I break out in a sweat. My mouth goes dry and my belly tumbles.
“Hey.”
The sound of his voice pulls my attention.
“You ready?” He hops down from the truck tire and opens the passenger side door. With a sweep of his hand, he bows. “Your chariot awaits.”
I laugh and close the space between us. Stopping just before I hop up into the truck, my eyes find his. “Thanks.” For finally noticing me.
“No problem.” He motions for me to get in. “Load up, princess.”
He called me princess. My heart stumbles, tripping over itself, and I jump in. Once inside the truck, I watch from the rearview as he checks the straps one last time. I take a deep breath and laze in the scent of fresh cut wood and citrus that permeates the cab.
This is happening. I’m in Rex’s truck and we’re talking. My heart pounds so hard I hear it in my ears.
Do I tell him who I am? Right now?
Oh, hey, thanks for the ride and by the way I’m your foster sister, you know, the one who promised to protect you and failed. Ugh. I rub my temples. No, I can’t just blurt it out. I don’t know how he feels about me. Maybe he thinks I knew what was going on in that basement and didn’t do anything about it. He could hate my guts. He’d have every right to. Oh God. My stomach churns. What if that’s what he thinks?
The truck shifts as he jumps off the back and walks around to the driver’s side.
He swings open the door and slides in. “CB900. Nice ride. What year?”
Be calm. Don’t blow this. “1980.”
He turns the ignition. “Classic.”
“Hardly.” I pick my nails and look out the window. “More like a classic piece of shit.”
Backing out of the alley, he turns onto the main road. “It’s a flat tire, Mac.” He chuckles and the sound sends warmth through my chest all the way to my fingertips. “I found two nails in the front tire. The bike’s good; it’s where you’re riding that’s fuckin’ it up.”
My cheeks flame. The construction development. That must be where I picked up the nails. Shit. I was so consumed with Rex and his sleepover guest I wasn’t paying attention to what I was riding over. “Point taken.”
“Airing up the tire will do no good. You’ve got holes to patch.”
“What? So . . . um, no gas station?”
He stops at a red light and shifts his body slightly to face me. “No. But I promise to bypass the ditch and drop you at home. Where do you live?”
Oh crap! He’s going to see where I live. Not so much where I live, but how close I live to him. “Um . . . I’m off of 67th and Kelmore.”
He narrows his eyes. “No shit? That’s by me.”
“Huh.” I laugh and it sounds completely unnatural. “Crazy.”
Stalker. Psycho. Yes, yes, and yes.
Turning right at the light, he heads toward my house. “How long have you been working at The Blackout?”
“Not too long.” I swing my gaze out the side window.
“Nice.”
My knee is bouncing and I can’t think straight. He’s trying to make small talk, and the polite thing to do would be to ask him something surface, but I know everything about him already. Except . . .
“Is your girlfriend cool with you taking home strange women you pick up in dark alleys?” I don’t turn my head to see his expression, afraid of the softness I’ll see in his eyes at the mention of his girlfriend.
“Not sure. I don’t—” His cellphone rings.
I turn just as he nabs it from the center console. What was he about to say?
“Bitch. Thanks for helping us break down and load up.” He sounds half angry, half annoyed. “Yeah, well I hope the pussy was worth it.” He cringes and looks at me apologetically.
I smile. I’ve lived around instability my entire life, been around my fair share of guy talk. Nothing shocks me anymore.
“Right, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Later.” He ends the call. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t sweat it. I work in a bar, remember?” I notice where we are. “Oh, take a left here. It’s the ninth house on the right.”
The truck inches down the street. “Nice hood.”
“Thanks. It’s all right, except all the houses look the same. For the first month I lived here I kept pulling into the wrong driveway.”
“I can see that.”
We round to my house, and before the truck comes to a stop, my blood turns ice cold and my muscles tense. Shit, fuck, shit!
Hatch’s Harley is parked in my driveway.
Four
Fear of the things that I can’t see
Rage at the loss of control
None of them come to save me
And the damage at last takes its toll.
Rex
I pull up to Mac’s house and turn into the driveway. “Sick. Is that a Fatboy?”
She doesn’t answer, and she’s sitting up so straight her back is off the seat. Her eyes are huge and staring at the Harley illuminated by my headlights. I throw the truck in park when the reality of what’s probably going on hits me.
Doesn’t have a man, my ass.
Even if they’re broken up, she’s obviously more than a little unnerved that I’m bringing her home with that dude here.
I turn toward her still-frozen frame. “It’s cool, Mac. I’m not a threat. Let me unload your bike and I’ll be out of here.”
Her head jerks and she swings her gaze to mine. “What?”
I nod to the Fatboy. “Your man, right? I don’t want to cause you any problems.”
“Ew.” Her face twists as if I offered her dog shit. “No, he’s not my boyfriend. He’s kinda my roommate’s.”
The way she stiffened when she saw that bike, there’s no way her and Harley guy don’t have history. I tilt my head and study her, trying to decide whether or not to believe her. No, she’s lying. Unless . . .
Adrenaline races through my veins and I squeeze the steering wheel to keep from making fists. “This dude dangerous? To you and your roommate?”
“Oh, no. I mean he’s got horrible manners and he’s kind of a dick, but that’s it.”
I relax my grip and my shoulders drop. Shit. What am I doing? I’ve wasted enough time as it is. I need to drop this bike off along with the girl who rides it and get to sleep. “Sweet. I’ll get your bike.”
I hop down from the truck and go around the bed, releasing ratchet straps. The low grumble of the garage door gets my attention. I look up briefly only to get stuck staring.
Mac’s ditched the messenger bag that she was wearing like a shield earlier. Her small waist and round hips swing in an unconsciously feminine way as she heads toward me. “I’ll help you walk it down the ramp.”
With what looks like little effort, she hops up on the truck’s back tire and swings her leg into the bed, one after the other. I try not to notice how good her legs look in the skin tight black pants she’s wearing, or how hot it is that she’s sporting a bad-ass pair of black leather biker boots complete with straps and buckles.
She grabs her side of the handlebars and places her other hand on the seat.
I do the same on my side. “Go slow. We’re at an angle.”
Little by little we inch the bike down the ramp to the driveway. She lets it go and I walk it into the garage.
I lean the bike onto its kickstand and motion around the space. “You know what this place needs?”
Her eyebrows pinch together in the cutest way. “What?”