Charlie Foxtrot Read online

Fucking douche.

  He deserved it, though.

  I couldn’t believe my uncle made me ride in this piece of shit truck. The one that had been my dream truck. The truck that I’d put nearly all of my savings into to put a down payment on it. The very thing that David had fought so hard for in the divorce.

  I wanted to accidentally pee on his leather fucking seats.

  I still couldn’t believe that he’d won it.

  He had a freakin’ 2010 Camaro. Why would he get both the car and the truck?

  I, of course, was allowed to keep the 1995 Camaro that I’d had since high school because I’d brought that ‘into the relationship.’

  The bonus was that David allowed his new woman to drive the new Camaro while I was stuck with a piece of crap that barely chose to run on some mornings.

  But the absolute icing on the cake, the best, most awesome thing, was the freakin’ lei he had hanging from the rear view mirror.

  The very thing he refused to allow me to ever fucking do.

  Things hanging from the rearview mirror are a distraction.I heard whined in David’s voice.

  Fucking asshole.

  The rage still burned bright after all this time, and it was a good thing I couldn’t act on all my inner thoughts.

  “So,” I said to the man beside me. The older one, not the one that set my girly bits to tingling. “What are we doing here tonight? I feel out of the loop.”

  He raised his brows at me, and in the light of the lamps overhanging the road, I could see the smirk on his face.

  “Everyone that was in on the call this afternoon is getting treated to a dinner by the hotel owner,” the man said. “My name’s Miller Spurlock. It’s nice to meet you.”

  He offered me his hand, and I took it, shaking it like I was taught.

  I wasn’t a limp noodle kind of girl. When I shook hands, whether it be man or woman, I made it count. I grasped their hands like I fucking meant it. Not that Miller could tell I was squeezing hard.

  I scanned my brain for a few seconds, and finally came up with the number. “Unit number three.”

  He nodded. “That’s me. This is my brother.”

  I could tell by the laugh in his voice that he’d witnessed my outburst against his brother.

  Great.

  They were laughing at me now.

  “We’re going to the Bodacious off 42,” David supplied helpfully.

  I didn’t bother to answer him.

  I’d actually been giving him the silent treatment for a year and a half now. Only modifying it when my proper upbringing demanded me to address him.

  It really seemed to work well with him, too.

  If I’d known that it worked so well during our marriage, I’d have used it a lot more.

  “Who is this guy? And why’d it have to be tonight?” I asked Miller.

  I could feel a dark energy at my back, and it was sending excited tingles up and down my arms and spine.

  I could practically feel his eyes roaming over my body, studying me, and taking in my every word.

  “He owns about seventy hotel chains throughout the South. That one was his first that he opened,” a deadly quiet voice said to the back of my head.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, thankful that the darkness kept me from giving my feelings away to the men in the truck.

  I turned in my seat until my back was flat against the backseat, allowing me to turn my head and see the man that I’d been avoiding looking at.

  I knew the dark wouldn’t phase him. Knew he’d be able to see me the second I turned my face to his.

  Steeling up my walls, and shoving my feelings, as well as my fear of the storm down deep, I said, “Cool beans.”

  Cool. Beans.

  Out of the massive amount of words I could’ve said, I chose to say the most juvenile thing I could possibly think of.

  Four points for Blake!

  Not.

  The funny thing was, was that I could tell that he was amused by my words.

  Something that sounded close to an ‘asshole’ was muttered from the front seat, and Foster’s eyes turned from mine to the real asshole in the front seat, and I could see something exchanged between the two before Foster’s eyes turned out the window.

  I sat in silence for the next twenty minutes as David navigated through the winding roads that would lead us towards our destination.

  If there was one thing I could say about David, it was that he had an awesome grasp on driving. He’d never once scared me while he was driving.

  The harsh lights of the restaurant we were going to startled me short moments later as I thought about how David used to cater to my needs. Never driving in the rain when we didn’t need to. Never driving over the speed limit because he knew I was scared.

  Then he had to go and open his mouth.

  “Let’s get this done before I need to get home to Berri. She’s got some bad morning sickness,” David said as he bailed out of the truck.

  I froze in the act of getting out, heart shriveling up into a tiny, never to be repaired, broken mess.

  Oh, God that hurt.

  He knew it’d hurt, too.

  That’d been why he said it.

  Foster’s eyes, the ones that took in everything, saw the hurt that I couldn’t quite cover up.

  He offered me his hand, not saying a word, and I took it.

  Grasping onto it like a lifeline.

  “You were married,” Foster said as he helped me out of the truck.

  I nodded.

  “For nearly five years,” I said quietly. “He refused to have kids with me.”

  “That’s why you left?” He asked quietly, lagging behind to allow space in between David and me.

  I shook my head. “I found out he was cheating on me. For nearly two and a half years.”

  His jaw worked, as if what he’d heard had disappointed him.

  “I didn’t know,” he rumbled.

  I shrugged. “Not many people do. And I’ve never seen you around, so I don’t know why you would.”

  He didn’t say anything as we made our way inside.

  The first person I saw was my Uncle Darren.

  He looked at me warily, as if he thought I’d flip the off the handle.

  I glared at him, not even bothering to give him a hug.

  He’d effectively ruined my night, just by that one tiny act.

  But then I realized that my hand was still in Foster’s, and my palms started to sweat.

  Did I let go?

  Would it be weird if I kept holding his hand?

  Wow, his hand is big.

  His fingers were nice and long, too.

  He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, and the watch he had on was awesome.

  I wondered if the dash marks glowed in the dark.

  “Does your watch glow in the dark?” I asked, my mind blurting it out before I was even aware that I’d said anything.

  He let go of my hand, and my heart suddenly lurched.

  I was bummed that he’d let me go, but then his hand went towards my back as he steered me towards the side of the table that would have his back against the wall. I went in first, which trapped me in.

  However, I found that I kind of liked the feeling.

  It was a different feeling.

  When David and I used to go out, I’d always been on the outside.

  Something about me ‘always needing to pee’ and him not wanting to get up and down every five minutes.

  “So how has your first week been?” Foster asked, an odd tone in his voice that made me look at him.

  His eyes were on David’s, two tables over, who was staring…well glaring, right back at him.

  It was as if David was pissed that Foster was sitting next to me, but I wasn’t sure I could tell you why.

  The man was the one to fuck me over, not the other way around.

  “Who’s the hotel owner?” I asked to capture Foster’s attention.

  He nodded in the direction of the man i
n the three piece suit and tie sitting catty corner to David. “Old guy, 0300.”

  0300.

  Military time.

  “Do all cops use military time?” I asked.

  I never could quite grasp the whole 2400 hours thing. It didn’t matter how many times I tried to figure it out, it just wasn’t happening for me.

  Foster shrugged, and his indifference annoyed me.

  The earlier nice guy was nowhere to be seen, and in his place was the same man that had looked at me like I was a dumb blond just a short week ago.

  Dammit.

  I was destined to be forever known as that girl.

  “I was in the Navy,” he said once the waitress served us.

  I’d ordered sweet tea, while Foster had ordered a bottle of beer. Foster’s, to be exact.

  “You’re drinking the same beer as your name,” I said smartly.

  His brother, who’d sat across the table from me, piped in with, “We’re named after the beers.”

  My mouth dropped open. “That’s cool! I was named after my grandmother’s dog.”

  The two men stayed silent for a few moments, processing that, and finally asked, “Why?”

  I shook my head. “I haven’t a single clue. Blake is a boy’s name, yet I’ve been called that since birth. I don’t know what my parents were thinking.”

  “They were thinking,” my uncle said, sitting down beside Miller. “That they liked the name, and it meant something to them.”

  “He was my grandmother’s dog. Apparently, he saved my mom when she was eight months pregnant, alerting her to a carbon monoxide leak in the house. The dog died about two weeks before I was born because he was hit by a car, so they chose to name me after the dog,” I explained more fully.

  “Well, that’s a shitty story,” Foster muttered, taking a hefty gulp of his beer before placing it down and picking up his menu, effectively dismissing us.

  Miller glared at his brother, or tried to at least. The menu blocked him from everyone’s view but my own.

  His face was weathered and tired, and a small tic was playing at the corner of his mouth.

  His face was what I would describe as rugged.

  He had a dark brown beard that covered the lower half of his face.

  It wasn’t unkempt like some, though. It was very well maintained, and the edges precise.

  He had a scar along his right temple that extended into his hairline, followed by a small mole behind his ear.

  I could barely make out what used to be an ear piercing, as well.

  He certainly no longer had it, but it was nice to see that he used to be able to let loose.

  “So, what do you want?” My uncle asked, his bushy eyebrows raised in question at me.

  I shrugged.

  That was the eighty three million dollar question, wasn’t it?

  Chapter 5

  What’s she have that I don’t? A magic vagina that compliments the size of your micro penis?

  -Blake’s secret thoughts

  Blake

  I didn’t bother saying thank you for the ride.

  In fact, I was pretty sure that David tried his freakin’ hardest to make the drive as horrible as possible.

  First, he’d dropped the other two off first, effectively leaving me in the car with him, trapped and unable to go anywhere, for another ten minutes more than I wanted to be.

  Then he’d driven erratically, purposefully hitting huge puddles, and accelerating a little too fast.

  On top of it all, it’d started raining impossibly harder than it had been the moment I no longer had Foster as a buffer, allowing me to focus solely on the two things I hated.

  David and the rain.

  “Don’t bother with Spurlock. He’s a womanizing prick,” David said, snottily, once Foster walked inside his door.

  I didn’t bother to glance up at him in the rear view mirror. There was no point.

  That was rich, coming from him, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of allowing him to think he knew me.

  He didn’t know me.

  If anything, handing that challenge over would only spur me on, not make me run the other way.

  Regardless, I ignored him.

  It wouldn’t due to break my year and a half accomplishment of ignoring him.

  “I tried calling you this weekend,” David said, clearing his throat. “I want to know if I can have the bassinet. The one my father gave you before he died.”

  I blinked, turned to him, and smiled.

  The evilest smile I could muster.

  Yeah fucking right.

  He could have that over my cold, dead body.

  His dad was also an officer, and I secretly thought he’d always loved me more than his own son.

  I’d admired the beautiful woodwork on the bassinet about a month before David and I had married, and Cary saw me admiring it.

  Cary had bought it for me.

  Had driven back three hours where we’d been not even a half day before, and had bought it.

  He’d then given it to me as a wedding present.

  Me. Not David.

  “You’re not going to be civil about this, are you?” David asked, pulling onto my street.

  I shook my head.

  No, I wouldn’t be.

  I’d loved Cary, and that was the only thing I had left of him, except my memories.

  That was the one and only thing, besides my clothes, that I’d taken with me that day I’d left David.

  He, of course, hadn’t noticed it until he needed it, but that wasn’t my fault.

  Instead of pulling into the driveway, allowing me to get as close to the house as he could get me, he stopped in the middle of the road.

  I got out.

  The moment my feet hit the pavement and I turned to reach for my bag and umbrella, while David sped off in a hail of water.

  Luckily, I’d had my hand around the strap of my purse, or he would’ve taken off with it.

  “You stupid mother fucker!” I yelled, the rain soaking me to the bone.

  Lightening rent the sky above me, and my heart started to pound as I sprinted for my front door, and refuge.

  I was thankful for the overhang that shielded me from the rain, but I was still soaked to the bone by the time I got my front door open.

  “You’re home! You’re home!” My Macaw, Boris, crowed the moment I opened the front door.

  I grinned.

  Boris always had my back.

  A loud boom of thunder shook the house, and I cringed against the couch.

  “Boom goes the dynamite,” Boris continued.

  Boris wasn’t a fan of loud noises, thunder and explosions from the TV included.

  I’d gotten Boris when I’d moved into my new place, and was happy that I’d chosen to get him.

  He was better than a freakin’ watch dog.

  Walking over to Boris’ cage, I picked up a Cheeto and offered it to him.

  “Thank you, Hot Mama,” Boris called out before crunching the Cheeto into a mess of crumbs at his feet.

  Boris also liked to call me ‘Hot Mama.’

  He’d called me that since the moment he’d heard the song Hot Mama on the radio during our drive home.

  Apparently, the trip had been a memorable one, and my title stuck.

  Covering up his cage after sending him a kiss through the air, I walked into my room, stripped down to my bra and panties, then went to bed.

  My sleep was fraught with David stealing my bassinet, and the hot, angry brown eyes of Foster saving it for me while wearing a kilt and holding a sword.

  He was a hero even in my sleep.

  ***

  I woke up and went for a run.

  My mind was in a fog the entire way.

  So much so, that I ended up running right past David’s house.

  I saw him in the front yard, heading to his shift.

  He had his arms wrapped around Berri’s shoulders, holding her to him as he kissed the life out of her.<
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  Something he used to do to me.

  I ran harder, closing my mind off to where it was only me and the road.

  Pushing my legs so hard that I was all the way down a country road before I even realized I’d gone way further than I’d intended.

  I turned around, but instead of running, I started to walk.

  That’s when I realized I was on the same road where David had dropped off the two men yesterday.

  It looked a lot different in the light of day, and with no water pouring down out of the heavens, but no one could mistake those bluebonnets.

  They were so beautiful that I stopped and stared out over the open meadow.

  I hadn’t realized that I’d gained an audience until I heard a woman’s amused voice from behind me.

  “I still do the same thing every morning,” the woman’s soft, melodic voice came from my side.

  I turned to find the woman standing there in her bathrobe, her morning paper in her hand.

  “Yeah, I didn’t realize we had somewhere like this in our town,” I said stupidly.

  The woman was beautiful, even in her bathrobe. Something I’d never, ever in my life, be able to accomplish.

  Her long brown hair tumbled down over her back and shoulders in waves.

  She had wide brown eyes and a soft smile on her face.

  “We just moved in. The old owners didn’t like to advertise that this was here, so not many know about it. Even the ones that have lived here their whole lives,” she said understandingly.

  I nodded. “I’ve lived here since I was five. I was sure I’d missed something. This doesn’t just happen overnight,” I said, waving my hand to encompass the woman’s house.

  She bobbed her head in agreement. “I agree. You’re welcome to come up and check it out from the top if you’d like.”

  I shook my head animatedly. “No, I have to be getting back. I have to work in,” I looked at my watch, eyes bulging when I saw that I had less than an hour to get back, get changed, and then get to work. “Shit. I’m late. Thank you for offering! Have a good day!”

  I started out at a quick pace, but eventually had to slow way down when I realized I wouldn’t be making it back at all if I didn’t moderate my pace.

  That was, of course, when I saw him.

  He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of black track pants.

  He had on bright neon green running shoes, but if I was being honest, that wasn’t what had my attention.