BASTARD: A Stepbrother Romance (These Wicked Games Book 1)

by Dark, Ava

When we get to my work, she turns the radio off and asks flatly, “When do you get off?”

  “The usual.”

  “When is that?”

  I can hear a trace of annoyance. I’m tempted to push her, since it’s so rare an occurrence, but after earlier, I’m afraid to. “Twelve-thirty.”

  “I’ll be waiting outside at twelve.”

  “You don’t have—”

  “Go on.”

  “I have my—”

  “Get out.”

  I glare at her. She has to know my car is here. I look away, feeling rage build inside. She’s so skinny, I could just pin her down. Or punch her.

  But she’s tall, with a long reach. And devious.

  I open the door and get out.

  Chapter 22

  “Maggie!” Nina cries, hugging me tight. “I was so worried.” She releases me and touches her head. “Oh, you’re going to give this old lady an aneurysm.”

  I smile. “Sorry, Nina.”

  She waves this away. “You can repay me by getting tips, eh?” She rubs her finger tips together.

  I laugh. “Sure, whatever you say.”

  “Why your face red?”

  “I slapped myself.”

  “Why would you do that!”

  “Trying to wake up.”

  “Girl, you drink coffee when tired from now on. Okay?”

  I smile. “Sure Nina.”

  She shakes her head. “Crazy kids. You don’t do that eye alcohol, nyet?”

  “The what?”

  She gestures putting something to her eye and jerking her head back. “Eye shot.”

  I snort. “No! Who would do that?”

  “You’d be surprised.” She leans in and tilts her head toward the rear of the restaurant. “See those men? Very drunk. Very rich. Get your sexy little self over there and clean them out.” She hands me a money pouch and I tie it around my waist.

  “Hey sweet thing,” one of the men slurs.

  I smile.

  “What’cha got for us tonight?”

  “What would you like?” I ask in a high-pitched voice.

  He leans over, and I know I’ve made a mistake in my choice of words. “How about that round ass, raw and natural.”

  I try to keep smiling. “What would you like to eat.”

  “How about what you’ve got between those juicy thighs? Ever had a man give you a proper tonging?” He demonstrates his technique for me. If I cared more about tips, I’d pretend to be impressed, play along. But this is much further than any customer I’ve ever had has gone—except for that one teenage girl who I think was just trying to gross me out.

  Since I don’t care more about tips than my own self-respect, I slap him across the face.

  In doing so, I stun both myself and him. And everyone else at the table.

  Then his friends burst into laughter, and I hear a few people clapping at neighboring tables.

  I, however, just stand there, my face on fire, and sweat forming pretty much everywhere I’m aware it can form on my body.

  “Serves you right,” Nina says, coming from behind me and setting another mug of beer down in front of him. “On the house.” She makes a spitting gesture, causing his friends to renew their laughter.

  The drunk are easily amused.

  Nina grabs my arm. “Come on.”

  I let her pull me into the kitchen. “What’s going on?”

  I shake my head.

  “Come.” She guides me through the kitchen to the breakroom, then positions me in front of a chair.

  I sit down numbly.

  “Why don’t you take a break, yes? I’ll handle them myself.”

  I nod, looking at the table. “Thanks.”

  She sighs. “Darling, what is wrong?” She puts her hand over mine and sits down across the table from me.

  My phone buzzes in my pouch. I stare at her hand on mine. It feels so good, so comforting.

  “Aren’t you going to get that?”

  I just shake my head.

  “Have something to do with this?”

  I look up at her and see her put her fingers against the corners of her mouth and pull down into a frown.

  I feel my own reversing. “Maybe.”

  She puts out her hand.

  I stare at it.

  She wiggles the fingers.

  I stare some more.

  “Give it here. Let me see.”

  “I don’t know, I—”

  “I do.” She nods. “Give phone.”

  I sigh and dig it out of my pouch, my shorts shifting and making me wince at the pain. I really need to see how bad it is at some point.

  “That bad, eh?” she asks.

  I put the phone in her hand, and she examines it.

  “I don’t know how to work this.”

  I laugh, and turn it on for her, scroll up some in Cade’s earlier messages so she has some context, then hand it back. She doesn’t need to know I hung up on him.

  She swipes at the screen, alternately nodding and shaking her head while tsking.

  After a few minutes of this, she looks up at me. “Okay, here’s what you do. It’s simple.”

  I await her wisdom.

  “This man, you like him, yes?”

  I quickly shake my head. “It’s not that easy. He’s my stepbrother.”

  She waves this away. “Bah. So your parents got married. Who cares?” She shrugs. “When I was a girl, our parents would marry cousin to cousin. This is nothing. So,” she says, setting the phone down with one hand, and slapping the table with the other, “here’s what you do.” She looks around, then leans over and grabs a pen and pad from my pouch. She holds them out to me. “Take.”

  I do, looking at them like I don’t know what to do with them. Because I don’t. “What am I supposed to do with these?”

  She makes a shooing gesture. “Just start writing.”

  “But—”

  “Go, go.”

  I sigh, and put pen to pad.

  “I, Maggie Claire—”

  “Saint Claire,” I sigh, exasperated. Is it really so hard?

  “It’s your name, you don’t need me to tell you how to write it. I, Maggie whatever, formally quit my job as a Hooters Hostess, for I was traumatized and sexually harassed by an intoxicated customer, and cannot continue my duties.”

  I slow my writing, as my brain catches up with what I’m putting to paper. “I can’t quit,” I say, pausing and looking up at her.

  “Silly girl. Finish, you have plane to catch.”

  “What was the last part?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Just leave blank spot and sign and date. I’ll fill in rest.”

  I do, then hand it to her. “That doesn’t seem very professional.”

  “They’ll be too concerned with getting sued to care. You’ll probably get paid for the next month anyway. Not like you’ll need it now.” She picks up my phone and hands it to me. “You have ID?”

  “I think.” I look around. I left my purse here last time. “Yeah.” I point. “Right there.”

  “That’s yours?” She shakes her head. “Been here days. I tell you girls, don’t leave those back here. Not with Ivan.”

  “There’s no money.”

  “Not money you need to worry about him taking. Just don’t blame me if you’re missing lipstick.”

  I frown. Lipstick?

  Nina takes out her own phone.

  “Hey. I thought you didn’t know how to work one?”

  She shrugs one shoulder. “It pays to make people think you’re dumber than you are. What, you think after thirty-two years in America I can’t speak proper English? Pah.”

  I laugh. I can’t help it. Because that’s exactly what I thought.

  She squints at me. “You did. Well, now you know. You have car?”

  I nod.

  “Then what are you waiting for?”

  Chapter 23

  I open the door to my messy car, and am assaulted.

  Nina waves her han
d at the air like she’s trying to swat away killer bees. “Oh, keep windows down when you drive.”

  “I must have left food inside,” I say, crawling in and digging through the mess on the floor. “Yep.” I come up with a styrofoam container. I wrinkle my nose. “I wonder what it is.”

  “No!” Nina grabs it from me before I can open it. “Curiosity killed cat. This will kill us both.” She turns heads toward the dumpster, stops, and hurls it in. It lands inside with a wet noise.

  She looks at her hands as she walks back, then wipes them on her pants.

  I smile at her.

  “You think it’s funny?”

  I shake my head, and a wave of emotion washes over me. “I’m really doing this.” It all happened so fast, so unexpectedly. “I’m leaving.”

  Nina nods. Then she sniffs, and scratches at her eye. “Go on, girl.”

  I grab her, embracing her in a hug. Her arms wrap around me tight. She kisses my cheek several times rapidly. “Okay, you’re going to miss your plane.” She pushes me away, and wipes at her eyes. “Silly girl.” She shakes her head.

  “Thank you. I don’t know how to thank you.” I hug her again.

  “Oh, here we go,” she says.

  I laugh and release her. “I’ll see you again.”

  “You better not!”

  “You can visit.”

  She nods. “Yes, sure. I’ll visit. But first, you have to get there.” She shoos me away, wiping at her eyes with the other hand.

  I reluctantly turn and get in my car, the sadness being slowly eroded away by a storm of excitement. I can’t believe I’m doing something like this. Just leaving. Up and leaving. Without telling anyone.

  I’ll be out from under Cynthia’s control, her implicit threats. Her subtle—and not so subtle—insults.

  For the first time in my life that I can remember, I feel like an adult, like I’m making my own destiny.

  Like I’m free.

  Chapter 24

  My car chokes and sputters up the hill out of the parking lot. On the street, I try not to crash while opening the GPS app on my phone and entering LAX as the destination.

  “Turn left at the next intersection,” it instructs immediately after I hit enter.

  “Crap.” I swerve to the left and hear screeching tires followed by a horn.

  I glance in my mirror. “Sorry.” Then I turn left, my own tires squealing and my phone almost wrenching itself from my hand.

  I continue following my computer overlord’s directions for several minutes.

  As I’m approaching an intersection, the light turns yellow and I automatically floor it.

  And slam my face into the steering wheel.

  “Fuck!” I cry, rubbing my neck. I quickly look behind me. Luckily everyone else is less of an asshole than I am and hadn’t been speeding to make it through the yellow, and so are now stopped patiently behind me. They must think I’m some kind of idiot of speeding up and then stopping so quickly. Except I’m not the idiot, my car is.

  I punch the steering wheel of my now dead car, wishing it could feel it.

  I put it into park, and crank the key. It tries to turn over. It really does.

  But it fails.

  I punch the wheel again. I sniff, and rub my nose to see if it’s bleeding, then look in the mirror. No blood. Which is good. Once I start bleeding, I take a long time to stop.

  “Proceed straight for the next five hundred yards,” my overlord commands.

  “Fuck you,” I say, and close the app. I stare at the screen. Who can I call?

  I go to my texts, read Cade’s last one to me.

  I put the phone to my ear as it begins ringing, trying to think of what I’ll say. Hey, Cade, yeah, my car died. Can you pick me up?

  Actually, that doesn’t sound that crazy.

  A horn honks, startling me. I glance back, then ahead. The light’s green.

  Cars start pulling around me, and I realize that this could have really sucked if I’d made it into the intersection.

  Of course, it would—

  “The Google Voice subscriber you have called is not—”

  “Dammit.” I hang up. Where the hell is he?

  I start to compose a text to the growing symphony of honking horns.

  Then my phone rings, and I quickly put it to my ear. “Cade! You—”

  “Maggie?”

  “Who’s this?” I look at my phone. An 805 number I don’t recognize. I put it back to my ear. “Hello?”

  “Maggie, what are you doing? Why you answer phone while driving?”

  “Nina?” I look behind me as yet another person refuses to go around. “About that…”

  Chapter 25

  By the time Nina gets here, possibly the last chivalrous men in LA have helped me push my car to the side of the road.

  Which is to say I sat in the passenger seat while one of the guys fought with my steering wheel over which direction the car should go in as his friends pushed.

  Now, I stand mostly safely by the side of the road, next to the trunk of my car. I wave at Nina, who squints at me. “Who’s that?” I ask when she gets closer, pointing at the car she got out of.

  “Your ride.”

  “My ride?”

  “Uber. Like taxi, but faster.”

  “What about you?”

  She holds out her hand. “Give me keys.”

  I frown, but hand them over.

  “I wait with car for tow truck.”

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  “Stop being silly. Don’t worry, I take good care of this beauty.” She slaps the trunk.”

  I laugh. “What will you do with it?”

  “You let me worry about that. You need to hurry. What time does your flight leave?”

  I look at my phone. “Oh shit. I’m not gonna make it.”

  “Go now and you will!” She tsks. “Hurry. Go go.”

  I laugh and put up my hands. “Okay, I’m going. Can I at least get my purse?”

  She grunts. “If you must.”

  After grabbing it, I stare at her. “God, Nina, thank you so much.” I hug her.

  “Oh, here we go again.”

  I pull away laughing. “I’m going. Thank you.”

  “Yes yes, hurry.”

  I run and jump into the front seat of the car.

  There’s a guy in his twenties in the driver’s seat. He’s wearing a suit. Was I supposed to sit in the back?

  Oh well.

  “Hi. Your car smells nice.”

  “Thanks. It’s—”

  “Let’s go!”

  “Whoa turbo. Whatever you say.”

  I’m slammed back into my seat as we peel out.

  “Faster than it looks,” I get out through gritted teeth as I fumble to get my seatbelt on.

  “I know.”

  We get to the airport much quicker than I would have expected, and much quicker than Ryan’s—the driver, which he told me in between high-speed maneuvering on the freeway—overlord predicted.

  I jump out of the car when we pull up at the loading zone that’s beginning to look very familiar, then stop and lean in. “Wait, am I supposed to tip? Because I—”

  He holds up his hand. “No tip required.”

  “Okay, thanks.” I feel the sudden urge to grab his cheeks and kiss him on the lips, but I resist this. He must already think I’m crazy enough, and now is not the time to get carried off to a psych ward.

  I’ve got a plane to catch.

  I slam the door and run for the terminal.

  “Hey. Hooters!”

  I stop in my tracks, slowly turn. What now.

  He’s leaning over in his seat, looking out at me through the rolled-down passenger window. “Sorry, I don’t know your name. You forgot this.” He holds up my purse.

  “Shit. Thanks.”

  I run back, grab it, say thanks again, then run into the terminal.

  I want to see what time it is, but don’t dare look at my phone.

&nbs
p; Which is moot as soon as I’m inside, because there are clocks everywhere.

  But for once, they’re all delivering good news: I still have time.

  I look at the counters, and try to remember which airline the ticket—

  Virgin, there.

  How could I forget a name like that?

  I rush to the line, which has two other people.

  One is a man, who appears to be arguing loudly with the woman at the ticket counter, but as I get closer I find he’s just talking really loud, and in an annoyed tone. His words are things like, “Yes,” and “Thank you.” Which is weird, but I don’t care, because he gets his pass and is on his way.

  I glance up at one of the arrival/departure screens. Seventeen minutes till it leaves.

  Next up is a woman with something like ten bags all strapped to one another.

  She sighs heavily as she reaches the counter with her burden. “Hi. Can you weigh my bag?”

  The attendant—I’m close enough now to see the name Emily pinned above her left breast—smiles. “Sure.” She stretches her neck to peer over the counter at the bags. “Just give me the one you want to bring aboard.”

  The bag lady looks down at her luggage, then back at Emily. “It’s just one bag.”

  Chapter 26

  After a dispute—which for much of its duration seemed destined to come to blows—it’s my turn, a surprisingly long fifteen minutes later, and I try to smile and be nice. I may have to deal with crap as a waitress, but compared to Emily here, I have it easy. I’ll either make it or I won’t. Being mean to her won’t help things.

  “Hi Emily,” I say.

  She smiles at me, and it seems slightly less forced than the examples I’ve seen previously from her. “How can I help you?”

  “I have a ticket waiting?” I hand her my ID, which I helpfully already have out.

  Still smiling, she takes it.

  “Oh, Ms Saint Claire, of course. I have it right here for you.” She opens a drawer on her left, and pulls something from it. She hands me the ticket. “Here you go. You’re all set.”

  “I’m not too late?” I ask with relief.

  She chuckles. “You’re just in time. It’s a bit late. Lucky number seven.”

  I must look confused.

  “Flight seven-seven.”

  “Oh.” I chuckle. “Yeah, I guess so.”