I moved off to the side and wondered how Mayra only had a few pieces of clothing in her bag. “I told you to pack everything.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“This can’t be everything,” I insisted.
She glanced at me. “It is, Boink. I’m not a very high-maintenance girl.”
Shoot. High-maintenance? There was no way anyone would ever think that about Mayra if they could see her suitcase. I had packed more clothes than she had.
She grabbed a small dark green wallet and stuck it in her back pocket. “Let’s go to the store. I’m hungry.”
She wasn’t going to pay for any of the groceries. She turned her back to me, and I snatched the wallet out of her back pocket.
“Boink,” she yelled. “What in the hell are you doing?”
I walked into the kitchen and tossed her wallet on top of the tall cabinets. “Now we can go.”
“Are you insane?” she squawked. “I need my wallet, and there is no way I’ll be able to reach it up there.”
“That’s the whole reason why I tossed it up there, M-baby.”
She hobbled over to me and slowly raised her arms over her head. “I can’t even reach halfway up the cabinet. A chair isn’t even going to help me.”
Not like she could actually expect to move a chair over to the cabinet. “Just let me know when you need it, and I’ll grab it for you.” Though I hoped she was going to need something more than her wallet eventually.
*
Mayra
I rolled my eyes. “I need it now.”
He laughed and shook his head. “Except for right now. You’re not going to buy groceries. I have money for that.”
“You buying me everything is not going to be good with me.” He had about thirty seconds to get my wallet down before I freaked out on his ass. “Give me my wallet.”
He walked around me and headed toward the front door. “Nope. Not happening.”
He thought he was being funny.
I didn’t think he was funny at all.
“Boink…Boink,” I faltered. I didn’t know the man’s real first name or even his last name. “Get back here and get down my wallet right now.”
“Not happening. Get in the truck. We need food for dinner.” He walked out the front door, and I stomped my foot.
“Damn that man,” I muttered. I turned around and looked up at the cabinet he had tossed my wallet on top of. “I’m never going to be able to get my wallet down from there.”
“Get in the truck, Mayra,” he hollered.
I gimped out the front door and closed it behind me. “I’m temporarily handicapped. You can’t do that to me,” I complained.
Boink stood next to the door of the truck and held his hand out for me. “I can’t pay for the groceries because you broke your butt?”
“I didn’t break my butt, you did,” I insisted.
He quirked an eyebrow and smirked. “M-baby, if I’m around, you’re not paying for jack shit. You get me?”
I grabbed his hand and put one foot in the truck. “No, I don’t get you, B-baby.”
“You’ll get me eventually.” He leaned close. “I kind of like you calling me baby.”
I couldn’t control my eyes, and they rolled back in my head in the most epic eye-roll ever. “You’re crazy.”
He helped me in the truck and pulled the seat belt across me. His body was partially plastered against me, and I inhaled his scent.
“Getting a good whiff?” He turned his head, and my nose was an inch away from his.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” I breathed out.
His eyes connected with mine. “Sure, you don’t.”
“I’m not sure I like your tone.” I also didn’t like the things I was feeling with him being this close. My voice was breathy, my pulse was racing, and I had the urge to lean forward to find out if his lips were as soft as they looked.
“Bet there’s other things you like.”
I blinked slowly and tried to get a grip. “Boink,” I whispered.
The click of the seat belt broke the nice but confusing moment between us. He moved back and looked at me. “Let’s get some dinner.” He slammed the door and moved around the front of the truck as if he wasn’t two seconds away from kissing me.
At least, I hoped he was about to kiss me.
*
Boink
“He won’t let me pay. He tossed my wallet on top of the cabinet and since he broke my butt the other day, I can’t get it down.”
The clerk slowly scanned a can of corn and stared at Mayra. “There is so much you just said in that sentence I have questions about.”
“He won’t let me buy anything,” Mayra repeated.
The clerk scanned two more items. “Well, that I get. He is your man so he’s just trying to take care of you.”
Mayra scrunched up her nose. “He is no—”
I bumped her further down the check-out lane. “Why don’t you scoot down a bit, Bertha? The sooner we get home with these groceries, the sooner we can eat.”
She curled her lip at me. “Sure thing, Melvin.”
“We just got married, and she keeps forgetting,” I explained.
The clerk smiled huge and gushed, “Oh, my goodness! How amazing!” She clasped her hand together and sighed. “Did you just move here?”
“I think so,” Mayra answered.
She was really going to have to get better at acting like we were married. She was failing miserably at it right now. “We’re living in the log cabin on Mites Road. Renting it from a friend for a bit ‘til we figure out things.”
“That place is gorgeous. Most of the year, it sits there empty, which is such a shame so to have you two living there warms my heart.” The clerk scanned the rest of our items then started bagging them up.
Wrecker had us living in Utah in a small town called Pines Peak. The population was a blustering seven hundred and nine, and from the looks of the main street, it had a grocery store, bank, three bars, and a gas station. It was going to be the perfect place to lay low ‘til things with the Banachi’s blew over. I just hoped Mayra didn’t get a wild hair about her again and try to take off.
“There’s a potluck every third Wednesday of the month if you guys want to stop in to meet everyone. I always bring my famous white bean and chicken chili, but then Agnes brings her chili mac because she thinks chili should be red and not white. I personally think she needs to stop discriminating against my chili and put a spoonful in her mouth. She’ll change her tune lickety split about red being better than white. I’m Elle, by the way.”
Mayra blinked slowly and glanced at me. Elle had thought Mayra had said a lot before, but Elle had just summed up what I presumed was a much longer story into three of four sentences. “We’ll have to see what we are up to.”
Elle finished bagging the groceries and handed them to Mayra. “Well, we’re all pretty friendly, and we’d love to have you there. Just as long as you don’t bring chili.” She threw a wink at Mayra and laughed. “Total is one fifty-nine seventy-two.”
I pulled two one hundred dollar bills out of my wallet and handed them to her. “Wouldn’t even think of doing that. I’m a fan of white chili myself.”
“I know you two are probably getting acquainted since you just got married, but hopefully you can spare a little time to meet everyone.” She handed me my change and smiled at Mayra. “You guys make a real cute couple.”
Mayra looked up at me. “He does have that Jax Teller look to him, though I look nothing like Tara. I’m more of a Lucille Ball.”
Elle’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, my lord, you know the Sons of Anarchy?” she gasped.
Mayra laughed and high-fived her. “Girl, I have spent many a night with Jax and Opie.”
Elle fanning her face and smiled at me. “You really do look like Jax. I thought it right away when you walked in, but I didn’t want to say anything.”
Mayra moved closer to me. “You should see some of his
friends, Elle. They all look like they could be in some motorcycle club.”
Elle clutched her hand to her chest. “Heavens above. If only that were true.”
Mayra moved to push the cart. “I know, right. A girl can daydream about it though, right?”
I put my hand on Mayra’s back and urged her to the exit. “We need to get on home for dinner. We’ll make sure to try to make it to the potluck.”
“It’s next Wednesday,” Elle called before the automatic door slid shut behind up.
Mayra slowly pushed the cart toward the truck, and I followed close behind her. I put my hands on the handle of the cart and caged her in while we walked. “Jax Teller? Really, M?” I whispered in her ear.
“You do look like him,” she insisted.
I had heard it a couple of times before, but I never really took it to heart. “Except I’m not some imaginary character in a TV show.”
She turned her head. “Nope, you’re the real deal.”
I shook my head. “Just don’t go around town telling people I look like a biker.”
“But you do look like a biker, Boink. I don’t need to tell people; they can see it.”
We stopped next to the truck, and I opened the hatch. “It’s Melvin, Bertha. Melvin doesn’t belong to a motorcycle club or look like Jax Teller.”
She grabbed a couple of bags from the cart and put them in the truck. “You really think people are going to somehow find out who you really are?”
I grabbed the rest of the bags and set them in the truck. “I think this is a small enough town that they really don’t have much going on so snooping where their noses don’t belong seems likely.”
Mayra put her hands on her hips and looked up at me. “I think you watched Andy Griffith too much growing up.”
“I think I’m just cautious, like you should be.”
She rolled her eyes and limped around me.
“Hey, you okay?”
I had just been walking behind her, and she hadn’t been limping. She opened the passenger door and looked over at me. “My pain pills are wearing off.”
It was going on nine, which meant it had been over four hours since she last took her pills. “You okay to sit or do you want to lay down?” It was only a fifteen-minute drive back to the cabin, but if she was in pain just walking, I could only imagine how much it was going to hurt to sit on her butt.
Her face was pale, and her eyes were dull. “I’ve got my inflatable tube thingy. Get me home, Melvin, so I can take my pills and pass out for a bit.”
I helped her into the truck, made sure she was as comfortable as she could be, then headed back to the cabin. “I’ll make dinner while you rest.”
Her head rolled on the headrest of the seat and looked at me. “Frozen pizza?”
I shook my head. “I’ll try to make something better than that.”
She laughed and closed her eyes. “Do you even know how to cook?”
Not exactly, but she didn’t need to know that. “You rest, and you’ll find out when you wake up.”
Dinner was going to be one huge Hail Mary to the dinner gods.
*
Chapter Ten
Mayra
“Mayra!”
I burrowed under the warmth of the blanket and sighed. Waking up was not something I wanted to do.
“Mayra!”
Ugh. Boink was not getting the hint. “No,” I moaned. I was lying on my stomach with the blanket wrapped around me, and my face was buried in the mattress. I doubted he even heard me.
“M-baby, I got dinner ready.”
My stomach growled at the mention of food. I lifted my head and was surprised by the smell. “It doesn’t smell like fire,” I mumbled.
“Fire?”
I jumped, surprised, and instantly regretted moving so quickly. “Ugh, don’t you know not to surprise a woman with a broken butt?”
“Why would it smell like fire?” Boink asked.
I turned my head and saw him standing in the doorway of the bedroom. “Because you cooked?”
“I cooked tacos. Shit is easy to make.”
It was, but I didn’t know if he even knew how to turn on the stove, let alone make actual food on it. I rolled onto my side and looked over at him. “Is it edible?”
“Get your ass up and come find out.” He walked out of the room and disappeared.
I dropped my head to my pillow and sighed. The least he could have done after waking me up was to help get me out of bed. Not moving for a bit made me even more sore, and everything stiffened up. I managed to scoot to the edge of the bed and swung my feet onto the floor.
“This must be like what it feels to get old,” I grumbled. I managed to get out of bed and make my way to the bathroom where I promptly shrieked.
My hair I had neatly piled on top of my head was now a haphazard spout coming out of the side of my head and my face had a crease running from forehead to chin from the sheet. I was a hot mess.
“M, it’s getting cold,” Boink hollered.
I tugged the tie from my hair, combed my fingers through the strands, and piled it up again on the top of my head. I was going to have to unpack my bag tonight to get my brush and toothbrush out.
I padded down the hallway slowly with my inflatable butt tube tucked under my arm. The delicious smell of dinner strengthened as I walked into the kitchen. Boink was standing in front of the stove stirring a pot, and there were all of the fixings for tacos laid out on the table. “Holy hell. You actually did cook.”
He grabbed the pot off the stove and set it on the table on top of a hot pad. “You gotta stop doubting me, M-baby.”
“You’re a guy in an MC with the name Boink. I don’t think most people would think that you were able to use a microwave, let alone cook a full-blown meal.”
He reached for a paper plate and handed it to me. “Fill a plate.”
I grabbed two hard shells and dropped cheese into the bottom of them. “You gotta put the cheese on the bottom so the meat gets it all melty and gooey by the time you go to take a bite.”
“No, no, no,” Boink tsked. “The cheese goes on top. Putting it on the bottom is ridiculous.”
“Don’t knock it until you try it,” I mumbled.
I filled the two tacos on my plate and dropped my butt tube onto the couch.
“Drink?” Boink called.
I gingerly sat down on the tube and managed to somewhat tuck my legs under me. “Uh, do I get something stronger than water?”
“You take your pills?”
He damn well knew that as soon as we had gotten home from the grocery store, I had downed two of my pills. “Just bring me water,” I muttered.
Boink walked into the living room and plunked a wine cooler in front of me. “You get one, so savor it.”
“I promise not to get crazy and hang from the chandelier.”
He laughed and shook his head. “That would be pretty good seeing as we don’t have a chandelier.”
I pointed up. “Yeah we do.”
Boink tilted his head back and whistled. “Well, I’ll be damn. That is a chandelier made out of fucking moose horns.”
“Horns?” I laughed. “Pretty sure they are called antlers, Boink.”
“Right, that’s what I meant.” He bit off a huge bite of his taco and chewed slowly. “Why ar u lookin’ ate meh?”
“Did you just speak pirate?” I asked.
His mouth was full, and he thankfully finished chewing before he tried talking again. “Why are you watching me? You should be eating this delicious meal I just made for you.”
“You’re distracting.”
“Eat, woman,” he ordered. He picked up the remote and turned on the TV. “What are you in the mood to watch?”
“Uh, something good?” Not very specific, but it was a good place to start. “Maybe a TV show with lots of seasons seeing as we could be stuck here for a while.”
“I’m not watching Sons of Anarchy,” he declared.
“Oh, com
e on. I was just going to say that we need to re-watch it. Elle got me hankering to watch it.”
He shook his head. “That would mean I would need to watch it a first time.”
My jaw dropped. “You have never seen Sons of Anarchy?” We were going to rectify this shit right now. I grabbed the remote from his hand and pointed it at the TV. I pressed the Netflix button and quickly typed “sons” into the search bar.
“Come on, Mayra. I really don’t want to watch this.”
I didn’t care what he wanted. “Just hush, Boinky. I’m going to educate you in the way of the Sons of Anarchy.” I hit play on the first episode of the first season and settled back into the couch.
“Your butt good?” he asked.
I nodded. “As good as it can be. The pills are kicking ass right now. I really need to not get behind on taking my pills. It’s hell getting caught back up.” I took a bite of my taco and moaned. “Holy hell.”
“Is that a good holy hell?” he asked.
I took another bite and nodded my head. “Oh yeah.”
“Does that mean I have to make dinner every night?”
“Uh, no. As much as I like your tacos, I don’t want to eat them every night.” The opening scene started playing, and I shushed Boink. “Now pay attention and try to keep up.”
He snorted and leaned forward to grab his beer. “You have no idea how ridiculous it is that you’re making me watch this.”
He may say it was ridiculous now, but I knew it was only a matter of about three episodes before he would be hooked.
*
Boink
“Boink.”
I swatted my hand at the annoying tickle at my neck and slid down ‘til I was laying down with my head on the arm rest of the couch.
“Boink.”
Of course, it was Mayra. She was probably thinking she was paying me back for waking her up earlier to eat dinner. “What?” I croaked.
“How are you asleep?”
I had barely slept four hours when we were at the hotel and now my ass was tired. It was almost eleven at night, and we had been driving for two days straight. That was how I was able to sleep. “You took a nap earlier while I cooked you dinner.”
Boink (Fallen Lords MC Book 5) Page 6
