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“We’re going to have to watch her when she becomes a teenager,” Daniel said out of the corner of his mouth.
Harper put one arm around Daniel’s neck and the other around mine, looking at us both seriously. “When do I get to be a big sister?”
I laughed loudly but Daniel lifted his brow and stared at me. I shook my head. “Oh no, don’t start on me yet. One thing at a time.”
Daniel leaned in and kissed my lips before turning and kissing Harper on the forehead. He looked from me to her and back again. “I love you two so much. I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”
I looked at Harper and she looked at me before we both nodded. “I can agree. But not nearly as lucky as we are.”
Ryder
I scratched the side of my neck, pulling even more sand off my skin. That was exactly why I was happy to take my boots and my bike over flip flops and beaches any day. But it was Daniel and Sicily’s day. He had asked us to do that ridiculous proposal with him, and there was no way we could turn him down. Over the last year we all had gotten to know Sicily, and we all loved her and Harper very much. She made Daniel happy and she was a good woman.
So, I took surf lessons for six months, dawned a tuxedo printed wetsuit and embarrassed myself in front of a ton of people. The ladies seemed to think it was adorable and I already had a pocket full of numbers. I was glad to be back in my clothes again, celebrating their engagement at Daniel’s favorite Italian restaurant. I had put the party together, too afraid of letting the knuckle heads do it. I wasn’t sure they had ever planned anything other than graduation parties and keggers.
They would be the fools planning the bachelor party, but the engagement party was for Sicily. It was a nice affair, with the whole restaurant rented out. We invited the team from work, Sicily’s annoying best friend Amber was there, and her parents made the trip. Even Daniel’s family showed up for the occasion, which wasn’t something we saw a lot over the years.
Everyone was eating, drinking, talking, and enjoying the night. I was never a big fan of those kinds of social gatherings but I wasn’t uncomfortable at them any more. I had been forced into enough of them since the company took off to find my comfortable spot. A glass of whiskey in front of me, my boots back on, even though I knew they were full of sand, and a corner spot away from the masses.
“Excuse me, Mr. Rhodes?”
I looked up at the waitress. “Yes, that’s me.”
“There was a package delivered for you.”
My brow furroughed. “Here? What is it?”
She shrugged. “We don’t know. The instructions were to put in it the private room for you to open. It might be a gift for the couple from someone who couldn’t make it.”
I nodded and got up, managing to skirt past the group without them noticing. I followed the waitress to the private room. She showed me in and then left, sliding the doors closed behind me. I didn’t know why, but for some reason the whole thing gave me a strange feeling. Sitting on a table by itself, in the middle of the room was a brown package. On top was a card. There were bikes on the front of the card. I pushed it open and read the message.
“Seems the Surf wasn’t as fun as it looked. How about we hit the road on our hog instead? Vroom Vroom Ryder. P.S. Did you miss me?”
I read the card several times, pulling my hand back as I recognized the term surf. The writing was not handwritten, but instead letters cut out from various sources, glued inside the card. Flashes of “Surfs Up” etched into that poor guy’s chest flashed through my mind. I pushed the card to the side and carefully untapped the folded edges of the brown paper. Beneath was a metal box, similar to those at yard sales that people kept cash in. Only this one was square and tall.
Scraped into the sides of the box it said “Vroom, Vroom.”
I clicked the latch and flipped open the lid, standing back for a second to make sure nothing was going to jump out, explode, or something else unexpected but lethal. After a few moments of nothing happening I took a step forward and looked inside.
“Oh god,” I gasped, stumbling back.
I put my hand over my mouth for a second and closed my eyes, gathering my thoughts. I stepped forward again, grimacing as I reached inside, pulling out a small piece of paper rolled and sticking from the empty eye socket of a severed hog’s head.
On the note was a date. Jan 6th from 7 years ago. I had no idea what that date signified but it was the same one sent to Daniel a year before when he got the recording.
It was obvious the killer was back, and this time it looked like I was the object of his attention. And from the looks of the severed Hog’s head, I might want to watch my own.
One Big Dare
A Fake Relationship Romance
Prologue
Ryder
California had one thing I could never say no to, endless summers. There were very few days throughout the year that weren't good days to go ride my motorcycle. It was the thing that I loved the most. It was the perfect way to spend time with my family, away from it all, and let go of the stress. There's nothing like driving on open roads in the quiet of nature. It helped that my family lived a few hours away in a tiny town near the beach. My family wasn't like the others. They were salt of the earth, blue-collar, working people. The house had been handed down over the years to my parents, who were happily retired there — not that they saw much quiet time. They had four kids, me being the oldest of the bunch, and now, with my sisters and brothers married, they were proud grandparents of five.
But, every other day, I spent my time resting in San Diego, counting the minutes until I could get back on the road. The women and the press thought I was a playboy, a bad boy with my leather and wheels, but that was far from the truth. I was actually happier on my own. At least I had grown to be that way. But I didn't have a happily ever after like Sicily and Daniel. The girl I was destined to marry died in my senior year of high school. I had often wondered over the years if I had made her more perfect in my mind than she actually was, but it didn't matter. It would take a hell of a woman to get me to settle down and commit to anything. They wouldn't be able to handle my "grumpiness," or so my mother called it.
