by C. M. Owens
I sometimes wonder what normal people are doing in their lives now that I’ve moved to Tomahawk, land of the crazy people who think only four families are crazy.
Vick mutters a curse and starts counting hands, and finally says, “Majority vote by one.”
Chester is an angry guy, I realize, when he turns his scowl on me.
“Consequences,” Bill happily states, causing a melody of groans to emerge. “If you’re in town when the music plays, and you don’t river dance, you have to swim across the lake in a tutu while singing Girls Just Want To Have Fun.”
“That’s to keep Chester from breaking it. He’d never sing or wear a tutu,” Benson tells me when I give him a quizzical look. “This one will last another decade.”
His words are followed by another groan as he shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“That’s still breaking the consequence rule. He had the lake the last time,” Chester argues.
“I added a tutu and a song,” Bill defends.
“It’s different enough,” Vick states dismissively.
Chester’s angry glare returns to me.
“No matter. Eventually the city slicker will be done with the Malone girl the second one of those apes breaks his nose, and he’ll go back home where he belongs. Then we can veto his vote. That will end the challenge without consequence,” Chester states dismissively.
“You saying you want my girl’s heart broken?” George Malone snaps before I can point out that I’m not going anywhere.
“I’m saying he won’t stick around. Just like that fancy ex-wife of yours!”
With a Tarzan battle cry, George Malone—the hulking beast of a man—propels himself over a row of chairs, running right at the older guy. One of the younger guys jumps up, taking the brunt of his tackle.
I slip out when the entire room starts pulling them apart, only to notice Hale sucker punch Kai Wilder, who kicks a leg out so fast Hale can’t stop it. His foot nails Hale in the balls, and Hale drops to the ground, while Kai finishes up his brother’s newly bald head at last and calmly puts the machete away.
“Stop fighting, you morons! The damn troopers are here, and I will arrest you both again!” Vick threatens. “Don’t make me do it. I’m going to count to three!”
Chester stumbles backwards, wringing his hand out after hitting the solid mass that is George Malone.
“One!”
George shoves off one of Chester’s twenty-year-old bodyguards.
“Two! Don’t you make me keep counting! I’ll do it!”
The other Malones wrangle George back, being the only ones capable of doing so, as they remind him he hates the town cell. Just one cell. The other person will have to be confined to the public restroom. I read this in the “newly revised” pamphlet they gave us at the beginning of the meeting.
“Damn it, three!”
Vick goes stalking toward them with handcuffs out, and a squirt-bottle of water, spritzing them both in the face as they cough and curse.
This is my Friday morning.
Chapter 18
Wild Ones Tip #270
If we won’t call you a cunt, it’s because you lack warmth and depth.
In other words, we like people in a weird way.
KYLIE
“So you just left him in bed?” Krysta asks as she shuts the hood of the trooper’s car.
I’m half-assing my lookout task, seeing the troopers cursing the ants that are all over them, running as they try to strip down to their…plaid boxers. I could have lived without ever seeing those hairy backs. But the one trooper has a rather nice, hairless, somewhat alluring back.
It’s not Liam’s back.
Damn Liam.
Damn perfect body.
Lilah’s right—he’s freakishly gorgeous, and I’m sure as hell not.
“What if I’m just a phase? It’s all because he thinks I’m real—whatever that means. I was just something different that landed inside his stagnant lifestyle. It’s like finding a new series to watch, but then getting bored when it starts getting a little too…out there for ya. You know? And this town will get more out there, eventually. And I’ll get more out there.”
“By ‘out there’ you mean crazy, right?” Nila Wilder asks from under the other car.
“Exactly.”
Krysta moves on to the tires, putting two nails in one, and four nails in another. “Daddy’s making me pay for these damn tires, by the way,” Krysta grumbles under her breath. “He said it’s not PC to make them pay for it themselves.”
Lilah watches out for Nila’s side as she bats a hand in my direction.
“I don’t think that’s what PC means,” Nila says from somewhere.
“He’s crazy about you, Kylie. You should have seen the way he talked about you when he first spilled the beans about why he moved to Tomahawk. It isn’t just a passing phase,” Lilah argues. “If he’d told me your name then, I would have shoved you to him sooner.”
“But—”
“They’re coming back!” Lilah hisses, jogging in her combat boots, and jumping over Nila’s legs as she runs toward the back of the car.
Krysta and I both grab Nila’s feet by her hiking boots and drag her out from under the car, causing her to hiss—because the gravel and all.
She darts to her feet, and we all laugh as we reach the woods, moving through them and far away from the troopers who will be cursing their bad luck—A.K.A. us—shortly.
They need to go. There’s nothing to do in town when the damn troopers are here. The grocery store is even closed.
“They’re not staying in town this time, so the fake disease heist is off. Gotta be crafty this time,” Krysta says, then points a finger at me. “Back on topic: If a guy gave up his life, chased me here—of all places—and was totally cool with just how crazy my family and I are, I’d give him a ring.”
I snort, and Lilah outright laughs. She’s so full of shit.
“To be fair, your family would send almost any guy running away, so that means—”
“That means I don’t have to worry about someone ambushing me with a wedding and asking when my babies are going to be born,” she quips, causing Lilah to scowl, but the scowl fades to a smile, which pisses her off, so she looks away to hide her very expressional face from us.
“I think Lilah Vincent is happily married,” Nila mocks.
“Speaking of your family,” Lilah says, ignoring Krysta’s juvenile kissing noises, “aren’t your brothers supposed to be helping you today?”
Krysta rolls her eyes. “Tate and Porter are at the challenge committee meeting. I told my other two siblings there was going to be a comet crash if they didn’t do the rain dance in reverse until the sun sets.”
Don’t ask. Krysta’s family would take too long to explain. There’s a reason their family flag has a squirrel on it…
“You’re letting her distract us from explaining why she stepped out on Liam before he woke up,” Nila, the dead girl walking, says with a coy little grin on her face.
“You should have heard the way Nila talked when she met Liam,” I decide to say, the little dig causing that angry wrinkle to form on her brow.
She flips me off without looking at me, and I laugh to myself.
“Gibberish? Was it gibberish? Why did I miss it?” Lilah groans as we step onto the road, beginning our half a mile walk to the section of lake where we tied our boats off. I rode with Lilah, and Krysta rode with Nila. Since only two of us are technically allowed to be together at the same time.
Town rules are a pain in the ass when you have besties from all four families of Wild Ones.
“We really are being distracted. What’s the deal, Kylie?” Krysta, dead girl number two says.
I open my mouth to speak, when we hear a car coming. Nila shoves Krysta at the same time I shove Lilah, both of us reacting before those two can do it to us. They land in a heap, rolling down the ditch bank, as the car passes.
I’m almost positiv
e that mountain lion screech is not actually a mountain lion, but a very pissed off Krysta Nickel instead.
I give a little wave to Janice Holland, and she starts to slow down, no doubt wanting some juicy gossip since she heard Liam is here for me. I’m ready to tell her he’s my stalker and he’s crazy over me, so she’ll report it to all the nosy assholes with pretty daughters who have way too much interest in Liam.
But…she gasses it when she notices Nila at my side.
“I don’t think she likes you. No way would she pass up the chance to grill me about Liam if you weren’t standing right here.”
“She’s terrified of me,” Nila says with a proud grin.
“We’re going to kill you,” Lilah groans, and I turn to see her climbing out of the ditch as Krysta pulls twigs from her hair and glares at us.
“It was us or you. I’m sure you understand since you two sent us into the ditch the last time that happened,” Nila says with a grin, not even bothering to look back as she struts down the road in her ripped up jeans, raccoon tank top, and mountain boots.
I’m in my “feed the beaver” shirt, because it’s just that kind of day.
We make it to the boats without anyone else going ditch-diving, and Krysta and Nila get boarded on Nila’s boat, while Lilah and I get on hers. As they pull away, Lilah takes the driver’s seat and swivels to face me when I get us untied.
“Am I taking you home or to Liam’s?” she asks, a challenging glint in her eyes. “He’s too much man to fit in that tiny little apartment of yours.”
What she’s really asking is if I’m a coward or fearless.
Which is really unfair. She knows I hate being called a chicken. That’s how I have that rose tattoo on the crack of my ass. It was really awkward for Jenny—the ex tattooist—and myself when I got that done all because Krysta called me a chicken.
“Actually, I want to go somewhere else,” I tell her, digging out the piece of paper in my pocket that I swiped from Liam’s bedside table.
“What’s this?” Lilah asks as she reads the address.
“Just drive, Lilah.”
“To an address? I don’t even know my own address.”
I blink at her. “It’s about a mile away from my dad’s. Just drive.”
***
“So he’s building this?” Lilah asks as we both stare—gawk, really—at the cabin in the making.
There’s a lot more progress than Liam alluded to.
He must have paid a small fortune to get a cabin almost completely built—especially one this size—in such a small amount of time. He’d need half an army to do this, and tons of material. All the electrical even seems to be done.
The inside is still raw, which means it’ll still be a while before it’s done, and there aren’t any doors or windows, but…the outside is almost finished.
And I can’t even…
“And he’s modeled it off your painting?”
“Yeah.”
“And you still wonder if he’s in Tomahawk to stay?”
“This is pocket change to him. No monetary amount can be considered a commitment from him. You should have seen his home in LA. If he can leave that—”
“I get it, Kylie,” Lilah says, interrupting me quietly as we both walk into Liam’s cabin.
My hand goes over the polished cedar, smiling softly as I move inside.
“Your mom left. Your cousins’ parents both left. You have trust issues. Understandably so. But—”
“So help me, if you say I need to follow my heart, I will punch you in the tit,” I warn her.
“Which tit?” she asks seriously.
“The left one, of course. I know you favor the right.”
She nods like that’s acceptable.
“Anyway, I was going to say—”
“He’s moving fast, Lilah,” I state quietly, looking around at the large rooms as I take a deep breath.
“Which is perfect, because you move fast,” she reminds me. “You and I were best friends immediately. However, you struggle to even attempt to make friends outside of the Wild Ones. You keep your circle too tight because you don’t want to risk getting attached too fast. You won’t even get another pet since that hamster died.”
“Because I become painfully invested and attached,” I remind her.
“And Liam is the first guy to ever get too close, and he did it way quicker than you planned for,” she goes on. “Which should tell you something. Aunt Penny said she was stuck to Uncle Bill after meeting him once.”
I say nothing as I sit down in what I assume is going to be the living room, avoiding the lumber piles and haphazard tools lying around with no particular order.
Lilah sits down beside me, nudging my shoulder with hers, and I hold my silence.
“Give it a few weeks, Kylie. See if what’s between the two of you is what you’ve built it up to be in your heads. What can it really hurt?”
“It can hurt everything,” I point out dryly, trying not to show any emotion.
She lost her parents, and moved forward. My mother walked away, but she’s still alive. Even if she did move on to another family and another life before writing us off like we didn’t even exist.
Our losses have different consequences. And I’m starting to think Lilah is more badass than me. Not that I’d ever tell her that.
“He had a girlfriend he forgot about,” I remind her softly.
“And he had a crazy girl with an unhealthy addiction to boots for less than a month, and hasn’t been interested in another vagina since,” she’s quick to retort. “I’ve witnessed that first hand.”
My smile spreads before I can stop it, because now that I think back to her questioning whether or not her neighbor was into guys and wondering if she could watch the show, and it of course makes me feel good to know he showed zero interest in anyone else.
“Everyone always called my parents reckless. I mean, they started an entirely new corner of crazy just to toss my dad in. Then my mom joined him, and it was…magically insane,” Lilah states randomly.
I laugh, thinking back to how wild her parents were. And how they were always together.
“She always said he was the biggest risk she ever took, because he consumed her. Dad said the same thing about her,” Lilah goes on, a sad smile on her lips as she leans back on her hands and stares out the hole where the window will be.
After a beat, she turns her head to face me again, eyes serious for a change.
“You can’t be reckless in every aspect of your life because you enjoy the adrenaline and the rush life gives you, then be overly cautious in the one section of your life that could give you the biggest rush you’ve ever had. It’s hypocritical, for one, and you hate hypocrisy. Trust me when I say it’s more fun to have someone always in your corner and at your back. You’re not a coward, Kylie Malone. Don’t use your mother as an excuse to wall yourself off. Otherwise, how are you any different from the people who always point out we’re going to die young?”
I groan as I glare at her and hate her a little in this moment. She grins as she wiggles her eyebrows, knowing she’s winning.
“You’re really not the best person in the world to take advice from, considering you’re a Vincent.”
She shrugs.
“I’m married now, so my relationship advice is totally legit,” she deadpans.
We both start laughing after a moment of silence, and I sigh as I push back up to my feet and offer her a hand up.
She takes it, and I of course drop her back to her ass, turning and walking out while she curses my back.
“Hey, does this boat seem slower to you since Benson gave it to me?” she asks as we reach her boat again.
I answer as we get boarded once more in less than a few seconds.
“Not one bit,” I lie, knowing Benson did something to make it slower.
“It says sixty but it feels like it’s going thirty at the most. And I could swear that it used to do ninety, if you had enough weig
ht in here. But it tops out at sixty, which again, feels like thirty.”
“It’s because it’s finally yours,” I lie again, grinning without her seeing it. “Nothing is ever as good as it seems once you finally have it.”
It’s a loaded statement that has her rolling her eyes at me when I look over at her after untying the ropes.
“I can assure you, some things are even better when they’re yours,” she argues.
As she cranks the boat and gasses it, she curses, staring at the topped out speed of sixty, which really is thirty. Crafty husband she has.
“Just not everything is better,” she grumbles, pouting as we coast down the lake.
I wonder which category Liam falls under.
“Give it a few weeks,” she calls out, her voice carrying over the steady roar of the loud motor. “Spend all the time with him you can until you two either fall hard or hate each other. Call it dating boot camp, that way you can’t have this same debate with yourself daily.”
She cuts the wheel, heading into town instead of driving me to Liam’s.
“After a few weeks, you can decide if his crazy matches your crazy,” she says as we dock.
“Okay. Why are we here?”
She holds up her index finger after she finishes tying off. “One, because you need to pack a bag. That shirt is mine, by the way. Don’t forget it.”
“It’s mine,” I dutifully point out. “You borrowed it like a year ago and didn’t return it.”
“After a year, I think that makes it mine. Anyway, you need clothes. And also, you need to see Vick.”
“Why?” I ask her.
She rolls her eyes. “Because you’re going to be in the Dead Chipmunk corner for a few weeks or more, until Liam’s fancy cabin gets built.”
Ah. Gotcha.
Tomahawk problems.
Chapter 19
Wild Ones Tip #109
We’re the reason the gene pool needs a lifeguard.
KYLIE
A bag on my back and a lot of worry in my stomach, I walk briskly toward Liam’s cabin. Figures I’d finally commit to jumping in head first on the deep end, only to have my destructive cousins show up and finally try to scare the sexy prick off.
