Dannika Dark - Seven Years

“It’s me, Mike Hudson. Remember? We dated in high school.”

He smirked, lingering by the fire hydrant in a pair of jeans and a blue sports jersey. He still looked the same with curly brown hair and a light dusting of whiskers, but he’d put on a little weight around the gut. Without missing a beat, Michael walked in my direction and I began to get nervous.

“Still lookin’ good, Sexy Lexi.”

“Don’t call me that, Michael. I never liked that nickname.”

“All in fun,” he said defensively, easing up to my right. “So, you work at Sweet Treats?”

When his eyes slid down my body and up again, I stepped back. “Yeah. Do you work around here?”

Michael stepped forward. “Nah. I’m in town visiting my parents and decided to take a tour down memory lane—hook up with some of the guys. Want to join us? We’re having pizza and beers over there,” he said, pointing three shops up the road.

“No, thanks. You guys have fun. I have to go, but it was good seeing you,” I lied, turning on my heel and walking briskly toward the car.

“Wait a minute,” he protested, jogging up behind me. “It’s been how many years and you’re giving me the cold shoulder? I thought you liked me?”

I whirled around and pressed my finger against his chest. “You gave me a bad reputation and then after my brother beat your ass, you had your friends jump him when he got off work. Then I was tagged with that sorry fucking nickname that stuck for three years. Three years, Michael.” I glanced down at his wedding band. “Go home to your wife and kids, and just pray some idiot doesn’t ever do that to one of your daughters.”

I finally had my moment and it felt really damn good as I stormed to the car, ready to do my victory dance. I’d waited a long time to tell him off, and it didn’t require a ten-minute speech. The less time I had to spend with him, the better.

But then he caught my wrist.

“You’re still mad over that?”

I turned around and tugged my arm, but he kept a firm hold. Memories of our relationship flooded back. Something never felt right about our first time, but I assumed that’s how it went with all the girls. The boy pressuring, the girl saying no, the boy insisting, the girl squirming because it hurt, the boy telling her it was always like that the first time and holding her wrists, the girl wincing in pain and crying. “Next time it won’t hurt as bad,” he’d said to me.

There was no next time with Michael. Maybe I was naïve in thinking the first time should have been special, but he was an insensitive jerk and I regretted giving myself to him. When I had refused to have sex with him again, he broke up with me.

That’s when he made up the nickname and harassed me for the rest of the school year with obscene gestures in the hallway and spreading rumors.

I snapped my arm back again but he kept hold of it. The streets were empty and most of the shops had closed down except for the pizza place and theater.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he finally said. “We were just a bunch of dumb kids. Let me walk you to your car and we’ll go our separate ways. It’s been a long time and I don’t think it’s fair you’re holding me accountable for something I did when I was a teenager.”

We were moving toward the car and I was too confused to react because of how reasonable he seemed.

“If it’s any consolation, your brother had his friends kick the living shit out of mine as payback.”

I blinked. “No, he didn’t.” Not that Wes would have told me, but it didn’t sound like him.

“Yeah, he did. I don’t know who did it, either, because none of the guys talked about it. Someone must have threatened them because I can’t even get them to talk about it today. They stayed out of school for a week with their faces all messed up.”

We approached the car and I sighed. “Thanks, Michael. Look, what’s done is done. Have a good life.”

Damn, that sounded cold, and I opened the door to my cootiemobile.

That’s when Michael gripped the hem of my skirt and yanked it up, pushing me against the open door. My heart raced and I couldn’t breathe from the sudden shock of being forcefully pinned. Either I’d have to stand there and let him grope me or get in the car. I sure as hell wasn’t getting in the car with him right behind me. My hands rested on the roof and I started to push back when he grabbed my hips with a painful grip.

“Still feels good, Sexy Lexi. Real good,” he growled in my ear, running familiar hands over a place where they had once been. “Just like old times.”

The next thing I knew, Michael was yanked off me quicker than a heartbeat. I pulled down my skirt and turned around, confused by the abrupt cessation and silence.

Oh, my God.

Austin was straddling Michael, his brutal hands wrapped around his throat, squeezing tightly. Michael’s face swelled up until it turned an ugly shade of bluish red, his mouth agape as he struggled to get air in. He tried to punch Austin and buck him off, but that was about as effective as moving the Great Pyramid of Giza.

I tackled Austin, knocking him onto the cement and falling on my side. Michael made a sound like a donkey as he pulled air into his lungs and Austin rolled over to finish what he started.

I climbed on his back and curved my arm around his neck in a viselike hold. “Austin, no! You’ll kill him, you idiot.”

Michael catapulted to his feet while holding his throat and jogged the hell out of there. When Austin stood up, I lost my grip and fell on my back. He turned to go after Michael but changed his mind when he saw me laid out on the concrete.

“Christ, Lexi. You okay?”

He knelt down and looked me over. I disappeared in his frosty blue eyes—so pale they resembled a Siberian Husky’s. They were rimmed with inky black lashes and wolfish brows, which furrowed with concern.

“Lexi?”

“What are you doing here?” I asked, propping myself up on my elbows.

“Besides saving your ass from a dead man? Walking.”

I lurched up and pushed myself off the ground. Austin slid his large hand beneath my arm to help and I knocked it away. “I can do it myself,” I said.

“You always were stubborn,” he mumbled.

“Capable,” I countered, glaring up at him.

Up. Because I swear Austin had sprouted a few inches in the last seven years. I mentally measured him to be just over six foot, but when we last saw each other, he was probably around five-eleven. I knew this because I was five-feet seven inches. And a quarter.

He stared down his nose. “Stubborn.”

I raised a brow. “You really want to fight with me in the middle of a parking lot? Why are you here, Austin? I know this isn’t the side of town you hang out in.”

He rubbed his jaw and scanned the parking lot once more. “I followed you to work.”

I blanched. “My shift started nine hours ago.”

Austin folded his thick, tattooed arms and belted me with a judgmental glare. “Can you drive?”

“Texas Department of Motor Vehicles seems to think so.”

Austin’s lips twitched. “Get in the car, then. I’ll wait.”

I brushed my dirty apron and lifted my purse from the ground, grabbing the lipstick that had rolled behind a tire. I peered over my shoulder; Austin stood with his hands deep in his pockets and I heard the sound of coins jingling as he looked around.

“Do you normally leave work this late?”

I didn’t answer because after what had just happened, I was too flustered and didn’t think it was an appropriate time to have a conversation.

Once inside my car, I started the engine and fought with the clutch. She sputtered and immediately died. I expected to see Austin laughing the way Beckett often did.

He wasn’t. His brows knitted and he looked like he was about to step in until the engine turned over and I got her running. What bothered me was the distracted look on his face. Austin looked like a man who was three ticks away from beating the holy shit out of someone.

And that someone was going to be Michael Hudson. I should have said something, but I drove off and watched him in the rearview mirror as he stalked toward the pizza shop with a heavy swing in his step.

I always believed Karma would come back to Michael for how cruel he was to me in high school. Karma just happened to be a man named Austin Cole.

On Friday afternoon, I picked up Maizy for our playdate. It had become a tradition to go to a movie and then stop off at Pizza Zone. It gave my mom a break from reality so she could get a manicure or just take a nap. Maizy was such a good-hearted little girl, one who from an early age considered the feelings of others. She didn’t like to see anyone cry and always cleaned up without being asked. Maizy had her moments like any six-year-old, but she was my Maze, and I loved her unconditionally.

“Lexi?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I go play now?”

I took another sip of my soda and admired her sparkly blue eyes. Wes and I got the brown hair and eyes in the family, but Maizy was a little ray of sunshine who had the same enviable features as our mom.

I glanced at her plate. “Are you finished?”

She had only taken a few bites of cheese pizza and I knew the excitement of the noisy games and hyperactive kids was too much to resist.

Maizy flashed a bright smile. She’d lost one of her bottom baby teeth and the Tooth Fairy had paid her a visit.

I hated to be one of those people who force-fed a child, so I nodded and watched her run over to the play zone. It was a walled-off area with plastic tunnels and ropes to swing on. She kicked off her shoes by the entrance and waved before disappearing inside the first series of yellow tunnels with the other kids. Maizy mostly played by herself because even though she had just turned six, she hadn’t yet come out of her shell. It seemed like yesterday we were changing her diapers, and before too long, I’d probably be helping her pick out a dress for prom.

I thought about Austin. Had he gone after Michael, or was I reading too much into that? Austin had no right appearing out of nowhere and fighting my battles, although I was glad he’d shown up when he had. Still, he’d never once tried to contact me in all the time after Wes’s death. It shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did, but he was such an integral part of our family that it was as if I’d lost two people that year instead of one. Austin had parents and siblings, but I’d never met them. I wasn’t even sure if they lived in the area.

I twirled my pigtails around my fingers while watching Maizy swing on one of the ropes.

Before I could draw a breath, Beckett slid in the chair in front of me. “Knew I’d find you here,” he said smugly.

Beckett had on that damn T-shirt I hated, the one that said “Meathead.” It was just the sheer principle of a man proudly labeling himself as an idiot.

“Beckett,” I warned. “Let’s not do this here.”

He narrowed his lashless eyes. “You got a right to be mad, Lexi. I fucked up. But I’m not perfect—no one is. You’ve got your fair share of baggage, and I’ve got mine.”

I crossed my arms and leaned back in the plastic chair. “Are you calling your infidelity… baggage?”

He snorted, staring at my head. “You look ridiculous with your hair that way. Take it down so we can have a real conversation. I can’t talk to you like this.”

“How about you not talk to me at all? We’re done, Beckett. That’s nonnegotiable.”

“Lex,” he said, placing his hand firmly on my arm.

I bolted out of the chair and headed in the other direction. Leaving him was one of the most difficult things I had done in my life, and we had already gone through all this. Now he was picking at a scab and trying to make it bleed again.

“Lex, wait,” he called out. I passed the pinball machines and he caught up with me by skeeball.

I turned around, tired of all the running. “Stop following me, Beck. It’s creeping me out. I don’t want to keep reliving this over and over. Don’t you get it? There’s no going back and undoing what you did.”

He gripped my shoulders. “Look, babe, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. It was a mistake and I won’t—”

“Save it,” I interrupted. “You’ll never know what that did to me, and it’s not something I can easily get over. Maybe some women can, but you’ve always known that was the deal breaker for me. Not only would I always be wondering where you were when you came home late, but I’d always know that I wasn’t enough for you. I loved you, Beckett. I trusted you, and you broke that.”