10. Bay
TEN
bay
“Dude, she jumped the light.”
I sigh as some dude in a Green Mohawk points at the two-lane street behind him and continues with his streams of bitching and whining.
Let’s start with the fact that I, in fact, did not jump the line. I’ve never seen this dude before, but this race has brought more out-of-town people here than ever before because there’s fifty grand at stake and everyone wants their chance at winning it.
Levi and I, obviously, want it for Dad’s bills and to play catch up but we’re also waiting for the right moment to break up publicly. Our two weeks of pretend bliss has come to an end and I’m not sure if that was enough time.
I haven’t heard from Emilio. Reeve stopped texting me. And I’ve heard shit all from Pretty Boy as well.
The plan may have worked too well for what Levi and I had planned, but he’s adamant that it’s going to work.
But, the thought of having to play this dramatic scene out and the words we have to say to each other has been something I’ve been shoving back and not wanting to deal with since Levi brought it up. We both don’t know when it’s going to happen, but there’s a signal for when it is.
And I don’t feel as though I’m going to need to fake cry about it either.
“She didn’t jump the light,” Levi grumbles with his inked arms crossed along his chest, sounding bored as hell. “But, we’ll check the tape.”
“She did ,” my competitor retorts confidently, steering his dark blues at me. “You did.”
I roll my eyes, but that’s all I do. I don’t have time for all this silly shit.
“I’m gonna go check on the car,” I tell Levi. “Come get me when you’re done.”
“No need,” Mohawk answers for him, really pressing his luck here with my patience. “You might as well just pack it up, darlin’.”
Flicking my irritation over to Levi, he just shakes his head at me and alludes that he has this.
It’s all I need.
Pivoting, I stride up to Dad’s Nova that’s parked car along the side of the cracked road, and pop the hood.
I do my normal check-up, observing to see if anything’s leaking, or burning, got moved around, and also the oil and coolant levels. I easily get lost in my routine when a pair of hands clutch onto the top of the Nova’s frame, caging me between the vehicle and another body.
I’m unable to react yet before it speaks and my heart plummets deep into my gut.
“I think you got it, McQueen.”
My body stills at the sound of his voice before I slowly turn around, my ass pressed into the black paint of Dad’s ride before I come face to face with the confident, sexy, and calm as fuck Reeve Stanton standing behind me.
He doesn’t move back, still slightly leaning over my car and in my face as if he didn’t endure what he did at the hands of my best friend. The smell of sea salt fills my nostrils, but I can’t break my stare off his glimmering hazel eyes and the sexy smirk that forms off his lips.
“Reevie.” His nickname is barely a whisper, but I need to outwardly confirm that he’s here.
That, after all this time worrying about him, he’s safe and sound.
“Hey, baby,” he returns, confirming that he is, in fact, standing in front of me. “I missed the absolute shit out of you.”
I soak him in for another few seconds. He has a backward baseball cap on, strands of his sandy blond hair coming through the back and my anxiety ramps up.
If Levi sees him, he’s dead.
“You shouldn’t be here.” It was supposed to come out more of an annoyed observation than it did. Instead, it was a low dip of appreciation for the white tee that hugs his muscles and then displays an array of black tattoos down his left arm.
And even with what happened between us, I still feel safe with him. That I’d only want it to be him if I had to relive that situation over again.
“I know,” he surmises softly. His hazel eyes a murky depth because it’s dark out but I can still make out the attraction that fuses between us. The crack of electricity that forms and bolts because this man…he’s obviously a bit of a weakness for me. And I don’t know how that’s possible. “But I had to see you.”
“Levi is here.”
“I saw him.”
I shake my head against his stupid defiance and decision-making. It’s hard to believe that his charming smile, that body that I’ve had the pleasure of eye-fucking, and his alluring attitude make it extremely hard for him to find attention in The Landings.
It’s the chase.
However, it’s been two weeks since Levi caught him at the side of my house, and I’m not that hot of a commodity.
“ Reeve , please, you have to go. I don’t want him—” He reaches out and tucks a piece of my hair behind my ear, ignoring my request and the imposing danger that’s somewhere looking at a video of my not jumping the light on my last race.
It’s hard to find the strength to knock his hand away. To be mean and proclaim for him to fuck all the way off. Especially when he’s been nothing but forthright from the gate.
“It’s fine, McQueen,” he argues lightly. “I won’t get alone in any dark places with him.”
“He finds me with you and you’re dead.”
“Then you better kiss me before he does.” I open my mouth to say something, but I’m quick to forget what it is when he says, “I’m sorry for what happened. I’m sorry for hitting you. I’m sorry that I couldn’t save you.”
My whole face skews up because he did. He did save me. He kept that guy off me and shot him dead in the middle of the street. He wouldn’t allow anyone else to put their hands on me.
“Reeve, what are you talking about? You protected me.” I reach for his hand and lace our fingers together. “Fuck, I’m so grateful for you. There’s no way I’d ever?—”
“ Hey !” My body jolts, bumping into Reeve’s front as Green Mohawk’s maddening voice enters my headspace again. “You fucking cheating bitch!”
Reeve steps to the side and pivots, giving me a clear shot of the asshole getting mowed down by Levi’s marching behind him. His large hand jerks Mohawk by the shoulder and immediately gets in his face.
“I just showed you the fucking video,” my best friend leers through his clenched jaw, towering over him as if he’s seconds from pounding him into the ground. “She didn’t jump shit.”
The sight of how pissed off Levi is mindlessly has me stepping out in front of Reeve as a protective shield against my best friend.
They haven’t seen each other yet.
And, when Levi does, he’s going to lose his entire shit.
“Yeah, bro, she did,” Green Mohawk retorts, not at all worried about the impending danger he’s about to be put in. “Are you fucking blind?”
Levi points to his left. “Get the fuck out of my sight and, if I see you again, I’m going to make you part of the road.”
“You’re not the moderator of this event,” Green Mohawk carps back. “Where is that prick?” He shakes his head then. "Don't matter." Green Mohawk extends his arms and shrugs nonchalantly. "I won."
I scoff and cross my arms, meeting the full-on glower of Mohawk.
"You got somethin' to say?" he challenges with a lifted brow and I’m not sure why he thinks I'm gonna be petrified of some tall, scrawny guy who appears like he's a buck twenty-five and that I could use as a toothpick to clean my teeth.
"Yeah," I return. "You need to apparently get your eyes checked. I didn't jump, told you I didn't jump, and you still wanna act like a bitch and say I did. Get over it, dude. You're embarrassing yourself in front of all these nice people."
"Bitch?" he repeats, wrinkling his nose. "No bitch is gonna beat me with that car." He points to Dad’s ride and a growing crowd starts to form around. "Especially no trailer park whore."
Levi's fist slams into the side of his head and Reeve already has his ass against the front of my body, protecting me even though both men are yards away.
Levi gets one more good hit before a group of guys pries him off, whispering something in his ear and putting some distance between himself and Green Mohawk.
"You should be disqualified for this shit!" he exclaims, slicing his attention back to me. "You all got this shit rigged!"
"Fuck off," Reeve chimes in nonchalantly as if he’s bored. “She beat your ass and your small dick can’t handle it.”
"Fuck you, dude," he snaps. "That dumb cunt didn't beat me. And I'm not losing out on fifty grand because she's a fucking cheater."
"Wanna go again?" I offer. "I got you all day, bruh."
"Again? And take the risk of breaking my car?" He moves closer, and I feel Reeve tense. "You gonna fix it if it does?"
"Are you new?" I squeeze out from between the car and Reeve, meeting him head-on. This is my argument, and I got all the backup I need with just the people from South Shore alone here. And there’s a lot here, watching Reeve protect me over a stranger. Fuck. "These are the risks you take. You race, you wreck, you break shit. You're out. You lost. You go home."
He lunges forward to scare me, but I don't move. He's a prick who obviously talks down to women and has to be above them at all times.
I don't fucking think so.
Reeve is at my side in the next second, but he keeps a distance, granting me the room I need and the respect that I can handle shit on my own.
"Fine," he says with a huff. "You wanna go?—"
"You're not going again," Reeve interjects, breaking into that margin that I was going to have all to myself. "You're done like she said. Go home."
Green Mohawk steers his wrathful focus to Reeve. "You gonna fight me? You her boyfriend, because you need to get your woman under control."
"I like when she's not," he replies back coolly. "She's hotter that way."
Right in front of Levi.
I can’t help but glance his way, already finding his green eyes rooted to me. I didn’t expect all this to go down tonight, but Levi doesn’t look the least surprised that it is. This race has been promoted as a big event so word obviously would’ve gotten out everywhere.
"Then I'm takin' what's mine and that's the race,” Green Mohawk rebukes. “I won that shit fair and square."
"I'm not sayin' it again," Reeve warns. His voice a deep octave of irritation and about to lose his entire shit. "Get the fuck—" Green Mohawk swings and, it's so obvious because he wouldn't stop bouncing around like he was amping up to do it.
Reeve dodges and slams his fist into the guy's gut before backing up and taking me with him. It’s evident to everyone again if it wasn’t before.
The Forsaken Crew is protecting a South Shore girl—point blank without hesitation.
Levi’s girl.
And that’s speaking louder than words.
"Motherfucker!" Green Mohawk exclaims. "You're fuckin' dead, just like your fucking girl. Do you know—" He’s grabbed from both sides and jerked back, and it's then that I realize two more entities who should not be here.
Torin and Cairo.
"Get the fuck off me, man!”
My eyes meet Levi’s again, and they’re burning with ire and aggravation at the assist.
That he was right when he didn’t want to be.
The Forsaken Crew boys, they have their eyes on me for a reason, and he can’t nail down the why.
I can.
They want to fuck Levi Wallace’s girl. And I’m not fully sure if that applies to Reeve or not, but it doesn’t matter. There is no world where I end up with him or anyone else affiliated with him.
I watch my best friend runs his thumb and index finger down his face and around his jawline.
The signal.
We’re doing this now.
My gut twists because this is where I have to put on the biggest front of my life. Where my best friend and I cut ties in front of everyone and this could open up a whirlwind of shit for both of us.
I could be more of a target and he could have to make a decision if someone tries to fuck with me to blow our story out of the water.
"Wildfire," Torin calls out to me, seizing my entire attention. “Come here."
Ping-ponging the idea of listening to him and telling him to go take a long walk off a short pier, I don’t take the latter.
I don’t take it because I’m not going to let Levi down or my family.
Hesitantly, I move with Reeve faithfully following me as two sets of different colored brown eyes follow my every step.
They have balls for days.
Especially doing this in front of my alleged boyfriend and the most powerful man of South Shore.
We might be in East Riverside where they’re safe from a bullet, but they are not going to win any brownie points with interfering.
"I counted that this guy called you a bitch about two times," Torin says out loud. "What did you get, Cairo?"
“Two, plus a cunt,” he replies with his sole focal point and lack of any expression whatsoever on me.
"Reeve?"
"Too many," he grounds out, his once placid tone gone now.
"Did you hear that, fuckhead?" Torin shakes him by his shirt, getting the guy to stumble off-kilter a bit. "You're callin' our girl a fucking bitch and what did you think was gonna happen in another state, without any of your fucking buddies around? Do you know where the hell you are?"
Our girl?
"Fuck you ," Mohawk growls out with a snarl. "That bitch che—" Cairo heaves a closed fist into his ribs and Green Mohawk cowers, face twisted in immediate pain that he instigated.
I continue staring at Torin, watching his lips move and speak something to the competition that I kicked out of the race but I don't hear the words. All I caught and repeating in my head is you're callin' our girl ...
I locate Levi out of my peripheral, carefully watching all this go down. His plan playing perfectly out as he said.
Just like Emilio, Torin would never let me go.
No matter if he liked me or not.
"How many times, baby?" Reeve’s voice mutters suddenly in my ear then, prying me out of my thoughts.
"What?" I ask, peering over at him because I heard nothing and his lips are right there.
I literally lost all power here, and I'm not sure when they sucked it out of me or when I lost it, but I need it back for my own sanity and safety.
This shit is almost verbatim death-defying. I can’t get in deep with this guy when I’m worried about so much more than that. What if Emilio finds out and tries to avenge me with him? I don’t have time for a boyfriend.
A real one, anyway.
"How many times do you want to punch him before we take care of the rest?"
I shake my head. “You don't have to?—"
“McQueen.” His voice slightly clips, silencing my retort. I’ve noticed that he doesn't like arguing with me when I don't need him. He knows I don't, but he wants to anyway. “How many?"
"He's all yours, Little Terror. Or were you saving all your hits for us?” I meet Cairo's darkened eyes and quickly demand myself to focus. They’re packed with possibilities and hazards, tip-toeing on the line of crazed madness at how freakishly calm he can get.
However, he doesn’t give a flying shit about me. He doesn’t want me around.
Yet, he’s here.
In my space.
"You're not gonna do shit," Mohawk taunts through the thick silence, spit flying from his face in fury and stupidity. "Go ahead and slap me, bitch. You cheated, and I'm gonna get my fifty grand either way."
I don’t move.
Not because his words don’t piss me off, but because I can feel Levi’s heavy gaze at the back of my neck.
“Make them good,” Mohawk snarls when I don’t make a move to do just that. “Because when I get my hands on you…I’m going to fuck you while I’m—” I crack my fist across his face because I’m beyond tired of getting threatened with getting fucked.
What is this world coming to? Is that all men give a shit about? Is that what makes them feel more powerful than to stick their dicks into something that wouldn’t touch them with a six-foot pole?
Mohawk spits blood at my feet and heaves his face upward. But it’s when he opens his mouth, that I allow my inner rage to overcast all my feelings over the last few weeks.
"That's for callin' me a bitch." I hit him right in the sternum next. "That's for attempting to assault me.” And then I go for the low blow because that's what he did to me after all right? I slam into his balls with the tip of my stolen Chucks and he drops to his knees. "And that's for making these two guys come and calm you the fuck down."
Mohawk snatches out, then and grips my shirt, and before he's even able to pull me closer, Cairo has him by the throat.
He hurls Mohawk back, his spine hitting the hard ground so hard that I hear the sound of his breath leaving his lungs.
"Go finish your races," Torin orders me then, jerking his head to where we just came. "We'll take care of this asshole."
"Keep ordering her around, Wildes, and you'll be the next one on the ground holding your balls in pain." Levi's no-bullshit tone comes directly to my left and I remember what happens at the end of this.
His bicep brushes mine, a subtly and comforting gesture for the shit that’s about to go down.
“Drop him.” Levi’s order poses the question if Baby Wildes, the Prince of The Landings, is going to listen or defy.
Torin quirks a brow before his focus lands on me and it’s then that it seems that he remembers the reality of our situation.
I’m allegedly Levi Wallace’s girl and he just landed claim to me.
My best friend mom-arms me, taking me out of the center between him and Reeve, and that’s when he slams his fist into the guy who saved me in the middle of another street with less dangerous men than him.
Levi’s hand shoots out and seizes Reeve’s shirt, yanking him closer to sneer in his face, “ You . I thought I sent you off on vacation.”
“I canceled my trip.” Reeve’s hazels decline down Levi’s chest, appearing uninterested, and surprisingly leaves it at that. He just went into Forsaken Crew mode right before my eyes.
“I’m hurt. Especially after I went through all the trouble.”
“Lev.” I clutch onto his muscular bicep . “We’ve been through this already. Several times.”
“Have we?” he rebukes with maliciousness in his tone. “I don’t remember.”
“ Levi . Don’t—” He snaps his head to me, face twisted in unadulterated rage. It’s only for the briefest of seconds that it softens, that he’s silently telling me he’s sorry for what he’s about to do before he gears up then.
“You fuckin’ him? I caught you in your garage with Wildes and I let the shit slide, but not this one. I’m not going to stand for my girl being a fucking whore.”
He moves so quickly that I didn’t anticipate it coming, but I believe that’s been Levi’s plan all along. His fingers wrap around my throat but he puts zero pressure on it before bending over to say something to me.
However, he doesn’t get that far.
Reeve’s already towing him backward, nailing Levi in the side of the head with a heavy punch and shoving him away.
It speaks the only volume that I need to hear.
Reeve Stanton isn’t going to lie down and allow another man to disrespect or put his hands on me. This isn’t about fucking. It’s about due regard for my feelings and the way I should be treated.
And he’ll go to bat with Levi for the chance to make sure that’s made perfectly loud and clear.