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“So tell us,” Gunner rumbled from behind her. “What is Kate Baxter all about?”
She blushed. It was our fault.
Six or seven times a day, we made love to the woman. The girl moaned and screamed it, but it didn’t change anything. We didn’t really know her, and that was our fault. Because ever since this started, we’d been non-stop fucking. Our shafts knew every inch of Kate’s pussy, but Hard Fought didn’t know her any better than Jane Doe. So this was a change.
“Um,” She bit her lip, looking so shy and sweet that I had to kiss her pretty mouth. Red-faced, our girl continued. “I um...want to write books. Nothing too special. Just books. I mean, I guess novels. M-maybe articles.”
“About us?” Brody asked, suddenly looking a bit perturbed. “You aren’t a reporter, are you?”
Kate was far from a reporter. Writer or not, she was no paparazzo.
“No, no. Like books about far away places. Fiction.”
“Places like where?” I asked her. “Other planets? Made-up countries?”
It wasn’t that I thought all she wanted to do was be a personal assistant to famous people. Even so, this intellectual part of her was a nice surprise.
“I dunno,” she murmured, shrugging. “I haven’t really been anyplace. Not like you guys. That’s why I like traveling with you. I get to see so many new cool spots that’d be out of my budget.”
“Shit,” Brody drew the word out and laughed. “We probably see more venues than any real places since we’d been on the road. We didn’t even see the Eiffel Tower when we toured Europe, and we were in France for a week,” he added dryly.
Gunner jumped in. “Truth. When we were starting out, we wanted to see lots of places. Way the hell more than we ever saw in that beater VW van that used to take us around. Never did do it, though. Did a lot of traveling but not a lot of sightseeing.”
Brody laughed. “Yeah, fuck that VW.”
I silently agreed. The van never started when we wanted it to.
But Kate’s eyes brightened.
“A VW van? Really? I think those are so hysterical, like what hippies drive.
Gunner chuckled dryly. “It was a piece of shit, but it got us around most of the time.”
“Good enough for a bunch of fifteen-year-olds,” Brody noted.
“Wait, you were driving at fifteen?” she gasped. “I didn’t realize you guys even knew each other back then! Isn’t that illegal? Or did you have an adult with you?”
The guys and I exchanged sharp, electric blue gazes. It was just like Kate to turn the conversation back to us. She had a knack for listening and making you feel comfortable. We were already halfway in love with her. Every day, she reminded us why.
I jerked my head at Brody. It was his story to start.
“I met these bozos when I was in foster care,” he said. “We grew up in the same town—Hudson and I even had the same foster parents for a bit.”
“Oh my God! Really?” Kate’s big brown eyes flooded with sympathy. “That must have been so hard.”
“It was no picnic,” I agreed. In foster care, we barely had anything to call ours, and when we did, the bigger kids made it their mission to beat the shit out of us and take it. The years of bruises and scars and nightmares made Hard Fought stronger. Resilient.
The terror never stopped, though. Nightmares would always haunt me.
“But the good part of all that was us getting together,” Gunner said. His mouth turned down at the corners, probably from remembering all the shit we went through. “He was only in the system for a little while, maybe a couple of months after his folks died.”
“My sister turned eighteen not long after I was put in the system.” Brody kneaded Kate’s foot like he needed the distraction from his own memories. “After a lot of struggle, she got me out and brought me to live with her. Because of my sister, I was able to get these guys out too. Gunner had it the worst. His parents—well, I’ll let him talk about them if he ever wants to.”
Gunner shook his head. Brody was not lying. Our drummer had had it far worse than the two of us.
“We found out that we were all good at music,” I continued. “Really good.”
Gunner nodded and ran his fingers through Kate’s curly hair. “Brody’s sister got us all instruments on her tiny salary. She saved our lives.”
“Yeah.” I turned to Brody and saw the love he had in his eyes for his sister, Helena. Our rescuer. It was the same love we all had for the woman. Hard Fought couldn’t exist without her.
“She got us out of that hellhole together, and then she let us go.” Brody pursed his lips. It had been a while since we’d seen Helena in person. FaceTime didn’t count. From the look on his face, we were probably gonna make a trip up to New England to see her real soon.
