Page 14

Twelve

When I see Posy staring at me, sometimes I can’t figure out if he’s admiring me, or second guessing his choices.

— Searcy’s secret thoughts

SEARCY

Running at night wasn’t the first choice for physical activity at that time of day, but when you worked your ass off to make ends meet, you got the run in where you could.

Today I felt like running.

My mom had arrived back in the fold, pouring back into the house and acting like she never left.

She started taking her shifts back at the diner like she’d never left, and when she saw the changes that I’d made over the months, she’d been irritated.

She’d been mad that we now had to pay an extra person, and I’d lost my shit on her in the middle of the diner during the middle of morning rush when I pointed out that she fucking left. She didn’t get a choice what I did to keep the diner afloat.

And, in a fit of a thousand suns, I decided to say ‘fuck it’ and leave for the day.

It was the first day off I’d had from the diner in a while—at least before Koda had left for the military—and I’d intended to make it the perfect day off.

Well, as perfect as it could be when you had no money to spend.

I got home and I worked on my newest set of book covers, got them finished up, then sent them out to the client who’d approved them with zero revisions. Then paid me fully within ten minutes of sending the invoice.

That left me with enough money to spend a little, so I went to the store and got all the kids—even Calliope—a couple new sets of clothes.

When I got home, I laid them all out on their beds, pride swelling in my chest, and started to clean the house.

I started following some lady on Instagram that was a task master with keeping your house clean, and following a schedule to do it, so I spent the day following her orders, video to video, until the house was as good as it was going to get.

At least by me.

After finishing my seventh load of laundry—uncaring about how much detergent I was using thanks to the extra bottle of detergent—I started dinner.

I was halfway through browning the meat for tacos when the door burst open and Kent and Anders came through the door.

I turned around, a smile on my face in greeting, that quickly fell off my face. “What the fuck?”

Kent had blood on his t-shirt, and he had a busted lip.

“Kent had to save me from a ten-year-old,” Anders answered my outburst. “She thought that she could take my new water bottle, and I told her otherwise. When she went to take it anyway, Kent stopped her. Only she has an older brother that’s a complete douchebag who’s three times the size of Kent.”

“Don’t say douchebag,” I ordered. “Kent, who is this guy?”

“He’s eighteen,” Kent grumbled. “And he’s the house on the corner with the yellow curtains.”

I curled my own lip up in a snarl.

I knew that house.

The douchebag in question had an older douchebag for a father that liked to call out obscenities whenever I walked or ran by.

“I hate that guy,” I grumbled. “It doesn’t surprise me that he has kids that are assholes like him.”

Just as the words finished coming out of my mouth, there was a banging on my front door.

“He followed me home,” Kent said in explanation.

And just like that, I was pissed as fucking hell.

My mom.

The joke that was my life.

The utter disgust I had for the world.

It just poured out into a single, shining moment.

With anger in my every step, I scooped up Koda’s old baseball bat and kept walking, it dangling from my fingers in a loose grip.

Four years of softball gave me a good, solid grasp on how best to hit a ball.

The same was about to be said for a fuckin’ head.

Just to be sure who I thought was at my door was actually at my door, I slid the blinds to the side in the living room, giving me a full view of a very large eighteen-year-old boy standing on my doorstep.

He had biceps bigger than my thighs, a head that was twice the size of mine, and hands that could probably crush me with a single squeeze.

I yanked open the door and came out swinging, aiming for the meat of the boy-man’s body.

He threw his hands up defensively to protect his head, but that was a mistake.

I wouldn’t have broken his arm otherwise.

The bat came down with a solid thwack, and a crunch followed.

The kid went down hard, tumbling down the three rotten steps that led up to our front porch, before coming to a stop beside the chain link fence that was useless due to the amount of holes in the links.

The kid yelled out in surprise, and I hit him again on his meaty thigh before saying, “Get off my fucking property!”

“What the fuck, you crazy bitch?!” I heard him yell. “I was just here to talk!”

“You were here to talk?” I laughed sardonically. “Were you here to apologize for hitting my brother with your fist? Or for your sister’s absolute disgusting habit of stealing stuff that’s not hers?”

He cried out when I caught him in the shoulder. “Now roll the fuck off my property before I fuck you up some more.”

He scrambled to his knees, then his hands, and came up swinging.

And, because my hand-eye coordination was excellent, I swung at his hand like it was a softball.

The ping of the bat hitting his fisted hand sounded glorious in the twilight.

The bellow of outrage should’ve been enough to have me running, but I stayed exactly where I was, getting ready to swing again.

The kid started to stand, slowly, and I wondered if maybe I’d bit off too much to chew.

But before he could make a single threatening step toward me, a bored male voice said, “I wouldn’t try that, bud.”

I didn’t glance away from the kid in front of me, but I did relax slightly knowing that Posy Hicks was near.

“Who the fuck are you?” he asked, laughing bitterly. “You her man? Maybe you should get her ass under control before I take it under control myself.”

Posy made a humming noise underneath his breath, and that noise had me turning to survey him.

He was shirtless, in running shoes and a mid-thigh length pair of running shorts, and a backward-facing baseball cap.

Personally, I’d never really understood the whole ‘short shorts on men’ fashion thing that was going around.

But clearly, I’d never seen a man with excellent thighs, shapely calves, and a washboard set of abs wearing those short shorts.

I mean, granted, they weren’t super short. More like five inches in length.

But holy God, did they do great things to the man’s legs.

I understood now why men got off on short shorts on women.

Oh, and the sweat that was trickling down the length of the man’s body?

That was something, too.

I shifted from foot to foot, feeling the rub of my thighs against sensitive areas between them.

The movement caught Posy’s eye, and he turned slightly to take me in before returning his gaze to the boy-man in front of me.

“Leave, and don’t ever come back,” Posy said.

“Or what?”

That’s when I saw Posy’s chest inhale deeply.

The smattering of chest hair that I could see covering his perfect torso was really doing great things for me and my libido.

Posy turned then, and I saw that he wasn’t tattooless after all like I’d suspected. He had tattoos.

They were just all on his back.

And one in particular held me captive.

The huge, block lettering words ‘TRUTH TELLERS MC’ sent a little spark of excitement through my belly.

The insignia on the man’s back that was usually on all of the men’s backs, only covered in leather, was bright and bold, and looked obscenely vibrant against his tanned skin.

“Oh, fuck.”

The boy-man’s words had me grinning.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

Well, at least the freak had some common sense.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

His repeated words were like angels singing to my ears.

He scampered off, giving Posy the widest berth he could give him while still being able to get out of the rickety gate at the end of my walkway.

Once he was gone, and we couldn’t see him anymore, Posy turned to me and said, “Why are you so much trouble?”

My brows rose. “I think you just keep catching me at bad times.”

He grumbled something under his breath and said, “Be careful with that kid.”

I snorted. “Whatever.”

He started running, and I had the insane urge to go with him.

But seeing as I still had dinner to finish, I waited until at least an hour later when the kids were fed and my mother was home before I left.

But it was with a lot more anger because my mom came home still bitching about my ‘attitude’ earlier.

I stomped out the door in my raggedy shoes that had zero traction thanks to putting so many miles on them and allowed my body to just…run.

I ran and ran and ran, winding around the quiet streets of Decatur.

I steered clear of the road that held the bars and instead turned down a road that led to the lake.

I was halfway down the road when I heard the rhythm of feet pounding behind me.

I looked back, expecting to see something, but saw only darkness.

The moon was the only thing lighting the road as I ran, which meant I couldn’t see anyone until they were right up on me.

When I finally did see…well, it was too late.