Kristen Ashley - Games of the Heart

Evidence was suggesting she hadn’t changed. She’d gone from a generous, fun-loving child to a selfish, sullen teenager, skipped town the minute she could and stayed away as much as she could. Her brother was dead, his family, which was her family, suffering and she was absent.

“Sorry, honey,” he muttered. “Shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

Her smile was small but it was sincere when she whispered, “If you didn’t, I couldn’t bitch about it. So…thanks.”

“You know where I live,” he told her. “As long as you’re here, you need to bitch or anything, find me.”

Her head tipped to the side and she studied him again before saying softly, “And you haven’t changed either. A woman meets a lot of men in her life. They all have types so they all have titles. Sucks for me that when I was too young to get it, I met The Good Guy.”

He didn’t know if he heard regret in her voice or not. He also needed to shut this down. He enjoyed Debbie in high school. But with her tailored, expensive suit, her sturdy, low-heeled not stylish pumps, her minimally made up face, her hair cut in a short style that meant she didn’t have to waste precious time to fashion it, time she could be using to make money and bust balls as an attorney, she was not his thing. He couldn’t say she wasn’t attractive. What he could say was for reasons he didn’t get and didn’t want to, she did her damnedest to hide it. He’d learned to pay attention, read the signs, weed out the red flags and move on. He’d learned the hard way. Twice. He wasn’t going through that again.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” he muttered, leaned down, brushed his lips against her cheek then straightened away. Even as he moved back several inches, he lifted a hand to give her upper arm a squeeze before he continued on a mutter, “You take care.”

Debbie Holliday was far from dumb. She saw the brush off and he registered when she did. This meant her earlier comment held regret. She was hoping for reconciliation. Not, he knew, a real one. No, she wanted a reminder she was alive. She wanted to participate in the good parts of living. She wanted familiarity and nostalgia. She wanted her ex high school boyfriend to fuck away the pain of losing her brother.

And Mike had no intention of doing that. He had a good memory and he’d initiated her to lovemaking. He’d had one girl before her so he was no expert. Still, as their teenage sex life carried on, he’d used her to learn how to give as well as take. She’d used him to learn how to get whatever she could. She was into experimentation, which he liked. But in the end, she was a selfish fuck. It wasn’t a nice thing to think but it was true. And everything he knew about her now screamed she hadn’t changed.

He didn’t need that shit.

He released her arm, tipped up his chin, opened the driver’s side door to his SUV and swung in. He switched on the ignition and pulled out, navigating the dozens of cars that lined their lane, feeling then seeing Debbie standing in her black suit on the walkway cleared of snow watching him go.

And he went.

The drive to his townhouse, which was in a development right next to the Holliday Farm, was, at most, five minutes. And it was this because he had to drive to the entrance of the development and navigate the streets inside it to get to his place. If he could drive his 4x4 across the field separating his townhome from the farm, it would take around twenty seconds.

But he didn’t drive to his townhome. His kids were with his ex-wife, Audrey for the weekend.

And there was a possibility that Dusty Holliday was in town. Her brother dead, her sister in from DC, her parents up from Florida. And she was pitching her silent fit instead of standing with her family and helping them deal.

And this pissed him off. Too much. More than was rational. But he didn’t fucking care. He’d known her brother since he could remember. He’d gone to church with her family the same. He took her sister’s virginity. He’d given her his time and attention. And an hour and a half ago, he stood by her brother’s graveside watching his body lowered into the ground.

Someone had to pull Dusty Holliday’s head from her ass and with Darrin, a year older than Mike, under fresh dirt, Mike decided it was going to be him.

They had two hotels in town, both of them situated close to the on ramp to the freeway.

And he was a cop. A cop with a badge.

Seeing her and her clothes, he went to the more expensive hotel, gave her name and flashed that badge.

Without delay, they gave him her room number.

He used the stairs rather than the elevator. This was habit. With a job, a house and two teenage kids he had full custody of, he didn’t have the time he wanted to work out. So he habitually found ways to be active.

He’d played basketball in high school but was not near good enough to play at his alma mater, Purdue which had a rich basketball history and recruited the best they could get. Still, with his frat brothers, they played basketball as often as they could, three, four times a week.

After college, he’d stayed fit because he liked it and he stayed fit for the job.

But when he married Audrey, his life changed.

He worked his ass off to pay the bills she accumulated. He didn’t have time for basketball with buddies or to hit the gym since, until he made detective, he worked two jobs. When he made detective and the hours meant he had to let go of the other job then, later, when he got quit of Audrey, he took it up again. One-on-ones with Colt or Mike’s partner Garrett “Merry” Merrick. Or two-on-twos, Merry and him against Colt and his friend Morrie. And he played with his son, Jonas. He also hit the gym. But after the divorce, when Audrey didn’t look after their kids during her part of their joint custody, he fought her and got them full. They were teenagers and busy, social but still, they managed to take a lot of time. This meant his four-weekly visits to the gym and once weekly one-on-ones or two-on-twos got cut back to twice-weekly gym visits if he was lucky and once or twice a month basketball games.

So if he had the chance to do something physical, he did it as a matter of course.

This time he did it also in hopes of cooling his temper.

It didn’t work.

He hit the fourth floor, moved through the door and followed the signs to her room number.

Without delay, he knocked.

Then he waited.

It couldn’t have taken more than a minute but that minute was too fucking long and he was about to knock again when the door was open.

And there she was right in front of him.

Her hair was no longer down but in a messy knot with thick, spiky locks shooting out of it everywhere at the top back of her head. She was no longer dripping silver and wearing black but wearing very faded jeans and an equally faded and beat up once burgundy now washed out tee. The deteriorating white decal on front had a cowboy in chaps and spurs being thrown from a bronco with western-style words that demanded you, “Eat it, cowboy!” underneath and in an arch over it, it said, “Schub’s Texas Saloon and Hoedown”. Her feet were bare, toes tipped in the same wine as her fingernails and he registered she couldn’t be more than five foot seven but was probably closer to five foot six. He knew this because, at six one, he had quite a ways to look down at her.

She still had on her makeup and silver bracelets on both wrists.

And she was staring up at him, eyes wide, lips parted, visibly shocked.

“Mike,” she whispered.

And that, again irrationally and again he didn’t give a fuck, pissed him off.

Dusty, comfortable, removed, sitting in her hotel room relaxing.

Yeah, it pissed him off.