15. Zepp

FIFTEEN

zepp

The sun sank below the jagged TV antennas jutting up from the trailers. Wolf slumped down in the lawn chair, scrolling through his phone. "Ah, shit, dude. That Barrington chick I was banging the other night said she knows who ratted on us."

With everything else going on, I'd almost forgotten about that, and for a second, I wanted to pat Wolf on the back. "Who?"

"She said she doesn't wanna text it. Said she'd tell me on our date."

I slowly turned to face him, one brow lifted in question. We didn't do dates. We had girls over and screwed them, without the entire "I'll pay for your dinner and a movie" bullshit.

"A date?" I said.

Thumbing over his nose, he leaned over his knees and snatched up a twig from the roof, tossing it over the gutter. "Yeah. I know. But two hours at a movie to know which little prick snitched on us..."

"Taking one for the team." I slapped a hand over his shoulder.

"Oh, naw, dude." He grinned like a fool. "You're coming too. The girl's friend wants a date with you."

"I swear to God, Wolf. If you promised some chick that I would go to the damn movies."

He clasped a hand to my shoulder. "Come on; she's hot. Blonde. Big tits. A gymnast. You're guaranteed a piece of that pussy."

Like that made a difference. No way in hell I would endure two hours plus of some shit movie with a Barrington girl for a possible orgasm. Or some Barrington snitch's name. No damn way.

"I already told her you would do it. Suck it up, dude."

The door to Monroe's trailer creaked open, catching my attention before it banged shut. She rounded the corner, dragging a garbage bag behind her. The words Wolf was saying were nothing but a hum in my ears.

"Whatever, man," I stood and halfway waved him off as I crossed the slanted roof. I grabbed the top of the ladder and started down, pausing when Wolf asked me where I was going.

His gaze shifted over my shoulder in the direction of Monroe's trailer.

"I gotta ask Monroe about some shit," I said before continuing down to the porch.

"Yeah." He snorted from the roof. "Right."

The streetlights came on when I started across the dirt road, the one over Monroe's lot flickering. She hoisted the bag up, and the garbage can tumbled over with a clang. She swore, dropping the bag and kicking at the dented aluminum before setting it upright. She crammed the trash inside, so focused on giving the can one last kick, that she didn't notice me. Dusting off her hands, she spun around, then froze. "Uh, hi." She glanced at Wolf's trailer, then back at me. A wrinkle creased her brow. "You okay?"

"Yeah." I brushed past, turning around to face her while I backed toward her porch steps. "Gonna invite me in?"

"My mom's in there." Her gaze drifted to the trailer behind me, a hint of panic reaching her eyes. "And she's cracked out."

With that comment, I froze. I remembered what having a cracked-out mom was like—not wanting people to come over because I didn't want them to see my mom messed up. Despite all her faults, she was a good mom. She had tried. And I loved her. I couldn't stand the thought of people not understanding there was more to her than they saw.

Like me.

Like Monroe.

She stared at the trailer for another second, an unreadable expression settling on her face before she jerked her chin to the opposite side of the road. "Come on."

We crossed through one of the lots, past an El Camino on cinder blocks and a yappy dog crammed in a kennel.

"Sorry. My mom isn't good in the evenings. Or ever. Really."

I thumbed over my nose. That was personal shit—I didn't do well with personal shit. It made people real, and it was best to keep people outside of the guys at a distance.

"I don't know why I'm telling you this." She stepped over the downed chain-link fence that separated the row of manufactured homes from an overgrown field that ran underneath the interstate, and I followed, the awkwardness growing thicker than the humid air around me.

"What do you do out here? Bury bodies?"

A small smile curled the corner of her lips. "How did you know?"

"You put off that psychotic, redhead vibe."

She snorted. "Look who's talking."

Dusk settled in just as we cut into the woods, the temperature dropping from the thick shield of leaves overhead. The noise of cars backfiring and dogs barking gave way to the chirp of birds and the distant babble of a brook. Monroe carved a path through the pines until we reached a small clearing in the middle of the woods where a fallen tree laid across the creek's path. I stood by the water, watching it move over the rocks, not sure exactly why the hell I was back here with her.

"Did you want to talk or something?" she asked.

I turned around. Monroe had plopped down on the moss-covered trunk, one leg kicked up.

"What?" Taking a seat beside her, I pulled a cigarette from my pocket and lit it. Instead of focusing on her, I focused on the smoke billowing over the creek, my leg bouncing.

"You came over to my trailer…"

"Yeah. And?" I was good with girls. Great at talking their panties off. This shit...I glanced at Monroe out of the corner of my eye. Yeah, I was shit at whatever the hell this was.

"We can go back." She dropped her boot to the ground.

I didn't want to go back. But I had no idea how to keep her here. I honestly had no idea who she really was. "When's your birthday?" I said, then took another drag.

"August twentieth. Why?"

Another pull from the cigarette. A shrug of my shoulder, my gaze still aimed at the water. I had never felt so stupid in my life.

She snorted. "I thought you were supposed to be good at this."

I chucked the half-smoked cigarette into the water, watching it careen over the rocks. "I don't talk to girls, Roe. What the hell am I supposed to ask you?"

"How do you not talk to girls? There's a different one crying in the bathroom over you each week."

I had never promised a single girl a thing, never given a hint that I cared. And it wasn't like I didn't have a reputation; why would a girl waste her time crying over me? "What the hell is wrong with girls?"

"I know, right? You practically have asshole stamped on your forehead. The truth might ruin your chances." A small laugh bubbled past her lips. "Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me."

That comment made me turn to look at her. A slight smile played at her lips, and I couldn't help but think about kissing her, but I wasn't sure how to do that if I wasn't trying to fuck her. Monroe thought I wasn't an asshole, and while that was cute, it was dangerous for both her and me. "I'm not a nice guy, Roe."

"A bad guy wouldn't bother with the warning."

"And a good guy wouldn't have girls crying over him, would he?"

She traced her finger over a groove in the log. "They wanted a bad boy…" Her gaze met mine. "You gave them exactly what they asked for."

And that was where she was wrong. Those girls wanted a bad boy they could fix. They wanted a guy that would be good for them. And that wasn't me. I would never be good for anyone.

The wind kicked up for a second, blowing through the tree limbs and letting the last rays of dimming sunlight through. A sliver of golden light touched her face, and damn, if it didn't make her look beautiful.

"You should know, Monroe. Girls don't really want a bad guy." I grabbed a pebble from the ground and pushed to my feet, skipping the rock across the creek. "They only want one they can fix."

"I didn't realize you were broken." Monroe stepped beside me, studying me like she wanted to pick apart my layers, one at a time, and that made me uneasy. "You're really not bad, Zepp."

Her gaze fell to my mouth, and fingers brushed my jaw. Then she pressed her lips to my cheek—To. My. Cheek—before she turned away, heading back down the path to the trailer park.

I felt like a deer in headlights, confused as fuck and ready for the damn car to just run me over.

Never in my life would I have thought I would be standing at a movie theatre concession stand on a Thursday night while Wolf bought a tub of buttered popcorn and a soda for some chick he'd already banged.

Yet here we were. The aroma of burned popcorn and rich-girl perfume wafted around me.

The cookie-cutter, private school girl I'd been forced to accompany shifted closer, brushing her arm against mine. "I want some popcorn."

I waved toward the counter. "Well, go fucking get some. No one's stopping you." I may have been forced into this shit nightmare, but I wasn't dropping a penny on anything but my stupid movie ticket.

A deep pout shaped her lips. That look may have worked on her rich daddy. Too bad, Samantha, that crap didn't work on me.

"You gonna get some popcorn or what?"

Wolf turned away from the counter, cramming a handful of popcorn into his mouth while he laughed.

Samantha didn't get popcorn, but she did whine to her friend about it on the way into the theatre.

Wolf made his way up the dimly lit stairs, settling into a seat on the back row and kicking his sneakers up onto the chair in front of him. His date sat beside him, all smiles. I went down one of the aisles a few rows in front of them, then flopped into a seat, hoping Samantha would keep going. But she didn't.

Previews for the new Marvel movie rolled across the screen. She sat right beside me, making a dramatic show of crossing one leg over the other, then adjusting the hem of her skirt. Of course she had worn a skirt. Girls wore crap like that to the movies for one reason and one reason only. And I had no interest in fingering her—even if she was halfway-decent looking.

That was when I realized just how much Monroe had fucked me up—I wouldn't even finger a half-way decent girl.

As if the movie and Samantha's clear desperation weren't torture enough, Wolf dragged me to the Waffle Hut afterward. His date must have been a damn good negotiator because she was making absolute dicks out of us both. Dinner and a movie. Such bullshit.

After everyone had placed their drink order, the girls disappeared to the restroom. I leaned my forearms over the table, staring across at Wolf. "I swear to God, Wolf. I'm going to kill you."

"What?" He grabbed one of the grease-covered menus and popped it open. "You didn't get any head?"

"Fuck you."

He laughed. "Never thought I would see the day Zepp Hunt was pussy whipped."

I chucked the saltshaker at him. If there was anything I was not, it was pussy whipped, especially when the girl in question hadn't even gotten hers out around me.

"Shame too." On an exhale, he tossed the menu down. "I got some killer head in the theatre."

Giggles drowned out the crappy music playing over Waffle Hut's sound system, and our "dates" came back to the table, smiling as they slipped into the booth beside us.

Samantha twirled a piece of hair around her finger, glancing around the hole-in-the-wall restaurant filled with bikers and the local prostitute propped against the jukebox smoking a cigarette. I was one hundred percent certain she had never been to a place like this in her life.

"This place is..." She cleared her throat. "Um. Cute."

Wolf must have seen the last thread of patience I had with this girl leave. That was the only reasonable explanation as to why he decided to stoke the fire. "Zepp." His hand slapped the table. "You gonna see if Samantha wants to come hang out at the house sometime?"

"Oh, I would love to." She nodded like one of those stupid bobbleheads assholes have stuck to their dashboards.

"Wolf, you gonna get that fucking name before I take this steak knife and stab you?" I took the knife and fisted it, my gaze aimed right at him.

The bell over the door dinged. The whoosh of the highway swooped inside, followed by Jade, then Monroe.

"Oh shit," Wolf snickered. "And the plot thickens. Dum. Dum. Dum!"

I took the pepper shaker and nailed him in the forehead. I wasn't sure what was going on between Monroe and me. But whatever it was, I liked it. Enough that I couldn't even enjoy the spoils of some Barrington bimbo. And even I knew that a girl like Monroe wouldn't toy with the idea of me for long.

"Move." I shoved Samantha, but she didn't budge.

"Excuse me?" she whined.

God, I didn't have time for this crap. I stood in the booth, placed my boot onto the table—knocking Samantha's soda in her lap—then hopped to the floor. The shriek Samantha let out was enough to make the entire Waffle Hut fall silent. Definitely enough to warrant the daggers Monroe shot at me before a slight frown slipped over her face.

I flopped down in her booth, slid right up next to her, and flung my arm around her shoulder.

She shrugged out of my hold, focusing her attention on the laminated menu. "Are you on a date?"

"Do you care?"

"That I'm your scapegoat for a shitty date with a Barrington girl? Yes." There was a level of hostility to that statement that I thoroughly enjoyed.

"It wasn't a date," I said.

Jade folded her arms over her chest with more attitude than I had ever seen her give. "Sure looks like a date."

"It's not." I rested my forearms over the table. "I don't date girls. I don't take them out. I don't invite them over to my house for extended periods." I glanced at Monroe, hoping she picked up on that last bit; she sure as shit had been at my house more than any other girl.

"Great. Well, then maybe you should go back to your ‘not date,'" Monroe said, flipping the menu over to the dinner selection. No one ever ordered dinner from Waffle Hut... "She looks like she misses you."

I brushed a piece of hair behind Monroe's shoulder, focusing on her lips. "You're hot when you're angry, you know it?"

"You're full of shit, you know it?"

"You should learn to take a compliment." I snatched the menu out of her hands, and she took it right back.

"Oh, Zeppelin Hunt wants in my pants." She pressed her hand to her chest, fluttering her eyelashes before a sour expression settled on her face. "What a compliment." She waved a hand toward Wolf and the Barrington girls. "It obviously doesn't take much."

"You know what?" I pushed up from the table. "Fuck you." Then I headed to the door, glancing back at Wolf. "I'm out, man."

"Dude, you rode with me."

"I can fucking walk."

She pissed me off, and I wasn't even sure why. She hadn't done anything, but…God. Women! I made my way through the group of middle-aged bikers loitering in the parking lot, then heard Monroe calling my name. But I kept going. I was almost to the road when she latched onto my arm.

"Zepp!"

"What!" I spun around to face her. My heart pounded in my chest, a form of self-hatred for giving a shit about what she thought of me. "What, Monroe?"

Her hands landed on her hips, her boot tapped the ground, and finally, she blew out a sharp breath. "Sorry. You don't owe me an explanation. We're…" Her brow tightened. "Friends. I guess."

No the hell she was not trying to pull that friend bullshit with me. Whatever this was between us, it sure as hell wasn't friends. I snorted. "Sure, Monroe. Friends."

Her gaze lingered on me like she wanted to say more, but then she turned back toward the Waffle Hut. "Jade's ordering you a milkshake."

So she had felt guilty before she even came out to chase me down... I started after her, catching up and walking close enough that our arms touched. "Do I look like a guy who drinks milkshakes, Monroe?"

"Who doesn't drink milkshakes? You really are a psychopath."

"And you really are hot."