Man Handler (Man Cave - A Standalone Collection Book 3)

by Shari J. Ryan

  “Come with me,” I tell her.

  “How on earth am I supposed to do that?”

  “Do you think there’s time to pack a bag of stuff?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” she says.

  “Then I’ll buy you new stuff. I’ve been saving.” I haven’t needed to spend much money while having free room and board this last month. I was saving up for an apartment, but I’ll live there a little longer if that means getting her settled.

  “Sweetie, don’t be silly.” She stands up and pats my lap. “Follow me.” I follow her down the block with no clue as to what she’s doing. “I know what you think of me, Scarlett. I don’t blame you. You’ve never learned anything from me but how to be a weak person.”

  “That’s not true, Mom.” It is a little true, but I wouldn’t hold that against her.

  She walks up to an ATM, and with a shaky hand she reaches to the bottom of her purse and pulls out a black card. I only see it for a brief second as she points it toward the card reader. Dad’s name is on the card. “He’s so stupid,” she says. She presses in six numbers for the pin and then types a number so large, I’m not sure the ATM can fulfill her request.

  “Mom?”

  “I’ve earned it,” she says.

  Somehow, the ATM satisfies out her request in the form of twenties. The machine is working on overdrive for what must be two minutes, but she carefully places the wad of cash into her purse and walks away as if nothing just happened. “Where are we going?” She asks.

  “To Brendan’s,” I tell her. I’m staring at the side of her face, trying to comprehend everything I’m feeling, but all I can focus on is pride. I’m proud of Mom, and I’m proud of myself.

  “How is Brendan? Gosh, I haven’t seen him in years. Is it Brendan? Is he the one you’re in love with?”

  I snicker. “No, it’s not Brendan. He’s with someone too.”

  “Oh,” she says.

  “The car is just over there.” I point to Kalvin’s Lexus.

  “That’s your car?” Mom asks with surprise.

  “No, it’s Brendan’s boyfriend’s car.”

  Her face contorts in surprise and confusion, but she doesn’t glance over at me. “That makes so much sense now.” I can see the thoughts running through her head at a mile a minute. “Good for them.”

  “Yeah.” God, I hope they aren’t still fighting when we get back.

  I pull into the driveway, hearing the sound of laughing instead of yelling coming from the open front door. Thank goodness.

  “Come on in,” I tell Mom.

  She follows me up the front steps and I open the door, finding Brendan, Kalvin, and Austin shooting the shit. “Nice of you to come back in one piece,” Austin says. “Where did you go?”

  I take my mom’s arm and pull her into the living room. “Everyone this is my mom. Mom, this is Brendan, Kalvin, and—that’s Austin.”

  Austin is the first to stand up and make his way over. “Mrs. Thorpe, it’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” Austin lays it on thick and kisses her hand. I’m pretty sure Mom is blushing, which is adorable.

  “Oh my, you’re not from around here, are you?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m from a little town in South Carolina.”

  “Ah, a Southern gentleman. The perfect fit for my daughter.” I knew the words were rolling around in her head, I was just counting the seconds down until she spoke them out loud.

  “I guess so,” Austin says.

  “Mrs. Thorpe, it’s so nice to see you again,” Brendan says.

  “Mrs. Thorpe?” she questions with laughter. “Brendan, dear, it’s okay. You can still call me Rose.”

  Brendan shoots Kalvin a glaring look. “Rose, I’m Kalvin,” he says, standing up to shake her hand. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “It’s nice to meet you too,” Mom says.

  “Mrs. Thorpe, I sure hope I’m not being rude, but would you mind if I stole your daughter for just a brief moment?” Austin asks.

  “If you talk to me like that, you can have whatever you’d like,” Mom says. Oh, God.

  “Mom.”

  “Go ahead, I’ll catch up with Brendan and Kalvin,” she says.

  I follow Austin up the stairs to the room I’ve been staying in. He closes the door behind us. “Okay, Miss Spontaneity, let’s play catch up for a minute, okay? My mind is spinnin’ darlin’, and I need some answers from you.”

  “Okay,” I tell him. He’s freshly showered and in dry clothes, clothes that don’t resemble ones I’ve ever seen him in, but it’s obvious he’s trying to fit in here with his Henley long-sleeve shirt and casual jeans. “You look very Boston, by the way.”

  “Scarlett ... ”

  “I don’t want to be up here anymore,” I tell him. “This doesn’t feel like home to me.”

  He sits down on the window sill and crosses his leg over his knee. “Okay, so where do you want to go?”

  “Back home.”

  Austin’s eyebrows sew together. “Isn’t this home?”

  “Home is where a person can spend forever.”

  “And this is coming from a person who can’t think about tomorrow? I’m confused.”

  “I was happy in South Carolina—in Blytheville, but I was feeling a lot of guilt, knowing my mom was here still living through the horrors I was forced to live with for so long. I don’t think I could ever fully be happy anywhere because of that.” Austin is starting to look nervous, which I can understand. I’m probably not talking fast enough, but I know it will all make sense when I get it out.

  “I want to live in Blytheville, and I want to find a good place for my mom to live. I need to get her out of this state.”

  “That’s all this is?” he asks. “Why didn’t you just say so? I would have helped you.”

  “Everything hit me very hard when we were talking earlier. I couldn’t figure out why I was so uncomfortable everywhere, or why I’ve been too scared to think about tomorrow. Then it dawned on me. If I know she’s okay, I can be okay.”

  “Of course,” he agrees. “I’m glad you figured it out.”

  I sit down on the bed and inhale sharply through my nose. “Yup.”

  “So, why were you upset about me going into the hotel you interviewed at?”

  I look up at him. His face is clean of emotion, but his eyes are full of apprehension. “They offered me a job.”

  “That’s amazing,” he says. “Or not ... ” He laughs softly. “Scarlett, I don’t know what you want, darlin’. Just tell me.”

  “I thanked them for the offer, but turned the job down.”

  Austin smiles, but it fades after a second. “That’s why you’re scared to go in there?”

  “No,” I tell him.

  “Okay, I give up?”

  “They offered me more money to take the position, but I said no.”

  “Oh, wow they really wanted you, huh?”

  “Yeah. They offered me even more when I said no again. I honestly don’t know why, but I turned down a salary most sane people wouldn’t turn down.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “I don’t know, Austin. While I was sitting in the interview, looking out the window at the surrounding buildings, I got an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I realized that if I had to think about the future … that was not what I wanted for the rest of my life. There’s really no amount of money that’s worth more than happiness.”

  “How much are we talkin’ here?”

  “Eighty-thousand plus benefits and housing.”

  “Holy crap, Scarlett. Do they have a hotel in South Carolina?” he asks.

  I lower my head to hide my silent snicker. “So, you know how I told you I almost screwed that up last time?”

  “Yeah,” he says, sounding puzzled.

  “Well, I excused myself to go to the restroom, and I called the headquarters and asked them if there were any similar availabilities in the area surrounding Blytheville.”

  “And?”

 
“There is one. In the next town over—Trident,” I tell him.

  “That’s like a five-minute drive,” he says.

  “I know.”

  “So, what happened then?” he presses.

  “I told headquarters what I was offered for a compensation package and asked if they could make that happen in Trident. If so, I would go down there.”

  Austin’s mouth is hanging open with shock. “There’s no way they’d agree to that salary in South Carolina.”

  “They did,” I tell him. “I went back to tell the hiring manager about the other location and—we’ll just say no one was very happy after spending money to fly me up here, upping my salary and throwing in all the bonuses just so I could call Trident’s location. They kind of told me to leave and never come back.”

  “Dang, Scarlett. I knew you were a fireball, but that’s like ... I don’t even know what to call it, but hell, you are incredible. You want something, you just go get it, and you’re taking care of your mama on top of it all.”

  “Everything feels right, now,” I tell him.

  “Everything is right.”

  “I haven’t really told my mom any of this, but as long as I get her out of here, I don’t think she’ll care where she goes.”

  “You know what, there are a million adult communities for people who are fifty and older in Trident. It’s very residential—kind of perfect for your mom.”

  “See. Perfect,” I tell him. Sometimes acting in the moment doesn’t screw me over. I won this time, I think.

  “What about us?” Austin asks.

  “Smother me a little more,” I tell him.

  His lips curl into a greedy smile. “Careful what you ask for. Smotherin’ doesn’t mean the same thing to you as it does to me.”

  “What does it mean to you?” I ask, curiously.

  He stands up from the windowsill and walks over to me at a slow pace—the kind of pace I’m not a fan of yet. I might be moving down South, but I’m still a fast-paced kind of girl.

  I decide to avoid complaining as one of his knees press into the bed and he pushes me down into the plush comforter. He climbs over me and my lungs fall flat. It doesn’t get old with him. Austin dips his head, and takes my lips with his, biting down and tugging gently. “For every tomorrow you will give me, I will make you wish there was never a yesterday,” he says.

  I run my hands up the scruff of his cheeks and look into his beautiful eyes, seeing the truth written across his face, knowing there is nothing to be worried about. “Okay,” I tell him.

  He leans back into kiss me again, scooping his arms under my back.

  The door opens. “Scarlett,” Mom says. “Oh my God.” Austin jumps up and rolls off the bed.

  “I’m so sorry, ma’am. I apologize.”

  “Uh,” Mom says looking between the two of us. “Is there one like you for my age?”

  I close my eyes and cover my face.

  “I see where you get your sharpness from,” Austin says.

  “Why don’t you two come downstairs? There will be plenty of time for boning later,” she says. Oh, God.

  “Mom!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Austin

  A MONTH LATER

  Again? Dammit. “Waldo, where are you?” I open the front door and spot Scarlett and Waldo playing Frisbee across the dirt road. “Nothing says good morning like thinking your girlfriend left in the middle of the night and then finding your dog walked out too,” I shout out to Scarlett.

  “I made you breakfast, grumpy.” I guess I’ve never been much of a morning person, but it’s been a little nicer waking up next to Scarlett when she doesn’t get out of bed before me.

  The hotel lets her choose her main shifts, so she matched it up to my schedule the best she could. They have suites for the staff at the hotel, so she splits her time between there and here, but it may have been here a little more than there recently. I went years convincing myself I’d be okay waking up alone for the rest of my life because I didn’t think a good relationship could exist after everything I’ve seen, so it was easier not to expect anything.

  “What did you make?” I ask her.

  “Bacon.”

  “Scarlett … ”

  “What?”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “It’s a little funny,” she argues.

  “You know Betsy Blue, the pig version, has been missing for a few days now.”

  “Finders keepers.” She shrugs.

  “Scarlett!”

  “I’m kidding, loser.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past you, pig hater.”

  “I don’t hate pigs in general, just Betsy Blue.”

  “That’s racist.”

  Scarlett throws the frisbee right into my chest and now I have a hundred-and-fifty-pound Lab galloping toward me. “Waldo, no. No, boy. Waldo!” She’s giggling and I’m on my butt getting my face licked by my favorite butt licker.

  “You’re a jerk,” I tell her.

  “No, I’m not. I’m like the nicest person in the world.”

  “In what world?”

  “My world,” she answers.

  “That’s what I figured.”

  “I really did make breakfast,” she says, walking past me and into the house.

  I follow her inside and find that she was being truthful. There’s a stack of pancakes and bacon. She winks at me when I spot the bacon. “How much of Betsy’s butt would you like to eat?”

  “Too much,” I tell her.

  “There’s no such thing as too much bacon.”

  “Will you shush?” I ask her.

  She hands me a mug of coffee. “Drink this, you’ll feel better.” Coffee does cheer me up.

  Scarlett jumps up on the counter and dangles her legs, waiting for me to perk up. I have to say, I appreciate a girl with patience in the morning, even if she likes to press my buttons. I press hers right back, though.

  After a few warm mouthfuls of coffee, I place my mug down and make my way over to Scarlett and her up-to-no-good smile. “What’s going through that head of yours right now?”

  She raises her brows. “Why whatever do you mean, Mr. Austin?”

  “Cute accent.”

  I loop my arms around her neck, feeling her hands run up and down my bare chest. “Cute body,” she says.

  “Cute?” I question her.

  “Smokin’. Is that better?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  “You know what else is smokin’?”

  I clear my throat, knowing she won’t drop the jokes until I stop responding to them. “What are you really up to? You’re in quite the mood this morning,” I tell her.

  “I set my mom up with someone.”

  I don’t know why the thought of this makes me nervous, but it does. Everyone knows everyone here, and you never know when matchmaking can quickly go south. “Who?”

  “Jack.”

  I curl my lip. “No. That’s not funny. That’s gross. He’s our age.”

  “I can’t control what happens, Austin.”

  “Does he know you set them up?”

  “Um, yes, he was there.”

  “When? When were you at Dickles?”

  “Last night before you got off work.”

  “You were at Dickles on what’s now called ‘Blow-Job Shot Thursdays’ with your mother?”

  “She’s really found herself this last month. You know what happens when you’ve been locked up for thirty years and suddenly, you’re free to live life?”

  “I’m grossed out right now, Scarlett.”

  “Austin, have an open mind.”

  “He’s my best friend, and she’s your mom.”

  “It’s kind of perfect,” she says.

  “Who initiated this?” I ask her.

  Scarlett purses her lips together and pulls her hair off her shoulders. “Jack asked my mother to have dinner.”

  I have to give Scarlett credit for helping her mom transform into a completely differ
ent person this past month. Casting off the burden of constant abuse has erased the look of worry on her face and brought a light to her eyes that wasn’t there when I first met her. For someone who has been someone’s property for most of her life, she’s been more than willing to change a few things, including her wardrobe, hairstyle, and spiced up her cosmetic routine. She looks like a completely different woman from when she arrived her, possibly ten to fifteen years younger, and more like a seasoned version of Scarlett. She fits in well down here and you’d swear she was at Disney World for adults the way she walks around smiling at everyone.

  “Whatever floats his boat, I guess.”

  “My mom’s a catch,” she says.

  “She is,” I agree.

  “Oh, you think so?” she continues.

  I kiss her to stop the words. When I pull away, I raise my brow. “I can kiss you all day if you can’t stop your mouth.”

  “Has it occurred to you that I know exactly how to get what I want from you?” she says with a smirk.

  “Yes, Scarlett. It has occurred to me, but you know, all you have to do is ask.”

  “That’s too easy,” she says. She jumps onto me, hooking her arms and legs around me. Her lips are on my neck and she’s pecking kisses up and down the side of my neck until her teeth sink into my ear. “See, I don’t have to ask.”

  I carry her down to my bedroom and toss her onto the bed. “Save some energy because it’s supposed to rain later.”

  “My energy for you—these moments—is endless,” she tells me.

  “How can that mouth drive me so far up a wall, and yet turn me on with little to no effort?”

  “It’s a talent,” she says.

  I drop my flannel pants to the floor and pull the sheets over us as I remove her top and shorts. She scoots onto of me and unrolls a condom onto my cock before mounting me. Her hair dangles over her breasts as she holds onto my chest like she’s ready to ride a bull. She starts slow, thinking she’s torturing me like I’m able to torture her, but things quickly get out control like they seem to do most days with us. Thankfully, my neighbor is far enough away she can’t hear the howls coming from my window because Scarlett is loud and not shy about vocally expressing her feelings of pleasure. “Is that good?” she asks.

  “Don’t stop,” I tell her. “That’s really good.” I’m a lucky bastard, getting to watch her go through the motions of erotic pleasure as she offers me the same. I grab ahold of her waist, guiding her movements until she opens her eyes and buries her mouth under my ear, sucking, nipping, and dragging her teeth down the side of my neck. “Christ, Scarlett. I need more of you.”