Page 69 of Bad Men

Her head cocked to the side, a challenge if I’d ever witnessed one. “Don’t what?”

“Push me,” I growled, forcing her back into the wall.

Unafraid of the coils of white-hot outrage I could feel snapping through me. “You seem awfully upset for someone who only wants my vagina.”

“I don’t share … with others,” I added when both eyebrows went up in mock question. “Only Davien.”

“Neither do I, so, can we assume then that I can expect the same level of monogamy that you’re expecting from me?”

She had me, the little witch. Never mind that we couldn’t even handle another woman when we had Mia, I didn’t want anyone else.

“No other guys.” I rasped into her grinning mouth. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

To my dismay and torment, she pulled me closer and whispered, “I wouldn’t let that happen. Not to you. Not to Dav.”

I knew in that moment without a shred of doubt or hesitation that I would take the job. I would rise up in my power and position. I would become the man she deserved, and I would take Davien with me. We would make her proud to be hers. We would give her the life she deserved. She would want for nothing ever again.

I sealed the silent vow to her upturned lips and pulled away. She smiled, oblivious to the fact that nothing would ever be the same again. She gave me a little shove towards the hall and my bedroom.

“Food’s almost ready if you want to change.”

She left me to decide and disappeared into the kitchen once more.

I swapped my jeans for sweats but kept my t-shirt. In sock clad feet, I returned to help drag dishes down and count out cutlery. Normal things I’d never done a day in my life. Even Davien and I seldom bothered with plates and forks. Half the time, we ordered pizza or something that got nuked in the microwave. Growing up, my dad hadn’t given a shit what I ate or how as long as I wasn’t around when he got home. Neither Dav nor I knew our mothers. I almost came close a couple of times while in my dad’s Charger. He’d point up a hooker with dark hair and ashen skin stretched over bones and say, “There she is, boy. There’s your ma. Let me know if you’d rather live with her. I’ll dump you on her corner and maybe she can make a few bucks off your ass.”

I walked by her a few times, curious to see if she’d somehow recognize me.

She never did.

She barely knew where she was. She was perpetually stuck in a crack induced haze, stumbling in and out of stranger’s cars to fund her next hit.

Then, one day when I was seven, she just vanished. When I brought it up to my dad, his response was, “Probably rotting in some dump pile.”

That was the end of that.

“Nero?”

Mia slipped a steaming plate of garlic and chicken alfredo into my hands with a smile that seemed to chase away the heavy cloud of dread closing in around me. It pulled me from the cruelties of the past to an apartment lit by the fading glow of sunlight, the creamy scent of a hot meal and two people who meant the world to me. I sucked in a breath thick with sauce and garlic.

“Hey, give me a hand.”

Davien slapped my arm as he passed me, headed towards the hall.

I set my plate down on the coffee table and followed my best friend into his room. I watched from the doorway as he yanked the blankets off the mattress. The pillows followed. Unlike my dislike of clutter, he had no qualms about filling his space with crap. His walls were littered with band posters, half naked porn stars, and movies. Clothes lay strewn across the floor in a jumble of dirty and clean. I caught the corner of his laundry basket peeking out from beneath a heap of fabric. He kicked the mountain back in his attempts to haul the mattress off the box spring.

“A little help?” he urged, glancing over his shoulder at me.

I raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think I have the proper shots for this room.”

Davien straightened and faced me. “Stop being an ass and get over here. What’s your deal anyway?”

I shook my head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’ve been weird since you got back. I thought maybe it was because I brought Mia home, but after your talk earlier, I thought you would be fine with it.”

I glanced over my shoulder to the empty hallway where I could just hear Mia flipping through the channels on the TV. “I don’t know how I feel about having her here.” I faced my friend. My brother. “We’ve never had another person in the apartment. The whole thing feels like…”

“Like a mistake?”

---