FORCE: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (66 page)

Case

J. laughed. "I can promise you, it's not going to be like anything you see on TV."

Andy looked disappointed, and the rest of the club laughed along with J. at his petulant face.

"Thorn, you got some sort of wild imagination," Dr. D remarked.

"Poor little prickly prospect," Case chuckled. "Don't worry, you'll still get to have fun. I won't make you haul shit the entire night."

It was Crash who had christened Andy with his new name. The first night, when Andy had bitched about the uncomfortable bunks, Crash had declared him a "prickly little bastard." With the last name Hawthorne, his new name was decided.

Thorn headed back outside to the pickup truck that was loaded with cases and cases of beer and whiskey. It was party time. The Storm Riders from Albany were finally on their way, hauling their bikes down to winter in Florida. Case had had Thorn working sixteen-hour days on the new walls of the bunkhouse to get everything ready in time. The exhaustion, coupled with the disappointment of realizing that he wasn't going to be able to get shitfaced tonight had the thorny little prospect in a pretty foul mood.

The morning of the party, Crash stopped by in his pickup, then jumped down to help carry the supplies in.

"Beer, bourbon, and bullets," he had announced excitedly.

"What more could we ask for?" Case agreed. "And what about your other duties?"

Crash looked panicked.  "Fuck man, I'm so sorry."

Case was surprised.  "You struck out? This is unheard of."

Crash dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand.  "I never strike out.  I just, uh, forgot to look."  A slow grin spread across his face.  "Been kind busy thinkin' about my little redhead."

"No time to find a chick for your friend?"

"I will make it up to you." Crash promised. 

Emmy came out into the parking lot to help carry the load.  "Can you believe this shit?" Case asked her.  "One job he has.  'Bring girls to the party,' and he flakes on me."

She thought for a second. "I can call Sammie if you want."

"The chick with a tattoo?" Emmy's best friend was a bit of a wildcard bitch, but she had great tits and an amazing tattoo across her chest that Case couldn't help but stare at. "Yeah sure, why not, I'm pretty sure she hates me but whatever."

Emmy laughed, "She doesn't hate you. She thinks you're a dirty, sexist pig, but I think she's secretly intrigued."

"Oh, I'm intriguing?"

Emmy smiled a crooked grin, "Oh no mister, I'm not playing this game. I'm spoken for."

Case smiled. "Worth a shot! Okay well thank you, maybe I can get her drunk and we can hatefuck each other." He grinned sardonically. "That can be fun too."

Emmy smiled wickedly. "She would definitely be into that. I'll go give her a call. Watch out though, I think she bites."

"Sounds perfect." A good hard aggressive fucking with a chick who wasn't into him. That sounded like the kind of fun he needed.

And Sammie dyed her hair red. Definitely a bonus. He headed into the garage to take inventory.

When he finished locking everything down, Emmy appeared at his shoulder.  "She's coming.  You excited?"

"I'm beside myself," he rolled his eyes. 

"She's my best friend, asshole, be nice."

"I'm so nice and you know it."

Emmy punched him lightly in the arm, her eyes twinkling. "I won't tell anyone your secret," she grinned.

Case watched her go off.  She was warm and friendly, with a slight edge to her that made her interesting.  He could see why his friend was crazy about her.  "Thorn!" he barked, shaking the wistfulness from his head. "Get the targets set up! They're going to be here soon!"

When he first heard the approaching motor, he assumed it was the first wave of the Storm Riders.  He threw on his jacket and stepped out into the cold, only to be surprised that it was Crash's pickup.  He peered into the tinted windows, trying to catch a glimpse of this mystery redhead Crash wouldn't shut up about.  He saw a mass of curls, but nothing else.

The passenger door opened, and a small, womanly figure slipped to the snowy ground.  Her red hair shone, the winter sun catching the deep auburn that ran through the wild curls that had escaped the hat she had shoved over them.  Something flickered through him to see that shade of red and he peered closer. It can't be. It couldn't be.

Then she rounded the front of the truck and he saw them. The same warm cinnamon eyes that had haunted his dreams and nightmares for five long years. They looked at him, and she blinked slowly, like a cat, but the dawning realization hit her at the same time as it hit him.

Lexi.

Her mouth fell open and Case knew she recognized him too.

Lexi

"You're like a ghost in this house, Alexandra.  I don't appreciate being made to feel like your landlord.  I'm your mother."

I sighed heavily into the phone. "Mom, I know.  I know you're my mother. And I love you very much.  Things are just...complicated right now."

I could hear her rolling her eyes through the phone  "Child, you don't even have the first idea what complicated is."

"I love you, Mom. I'm, uh, gonna go now, okay?"

It felt strange to say.  When she sighed I nearly took it back.  "You are nineteen," she said, so low I could barely hear her over the noise of Crash's pickup.  "I trust you, Alexandra.  Don't abuse it."

I looked sidelong at the biker who was driving me to a party at his clubhouse. "Of course, Mom.  I'll call you later okay?"  My finger hovered over the end button for several moments before I summoned the strength to push it.

I was surprised to see that I knew the neighborhood we turned into.  Past the bars and trendy shops of Northern Liberties was the weird little wasteland of warehouses and fly-by-night trucking operations that huddled along the blocks before the waterfront of the Delaware River. It made me weirdly excited to know that Crash's other life existed in the same plane of existence as mine.  I started watching out of the window, trying to guess where we were headed.

I was smiling eagerly as we turned into the parking lot of the weird building that stood alone on the block.  The hulk of the Ben Franklin Bridge could have cast a shadow over the pavement if the sun was angled right.  But it was late afternoon and the sun was at our back as we pulled in, casting deep shadows over the figure that came out to greet us.

He was tall and his torso was bare under what I now knew was called a cut.  His honey-colored beard was both neatly trimmed and wild at the same time.  The flash of the low sun caught his pale blue eyes as he squinted at me and my stomach lurched.

"No," I said.  When I heard my voice I realized I was speaking out loud.

It couldn't be.  No.

The blond man was staring just as hard at me as I was at him.  Denial grabbed ahold of me, lifting me from my seat and propelling me forward.  "No," I said again, and bright fear flashed in my veins like a million silver minnows.  I opened my mouth to say his name, but it died on my lips when he scraped his long blond hair back and clutched fistfuls of it in his hands. 

Without the hair hanging down over his face I could clearly see it.  The scar over his eye.

He had soared through the air like an avenging angel.  But he overbalanced.  His bloodsoaked face terrified us all. But I had closed the gash for him with my heart beating wildly as it awoke to his nearness for the first time.

"Casey."

Eight days.  My terrible knowledge ate away at me for eight long days.  Because I had sworn to my love that I would keep his secret. 

Each time that I saw him, it was as if the scars were also mine.  I gently asked him about them the next night, fearful of how he would react.  But he had lifted his shirt and shown me.   "I trust you, Lexi," he had said.

The memory burned.

"What are the round ones?"

"Cigarettes."

I swallowed back the bile. "Why?"

"I was crying too much."

I traced my nail along the purple flesh.  "Does it hurt?"

"Not anymore."

"And here?"

He looked down. "Which one?"

"The long one."

"She was dating a bible thumper at the time.  He believed in using a belt.  The dark red part, that's from the buckle."

"Oh my god, Casey."

"I got him back though.  He was on probation, so I acted all nice the morning of his court appearance and kept bringing him his vodka until he passed out.  He missed it and got arrested.  My mother tried her hardest to blame it on me, but I think she was glad to be rid of him because he wouldn't let her swear."

"Here?"

"Oh that's from having to break the car window when she locked the keys inside."

"Why did you have to break the window?"

"Because all of our stuff was in there and they were about to tow it."

"Were you moving?"

"No."

"So wait, all your stuff...."

"We were living in the car, Lexi."

"I thought...the house...."

"That was when I was little.  Hunter and Jonah were only babies."

"Hunter and Jonah.,,."

"It's different for them.  I make sure of it." There was strange pride in his voice.  "I have the job with the bike shop, I make sure they are ready for school in the morning.  They're going to be okay. Besides, I'm bigger than any guy she brings home lately.  They all hate me and leave.  It pisses her off and she throws things, but she won't raise a hand to me anymore."

"But what about when you're gone?"

"Why would I be gone?"

I swallowed back my guilt.  "When you're...here."

His eyes darted wildly for a moment, like a spooked horse.  "She wouldn't.  She knows better now."

I felt sick.  I didn't want to ask it, because it would take him away from me. "Are you sure?"

He shrugged my hands off of him, irritated.  "Of course I'm sure."  He pulled down his too tight T-shirt.  "I'm gonna go now, kay? I'm tired."

"Casey, I'm sorry.  But I need to know.  I'm worried, so worried.  I love you Casey."

"You don't need to worry about me."  He had pressed his lips to my forehead and wrapped my hand in his.  "I'm strong, stronger than her, that's for sure.  I'm going to take care of my brothers."

I wanted to believe him. 

But I couldn't stop crying myself to sleep every night.  I stopped eating, feeling guilty for every bite that crossed my lips.  I wasn't paying attention in school.  When I stopped showering after feeling guilty for wasting water, my parents finally took me aside.

"Alexandra, honey, what's going on?" My mother sat me down at the dining room table and covered my hand with hers.  "There's something bothering you."

I swallowed.  "It's nothing," I stammered.

My dad sat down at the table and I squirmed under his gaze, feeling sudden sympathy for the criminals he interrogated.

"Alexandra," he said, his tone half comfort, half warning.

"Please, I can't.  Just leave me alone."

"I'm not going to leave you alone.  I'm your mother.  I want to help." My mother was boring a hole in my skull with her gaze.

"There's nothing you can do."

"Try me."

"Please," I begged.  "I swore, I wouldn't say anything."

My father leaned forward on his elbows.  "There are some secrets that need to be brought out into the open, Lexi honey.  Your mother and I can both see that this is eating away at you."

I opened my mouth.  They were grown-ups.  They would know what to do.  Then I snapped it shut again.  No.  I wasn't going to betray Casey.

"I'm fine, I can handle it."  My words were a strange echo of Casey's voice.

"Not eating, not showering, and we can all see you've been crying."  My mother's voice was so gentle that the tears came unbidden it my eyes.  "Lexi, please sweetheart, it's tearing me up to see you hurting like this."

I started to panic.  My tears were making me weak.  "No!  I swore I would never tell!"

"Are you pregnant?"

"Jesus! No!"

"Is someone hurting you?"

"No! No one is hurting me!"

"But?"

"Stop!"

My father's voice was low, so low I felt it more than I heard it.  "Alexandra, in this family we do the right thing no matter how difficult it is."

I choked out a sob.  "I don't know what the right thing is."

"Then let us help you figure it out."

I laid my head down on the table and pressed my cheek into the cool wood.  I could see out the back window, out to where Sarah was happily playing outside.  She was loved and cared for, clean and well-fed.  I thought of those two ghost-like little boys, wide-eyed and frightened, moving like shadows, haunted by the horrors of their young life.  And the overburdened brother, so ready to save them at the expense of his own sanity and safety.  He couldn't watch them all the time.  He shouldn't have to be so vigilant.  It wasn't fair.  It wasn't right.

"You can help?" I breathed.

My parents looked at each other as I slowly lifted my head from the table.  "You have to promise not to tell anyone, okay?  He made me promise."

"Lexi, we'll do what we can."

And then I did it.  I unloaded my terrible burden on my parents, unable to last even a fraction as long as Casey had.  I opened my mouth and I betrayed his trust, feeling small and weak but glad to tell.

There was a pause that stretched out longer than my life thus far.

And then it all happened at once.  My father leapt from the chair and made for the wall phone.  I screamed and lunged for him, but my mother grabbed my shirt and held me back while I sobbed, "No! Dad! Stop! I promised I wouldn't tell, you can't tell anyone!"

My mother held me close. "Your father is a mandatory reporter, Alexandra.  He has to tell, by law."

My knees gave out and I sank slowly to the floor, my heart thudding so loudly in my ears that my parents' voices were only faint murmurs in the background.  I knew my Dad was talking to his partner, heard the words "protective services." My mother smoothed back my hair and murmured empty words about doing the right thing

When the van came back, it looked like the same one I had seen, was it only two years ago? I stood on the porch and gnawed my fingernails down to nubs as I watched the three blond heads troop out of the house.  They each had a plastic bag of clothes. 

That was it.  One bag each.

As the van pulled out of the driveway, I wanted to see the mother come running out after them.  I wanted to believe she would at least have the decency to chase after her children. 

The rest of the neighborhood was eerily silent.  No one had seen what happened in the house.  And now no one wanted to see the aftermath.

I was their only witness.

I stood stock still as the van pulled down the street, heading the wrong way towards the park.  They were going to have to loop back around. It was just enough time for Casey to look out the back of the van and see me watching him.  His face was a mask of rage and betrayal as he soundlessly shouted my name.

I never saw him again, except in my dreams and my waking nightmares.  No one knew what happened to the boys down the street.  Only that the mother disappeared not long afterward, leaving the grass to grow long and wild and the junkmail to pile up on the porch.  The house sat empty and silent, a judgment on the neighborhood that no one dared claim.  There were rumors of owners in Florida, but they never showed up to take it back.  It seemed no one wanted to own what had happened under our very noses.

I never saw him again.  Until right now.