Jacked - The Complete Series Box Set (A Lumberjack Neighbor Romance)

by Claire Adams

  “It’s good to know how to kill you without ever having it come back to me,” I tell him. “I’ll keep the door locked.”

  “Sometimes,” he says, “I, uh—well I’m not even sure that I do it, but my last gf, Jenn, the one with the big nose and the DSLs?”

  “You really think I pay attention to the internet services of your exes?” I ask.

  “Dick-sucking lips, bro,” he says, punching me in the shoulder. “Dick-sucking lips.”

  “Okay, what about the girl with the DSLs?” I ask.

  “Well,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck, “she always used to tell me that I scream in my sleep. I think she was just making it up as a guilt trip thing or whatever voodoo females do, but just in case she wasn’t, you know, don’t be like freaked out or anything.”

  This is fucking rock bottom.

  * * *

  Last night was one of the most harrowing nights of my life.

  I didn’t know this about Rob, but he’s started going to bed earlier. He says he saw something about it on the Discovery Channel, although he never mentioned exactly what “it” is.

  It was going to be great. I was going to have the place to myself for a little while. I mean, not that I was going to tear shit up or anything, but I’d have some time, space and privacy to think.

  For a little bit, being surrounded by empty beer cans, bottles and glasses, along with various fast food bags and other assorted detritus didn’t even seem like such a big deal. Maybe things weren’t ideal, but at least I had a nice evening in front of me.

  Yeah, it was supposed to be a really positive thing.

  Jenn wasn’t lying to him, though.

  It began about two hours after he went to sleep. I was able to get through a whole movie before it started. That’s the good news.

  The bad news is that after the movie was over, the credits were rolling and I was walking up to the Blu-ray player to take the disc out when I heard the most desperate, hate and fear-filled scream coming from Rob’s room.

  I dropped whatever I had in my hand—I think it was the remote control, but my mind wasn’t really so good with details in that moment—and ran over, around and sometimes through the stacks of clutter Rob’s always too lazy to do anything about, trying to make it in time to save my asshole friend from whatever terrible thing was happening to him.

  When I opened the door to his bedroom, though, the screaming stopped. Rob was just lying there in his bed, sound asleep.

  Fight or flight died down enough for me to remember that Rob had warned me of this possibility, but I still flipped on a lamp and checked the room for bodies before I left him to sleep.

  I got back out to the living room and sat on the only cleared-off piece of furniture in the house, and also my bed for the foreseeable future, the couch. It took me a while to get my pulse to ease its pace from Flight of the Bumblebee to Moonlight Sonata, but eventually, my eyes started to close and I started to drift off to sleep.

  My mind and body were ready to check out for the night right until I heard the shuffle of someone walking through the apartment.

  “Could you just try to keep it quiet?” I asked him. “I’m trying to sleep.”

  There was no answer.

  Maybe he was just passing through on his way to the bathroom, or to the kitchen for a late snack. That’s what I was thinking, or at very least, hoping.

  When I didn’t hear the footsteps ever make a return trip, I finally decided to open my eyes and Rob was standing over me, his eyes open, but blank somehow. It was like he was looking through me.

  “You all right, man?” I asked.

  He just kept staring at me.

  Sleepwalking.

  He’d warned me for this, too, but it didn’t dawn on me, the various and startling reality of actually having to be in an apartment with him.

  Maybe it wouldn’t have been such a shock to my system if Rob wasn’t all banged up from our fight earlier in the day. For whatever reason, seeing him standing over me like that screamed of some sort of revenge, but he just stood there quietly.

  “Rob?” I tried again.

  His gaze had started to drift, but he focused on me in that moment. He opened his mouth to speak.

  “Do you think this will meet the dress code down at the club?” Rob asked. “I never can tell whether these restaurants are going to require me to wear a jacket. Terribly uncomfortable things, they are.”

  I think that was the most horrifying part of the whole night, hearing him talk like some blueblood with a much better command of the language than I thought Rob could even process.

  Apparently, that file’s just too large to run while he’s conscious.

  “Go back to bed, Rob,” I told him. “We can talk about it in the morning.”

  Three more times I woke up last night to find Rob standing over me, always in a different spot.

  I didn’t sleep.

  Now, it’s almost noon and I’m riding down to the skate park to clear my head.

  I don’t know what the hell I’d do if I didn’t skate. I’d probably lose it entirely.

  The park’s animated with about a dozen skaters and about as many skate groupies. I never really got the appeal of being a groupie. Rather than simply be close to someone who you greatly admire, why not become someone that can be admired?

  Probably just a personality thing.

  I ollie the curb and skate right into the park. There are a few people I know around, some acquaintances and the like, but I’m not really in the mood to stop and chat.

  There’s a growing chance that I might actually kill Rob.

  All right, it’s still a tiny chance, but it is growing.

  I drop in on a quarter pipe and plot my course, making sure to avoid all the other assholes out here with something to prove.

  I’ve got decent speed as I come to a rail and a quick nollie puts me in a crooked grind I ride all the way to the end, coming off of it with a 180.

  It was good of Rob to finally relent and let me stay with him, but I don’t know if I can psychologically handle staying there for very long. Right now, I think my only hope is to work my ass off and win this competition—you know what? Who am I kidding?

  Even if I can get over my problem dropping in, that doesn’t mean I’m going to just scoot right into first in vert.

  I’ve got to make sure I’m solid on a few different approaches for the street competition or it’s not going to matter what I do with vert.

  The street course is obviously not going to be the same as the layout of the skate park here, but the basic elements are present in both.

  I can fine tune the run when I get a chance to skate that course, but until then, I can get some combos put together to make sure I’m in the best possible position going into vert.

  It’s funny, I never bothered looking at what the prizes for second and third place are going to be. Realistically, I’ll be pretty fortunate if I even end up in one of those positions.

  If I can lay down something solid on the street run, though, that’s got to put me in the good graces of sponsors. I mean, these people know not everyone’s a vert skater any more than everyone’s a street skater. Hell, it took them years to convince Mullen to go from flatland to street. I’ve got to be able to come out of this with something.

  I roll up one side of the fun box slow, just enough speed to get me almost to the top and I ollie into a backside flip and try to land in in a nose manual, but my momentum’s wrong, so I just come down.

  Pumping harder now, I’m heading toward the halfpipe and just for my own self-spite, I lift the back of the board so I get that nose manual after all, and I stretch it into a 360 flip before rolling up the quarter-pipe, crooked grinding the lip and throwing in a quick shove it on the way out for good measure.

  I’m starting to feel a little bit looser, a little less consumed by my dad’s bullshit and the true horror of a night at Rob’s.

  I launch into a nollie flip, and I’m starting to feel like
everything’s going to work itself out, maybe not immediately, but eventually for sure. Of course that’s when I spot Mia chatting it up with a couple of loose acquaintances of mine.

  I forget what the fuck I was doing and the board clatters in front of me as I land on my feet.

  There’s nothing particular I can think to say to her, but I know that I need to talk to Mia. She keeps getting scared off, and I’m really not that scary a guy.

  I did beat the shit out of Rob, though. That was pretty cool.

  As I’m no longer a teenager, I don’t bother trying to impress with any tricks as I’m rolling up to her. Even if I did go for that approach, she doesn’t notice I’m coming until I’m coming to a scraping stop a couple of feet from the group.

  A couple of people say hi to me and I give a couple quick nods and single-syllable greetings before I turn to Mia.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Hey,” she says.

  She turns back to talk to a short redhead chick I’ve seen around here a couple of times, but haven’t met, and everyone’s back in their conversations.

  In this group, I know Tyler, Bret and, of course, Mia. There’s also the redhead and who I’m pretty sure is someone’s younger brother, but I don’t really have much to say to anyone but Mia.

  For a minute, I just try to join in the conversation—you know, take some time to map out my approach here. It’s all bullshit skate tales where everyone’s talking about that time they saw that guy and he did that thing and it was just so fucking spectacular and I just want to talk to Mia.

  “So Bret,” Mia asks, pulling my attention away from whatever whoever was saying, “I’ve seen you around, but we’ve never really talked, have we?”

  She’s toying with me, messing with me, just trying to make me jealous. I can assure you it is absolutely, without question, working.

  Still, that’s not how I’m going to win back the heart of my punkish… fuck, I’m off today.

  “Yeah,” he says. “I’m glad we’re making that right.”

  What a dumbass.

  “Me, too,” she says. “You know, I’ve always liked really tall guys.”

  “Really?” he asks.

  “Can we talk?” I ask Mia.

  She looks over at me and makes a big show of rolling her eyes.

  “Just for a minute,” I tell her. “I just want to explain a couple of things to you so you don’t have the wrong idea.”

  Now everyone in the group is looking at me, but I’m really not in the mood to care right now.

  “Fine,” she says with an exaggerated sigh and we walk away from the group together.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “I’m just talking to people,” she says. “Why, is that a problem?”

  “You can talk to whoever you want,” I tell her. “That’s not what I want to talk to you about.”

  “What then?” she asks. “I was kind of in the middle of a conversation there.”

  “My dad kicked me out last night,” I tell her. “It happened after I got in a fight with Rob—long story. Anyway, I’m going to be bunking with Rob for a little bit, and—”

  “Hold on,” she says, “you got into a fight with Rob yesterday and now you’re staying at his place? How’d you manage that one?”

  “Sometimes the best thing two guys can do for a friendship is take a few minutes and beat the shit out of each other,” I tell her. It’s not the whole truth, but it’s a good enough explanation. “I really couldn’t explain it if I wanted to, but it’s kind of a bonding thing.”

  “I’ve seen guys get in fights and still want to kill the other person,” she says.

  “Yeah, that’s different,” I tell her. “This was just a spat—it doesn’t matter. Anyway, as screwed up as that might seem, I’m free. I don’t have to worry about what my dad wants from my life anymore, I can just start living it.”

  “That’s great?” she says, furrowing her brow. “I’m really happy for you?”

  “What happened, Mia?” I ask. “I know Rob talked to you, but that shouldn’t change what we have.”

  “What do we have?” she asks.

  I stepped in it there. Now I’ve got to make a quick decision between something trite, but possibly charming, or something more real, but also less inspiring.

  “Potential,” I tell her. “I don’t know about you, but I think we were pretty great together.”

  “Yeah, we weren’t really together long enough not to be,” she says. “Look, it wasn’t going to work out, so why drag it out? Talk to your dad, maybe he’ll let you go back home. Guy thing or not, it’s got to be a little awkward crashing with someone who made your face look like that.”

  “Yeah, I’m not particularly attractive at the moment, am I?” I ask.

  She looks away and doesn’t answer.

  “Whatever the problem is,” I tell her, “we can work it out. I know you were worried about my dad cutting me off, but he was going to do that anyway. I’m twenty-one, it’s time I was on my own anyway.”

  “Not really on your own, though, are you?” she asks.

  “It’s been less than a day,” I tell her. “Give me at least a week to buy a house and get a staff going.”

  “I’m really not in the mood for this,” she says. “We’re just too different. It’s not going to work.”

  “We’re not different, though,” I tell her. “The same things turn us on. We turn each other on, too. I don’t know where it’ll go, but I’d like to find out; wouldn’t you?”

  “Maybe we’re too alike then,” she says. “Whatever it is, I’m sorry, Ian, but it’s just not going to happen. I don’t regret anything, but I think it’d be best for both of us if we just move on.”

  “Mia, come on, we can talk about…” I start, but she’s already walking away.

  I guess that’s that, then.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Giving up and Dropping In

  Mia

  The worst thing about sitting in front of someone you were very recently in an almost-relationship with is that it’s impossible to get the kind of space necessary to get past it.

  Right now, I’m charging Ian heavily for the fact that I can’t get away from him, and I don’t really care that it’s not his fault.

  Still, we have a project to do, and I’m not going to be able to get all of this work done by myself.

  So, I’m sitting here, waiting—as usual—for Ian to show up. Today, I thought it would be a good idea to go somewhere entirely neutral, somewhere we hadn’t been together.

  Also, I’m a big fan of frozen yogurt.

  Ian comes in, and I’m already halfway through my chocolate with cookie dough, but I get up and walk over to him so I can stand in line for a refill.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey,” I respond.

  That’s pretty much it until we’re at the counter.

  The fact that I have to meet with Ian is like the fact that I have to sit in front of him, and so I decide to enact my own little bit of justice by ordering first.

  “Yeah, could I just get another one of these?” I ask. “Medium chocolate with cookie dough?”

  “Sure thing,” the woman behind the counter says and goes to reach for my cup, but I pull it back and produce a spoonful of brown, drippy goodness to show her I’m not quite done with my first.

  Ian doesn’t say anything.

  The woman comes back a minute later with a new cup of yogurt, overflowing with cookie dough to the point that I have to eat a few bits of it along the rim to make sure I’m not going to pull a Hansel and Gretel on the way back to my booth.

  I pay the woman and don’t wait for Ian.

  By the time he’s to the table, I’m starting on my second serving.

  “You just wanted a drink?” I ask.

  “Let’s just get this over with,” he says.

  “My, my, my,” I mock, “someone’s in a mood.”

  “If you were having a problem with something, why didn
’t you just talk to me about it instead of breaking things off like that?” he asks. “I really liked you, you know?”

  “I told you, it just wasn’t going to work,” I respond.

  I had this dream of getting together with Ian and the topic of us as a sexual item not coming up once. It was a nice dream.

  “I don’t even know what did it,” he says. “You won’t tell me. You won’t talk to me. When I’m walking past you in class on my way to my seat, you won’t even look at me. I guess I just never took you for the manipulative, stuck-up type.”

  Even knowing full well that he’s just trying to get under my skin, I’m shaking with adrenaline and my face is so hot, it’s almost burning.

  “I get that you’re butt hurt that I dumped you or whatever,” I tell him, “but really? Name calling? Is that how you think we’re going to get through this with the least possible amount of bullshit?”

  “Hey,” he says, “we’re in public. Watch your language.”

  With that, I’m flat out pissed.

  “You don’t listen,” I tell him. “That’s your whole damn problem. You have open doors in every direction, and if you’d just open your ears and your mind, you’d be doing just the most amazing things, but all you can do is skate and hate on me. Well, you can be mad if you want, but I’m not going to tolerate this sort of behavior, even if we—”

  “Hold on,” he interrupts, “you’re not going to ‘tolerate this sort of behavior?’ Who are you, my mom?”

  “It’s kind of hard not to act like a mom when the person you’re talking to insists on acting like a child,” she says.

  “You know, maybe you were right back at the park,” he says. “Maybe we are too different. You’re trying to live like your life’s already most of the way over and I’m trying to live like I’ve got a little bit more of it in front of me.”

  I sigh and rub my temples.

  “Ian,” I start, “the problem is that you’ve got every opportunity and you just blow it. Have you figured out what you’re going to do in the vert competition? Have you even managed to drop in yet, or are you going to hope for a game-day miracle?”