“I mean,” she paused. “I mean that I feel like I’m on the front porch, in the cold, while they’re all inside next to the fire. They still give me presents, but I have to open them over there, not over here.”
She gestured to the two sides of the bathroom, and I finally understood.
“Do they ask you to be separate like that?” I asked hesitantly.
I was really hoping that she disagreed and told me that a good man hadn’t done that to this girl.
“No, of course not…but I still feel like that.” She sighed. “Never mind.”
She walked out of the bathroom, pushing past me delicately, and I was left wondering what was going on with the sudden change in attitude.
I frowned. “Are you okay?”
She touched a bear that was on her bed—one that I had a feeling had been made out of one of her father’s old shirts like I’d been seeing people do lately—and seemed to blank out for a long moment.
When she turned her eyes toward me, I saw all the pain and confusion there.
“You want to go grab some dinner?” I questioned.
She pressed her fingers to her lips. “I don’t know…”
I decided to take the option off the table.
“Come on,” I gestured to the door. “Let’s go lock up my place, and then we’ll run by the Taco Shop.”
“It’s a few weeks away from Christmas, and a Wednesday. We can’t be going out like that. It’ll be busy as balls,” she commented.
“I’m not sure ‘busy as balls’ is a good euphemism. Balls don’t really do all that much,” I pointed out.
She waved it away. “Why are you here again?”
“Because I heard you screaming about your burning lips,” I told her. “And before I knew it, my body was already standing in your apartment door.”
Her lips twitched. “Did you try knocking?”
“I did the first few seconds, but then you didn’t answer and I got in using the keys you gave me.”
She was pissed then. “Well, that was just rude.”
“What, did you want me to leave you over here when there could be a possibility of something really bad happening?”
Then another look passed over her face, one that let me know just how haunted she still was—even when she tried to hide it.
“I really don’t want to go…”
I pulled her hand and guided her out of the apartment.
Once it was closed and locked behind us, I guided her over to my place and pushed inside.
Carmen met us at the door and stared, unsurprised that I’d gone and gotten her kind-of-maybe new friend. Carmen hadn’t totally decided yet. However, I was sure that she was getting to the point where she was becoming curious. She wanted to be touched by my pretty neighbor, and one of these days I was going to give her the extra push she needed…just not today.
Today, I was going to take Kayla to get tacos. Today, I wasn’t going to sit idly while also seeing those nightmares in her eyes. I just wouldn’t, and couldn’t, do it. I had to make her feel better…and I didn’t know why.
Chapter 11
If I ever offended you, I’m sorry…that you’re a little bitch.
-Parker to Rafe
Parker
It was instant.
One second she was sitting in her chair, blankly staring at the wall, and the next she was dancing.
What, you ask, was the miracle that made her frown turn upside down?
It sure the fuck wasn’t me.
It was the queso.
It was really quite comical.
Her eyes were far away, her mouth was set in a permanent frown, and she was idly drumming her fingers on the table as the waitress took our drink order.
“And for you, ma’am?” the waitress asked Kayla.
Kayla shrugged. “Water.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t bring her water. Bring her sweet tea, and a glass of wine if you have it.”
Kayla didn’t say a word.
The waitress shrugged and walked off, but I called her back. “Can you bring us a bowl of queso with some flour tortillas, please?”
She nodded once, seemingly peeved that I had stopped her, and headed in the direction of the kitchen.
I turned back to see that Kayla hadn’t so much as taken notice of anything since we’d arrived. She was literally stuck in her own head, and it didn’t appear that she’d be coming out anytime soon.
At least, that was what I thought.
Then the queso and our tea, as well as her glass of wine, arrived.
I watched as she watched, with barely contained annoyance, as she was jostled when all the plates and drinks started arriving.
When the waitress left, Kayla huffed.
I pulled out a tortilla, rolled it up, and then dipped it into the gooey cheese. Then held it up to her mouth.
“Bite.”
Kayla blinked, looked at me in surprise, then leaned forward and took a bite of the tortilla.
Cheese dripped onto her lips, and I licked my own in reaction.
That’s when she closed her eyes in pure bliss, opened them again, and stole the tortilla from my hand that was still outstretched in her direction.
I watched as, before my eyes, she transformed back to the woman that I was growing dangerously close to falling for.
I wouldn’t ever allow it…but the thought that I could possibly fall for her was there.
“Gosh, this sure is good,” she murmured. “Ohhh, wine!”
Then she started to drink her wine, and eat her cheese, and everything else was better.
My lips twitched.
And an hour later, once all our food was consumed, we headed back out to my bike.
“We rode your bike here?”
I burst out laughing. “Yeah, we rode my bike here. You don’t remember that?”
She shook her head.
“No,” she paused. “I’m fairly sure that I’d remember that.”
I shrugged. “Your head wasn’t in a good place.”
She looked away. “This killer being here is freaking me out. It’s what I dream about every single night, and it’s really fucking me up…plus it’s that time of year. With Christmas being in just a few weeks, I can’t help but think about my dad and grandma. Wish that they were here.”
I wholeheartedly agreed.
“What are you doing for Christmas, anyway?”
She shrugged. “I usually get roped into going to Janie’s Christmas. It’s not that I don’t adore them, but sometimes I’m forced to participate and put on a happy face when I’d rather just have a quiet day inside. But they’d never allow that. Not that I blame them. I’m part of their family. But…we already spoke about that.”
We had.
But I’d listen to her talk about it all day long on repeat if she wanted to talk about it.
“I am going to the Wreath Across America thing at Arlington National Cemetery around Christmas time,” I told her.
She blinked. “You are?”
I nodded.
“Yep.”
“That sounds…awesome.”
I grinned. “It is.”
“Can I go?”
I shrugged. “I don’t see why not…I’m not taking my bike. It’s too fucking cold up there for me to take it. I have the room.”
She jumped up and down while clapping her hands.
“Woo hoo!”
And that was when I realized that I’d gotten incredibly comfortable having her around me. Normally, happy, upbeat women like Kayla bothered the shit out of me.
It was hard pretending you were happy all of the time.
I wasn’t a good person, and I hated being sociable. But with Kayla, it was damn near instinct to let her know everything she wanted to know.
Which was why I told her what I did when we arrived back at her apartment a half hour later.
***
“You
don’t strike me as bad, per se, but scary.”
I grinned. “I was bad at one point. And so fucking angry.”
“What got you straight?” she asked quietly.
I found myself smiling for the first time since I’d started my story in Kayla’s apartment when we’d arrived.
“I thought I was hot shit. I turned into a real douche bag. And I thought that nothing could touch me. My parents were divorced. I was so fucking angry that I couldn’t see straight. My mother couldn’t make me do what she wanted me to do anymore, and when she tried, I thought I was badass and punched her.”
She gasped. “You punched your mother?”
I nodded. “I did.”
“And what happened next?”
I closed my eyes and remembered the feeling like it was yesterday.
“My dad happened.”
“Your dad,” she said. “What happened with your dad?”
“I hadn’t seen my dad for almost two years at that point. He never came around because my mom was a bitch. But, when my mom sent him a picture of what I did to her, he drove that hour and a half from where he lived with his new bitch, parked calmly, walked up the driveway where I met him with a snarl—because who the fuck wants to see their father when they don’t come around anymore—and proceeded to beat the living shit out of me.”
“Your dad beat you up?” she whispered, horrified now.
“I deserved it.”
“But why?” She shook her head. “A father shouldn’t beat up his son.”
“A father should most certainly whoop his son’s ass if he beats up his mother.” I paused. “Let me put it like this. My mother was five foot one, your height.”
She looked startled for a moment. “I’m technically only five foot and a half inch.”
I grinned. “She was about your build, too. Not quite as curvy, but she had a sweet face. Her skin was white as milk, and delicate. The moment I hit her, her face started to bruise.”
Kayla’s eyes were wide.
“Did you immediately feel terrible?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah. But…just to say…she really was being a bitch.”
“Why?”
“Well, it started out just our usual fight. She didn’t want me in the gang. I was pulling my sister in—which couldn’t be more opposite from the truth. My sister was the one to pull me in, not the other way around.”
“And?”
I snorted and leaned back deeper into the couch. “And she called me a worthless piece of shit like my father…and suddenly I was just so fucking angry.”
“Oh, shit.”
I snorted. “Yeah. It didn’t go over well. She could’ve compared me to anything else in this world, and I would’ve been able to handle it. But comparing me to him? Yeah, that was the lowest of blows, especially since she knew how much I fucking hated him.”
“And what happened next?”
“What happened next was that I told her that I was nothing like him, and she went and listed all the ways that I was. Then told me that she hated looking at me because I looked so much like him. Talked like him. Sounded like him. Even walked like him.” I paused. “I might’ve lost it.”
“And you punched her?”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“And you felt sick to your stomach afterward, didn’t you?”
I looked at her curiously. “Yeah…how did you know?”
“Because I might’ve punched someone like that myself,” she admitted.
“Who?”
“James.”
My brows rose in surprise. “Why?”
“Because he was telling me that my ‘father would be disappointed in me seeing the way that I was acting.’” She grimaced. “I was acting like a little shithead, yeah. But I was also missing my grandmother, and I was lost. I had no one else that only loved me…does that make sense?”
I nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, it does.”
“And I acted out. Punched him in the face.”
I burst out laughing. “And what did he do?”
“I broke my thumb, and he told me next time I shouldn’t tuck it into my fist. That I should leave it on the outside.” She smiled. “He took me to the emergency room, got me casted up, and then took me out for ice cream.”
“My mom didn’t do that.” I chuckled.
“I don’t think it’s the same in reverse. The world is kind of sexist that way. When a woman—or a girl like I’d been—hits a man, it’s not seen the same way if it’s reversed. A man hits a woman, and all of a sudden shit’s flying, and you’ve gone and screwed yourself.”
“My dad did do something right…” I sighed, knowing that I was about to tell her my greatest and worst secret. “I got my head on straight. Did better…and tried to get my sister out of the gang along with myself.”
“But…”
“But, shit didn’t go as planned,” I continued. “And I found myself getting initiated instead of helping her leave…let’s just say shit didn’t go as planned.”
“What happened?”
I lifted my hands and guided them to my head, rubbing slightly over my badly-in-need-of-a-cut hair.
Did I want to tell her my darkest secret?
Maybe if I did, she’d see the error in her ways and leave.
“Earlier that night…” This was the part that was going to scare her away. Absently, I touched the tattoo on my neck, the one that mimicked my own throat being slashed, and hoped that what I was about to tell her wouldn’t completely freak her out. “I’d slit a kid’s throat.”
She looked at me like I had a few screws loose.
“You did what?”
I chuckled darkly.
“You heard me.”
“You slit some kid’s throat?” she squeaked, her eyes going to my neck.
It was as if she understood what it meant despite me not saying a word about it.
She didn’t look surprised. Not really. More wary than anything.
“Well, it wasn’t necessarily a kid. I was a kid. I thought I was a badass. A badass who wanted to make sure that his sister didn’t get killed…and it was either watch him slit her throat, or I slit this other kid’s throat who was trying to get out just like I wanted to do,” I murmured, eyes on the ceiling.
“Holy shit.”
I nodded. “Thought that I was going to go in there and tell them how it was. Tell them that my sister and me were leaving, and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it…then my fucking sister walks over to her man—the fucking leader of the gang—and chooses her side. The side that wasn’t with me.” I swallowed. “Then the gang leader put his knife to her throat, and she realized what a big mistake she’d made. And she looked at me like I would betray her if I chose any other way but the way that didn’t end in her death.”
“Holy crap.”
I nodded.
“Did you do it—did you kill him?”
I shook my head. “Not for lack of trying on my part. I did it…then ran. Called the police at the closest pay phone. It was lucky for both of us that there was a medic and a cruiser right around the block. They’d just finished responding to a structure fire. They had like a thirty-second response time. Saved Bryce’s life.”
“Bryce.”
I smiled then. “Bryce…” I laughed hollowly. “I paid my dues. I did what I had to do to make sure they stayed alive. Anyway, I was in the gang for a while, doing what they wanted me to do while I’d rather be anywhere but there. It was after I’d gotten locked up for the umpteenth time that my dad had enough. He gave me an ultimatum. Jail or the Navy. I chose the Navy. He was supposed to keep them safe, and I was supposed to ship out and get my head on straight. But the moment I was gone, and the gang realized what I’d done, they killed my mother and sister. The same way they always threatened to when I stepped out of line.”
“How?”
She said the word so softly that I could barely he
ar it. The emotion that I read on her face devastated me.
“Slitting their throats.” I swallowed thickly. “Gutted me. My sister had Gunner, and the only reason Gunner wasn’t killed, too, was because he was the gang leader’s kid. Otherwise, he would’ve shared the same fate.”
“And you’ve been broken ever since.”
I snorted. “I was broken way before that, but yeah, that really put the icing on the fucked up cake of my life.”
“And what about the kid that you tried to kill—do you know how he is now?”
She sounded like she’d swallowed a frog.
I ran my tongue over my teeth. “Funny thing about that… I have to see him quite a bit. We both ended up in the same fucking city almost twenty years later. I have to see him more than I think he really wants to see me.”
“Who is it, and why?”
I had a feeling at this point, she knew exactly who I was talking about.
I grunted. “You probably don’t know him as Bryce. You know him as Loki.”
Chapter 12
The problem with trouble is that sometimes they’re good kissers.
-Kayla’s secret thoughts
Kayla
“No,” I shook my head. “I refuse.”
“Come on,” Janie said. “Please? They love you!”
I shook my head in the negative. “They’re god awful. And tomorrow is Saturday. I refuse. They’ll wake me up, and tomorrow is literally the only day that I have that I can sleep in. I’m not doing it.”
I was lonely, though.
Really, really lonely.
After Parker had admitted what he’d done, and who he’d done it to, I’d got up and left.
I mean, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Janie had told me of her suspicions, of course. She’d let me know that Parker was a scary person, and he’d done some really bad things. But I hadn’t believed her.
I believed her now.
Loki had been in my life since I was a young child. And, even more recently, he’d been quite a mentor to me as I looked for my path in life.
Hell, I’d babysat his children for him once with all the other rugrats of the Dixie Wardens MC.
What it all boiled down to was that I had a loyalty to Loki, and I didn’t to Parker.
Meaning I hadn’t talked to Parker in well over three days.
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