Steel My Love Page 2

  Guess I didn't drink enough last night, he thought grimly, though the slow pounding in his head begged to differ.

  Lorraine was right where she said she'd be, the Wawa parking lot across from the bus stop. Case took a moment to appreciate the four inches of bare thigh between her denim mini skirt and high black boots. Chicks' legs seemed impervious to cold, he marveled. Unlike their tops, which always seemed to be freezing. Lorraine was no different. He noted sadly that her spectacular bolt-on tits were hidden under a puffy down jacket.

  When she caught sight of his busted down Jeep, her eyes went wide and she quickly inhaled the last puff of her cigarette before flinging it away. She leapt into the passenger seat with more grace than eight AM should allow and greeted him by cupping her strong barmaid's hand around his cock. It immediately stirred to life, still riled up after last night's dreams.

  "Good," she rasped in her husky smoker's drawl. "You're ready for me."

  He pulled around back of the Wawa parking lot, right by the dumpster and threw the Jeep into park. He leaned back and made to unfasten his jeans, but her deft fingers were already doing the work for him. She had him free in a moment and went to work on his cock with an almost mechanical detachment.

  Case leaned back in the seat and laid his hand on her head. The silky black strands were too different from the hair in his dreams and he felt himself go slightly soft. Lorraine paused, and then redoubled her efforts, licking and slurping like the champ she was. Case squeezed his eyes shut and took his hand away from her head. It was easier to keep the fantasy alive if he wasn't touching her.

  It took forever.

  When he finally spent himself into her mouth, they were both irritated. "Just drop me off at the front," Lorraine sniffed. "I need a coffee anyway."

  "Fine." Case grumbled. What did she expect, fireworks? She texted him, she blew him, she left. That had always been the deal. Besides, her cigarette smell was starting to make his stomach turn. He wanted to ask her what brand she smoked, but was too afraid of his reaction if it was the same as his mother's.

  Fuck. Why did he think of her? Lorraine paused, looking at him, waiting for something. What the fuck did she want, a kiss on the cheek? "Bye?" Case said, staring straight ahead.

  "You are such a fucking asshole."

  He threw the Jeep into drive. "You're so right," he smirked. She snorted and slid out of the passenger door.

  "That was the last time! Good luck finding someone else to suck your dick!"

  "Don't worry about me sweetheart. I'll be just fine." She always said that.

  She gaped at him as he pulled away, leaning over to yank the door closed as he did. He had wasted enough time on this bullshit anyway. If he hadn't been all horny from his dreams last night, he wouldn't have even shown up in the first place, he told himself. Her blowjob had only bought him a moment's peace. The minute he found release, the bad thoughts came flooding back. Especially this close to the old house.

  It was a last ditch attempt to sober her up. His grandparents had just given her the house and wiped their hands clean.

  As if a junkie could keep house.

  But they had told themselves they had done all they could, and so they were able to flee to Florida with a clean conscience. The four of them had moved their plastic bags from the trunk of the car they had been living out of and into the neat little Cape Cod on the quiet block.

  For about a week he had been able to believe they could be a normal family. That it had had the effect on his mother that his grandparents hoped. She had even cooked dinner for them that first night, while he eyed her warily from around the corner, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  A week. That was all it took before she was off again. Only this time she didn't have to worry about parking the car somewhere where her sons wouldn't be noticed. Nope, having a house meant that she could go cruise the bars much more easily now. No one needed to know about the three hungry boys she left at home.

  "We have a home now," he told Hunter and Jonah that night, as he tucked them in on the bare mattress they shared in the tiny bedroom. Their frightened faces looked mutely up at him, nodding without understanding.

  They were still young enough to want their mother.

  He was old enough to know better.

  "You're safe. I'll be just downstairs. You call if you get scared, kay?"

  Hunter, older by fifteen months, nodded with a wisdom no six year-old should show. "Do you think she's gonna come back?"

  "Of course she is," he lied. "She loves you."

  He had curled up in a pile of clothes by the front door. The dark house was strangely peaceful and gradually his eleven year-old body relaxed into the nest he had made. It took him a long time to realize that the noises outside were just the normal noises of a quiet neighborhood in the evening. They didn't mean his mother was coming back. They didn't mean she was going to come storming through the door, drunk and high on god knows what and ready to lash into him for ruining her life. They didn't mean she was going to come in with some random man who was going to knock his head sideways for looking at him funny. No, these were normal people, with normal lives and normal children who had mothers and fathers who got up and went to jobs and bought groceries. He didn't have to fear them, so long as they didn't intrude.

  He rolled over in his nest. He had let the boys have the only mattress. The furniture in the house had been sold off to finance his grandparents' move. Briefly, he wondered if they knew it would mean there would be no beds for their grandkids to sleep in. They had given his mother money for furniture. She was out spending it now.

  The night crept by slowly. He had gotten in the habit of staying up while his brothers slept. It was necessary when they were living in the car, especially if his mother was too passed out to wake up when the cops knocked on the window. The only time he had allowed himself to fall asleep had led to the court appearance. They had been separated because he had been weak.

  He had only just gotten them back. When his mother had gone before the judge and sworn that the house would make everything better, the judge had, for some reason, believed her and granted her custody once more. Hunter and Jonah and Casey were back together again, the way it should be. If it meant he had to stay up all night, he was going to be sure they were safe.

  He wasn't going to let them be separated again.

  Case slammed the door to the Jeep and sat back in his seat. The smell of Lorraine's cigarettes was still swirling around him, dragging him back into these old memories. He rolled down the window angrily, letting the snow-heavy air flood his nostrils and blow away the past. He looked out of the window at the clubhouse and wondered if any of the brothers of the Sons of Steel MC were awake yet.

  He had found new brothers to replace what he had lost. But the girl with the red curls was still missing.

  Chapter 3

  Lexi

  There was nothing left in my coffee cup. I gripped it with both hands, denting it slightly and tried not to lose my temper. After my run in with Sean, this was a bit more than I could take.

  The rest of my group stared at me, waiting for the leader to speak. No one was going to stand up to her unless I did. I had to do the dirty work.

  Second person I needed to reject today. And it wasn't even 10 AM yet.

  "Christa, you haven't been prepared for a single meeting yet," I began.

  The young mother sat up straight in her chair, readying her excuses. I felt a twinge of guilt. She was trying after all. I couldn't imagine balancing a new baby with my class work. I knew she was struggling, but fair is fair.

  I held up my hand, half to silence her, half to regain my own composure. I had to stick with the script the group prepared. I prepared. The script I wrote in my head last night as I stared at the ceiling, then ran by the group before Christa arrived, late as always.

  "And it's affecting our work. The project is due next Thursday and it represents a third of our grade. I think I speak for all of us when I say that it would be
best if you found a different group to work with." I looked at each face at the table in turn and received only blank stares.

  Christa gasped. "How'm I supposed to find another group? Everyone's probably almost done already!"

  I sat back in my chair, trying to mimic composure. "I'm sorry, but that's what we've decided. We'll let Professor Benson know to take you off our group list."

  Tears welled up in her eyes and I swallowed. I couldn't be here if she was going to cry. I would lose it and let her back in immediately. And that wouldn't be fair at all.

  Her jaw worked like she wanted to say something and I clenched my fists. But I was spared having to defend myself when she suddenly gathered her books and bags and flounced out of the room. I could hear her noisy sobs echoing down the marble hallway of the library and felt a wash of relief. It was over.

  Not quite, I realized as Fiona turned back to me and shook her head. "Damn Lexi. You're cold."

  "What do you mean, me?" I shot back. "We all decided. This whole table."

  "I know, but," she looked back at the door Christa had slammed behind her. "Damn," she finished lamely.

  I pressed my lips together, biting back the protests. First Sean and now this. I am NOT cold. I am fair. I do what is right. It wasn't right how she was sponging off the rest of our work. And it wasn't fair to keep stringing Sean along when it wasn't going to go anywhere. Why am I always the bad person when I try to do what is right, huh? Will someone tell me that? Will someone please answer the question I have been asking for the past five years?

  Instead I said, "Shall we get to work?"

  Michael, Pradnya and Ahmed all immediately rifled through their bags for their weekly contributions, but Fiona kept staring out the window. I don't know what she thought she was seeing. The second floor windows of the library meeting rooms looked out into the bare, windswept courtyard of the college. If she was looking for the dejected form of Christa trudging silently through the cold, she was dreaming. I inhaled sharply, pulling myself back together. I didn't have time for that kind of pathos.

  "Fiona, can we start with you?"

  She turned back from the window and glared at me fiercely. I was momentarily forced to see myself through her eyes, and I didn't like what I saw. I looked spiteful, judgmental. I looked rigid and unyielding. I looked like a nagging, overbearing parent masquerading in a teenaged body. I looked like no fun at all.

  She pulled out her notes anyway. Because what I look most like is someone who gets shit done.

  By the time we had finished our outline and broken it down into assignments for the final paper, the sky had grown dark with forbidding clouds. Snow was starting to swirl around the light posts. I looked out the window grimly. My mother hated when I drove in the snow.

  "Okay, that's about it!" I chirped, clapping my hands together. I cringed at how much I sounded like a kindergarten teacher, but the group didn't even notice. They just gathered their things and left without saying goodbye.

  I was suddenly sitting all alone.

  I exhaled slowly and reminded myself for the millionth time that people don't like it when you ask things of them. It was something my father had repeated a million times before that.

  People by nature are lazy and unreliable.

  When you ask them to be anything else, instead of hating their faults, they hate you for pointing them out.

  It is difficult being a moral person in this world.

  He of all people knew that well. A cop on the Philadelphia streets for nearly twenty-five years, he had seen every type of failing there could be. The stories he brought home to his three daughters were enough to make us lose faith in the world.

  Except, he reminded us, for our family. We could count on our family. When everyone else around us fell astray, our family would remain as a beacon of how to live an upright life.

  That belief was not a way to win friends in college.

  I gathered my books slowly. I needed to hurry home, I reminded myself. My mother knew I was done with classes early on Mondays and would expect me home for lunch. She was worried enough about me attending college, in spite of it just being a community college down the road. She had internalized all of my father's stories long ago and now it was a daily struggle for her just to let me out of the house and into the big bad world. If I didn't come home during a snowfall, she would assume me dead on the side of the Schuylkill Expressway. Or murdered in an alleyway somewhere in Center City. Her imagination was strictly limited to imagining horrible deaths for her loved ones, but in that it excelled.

  A shadow blocked the doorway and I ducked my head instinctively. I don't know why I did that. It's not like I suddenly became invisible, no matter how much I wished it to be true. Ingrid could still see me there, alone in the small meeting room with nowhere to hide. But it felt easier to not make eye contact. Made me feel less guilty.

  "You all alone, Delaney?" Of course that was the first thing she'd bring up. Ingrid was not one for picking up social cues. Since freshman year started, she had made me her little project. I wished she would have chosen someone else to take under her little social butterfly's wing, but for some reason she seemed to delight in badgering me.

  "Heading home now," I gulped, willing her to just accept my excuses with grace for once. I couldn't figure out why she liked me, or even if she did like me. Her belligerent niceness bordered on aggressive.

  "Where's your shadow?"

  I looked at her confused, until I realized she meant Sean. I had already forgotten about him. "Gone," I said stiffly.

  She planted a hand on her hip and cocked her head sideways. "You know," she remarked with mock thoughtfulness, "I thought redheads were supposed to be all fiery and lustful and shit. You? You are ice-cold, Delaney." She ignored my indignant reaction and held up her hands to ward off my protest. "It's cool. You're this rare creature. It's like sighting a unicorn or something."

  I couldn't tell if she was making fun of me or praising me. "What?" I blinked stupidly.

  "Nothing."

  "I'm not ice-cold," I grumbled.

  "Prove it." She blinked her heavily lined eyes. Her makeup techniques fascinated me, even though I knew they would look ridiculous on my freckled skin. I left the liquid liner to the pale-eyed blondes. My only adornment was Chapstick. "A group of us are heading out," she spoke slowly, enunciating each word as if I was hard of hearing. I kept packing and rearranging my bag busily so I didn't have to see the sarcastic smile on her crimson lips. "Would you like to join us?"

  "I have to get back home," I muttered into my bag. "It's snowing."

  "It's winter," she observed drily.

  "My mom gets freaked out by the snow," I explained, then immediately wished I could catch the words and stuff them back into my mouth. My mom. Why did I have to mention my mom? How lame was I?

  She blinked slowly, like a cat, then shook her head, her pin straight hair swinging and rippling along her shoulders as if it were a liquid. "Does 'your mom' realize you're in college now?"

  I bristled, but tried to keep my voice polite. Ingrid was the only thing I had that approximated a girlfriend. I didn't want to offend her.

  "Thanks for the invite," I repeated. "Soon. Maybe once finals are over?" I said hopefully.

  She blew out some air out of the corner of her mouth. "You've got my number. I'll get you wasted yet, Delaney," she declared, but there was no more irritation in her voice. She smiled wanly and turned on her heels.

  Chapter 4

  Lexi

  Once Ingrid was gone, the library seemed suddenly abandoned. I hurried through the double doors and down the steps to the promenade between the library and the science building.

  Thank god I don't have to walk far, I thought as I grimly turned into the wind. The snow that had been dancing only moments ago was now starting to blow sideways. I trudged towards the commuter lot, grateful that I had arrived early enough this morning to snag a spot. As I trudged, I pictured my mom maneuvering herself to the front window and s
tanding there staring into the snow, as if by the power of her gaze she could make me appear on the doorstep. The thought made me move faster.

  The early darkness of the approaching storm had caused the street lamps to turn on, but the swirling snow muted the pale circles of light. I could still see the dim outlines of other commuters heading to the lot. There seemed to be more than usual. I wondered if classes were cancelled because of the weather. I had only come in for my morning meeting and for that I was also grateful.

  I hurried forward, but as I did, I sensed someone behind me. My father's dire warnings about being followed echoed through my head and I turned nervously, my keys clutched in my fist, poised to lash out. There was a huddled figure about twenty feet behind me, hunched over in a too-thin black coat.

  I recognized it as Sean's coat as he got closer. I stopped short, hoping he wouldn't notice me and make things awkward. My heart hammered in my throat as I watched him trudge to his car.

  And just as I thought he was going to pass me without noticing, he lifted his head into the wind and stared.

  I ducked and quickly crossed the last ten feet to my car. I threw open the driver's side door and flung my bags into the passenger seat, then flopped low in the seat, slamming the door on the wind.

  But still he stared at me. His mouth worked slightly, shadowed by the streetlight. I don't know what sort of things he was saying about me, if they were angry or hurt or just sad. Everyone is right. I'm a cold, unfeeling bitch. What is wrong with me? Sean was a good guy, a nice guy. I could have very easily been his girlfriend in another life.

  He continued to look at me as I started the car. There was something about his eyes tonight. The way he was looking at me rattled me deeply and I couldn't place why.

  Guys only want one thing, I reminded myself hollowly. His eyes told me something different than my personal mantra. He looked like he wanted to talk, to find out where we had gone wrong. He looked shocked and hurt.