Under Locke Read online

  "You're impatient and you're mean," I corrected him, not bothering to admit that I'd called him an asshole in my head at least a dozen times. A dozen times an hour that is. “You’re rude—and forgive me for saying it, but you make some dumb friggin’ decisions. And you think I’m stupid? Why the hell would you risk hurting your hand by getting into fights with people? That’s stupid.” Should I have stopped? Yes. Did I? No. “What do you have to be so pissed off about anyway?”

  It took me a second before what I said really hit me. What had I just done?

  Stood up for myself. Sort of. It wasn’t like I could take it back either.

  Dex's nostrils flared, his face still impassive. "Said I didn’t mean it," he repeated in a crisp tone.

  "It's not that easy." I stood there, waiting for something I wasn't even sure of.

  "Yeah it is. I said sorry, now you can quit bein' pissed," he said the words like a command.

  Oh my God. "No." I narrowed my eyes at him. "It doesn’t mean anything if Sonny had to threaten you to be nice.”

  That same muscle in his neck quivered again as he stared back at me. “Look…” That burning blue gaze made a slow trek from my face down my body and up again. Slow, slow, slow. Under the thick black stubble of his neck, his throat bobbed. The texture of his voice got rougher. "I'm sorry, all right? Ain’t that enough?"

  This was pointless. I loved words. I’d always loved words. I loved the freedom you could find in them. I loved manipulating them. I loved the way they sounded and the power they held.

  But sometimes, sometimes, they weren’t enough.

  Sometimes strings of letters were meaningless in comparison to actions. Actions held the power of a choir versus the strength of a solitary singer. My bones recognized that this was all I would get, this one person a cappella.

  “Be the bigger person,” my mom would have said. I didn’t really want to but I lifted a shoulder anyway. My breath came out shaky. "Saying that you’re sorry doesn’t take back what’s been done, at least in my book. I can’t just forget it overnight."

  Dex's throat bobbed again, those eyes beamed a hot line straight into me. "I wanna ask if you’re bein’ serious, but I think you are."

  When I didn't say anything in return, he licked his bottom lip, looking down my length one more time.

  “Say somethin’."

  I didn't.

  He stared at me for a minute, the tension in his shoulders tightening before he let out a whoosh of air. Pure exasperation. "C’mon."

  Was I that resentful that he could see that I wasn't happy with him? That I'd rather sit in a portable toilet than next to him? I'd spent the last few years trying my best not to stress about things, trying to take care of myself, and the first time someone was genuinely mean to me–upset me—I crumbled?

  I could still be hurt, but I didn't want to let that linger in me too long. Not anymore.

  "Ritz?" he asked in a low voice.

  I shrugged. God. There really wasn't a point in being bitter forever. Constantly raging against him went against the majority of the cells in my body. “Forget it. Apology accepted. I won't say anything to Sonny again.” Words, words, and more empty words. I wasn't lying, I was going to find another job and never say a word about Dex again.

  Beeping the doors unlocked with the key fob, I lowered my eyes to his throat, noticing for the first time that Dex had put on his Widowmakers vest at some point.

  I cleared my throat and eyed his Adam’s apple. “See you Tuesday.”

  Dex didn’t say a word as I got into my car. He only took a step back when I turned the ignition.

  When I glanced back in the rearview mirror after pulling out of the lot, he was still exactly where I’d left him.

  Chapter Seven

  “Son, on a scale from one to ten, how mad would you be if I quit my job?” I asked over breakfast.

  And by breakfast I meant we’d both gotten up well after noon, but since it was the first meal of the day, I figured it was still considered breakfast. Wouldn't it? I didn’t have a clue what time he’d finally gotten home. I was in bed by three and promptly passed out before the backlight on my cell phone was out.

  Sonny made a noise that sounded like a muted chuckle in his throat before peering up at me, chewing on a piece of bacon while raising a tired auburn eyebrow. “More trouble in paradise?”

  I scoffed. “Dex is kind of an asshole.”

  Sonny’s nostrils flared and his lips twitched. The doofus was trying his best not to laugh. "Kid, tell me something I don't know."

  The second person I was going to beat after Dex was my brother. "You sent me to work with him," I might have hissed out.

  "Because I know you can handle it."

  Handling Dex Locke would be like handling a scorpion. You were gonna get that poisonous sting at some point. Unfortunately for me, that sting had a taste for Iris Taylor. The urge to babble to him that Dex had gotten an attitude with me in the parking lot was right on the tip of my tongue. But... I'd just told Dex that I wouldn't keep going to Sonny and whining.

  Damn.

  "Right?" he egged on, taunting me.

  I had to settle for grumbling. "Yeah."

  He lifted that dark eyebrow. “I told you I'd knock his teeth down his throat.”

  "Don't forget his kneecaps." I kicked his shin underneath the kitchen table.

  Sonny laughed before shoving another piece of charred bacon into his mouth.

  "No, it's fine I guess I’m just not used to his type of personality You know—bossy and brooding." By bossy I meant jerk. Because that was the question. He was good-looking—very good-looking—and he had a successful business, what could really be that bad that sent him into such a crash?

  He smirked. “Ris, you just described all my friends," he chuckled. "But I get it. He's not so bad, kid. I promise I wouldn't have sent you over there if he was a bad guy. He's a loner," he paused, thinking about what he said before adding, "usually an asshole, too, but he won't do a thing to you. He’s got sisters, he knows how to behave around Widows’ family."

  Besides make me cry and yell. No big deal.

  "But why?"

  Sonny looked at me long and hard, his mouth twitching with indecision. He finally sighed. "Same reason we all have issues."

  Because of other people?

  What a lame excuse. There was more to that story but whatever he wanted to say, whatever he should have said, he wouldn't.

  "If you really hate it, we can find you something else. The bar always needs help, but I don't know about you being around the MC constantly."

  “Maybe. You’re not a dick, and Trip is really nice,” I tried to explain to him.

  “I’m not a dick to you, and Trip’s nice because he likes you,” Sonny said.

  I sighed and cut into my not-fully-cooked pancake.

  “Look, Ris, I’d rather you not quit since you’re right around the corner from me. But you’re a big girl. You’ve been on your own forever now. I can spot you on money, no problem.” He shot me a pointed look. “It’s up to you.”

  Damn it, I hated it when reasonable people had reasonable points. Did I really want to ask him for money?

  No.

  So I blew out a long breath from my lips. “I’ll try my best to put up with him, but if I get arrested for assault, you’re bailing me out of jail. I wouldn’t cut it in the pen.”

  My half-brother grinned wide. “Doubt that, but I’ll bail you out if it happens. If he acts up again, treat him like you would Will if Will were tripping out.”

  Like my little brother? My reply was a silent expression that reeked of confusion. I'd pinch Will's nipples if he did something so thoughtless and stupid. The end.

  “If he was being a dumbass, you’d give him hell, wouldn’t you?”

  “Well, yeah.” Someone had to.

  Sonny raised his eyebrows up and down. “Just don’t let him get away with all the shit he does. I know Dex. You make him see what he’s done and he’ll react. He’
s not a total shit. He’s got a big mouth and a short temper.”

  I thought about the night before and how he’d asked me for forgiveness. Forgiveness that I only half-assed gave him. Hmm.

  Sonny’s words, along with my insistence that I really didn’t care too much about staying in my boss’s good graces, swept over me in understanding and approval. I was already looking for another job, though that search wasn't going successfully. What was Dex going to do if I was being honest with him? Fire me? Like I friggin' cared by that point.

  That was a lie, I did care. At least until I found another job, I'd care. There was always that back-up plan in the form of trampling over what remained of my pride and asking Son for money.

  “I can do that,” I told him honestly.

  He nodded slowly. “I know you can, Ris.”

  With my game plan in mind, I smiled. “You got plans for the day?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  I batted my eyelashes, which I’m pretty sure still had clumps of mascara on them from the night before, and grinned. “Want to clean out your garage?”

  ~ * ~ *

  We spent that Sunday afternoon going through Sonny's dusty, filled-with-crap garage.

  At least five times I heard him muttering, "Only for you, Ris. Only for you." We managed to go through half of it, quitting only when the mosquitoes got so bad I was whacking a body part every other second.

  By the time I came out of the shower, Sonny was dressed and stated that he had “club business”—whatever that meant—to attend to and that he’d be back later.

  I made dinner for two, ate my share, and then molded my ass to the couch to watch television for a little bit. A little bit turned into hours, hours that added to my relaxation with rerun after rerun. The last thing I remembered before passing out a little after midnight was thinking that I should have moved to Vegas to get a job with the guys at Pawn Stars instead of Pins.

  ~ * ~ *

  “Just leave her on the couch.”

  “Bro, that’s fuckin’ uncomfortable.”

  Someone sighed but I was still in my loopy, I’m-fighting-to-stay-asleep-world while the two voices spoke from what seemed like dimensions away. My dreamscape, a place that looked just like the park my dad had taken me to every week when he’d been a permanent fixture, was tilting on its axis as the voices outside got louder.

  “You’re right. Let me go take a piss, and then I’ll get her up," someone said.

  The silence that followed should have made it easier for me to slip back into my dream, but the depression of the cushion under me did the opposite. Two arms slipped beneath me, one spanning the width of my shoulder blades and the other hooking under both knees. Then I was up and against something warm and solid, something specifically that smelled like a hint of exhaust over clean laundry detergent. It was good. Even my half asleep dream-ass knew it.

  My eyes cracked open to see that I was being carried down the hallway of Sonny’s house. My face rocked against a chest, my nose pressed to a man’s throat. And I knew, instinctively, that it wasn’t Sonny’s. That chump would have made me walk to my room.

  I tilted my head up, blinking slowly to take in the person carrying me. Hair so dark it that couldn't be Trip. But the high cheekbones and hard angle of a jaw were all I needed to realize that it was Dex.

  Dex!

  “What are you—,“ I started to yawn, fighting the closing pull of my eyes.

  "Go back to sleep," he murmured under his breath without even moving his lips.

  He didn’t look down at me when he stopped at the closed bedroom door or when he opened it by putting my butt on what I imagined was a raised knee. Dex finally looked down when he was setting me on the mattress gently. He didn’t smile or wait for me to ask why he was putting me to bed.

  He took a step back in my super dark room and whispered, “Night, Ritz,” before closing the door and leaving me in there alone.

  If I would have been less tired, I probably would have wondered what the hell was going on instead of falling right back asleep, but I wasn’t, and trying to figure out Dex’s actions wasn’t something a half-asleep brain, much less a fully competent one, could handle.

  Chapter Eight

  When I got up the next morning, I was seriously asking myself what the hell had happened the night before.

  I knew it couldn’t have been a dream. Dex The Dick carrying me to my room had happened.

  It. Had. Happened.

  And I couldn’t understand for the life of me why A) he’d been at Sonny’s house so late. B) Why he’d taken it upon himself to get me to my bedroom. C) Was a repeat of A and B.

  I could have walked or at least stumbled my way to bed.

  It being Monday, my brother was at work by the time I woke up. Dinner from the night before had mysteriously disappeared and the dishes had been washed.

  Hallelujah.

  Limited by the lack of funds in my account until payday, I had to settle for the free things life had to offer. Like laying around the house, watching television, going through catalogues Sonny had on the kitchen table. Basically, I was a lazy ass the first half of the day.

  In the middle of it, I sent Will another email. It’d been more than a month since the last time I’d talked to him but that wasn’t completely unheard of. In the past year, I'd only gotten to see him a total of a week's worth. I should have been a seasoned professional at keeping calm when I didn’t get anything from him but the fact was, I worried about Will every day.

  He was my little brother. The boy I'd cared for like he was mine, before and after our mom had died. He was the reason why I learned what working a double was, the reason why I'd worked two jobs even while I was sick, and the reason for so many other things I learned.

  A lot of times I felt like I was alive just for him. And then he'd joined the Army and left me in Florida. I mean, he was happy and that's what mattered but it still didn't fix the fact that I missed him.

  That was life, wasn't it? Losing and regaining?

  By mid-afternoon, I started to get cabin fever and walked out of the house to see if there was anything to do outside. There was. Sonny had weeds coming out every square inch around his bushes and lawn. Under normal circumstances, I probably would have pretended like there was nothing to do, but that’s just how bored I was and how badly I wanted my mind on other things.

  I found a pair of thick gloves in Sonny’s garage that were way too big, pulled a long sleeve shirt on to avoid getting burned and went to work.

  An hour and a half later, when my back was aching and I felt a warm tingle on my neck that screamed sunburn, I stuffed all the weeds into a trash bag and stood in the middle of the lawn, exhausted. The loud purr of multiple motorcycles echoed through the neighborhood. It being after work hours, a lot of people had pulled into their homes so I wasn’t really planning to go out of my way to look and see where the bikes were coming from. It was second nature. A bike was a bike, wasn't it?

  In the middle of hoisting a bag over my head to throw into the trash, two bikers with buzz cuts and hard glares drove by slowly. Their eyes were on me and the house. They didn’t stop, but as soon as they’d crossed the driveway, they picked up speed and zoomed out of the neighborhood.

  Weird.

  ~ * ~ *

  The worst part of going to work on Tuesday was not knowing how to act around Dex. It shouldn’t surprise me that he was hanging out with Sonny if they were in the same club, but still. Sonny was warm and sweet—though he had been specific and said it was only to me—while Dex was a temperamental bag of beaver dung. Maybe it was that whole “opposites attract” thing they had going on.

  Maybe.

  Luckily, it was Blake that came in and opened, leaving me to wonder where The Dick was. I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask Blake or anyone, but I let myself think about it in my head. It was like mentally preparing myself for an incoming hurricane.

  Business was pretty steady right from doors opening when Slim showed
up. There was tattoo after tattoo for the first couple of hours, then a nipple piercing—which made my own nipples hurt—and a guy who wanted an eyebrow pierced. It was closer to eight at night when Dex finally showed up, looking mildly annoyed as usual, and striding directly to the back without a wave or a nod to anyone.

  Once again, no one said anything. Blake and Slim didn’t even look at each other. I didn’t understand that at all because I was annoyed when he walked in.