Another One Bites the Dust (2 page)

  I didn’t look in my rear view mirror, refusing to watch that vile woman run her hands all over him.  If I had, though, I would have seen him shove her away with a brutal push, and stalk over to his motorcycle, starting it with a fierce thrust of his leg, and scowling at the woman as he, too, left the parking lot.

Six months before

Max

   “You have got to be fucking kidding me!”  I roared.

  Ember eyed Payton, pursing her lips in concentration.  “That would be a no.  She’s not.  In fact, I think she is very, very serious.” 

  “She’s gonna fucking kill herself, that’s what she is going to do.”  I growled.

  Payton was driving a motherfucking scooter down Fuller Street, the one-way road that ran up alongside Rusty’s Scooter Shop.  The wrong way.

  When Ember called me, I assumed they’d broken down.  Not that they were buying something in this God-forsaken place.  Gabe sat beside Ember on the bench in front of Rusty’s, silently laughing his ass off.

  Gabe was Ember’s husband.  They’ve been married just short of a year.  My second nephew is due any minute now, which explains why Gabe didn’t let her come alone.  He’s scared she’ll go into labor like all the other women in Ember’s life and have the baby in the middle of a Walmart. 

  “Listen, she only wants some help choosing one.  The sales clerk only looks at her boobs.  He has yet to make eye contact with her, and I don’t want her to be screwed.  She’s buying one whether you say yes or no.  Just help her.  Gabe refused to walk into the building.  He said his man card would be revoked if he even thought about going in there.  Also, don’t tell her I called you, just say you were driving by and saw me.”  Ember rambled.

  I loved the heck out of my baby sister, but sometimes she stuck her nose where it didn’t need to be stuck.  Payton and I have been playing this cat and mouse game for a couple of months now.  We’re both interested, but neither one of us will do anything about it.  She wasn’t ready, and I didn’t want it.

  That didn’t mean I was happy that she was going to put her life at risk by riding this piece of shit around as her main mode of transportation.  She needed to be in something that would protect her, not this
thing
that gave absolutely zero protection.  She was going to kill herself.

  I wasn’t one to talk though.  I rode, and it was the only thing I could do at times to clear my head.  Sometimes it took a whole tank of gas, but at the end of my ride, I had a cleared head.  If anything could make Payton smile like that, I was going to let her do it without putting up much of a fight.

  Payton did a U-turn, and then rode back into the parking lot.  She pulled right up to us, nearly to our feet, and was getting off before she even noticed me standing there.  Her step faltered and she went down hard onto her ass.  I watched her sit there, face up in flames before I came to my senses.

  Holding my hand out, I jokingly said, “Smooth.”

  She poked her pink tongue out, blew a raspberry, and put her hands behind her ears, wiggling them like a three year old.

  “How old are you again?”  I deadpanned.

  Inside I was laughing my ass off though.  She always surprised the hell out of me.  She dismissed me with a sniff, and turned to Ember.

  “I’m getting this one.  I like the sparkly pink, and the salesman said he’d give me a good deal.”  Payton said.

Thirty minutes later.  Payton was the proud owner of a new 2014 150cc BMS scooter.  It was bright fucking pink, and sparkly to boot.  The damn handlebars now sported streamers, too.  The prick sales man tried to screw her, not give her a good deal, so it was a good thing I was here. 

  Outfitted with a pink leather jacket, pink and white Minnie Mouse helmet, and gloves, she was ready to “rocket.” 

  “Make sure you look both ways.  Twice.  Don’t pull out in front of anyone.  If you see a person in a driveway ready to pull out, assume that they’re going to, because they damn well will.  They don’t see people on bikes.  Leave at least two car lengths in front of the car in front of you.  Be aware.  Never get distracted.  Hesitation kills.  I’ll follow you home.”  I informed her with short clipped sentences.

  She stood blinked a few times, and then turned her face away from mine.  “Okay.”
  I gritted my teeth.  She wasn’t sparring with me today.  You could tell she didn’t want to do what you told her to do, yet she didn’t ever start an argument.  She just took a step back, and let everything play out.  She didn’t confront anything.  Something must be wrong.

  Nodding, I walked up to my bike, throwing my leg over the side.  I started her up with a rumble, and my kitten purred, just as she did when I made her my senior year of high school.  I’d put everything I made at my part-time job into my bike.  I spent hours working on it every day for months until I was satisfied with how it looked and ran.

  I flipped Gabe the bird as we exited the parking lot.  He was too busy laughing to see it though.  The first stoplight we pulled up to reminded me of why I was embarrassed.  A badass like myself was supposed to have the cute thing on the back of the bike.  Not riding on a silly scooter next to me.  A hot damn pink one at that.

  The teenagers pointing and laughing in the car next to us were about to have their asses handed to them.  I lowered the glasses to the bridge of my nose, and then let loose “the glare.”

  Ember, my darling sister, called it the “Big Brother.”  She said that it would whip you in to shape in no time fast.  I wasn’t sure if that was the case, but I did use it on her a lot when she was a kid.  Normally it shut her up, but there was no telling if she shut up because of the glare, or if she decided to cut me some slack.

  The teenagers left in a squeal of tires, and I had to laugh because of their horrified expressions they all were wearing.

  Payton’s husky laugh from beside me jolted me out of my thoughts.  “You’re badass.  Those kids just ran a red light in front of a cop!”

  I glanced back at the retreating car, and sure enough, a motorcycle cop was trailing behind them with his lights on.  At that, I laughed my ass off.  Karma was a bitch.

  We arrived at Payton’s apartment fifteen minutes later.  She parked next to her Mazda and hopped off.  I remembered helping buy the car with her only last week.  Payton was going a little crazy in the spending department with her new job.  She jumped up and down, squealing excitedly.  I just shook my head.  This woman was crazy, and all of that craziness turned me on beyond belief.  Too bad she didn’t want me back.

  “Let’s get you inside, sweet cheeks, I’ve got places to be, and here isn’t one of them.”  I said cruelly.

  Her face fell, and I felt like a total ass, but she’d made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t ready.  I didn’t think I could be around her and not want her, so this was all for nothing and I wasn’t into torture.  All I had to do was enter a room with her in it, and my dick was ready for her.

  I hadn’t had a woman in months, since the day I met her.  Being horny made me grumpy.  I was in a perpetual bad mood.  Even riding didn’t clear my head as it used to.  Now all it did was make me drive by her apartment, and check to make sure everything looked all right.

  I grabbed her elbow with my left hand, and walked her up to her door.  My brows furrowed as I noticed the door handle, and then six deadbolts that adorned the door above it.  What the fuck?

  “What the fuck?”  I asked aloud when I still drew a blank.

  She ignored me, and went to unlock the first lock, and then the bottom two.  My brows furrowed again, wondering what the heck was going on.

  “Why do you only have three of them locked?”  I questioned.

  “Why do you care?”  She shot back.

  “Tell me.”  I demanded.

  “You can go sit on a cactus.  I don’t want to talk to you right now.  You make me so mad I can’t see straight.”  She growled through gritted teeth.

  I looked at her long and hard.  “Payton.”

  I must have gotten through, because she finally explained.  “The way I figure it, if they can pick locks, they’ll just keep locking ones that weren’t locked in the first place.  I only ever lock half of them.  In addition, I switch them up.  I never lock the same pattern two days in a row.”

  That was borderline genius, if you didn’t count the little fact that a lock picker wasn’t stupid.  You had to know how a lock works first before you can pick it.  They can tell, as can I, which one is locked as soon as the picks are interested.  Not that I was going to tell her that.  She needed that extra security and peace of mind for something.  Not that I understood why.  What the heck was going on?

  “Why do you have six locks in the first place?”  I asked.

  She answered, although reluctantly.  “When I was attacked, I was too scared to stay at home.  My little brother came up with this idea, and my brain was all right with having six locks.  I could stay here without being too scared.” 

  My body froze once I heard her explanation.  “Wait a minute.  You were attacked?  You never said anything about an attack, all you said was that your boyfriend left you.”

  “He did.”  She said shortly.

  “You just said you were attacked, did your boyfriend do it?”  I demanded.

  “Ex, and no.”

  “Payton, you
will
fucking tell me.  I have ways of finding shit out, and one way or another I’ll know what happened.  Do you want it to be the easy way, or the hard way?”

  She gave me a look that clearly stated I was the dumbest man on the planet if I thought she was going to say anything now.  Consequently, I stared back at her until she finally gave in.

  She took a deep breath, and then let it out slowly.  “My boyfriend and I were walking back to our car after eating at The Watering Hole.  You know how parking is downtown.  No parking anywhere close that you don’t have to pay for.  Two people attacked us from behind.  Instead of Rory helping and fighting back, he ran away, leaving me to them.  I was beaten, and then they stole my wallet, and keys.  My freakin car wasn’t even there, and my wallet had all of three dollars in it.  I was broken for a useless set of keys and three damn dollars.”

  “You have got to be kidding.”  I whispered in a deadly tone.

  I was shocked.  Never would you have thought that she’d suffered something so horrible.  When you see her you see rainbows and fucking sunshine, and to think that her loser ex-boyfriend just left her to that fate.  She was all of five feet tall if she was lucky, she never would have stood a chance against one man, let alone two.  What a piece of shit.

  “No.  Three broken ribs, internal bleeding, broken left foot, sprained ankles, a broken hip, and a concussion.  Scrapes from the concrete covered my entire body where my clothes didn’t protect it.  Minor bruises everywhere else.”  She said as if it wasn’t a big deal.

  I felt like the biggest douche bag on the planet.  Here I was thinking of only myself, and she was recovering from a beating, let alone one hell of a betrayal from the one person she should be able to trust the most.  Instead of supporting her, I snarled, bitched, and ignored her every time we came into contact.  I thought she was a fucking tease.  Never in a million years would I have imagined this was the reason for her hot and cold nature, and her shitty attitude.

  “It’s okay, Max.  I didn’t want anyone to know anyway.  You can go now.”  She said as she held the front door open for me to exit.

  I did so reluctantly.

  “Just tell me two things.”  I said gruffly, “What were their names?”

  “Jake and Kyle Donner.”  She whispered. 

  The name didn’t ring any bells, but by tomorrow, I would know everything about them.  Right down to when they took a piss.  “What about your ex-boyfriend.  What’s his name?” 

  She looked at me puzzled.  “Rory Christenson.  Why?”

  I gave her a smile.  It wasn’t a nice smile either.  It was a calculated one.  Tomorrow, he wouldn’t know what hit him.  She looked at me warily, but wisely stayed silent.  I’m sure by now she figured out why I wanted the names.  She knew I wasn’t going to let this go.

  “You can go now.”  She said shortly.

  I smiled a sincere smile this time. Taking her face into my hands, I gave her a soft kiss on the lips.  “When you’re ready, I’ll be here waiting for you.”

Chapter 1

The object of war is not to die for your country, but make the other bastard die for his.

-George S. Patton

This was stupid.  I was stupid.  It was crazy.  We loved to fight.  Never once did he say something that I agreed with.  The only thing we had was raw passion.  We were both so very attracted to each other that we burned with it.  He would walk into the room, and I would instantly want him with a ferocity that was probably unhealthy. 

We had that relationship where the little boy would push the little girl down on the playground, and then kick dirt on her.  Then he’d tell the whole school that she smelled like poop.  When we were around the others of our group, we’d fight like cats and dogs.  In private was an entirely different matter.  He was sweet, and funny, we laughed, and he listened while I cried.

Ember sent me a text earlier tonight saying her brother was being recalled back into the military.  She told me they were having a party for him as a going away sort of thing, but I declined.  I didn’t think I could do it.  That is until about five until midnight when I gave up, and went anyway.

Which led me to now.  I was at Max’s door.  No one was at Ember’s besides those that belonged there.  Max had gone home nearly an hour ago.  I’d been standing here for over twenty minutes, trying to work the courage up to knock.

My phone jingled in my pocket, and I dug it out to look at it.  It was from Max.

Max:  Gonna be gone for a while.  Give me a call on if you need me.  I’ll check my messages when I can.

Simple.  Pure Max.  He knew I’d worry if I couldn’t get a hold of him, and he didn’t want me to worry.  Over the past six months, I’ve shared many nights on the phone with him.  Him talking me out of my night terrors.