Chapter 40
RIGGS
The front door of the Mill is flung open before Gemma even has time to reach for it.
“You’re late,” a boy, no older than eleven or twelve announces, dark hair falling across his forehead.
“Dad and Uncle Colt have a bet going that—” When he sees me bringing up the rear, my walker making it a slow, arduous process, the boy narrows his deep blue eyes on my face.
Not just blue. Montgomery blue. “Who are you?”
“This is my friend, Riggs.” Half turning in my direction, Gemma gives me a go easy smile. “Riggs, this is Gunner.”
Still looking at me, Gunner’s mouth twitches into a shitty smirk that pegs him as Cade Montgomery’s kid better than his eye color ever could. “You’re the soldier that got blown up in Afghanistan or some shit, right?”
“I’m not a soldier—I’m a Marine,” I tell him, my throat tight because I’m not anymore. I’m not a Marine. Not the kind I want to be and I never will be again. “And it wasn’t Afghanistan. It was Syria.”
Giving me a head-to-toe look, that encompasses my walker and the near useless shuffle of my legs, Gunner all but dismisses me. “I still get the first piece, right?” he asks, looking up at Gemma like she’s the first woman he’s ever seen.
“Of course,” she tells him with a laugh. “When have you ever not gotten the first piece of cake, Gun?”
The kid flicks a satisfied smirk in my direction before he gives her a grin. “Just checkin’,” he says before pushing the door all the way open to let us in.
As soon as Gem has ahold of the door, the kid darts off in the direction of the bar. Circling around it, he disappears from view. Shooting me a nervous smile while she holds the door open wide enough so I can maneuver my way through it, she shakes her head. “He’s a good kid,” she tells me. “He’s?—”
“Just like his dad,” I finish for her, letting her know that even though she didn’t include his last name in our introduction, I know exactly who he is.
Across the threshold, I survey the bar while Gemma lets the door bang closed behind us.
It looks the same. A massive, open air space with bare rafters and scarred, hardwood floors.
Directly to my left is a raised dais that houses the pool tables, dart boards hanging on the outer wall below it.
To my left, the stage where they host live music on the weekends and a dance floor that’s undoubtedly crowded with couples doing the two-step or the Texas waltz, every weekend.
In front of me is the bar—fifteen feet of solid, lovingly polished oak—lined with barstools.
In between all of it is a sea of tables and chairs.
Enough to tell me that this place is a mad house when it’s open.
The clack of pool balls and laughter pulls at my attention but I ignore it, focusing rather on making my way toward one of the tables between there and the bar. Setting her cake on the table I’ve claimed, Gemma gives me another nervous smile. “Beer?”
Curbing the urge to tell her to forget the beer and just bring me a bottle of something stiff and brown, I give her a nod. “That’s why I’m here,” I tell her, floating her a faint smile while I fold my walker and lean it against the table next to mine.
Nerves turn to relief. “Coming right up,” she tells me before heading for the bar.
Lowering myself into a chair, facing the door and the pool tables next to it, I stretch my legs out in front of me with a barely audible groan.
They don’t hurt. Not exactly. They tingle, like static electricity crackling between my skin and the muscles it covers.
I asked Bruce if the feeling would ever go away and he told me it’ll get better, lessen over time, but that it will never go away completely.
You don’t want it to either. That staticky feeling means your implants are working.
It means you can walk. Trying to remember how lucky I am, I listen to the clink of beer bottles being pulled from a cooler behind me, while in front of me, Jensen Barrett breaks away from the pool table and starts moving in my direction.
When she sees him, Gemma picks up the pace behind me, making it back to the table, just steps ahead of her boss.
“Jen—this is Riggs Wheeler.” Setting a pair of ice cold longnecks on the table, Gem drops what feels like a protective hand on my shoulder, the weight of it instantly tightening the back of my neck. “Riggs this is Jensen?—”
“Pryce,” I say his last name—the only one I’ve ever known him by—and watch while the sound of it tightens the clench of his jaw. “I know who he is, Gem. I grew up here, remember?”
“It’s Barrett,” Jensen corrects me, his tone deceptively neutral while he pulls a chair away from the table. Flipping it around before he straddles it and sits, he gives me a flat smile. “It’s been Barrett for longer than you’ve been gone.”
“My bad.” Matching his neutral tone, I feel Gemma’s fingers sink into the meat of my shoulder, her grip tightening enough to tell me that her hand on my shoulder isn’t meant to be protection.
It’s a plea—begging me to behave myself.
Releasing the tight knot of anger coiled in my belly, I let it unravel, the feel of it loosening, leaches into my bones, relaxing my muscles just as the squeak and slap of Gunner’s shoes come careening around the corner of the bar.
Flicking the boy an amused smile over my shoulder, Jensen sits back, visible relaxing. “It’s all good,” he says with an easy shrug as Gunner makes it back to the table.
“Take it upstairs, Gun,” Cade calls from the pool table. “You can eat it while you finish your homework.”
Looking stressed, Gunner flicks me a quick look. “But?—”
“No buts—you know the drill,” Cade reminds him while he leans over the pool table to take a shot. “You get to wait for Gemma to get here but after, you go upstairs.”
“Yes sir.” Flicking me another murderous glare, He watches Gemma while she cuts his slice of cake. “Grandma Penny says you’re gonna make Scar’s birthday cake.”
“I am.” She shoots me a flat smile while she slides his cake onto his plate. “She came by and asked me this afternoon.”
“Can you make mine too?” Looking up at her with the same moon eyes he was giving her earlier, I hear Jensen clear his throat to cover up the laughter bubbling in the back of it.
“I sure can,” she says, giving Gunner a head bob. “Have your dad call me when it’s close and we can talk about it.”
“Thanks.” Shooting her another grin, Gunner takes his cake and bolts for the staircase behind the bar.
As soon as he’s gone, Jensen lets out a low whistle. “That boy’s got it bad,” he says on a low, rusty chuckle.
“Shut up.” Glaring down at him, she lifts her hand to take a swipe at him. “He’s a good a kid. He just needs…” Struggling for the right words, Gemma gives up on a sigh. “You gonna be okay here on your own?” she asks, looking down at me.
“I—” Sitting up a little straighter, I look around while I start to process the fact that this isn’t Gemma’s final destination.
She has every intention of leaving me here.
“Yeah.” Even though I’m not entirely sure it’s true, I give her a head bob because I’ll be damned if I’m going to say otherwise. “I’ll be just fine.”
“Okay…” Giving me a faint smile full of worry, she picks up the remainder of her cake before she aims a much harder look in Jensen’s direction. One that practically shouts, you better be nice.
“Best behavior,” Jensen says, reading her loud and clear. “But there better be a slice of that waiting for me when I finally kick these assholes out and get upstairs.”
“Isn’t there always?” She asks him before turning toward me.
“Text me if you need anything,” she says quietly, dropping an impulsive kiss on my cheek.
Impulsivity must be the name of the game because I turn into the kiss, turning it into something more.
Lifting my hand, I fit it against the back of her neck and hold her while my mouth slides into place under hers.
Feeling her soft, sudden intake of breath, I expect a sharp slap across the face for being so familiar with her, and if she’d given it to me, it would’ve been no less than I deserve.
I’ve been nothing but combative and borderline abusive for the last month—I’d deserve it if she dragged me outside and ran me over with her car.
What I get is more. More than I deserve.
More than I expected. Her mouth pressed against mine.
The tease of her tongue along my lower lip before she pulls away.
“I’ll save you a piece of cake too,” she promises quietly, her mouth quirking while she straightens, pulling herself from my grip, before she disappears.
Turning, I watch her cross the bar to climb a set of stairs that lead to the second floor, feeling the urge to follow her.
It’s a familiar one. Even a decade later, following Gemma is proving a hard habit to break.
When I turn back around, it’s to find Jensen watching me from across the table.
We never really knew each other. I was in junior high when he was arrested for the wrongful death of a girl he allegedly met online.
By the time I made it to high school, Jensen was serving time and by the time I graduated, he was being released and taken under the wing of Tank Barrett—the same man who arrested him in the first place.
Truth is, I never wanted to know him. He was a creeker, his family one of the wealthiest in Clearwater.
He was Ethan’s older brother—none of those things were exactly a ringing endorsement in my book.
“The women are upstairs,” Jensen says, while the pool game across the bar resumes.
“They meet up every Monday night. Kick me out so they can eat cake and gossip.” He shakes his head on a chuckle while he reaches for one of the beers Gemma brought to the table.
“They’ve been trying to get Gemma to come to their weekly meet-up for the better part of a year now—she finally said yes around the same time you showed up. ”