and wouldn’t give up until I’d told her all my dirty little secrets. I knew she only wanted to help, but I suddenly wished I’d never told her anything about my attraction to Bull. My cheeks heated and I dropped my gaze. “I tried to seduce him with my beer bottle.”
She gasped. “Dear God. Please tell me you did not deep throat a bottle in the Copper Penny.”
“That’s about enough of that,” Stocks said, heading for the door.
“Nope.” Monica pulled out the chair on the other side of her. “You sit your fine ass down. You’re gonna help us figure out your boy.”
Looking like he’d rather be anywhere but the kitchen, Stocks reluctantly slunk over and collapsed on the chair, watching us both like we were about to start talking about menstrual periods or something.
“I didn’t deep throat a bottle,” I told them both, regaining a smidgeon of my dignity. “I only licked it a tad.”
Stocks shook his head at me. “Kid.”
I hadn’t been a kid in a long ass time, but he was the closest thing to a father figure I had, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. Or myself, for that matter. “I know, I know.” My head went back to my hands, trying to hide my shame. “Not my finest moment, but I don’t know what else to do. I’ve dropped hints, practically molested him when he was teaching me self-defense…”
“I gotta hand it to you, that self-defense ruse was crafty,” Stocks admitted.
“Thank you.” I nodded. “He was sporting some serious wood, so I know he was feelin’ me but...”
Stocks held up his hand. “Please. No talking about another man’s wood. I’m tryin’ to be cool, but there’s only so much I can handle.”
Monica snickered. “You’re doin’ great, baby.”
“I better get one hell of a reward later.”
“Anyway…” I busted into their little side conversation before they could gross me out again. “I’m out of ideas. Hell, Google’s out of ideas. I know he’s into me, but for some reason the stubborn asshole refuses to admit it.”
Something flickered across Stocks’s features, disappearing almost as quickly as it arrived. I caught it, though, and so did Monica. I’d seen the expression before, when he’d dropped a wrench—a literal wrench—on one of Monica’s soufflés and didn’t want to fess up due to threat of life and limb.
Why would Stocks look guilty? Unless…
“What do you know?”
He threw his hands in the air. “What do you mean?”
I pinned him in place with a glare and made my question as specific as possible. “Do you know why Bull won’t give me the time of day?”
His eyebrows rose and his gaze swept the room like he was looking for the best escape route.
“Oh my god, you do know something.” Monica hit the table. “I can’t believe you’ve been holding out on us. You know how important this is to Lily.”
Stocks grabbed Monica’s hand. “Baby…”
“Don’t you ‘Baby’ me. You might as well start singing, because whatever you know… we’re gonna get it out of you sooner or later.”
“It’s not that simple. You two are asking me to roll over on one of my brothers.”
The guarded hope I felt was reflected back to me in Monica’s eyes. Without saying a word, we made a pact. Stocks really did know something, and we had to play it cool and weasel the information out of him before it was lost to us forever. It was game time.
“I didn’t say ‘roll over,’ did you say ‘roll over,’ Mon?” I asked.
She shook her head, fighting back a smile and gave him the most innocent look I’d ever seen her fake. “No mention of rolling over here. Of course, I could roll over later if you’d like.” She leaned closer to him, sliding her hands over his shoulders and to the back of his neck. “I could roll over a lot, but that all depends on you. Do you want me to… roll over for you, baby?”
Stocks swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed with the effort, and I knew we had him right where we wanted him. He’d do anything for Monica. “I feel teamed up on. We should go down to the humane society and pick up a male dog, so I have one ally in this house.”
He did know something, and it was so good he was trying to change the subject. Leaning forward, I laced my hands and plopped my chin down on top of them, giving him my full attention. “What do you know?”
Glancing at Monica one last time, he replied, “It might be nuthin’.”
Monica gestured for him to continue.
“Just drunk talk among the club brothers.”
We both stared at him, waiting.
Finally, he let out a sigh. “There was a girl.”
His words hit me like a sucker punch. “Was?” I asked.
He nodded. “They were high school sweethearts, and when Bull joined the Navy she went away to college.”
When he didn’t offer more information, I was tempted to jump across the table and strangle it out of him. Instead, I took a breath and used all of my tapped-out self-control to stay cool. “And?” I asked.
“She committed suicide while he was serving.”
Monica gasped. “What? Why?”
Stocks shrugged. “They said she was raped, turned in her rapist, and nobody believed her. I don’t know what happened. Maybe he was harassing her or something.”
I had so many questions. I’d been raped by the son of one of the most powerful men in Seattle. I’d been afraid for my life, but I’d never considered taking it. There had to be more to the story than that. Bull was in the service when it happened, but didn’t she have a family or friends to reach out to? Where had her people been? If she’d reported it, why hadn’t the cops helped her? “Did she try to contact Bull?”
Stocks shook his head, frowning. “No. They said that’s what messed him up. They’d been together for years and had plans to get married when he got out of the service, but she never even told him she was attacked.”
If I ever convinced Bull to be my man, I’d tell him everything. Even the stuff he didn’t want to know. This girl had him and had left him in the dark. I couldn’t make sense of her actions. “Why didn’t she tell him?” I wondered aloud.
Stocks threw up his hands. “Your guess is better than mine.”
“Please tell me her rapist is getting ass raped in jail,” Monica said.
“I asked if there was a trial, but the guys didn’t know.”
Desperate for more information, and grabbing onto this flimsy thread of information with both hands, I pulled up a web browser on my phone. “Do you know her name?”
“Nope.”
Dammit. “When did it happen?”
“I’m guessing shortly
before your situation, Lily.” Stocks’s eyes softened as he gave me a supportive smile. “Some asshole in his squad mouthed off about it to Bull, and he put the dipshit in the hospital. That’s how Bull earned himself a dishonorable discharge and ended up here.”
How had I never learned of this? Bikers gossiped worse than most of the girls in my high school, but nobody had said shit to me about Bull’s past. Of course, I hadn’t thought to ask them, knowing how close they all were. “Do you know which college she attended?” I asked.
“Nope. All I know is what I told you. And Zombie and Buddha were pretty plastered, so I’m not sure how much of it is true.”
Thinking, I tapped my cell phone to life. “If they were high school sweethearts, she must have been from Shiner, too.”
“Shiner?” Monica asked.
“Bull’s hometown. It’s in Texas, kinda between San Antonio and Houston.” I was having a hard time with the idea of Bull having a high school sweetheart. He was mine, dammit. No other woman was supposed to have his heart. Especially not a dead one. Did he still love her? Is that why he warded off all my advances? How the hell was I supposed to compete with a ghost?
“And you know about Bull’s hometown, because…?” Monica asked.
Typing in the year of her death, town name and ‘college girl suicide,’ I started my search. “He goes home for Christmas every year. I wanted to see where he’ll be taking me after he finally succumbs to my advances and admits we’re destined to be…” The rest of the sentence died on my lips as a picture of Amber Kent appeared on my screen. Suddenly, all my dreams of a life with Bull came crashing down around me.
“Lil?” Monica asked, her tone concerned. “The blood just drained from your face. You’re even whiter than normal. What’d you find?”
My lips moved, but no sound would come out. All I could do was stare at the image and silently curse the universe. What horrible thing had I done to deserve this? Reincarnation had to be real, because I must have been a mass murderer in another life. Bull’s reluctance to give me a shot finally made sense. No wonder nothing I’d tried had worked. How painful was the sight of my face for him? How could he even stand to be around me? Everything clicked into place. Now armed with all the information, I fully understood that I’d been fighting a losing battle.
