Trick (12 page)

We lay on the bed, panting, arms locked around each other, and I felt the glow of my new womanhood. I had lost my virginity with Gunner Hunt, and I could not have been happier.

Little did I know my happiness would be so short lived.

***

“Are we going to talk about what happened back there, or pretend it didn’t happen at all?” Daisy asks as she tosses her keys onto the counter.

“Hmm mmm,” I mumble.

“Harlow. Don’t go all catatonic on me. What the hell was that? Did you know he owned that bar? And a house?!” Daisy’s pretty face is like an open book, and I’m ashamed of the pity I see all over it. She feels bad for me.

Because I’m an idiot, and I walked right into a trick with my eyes squeezed shut because I didn’t want to see the truth that was staring at me.

“And has a fiancée?” I cut to the important part.

“Almost fiancée,” Daisy qualifies. “They aren’t engaged yet. Anyway, maybe this is a good thing.”

I stare back at my best friend, feeling like she’s betraying me too. “How is this even remotely good?”

Daisy kicks her shoes off and flops down onto the sofa. “I don’t know. Maybe you can finally move on. Let go of Gunner, you know?”

“He told me last night that he still loves me.” I sit on the opposite side of the sofa, and pull an overstuffed pillow into my lap.

“Oh, Harlow. Guys are dicks, you know this.” She whacks the pillow next to her with such a hard punch, I half expect it to explode in a cloud of feathers. “You didn’t deserve to find out the truth this way, that’s for sure.”

I blink hard and fast to keep the tears at bay. “I don’t even know what the truth is anymore. I was so sure that last night was real.”

“Well, Rochelle seemed pretty secure in her version,” Daisy says in a dry voice.

“I need to go talk to Gunner.” I start to get up from the couch, but Daisy grabs me by the forearm, her eyes begging me not to go.

“I think that’s a really terrible idea. Just let it digest for a while before you go stomping over there. If you go running to him now, you’re just going to further piss of the future Mrs. Hunt.”

I shoot daggers at Daisy with my eyes.

“Sorry,” she says, and clears her throat. “It was funny in my head. Anyway, you don’t want her going to your dad, Harlow. You’re trying to convince your pops that you’re responsible enough to move to New York City. You think if he finds out you’re fooling around with Gunner that’ll help your cause?”

“Gunner is worth it.”

Even knowing everything I know now, I still believe that right to the center of my heart.

Daisy shakes her head at me like I’m a child. “Only if he’s not currently engaged to someone else. Don’t risk everything for him. Not when you aren’t even sure what the hell is going on with him, for real.”

“There’s just got to be more to this. I don’t believe last night was some sort of trick. I can’t.”

“I hope you’re right, Harlow. I honestly do. But he did try to warn you from the start that it was just sex.”

“Please don’t make me feel even more stupid than I already do, Daisy. I’m telling you, last night was different. He was the old Gunner, the
real
one.” In the middle of all this chaos and heartbreak, that is the one thing I’m going to hold onto. What we did, what we felt last night? No one is that good at hiding their true feelings: not even Gunner Hunt.

“Okay. I hear you. You’ll sort it out with him then. But you’re playing by the three-day-rule, kid.”

The three day rule is something Daisy and I came up with in response to the archaic rule that men abide by, not calling a girl for three days. Daisy and I have always abided by our own version. When a guy pisses you off, you give it three days before you contact him, or answer any of his calls.

I sigh, feeling sick and defeated. “Fine. Three days.”

CHAPTER 8

GUNNER

“Hey, this is Harlow, leave me a message and I’ll get back to you!”

Harlow’s sweet-ass, recorded voice has been frustrating the shit out of me for the last two days. She won’t return my calls, won’t reply to my texts. I drove by her apartment complex, but I was an asshole that morning I brought her home and didn’t walk her to her door, so I don’t know which one is hers. I’m not quite desperate enough to do a drive by of her father’s place...yet.

I fight the urge to crush the stupid iPhone in my palm.

“Harlow, baby, it’s me. I just...just call me back,” I say into the receiver.

All sorts of scenarios are running through my head. From normal things like that she’s busy getting ready for school or dance, to worse shit, like that she might be hurt or sick. And I consider the possibility that I said something that upset her before I brought her home and fuck if I’m smart enough to pinpoint what it was.

There’s also the chance that, despite what she said about loving me, she was just fucking with me. That she wanted to draw me back in, make me feel something for her again—like I ever really stopped—and be the one to fuck me over this time.

No, Harlow wouldn’t do that. That’s more Rochelle’s bag.

Rochelle.

Fuck.

No. No way was Rochelle smart enough to put it together— to find Harlow this fast. I run a hand through my hair and kick in the couple of empty crates in the back storeroom, not willing to stop until I’ve reduced them to shreds of wood and splinters. But it didn’t do a damn thing to make me feel any better.

I’ve been dead inside for three years, and waking up to feeling so damn much again isn’t easy. I look around the storeroom for something else to break, then remember that breaking shit for no reason is a habit I’m trying to keep firmly in my past. It makes me feel too much like my old man.

I can still remember the day he came home in a pissed-off mood—to this day I have no idea what set him off—and threw over the cabinet that held all of my mother’s Lladro figurines. She’d been collecting them since she was a girl, and every damn one was smashed to bits in a few seconds.

She didn’t even cry. Just picked up all the shards, silently, and threw them out. My brothers and I pooled our money, but we didn’t have even half of what we’d need to replace her favorite. My older brother Greyson wound up breaking into a store to steal one, and we were all proud as hell of him. But, I swear to God, it was like our mom knew what we did.

She just stared at it, and finally put it in the empty cabinet, where it looked sadder than the emptiness had.

The memory of her face, staring at the cabinet with her lips pressed tight, is the first thing I channel when I pull up at the
beat down gym where I go to blow off steam.

“Gunner! Nice to see you, man. Your bag is open,” Rick, the owner of the place, says from his spot behind the desk, where he watches over this falling-down shithole with a constant grin on his face.

“Thanks, Rick.” I head to the locker room, change, and put my gloves on, then stalk over to the bag in the back corner, the one I can work every ounce of aggression out on without seeing anyone or being seen.

I punch hard, breathe hard, and, for the first few minutes, I don’t have a thought in my head besides hitting the bag with everything I have. When my arms start to burn and sweat drips into my eyes, I push harder, clenching my teeth and picturing my worst nightmares.

My mother’s face, disappointed as hell in the boys she keeps hoping will make fine men, even though she knows deep down they’ll be rat bastards like their daddy.

Rochelle showing off some big ass ring she forced me to buy, and me trying to drink away the thought of marrying her.

Harlow. Harlow tucked neatly at the side of some fucking banker or business man her daddy hand selects. Harlow dressed like a lady, the smile on her face a trick no one can see through because no one cares enough to look. Harlow letting her dress slide to the floor before she climbs into the arms of another man.

Which is ironic, because isn’t that what I’ve been telling her to do since that summer three years back?

I checked my phone. Another message from Harlow about some campus tour. I gritted my teeth and hit ‘delete.’

“Who you trying to ignore, kid?” Daniels asked me as we mucked the barn clean.

“Just a girl who shouldn’t be hanging around me,” I said, then snapped my mouth shut.

Daniels wasn’t one to poke his nose is where it didn’t belong, so I was a little surprised when he kept the conversation going. “You mean that little blonde beauty? That young lady isn’t Harvey Mills’s little girl all grown up is she?”

“Yes, sir, “I answered, slamming a bale of hay to the side.

“She turned out to be a fine girl. It’s a shame she lost her mama so young. She’s been hanging around with you a good bit this summer.” He leaned on his pitchfork.

“Yes, sir.” I slammed another bale on top of the first three, liking the way my muscles burned. It helped me block all the thoughts of Harlow I had parading through my head; her sweet smile, her sexy legs, her awesome laugh, her perfect body.

“I take it her daddy doesn’t approve?” he asked, his voice serious.

“No, sir. He doesn’t even know we’ve been seeing each other, but he caught me on his grounds once, and he made it crystal clear he doesn’t want a lowlife like me messing with his daughter.” I grunted as I kicked the pile of bales into a line.

“You ever thought about going to her daddy and letting him know you got big plans? Maybe let him know you’re going to be the kind of man who can care for a good woman like his daughter?” He spoke slowly, carefully.

“Sir, I do a lot of shady shit, but I try to curb myself at lying. Truth is, there’s a man out there who can give Harlow Mills everything she deserves.” I threw another bale so hard, I was sure I tore a muscle in my shoulder. I ignored the pain screaming through my arm and threw the next one. “But that man sure as shit ain’t me.”

“Well, son,” Daniels said with a lick of temper in his words, “if that’s honestly the way you feel, I guess you don’t deserve a girl like that anyhow. Get those bales done quick and come in for lunch.”

I swallowed hard and waited till Daniels was in the house before I punched the shit out of an old beam until my knuckles cracked and bled.

I punch the bag, almost out of control, when I get interrupted.

“Hell, boy. You gonna beat that sack to nothing. Rick’ll up your fees.”

I tense at the voice that’s too familiar and not welcome.

“Ryker. I thought you were on the rig for the rest of the month.” I grab my water bottle and take a long sip, hoping my middle brother will get bored and get lost before he makes me beat the shit out of him again.

He nods. “Just on a break. One of the drills is acting up, and we don’t need those fucking hippies on our back if some oil gets into the gulf again.”

“Do you try to be as big an asshole as you are, or is it just a natural thing for you?” I ask.

Ryker laughs, arms crossed over his chest, and the way he smiles lets me know he needs something. Which isn’t weird in general: Ryker has been a schemer since he was a baby. But he rarely comes to me. I don’t have enough money or power to demand his attention.

“Just get to the point,” I say as he waits me out. Part of the reason my brother gets every damn thing he wants is because he doesn’t mind standing around with his thumb up his ass until the other guy gives in. “What do you need?”

“A bar,” he says.

“There’s about fifty in Piedmont. Take your pick.”

“There’s this one, though, my shithead brother owns, and that’s the one I need an in at.”

I rub my hand over my face. Why this fucking week of all weeks? I have no patience for whatever stupid shit Ryker is up to.

“Find somewhere else. You’re not ripping my bar apart and leaving me to pick up the pieces.” I head to the locker room, ready to shower off and find out where the fuck Harlow is. I’m done playing games.

Ryker follows me down the long hall. “Listen, man, I’ll hire a cleanup company, God as my witness. Look, the guys on the rig, it’s been rough and they’re a little down, you know. Greyson left me in charge of keeping shit straight, and I thought we’d have a bang-up party once we were on shore. But you know I can’t have any fun at those other bars. Help me out, Gunner.”

I look at my brother, and it’s weird, because we look so similar, it’s almost like seeing my reflection. Except Ryker is a damn weasel, and it shows on his face.

But he is my brother. And, more than any of us, Ryker is always trying to come from under Greyson’s shadow and get Dad’s approval.

“You get a cleanup crew, and you pay your deposit up front, just like anybody else would. Anything illegal, I shut it the fuck down, and if your guys won’t go, I won’t hesitate to call the cops.” I stare him down, unblinking.

“Done.” Ryker sticks his hand out and we shake.

“Square up with Jared,” I say. “He’ll be around till tonight. When’s this going down?”

“Friday night.”

“Two days? You got time to do all this?” I ask.

My brother chuckles. “Hell no. But I got money, and I’m paying some sweet thing with an unbelievable ass to worry about all that shit for me. My days of lugging and working to throw a party are long gone.” He turns to go, then looks back at me. “Gunner? Thanks.”