Page 3 of Mountain Beast

“Never gonna happen, O’Hare.” The classy aura surrounding her reminds me of the first time I met Ashley, and the similarity is all I need to remember one simple fact: the only way a woman like that lets a man like me touch her is when she’s slumming it. Acting out with the bad boy.

“Dammit!” The mystery woman pauses, and I wonder if she finally noted my arrival. But, instead, she pulls a phone out of her back pocket then grimaces. The glare of the bright screen highlights her round cheeks and full lips before she shoves the phone into her jeans without responding.

She raises the bat overhead again. It drops with a forceful thud, and her body vibrates from the impact.

Someone must have really pissed her off.

CHAPTER TWO

AUTUMN LANDISH

My muscles tremble beneath the weight of the metal bat. “Stupid noodle arms. Weak, weak, weak,” I mutter to myself, the text messages on my phone continuing to wreak havoc on my mood.

It's not the first time my ex-husband has done this.

It's not even the second or third.

“More like the millionth,” I grumble beneath my breath as I swipe at the tears on my cheek.

Year after year, we play the same game.

He makes a bad decision that fucks up his life, looks to me for rescue, and at first I say no, then the guilt sinks in, and I change my mind. But that's not where the cycle ends.

Oh, no. Of course, it doesn’t end there.

Swinging the bat over my head, I bring it down with a crash onto an old vacuum cleaner. Dust billows up from the cracked plastic cylinder, and I cough before cursing again.

“Dumb vacuum cleaner. Stupid dust people don't empty out before they throw away…” It's nonsensical to be angry at a frickin' household appliance, but here we are, because we're in the second phase of my ex's bad behavior.

After fixing the scheduling system at Jason’s practice—the one we shared when we were married—I explained again how I feel every time he asks me to bail him out of a problem.

The first time I expressed those feelings, I felt proud.

I thought therapy was really working.

But after Jason expressed his guilt, then didn't actually change his actions to match the words, I stopped feeling proud and started feeling pathetic.

Which is why I'm in the middle of a junkyard, crushing random crap, first with a large rubber mallet, and now with a damn baseball bat.

“For the low, low price of five bucks an hour,” I grit out.

It's not uncommon for me to talk to myself. After all, who else is going to let me ramble on about the same problems I've been dealing with since I was a fucking teenager?

Sure, my friends would be supportive, but I'm sick of sharing, so I'm sure they're sick of listening, which means it's on me.

Talk out my frustrations to myself, or keep it bottled up.

That's also why I'm at a freaking makeshift rage room. One that the people of High Ridge whisper about because its owner is part of a trio of men that everyone loves to gossip about.

Apparently, he isn’t a great guy. I’ve heard the word beastly tossed about numerous times.

But I don’t give a rat's ass about the man who runs this place.

It's not my business what he gets up to, especially when I've got my own problems plaguing my life. “Motherfucking mothertrucker,” I stumble over my words, losing the ability to make sense.

“That's quite the insult,” a male voice says, amusement emanating from the gravelly tone.

Jerking back from the vacuum cleaner, I lift the bat over my shoulders again, prepared to defend myself against the stranger.