Dark Universe (14 page)

“You’re going to what?” 
Drake the Ninja strikes again.

“For the love of all the baby horses, will you please make some noise or something before sneaking up on me?”  He chuckles at my outburst so I glare at him and turn to finish my angry shoveling.

“What’d that shovel ever do to you, sunshine?” 

“DON’T call me Sunshine,” I growl back, still shoveling.

“You’ve never had a problem with it before,” he says.

“Well, you’ve never ditched me out for another booty call before!”  I shout and whirl around to face him, sending the shovel flying off to my right.  Before he can say anything I get right up in his face and shove my finger in that damned sexy chest of his, holding back the jolt I get from touching him.   “I might not have made myself clear before.  I. Do. Not. Share.  So if you want to get your jollies off with some randoms then you had better cry off with me beforehand.”  As soon as the words are out of my mouth I feel as though something has cracked my whole body in half.  “Actually, you had just better not be getting your jollies off with anyone except me.”

Drake looks down at my finger and then back at me before stepping backward, causing my hand to drop uselessly to my side.  “Lola, I think that…”

“Bitch, answer your phone!  Lola, its Nina!  Answer your damn…”

“Hey girl this isn’t…”   I pause when I hear the cry of desperate relief come from the other line and my heart literally stops. 
No!
 My brain goes into instant denial the moment Nina’s frantic cries register.  I got the shock of my life last night when I found out someone had tried to nab my best friend.  He was unsuccessful thank God.   When I was first told of Connor’s situation with his old boss and why he was in Wyoming, an alarm went off in my head, and I could’ve killed Connor right then and there for putting my best friend in that situation.  The look of utter regret and self-doubt in his gaze softened me enough to rethink that course of action.

The whole situation seems totally unbelievable to me, and it’s hard to come to grips with something so out of the normal.  To have a mobster type business man set on capturing and possibly killing my best friend and her boyfriend is a totally ridiculous concept to grasp in the small city of Cheyenne, Wyoming.  Now, as Nina shouts into the phone on a barely controlled sob, the reality of the situation hits me full force.

I manage to speak through the fog of disbelief clouding my mind, but when Nina informs me in a firm voice that she is going after her love and the ones who took him, my entire body stiffens and I have to fight to sound calm.

“Nins, you have to calm down and think,” I manage.  Drake grabbed both of my upper arms at one point and is now shaking me, demanding I tell him what’s going on.  I hold my finger up just as Nina informs me in that same bizarrely strong tone, that I need to trust her and then hangs up.

I stare at my phone for all of two seconds before some part of my subconscious gives me a mental bitch slap. 
“What the fuck are you waiting for, Chase?!  You’re best friend needs you.”

Drake must see the change in my expression because he lets go of my arms and asks again, “What the hell is going on?  You’re white a ghost!”

“Drake, I need you right now.  I need to you come with me to see if you can help Nina and Connor.” 

He looks at me, searching for a split second, and when I turn to walk away he reaches out and grabs my arm again.  “Lola, what…”

“Drake, are you with me or not?  This is Nina!  I was never able to help her all the times her life went to shit.  I can help her now, and I could do it better with you but I will do it without you.”

“Let’s go, you’ll talk on the way.”  He swings me around and we jog over to the truck and jump in.  I’m still swinging my door closed when Drake peels off and I motion him in the direction of where Nina said she was going.

“Drive faster; we need to catch up with her before she gets herself killed,” I order and Drake steps on the gas without protest.

“Okay, start talking, Chase.  What the fuck is going on?”

I take a deep breath that ends on a sob.  “Oh God, Drake!  This can’t happen to her!  Not again.  She can’t lose Connor!”  I press my fist into my lips to stop the tears from falling. 

“Lola, look at me.”  Drake says softly, not once letting up on the speed or taking his eyes from the road.  “Tell me what’s wrong, and I will do whatever I can to help you, but you have to tell me.”

I nod, sit up straighter in my seat, and start from the beginning.  I tell him everything about Connor and his boss.  The picture they took of Nina and the attempted kidnapping.  At that last part Drake finally whips his head around to look at me, then slowly turns back to the road.

“This happened two days ago?  We were just at her house last night?”

 I look down at my hands guiltily and sigh.  “Yea, they were trying to keep it as quiet as possible, so Nina and I caked her face in makeup to cover the bruises and she wore a sweater so you wouldn’t notice the bruises.  The fact that the lights were off during the movie probably helped.”

“Yea, and I was too busy thinking about getting you into bed again.  Shit, this doesn’t look good.  From what I gathered from the conversation and your outburst a second ago, Connor is missing.  It’s no wonder your girl is freaking out.”  He seems to be talking to himself, and I let the comment about getting me into bed slide for now, because we have more pressing matters to deal with.

“We… we probably shouldn’t jump to conclusions though right?  I mean the chances of them actually getting to Connor are pretty low right?”  I ask desperately, hoping for any confirmation that this could all be one big mistake.

Drake steps on the gas harder and passes a tractor before swinging back into the right lane.  “What did she say exactly?  Did she give you any particulars?”

“No! She just told me that they have him and she gave me this address.  I know it because it used to be an old farm house.  It went out of business when I was in high school.  My father almost bought the land for an expansion, and then…things happened.”

“I don’t know.  I don’t have a good feeling about this.  Nina doesn’t seem like the type of person to freak out for no reason.  From what you’ve told me, she has been through her fair share of shit and she’s still a tough chick.  I know that’s not what you want to hear right now, but my gut is telling me there’s some foul play going on here.”

I turn my head stiffly and look out the window, scanning every car in front of us, searching for signs of Nina.  “Lola, no matter what is really going on, I won’t let anything happen to you or to Nina.”  I turn towards Drake, and he’s still staring out at the road as we swerve through traffic.  “I will do everything I can to make this right for her.  I know what she means to you.”  Drake’s eyes snap to the right lane and he honks the horn.  “There’s your girl.”  I roll down my window and my eyes widen at the fierce, deadly expression on Nina’s beautiful face.  She looks like she could walk through fire and not even flinch.  Some small pressure inside me snaps, and oddly I think of Drake for just a second before shouting out into the wind between our vehicles.

CHAPTER 13

“There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence.”

- Will Rogers

Drake

“It’s okay.  Let it out.”  Lola sobs into my chest harder.  I’ve never once seen her cry in the months I’ve known her.  I can almost picture her building a dam to hold them back all these years.  Her dam wasn’t big enough to contain that many years
’
worth of tears.  Today must have been the final drop.  

“He’s safe, Lola.  We got to him on time.  You don’t have to worry about Nina now.  You didn’t fail her, she’s with him.”  I grit the words out, despite my feelings on the events of today; it’s what she needs to hear.

It’s not like I have an issue with what happened.  I’ve got no problem shooting someone to save my own skin, or someone else’s for that matter.  I like Connor, and he’s turned out to be a good friend, but there were several things I was definitely not okay with.  First and foremost, is the girl in my arms.  I had to suppress my anger earlier, but there’s no stopping it now.  What the fuck was Nina thinking, dragging Lola into this?  She had to have known that she would refuse to stay home while I went off to help save the day.  I mean, Christ!  Doesn’t she know her own best friend at all?

I get it.  She was desperate to save Connor.  She probably didn’t even consider the danger at first.   No matter how hard that concept is for me to grasp, I’m sure it’s the truth.  It took everything I had not to snatch that double barrel out of Lola’s hands and hog tie her to the truck.  The stubborn wench would’ve probably hobbled her way there regardless; ropes and all. 

Her small, tipped fingers grip my shirt as she clings to me.  What I wouldn’t give to have the feisty, fearless, bombshell back.  I have no idea what to do with her right now.  Have I ever had someone come to me for comfort?  If so, have I ever given it? 
Fuck!  What a God damn mess.

“Did you hear me, sunshine?”  I say one last time, and press my lips to her silky hair, hoping she’s not going into shock, or something else I’m equally ill-equipped to deal with.

“Don’t call me, sunshine, you stupid, two timing, brave, heroic, hick!”  Her voice sounds like an injured rabbit with the hiccups, but I’m so damn relieved she’s insulting me that I don’t tease her about it.

“There’s my girl,” I say instead, and kiss her hair again, since it worked so well last time.  I expect another insult, hell I’m even hoping for one, but Lola is the definition of unpredictable. She pushes away from my chest, slaps me hard across the face, and then grabs the back of my head to pull me into a deep, carnal kiss. 
Women.

“So are we going to fight now, or fuck, because I’m getting some mixed signals here?”  I say once we pull apart.

“If you want a fight then, baby, I’m your girl,” she says still sniffling, “but if you want to fuck, you should just go back to whatever whore you were with the other night.”  And there it is. 

“Chase, what in the hell are you talking about?”  I ask.

“You totally ditched me out the other night after we left Nina and Connor’s!  You’ve been MIA ever since.  Do you think I’m an idiot?  Or did you just think I would be okay with sloppy seconds?  You know what, don’t answer that.” 
Just walk away, Thomas.  No good can come from this conversation. 

Unfortunately, I don’t listen to anyone, even myself.  “Why would I be seeing another woman?  You know how I feel about relationships, and you’re plenty of woman for any man.  Like I could handle another female in my bed or my life right now.”

Lola wipes another tear from her eye, and it’s hard for me to stay annoyed with her when her eyes are all puffy and her nose is red.  It’s actually cute, in a way that only she could pull off.  “So, you aren’t sleeping with someone behind my back?”

“You know, you sound a lot like a jealous girlfriend…”

“Just answer the question, Thomas.”

I grab each side of her face and lean down so I’m eye level with her.  I don’t ever want to have this conversation again, so I’m going to make sure I’m clear the first time.  “No.  Right now, your pain in the ass self is what I want, and I don’t do multiples.  If someone else caught my eye, and I wanted to give it a go with her, you would be the first to know about it.”

She turns my answer over in her mind a few times while she concocts a response, or another question.  Classic Lola, constantly over thinking things.  Only the gods know why the fuck it turns me on so much.

“So, if you weren’t with someone else, then where were you?”  Of course she asks the one question I don’t really want to answer.  I give her the same half-assed answer I always do when it deals with my family.

“My sister was having some issues with an ex-boyfriend, and I had to step in and help.  She has really shitty taste in men and poor decision making skills.”

Lola’s eyes widen and then she bursts out laughing.  I start to chuckle along with her, until her laughter turns from, hilarity, to insane, to full on sobbing. 
Nice going, Drake.  You broke her again.

“Babe, its okay, there isn’t another girl.”  I don’t know why I want to reassure her so much.  If it were anyone else, I’d be saddled up and riding as far away as I possibly could by now.  The fact that I can’t even bring myself to take a step away from her, tells me that’s not a possibility, so I just roll with it.

“I know.  That’s not what I’m crying about, you nitwit!”

“Nitwit?  Are you okay?  You do know you just called me a nitwit, right?”

“Shut your pie hole, you jackass.”

“That’s better; I was worried for a minute.”  I’m positive that’s going to get her to stop crying, and I’m also positive that once she gets this whole crying thing over with, she’ll be naked.  Needless to say, I’m ready to skip to the naked part, but she just keeps on crying.  “Is this about
,
Connor?  Nina?  Lo, they are both fine.  You have nothing to worry about.”

“No!   Did it ever cross your mind that maybe I was worried about you?”  She shouts at me. 
Wait, what?

“Wait, what?”  I repeat my own thoughts
,
and freeze with my hand in her hair.  She swats it away with an irritated huff. 

“You fucking cowboys!  You think you’re so fucking invincible.  You don’t need anyone, right?  Well let me tell you something!  You are not fucking invincible and whether you like it or not, you have me …and…and…and you took thirty fucking years off my life back there, Drake!  The least you could do is let me know you’re okay.”

I blink at her, completely shocked for the first time in my entire life.  It takes me twice as long to school my expression as it usually does.  “You were worried about me?”  I ask

“Of course I was worried about you, you idiot!”