Page 13 of Jake

Thomas tried twice more to get Vinny to help him. Not even the waitress, who he knew needed the cash, would turn his way when he said her name. Damn it, this was just stupid. He needed the cash these pricks had on them. And perhaps a few charges on a couple of their cards too. A man had to eat, didn’t he?

When the second guy in the group made his way to the bar, he looked right at him. Thomas felt his neck hairs dance and his body go sweaty hot to ice cold in a heartbeat. There was something very scary about the way he was staring at him.

“You’re Thomas Simpson, aren’t you?” He had no choice but to answer him. When he nodded, the man laughed. “Yeah, we thought so. Are you having trouble scoring there, Tommy boy? Are you finding it hard to get someone to let you fuck them over? You might want to find a different profession. One that might let you live just a little longer.”

“You think you know something? Well, I like what I do, and I’m pretty damned good at it too. So fuck off.” The man said nothing but reached into his suit pocket, and that was when Thomas saw the gun. It wasn’t one of those little cheap pieces of shit that he had sold out of the back of his car before either. This one was meant for business, not just show. “You have a gun? Why? You’re supposed to be this big bad vamp, right? What do you want?”

“To kill idiots I don’t want to get close to. As for what I want? Well, now that’s a very powerful word there, want. I want you to die, but I’m not to touch you unless I have to protect myself. Are you going to give me a reason to touch you, Tommy boy?” He shook his head. “Too bad. So since you won’t give me what I want, then I’m going to tell you what I need for you to do. Leave. Not just this bar, but this town. Just get in that piece of shit car you have and get the fuck out of town. Not that you’ll have any better luck with your scam once you do go, but you might not be killed if we don’t find you here again.”

“I didn’t do a damned thing to you. You have no right to order me to leave here.” When the man straightened up, his body just growing taller as he did so, Thomas felt his balls tighten to his body. The man was fucking huge. “Don’t hurt me.”

“Why not? You hurt men all the time, don’t you?” He nodded, again not able to keep himself from doing so. It was like he couldn’t lie to him. And when he smiled, Thomas fell off the back of the stool he was sitting on and backed up to the wall. “I can see that we understand each other now. You know that as a vampire of some age, I can find your skinny ass wherever I want and whenever I need to. You might also keep in mind that I have some pretty powerful friends, and I can call on them with just a breath of air to end your miserable life.”

The vampire moved toward him, slowly. He stared at his face too, like he was memorizing every detail about it for future reference. When he had him pressed to the wall, his body hurting as picture frames and other things behind him bit into his skin, Thomas wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. The vampire had him. Captured him with his gaze, he thought it was called.

“Who sent you after me?” The man laughed, the sound of it like nails on a chalkboard to him. Not that his laughter wasn’t full of humor, but to Thomas, it sounded just like that. “I deserve to know who sent you.”

“Do you? I don’t think you do. However, I will tell you this….” He was lifted up by the man, one hand to his throat was all it took. “You touch anyone again, for any reason, and I will not just end your sad life, but I will take great pleasure in tearing you into pieces so small that no one will find you. Even if there was a soul out there that would give a fuck you were dead.”

Thomas staggered home. He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d gotten there, but bits and pieces of himself falling and tumbling around on the sidewalks were a part of his recollections. Once he thought he’d been held at knife point, but he wasn’t quite sure of that either. Things weren’t just fuzzy for him, but they fluctuated between outright fear and blank spaces of time.

His first complete thought was how, sitting on his lumpy couch with his pants down around his ankles, he’d come to be in this state of undress. Thomas wasn’t sure why or how it had happened, but he was half dressed and his head was pounding. Pulling his pants up as he made his way to the bathroom, he thought of what had happened in the bar. A vampire had threatened him.

Not that he didn’t believe in such beings. He knew a great many shifters. Vampires, however, were animals that he left alone. They were not ones to fuck with, he’d learned the hard way. And in addition to being bad assed, they also had a long memory on shit that most people would just ignore. But not a vampire.

As he kicked off his pants and made his way to the shower, he thought of the shit that had gone down. He’d been threatened. By a vampire, no less. And who the fuck were these people, the Winslows, and what business was it of theirs what he did in his free time? It wasn’t like he was hurting anyone. Then he thought of Forrest.

“Okay, so I killed him. But he drove me to it.” Thomas stared at his reflection in the mirror as he turned right then left, looking at his body. He was battered and bruised. His body had more cuts and sores on it than he’d had in his entire life up until now. “He should have been glad to have someone like me in his miserable life. And so what if there were a few things missing from his place? It’s not like he didn’t have a ton of money to replace them.”

Money that he hadn’t been able to cash in on. Thomas had known that Forrest, as a lawyer, would have a lot of it. Hell, the man didn’t even own a house or a really nice car. There had to be millions of bucks just waiting there for him to collect on, but some fucking banker had gotten in his way of that. Just like this vampire had.

The shower wasn’t nearly as long as he’d wanted. The hot water always ran out long before he was finished up, and that pissed him off more. As he was getting dressed, thinking more and more about the fucking vamp, he knew just what he was going to do. Go out to the field and piss on Forrest’s rotten head.

Thomas thought as far as plans went, this one was the best he’d ever come up with. And he was going to tell that vampire next time he saw him to fuck off too. He was his own man, not a pussy like Forrest was.

Chapter 6

The ride to his home wasn’t that long, but Jake was sort of nervous. He was bringing Forrest to his home for the first time, and he wanted things to be perfect. Not that he’d have any trouble changing whatever he didn’t like—the house was pretty much still empty—but he was still nervous all the same.

The moment he pulled into the drive, he wanted to turn around and leave. His parents had finally decided to come around for some reason. Jake supposed now that he was divorcing Carol they figured it was time.

“Your parents, I take it?” He said that it was. “Well, how do you want to play this? That I’m recouping at your house? Or that you and I are old college friends and I’m hanging with you for a little while? I’m okay with that. We’re still figuring this out.”

“Would you mind? For now?” Forrest said it would be his pleasure to help out. “Thank you so much. I’m not sure what they’d do if they knew I was taking you here to have sex with you in every room of the house. Not that it’s any of their business, but I just don’t want to have to deal with them today.”

Forrest laughed. “You do know how to cut to the chase, don’t you? Why don’t you stand up to them, Jake? I know that you have it in you.” He said they scared him to death. “Yeah, I can understand that. But you think this is going to go badly, don’t you?”

“Yes. My mom is going to be all hurt and start crying, as she always has. I have no idea why, but she can play the martyr better than any woman that I know. My dad is going to keep telling me he told me so, or something like that. Yes, he did say not to marry Carol, but then he said that I had to. Like I was twelve or something. Then he didn’t come to the wedding, telling me that he wasn’t going to be a party to my mistakes.” Forrest said he should just not speak to them. “I’m not sure I can even do that. I would love to, but I’m not sure that I have that much in the way of balls.”

“Here’s what you do. Just think of what your grandma would say and then say that. She can cut to the end of a problem better than most attorneys I have had the unpleasant experience of working with.” He stared at Forrest. “Or not. I’m just saying, the man I see now is not the one that nearly raped me in the hospital yesterday.”

Grinning, Jake got out of the car. He didn’t feel like the man he’d been before that either. Jake was still a little backward on things, like the nurse telling him off when he suggested to her that she not try and tear Forrest’s head off when she was helping him dress. Or when the doctor had told him to hire a nurse for the man. Jake knew that Forrest was nearly healed and would be completely back to new as soon as he was able to shift. He was extremely protective of the man, and was willing to go to bat for him like he’d never wanted to do with Carol.

“Jake. We were wondering if you were ever going to get out and greet us. This is no way to treat guests.” It was on the tip of his tongue to tell his father that guests weren’t family, but didn’t. “Who is this you have here? We didn’t think you’d be entertaining so soon. No matter. I wish to talk to you about this divorce you think you’re going to get. I want you to call whoever you have contacted and tell them you’ve made a terrible mistake. You have, you know. Winslow men do not hide from their duties to their family. No matter how much of a disappointment you are to us.”

“Am I a disappointment to you, Father? I’ve always thought that, but really, I never understood why. Maybe you can explain that to me. And how, after all this time, you think you can order me around like I’m a child again.” He felt his confidence grow as he held Forrest upright and heard him laugh. “What you doing here, Father? I thought you said you’d never darken my doorway again.”

“I came to offer you our advice, and you will take it, Jake. I don’t think you’ve thought of the ramifications of what this will do to your family. You’ll need a steady hand in getting this cleared up now that you think to throw away your marriage like it was nothing but an old rag. I’m here to convince you to reconsider this nonsense. There will be talk, you know, and I don’t think that your reputation could withstand it.” Forrest stumbled a little and fell against his father. “Steady there. This is a new suit.”

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