Just Ride: Legion of Guardians (3 page)

Despite all his gall and hypocrisy, my body was on fire, and I needed to cool off immediately. Hopping in my car, I sped to the other side of town to do my shopping with so many thoughts attacking my mind. What was he even doing around that area? I heard that the Guardian’s headquarters were on the other side of town?

Shit, it didn’t even matter. My face had to be red from all the intensity in his posture and his voice. And don’t even get me started on those fucking eyes.
Liquid silver
. I even surprised myself, leaving him the way I did. That goatee, that hair, and those goddamn water-colored grey eyes. I wanted to grab his ears, pull him down, and shut him the fuck up with my mouth and tongue. He really would have liked that.

Asshole
.

The crazy part about the incident was that Razor seemed to come from a place of genuine concern. It was almost as if he was directly acquainted with the aftermath of domestic violence. It bothered him, which was even sexier. He was a big, strong man, and a biker at that, so it could be assumed that he would not be above smacking the shit out of a bitch.

Maybe not
.

As I was walking around the grocery store, I had the distinct feeling that I was being followed. Quickly turning around, I saw no one there. My cell phone vibrated in my sweatshirt jacket. The caller ID read
Dad
.

"Hello?" I tried to feign innocence.

"Young lady, how are you?" My dad's voice was stern, which meant he knew I was here.

"I'm fine, dad. How are you doing?" I tried to stall.

"You're in town?"

"Yes."

"And you weren't planning to tell me? I have to find out that you're singing at Wiley's and then I find out someone laid their hands on
my
daughter from someone else?!” Yup, the man was seething.

I could hear the quake in his voice as I’ve heard it many times before. It was never good. It was actually deadly.

“Dad, I’m fine. The guys took care of them.”

“No one. And. I Mean. No. One. Lays their hands on my daughter.” He paused before each word.

Yup, heated.

“Dad, sorry I didn’t tell you I was in town. Mom reached out, so I came to spend some time with her. Wiley called and asked if I could stop by and sing, so I did. No biggie. I was going to come and see you, but I wasn’t sure about your schedule. When are you free?”

“The boys took care of them?” He repeated.

“Yup, both of them were sent to the hospital and nobody saw anything.”

“Good.” He paused. “Good. When are you free?”

“Well, the question is, when are you free?” I laughed. “Should I call your secretary?”

“No, you tell me when I can come by or when you can stop by, and we’ll make it happen.”

What in the world
?

Phillip Mills was making time to see me. Something was up.

“Okay, dad. How about on Monday?” I suggested, because this weekend I’d be with Shay and Lori.

“Okay, we’ll text the details.”

“Cool,” I agreed.

“Love you baby girl.” He hung up.

Yup, something was up.

K
ylie
:

Saturday night, Justin called me because he heard I was singing in town. When the band split up, I thought he and the other guys would join another one. Before The Greys were together, we were all in different bands that didn’t work out or our agents felt weren’t a good fit. However, if he was calling me, that meant he wasn’t on tour, which meant he wasn’t in a band. His wife probably loved that.

“You come to town and don’t tell nobody huh?” He asked in his usual jovial tone.

“Yeah, man. It was just a spur of the moment thing.” I felt chastised. “But, how have you been!” I exclaimed. “It’s been a long time.”

“Yeah, it has. A lot has happened since the band broke up.” He paused. “We missed you.”

“Yeah, I missed you guys too. It just got a little crazy after awhile.”

Justin knew damn well how crazy it had become. Scott having breakdowns every other rehearsal. His crazy ass wife kept coming to our rehearsals and causing all types of drama with him and me. She was positive that Justin and I had screwed around. The sad part about all of this was that, we actually hadn’t. Well, technically hadn’t.

One drunken night, Justin tried to kiss me. Even in my own drunken state, I pushed him away. We were only friends and that was all we would ever be, since he was married. Now, if he weren’t married…

Well.

Justin and I could have been an item. He was thoughtful, sweet, and a helluva guitar player. He was also a great friend, and that was worth more to me.

“How long you in town for?” he asked.

“A while,” I answered. “You still live in Huntstown?”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Let’s get together for a beer.”

“Okay, cool. I’m going to be at
Peppers
tonight. Meet you there?”

“Yup, that’s perfect. Nine work for you?”

“Yup, see you then. Looking forward to catching up,” I smiled.

“Me too.”

P
eppers
was crowded as usual
. The music was hot, drinks were flowing, and the crowd was buzzed. Shay and Lori made a pact to get me out every weekend, so I could get reacquainted with the town. It had been a long time since I’d been home, so it was definitely needed. Soon, I’d have to start looking for a job. I managed to build a nice nest egg, but I wanted to keep some for a real rainy day.

There were some familiar faces here unlike at Wiley’s, where a lot of the out–of-towners would come through. Sometimes the local college students would swing by, but you could easily point them out. They were fresh- faced and had mischief written all over them.

“Do we have to go out every weekend?” I whined to the girls.

I even tried to get out of going because of my eye. However, after Shay put makeup over it and styled my hair so it covered the left side of my face, I almost looked like nothing happened.

Almost.

“Yup, every damn weekend,” Shay said as her eyes narrowed on me. “There is only so much facetime, Facebook, and other social media communication we can do. Now we are in make-up mode.”

“Exactly,” Lori chimed in.

The door opened and several guys walked in, but only one of them looked familiar.

Razor
.

He did not see me, but I definitely turned around so I would not see him. He sauntered in like he owned the joint.

Arrogant son of a bitch.

Shay disappeared by the time I turned back around and Lori was chatting it up with another guy. We were sitting off to the side at an island designed for patrons to set drinks and maybe even a snack. Not much else could be held on the small countertop, but there were seats. Someone touched my back on the right side, but when I turned, no one was there. I swiveled my stool to the left and saw Justin Carter in the flesh, looking like a million bucks.

“Justin!” I screamed and flung myself at him.

He caught me and swung me around.

“Kylie Mills! So fucking good to see you.” He put me down.

“Yes! Oh my God! You look so good!” I exclaimed, while still holding on to him.

“Well, shit. You are the one that looks good. Always did.”

Oh boy.

“Let’s get a drink.” I motioned towards the bar.

“Yeah.” He smiled and put his arm around my back. “Let’s do that.”

We started to walk towards the bar, when a tall man stood in front of us. When I looked up, I saw that President’s stitching with the Guardian’s patch.

“She yours?” Razor asked through gritted teeth.

“What are you doing?!” I was yelling over the crowd.

“Won’t say it again. Is. She. Yours?”

“Not sure why that’s any of your business.” Justin said, while holding me tighter.

“Your hands are on her, like she’s yours. I’ll just assume she is.” Razor smirked.

If I would have known what was going to happen next, I would have never invited Justin to come out. Razor slightly turned his head, then he punched Justin right in the face, sending him flying back and sliding across the floor. The place was packed but that punch moved people out of the damn way.

Justin was a solid guy standing six feet tall and husky. He was not a small man, but the way he flew back like a rag doll was almost impressive.

Almost.

I lost my shit.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” I screamed.

I hadn't realized that I had moved towards him and raised my hand to slap him. He caught me by the wrist and growled in my face, “You need a man that will take care of business inside the bedroom and out. Exhausting you from fucking and weakening you from coming, with both sets of lips swollen from nips and bites, and not from hits and gripes. Your eyes should be filled with tears of ecstasy, and not from being abused physically.”

What
?

We stared at each other for a long minute. It felt like an eternity. Razor was angry, upset and disappointed in me that I would allow someone to hit me and then stay with him. He thought that someone was Justin and went about defending my honor. Razor did not even know me, but he saw something and decided an eye for an eye, literally. How I gathered all of that in those damn eyes, I had no clue, but I read it just the same.

I opened my mouth to say something to him, but he dropped my wrist and stalked off. My body, on the other hand, stayed planted there staring at the same spot he just occupied. Someone took his place, and when my eyes cleared up, I saw that it was Lori.

“What the hell just happened?!” She yelled over the music.

“Razor just happened.” I turned swiftly to see Justin getting ice from the bar.

As I scanned the area, I saw that there were more than the usual amount of guys wearing cuts, and they were all eying us suspiciously.

Walking towards Justin, I exclaimed, “OH MY GOD! I’m sooo sorry.”

He shook his head and said, “It’s not your fault. Fuck. He has a mean left hook. Your ex or something?”

“No, just some guy I turned down, who can’t let go. I think.”

Razor was a ball of confusion. Rough, angry, yet avenging.

“Well, it seems like he likes you.” Justin tried to smile.

“Let’s get outta here,” I suggested and then turned towards Lori. “We’re leaving. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Wait, I’ll come…”

I cut her off, “No, you guys stay. I want to catch up with Justin so I’ll see you tomorrow. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay. I can’t find Shay anyway. I’m sure she’s in a closet somewhere.” She shook her head.

“Okay. See you.”

Justin and I left for the burger joint in town. He was trying to be nice about the entire thing, but I had a range of feelings, anger being one of them. I told him about the situation and how I covered the evidence with makeup.

“Now we have matching black and blue eyes.” Justin joked.

“It’s not funny, Justin. I swear I want to kick his ass for punching you like that.”

“Well, serves me right.” Justin shook his head. “I did not account for the men in your life when I put my arm around you. That was possessive. He picked it up and called me out.”

“I don’t give one fuck. He had no right laying his hands on you!” I exclaimed. “He and I aren’t a thing.”

“Kylie, he’s a Guardian. That’s what they do.” Justin looked at me while holding the makeshift ice pack to his eye. “If he felt like you were being beat on, they step in. Usually, it’s when people ask for help, but sometimes, it’s because they are drawing the line in the sand. Like tonight.”

“Drawing a line in the sand? What the fuck does that mean?” I took a bite of my burger. “You know I don’t speak biker.”

“Making a play. Dropping the gauntlet. Laying down the law. Claiming the girl.” He leaned in. “You get it.”

“Shut the fuck up.” I shook my head at him. “Razor can kick rocks.”

“Well, as long as you kicking them with him, you’ll be fine. He doesn’t usually chase women, Kylie.”

We had to get off of this subject, because I did not want to think of Razor, the crazy, biker barbarian chasing after me.

“Where’s your other half?” I asked.

“Right here.” He pointed to himself.

“What?”

“We’ve divorced.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” I said sincerely.

“No the fuck you’re not.” He erupted in laughter. “You hated her guts.”

“Well, this is true.” I smiled. “However, you loved her, so there you go.”

He laughed some more, then said, “Well, she was toxic, causing many of my relationships to go south. Including yours, and I never wanted that.”

I nodded my head and that was all. I would not trash-talk her because despite all of that, he still loved her, tolerated her mess for years.

“Thought you might have been the one for a long time, but you were gone.”

Oh. Kay…

I put my drink down and looked at him. Half of me could not believe he was saying this and the other half of me thought it sucked that he had the worst timing in the world.

“Uh. Look, Justin. This is the worst timing ever. I’m just not…”

He held up his hand, “No, Kylie. I get it.” He pointed to his eye, then said, “Oh, I get it.”

“Wait. Oh hell no.” I started to say. “Razor and…”

“Kylie, you and Razor need to talk.” He sipped the last of his soda. “So, if you need a guitar player the next time you go out. I’ll make myself available.”

“Justin.” I started to explain how it was just that one night at Wiley’s.

“I’m available is all I’m saying. No band, no rekindling. Just if you need one.”

Later that night, I tossed and turned thinking of Razor. Nobody but steely-eyed Razor, the President of the motherfucking biker club in town.