SMITH (The Beckett Boys, Book One) (15 page)

Is he flirting with me or insulting me?

Or is it just fun for him to come into a dingy, greasy burger joint and mess with the poor, pathetic girl with the stained trousers and the damp, frizzy hair—show his buddies how easy it would be to…

To what?

To fuck you?

To cum all over your face and tits like he’d been insinuating when you got that vanilla milkshake all over yourself?

“Well,” I said, blinking and shaking my head, feeling my cheeks flush. “I should get back to work.”

I turned and walked away, very aware suddenly of my hips swinging, feeling his eyes on me, knowing he would be looking and even worse—
wanting
him to be looking.

He’s bad news.

I knew it was true, but somehow I couldn’t help enjoying the thrill, if only for a moment. And not even quite understanding the emotions I was feeling.

The guy had been a total egocentric jerk, plain and simple.

When I got behind the counter once more, another huge rush hit and I was running around crazier than ever. But even so, every free second I had, I would try to find an excuse to look over at the table where the green-eyed frat boy had been sitting with his friends.

A few times I looked and they were all still there, talking and laughing.

It was obvious, somehow, that he was the leader. They all looked up to him.

Maybe he’s not just any old frat boy, maybe he’s the president of the fraternity or something.

One time, I glanced over as I was bringing a tray of food over to the counter and he actually turned and looked back at me.

Our eyes locked from a distance and I felt my entire body lock up.

Worse yet, I felt my nipples tighten again, poking through my bra and the shabby material of my restaurant uniform.

Fuck. He
is
hot, isn’t he?

It was easier to admit it from a distance, somehow.

And then Green Eyes looked back at his buddies, said something else and they all broke up into raucous laughter.

I felt my cheeks flush yet again.

I turned away and resolved not to look back at that table again. He’d just made fun of me to his friends, I was certain of it.

Probably said something about how that milkshake had looked on your face, and how easy it would have been to bring you home and do it for real. Except he would never take a girl like you home in a million years.

God, he was just playing you, Caeli. He was trying to show off to his friends how easy it would be to get that poor little fast food bitch to get her panties wet if he showed her even a little attention.

Even if he insulted her.

I shook my head and redoubled my efforts at work, wondering what had gotten into me in the first place…

Not five minutes went by, and like a magnet was pulling me, I found my head turning to look once more at the table.

Only this time, I found it empty.

My heart sank and I felt my stomach do a sad flip. It was like high school when you’d see the most popular boy sitting so close to you in class and you just hoped for one glance, one smile, one bit of acknowledgment that ultimately never came.

I did remember exactly how that felt, and it bugged me that I’d fallen for Green Eyes’ act. Men like him could treat women however they wanted to, and they got away with it because they were good looking and came from good families and had good jobs.

I prided myself on not being silly and insecure enough to fall for that sort of thing, but it turned out, I was no different or stronger than anyone else.

Maybe I was even weaker.

Finally, we were closing up the restaurant. And one good thing was happening, at least, which was that I was being paid for the week.

Devin handed me my check as he walked by and locked the front doors. “Closing time,” he said. “Hopefully tomorrow we can keep the incidents to a minimum, Powers. My Dad is tired of hearing about you screwing up.”

“Whatever,” I said, tearing open the envelope. I walked out the doors as I opened it, and it was only as I was leaving, Devin and his brothers coming out behind me as I noticed that the amount was wrong.

It was way wrong.

Sure, they always took out fifty percent to pay off my parents’ debt, but this time they’d left me practically nothing.

“Hey,” I said, calling out to them as they made their way to Marvin’s Porsche that they all drove home together. The burger joint did that well—Uncle Billy made sure his boys had the best cars, the best clothes.

But no amount of expensive toys could hide their white trash ways.

“Good night!” Blake shouted in a singsong voice, cackling afterwards.

I ran toward them. “Hey, this check is short!” I said. “It’s almost two hundred dollars short and I need that—“

“Bring it up with my Dad tomorrow,” Devin said as he unlocked and opened his door.

“Dammit,” I said, the tears finally starting. “You can’t do this to me again. Last time he never paid me what he owed—“

Suddenly, Marvin came towards me, pointing, shouting. “We never stiffed you, you dumb cunt. It’s not our fault your broke ass parents needed my Dad to bail them out. Where would ya’ll be if we hadn’t bought your fucking shitty ass house so they didn’t take it to auction? Huh?”

I backed away, tears pouring down my face. “Just go away,” I said.

“You have the balls to complain about a couple hundred bucks when you’d be fucking homeless without us.” He smirked. “Get the fuck outta here.”

Suddenly, a deep male voice boomed from nearby. “Damn, your folks should have taught you better manners, son.”

The three men turned to see who had been talking. I followed their gaze too.

The parking lot was almost completely dark and empty, but there was a pickup trunk idling nearby, and a man was sitting in the truck bed, bathed in shadow.

My body awoke with a jolt. That voice. It couldn’t be but it had to be—

No. No way. He’d been waiting in the parking lot? For me?

“Hey, buddy, why don’t you mind your own fucking business?” Devin said.

Uncle Billy’s three sons were knuckleheads and I knew that first hand. They liked to fight, and they weren’t afraid to fight dirty. I’d seen them stomp guys at parties in the recent past.

They found it funny to gang up on people.

Green Eyes spoke again calmly. “It is my business when cowardly men try to intimidate a young lady.”

“Yeah, well suck my balls, faggot,” Marvin said, grabbing his crotch.

I shook my head. “I’m leaving,” I said, starting toward my car. The hair on the back of my neck was standing on end. I felt scared and tired and completely undone.

As I got closer to the car, I stopped and saw that the man had jumped off the back of the truck and was moving towards my three cousins.

Shit.

He was going to get himself beaten half to death.

“If your parents didn’t teach you how to speak with respect, then I guess I’ll have to do it,” he said, removing his jacket and tossing it back toward his truck.

“Please, don’t do this,” I said, knowing it was already too late.

He turned to look at me, and now I was certain it was him. Even though I couldn’t see the telltale green eyes, I would have recognized that face anywhere, even half in darkness at night.

Where had all his friends gone and why was he still here a couple of hours later, waiting in a dark parking lot?

As he turned to look at me, my idiot cousins ran at him, all three at once.

I shrieked.

It was going to be horrible. I’d seen this play out before, only in the past someone had always been around to break up the violence. This time we were in an empty parking lot and I knew my cousins wouldn’t stop on my account.

Suddenly, they converged on him.

But in a matter of moments it became clear that this was different. This man wasn’t just an ordinary frat boy.

I’d been wrong about him.

Very wrong.

He stepped back, dodged one of their clumsy punches and then attacked with a barrage of his own punches and kicks. Each blow that he threw was precise and intended to cause maximum carnage.

He blasted Devin in the face with two quick punches, and Devin fell down on the concrete like a sack of bricks, completely still.

Blake tried to grab a hold of Green Eyes, but the stranger easily broke away from Blake’s clutches, pivoted and threw a powerful kick that landed in Blake’s midsection. Blake fell backwards and crashed through some bushes.

Now it was just Green Eyes and Marvin.

“You like calling women names?” the man said.

“Hey, just—chill out,” Marvin said. “You can chill, man. We get the point.”

“Not yet you don’t,” he said, and then he leaned forward and head butted Marvin, and Marvin’s nose exploded in a fountain of blood as he collapsed to the ground and writhed in pain.

The man turned and walked toward me quickly. “You okay?” he asked. He wasn’t even breathing heavily.

I nodded, too frightened to talk.

“Good,” he said, giving me that strange grin. “What’s your name?” he asked, sounding casual, as if he hadn’t just dealt out devastating violence to my three cousins, who were even now in various states of distress.

“I’m Caeli,” I said, swallowing. Even after all of the madness, I was still struck by his gorgeous good looks. Nobody that good looking should be able to fight like that, I decided.

It seemed almost against the laws of physics.

“My name’s Zack. Zack Wild,” he said, offering his hand.

I reached out and he took my hand in his, surprising me with his gentleness. “Hi, Zack,” I said. “I think you should probably go or you’ll be arrested.”

He smiled and laughed a little. “Probably right.” He held my hand a bit longer and I felt the heat spiral up my hand and through my arm. “Caeli what?” he said, cocking an eyebrow.

“I shouldn’t—“

“That’s okay,” he said, letting go. “I get it.” And then he turned and walked back to his pickup truck.

“It’s Caeli Powers,” I called out, just before he got inside.

He stopped, gave a quick nod, and then opened the door of his truck and got inside. He drove away from the scene only a couple of minutes before the police arrived.

Z
ACK

W
aiting
outside for that girl had been stupid. I’d sensed that she was going to bring me nothing but trouble, and yet still I’d done it. I’d told my friends to leave the restaurant without me…

Friends.
Ha. That was a good one. Those guys knew almost nothing about me, they just liked to hang around because I told funny stories and had a way with the ladies. Calling them friends was a stretch.

I didn’t have friends anymore.

Now, driving home after that scuffle in the parking lot of the burger joint, I replayed the incident and shook my head. That had been really stupid and I was lucky not to have ended up behind bars.

My hands started shaking.

I felt like I could hardly breathe. On the road in front of me, I no longer saw the normal city streets of the good ol’ US of A. Instead, I felt like I was looking out at the streets of Kabul.

I pulled the car over and stopped.

Shit. This can’t be happening to me. Not now, not here.

My mind was flashing back to images, sounds and even smells that I’d been trying to forget.

Chase’s voice, his laughter, echoes in my ears as if he’s right next to me.

“When I get back, the first thing I’m going to do, bro—“

And then the sounds of explosive gunfire and the screams. The fucking screams I’ll never forget, and how Chase looks as I press my hand over the gaping bullet wound in his throat.

Telling him everything’s fine, it’s not that bad—as he bleeds out right in front of me and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it, and I’m sure we’re all going to die out here.

I came back to myself as if I’d somehow been power-slammed back inside my own body. As if I literally went outside myself and then came back in again, snapped back to the present.

I glanced in the rearview mirror and my eyes looked positively insane.

“Get a hold of yourself, Zack,” I whispered, rubbing a hand over my face. That’s when I glanced at my knuckles, swollen and bloody from where I’d smashed those jerks who had been messing with that waitress.

Her name, she’d said—her name was Caeli. Caeli Powers.

Just remembering her name slowed my breathing and my heart rate a little, calmed me somehow.

“Caeli.” I spoke the name and felt more like myself, as if speaking her name aloud and recalling the image of her face could do that for me—could give me something I hadn’t had in a long time.

Something in her eyes had woken up something in me that I’d been sure was dead.

But she was just some waitress who I’d never see again. Unless I was crazy enough to try and track her down.

I wondered what she thought of me after everything that had happened. We hadn’t exactly gotten off on the best foot back there, what with me giving her shit when she spilled that milkshake on herself…

I smiled a little, laughing as I thought about the look on her face and how she’d stared me down, glared at me like I was the devil himself.

And maybe, just maybe, I was. But if I was the devil then I had a right to whatever pleasures I could find on this crummy earth.

I pictured her face again, the way she’d swung that ass when she’d turned and walked with attitude back to her post behind the counter at the burger joint.

She was cute, funny, sexy.

Caeli had that something special that made me want to take her clothes off, throw her buck-naked on the bed and do unspeakable things to her, while at the same time she made me want to…

What?

I blinked, took a deep breath and let it out.

She’s just another girl. No different then the rest, Zack. She’s some random who works at a burger joint and you beat up her co-workers and now she probably thinks you’re nuts on top of everything else.