Hellion, a New Adult Romance Novel (The Rebel Series) (31 page)

He snorts.
 
“Bullshit.
 
And you’ve been nice to her too.
 
I saw you putting her feet up yesterday and making her tea.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t
rub
those swollen feet, now did I? Unlike some people…”

Colin jerks his head back to us at that bit of news.
 
“Dude, you rubbed her feet?
 
What’s wrong with you?
 
You like her?
 
She’s fucking pregnant.”

Mick is disgusted with both of us.
 
“No, I don’t
like
her.
 
Not like that.
 
But she’s pregnant and she has sore feet.
 
Besides … she doesn’t have a contagious disease, Colin.”

Colin’s chest puffs out.
 
“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means.
 
You avoid her like she has the plague or something. Why are you being such a dick about her, anyway?”

I put my hands out and place one over Mick’s face and one over Colin’s, smooshing their noses in. “Shush. Stop talking.
 
I’m about to have a bitch attack and you two are likely to get seriously injured.” I sigh out heavily and let my hands slide off their chins.
 
“Listen … wait out here. I’m going to go in there and talk to her woman-to-woman and explain to her very calmly and rationally how it’s not appropriate or helpful for her to come.
 
Then we can leave, just the three of us.”

Mick laughs once.
 
“Yeah.
 
Okay.
 
Let us know how that works out for ya.”

I ignore his mockery and go back into the apartment.
 
I’m strong.
 
I’m powerful.
 
I can handle this pregnant chick with her shirt buttoned up to her neck and her pony tail pulled so tight she looks Chinese.
 
Pfft.
 
Walk in the park, bitches.

Alissa throws her phone up to her ear and says, “Oh, hello, Teagan?
 
Hi, this is Alissa.”

“Get that stick out of your butt, Alissa.
 
I know she’s not on the phone.”
 
I drop into the armchair across from the couch.
 
She’s standing in front of it, the coffee table between us.

She lowers her phone and puts it into her backpack.
 
“I’m going with you guys,” she says in a softer tone as she lowers herself down into the cushions behind her legs.

“I need you to
not
go with us,” I say, also trying to go a little softer than I feel right now.
 
Honestly, I just want to body slam her like I do with my younger siblings sometimes when they don’t listen, but her pregnancy makes that kind of difficult.
 
I’ve never viewed being pregnant as having a superpower, but I’m starting to come around to that way of thinking.

“Please?” she says, “You don’t understand.”
 
And then the tears come.

I thought I could hold out.

I thought I could stand up to whatever argument she had up her sleeve.

I thought I could be a badass mofo and put this tubby, swollen-ankled twat monster in her place.

I was wrong.

All her crap comes pouring out in a mess of tears and mucus goo and I don’t even want to know what else.

“I have nothing and no one!” she wails. “I’m powerless and penniless and completely without a compass in my life!
 
There’s only
one
person in the entire world who cares about me right now and you’re going to help her and I need to do that too! I need to matter!
 
I need to know I’m worth something … that I count! What kind of mother sits down on the sidelines while her hero is being dragged through the mud?!
 
I can’t be that kind of mother! I have to do the right things and make up for this … this …”
 
She can’t finish.
 
There’s too much goo.
 
Too much emotion.

I grit my teeth over and over, trying to keep feeding the anger that was helping me stay strong and thereby keeping her out of our plans.
 
Her
coup de grâce
is too much, though.
 
I’m powerless to stop this freight train of awful as she continues to spew words that are too pitiful to hear.

Her tone becomes suddenly very soft.
 
Very clear.
 
Very resigned.
 
“The father of my child threw me away like a piece of trash.
 
I need to know that I stand for something.
 
That I am worth having around.”

The camel’s back?
 
Yeah.
 
It’s broken. That last straw was just a tad too heavy.
 
I jump to my feet, pacing back and forth in front of the low table between us.
 
“Fine.
 
You want to go?
 
Fine
.
 
You want to get in trouble, maybe get arrested and have your baby in jail?
 
Fine.
 
Fine!
 
You’re the parent, not me!
 
You’re the one who will be setting a terrible example for a brand new baby!
 
You’re the one who will have a black mark on her life for all of eternity!”

She stands and smiles.
 
“Yes.
 
I agree to your terms.”

I stop and put my hands on my hips.
 
“Those. Weren’t. Terms! They were dire warnings meant to scare you off.”

She tosses her pony tail over her shoulder.
 
“I don’t scare off.
 
Not anymore.”

I leave the room and go back out into the hallway because I don’t trust myself not to say the wrong thing.

“So, we ready to go?” Mick asks, his smile back full force.

I glare at him and say nothing.
 
I’m five seconds away from slapping someone and his cheek is mighty tempting.
 
Damn, he is too cute for words. Hey … maybe if I did that he’d grab me and push me into the wall and start kissing me all over …

My fantasy is interrupted by a nightmare on spindly yet swollen legs.

Alissa joins us in the hallway.

Mick raises his eyebrows at me and then follows me down the stairs into the garage.
 
When we get outside a few seconds before Alissa and Colin, he leans in and whispers, “I thought you were going to handle her.”

“I did.
 
She was in drama club forever.
 
She can help us.”
 
I can’t look him in the eye.

“She cried, didn’t she?”

I huff out an annoyed breath.
 
“Yes.
 
Fuck me, she cried all over the damn place.”

“And the fact that she bragged about her drama club membership didn’t make you at all suspicious of those tears?”

I watch her coming out the door, Colin behind her with a sick expression on his face.

Alissa is walking over to Mick’s car, her chin held up and her eyes full of determination. She’s acting tough and confident, but I’m seeing something else now.

“Nah,” I say, for the first time thinking maybe this was the right thing to do, to let her come along.
 
“She’s not acting.”

“Okay, if you say so.”
 
Mick chuckles.
 
“Man, you are too easy.”

I freeze on my way over to the car.
 
“You did
not
just call me easy.”

He turns around to walk backwards, his hands held up in front of him.
 
“Who me?
 
Never.
 
That’s the dead last word I’d ever use to describe you, actually.”

I walk fast to catch up to him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, my heart picking up the pace a little.
 
His expression is pure devilry and I love it.

He opens the door and gestures for me to get into the passenger seat.
 
“You know exactly what I mean,” he says, waiting for me to get in.

I stop when we’re almost nose to nose, the door between us.
 
“I’m not difficult.”

“You don’t think so?” he asks.
 
His eyes are dancing with humor.

“No, I don’t.”
 
I’m close enough that I can see sparse patches of beard stubble on his chin.
 
I want to reach out and touch one of them and pet it, but I hold back.
 
Touching him even once would be a mistake.
 
I don’t think I’d ever come back from it.

“Well, you sure as hell ain’t easy,” he says, gesturing to the interior of the car with his chin.
 
“Get in.”

Something about him makes me want to challenge everything he says.
 
I should just do what he’s telling me to do, but instead, I give him some shit.
 
“Make me.”
 
A thrill shoots through me at my challenge.

I think he’s going to just say something back, give me some shit, but instead he moves.
 
And he does it so quickly, it sends my heart into overdrive as I realize I just became prey.

I squeal as I leap sideways to get away from him, jumping into the passenger side of the car and sliding over the leather bench-seat away from him.

He leans in and grins.
 
“That’s what I thought.”
 
And then he’s gone and the door is shut between us.
 
He smiles all the way around the front of the car, clearly proud of himself.

Way too proud, if you ask me.

That cocky smile fuels me into action.
 
I can’t stand that he got one over on me.
 
Leaning over to reach the steering wheel, I lay on the horn just as Mick is passing the front grill of the car.
 
He jumps about a foot into the air and the smile disappears off his face for a few seconds as he tries to figure out what just happened.

I’m still laughing when the four of us pull out of the parking lot and head out to the highway.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

I DON’T KNOW WHY I’M surprised to find that Mick and I like the same kind of music. And, oh my g-spot, does he have a great voice.
 
He can sing anything.
 
When we do a duet of Pink’s
Just Give Me A Reason
, my panties pretty much melt right off me.
 
I’ve never sang with a guy before and it’s almost to the point of being intoxicating.
 
The whole thing of Mick and me being a really bad idea and a non-starter is going right out the window.

Music is a seriously powerful aphrodisiac. My mind is going into all kinds of dark places. I’m ready to demand that he pull over into a rest stop so we can do it in a bathroom when Alissa leans over into the front seat.

“Pee stop.
 
I have to pee,” she says.

It’s a sign.
 
I was thinking Mick and I could do it at a rest stop and now Alissa needs a rest stop.
 
I squirm in my seat as I imagine getting all hot and heavy with Mick in less than five minutes. Could it really happen?
 
Should it happen? Would he be into it? Is there something seriously wrong with me that I’d consider getting busy in or near a nasty public restroom?
   
Maybe, but I don’t care.
 
I’m too turned on with my duet-induced fantasies and just looking at him sitting not two feet away from me to think properly.

I glance over and all I can see of his face is his right cheek, but even so, he is too sexy for words.
 
His strong hands curl over the steering wheel, and a tattoo of a skull peeks out from under his shirt sleeve. His leg muscles strain the material of his jeans, and I really, really want to know what’s going on underneath it all.
 
I am seriously sick over this guy and all he has to do to infect me is sing a frigging song.
 
Oy.

“Side of the road?” Mick asks Alissa.

“
Ew
.
 
No.
 
I need a toilet.
 
I’m pregnant, okay?”

I roll my eyes.
 
“How often are you going to pull that card?”

“As often as I need to.” She leans back into the back seat and I know she’s smiling in self-satisfaction.

“I need to go too,” says Colin.
 
“Take the next exit.”

I turn around and play frown at him.
 
“Do you need a toilet too?”

He looks out the window.
 
“Yeah.
 
Whatever.”

I turn back around, very unsatisfied with his answer.
 
All the spark is gone from him. It’s like riding around with a corpse in the back seat.
 
A corpse and a pain-in-the-ass, high-maintenance, pregnant chick.

We all end up using the facilities and then Mick disappears around the back of the small building that houses the toilets.
 
Curious what he’s up to, I follow him, finding him about twenty feet away staring out into an area heavy with trees.

“What’s up?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer, so I keep going, getting closer to him with every step.
 
“Are you okay?
 
Is she making you nuts?
 
Are you finding your happy place out here?”

I draw even with him and nearly have a heart attack when he jumps to life and grabs me around the waist.

My hands go up to his chest to fend him off, but I’m not pushing too hard. “What are you doing?” I’m out of breath and I haven’t even moved yet, really.
 
I don’t want to move.
 
Maybe he read my mind in the car.
 
Maybe he wants to get busy out here too.

“Gotcha,” he says grinning.
 
He leans towards my face.