AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As we rode toward Park Ridge, Wilde and I worked his motorcycle together. The ride back was far less exhilarating than the experience we’d shared the evening before. For one, I kept my hands to myself and gripped the handlebars between Wilde’s hands rather than run them up and down his thighs. We pulled into the only restaurant in town with Celt on our tail in the two-decades-old black and white. Louie’s, the always-open diner that specialized in grease with a few sides that resembled food, was surprisingly empty for a morning after a party in the hills.
“Good. Privacy.” Celt marched down the row of empty booths and slid into the last one facing the door.
Wilde followed.
I stopped by the counter and yelled into the kitchen. “Louie! Margo?”
When Margo bopped through the door, I smiled at the sight. Louie’s diner looked like it should have the clichéd blue-dressed, white-aproned, middle-aged waitress, chewing gum, taking orders with her number two pencil and hating every second of her shitty job. But Margo beamed refreshingly in her tight jeans cuffed at the ankles, fuck-me heels, and a little plaid shirt tied up under her perky boobs. She was a cross between Daisy Duke and a red-headed pinup girl from the 1950’s. She wore bright lipstick and flashed a spark of mischief in her eyes.
“Heya, Bou!”
“Three coffees, please.”
“On it. Menus?”
“One.”
By the time I sat down in the booth next to Wilde, Margo was on my heels with an insulated thermos, three cups with the fixins, and a menu tucked under one arm. “Back in a few,” she said. Her heel clicks faded back toward the kitchen.
Wilde looked at me sideways, regret glistening in his eyes, then reached for the carafe and poured some coffee, filling my cup before starting on his.
Celt grabbed the pot next and eyed Wilde. “Spill.”
I glared at my brother and took a sip of the black coffee. “Something furry crawl up your ass this morning? Or are you coming down from that shit you were doing last night?”
Celt narrowed his eyes at me then pulled out a crumpled wanted poster. He dropped it onto the table in front of me. When I smoothed it out, a striking likeness to Wilde stared back at me, and I almost spit my coffee through my nose. “Okay,” I choked out and looked sideways at the man who now looked guilty as hell. “Yeah, spill.”
“Look,” he started. “I’ve done plenty of shit in my time. Most of it in the name of business. But the fucker on that poster? I guarantee you, the blood on his hands could fucking flood the Colorado River, and I had no part in any of it.”
Celt looked over his coffee at the poster. “You’re sayin’ that ain’t you?”
“Fuck no! I mean, yes. That’s not me. It’s my asshole of a father. He’s the fucked-up reason I was being chased by the AX3 the night they downed me, and contrary to your opinion of the matter, Celt, I didn’t choose to get shot and bash up my leg and bike in front of Bou’s shop. It wasn’t coincidence, it was a fucking glorious miracle.”
I took another sip of coffee to hide the grin on my face. I never thought Wilde had planned to fall off his bike where he did. Celt was just being an ass, but Wilde’s words had my heart thrumming harder than Betty purred.
Wilde’s brows were heavy. He made a plaintive huff through his nose and tapped his fingers on the side of his cup. His eyes flitted sideways to look at me then returned to his coffee. The message I got in that instant split me in two and shit on my momentary thrilled mood. Despite his words, something about that look spoke volumes. Shutters had come down. The day before, he’d been all there. In every way, he’d been with me. But now, the way he looked at me and the tension in his body language was pushing me away.
He cleared his throat and said to Celt, “You called Doc?”
Celt gave a single nod, then looked up as Margo bounced back over.
“Ready, boys?” She laid a hand on my shoulder and winked. “And Bou?”
Without looking up, Celt ordered. “Three of the special, Margo. Thanks.”
As she disappeared again, Wilde pressed his lips tight, sighed, then said, “I’m leaving. Today.”
My heart knew what he was about to say before he said it, but that didn’t make it any easier to hear.
“The fuck you are!” Celt boomed.
The heated Irish reaction was exactly what I’d expected from the man I’d grown up with. He had an obligation with the badge he sported, but in The Ridge, that duty was a bit murky. A whole fucking mire-filled bog of murkiness after what we did last week.
My voice leveled as I asked, “Where are you going?”
“I’m tracking that piece of shit.” Wilde stabbed a finger onto the face under the word wanted.
“To where?” I pressed. I didn’t even care where his father was, only that Wilde was leaving. His father could be hiding out on the moon for all the fucks I gave, but, unless his father was crouching behind one of the fridges in the diner’s kitchen, the result would be the same. Wilde would be gone.
