Page 9 of Brash for It (Hellions Ride On #11)

Five

Pretty Boy

I roll up outside the spa on my bike right at the damn hour I said I would. Punctuality’s not about politeness—it’s about reputation and expectation. You tell someone you’ll be somewhere, you’re there. People stop counting on you otherwise.

And if a Hellion stops being counted on, he stops living up to the patch.

The lot’s half empty now. Afternoon heat bakes the asphalt, makes it shimmer. I kill the engine, swing a leg, and lean the bike steady. Heads turn through the glass, like they always do when leather and chrome show up where they don’t belong.

Then she’s there. The five feet tall, dark hair, brown eyed damsel that is a stunner.

She comes out slow this time, not running barefoot like before.

Her hands are clenched around the strap of her bag, knuckles white, face careful.

She looks different than earlier—her nails gleam, her skin’s glowing from whatever the hell they do back there. But under it, she looks hollow.

I jerk my chin. “Ready?”

She swallows, nods. “Yeah.”

I hold out a spare helmet. She hesitates like it’s a snake, then takes it.

“Not gonna break you,” I state. “Name is Kellum, gonna take you home. I’m just a ride, darlin’ not a snake waiting to strike.”

She tries for a laugh. It dies halfway. “That’s what I’m afraid of being broken.” She catches her breath like she shouldn’t have said that. “I’m Kristen, nice to meet you.”

I smirk, but I don’t push. I swing onto the bike, wait until she climbs on behind me.

Her hands flutter like she doesn’t know where to put them.

Finally, with some guidance from me she settles against my cut, fingers gripping the leather just enough to hold on while she mutters her address in Indian Beach.

“Good girl,” I mutter, more to the bike than her, and kick us into gear.

The ride’s short. I follow her directions, weaving through town, out toward the beach houses with gates taller than fences and lawns trimmed by people who don’t live in the house they’re trimming.

It smells like money out here, like chlorine from pools that don’t get used because the beach is right there and flowers that only bloom in catalogs.

“Here,” she says, tapping my shoulder, pointing at a gated drive.

I pull up, cut the engine. She slides off, fumbles with the call box. Punches in a code. Red light. Wrong. She tries again, slower this time. Same result.

Her breath hitches. She presses the call button. The line clicks, rings once, then silence. No voice. No answer. She tries again. Nothing.

Her hands shake when she drops it. She looks at me, eyes wide. “The code it worked this morning. It’s changed. I—” Her voice cracks and I watch her fight back tears. “I don’t know what to do.”

I watch her crumble, piece by piece. She’s trying to stand straight, trying not to let the panic own her, but it’s winning.

I push off the bike, cross the few feet to her. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not?—”

“It is,” I cut in, firm. “You’re not sleeping on the damn sidewalk.”

Her lip trembles. “Where am I supposed to go?”

“With me,” I explain like this is an every day occurance.

She blinks. “What?”

“You can stay with me.” I nod back at the bike. “Ain’t fancy, but it’s a roof and a bed.”

She stares like I’ve just offered her a ticket to hell. “Stay with you?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I state, dryly. “I ain’t making a move. You need a place, I got one. Hell, I don’t even stay there all the time. Just crash for tonight and tomorrow you can figure your shit out.”

Her gaze flicks to the gate again, to the house she can’t touch, then back to me. She looks like someone dangling between two cliffs with no rope.

Finally, she whispers, “Okay.”

I fought the urge to ask her what other option did she have because from where I was standing she was up shit’s creek. I take the helmet from her limp hands, strap it back on her head myself because she can’t seem to manage it.

“Hold on,” I tell her. “Tighter this time.”

When I swing us back onto the road, her arms wrap around me more firmly than before, pressed close like she’s bracing against a storm. She doesn’t know the storm’s already here.

The ride back is quieter than a church before the final prayer of service She clamps her arms around my ribs like a lifeline and rests her cheek against my back.

I can feel her breath through leather—shaky at first, then evening out when the road starts doing its work.

I keep it steady. No showing off. No hard pulls on the throttle.

She’s had enough of the ground shifting under her feet for one day.

My place isn’t much to look at compared to where she was living. We pull up, I click the kickstand down. Cinderblock shoebox house with a patch of crabgrass that dies and resurrects on a schedule only it understands. Vinyl blinds. A porch light that hums because the bulb’s old.

She slides off the seat slow, helmet still on, dazed. I pop the strap free and lift it off. Her hair is smashed in a way that would make a different woman squeal. She doesn’t. She just blinks like she’s trying to file the details of this new world.

“It’s… cozy,” she shares, careful.

“That a polite word for small?” I unlock the door. She gasps and I shake my head. “It’s okay. Judge it, I don’t give a fuck. It’s small. It’s mine.”

“I didn’t mean to offend,” she stammers.

I let out a laugh, “if I was that easily offended then I shouldn’t be wearing this cut.” I lead her through the front door and allow her to process my space.

Inside’s clean because I don’t like living in a mess.

Couch is thrift-store leather, gray with a tear in one corner I patched with duct tape before I learned I preferred the chair.

There’s a table that’s seen better days and a galley kitchen that hums like a beehive because the fridge thinks it’s important.

One bedroom. One bath.

Nothing I don’t need.

She stands just inside the threshold like she’s afraid it’ll bite or swallow her up.

Her eyes skate over the walls. No pictures, just a map tacked up with pushpins that mark runs we’ve done, places I’ve slept on the cheap, a route I keep meaning to try and never do.

I hang my Hellions cut over the back of the chair in my kitchen after taking off my boots.

My boots line up by the door like soldiers.

My mom would absolutely lose her shit if she showed up to any of her boys’ homes and we didn’t take our shoes off at the front door.

“You can put your bag down,” I tell her. “No one’s gonna steal it.”

She nods and drops it like it’s heavier than it should be. Her hands are still trembling. She tries to still them.

And she fails.

I point toward the bathroom. “Shower’s through there. Towels on the shelf. Brand-new toothbrushes under the sink.” I open the cabinet so she can see the rainbow pack—ten count. “My mother’s got this idea I’ll die if I don’t have extras.”

“You… your mom buys your toothbrushes?” Something about that loosens the panic in her eyes by a tiny bit. The idea of a man with a mother who does store runs must not fit next to the leather and the patch concept she has.

“Among other things,” I remark, frankly.

“She hits a warehouse store once a month. Calls me from the aisles and asks what I’m out of.

I say nothing. She ignores me and buys two of everything sometimes more.

I haul it in and pretend that she read my mind and I would be lost without her.

She’s my mom and I’ll do anything to make sure she smiles and feels like she’s still takin’ care of her boys. ”

Her mouth does a small thing that could turn into a smile if her world wasn’t currently on fire. “That’s… nice.”

“It’s efficient,” I correct, because nice sits wrong on my tongue. “Saves me a trip and makes my mom happy. You want food?”

She shakes her head too fast. “I don’t think I could…manage to eat anything.”

“All right.” I jerk my chin toward the hall. “Go wash off the day. There’s a lock on the door.” I say it like information, not invitation. Her shoulders drop a fraction.

She edges down the hall like she’s walking into a test. The bathroom door clicks.

Water starts—pipes thumping, then settling into a steady rush.

I stand in my kitchen with my hands on the counter and stare at the knife block I never use for anything but opening boxes.

The house feels smaller with her in it. Not in the bad way.

In the way that makes you aware of every square foot. My chest feels that way too.

It’s a long shower. I don’t clock the minutes on purpose, but I can’t help it. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. The day bleeds out of her and swirls down my drain. Good.

While she’s in there, I do the stupid little things that matter.

I switch the sheet on the bed for a clean one because I don’t remember the last time I did that and suddenly it matters; it matters a lot.

I shake out a pillowcase and pull it on, smooth it flat with my palm.

I have a housekeeper that my mom picked out.

I know she changes my sheets and shit, but I couldn’t say when because all of the bedding is black and red, she rotates through it, but nothing ever looks different.

I dig in the bottom drawer for a T-shirt soft from a hundred washes and a pair of clean boxers I don’t hate. I check the water heater like I can bully it into not quitting tonight.

Steam finally billows out under the bathroom door.

The water cuts. Silence drops with it. A minute later, the door opens and she steps out wrapped in one of my towels.

It dwarfs her. Her hair’s damp, combed back.

Her face is stripped clean—no makeup, nothing to make her look like the world expects. Pretty in a different way.

Honest. It tugs at something I don’t like admitting exists.