Page 5 of Street of Dreams
The week that followed had been filled with long days playing the guitar and several late nights working at the family pub. Although Saturday nights were the busiest, tonight Mac had off, so he and Skylar went to a neighborhood hotspot that simultaneously served as a dance club and a sports bar. One side of the place had giant screen TV’s with pool tables and couches. But if you walked around to the other side of the bar and passed through a set of double doors, the music pulsed, and the overhead lights illuminated the room in a prism of colors as bodies grinded together on the dance floor.
Mac watched with voyeuristic interest. He was eager to join them, but Skylar wanted a drink first. It didn’t matter that they were still a year shy from the legal age. The fake I.D.’s in their pockets solved the dilemma. He handed Skylar her margarita and palmed the rocks glass, swishing the scotch to stir up the scent. It was Johnnie Black. He wasn’t blowing his money on Blue, and local clubs didn’t carry the imported brands that his da served at the pub.
“Slow down,” Skylar said, after Mac tossed back the drink in one gulp. “I barely had two sips and you’re already done.”
“It was fresh.” It wasn’t a lie. Scotch wasn’t the drink of choice among most twenty-something-year-olds, so the bartender had to dig out a new bottle. Most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, but Mac loved the bite of a freshly opened bottle of scotch. The real reason he had gulped his drink was because there was a blond-haired hottie shaking his hips on the dance floor, and he wanted in on the action. Unfortunately, he wasn’t leaving Skylar alone at the bar, and she wasn’t leaving her drink unattended. So, he had nothing else to do except wait.
“I don’t want to stay out too late,” Skylar stated. “I have a major marketing exam on Monday. I swore I was going to stay in all weekend and study.”
As if she needed to study. Skylar was one of those people who were naturally smart and excelled at schoolwork. Mac, not so much. “You’re the one who suggested we come tonight. Don’t make me out to be the bad influence here,” he teased.
She sipped her drink and smiled over the salted rim as she surveyed the crowd. She swallowed hard and quickly turned toward the bar. “Don’t look,” she warned. “He’s coming over.”
“Who?” Mac stopped himself from looking into the crowd. “Are you meeting someone here?”
“Yes. But he doesn’t know it,” she confessed. “I’ve been cyberstalking this guy I met the last time we were here. He posted that he was coming tonight.” She suddenly touched his arm and let out a hearty laugh, pretending they were engaged in a lively conversation.
A medium-built guy with thick black hair approached the bar to order a drink, and she gave him a double take, then acted surprised to run into him. They started talking, but Mac was hesitant to leave her alone with a stranger, even though he knew she didn’t need a chaperone. When Skylar noticed he was hanging around, she introduced him to her new friend and discreetly motioned with her eyes that he should take off. So, he did.
He made his way onto the dance floor and found Mr. Perfect still rolling his hips like crazy, who immediately gave Mac his full attention. With hooded eyes, this cherub swayed up to Mac until their bodies touched. They gyrated together to the slow seduction of Billie Eilish’sEverything I Want.By the end of the song, Mac didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to endure the friction but had no intention of stepping back.
“I know a great spot if you want a little more privacy.” The guy turned around and crooked his finger over his shoulder, leading Mac off the dance floor, out the back door and into an alleyway.
It was dark, except for the small glow of a streetlamp. They were obscured from the front of the club and basically between two brick buildings with no windows.
“I’m Mac,” he said, finding the need to at least exchange names.
“Not important. But you can call me Warren.” Obviously not his real name.
The blond-haired hunk flattened Mac against the exterior brick wall and gave him a smoldering kiss, sending his blood racing. His hormones were obviously running the show because fooling around outside a packed club with a random stranger was risky on so many levels. Apparently, it was a risk worth taking since Mac didn’t protest when Warren sunk to his knees and opened Mac’s jeans.
Mac leaned against the rough brick, with its crumbling mortar scratching his shoulder blades, and fisted Warren’s hair. He breathed deeply, allowing the best feeling in the world to overtake him, until the most dreaded voice in the world filled his ears. Jake King’s words were like a sledgehammer, and Mac felt the blood run from his body. His erection immediately waned, and the guy on his knees froze and then shot to his feet.
“What the fuck?” Jake recoiled in disgust, then narrowed his eyes when recognition hit. “Mackenzie? Are you for real? I come outside for a smoke and gotta see some guy sucking your dick?” He slowly walked toward Mac. “You went too far this time.”
Even in the dark, Mac could see Jake’s ebony eyes turn blacker. There was anger there that he’d never seen before, and for the first time, he truly felt afraid of what Jake might do. There was a new vehemence behind Jake’s menacing stare, and it made the hairs on the back of Mac’s neck stand on end. And not in a good way. Over the years, they’d engaged in more shoving matches than he could count. He’d been on the receiving end of a million dirty pranks, but he never actually thought Jake wanted to hurt him before.
Just then, the twins stumbled from the back door and zeroed in on Mac’s open jeans, then shifted their gaze to Warren, who stood perfectly still with a shell-shocked look on his face.
“Gross.” Henry commented, turning away, while Danny pretended to gag and dry heave.
Mac buttoned up his jeans as fast as he could. He readied himself for a brawl, because he knew coming to blows was the inevitable outcome, and he’d be taking on all three Kings. He suddenly remembered that Warren, an innocent bystander in this fucked-up mess, was next to him and could get seriously injured. Not bothering with words, he nodded for Warren to take off and hoped his facial expression conveyed the urgency in which he should do so.
By the way the guy sprinted down the alleyway, the message was received loud and clear. But Warren wasn’t fast enough. Danny ran after him and grabbed him by the back of his shirt which made him stumble and fall.
A ball of anger started in Mac’s belly and rose through his chest. He was done putting up with Jake and his hoodlum brothers. This was fucking bullshit. “Why don’t you fuck off? All three of you!”
Jake’s usual snarky smile turned into a straight line above a hardened jaw. “Know when to back down, Mackenzie.”
The words were icy and sharp. And it only made Mac angrier. “Fuck you, Jake! I’m tired of your shit! It ends now.”
“Get off me!” The frantic cry came from Warren, who was being shoved back and forth between the twins, only a few feet from where Mac and Jake stood.
“What should we do with him?” Henry asked Jake.
Mac waited for Jake’s next move, which could be anything. The man was unpredictable and had a short fuse, which was just about burnt to the quick right now. More than anything, Mac worried about Warren. The guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it was Mac’s fault. He immediately reacted, tackling Henry and bulldozing him into Danny, while he shouted for Warren to run.
Warren bolted down the alley and was gone in a flash, leaving Mac to wrestle with the twins on his own. He got one good punch in before a fist to the gut made him double over and lose the advantage. The twins, who were much stronger than anticipated, held Mac by his arms while he fought like hell to free himself. They somehow managed to push Mac to the ground and hold him there.
