Diesel, p.2
Diesel, page 2
“Hi!” he says, and I grin, going down on my knees so that I’m more his height. “I’m Ryan!”
“Hello there,” I say with a smile, holding my hand on my forehead to shield me from the sun. “I’m Rory.”
“Rory’s a pretty name,” he responds. “We’re moving here,” he announces, and I frown because he doesn’t seem really happy about it.
“Looks like we’re going to be neighbors then. Because I live right here too.”
“That’s cool,” he says. “How old—”
“Ryan! Get over here now,” the man says harshly. I jerk at the coldness in his voice.
How can anyone sound that cold when dealing with this little cutie?
“Daddy! We have a nay-bore!”
“No, we don’t,” the man says and I stand up, reading something in his voice—something I don’t like—but also, something that warns me to prepare. “Get up in the truck for a minute and play okay? I’ll be right back.”
“Okay, Daddy,” the little boy says, back to being sad. I watch as the man lifts him up into the bed of the truck. There’s not much room in there, but he finds him a spot and proceeds to play with his dinosaur.
“Can I speak with you a moment over here?” he asks, but he uses a tone that makes me almost certain it’s not a question.
He wants to talk to me and he’s going to do it. We walk to the edge of the driveway and that’s when I know for certain that I am definitely not going to like my new neighbor—no matter how handsome he is.
“Listen, I don’t know what your game is—”
“My game?” I ask shocked and more than a little confused.
“Exactly. What you need to know is that I don’t want this.”
“Don’t want this?” I repeat like a damn parrot. Maybe I’m completely dense, but I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“I don’t want to be friends with you. I don’t want you to be friends with my son. I don’t want to talk to you and I really don’t want you to talk to my child. We are not going to be friends, we will barely be neighbors. Do you understand?”
“Oh, I think I’m getting the picture,” I tell him, coolly.
I get the picture that you’re a freaking asshole!
“Good. Now that we’ve got that clear just remember one thing,” he says, already walking away.
“What’s that?” I ask, unable to resist.
“You stay away from us and everything will be fine,” he says and I don’t think I’m imagining the warning in his voice at all.
Looks like my great morning has taken a complete nosedive. I clear my throat and walk to my car, getting inside. As I adjust my mirrors, I catch sight of the little boy looking over at me his eyes full of sadness and my heart squeezes. I try and give him a reassuring smile. He doesn’t really respond, but then with his father so close by, maybe he’s afraid to.
I back out and look up as I put the car into drive. The man has his son in his arms and he’s smiling as he looks at him. It’s an almost tender smile—which is completely at odds with what I just saw from him. It does manage to make me feel a little better—at least about the boy.
It sure doesn’t mean I’m going to enjoy having them living next door.
I hope this isn’t a sign that I settled in Whitefish way too soon…
Maybe I should have kept going until I reached Alaska?
2
Diesel
I close the door to Ryan’s new room and then lean against it for strength. My eyes shut and I ignore the emptiness I feel deep inside. For as long as I can remember, my club has been a part of me. Being without it now feels wrong, it feels empty as fuck. The silence in the house bears down on me like a physical thing and it almost suffocates me.
Ryan doesn’t like the new house. He misses Dakota—Crusher and Dani’s boy. He misses being part of the group too. They’re our family and it sucks like hell giving it up.
I had to. I didn’t have a choice. I know it—but it doesn’t mean I like it. I walk toward the kitchen, which just so happens to be on the same floor as the bedrooms. I’m not much on caring how a house is designed, but I will admit that it’s handy as hell. I grab a bottle of Patron and sit down at the small table in the corner.
Is drinking alone a sign of your life being fucked out the ass? If not, it should be. I take the first swig and let the burn hit me hard. I don’t bother pouring it in a glass. There’s no one else here to drink. There’s no one else here to do anything. There’s no loud wailing of pipes as the brothers pull into the garage. No music blaring in the bar, no candy swinging their asses for my enjoyment. There’s nothing.
It has to be this way.
That’s what I keep reminding myself. Not sure I’ll ever make myself fully believe it. I had to shut myself off though. I never learn. First there was fucking Vicki and then Violet. I mean what the fuck does it take to smarten my ass up? A damn house to fall on me?
The problem is, I can’t be sure this last double cross came completely from Violet. There has to be some way that she broke through my security measures—other than just sleeping in my bed and fucking me senseless.
She had to have help.
At least that’s what keeps screaming in my gut. It screamed the entire time that I stayed with the club while Devil was going through his shit with Torrent. Violet has been gone awhile—a fact that has marked me in a way that nothing else has—even if I knew it had to be done. But, she was gone and there was still a burning in my gut, telling me something wasn’t right. I put Devil and the club first and yet another attempt was made to take Ryan from me.
It just feels like these attempts keep happening no matter what I do. It’s almost as if it is easy for them. That would mean there’s someone on the inside—a brother that is fucking me over. A limp dick who is trying his best to destroy me. If I was the only one involved, I wouldn’t have cared. I’d have stayed at the club and combed the place back and forth, setting traps to find the hidden snake among my family.
I didn’t have that luxury with Ryan involved.
My first priority is to keep him safe. I can do that better when I’m not looking over my shoulder for the next knife to be thrust into my back. I pick up my bottle and walk outside on the small deck—which really is more like a balcony. There’s room for a grill—which I don’t have—and a couple of seats. Those I do have. They’re plastic and who knows how fucking old they are. The white has slowly faded into a shitty gray color—so I figure they are almost as old as I feel. I grab one and plop my ass in it and let my feet prop up on the railing. I take another swig of tequila and lift my eyes to the sky. I watch as the sun slowly begins to disappear and the sky explodes into hues of pinks, purples and oranges. Any other time, I would think it was pretty. Right now, it just serves to make me feel more alone.
My head jerks as I hear the sound of a door being slid open. Another fucking thing I hate about this dump and something that will have to change. Sliding glass doors are a fucking nightmare when it comes to protection. I’m definitely going to have to install new doors here.
My gaze goes to the adjoining unit beside me. That one has a much larger deck because the previous owners had it installed. The new neighbor obviously enjoys it because there’s plenty of plush seating and flowers on the deck. It’s pretty—if you get into that kind of thing. I have a dick, and that’s not something a man really takes much notice in.
I expected her to try and talk to me and I was totally prepared to shut her down, but her gaze never even strays toward me. She makes a beeline for an outdoor sofa which has pillows piled so high on it that I don’t know how they keep from falling to the floor. She slides on it, her back to me and her face looking up at the sky and she lies down just like that—watching the sky and nothing else around her. It’s foolish, but this chick and I have probably led very different lives. She’s probably never had to look over her shoulders. I don’t know how to even relate to that, but I imagine it would be fucking heaven.
I close my eyes, blotting the woman out. I meant what I said to her earlier. I don’t need her trying to be friendly and I especially don’t want her near Ryan. She doesn’t exist to me.
“Star light, star bright,” she whispers so softly it feels like the words float on the breeze. “First star I’ve seen tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish, I wish tonight,” she finishes and there’s a sadness in her voice that calls to me, but I ignore it too. This woman is nothing to me.
Nothing.
“Please let tomorrow be better than today,” she whispers up into the heavens and my lips spread into a smile.
Not a good smile.
Fuck, there’s nothing good to smile about. This smile is tainted with darkness that has permeated so deep inside that it is now a part of me. This smile is as jaded as they fucking come and full of derision.
“There’s one thing I’ve learned about life,” I tell her and I hear her gasp and a rustling of the pillows. I don’t bother opening my eyes, instead opting for another drink from my bottle. Once I do that, I hold it loosely around the neck, letting it rest on my lap. “There’s no great power and wishing on the fucking stars is as useless as pissing in the wind and not expecting blowback.”
“I don’t remember asking for your opinion,” the girl says and it’s clear that she’s pissed at me—probably because I laid the law down earlier. I don’t really give a fuck. She can get glad or sad about that shit, she’s nothing to me.
“You didn’t. I’m just offering a little friendly advice,” I tell her with a shrug.
“You said we aren’t going to be friends,” she reminds me.
“And we’re not,” I confirm, taking another drink.
“Then, keep your advice and stick it up your ass,” she says.
That surprises me. I didn’t know what her play would be, but for some reason I thought she’d at least try to talk to me further. It shocks me so much that she didn’t, that I open my eyes to look at her.
She really is pretty, not that it matters. She’s got thick, wavy red-gold hair that falls down her back and she’s wearing a shirt that’s obviously one size too big. The shirt’s black and has gold writing in the middle that declares she’s having a bad hair day—which she’s obviously not, but whatever. She also has these short little black shorts on that reveal long tanned legs that I shouldn’t like looking at—but I do.
“I’ll make note to do that very thing,” I vow, wishing I hadn’t forgotten in the first place.
“Great,” she says, and then she gives me her back before lying back down in her couch of pillows.
I start to say something else, but I don’t. There’s no point. I sure as fuck don’t need to apologize. It’s good she got the message. It will save me a hell of a lot of problems in the long run.
We don’t speak again. After about ten or fifteen minutes, she gets up and walks back in her house. I know because for some stupid fucking reason I’m watching her. I’m watching her… even though I hate myself for doing it.
3
Rory
I’ve finally seen a drawback to the community pool that my complex has.
My new neighbor.
It’s Saturday and it’s almost eighty degrees. Which is nothing new for the summers here. I love the weather here in Montana actually. The nights are cool—even in the summer—and the days have the heat without the humidity I experienced back east. I’m lying on a lounger, enjoying my day off of work and soaking up the sun. I’ve been working so much that I was starting to look as pale as a ghost.
All this, the fact I’m in my bathing suit enjoying beautiful weather, that I have the day off work, plus I managed to pay all of my bills for the month and still have money left over—should make me extremely happy.
And it does—to a point.
There’s one huge shadow preventing total happiness, however.
I adjust my sunglasses, and let the sun try and burn away the stress inside of me. I normally wouldn’t wear sunglasses. I’m playing with fire doing it now. I’m going to have large white circles around my eyes from them. I know it, but I continue to wear them. I don’t have a choice. If I take them off, then my damn neighbor will know I keep staring at him.
And I am staring.
I couldn’t keep from it if I wanted to. I don’t know a woman alive that could. He’s that pretty.
Okay, I know that men aren’t supposed to be described as pretty, but heck there’s not another word that fits him. He’s perfection. He’s got his hair pulled up again and he’s wearing these bright red swim trunks. His body has this golden tan everywhere you look. It’s almost so unnatural you’d think it was fake, but for some reason it’s easy to tell that he got his tan the old-fashioned way. His trunks hang low on him and there’s still no sign of pale white skin—which makes me think the dude has no tan lines at all. Like, where did he come from that he could be naked out in the sun all day? Was he a cabana boy on an island at one of those nude beaches? He doesn’t carry himself like a cabana boy—not that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting any, but still…
One thing that does show with the low hung trunks though…. Those freaking abs!
He has abs that are chiseled out of freaking stone and the indentions are so pronounced you want to run your tongue through each groove.
I hate the man, but just watching him stand up, those trunks clinging to his powerful body and water dripping from his hair and following imaginary lines down his chest and stomach—lines I’d love to lick—is enough to make me wet. So wet, that I can feel it gather on the inside of my swimsuit and paint the inside of my thighs. So wet, that my nipples are hard against the fabric and I’m glad I paid extra for the thick supportive cups on the inside of my suit.
“Damn. When did that move in?”
I frown as I look over at my other neighbor, Sheila. She’s in the duplex across the street. I don’t like her. I mean, I don’t dislike her—not really, but she’s not one of my favorite people. She’s never done anything to me personally, but she’s definitely a busy body who puts her nose in everyone’s business. She also makes a living ignoring the girl code. When I say that, I mean that she’s sleeping with Carla’s—the woman unlucky enough to live in the house connected to Sheila—husband.
Carla is a nurse and she works the graveyard shift—which gives her man way too much time to play around and he does like to play. I don’t know what he does—besides cheat on a good woman with a skank—but whatever it is, it gives him plenty of free time.
The whole situation is sad. I want to tell Carla, but I’ve learned the hard way to stay out of people’s lives. I figure Carla is a smart woman. If she doesn’t know what’s going on, she soon will. I don’t know her that well. If I did, maybe I’d try to warn her. Come to think of it, that might be the reason I try to avoid Carla in the first place. I don’t want a deep friendship with her, because if I had one I’d feel obligated to tell her the truth.
“Last week,” I tell her, not bothering to act like I have no idea what she’s talking about. I do know, because my eyes have barely left him since I’ve been out here and Sheila being a woman… I figure she’s doing the same thing. “He lives in the unit right beside me,” I tell her reluctantly. It shouldn’t matter. From what I know of my new neighbor, he’ll shut Sheila down quick and if he doesn’t then I’ll quit having dreams about him.
I bite my lip as the memories of the dreams come to my mind. They’re getting more and more detailed. Last night I woke up from a dream so real I could feel him between my legs. I had to dig into my toy drawer, find my vibrator and finish myself off. I did that while imagining it was my new neighbor between my legs with his mouth.
It's crazy.
I hate him, and yet I’m so attracted to him that my body feels like it’s on fire just from looking at him.
I don’t even know his name…. Although, I do know his son’s name is Ryan and that the man dotes on him. Seeing him with his son is just as hot as watching the water drip down his body.
“Where?” Sheila asks, reminding me she’s there. I sigh and take a drink of my tea, before replacing the cup back on the small table beside my lounger.
“Next door to me,” I tell her, pulling my eyes from my new sexy—but asshole—neighbor.
I look up at the sky instead, closing my eyes and doing my best to dismiss the neighbor, the cute little boy, and Sheila the skank from my mind.
Sadly, none of this works.
“I’m about to go up to that man and show him what he’s been missing,” she boasts and my lips spread in an annoyed line. I figure he’ll shoot her down immediately, but who knows? Sheila is thin with fake blonde hair that all the men seem to like and even faker boobs that they definitely like—a fact Sheila plays up since she always shows more cleavage than Dolly Parton in a topless bar on all you can drink night.
Against my will, my gaze goes back to my jerk-face neighbor, his beautiful kid and Sheila. I see him turn to her as she walks along the side of the pool. My hand tightens into a fist and something close to jealousy springs up—which is crazy. You can’t be jealous over a man who treated you like the dirt he scrapes out under his fingernails. Then again, you shouldn’t be having hot sex dreams about the same man either.
“Hi there,” Sheila’s voice hits me, and with that fake little giggle she adds it feels like a cat clawing against my skin. “You look like you’re having a lot of fun over here,” she adds. “I thought I might join you.”
A cat clawing against my skin that is obviously in heat.
I don’t hear my neighbor say anything—not even a grunt. Slowly my hand relaxes.
“I thought maybe I could get a little wet with you,” she says, her voice dropping down into what I’m sure she thinks is her bedroom voice. I gasp. I can’t stop myself. She said that shit to him, right in front of his son. My fist tightens up again and this time I want to claw her eyes out. I lift off my sunglasses, needing to see my neighbor’s reaction, but mostly wanting to check on his little boy.
