Till The Sun Dies: Checkmate, #2

by Finn, Emilia

  Even the good-looking guys.

  But Ang is taking his shoes and socks off. He’s still in a shirt that showcases his broad chest and thick biceps, with a wildness in his eyes that tells me he did do something to Skeeter; something painful and violent.

  But he doesn’t creep me out. And he doesn’t scare me.

  He makes me nervous, because the thought of rejection terrifies me. But he, himself, the man in front of me, makes me feel safe.

  There’s no way in a million years that I could be in this room alone with any other man, but it’s kind of gratifying to be here with him and not freak out.

  “You want some gravy?”

  He steps closer and looks down into my container. Leather bands stretch around his thick wrists, a chain dangles over his chest as he leans toward me, and his new hair, still foreign to us both, falls forward and curtains half of his face. “You got any food with that gravy?”

  “Uh-huh. Fries, and a piece of chicken.”

  “And a heart attack.” His grin makes my heart flip. Since when did my heart flip for Angelo? “That’s cute. Your brother will love donating his heart when yours is all clogged up.”

  “I don’t want his heart.” I slide a fry into my mouth and lick the gravy from my fingers. “His heart is obsessed with Kari, and I don’t think I wanna be sexually attracted to my best friend.”

  He snorts. “No. That would be weird, right?”

  “Right.”

  He turns to the rickety table and picks up his phone, swiping it several times before he turns to the staticky TV and silences it. He plops his phone down again, winking at me as he passes on his way to the bathroom.

  Tori Kelly’s sweet singing voice coming from his phone makes me smile as he closes the door, leaving me in peace.

  When the shower goes on, I’m somewhat glad he didn’t warn me he was going to do that. It would have given me time to obsess about being all alone, time to overthink what the hell I’m doing here, but before those thoughts can manifest, the shower stops again and Tori’s song is just coming to an end.

  Ang is gone for less than five minutes before he steps back into the room and steam races out behind him.

  With my fingers in my mouth, fries stopping halfway down my throat, I choke when my eyes drop to the towel slung around his trim hips.

  “I’m sorry.” He dashes across the room and snatches up his backpack. “I wasn’t thinking. I just need…” He lifts his bag, but I see nothing except for the line of hair that leads into his towel, and the water droplets that sit on his chest. He lowers the bag again and clears his throat. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” I’m trying to act cool. I’m trying to pretend I’m totally normal, adjusted, and not freaking out, but when someone in the next room slams against the wall so hard the pictures rattle, then a giggle turns to a moan, my eyes flare and I slap a hand over my mouth. “Oh my God.” My words are a squeak. “They’re doing it.”

  He drops his face into his hands and silently laughs. There’s absolutely no sound, just his bouncing back and wrinkles by his eyes. “I can’t even.” He shakes his head. “Do they ever stop?”

  Without removing my hand, I shake my head. “No.”

  At a second crash, Ang rushes back into the bathroom and slams the door closed, leaving me all alone with the couple next door as Jess’ moans become indecent. Jesus. It’s not like I haven’t heard her before. It’s not like I haven’t heard him, either. He’s not shy about how much he’s… into her. But I’ve never heard it through such thin walls. I’ve never heard it in high definition, and when they do something that creates twin groans, I’m forced to fan my face before I pass out.

  That’s my sister.

  That’s my sister.

  That’s my sister.

  Ang steps back into the room in jeans and a tank top that sticks to his still wet chest. Bare feet, wet hair, stubbled jaw, his wary eyes go to the wall, then back to me. “Um…”

  “I don’t know what to do right now.”

  He snorts. “I mean… we’re kinda trapped. Wanna go to the honky-tonk bar?”

  Skeeter pops into my mind and extinguishes whatever strange flutters that were battering inside my stomach. “No, definitely not. I hope Skeeter trips into a flaming trash can and never comes back out again.”

  Ang’s lips twitch. “Music, then?” He steps to the table and turns his cellphone up until the tinny bass matches the thumping coming from the other room. “How is it we can still hear them?” He throws his hands up. “Fuck, this might be one of the weirdest moments of my life. She’s basically my little sister, but she’s doing nasty not-a-little-sister shit with a gangster right now, and I don’t know if I’m grossed out or turned on.”

  A tear slides out of my eye and over my cheek. Not a sad tear, not the tear of a traumatized girl, but one borne of laughter that isn’t allowed to be noisy. “God, you said nasty. You said she’s doing the nasty.”

  “She is! She’s being all sorts of filthy nasty, and I’m a little bit uncomfortable because of it.”

  Finally letting my laughter escape, I drop back on the bed and let my arms rest over my head. “This is so unbelievably awkward. Welcome to vacation, let’s all touch ourselves because Jess and Kane are horndogs and like to be loud when they’re doing the nasty.” I snort. “Come sit down if you wanna, turn the music up. They’ll be awhile.”

  “What?” He stops halfway across the small room. “How long can they possibly be?”

  I blindly fish around in my bowl of gravy for a fry. “I think he prides himself on endurance. Like, I wouldn’t be surprised if they set a timer, then next time, he works on lasting longer.” I turn when Ang sits on the bed. “He’s nasty, and maybe he’s trying to bang for the whole country. You know, taking one for the team and all that.”

  His chest bounces. “I can’t deal with this shit. We should just take our asses to the beach now. Leave them here.”

  “I’d miss her.” I talk around a mouthful of gravy, ignoring my sister’s cries. “Tomorrow, we get a better hotel. Thicker walls.”

  “A different state,” he suggests. “I don’t mean a different state from here. I mean a different state from them. Do you think we’ll still hear them if we–”

  “We’ll still hear them no matter where we go. I’ve tried noise canceling headphones. I’ve tried being in the garage working on Wanda. I’ve tried calling you. They don’t keep it quiet.”

  With a deep sigh as though to prepare himself, Ang lies back on the bed until his knee touches mine, the container of heart attack nestled between us. “I cannot believe this is where my life has ended up. In a seedy hotel, on a bed probably covered in dirty dude jizz, while listening to little Jess fuck against the wall.”

  Quietly laughing, I turn and study his profile; the slightly crooked nose, the stubble that’s normally three-day-beard, but today is barber shop fancy. His long hair used to be long enough for a ponytail, but now carries that same sleekness as his jaw. Messing up his haircut the other day has resulted in something truly sexy.

  When he turns and looks into my eyes, my mind conjures an image of us kissing. Of him reaching through the foot of space between us until his lips press against mine and all my questions about us are answered. The thought should scare me, it should fucking terrify me, but it doesn’t.

  If Angelo Alesi were to try to kiss me right now, I wouldn’t say no.

  But he doesn’t. And I don’t make the move, because my fear of rejection is strong. Instead, I clear my throat and turn away when he doesn’t close the gap and our stare-off becomes too much. I can’t take the pressure.

  I’m not the fearless girl I once was.

  So, like a coward, I stare at the ceiling and pray he can’t hear my thumping heart. “This is life now, so we may as well get used to it.” I rest a hand on my belly and pray for my heart to slow. “What if the place we stay at tomorrow has thin walls, too?”

  Scoffing, he starts digging thick fingers into my dinner. “I
’m putting you and me up in the Waldorf tomorrow. Or we can sleep on the beach. Or the whole leaving them behind thing is still an option.”

  I don’t dare watch him fill his mouth with gravy covered fries. Twenty minutes ago, I was back in the club with Graham and on the edge of a panic attack. Now, my stomach tingles in the most inappropriate way while the guy I grew up knowing as a sort-of-brother licks gravy off his fingers.

  I can’t deal with my conflicting emotions.

  “I’ll pay for somewhere fancy. My treat,” Ang continues. “Whatever we need to do to not hear that.” The song that was playing ends, and in the five seconds of silence between songs, Jess’ groans make my face flame all over again. “I vote for leaving them behind.”

  24

  Angelo

  Plastic Fantastic

  When Laine swears she’ll be okay alone for ten minutes, I hightail it out of our hotel room and dash into the parking lot to escape the giant fucking elephant in our room.

  I said I needed to buy food before I ate all of hers, but in reality, I need to escape before my cock breaks through my jeans and embarrasses us both.

  She was freaking out an hour ago; tears in her eyes, shaking hands, ghostly skin, all because Skeeter is a fucking creep and reminded us both of the scared and hurt girl I’m road-tripping with.

  It’s easy to forget when everyone is laughing and messing around. It’s easy to live out your fantasies and consider the maybes when the girl of your dreams parades around in tiny denim shorts and giggles like she was never hurt.

  But it all comes back when Jess and Kane noisily fuck against a wall, turn me on, and remind me in one cruel sweep how I’ll never have that, all because of her past.

  Fuck them for being them.

  And fuck Graham for breaking someone perfect and beautiful who deserves that kind of freedom.

  Not in a million years can a man throw Laine around the way Kane throws Jess. The second I – or this hypothetical man – were to touch her, he’d be walking that minefield again, and each step he took could end with an explosion.

  Knowing the severity of what Graham did to her doesn’t slow my desperation. Even being here and playing chaperone, and at the most, a friend, doesn’t slow me down.

  Hearing those noises next door turned me the fuck on.

  It’s inappropriate. It’s obscene. It’s crazy.

  And yet, when she turned to me on the bed and stared into my eyes, I was tempted to risk it all and press my lips to hers.

  We’d know. We’d know in that instant which kind of explosion we’d be in for. The good kind. Or the bad kind.

  To feel her lips on mine, to have her breath in my lungs, and her hands on my body…

  But the second I considered it, in the single moment it took to convince myself to step off the ledge, she turned away and brushed me off.

  I’m still the friend deeply entrenched in a zone I’ll never be able to dig my way out of.

  Fuck.

  I approach the quieting freeway with my hands on my head, my chest lifting and falling with the force of my breath. I need to buy some food. I need to calm the fuck down. I probably need to whack off in the truck stop bathroom to work her out of my system.

  And I need to do it all in ten minutes or less, because I refuse to leave her for longer than that.

  When the traffic is clear, I jog across the road and into the diner we sat in only an hour or so ago. The booth we sat in remains empty, the same waitress from earlier continues to check her teeth in the reflection of the napkin holder, and the same old guy flips a burger on the grill behind her.

  “Hey there.” She stands tall and looks me over. “What can I getcha?”

  “Something fast. Whatever you’ve already got warm.”

  “We got lasagna? Or we got some leftover surf and turf.”

  “Lasagna.” I don’t fancy dying from salmonella today. “Throw some fries in, too.” I move to the fridges at the end of the long counter and take out a bottle of soda. Setting it in front of the cash register, I fish my wallet out of my back pocket and toss a twenty down. “You got any chocolate? Or ice cream?”

  “Both over in the freezer, darlin’.” She lifts her chin like I need more direction. “Behind you.”

  Wandering away while the burger flipper adds food poisoning to my lasagna, I stop in front of the freezers and wonder which would make her happiest.

  Laine and Jess are ice-cream snobs. So snobby, in fact, that even though our family have an ongoing feud with the bitch that owns Dixie’s Ice-Cream Parlor in town, they still go there instead of boycotting, and mutter mean things under their breath to absolve themselves of guilt.

  It takes only minutes for the server to clip my styrofoam box closed and bag my soda and ice-cream. Moving through the front door with my food easily under the ten minute window I gave myself, I jog back across the highway, but slow at the sight of Skeeter hanging outside our room window.

  My blood runs thicker, pumping through my muscles, inflating my chest.

  I think he’s harmless. He’s a fuckin’ pervert – he wants something he can never have – but I don’t think he’s in the same league as Graham.

  Silently ducking through the darkness, I fish the little plastic utensils from my bag and take the knife in my right hand.

  I’m done with this fucker.

  Sliding along the wall unnoticed, I stop behind Skeeter when he crouches and peeks through a non-existent gap in the curtains. I place the sharp blade of my plastic knife against his throat and whisper in his ear, “We already spoke to you once, motherfucker.”

  The stench of urine permeates the hot air when he freezes up.

  “You have one second to come up with a really good fucking reason why you’re here, Skeet, or else you die.”

  “Don’t kill me,” he whimpers. “Please don’t kill me.”

  “I warned you to stay away. My brother warned you.” Kane and Jess’ sounds still move through the walls, but they have a different effect on me now. “Were you coming to get a look at who was making that noise?”

  “I didn’t mean to–” He chokes down his panic. Thankfully for us both, his voice is low enough that Laine can’t possibly hear. “I was just going to the ice machine and I–”

  “You were coming out here to see the girl that rejected you earlier. You saw me race across the road, you saw your opportunity. She’s still gonna say no, you sloppy fuck. You won’t ever be with a girl like her.” Let’s not focus on the fact I won’t ever be with her, either. I dig my knife in deeper. “You will never get her to say yes to you. You will never get any girl to say yes, because you’re a fat fuck who gives off rape vibes. She doesn’t want you, and neither does her sister. But I’ll tell you what; the last guy that tried to do something with this girl without her permission now walks around like a squeaker toy. I cut his fuckin’ nuts out. Literally. Painfully. You want some of that?”

  His jowls wobble when he shakes his head.

  “Answer me. Use your words.”

  “No.” I instinctively open my legs when his rumbling stomach threatens a dropped load on my shoes. “No, sir. I don’t want none of that.”

  “Are you gonna come back to this room again?”

  “No.”

  “Are you gonna visit any of these rooms ever again when a pretty girl comes looking for a bed for the night?”

  “N-n-n-no.”

  “I tell you what, you go to that honky-tonk, or any club at all, and you touch a woman without her permission, I’m gonna come back here and show you my long nose pliers. Does that sound like fun?”

  “No.” He inadvertently cuts himself on my plastic knife when he shakes his head. “Please let me go. I won’t come back down here.”

  “I’m gonna check in with you, Skeeter. Every weekend between now and the day you throw yourself into the river with cement boots, I’m gonna watch. And when you fuck up, because you will, you won’t be able to help yourself, I’m gonna come back and show you what happens
to guys with a fist full of cash but a face like yours. An exchange of money doesn’t equal consent. You understand me?”

  “N-n-n–”

  “You better listen again, because this is the last time I’m gonna explain it. Unless she’s begging for you, legit begging, and don’t give me any bullshit story about how you weren’t sure, only when she says the fucking words and no weapons are shoved in her face, that’s the only time you got the green light. Till then, I’ll be watching. My buddy in the next room, the one you’re trying to spy on, he knows shit. I know shit. And between us, we’re gonna make it so you never shit again. Capiche?”

  “Y-y-y-yes sir. I got it.”

  “You gonna come down here again?”

  “No. I swear.”

  “And what’ll happen if you do?”

  “S-s-s-squeaky toy.”

  “Attaboy. Get the fuck away from this room and don’t come back.” I push him forward and feel no remorse when he slams his forehead on the brick exterior of the building.

  I feel no remorse for him, but Laine’s terrified squeak inside the room burns a hole in my gut. My phone vibrates in my pocket within seconds. I dig it out, but I don’t answer until Skeeter ducks into his office, closes the door, and flips the open sign to closed.

  I draw in a long breath, hold it for several long beats, then let it out and bring my cell to my ear. “Hello?”

  “Ang?” I close my eyes at the tremor in her voice. “Are you coming back soon?”

  “Yup, I’m here now. I dropped my food. Be in in a sec.”

  “Oh… That was you making noise outside our room?”

  “Just me. I was taking my shoes off and dropped my food.” I kick my shoes off, so my story remains somewhat legitimate. “Get the door for me? It’s only me out here, I promise.”

  “No one else?”

  “Nope, not a soul. Just mosquitoes biting my ears, and your sister doing the nasty in her room.”