Military Romance Collection: Contemporary Soldier Alpha Male Romance (90 page)

Chapter 7

In the early morning light, before the sun had truly risen, we mounted his motorcycle. We had packed two small bags, not knowing what lay ahead but knowing that we wouldn’t need much more than one another.

I left a letter for my parents and one for my friends. He left one for his crew and for his daughter. I would have the whole summer to decide if I wanted to come back to teaching or to journey elsewhere.

The sun began to peek over the mountains as we moved on to the freeway, and I could feel the anxieties of my old life, of my old self, thaw in the morning light. As if I had been tethered to that town, I could feel myself being loosed, strand by strand, as the houses and businesses, as everything I’d ever known, disappeared into the distance behind us.

It was the first time in my life that I knew nothing of what lay ahead, knew nothing of the landscape or of what my future held. I couldn’t have been happier, and the smile on Mike’s face was not the smile of a tough guy, or of a dangerous felon, but of a man in love.

And as I pressed my knees into his sides, feeling the vibration beneath me, feeling the wind on my arms, I was reminded of the concert. Again, I felt like Mike was my ox and I was his yoke. I tamed him. And he drove me wild.

The End

Faces in Smoke

Chapter One

Alaina swayed back and forth to the sound of the music that blared through the speakers. The base line made the stage tremble, its beat reverberating through the aged, painted wood, and up through her bare feet. Always bare feet. Heals were for the other girls—the ones that needed gimmicks and flashy clothing to command attention.

Alaina did it with her body.

She clasped the pole with her right hand, tiptoeing around it, each step popping her hip, her movements growing quicker and quicker with every new footfall. Gaga’s voice blared through the speakers as her arms contracted and she squeezed her torso, lifting herself up. Her legs extended outward to either side of her as whistles filled the room.

One revolution after another and she managed to avoid becoming dizzy. Her whole body swung, but she remained aware of herself; she held onto the ground because through the haze, she could still see that face.

Her head hung back, her chin pointed at the film-covered bulbs as she slowly allowed herself to slide onto the ground. In the next moment, she was on her hands and knees, Gaga’s toxic sound driving her forward. She opened her eyes
—really
opened them to scan the entire crowd. Some men were on their feet as bills,
wads
, flew in her direction, while others sat leaning back in their chairs, their eyes holding a smoky gaze and their hands rubbing the bulge in their pants. She could do anything up there and they would empty their pockets for her.

Soon, the music stopped and Alaina with it. She deftly gathered her earnings and walked back towards the curtain.

She couldn’t resist taking one more look back at that man—that face. She drank him in, gathering everything from his hazel eyes to his long, crooked nose. She caught the furrow in his bushy brow and the curve of his lip. She watched him flip his hair, drawing it back into a low man bun, all the while maintaining eye contact with her. Eventually, the silence had gone on too long, so she turned and continued on off stage.

Behind the curtain, it was much more peaceful. She could hear her own breath, her own thoughts.

“Hey Girl!”

Alaina looked up through the mirror and saw her best friend Frida who was already half way through the process of taking off her makeup. “Stop yelling,” she said, placing her palms on the table in front of her.

Frida giggled at this, slamming an ice cold bottle of water right next to her hands. “Stop being so heavy…”

Alaina cleared her throat. “Thanks.” She picked up the water and sucked in gulp after gulp.

Frida eyed her stack of cash, her thin eyebrow raised. “Wish I could work it like you do.”

Alaina shrugged.

Frida sighed, clutching the back of a nearby chair and slamming it down in front of her. Another girl came in, sighing to herself and counting her bills. Alaina glanced up at her head of fake blond curls before returning to her own tired image in the mirror.

Frida followed her gaze before saying, “Where does all that passion come from?”

Alaina shrugged. “It’s just a job.” She sighed, picking through her pack of make-up remover wipes. Even through the curtain, she could hear the whistling and shouting dying down. The night was coming to an end. “Calculated. Just like any other.”

Frida rolled her eyes, hopping out of her chair and returning to her own mirror. “Where were you manufactured, Alaina?” she asked.

Alaina let out a humorless laugh. “China.”

Frida giggled at this, but as her eyes wandered to the calendar hanging just above her mirror. Her giggles faded away. “Are you still down for Bethany’s memorial?”

Alaina pursed her lips. “Remind me again why we’re having a memorial service for a girl that was murdered like ten years ago?”

Frida’s eyes went wide, her eyebrows shooting up as she ducked her forehead. “How would you feel if you got killed and no one found the murderer and everyone eventually stopped giving a shit?”

Alaina couldn’t help but to laugh at this. “I don’t know, Frida. Dead?”

Frida shook her head at this, returning to her mirror.

When Alaina had succeeded in wiping off most of the excess makeup, she looked up to find Frida still peering at her. “Look, I’ll go with you guys okay?” She said as she stood up, draping herself in her real clothes. “It’s gettin’ late and I can barely keep my eyes open.” She approached Frida, planting a kiss at the crown of her head. “I’ll see you Friday. Yes?”

Frida nodded. “I still don’t get how you managed to get off a whole two nights.”

Alaina shrugged. “Well, apparently having your mother remarry does the trick.” With that she left the dressing room, reentering the club and all of its musty, smoky glory.

She had made it all the way to the door before she felt a body behind her. She paused with her hand on the doorknob. “Yes?” She turned, and, just like she had predicted, there was that face.

His eyes were impossible to resist at pointblank range. Maybe it was the vodka, or the smoke, or the second hand weed, but Alaina felt particularly inhibited.

“There’s something different about you.” He said, his voice soaring over the sound of the music and dwindling chatter.

Alaina couldn’t stop herself from giggling at the trite compliment. “There’s something creepy about you.” She yanked open the door and stepped outside, sucking in buckets of the relatively clean air.

She didn’t have to glance behind her to know that he was following her. He had been doing this after every shift for the last week. It had become something like their little unspoken dance.

“Can I at least get a name?” he called after her.

She pivoted, but kept walking, travelling backwards in the direction of her car. “Alaina!” she called back.

His lips stretched into a crooked smile. “You sound like a princess.”

Alaina laughed at this as she slipped her keys out of her purse and stuck it into the driver’s side of her car. From over the roof of it, she could see him half-running towards a row of bikes.

She raised an eyebrow. He was just a biker, probably passing through.

He had wrapped his hands around the handles of a motorcycle when he stopped and called over to her. “I reckon, I can’t convince you to give me a number?”

Alaina nodded, smiling in spite of herself. “You reckon correctly,” she replied. With that, she climbed inside of her car and gingerly drove home.

Chapter Two

Meaningless images rolled through Alaina’s mind. She could hear the roar of the people that filled Cajun Field, there boos of disapproval and cheers of adoration punctuating every hit the football players took. Their bodies towered over her, her mother’s legs to her right and a stranger’s khakis to her left.

There was a pinching pain in her gut, so she tugged at those silk pants of her mother’s and whispered something like, “Can I go pee?”

She couldn’t remember if her mother told her to go, or not to go. But either way, she wished she hadn’t…

Her eyes flipped open. The sunlight streamed through the window of her childhood bedroom. A groan slipped out of her mouth because she had almost forgotten. She rolled over and checked her phone—two missed calls.

“Frida?” she had answered immediately.

“Honey, what the fuck? I’ve been calling you all morning.”

“Alaina!” her mother’s piercing voice tugged at her nerves.

She groaned. Her five minutes of peace were over. That would be her mother calling to make sure she was up and ready to seize a day full of wedding day preparations, and not to mention meeting the groom for the first time, an event she had managed to expertly avoid for the last two months.

“Yeah! I’m up!”

“Is cougar Barbie knocking?” Frida asked.

Alaina rolled her eyes. “I hate that word, Frida. Besides, this guy is supposed to be at least her age,” she said as she stumbled into the bathroom. Her throat was dry from a night of stripping and drinking and the bags under her eyes were less than flattering.

“Okay.”

“Alaina are you up?”

Alaina sighed before pressing the phone against her chest and yelling, “Yes ma!”

“Ugh,” Frida said, “Chill with the yelling.”

Alaina shook her head. “Honey bun, you have no idea what I’m dealing with.”

She could hear Frida giggling on the other end of the line. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“God, me too.”

There was a pause on Frida’s end as Alaina took the opportunity to dress herself, placing her on speaker. “Frida?”

“Hey, yeah, I wanted to tell you something real quick.”

Alaina did not like the slight tremble in her voice. “Yeah, what is it, Hun?”

“You know that guy that’s been stalking you for the last couple of days?”

Alaina froze with her toothbrush in hand.

“Alaina! I’m not kidding we got about ten minutes before he gets here!”

Alaina moaned yet again. “Yeah! I’m tryin’!” she then returned her attention to Frida. “Okay, yes Frida. What is it?”

“I gave him your number.” She said those words so fast, Alaina barely caught it all.

“What?” she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Yeah, and he might call you… soon…”

“Alaina! I swear to God!”

Alaina shoved the brush in her mouth for all of twenty seven seconds before running it under the water in her sink. She drew her hair back into a hasty, messy bun at the top of her head, then stalked back into her room and poked her head out of her front door. “Just wait five minutes!”

By the time she made it back into her bathroom, Frida’s diatribe of apologies was bouncing off of the walls and the distinct beeping sound that indicated a second caller punctuated her every other word.

Alaina rolled her eyes, took the phone off of the speaker and pressed it against her ear. “Yeah, whatever. Okay Frida. I hear you. He’s calling me right now. Excuse me while I go tell him to lose my number.” With that she switched over to the unrecognizable number. “Uh, hello?”

“Is this, princess?” Alaina found it oddly comforting hearing his voice in the light of day like that.

“No, this is Maleficent,” she said, with an impish grin.

He chuckled. “I see what you did there. Why Maleficent?”

Alaina stopped moving for the first time that morning. She shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s just always been my favorite,” She said.

“Alaina! For God’s sake, they’re pulling up!” her mother’s voice cut into her five seconds of relaxing time.

She covered the mouthpiece with her hand for long enough to shout, “Jesus Christ, ma!”

When she got back on the phone, the man was laughing. “You still live with your mom?”

“Ha!” Alaina mocked. “No, I’m just here until all this wedding stuff is over.”

“She’s getting married?”

“Yup,” Alaina said as she took one last look at herself in the mirror and made her way down the narrow hallway.

“That’s funny.” He said.

Alaina took in a generous whiff of the full breakfast her mother had prepared. As she rounded the corner at the foot of the staircase, she caught sight of her tiny body bobbing around the kitchen, her golden hair practically glowing in the sunlight. “Why do you say that?”

“Because my dad’s gettin’ remarried. I’m actually gonna meet her and her daughter right now.”

Before Alaina could really process this, her mother turned on her with her anxiety. “You look like you just rolled outta bed,” She said, her shoulders slumping with an almost comical disappointment.

Meanwhile, Alaina noted that her mother looked as if she had just stepped out of a Country Living magazine, with her voluminous bump and her heavily jeweled self.

Alaina rolled her eyes. “Look, I need to go. My mom’s gonna have a conniption in about five seconds.” She didn’t wait for his response before she shut her phone.

The chime of a doorbell filled the house.

“Shieet.” Her mother hissed, snatching her apron over her head and half-walking, half-jogging towards the front door.

Alaina trailed behind.

Once they were both standing right in front of the door, Alaina suffered through one last look from her mother, flinching as she pulled her hair behind her right ear and then opened the door.

A smile tugged at Alaina’s lips as she watched her mother’s eyes light up at the sight of her fiancé. But then she got a look at her new future family and her smile slipped right off of her face. “Oh my God.”

That face—the face within the smoke—was right over the threshold, his hazel eyes as enchanting as ever.