Dynomite: A Stepbrother Cowboy Romance (2 page)

“Oo, but he’s trying. Love his ink.”

Sure as shit, a different officer—I swear his badge said he was Smith, another jab at another college I couldn’t dream of attending—shoved a mumbling, stumbling guy into our little cell. He was scruffy and disheveled, about my age wearing a sleeveless army jacket. A faded, threadbare name stenciled on the chest said he’d stolen the jacket from a “Melrod.” He was mumbling and snarling at Smith, his hands cuffed behind his back, as mine still were. He had dirt smeared over his china doll-like face, his dishwater blond hair parted on the side, obscuring what might’ve been brilliant, piercing eyes.

“Police brutality,” he muttered. “Fucking arresting a guy for just
living
now, is that what they fucking do in California?” The girls around me twittered and sighed at the sound of his syrupy southern drawl.

“Until you come up with a better ID than your coat, you’re not going anywhere,” said Smith, shutting the cell door.

“Oh, such a young pup,” cooed a woman of the night.

Melrod glared at her from under his curtain. “I’m not gay,” he snarled, “and I’d never have to sell
this
ass.”

He was not only dirty, but vain and arrogant too. He tried to show the girls his jeans-clad ass by lifting the bottom hem of the army jacket with his bound hands. I realized it was sort of a turn-on, watching such a macho, rebellious guy struggle helplessly. The sheen of dust didn’t obscure his pulsing, buff biceps, a half-sleeve of tattoos displaying a colorful mix of Asian and biomech styles.

That’s when it hit me. Advanced Algebra class at Mario Lanza High School.

I sat in the front with other mathletes, of course, although I’d been slipping lately. Melrod or whatever his name was—he was a new transfer—sat in the back with losers like the drunk Crooks kid, making obscene gestures, and kicking each other under the table. Who could forget that ink of a geisha with a death’s head skull and gnarled hands, protected by a glaring snowy egret? It was beautiful artwork, but I never paid attention to the boneheads in the back of the class.

He, too, had a look of recognition when he first saw me. There the fucker was, showing his ass to a bunch of hoes. Fucking
grinning
at me because he obviously recognized me and now suspected I was one of those nightwalkers!

A flood of shame washed through me, and I inched even farther away from Britny. This put me in close proximity to a true drunk, one of those passed-out juicers who chugs fortified wine and thinks Fireball whisky is the crème de la crème of cocktails. This excuse for a human had a different sort of dirt, pungent and sour, and now I wasn’t sure where to move.

“Ms. Mathlete,” Melrod murmured. “Well fucking well. Fancy meeting you here. And with these ladies I recognize from Manilow Avenue? The Astro Bowling Alley?”

Britny said, “Actually, we work Manilow down by the Heartbreak Bar.” She sneered sideways at me, giving me the once-over. “And we wouldn’t be caught dead in those tacky bling boots.”

That was fucking
it
, man. I lost it. “I’m not a fucking whore! I’m here under a case of mistaken identity. That pig who hauled me in just wanted to fulfill his quota. Tell them, Melrod! You’ve seen me in math class. I’m no fucking skank. I’m on the cheer squad. I competed in the academic decathlon!”

Melrod just eye-fucked me skeptically. “How would I know about that? Never seen you in my life, though I can tell you’re a well-broke filly.”

I snorted hotly. “How do you know what ‘well-broke’ means? You sit in the fucking back of the class throwing fucking spit wads at people who are actually trying to get work done.” A “well-broke filly” meant that I was young and educated, but how did this outcast know those rodeo terms?

It was hard to tell what those half-lidded eyes were thinking under all that hair and dirt. But he nodded knowingly. “I see. You’re more of an outlaw mustang, then.”

I thrashed so angrily I rose off the bench, but I didn’t want to face him. Because of my absurd predicament, I was allowing this nobody from the other side of the tracks to goad me, to get to me. “And you’re a fucking greenhorn!”

His eyes narrowed further. “And spit wads are
so
last year. I’m usually busy posting creepshots of your butt cleavage to Christian Mingle.”

I could’ve breathed fire, and I could feel my eyes bulging in their sockets. “
I don’t have any fucking butt cleavage!
”

It was Britny’s turn to snort skeptically. “I beg to differ, sweetheart. Those shorts are so tiny you can barely tell you’re wearing them.”

Now I knew the true meaning of “seeing red”. It was like blood flooded my eyeballs—I literally saw everything through a haze of red! It terrified me I might be so drunk it was making my eyeballs bleed, or someone had put some synthetic Ecstasy from China into my beer. “
You
…” I seethed, unable to come up with a word bad enough for this Melrod motherfucker. “You
fucking outlaw
.”

He bowed a little at the waist. “Why, thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Now I did stand, but it was only to hock up as much loogie as possible in my dry mouth and spit it into his fucking face. At last, I’d affected him. At last, all the smug expression dropped from his face. At last, he wasn’t so much full of himself as
afraid of me
, and that’s what I wanted.

I wanted to be as scary as him.

“April!” someone barked, and my eyes darted to the door. A bailiff stood there blocking my father from peering into the holding cell. “What in God’s name is going on in there?”

Jesus fucking Christ!
So they actually
had
called my father!

The bailiff shuffled me from the room. I stumbled sideways over my boots because I wanted to get a last triumphant look at Melrod. He attempted to wipe my spittle from his face with his bare shoulder, hunched up so he looked like a fucking crybaby, but he couldn’t get to the goo that dripped from the tip of his nose.

The last thing I saw before I faced my father’s wrath was that filthy outlaw wiping his nose off on the front of an obliging hooker’s tiny shirt. Her fake boobs didn’t bob at all.

DYNOMITE

T
hey call me
Mr. Dynomite, but you can call me Dyno.

And I couldn’t wait to tell that little rah-rah why.

First off, I’d just been nailed for being a zombie. Yeah, you heard right. Being a zombie.

Someone saw me in my cowboying getup jaywalking across Dick Van Patten Boulevard or whatever the fuck’s the name of the main drag. I was dusty and messed up after being thrown by a half-broke paint in Hardscrabble’s corral. I’d been wrangling for Cliff Pleasure for two weeks while my mom softened him up, staying in a shitty motel until he let me move into one of his many buildings. And he didn’t even recognize me when he came to bail out his slutty truant daughter.

Anyway, that’s how I wound up in the city jail—not the first time I’d been in handcuffs. Some shocked motorists had reported me as zig-zagging through all four lanes of traffic like a hammered zombie, my clothes in shreds, I guess with parts of the insides of my face hanging out. A sinus cavity here, some eardrums there. I’d really just come from playing a few games of pool at The Neon Cocktail, but try telling that to the tourists on their way to Palm Springs. I guess someone swerved to avoid me and jumped the curb.

I wanted to be a newfangled Jack Kerouac, and all they saw was a
Walking Dead
extra.

They were convinced they’d seen an escaped zombie on his way to chomp some brains, and once the cop gave me a breathalyzer test, it was all over. I blew like .18, which I guess is somewhere between fairly basted to heavily fossilized on the drunk scale.

I recognized that filly April Pleasure from school. She was a pom-pom cheerleader, but there was a wild, arm-jerker side to her. An arm-jerker’s an animal that bucks with lots of power. I’d already been fantasizing about bucking
her
and showing her who the fuck was boss. I’d only been at Mario Lanza High School for two weeks, but I’d already banged a couple of hipster chicks. I was currently tantalizing one of April’s own squad mates, some blonde airhead named, I think, Olive. Or Olivia.

I didn’t much fucking care, because I didn’t much fucking want to be here in this squalid little burg. I had just flown in, agreeing to attend this shithole school, so my dad back in Paducah, Texas would keep funding my competitions in the world of the PRCA, the pro rodeo. I’d kicked ass in both saddle and bareback bronc in Paducah. I’d come in twenty-first in the Texas Circuit in bareback, but he’d threatened to pull his event sponsorship after my first arrest.

Let’s face it. I just looked like the kind of guy people liked to arrest.

My dad had said that unless I went and suffered the trials of Job by moving in with mom and riding for her new husband’s brand, my trust fund would be vaped like yesterday’s bag of weed. He wanted to assure my mom, Sadie, that at least
both
of her sons hadn’t abandoned her, like my brother had.

So I was stuck. Fucked and stuck. A guy didn’t generally make a fortune riding bareback, but it was the machismo I was after. The ego boost. Let’s face it. How many high school boys got to bury their face in prime USDA homemade slit pie night and day just because he stayed in the saddle for eight seconds?

It was my bag, baby.

So here I was, nailed by The Man yet again. The Man was getting me down! I knew protesting would be pointless, and the science was proof that I was completely leathered on Schlitz Malt talls. It would not behoove my reputation with my new stepfather to let him know I’d been arrested yet again, so when I saw that bottle blonde filly crammed in with those painted nymphs of darkness, my rebellious streak got the better of me.

She’d be way too embarrassed to bring this incident up ever, ever again. I could torture her and taunt her, two of my favorite things. And I was going to be in the pokey for a long time without asking anyone to bail me out, so I might as well fucking amuse myself.

“And spit wads are so last year. I’m usually busy posting creepshots of your butt cleavage to Christian Mingle.”

I thought I was being pretty fucking witty. I knew I looked like something strained through a yoga mat. I’d been cowpoking all day out past her daddy’s fucking golf course. Then the cow boss Javier had let me bust a few broncs. Then I was maybe a bit bloody around the mouth and nose area from a slight altercation with some Neon Cocktail redneck. The cops had taken my cowboy hat and I hadn’t showered in three days. They’d even taken my neckerchief in case I wanted to hang myself with it.

But you know what? Even looking like that, I knew I looked good.

I knew that because women always fell for rough and ready guys like me.

I was an arrogant ass. So what? Isn’t everyone when they’re seventeen? I know better now, of course, having seen the world. Done a few things. But back then, I was just a vain dickhead.

“
I don’t have any fucking butt cleavage!
”

She shrieked like a fucking banshee. She went absolutely fucking batshit when I lied about partaking in a little revenge porn. April Pleasure really made it easy to taunt her. She danced like a puppet on a string.

If my wrists weren’t handcuffed, I would’ve slapped that round ass. “Oh yeah, sister?” There was more truth to that “sister” than anyone knew. “I beg to fucking differ.”

One of the sporting girls echoed me. “I beg to differ, sweetheart. Those shorts are so tiny you need a microscope to see them.”

That
really steamed April. She was a looker, I had to hand her that. And she got even prettier when riled.
I’ll have to do this more often
, I thought. Her eyes bulged like bursting guts when she stood and confronted me. I hadn’t seen anyone that pissed since—well, since that mustang I’d nearly broken that evening. That paint had really sunfished like a pissed-off cat.

April was so mad, she struggled to find words. “You…”

I was really enjoying this. It made her angrier when I smiled smugly.

“You…
outlaw
!”

Was that the worst she could do? Some vagrant was goading her in a holding cell, and all she could say was “You outlaw”? Oh, this was going to be so fucking easy.

I sneered. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

That
was when she fucking loogied right in my fucking face.

Now
I
was the irate one. You’d better fucking know it.

It was ten times worse, because my hands were cuffed and I couldn’t even wipe away the disgusting ooze.

That
was when her dad and my employer came to the door to bail her out.

He didn’t seem to recognize me, probably having only seen me at a distance while surveying his kingdom or the corral. He hustled her out of there quicker than a knife fight in a phone booth. Her body was whipping through the door, but her shocked, hurt eyes were still glued to mine.

I stood by the door and eavesdropped. Mr. Pleasure was having a conniption fit.

“I’ve never in my life…” He spoke with such a tight jaw it was a miracle his face didn’t shatter. “
Arrested for solicitation
?”