9. Bay
NINE
bay
REEVE: I need to see you.
My heart thrashes against my ribcage in excitement but equal disappointment. I know what this is, and I’m fully aware of how I feel.
My emotions over Reeve being alive send my mood sky-high in happiness that he’s home and safe, but it quickly plummets and crashes to Earth, because Levi doesn’t know and that, in turn, will make Reeve not safe again.
With my legs resting in Levi’s lap and a pizza box in the middle of us, we’re watching a few guys do some test runs with their cars down an abandoned road. Levi has a blanket laid out on the grass for us, dropping his boss duties tonight to hang out with me. It’s another place where we’re seen together in public to show that we’re an official couple so it can get back to where it needs to go, but even if we didn’t start this, we’d still be right here together.
“Hey, Lev…I need to tell you something,” I disclose, shoving past my anxiety and watching Levi shove half a piece of pizza in his mouth like a starving animal. The man has no decorum when it comes to dining etiquette but I can’t help but be used to it and it doesn’t gross me out.
Levi is currently leaning back with his weight propped up on one hand. Eating his pie and enjoying the view while living his best life. The smell of burnt rubber and exhaust is our playground but I’m about to crash this party with what I need to tell him.
His dark navy shirt makes his black ink pop, and he looks like a king in his own right with just the way he carries himself along the sidelines with a backward hat on as his crown.
He’s been in a better mood over the last few days and I hate to be the one that breaks it, but I’d rather this news come from me than the other way around. I also want to show him that, even though Reeve might still be within his reach, that I’m loyal to him and that I mean it. Despite not being before.
“Don’t worry,” he vouches simply, chewing his food as he speaks. “That Mustang will blow up by the time you get to race it this weekend. He’s not letting it cool down before he makes another pass and I hear a clinking sound.”
Yeah, I wasn’t even paying attention, so I don’t ask him to add on to that comment, because I don’t care. “No, it’s about something else.”
He slices his gaze over to me, those green eyes unbothered and not a bit anxious about what that something could be. “Yeah?”
I can’t believe I made out with this guy the other night.
And I hate that I notice how fine as hell he looks right now.
“It’s about…Reeve. He’s—” Levi chucks the rest of his slice into the pizza box before sitting it and pushing himself up to stand.
I’m quick to get on my knees, palms landing on his broad shoulders to keep him on the ground as he glowers at me.
“I’m not doing this again,” he barks out. “I got rid of the fuckin’ problem, Astor. What the hell do you want me to do about it now?”
I shake my head furiously. “It’s not that.”
“Then what it is?”
He doesn’t move, impatiently waiting for me to spit it out, but this is why I didn’t say anything the first time. He’s like a loose cannon these days with too much power and, sometimes, not enough brains.
“You have to promise not to leave me.”
His brows immediately clash together. “What are you talkin’ about? I’m not going to leave?—”
“ Here ,” I stress. “You can’t leave me here. You don’t leave at all .”
Levi rolls his freaking eyes at me and loosens a sigh and his shoulders under my touch. “Fine, what?”
“He’s here.” Levi’s eyes instantly look behind me and begin scanning the area. “No, I mean, he didn’t get on that shipping container. He’s in town.”
Levi slowly cranes his face back to me, and his expression is absolutely murderous. “What do you mean, he’s in town ? I locked that motherfucker up in a pretty little blue metal box myself.”
“At the club on Friday…he texted me.”
“He couldn’t have. I got his phone.”
“He’s not on that ship, Lev. I know—” Levi begins to stand again, immediately going back on his promise, and there’s only one thing I know to do and that’s literally throwing all my body weight onto him.
My chest collides with his, knocking him onto his back because he lost his balance, and I’m hasty with straddling him like a baby koala bear not wanting their mother to leave.
“You promised ,” I quickly remind him. “No hunting anyone down tonight. No doing any stupid shit?—”
“ Fuck you,” he spits out through pinched brows. “That stupid prick touched you, then tried to sneak into your house?—”
“You promised, Levi,” I calmly repeat because, no matter what I say, he’s always going to see that video in his head and what he thought he saw. “He didn’t touch me like that. I told you. It was—” He suddenly grabs my hips and rolls on top of me, purposely crushing his weight onto my chest and wedging his big frame between my thighs.
My body ignites like he just lit me on fire when I come face to face with the definition of a fury.
Blazing green eyes and pinned brows, Levi looks at me like I’m the one who set Reeve free and I couldn’t have with Juice as my babysitter that night.
Even though, that was the plan when I sent Travis out.
“That’s better,” Levi claims haughtily as he pins both palms on each side of my ribs. “Now…what the fuck did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I’m quick to retort. “He texted me?—”
“He what? ”
Geezus Christ.
“Levi, please listen,” I plead through clenched teeth. “I’m not?—”
“Did you see him?”
“No.”
“Did you message him back?”
“Yes, but—” Levi slams his hand into the hard ground next to my head, making me jolt before he leans forward, squashing me with his big-ass frame and too many breakfast burritos this morning.
“What did you say, Astor?” he challenges, moving his head slightly to my left and dropping it down between the crook of my neck. “And it better be good.”
“I asked…” His warm breath flirts with my skin and I involuntarily shiver at being pinned down. At how my body buzzes with excitement after that kiss and how he followed my lead within a second. “Who it was.”
“And he confirmed it?” I hesitate before nodding, not sure if I can speak without it coming out as a needy whimper. “How?”
Fuck me.
“He called me McQueen. It’s this…stupid nickname he calls me.”
“It is stupid. But you like it,” Levi lightly accuses, slowly running the tip of his nose along the column of my neck, and I still because I don’t know what he’s doing. But it feels like he’s about to sink his teeth into my flesh and suck the life out of me. “Which means I didn’t deter him enough. My bad.”
“Well, don’t?—”
“You’ll have plenty of him when the time comes.” My stomach drops because it sounds as though he’s disappointed about that fact. That we won’t have a lot of time with this bogus relationship we have. “But, until then, you don’t leave my sight. You fuckin’ swoon every time you see me. I want the look of sex in your eyes every time I look at you when we’re out in public.”
I force my legs to remain grounded to the soft blanket beneath us and I dare not breathe.
I can’t anyway.
This stupid pretense of a relationship needs to end before my girl dick starts thinking for me.
“I got you,” I reply to keep any awkward silence between us.
“I hope so,” he manages immediately. “I need to look like a male claiming his mate and shit so don’t fuck it up for me by making me chase after something that doesn’t want to be kept .”
I press my lips together because that sounds as flattering as him telling me that the thought of kissing me reminds me of kissing his sister.
He hasn’t, but I feel like it’s coming. And it needs to so I don’t get any crazy ideas or Levi thinking I’m going to fall in love with him or some shit.
“Let me guess,” I grind out. “You’ll be the one breaking up with me and not the other way around.”
Levi chuckles like the asshole he is, and I throw a punch into the side of his gut, earning a little grunt, but it doesn’t stop his joyous laughter. “The King of South Shore isn’t going to play well with other potential clowns. And, if we were dating, I’d put them all in the ground for being so close.”
“I’m waiting for the punch line.”
“Which one?”
I want to clobber him again, but refrain and clutch the blanket underneath us instead. “Can you get off me?”
“No,” he immediately recants. “We’re fake making out and shit. What would be the punch line?”
“That I kiss like your non-existent sister or some bogus bullshit.”
That makes him laugh again, and I let him have it this time.
“Stop hitting me, asshole,” he gripes, getting hold of my wrist and pinning it down over my head. But he allows me freedom to my other. “Keep that little fuck Stanton wanting, Astor. We’re about to blow this relationship up, and I know just the place that will bring Baby Wildes and that piece of shit Reeve in. Lucky for them, it’ll be too crowded for me to kill them both.”
Ha, ha.
“When?”
“The race next weekend.”
“No,” I retort sharply. “I need to concentrate and win , Lev. I don’t want drama and boy problems. I want money.”
His thumb runs a path up and down my skin. A perfect spot for him to feel my heart racing under my palm. “You’ll get your money. And you already got a lot of boy problems. Especially when you have to pick one.”
Pick one.
Yeah, that’s never going to happen.
It’d be a cold day in hell when Levi would ever accept my dating one of them for real, and I have too much on my plate.
Lovey-dovey stuff isn’t in the cards for me, and I need to stick with the game plan of getting deeper with Emilio and figuring the rest of this out with Levi.
“You don’t have to worry about me picking anything,” I reply. “I’m only in love with Pop’s Nova.”
Levi pulls back a bit. “That’s the only thing?”
“Yep.”
“When did I lose your love?”
You never did.
And he never will.
“The moment you decided that you were going to keep barking at me after the whole video situation.”
Levi glares at me. “I’d like you to try to calm down after seeing that if it were me.”
“It wouldn’t be a topic of conversation,” I vouch simply. “Because she’d be dead.”
“But you got your panties all in a bunch when you thought I killed Stanton.”
“I didn’t get my panties in a bunch. I just don’t want Torin or Cairo to start shit with you.”
“And that’s the only reason?”
No.
And when do the lies stop? When do I admit that I like Reeve because I do. However, what’s that going to solve?
Nothing.
“Why do I always have to have reasons?” I press back with a roll of my eyes. “And do you always pin your victims down for this long? My God, I’m surprised you actually have girls chasing you around.”
“They’ve toned down a bit since you’re my woman.”
“And when do I get to claim my mark on you in front of them? Or do I need to act like the good little housewife?”
Levi shrugs. “Do what you have to do. I’m not going to change you.”
My heart sparks with warmth. It’s not surprising that Levi wouldn’t want to.
I’d want the same. There isn’t anything major I would like to change about my best friend.
Best friend.
My palms shove at his shoulder because, really, he’s heavy as hell. “Alright, Hercules, fuck off me.”
Levi presses a simple kiss to my forehead before helping me to sit back up and getting us into the same positions we were before I half-ass tackled him.
Then he opens his mouth like a baby bird. “Feed me.”
My eyes narrow then, reaching for an untouched piece of pizza, I throw it at his face and watch it fall to his chest and lap.
And, before I can even begin to laugh at that feat, Levi seizes my ankle and tickles my feet.
Kicking and screaming for mercy, this is where I want to be.
Where I belong.
And Levi is it.