Kristen Ashley - Play It Safe

Uncle Lenny?

Suddenly, the cop straightened like a shot and he did this when the boy-men had moved out of his line of sight and his eyes hit me.

“Oh no,” I heard him say softly. “Hell no.” Then he moved out of his door, slammed it viciously and advanced on the sidekick I caught on the knee. He advanced fast, aggressive and very angry until that particular sidekick was pressed against the side of a car with his angry, cop uncle leaning over him threateningly.

“Convince me not to rip your dick off,” he growled.

Wow.

“Uncle Lenny –” the sidekick started, his voice trembling.

“That a girl I see on her ass?” the cop asked.

“We were –” the sidekick began again but his uncle leaned even closer and I held my breath.

“Is that… a girl… I see… on her ass?”

“She hustled Bud at pool,” the sidekick said quickly.

“I did not!” I snapped at the same time I heard Gray’s deep voice state. “That’s a fuckin’ lie.”

I looked to him to see he’d tossed Cocky Guy aside, Cocky Guy was pulling himself up but Gray was walking to me. He got to me, hand extended and I put mine in his. He instantly pulled me up and close, his hand firm in mine and not letting go.

He was also bleeding from that cut over his eye and he was bleeding a lot. It was running down his temple, cheek and dripping off his jaw onto his leather jacket.

Through this, the cop didn’t move.

Instead, he spoke and what he said was, “I don’t care if she hustled him, mugged him, drugged him or bit his dick off givin’ him a blowjob. Bud got fucked in some way, he’s a man; he takes it like a man. He’s got a legal problem; he takes it to the law. Whatever happens to Bud Sharp, you do not get involved. Especially if he’s got a beef with a slip of a girl. And I never drive up in my cruiser seein’ you loomin’ over a slip of a girl who fucked you, who fucked Bud or who fucked the fuckin’ Pope. You get me?”

“I get you, Uncle Lenny,” the sidekick whispered.

“Jesus, fuck, it’s like nothing grew between your fuckin’ ears,” the cop muttered, moved away and turned to face the assemblage, his eyes honing in on me. “You makin’ a complaint?”

“They leave me and Gray alone, no,” I answered instantly and he nodded just as quickly before his eyes cut to the guy in the wife beater. “You makin’ a complaint, Manny?”

“They leave my customers alone and I don’t got fights in my parkin’ lot for, say, the rest of all eternity, no.”

I thought Manny was kind of funny.

I thought this but I sure as heck didn’t laugh.

The cop’s eyes sliced through Cocky Guy and his sidekicks. “This girl, Gray or Manny got any problems with you boys?”

“No sir,” his nephew said immediately.

“No,” sidekick two answered at the same time.

The third shook his head. He was the one who’d been fighting for consciousness. He was up now and swaying a bit so I wasn’t sure he had words in him.

Cocky Guy was glaring at Gray.

“Bud?” the cop called and Cocky Guy tore his eyes from Gray and looked at the cop. When he did, the cop went on in a quiet voice filled with warning. “Don’t mess with me, son. You know you don’t mess with me. You’re smart, you’ll go home, clean up the cuts Gray’s opened up on you and think on those. My count, this is the third time Gray’s drawn your blood. Learn and don’t let there be a fourth.”

It seemed to me that Gray and Cocky Guy had a long history.

“She hustled me out of five hundred dollars,” Cocky Guy spat to the cop.

“Len, I was there and that’s not fuckin’ true,” Gray said low, clearly pissed and the cop looked to him.

Then he looked to me. Then his eyes moved up and down me.

I could read people, I had to. Survival.

Cops could read people too. I knew he sized me up the second he looked at me.

Not good.

Gray spoke again.

“She’s the shit at a table. He and his boys watched her wipe it clean, he knew she had talent. The whole bar did. He offered the bet, she declined. He pushed the bet. She took it. He lost. What he says is bullshit. Ask Janie.”

The cop held my eyes and I held his. His dropped to my hand which Gray still held firm in his. Then he looked to Gray only briefly. Then he turned back to Cocky Guy.

“Do you not think I see what this is?” the cop asked Cocky Guy softly and I didn’t get that but I did see in the parking lot lights Cocky Guy’s face go pale even as it went hard. “Go home, Buddy,” he finished on a near to whisper.

His sidekicks immediately shuffled to exit the scene. With no other choice, Cocky Guy aimed a laser sharp scowl at Gray and me then cleared his throat and hocked a loogie in our direction.

“Got shitloads of money, not an ounce of class,” Gray muttered, his eyes locked on Cocky Guy as he followed his boys.

Manny, the cop, Gray and I watched him go.

Then Manny turned to the cop. “Thanks for bein’ quick, Len.”

“My job, Man,” he muttered and Manny looked at me.

“You okay, miss?”

I nodded then said softly, “Thanks.”

He nodded back then looked to Gray.

“Would say good to see you, son, but be better seein’ you without blood on your face.”

“Right,” Gray replied and he sounded amused.

“Catch ya at The Rambler for a drink sometime,” Manny went on.

“You got it, Man,” Gray muttered.

Then Manny turned and walked toward the office.

The cop looked at Gray and me and when he did, his eyes again dropped to our hands, mine still held in Gray’s.

Then he looked to Gray and grinned. “Bud would probably stop bein’ such a jackass if you didn’t scoop up all the pretty ones.”

I liked that and I didn’t. I liked it because it was a compliment. I didn’t because that meant Gray had a lot of girlfriends and even though this was by no means a surprise and it made no never mind to me, I didn’t like knowing it.

“Wrong way around, Len. He wasn’t such a jackass, he might get a shot,” Gray returned.

This was true.

Len agreed with me and I knew this because he kept grinning and also nodding. Then his eyes flicked up to Gray’s forehead before going back to his.

“I got any shot you’ll go to the clinic and get that stitched?”

“I’ll be all right,” Gray answered.

That meant no.

Len looked back down at our hands then to me then to Gray, all quickly.

Then his grin turned to a smile but he did this right before he looked to his boots and said, “’Spect so.” He looked back to me. “You sure you’ll be all right, miss?”

I nodded. “I’m just fine. Thank you for intervening.”

“Like I said. My job,” he replied, jerked up his chin then moved toward his cruiser.

Gray’s hand around mine squeezed and I looked to him to see him looking down at me.

“No lie, you all right?” he asked.

And right then, without me even trying to stop it, I did something stupid. Something unsafe. Something I’d never done and something I never expected I’d do.

I answered, “I will be, you let me see to that cut.”

And that was when I got it, probably what I was looking for, definitely what I wanted.

He smiled at me and I saw his dimple.

“You think, you’re cleanin’ blood off my face and all, you might give me your name?”

That was Gray, sitting on the end of my bed in the hotel room as I stood over him doing exactly what he said, cleaning blood off his face.

Blood he shed for me.

Hells bells.

My eyes went from the short but deep and gaping cut to his.

He was close, really close. I’d turned on most the lights in the room so I could see what I was doing and I saw that his eyelashes weren’t russet. They were dark brown.

The tips were russet.

Oh my.

“Dollface?” he called and I blinked as my body started.

I needed to pull myself together.

“Ivey,” I muttered, looking back at the cut.

“Ivey,” he muttered back and I could swear, him saying my name gave me goosebumps.

“Yeah,” I whispered then ran the damp cloth down his face, wiping off the blood.

“What we got?” he asked and my eyes flicked to his but I’d learned.

Don’t look long. Don’t get captivated.

I looked back to the blood, kept gently wiping and asked back, “What we got?”

“The cut,” he explained. “How bad is it?”

My eyes went to his cut then I went back to cleaning his face while answering, “Short but deep. You should get stitches.”

“No stitches,” he murmured and I looked to him but I braced myself beforehand.

Nope. Bracing myself didn’t work so I tried to look at him while not so I ended up mostly looking at his nose.

“No stitches?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“It’s deep.”

“It’ll heal.”

“You’ll have a scar.”

“Yeah, but it’ll heal.”

I looked back to his eyes. “Gray, really, you should have it seen to. If you don’t get stitches you should have plasters and it should be disinfected.”

“You got a first aid kit?”

I did but it was in Casey’s car.

“It’s in my brother’s car.”

“So he’s your brother.”

Darn!

This was why you didn’t connect. This was why you played it safe. You played with fire; you were going to get burned.

But he’d bled for me so what could I do?

“Yeah, Casey. He’s my brother,” I whispered.

Gray grinned at me, with dimple and that made it worth it.

I moved away from him to the bathroom.

“When’s he gonna be back?” Gray asked my back and I turned to him.

“Sorry?”

“Your brother. When’s he due back?”

I couldn’t tell him this.

I told him this.

“Late, very late and that’s the earliest. Probably not until morning.”

Gray’s face changed and it wasn’t a good change. He looked mildly angry.

“Not until morning?”

“He… uh… well, he’s busy doing something so no, not until very late or morning.”

That was when Gray stood and announced, “You’re comin’ home with me.”

My body froze and I stared at him.

Then I forced my mouth to whisper, “Sorry?”

“You’re comin’ home with me.”

“I –”

He interrupted me. “First, I got a first aid kit. You can disinfect and put shit on the cut. Second, I got a grandma who lives with me, she’s not ancient, she’s not young but she could be three hundred years old and still she’d have the hearing of a German Shepherd. She goes to church every Sunday and she’d lose her mind if I brought a girl home with any intent other than to make her dinner or study the Bible.”

I couldn’t help it. That was so funny, it made my mouth twitch.

Gray watched my mouth move and flat out smiled.

Then he started speaking again.

“And last, got an extra bed. Manny takes pride in his place,” his arm moved, indicating the space around us that was clean and to my practiced eye I knew it had been renovated sometime in the last five years and although the cable was basic and I wouldn’t want to live the rest of my life there, it was pretty nice for what it was and a whole lot nicer than many places I’d laid my head, “but I bet the bed at my house is more comfortable and I can guarantee a thousand other people haven’t slept in it. So, what I’m sayin’ is, you’re safe, you’ll be comfortable and last, and most important, you’re safe.”

I read him and my eyes locked to his.

“You think they’ll come back,” I said quietly.

“No tellin’. Jim, Ted and Pete, no way. ‘Specially Pete. Buddy is an asshole and he was pissed. You were immune to his charms then you bested him then he got bested by me. That shit doesn’t lay well with him so…” he trailed off and shrugged.

This wasn’t good.

Another trickle of blood slid down his face. It wasn’t much but the cut was still bleeding.

That wasn’t good either.

Darn it all to heck.

I closed my eyes.

“Ivey, swear to God, you’ll be safe with me.” I heard him say softly.

I opened my eyes mostly because him talking soft was nice and with my eyes closed it seemed a heck of a lot nicer.

“Get what you need and write your brother a note. I’ll bring you back in the morning.”

I wanted to bite my lip.

I didn’t.

I went to the bathroom, did my best to rinse his blood from the washcloth I had, I wet another one then took it out to him.