“Axel Collins.” I hold my hand out over the fries like a cholesterol-based peace offering. “And there’s not a single frat brat trained on us, I promise.”
She openly glowers at my hand as if it personally offended her, and judging by the track record I’ve accrued in this short span of time, it might have.
But then she relents, and her tiny hand is in mine for less than a moment. Tight, quick shake, nothing weak about it or her. She’s warm and soft, and like a pervert I memorize the feel of her skin.
She scowls at me as if I’ve just skinned a cat, then slides the fries back my way. “The only reason I’m not flipping this oil spill into your face is because you have an X in your name. We’re an exclusive club. Lex Ximena Maxfield. Triple X.” She pins a proud smile on her face that lasts less than a moment.
“Triple X.” I won’t lie—about a dozen triple X ideas just ran through my mind. “So Lex, huh? Short for Lexy?”
Her attention drifts back down to her laptop. “Short for Alexa. Go ahead and call me Lexy—see what happens.” It comes out like a threat, and in the few minutes I’ve known her I’d bet she’s more than capable of making good on those. I don’t dare test the waters. I opt for changing the subject instead.
“So whatcha doing? Working on a paper? Let me guess. 101? The English department at Briggs is a killer.” It’s a familiar move I’m employing, sizing her up. Is she cerebral? Obviously. My gut says English major, maybe liberal arts. But a Briggs girl? It’s up in the air. However, statistics tells me I’m about to find out. It’s an icebreaker I’ve used more than once, and more than once it’s unleashed a dam of information I wasn’t even trolling for. If it’s one thing I’ve discovered in my years of manipulating girls onto my mattress, it’s that they love to talk about themselves. Show an inch of interest, gain a world of knowledge, and most likely a bed partner for the next few hours.
“Wrong, wrong, wrong.” Her fingers continue to dance across her keyboard. “It’s research for a nutrition class. And I wouldn’t know about the English department at Whitney Briggs because I don’t go there. I’m at Barnes.” She collapses her laptop shut before leaning in just a hair, that rife anger still set in her eyes. A pulse of electricity bounces between us, boiling rage on her part, boiling lust on mine. “You know—the all-girls’ school down the road? The one where people of your genetic makeup aren’t wanted nor desired?”
A dull laugh rumbles through me. “Oh, sweetie, I’ve been desired and needed by a Barnes girl or two.” Something tells me I won’t be by this one, and in the mother of all ironies, I’ve never wanted a girl more.
Her shoulders jump with a silent laugh. “Why are you still here?” She’s openly glaring with enough hostility you’d think I ran over her grandmother. “You’re not getting lucky, so scat,” she hisses it out as if trying to ward off a stray.
“So, you’re the infamous blue baller at Barnes,” I tease, taking a long swig of my beer, never once taking my eyes off hers, and the level of rage I’ve incited in her only makes me wrap a smile around the lip of the bottle. Her eyes enlarge the size of quarters, her cheeks slap pink, and that mouth. I’d love nothing more than to take a quick bite of those hot pink lips.
“Leave the table,” she seethes. “Walk out the door. Keep walking into the woods behind this dump and never come out.”
“Whoa.” I hold up my hands in surrender. “Sorry this went sideways. I would like to take that walk, however—with you. Have you ever been to the overlook?” Ballsy move on my end, but hey, that oil slick I offered her hasn’t been thrown in my face yet.
“Oh my God.” She snaps up her things in a fury. “You’re like a hit man with the bad one-liners. I’d suggest you smooth your moves out—but by the looks of the skanks in this place, I’m pretty sure the first two sentences out of your mouth would have landed you a horizontal with just about anybody else.”
“Don’t go.” I land a hand gently over her wrist, and her eyes blow up half the size of her face. Her hair moves slowly back and forth licking the air like flames. It’s a standoff I never meant to incite, but she pushes her books away a moment and takes a fry from the basket I gifted her. “Thank you.” It comes out with a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “I was headed for a hike tomorrow afternoon with my sister, Emilia, but she canceled. I’m still headed out, and I’d love to have you join me. What do you say? You, me, the open trails, we can dip our feet in the Witch’s Cauldron—it’s a natural hot spring right off the main road.”
Those day-glow eyes hold their gaze over mine, and it feels like magic, as if the stars had aligned and everything was moving in the right direction. She’s considering it. I can tell. My heart drums so loud in my ears, it’s all I can do to strain to hear her response.
“We might even see a bear,” I throw it out there like the crappy lure it is and immediately regret the mammal I just tossed between us. What girl in her right mind wants to see a bear up front and in person? My father is right. My lack of focus is ruining a lot of things for me. “They won’t eat us or anything.” And that just made it better. Crap. I’d better go home and staple my lips shut.
She leans back in her seat and lifts a brow in amusement. “My God, it’s Darwinism at its best. You deserve to get eaten by a bear.”
My grin widens at this beautiful girl with balls the size of North Carolina. I’m intrigued, enamored, and desperately in love with the challenge—with her.
“I probably do. How about a movie instead? Coffee, dinner—any place of your choosing. I sense a beautiful relationship on the horizon.” Beautiful relationship? I have never used the R word with a girl before. But this is no girl. This is a bona fide vixen who’s cast me under her spell. “What do you say?” “The Piña Colada” song blares through the speakers, and I point up. “This could be our song.” I cock my head to the side as if teasing, but I think we both know that I’m dead serious. It’s shocking how I’ve gone from the king of one-night stands to begging for a commitment from the first girl who’s shut me down in ages. Ever. Some might say that’s the key, but there’s something far more mesmerizing about her than a simple shutdown.
“Look”—she shoves her laptop into her bag and hugs her books before scooting to the edge of the booth—“I don’t like piña coladas or getting caught in any kind of a hurricane—and I don’t like you, Axel with an X,” she bites the words out as she struggles to her feet. “Don’t come looking for me at Barnes, and most importantly—don’t forget to feed the bears.” She takes off, and I shout after her.
“See you on our next date! The fries will be on me!”
“Aarggh!” she howls as she hits the exit, and a dull laugh gets caught in my throat. I have never botched up anything so beautifully.
My God, I need that girl in my life. I’d die to have her in my bed. She’s already in my head. How the heck did she infiltrate so quickly?
It’s clear Alexa Ximena Maxfield is no ordinary girl. Her bark is just as angry as her bite. She’s the exact kind of girl I’ve been looking for all along.
Who knew?
I’d let her take a bite out of me any day of the week.
She’s already taken a chunk of my heart.
A Fight to Remember
Lex
All of the madness that’s unraveled my well-orchestrated life in the last two weeks solely rests on the fact I accidentally made a friend. And now the fact my once wonderful yet mediocre life has been usurped and is currently in hostage negotiations with the bank, it only expounds on the fact I hate friends and I hate people. You see, exactly one week prior to stepping on the landmine of friendship, I paid off my Range Rover in full. It was an early yet fiscally sound birthday gift to myself. I don’t believe in debt, and that quadruple digit car payment made me angsty enough to want to sell my eggs on the black ovarian market. But before I parted with a potential fetus, or lost one more night’s sleep counting green sheep that morphed into fleeting dollar bills, I decided to empty out my savings and rid m
yself of the mountain of debt—thus enjoying the fruits of my labor and the masterful craftsmanship of British engineering whom I lovingly call Frank—named after the car salesman who cinched the deal.
Enter Low. Harlow—Low—Hartley is a walking dark cloud, and she wasted no time in raining down her disastrous fury over my life. She is plain old bad luck, karma gone cosmically very freaking wrong. Even if I had decorated myself with every horseshoe on the planet, there was no way to protect myself from her bumbling, slipping and sliding on five-inch stilettos based wrath. So, it’s really no coincidence that after bothering to foster a friendship—something I am loathe to do—soon thereafter with one swift blow of an adjective—one that I never expected to hear—I watched as my well-orchestrated life imploded from order to chaos.
What would that adjective be, you might ask? Fired. As in without gainful employment, out of work, on the dole, expelled, canned, sacked, and ironically axed. Axel Collins comes to mind, and I swat him from my consciousness like the loathsome gnat he’s become. It’s true. I was once sacked by an Ax—the irony of which is that he is now my ex and is holing up in this same one cow town that I happen to reside in, Hollow Brook. Actually, that may not be true. For all I know he’s holed up in Jepson, a hop and a skip away from this one cow town I happen to call home. Nevertheless, it’s too close, but then again, there isn’t enough cosmic distance the universe could provide to keep him a good length away from me. Break my heart once and shame on me—break my heart twice—well, that will never happen because I no longer have a heart for him to break. Axel Collins marked an end of an era in my life, the very last arena of subjection that was out of my control. At least up until two weeks ago when the cuisine gods at Food Crack Nation lowered their fiery scepter and incinerated the contract I had with them. No thanks to my new friend, Low, and her harebrained idea to pretend that it was me dating her best friend’s brother and not the other twisted way around, everything in my life has toppled in quick succession like a domino rally gone bad.
It’s nine forty-five on a hellish Friday morning and I’m still lacking caffeine, a workout, not to mention my weekly online reward purchase for merely surviving in a world full of wolves parading around as humans. I looked forward to that monetary splurge with gleeful anticipation because it also had the ability to kick-start my weekend in the right trajectory. Instead, here I am, two weeks into my unemployed state, sans any financial prospects on the near horizon, awaiting a mortgage counselor to drop off an arm full of pamphlets while secretly scoping out my home’s worth for that dreaded moment it goes up on the auction block. Not to mention the fact I’m all out of the primo Ethiopian blend coffee I had drop-shipped to my doorstep every other week like a well-engineered Swiss clock. It was yet another splurge in a long line of splurges that have recently met their fiscal demise, such as an expired membership to the gym that I can’t afford to renew which means no hot, cold, or naked yoga—and all those sales fliers retailers have been flooding my inbox with—tempting me with their free shipping and extra 15% off discounts which have been promptly deleted. Now if only I could figure out a way to delete this headache, my jobless status, and Axel Collins from the planet—the universe and I might actually be on speaking terms once again.
I once ran my life like a tight ship, rising at five thirty, coffee, walk the dog, gym, coffee once again—this time at Hallowed Grounds, hit the office, hit all of the scrumptious locales that as a food critic I was commanded to visit, call my little sister, call my big brother, read a few chapters in the book sitting dutifully on my nightstand, sleep well, and repeat. It was a glorious life and one I regret ever putting on the line for something as foolish as a friendship. Thus it brings me full circle. I really hate friends. And I really hate people.
Strudel, my two-year-old French Bulldog with fur the shade of a colorless day, sniffs around the fuzzy pug slippers my brother, Marlin, gave me last Christmas. He said he couldn’t find a dog like Strudel, but that these were close enough. That’s Marlin in a nutshell. Close enough has always kept him content in all areas of his life. Can’t make it as a fireman? Join the Jepson PD. Close enough. Can’t get a girlfriend of your own? Date your best friend’s. Close enough. Can’t make it as a racecar driver? Watch the Jepson 500 on TV. Close enough. That last one is the kicker. Marlin spent his entire life driving racecars, had a sponsor for years, but he never did qualify for the big one. But that’s the difference between Marlin and me. He’s content to let life steamroll him whenever the heck it sees fit. I’m more inclined to take it by the horns, force it to go in the direction I’m demanding it to, and then killing the bull just to make sure it stays there.
Nevertheless, Marlin is a whole six years older than me. He was already out of the house when our mother took off. And two years after that, our father collapsed at his desk and died of a heart attack over a stack of insurance papers. Marlin was already married and divorced by then. Yes, our family has been slowly eroding off the planet for as long as I can remember. Even my poor Aunt Priscilla died in a major car wreck not long after my father bit the big one. Marlin and I have spent the last decade and a half looking after our younger sister, Serena, and Aunt Priscilla’s kids, Rush and Sunday. Their brother, Nolan, is up there in age with Marlin, and with his help we knit together a motley crew of a family. Uncle Chuck, Aunt Priscilla’s grieving widower, is still alive and kicking and as oblivious as always when it comes to anything other than New York real estate. New York real estate doesn’t mean all that much when your home base is in Hollow Brook, North Carolina.
Strudel whines hard and does a little potty dance at my feet.
“Hush, you.” I head to the door and check my face in the mirror, seaweed sleep mask still in place, bloodshot eyes from the tears I will go to my grave denying ever existed, my crimson-colored hair still coiled neatly in sponge rollers to give me that effortless tousled look I spend ten hours trying to achieve.
I sneak a glimpse out the side window and note the back end of a particularly hairy sheepdog relieving himself on my lawn and gasp.
“It’s the pooper!” I hiss to Strudel, and he sits at rapt attention. I may not need or desire a single human being in my life, sans my family, but Strudel does his best to worship me dutifully like no human ever could. His forehead wrinkles with curiosity, his tiny head cocks to the side as if intent to hear more. “It’s every single day I tell you. And this, my friend, is the last day that beast drops a smelly hot brownie on my front lawn.” I’ve been picking up this dopey dog’s dung day after day while his moronic owner, an elderly woman with gray hair and an obnoxious matching mustache, looks to the street as if she were oblivious to her dog’s anal dealings. I don’t care about her elderly state of being. She’s the ageist if she thinks it’s fair I play pooper-scooper after her dog droppings.
“Ha!” I bark as I fling the door open and fly down the porch. The hairy beast stops midflight in his brownie delivery as both he and his owner attempt to scuttle down the street. “Stop, thief!” I shout. But the only person to turn around is my treacherous neighbor as tall and round as a stump who does nothing but smoke cigarettes and pass judgment on whoever gets locked in her sight while molesting her anxiety riddled Chihuahua all the livelong day. I’ve heard her unrequited commentaries on the innocent passersby one too many times. I couldn’t care less about her or her roving lung-cancer-in-the-making opinion. “I said stop!” I roar as I scuttle my fastest in these cumbersome pug slippers, clearly not intended for the unevenly paved sidewalks of downtown Hollow Brook. No sooner do I jump in front of the gray-haired granny who’s stolen my sanity for the last six months than an SUV skids on its brakes, stopping inches from sending Strudel to the great doggie beyond.
“Oh God!” I bolt into traffic and ignore the honking and yelling of a passing minivan while scooping Strudel safely in my arms.
“Lexy?”
I look up to find standing in front of me—in front of the still running SUV that almost introduced Strudel to the rainbow br
idge, a suit clad Axel Collins, those bright gray eyes wide with concern, those full kissable lips parted and panting. His dress shirt stretches taut with the sheer mass of his expansive chest, and that warm yet familiar cologne slowly pulls me back to a different day long ago when life didn’t involve imperiled mortgages and obnoxious exes.
Oh fudge. Heck, I think this occasion warrants an expletive or two. Crap, crap, crap!
I hobble back to the sidewalk, only to find the mustache lady and the cigarette wielding tree stump gesticulating about something while the Chihuahua and the sheepdog sniff the business end of one another. I’m not about to let the mustache lady amble away freely just because Axel Dog Dodger Collins has shown up on the scene.
“You got a problem with her, lady?” The tree stump screws her face up in a knot, and that ridiculous expression only makes me want to kick her.
“Darn right, I have a problem with her.” I lean in toward the mustache lady herself and give a few quick blinks. That whole mustache on a woman thing is a bit jarring at this close proximity. “How dare you come here day after day expecting me to do your dirty work!” I thunder so loud my voice comes back to me as an echo. “I suggest both you and your mangy dog find another neighborhood to terrorize with his hind end because this is the last time I bend over for either of you hairy, scary beasts. You had better get lost quick. And if you ever show your fuzzy face again, I’m going to personally drop kick you both across the street! Get a clue and a razor—that was your last brownie bonanza on my front lawn.”
Summer Breeze Kisses Page 80
