Page 7 of Brash for It (Hellions Ride On #11)

Four

Kristen

The eucalyptus steam makes everything hazy, dreamlike.

My skin feels loose, weightless, like I left the sharp edges of myself in the parking lot.

Thursdays are my spa days—non-negotiable.

Manicure, pedicure, facial, and massage.

The routine keeps me steady, like if I maintain the outside, the inside can’t possibly fall apart.

I’m stretched back in the plush chair, fingers soaking in a warm bowl, pink polish grown out from two weeks ago.

The nail tech, Trina, hums softly under her breath while she files the hand already soaked, the sound is soothing, almost hypnotic.

The air smells faintly of lavender and acetone, the steady click of tools, murmurs of women trading gossip like candy.

For ninety minutes, I get to pretend everything is normal.

Pretend my boyfriend didn’t snap at me for asking him about the messages in his phone.

Pretend his phone isn’t glued to him, screen turned just out of my sight.

Pretend I don’t feel the cold seep into the corners of that big, beautiful beach house at night when I’m alone in the bed he bought because he hasn’t come home.

I close my eyes, breathing slow, letting the illusion wrap me up.

Then someone says my name. “Hey, Kristen—girl, your car is getting towed.”

The words slice through the calm like scissors through silk. My eyes snap open. The room tilts.

“What?” I jerk upright, water from the bowl sloshing over my wrist. My heart stumbles against my ribs. “What did you just say?”

The voice comes from the waiting area, another woman craning her neck toward the window. “Your Porsche. Those guys have it hooked already.”

No. No, no, no.

My chest squeezes tight. I shove out of the chair, nearly tripping over the nail tech’s stool.

Trina startles, calling after me, but I’m already half-running across the tile in flimsy spa sandals.

The glass doors swing wide and I burst into the sunlight, heat slapping me hard after the cool spa air.

And there it is.

My Porsche—well, Brian’s Porsche, technically—angled awkwardly in the lot, back wheels already lifted on the tow truck.

Two men stand beside it. Big. Rough. Leather cuts, jeans, boots that look like they’ve stomped through more than one fight.

One grips the chain, tightening it with sure hands, while the other leans against the truck cab, cigarette glowing bright in the late morning sun.

“No!” The word rips out of me. My feet slap asphalt as I rush forward. “You can’t! That’s my car!”

Both men turn. The one with the cigarette squints through the smoke, slow grin tugging his mouth. The other—darker hair, harder lines—just studies me, eyes unreadable.

“You the owner?” the dark-haired one asks.

“Yes!” The lie bursts out before the truth can stop it. Then I stumble. “I mean—no. My boyfriend is. But I drive it. It’s mine. He bought it for me.”

The cigarette man snorts, low and amused. The dark one doesn’t smile. He jerks his chin at the car. “Well, sweetheart, your boyfriend called. Said he wanted it towed. We don’t make the rules. He does.”

Ice flushes through my veins. “He… what?”

“Can’t help you since you don’t own it.” He wipes a hand on a rag, all business. “We got our orders.”

My throat goes dry. I fumble in my purse, yank out my phone, thumb trembling as I hit Brian’s name. The call blinks once, twice, then nothing. I try again. I look and see I have no service.

I freeze. The words don’t compute. I hit it again. Same result. My lifeline—gone, just like that.

The world tilts. My vision prickles at the edges. All the air feels wrong, too thick and too thin at once. “No,” I whisper. “No, no, no…”

The asphalt tilts with me. My knees weaken, a sick swirl pulling me under. I’m falling before I can catch myself.

But I don’t hit the ground.

Arms, solid and unyielding, catch me. The scent of leather and smoke and something altogether manly floods my nose.

I blink hard, vision clearing enough to see the man who grabbed me—the one standing to the side, lighter hair, not brown, not blond, up in a man bun.

His eyes are steel-gray, sharp even in the sun.

He steadies me against his chest like I weigh nothing.

“Breathe, darlin’,” he rumbles, voice low and rough, like gravel under tires.

I suck in air, shaky and uneven. My hands clutch at his chest, fingers brushing the stitched emblem on the leather vest. Hellions. I’ve heard of them. Everyone in this town has.

My lips tremble. “What am I supposed to do?” The question shreds out of me, raw, because I don’t have any other words left.

His gaze holds mine, steady, unbothered by my panic. “Go back inside,” he says. “Finish getting your shit done. I’ll be back to pick you up in an hour.”

“What?” My head jerks. “But?—”

“Consider me your ride share,” he cuts in, tone saying there is no argument. “But I gotta take the car first, darlin’.”

The edgy man chuckles, looking toward the sky. “She’s a mess, Pretty Boy.”

Pretty Boy. The name carves itself into my chest, sharp and certain. I can see where this man is seriously chiseled like a damn work of art even with the scar marking his cheek.

I don’t know what to do. My world is unraveling in the span of minutes. No car. No boyfriend. No phone line to call him, no explanation. Just leather-clad strangers taking away the one shiny thing I thought was mine.

Before I can find words, the spa doors open again. Trina hurries out, but she’s not looking at me. She smiles warmly at Pretty Boy, stepping close enough to press a kiss to his cheek, but he doesn’t release me for her. “Hey, stranger.”

Something in my stomach flips.

Trina glances at me, then back at him, easy like they’re old friends. “Everything okay?”

Pretty Boy jerks his chin toward me. “Her car’s leaving with me and Jasper. I’ll be back to give her a ride home in an hour or does she have more shit to get done in there?”

They are talking like I’m not even standing here and this is all simply decided. I sputter, clutching my useless phone. “My phone doesn’t even work anymore. I can’t—what am I supposed to?” I ask no one in particular.

Trina lays a hand on my arm, her touch gentle, grounding. Her eyes soften. “It’s okay. Kellum’s good people. If he says he’s gonna get you, he will. And he’ll make sure you make it home safe.”

Kellum, that is a unique name I think. Her words don’t erase the fear twisting in my chest, but they plant something else there too. Something I don’t want to name.

Pretty Boy or Kellum as Trina called him releases me slowly, like he knows I’ll stand on my own now. His presence lingers, heavy, impossible to ignore.

Trina squeezes my arm. “Come on, let’s finish. You’ll feel better once you’re done.”

I look back at the Porsche, at the chains cinched tight, at the men ready to drive away with the last shred of my stability. Then I look at Kellum, and something in his eyes pins me where I stand.

Intrigue. Fear. A dangerous pull I don’t understand.

I swallow hard, nod once, and let Trina steer me back inside to wait on the biker who just caught me before I shattered into a million pieces.

Trina threads her arm through mine like she’s shepherding a lost child, and maybe she is.

The glass door hushes closed behind us, cutting off the clank of chains and the low rumble of the tow truck.

Inside, the spa reasserts itself—soft music, eucalyptus whisper, the burr of nail files, the little subdued laughter of women who aren’t drowning.

My knees wobble. Trina steers me straight to a chair in one of the private rooms for waxing and presses a cool cloth into my hands. “Here,” she says, voice low. “Breathe. In through the nose, out slow.”

I obey because it’s easier than arguing. The cloth smells faintly of cucumber and something minty, and it draws heat out of my skin. I’m aware, hazy, of faces turning then politely turning away—the way women clock a crisis and give it privacy because they understand the currency of dignity.

With the door open, I can see out front.

Through the window, my Porsche lifts, angles, becomes something smaller than ownership and larger than humiliation.

Kellum doesn’t look back at me. He doesn’t linger.

He’s doing a job. The man flicks his cigarette and crushes it with the heel of his boot, and then the truck is rolling, metal groaning over the asphalt, taillights flickering red as it pulls onto the street and disappears.

Trina squeezes my shoulder once. “Okay?”

“No,” I say honestly looking at my now destroyed nail polish. Then, giving my attention back to her, I lie. “But I will be.”

She nods like that’s the right answer. “We can fix polish. We can’t fix men. Let me do the first one and you can breathe while the rest settles.” After I get myself together, she leads me back to her nail station.

It’s ridiculous and exactly enough to keep me from bolting. I let her settle my hands back into the warm bowl. The water ripples around my fingers like I didn’t just see the last shiny piece of my life hauled away by strangers with forearms like tree trunks.

“What color?” she asks gently.

I’d picked a sheer pink earlier, the safe kind that says I’m low maintenance but never truly undone. Now the display of little glass bottles looks like a language I don’t speak. “I don’t know.”

Trina scans my face. “Neutral’s fine,” she says, answering for me, and plucks a bottle with a name like Soft Sand or something I heard her whisper to herself. “Head back, relax. Good girl.”

The phrase pinches something inside me because it sounds like obedience and I am so tired of earning my keep with compliances.

But Trina means it like comfort, not command.

She wipes away my ruined cuticle oil, reshapes, buffs.

The familiar rasp of the file steadies the shake in my chest. Her hands are sure—kind in a moment where I need kindness.