Chapter 5
Nikki
“You have about fifteen seconds to spill.”
I rolled my eyes and leaned against Alice’s car. I didn’t have a damn clue what the hell was going on. I had my own questions that needed to be answered.
How did they find me?
Why was Pipe with them?
And why in the hell was Pipe staying the night?
“Hello.” Alice waved her hand in my face. “What is going on, Nikki? I can see you being friends with the chick, but I’m not too sure about the two guys.”
“Then why did you invite them to your house?” I hissed.
“Because my mama raised me to be polite. I couldn’t invite Karmen and not the two burly guys.”
“Nickel is cool.”
She rolled her eyes. “How great, he’s cool. How about we talk about the tall drink of water who just walked out the front door and has eyes only for you?”
Shit.
Fuck.
Damn.
My plan to get in the car before Nickel, Karmen, and Pipe got out of the bar went out the window.
Pipe leaned against the back of Alice’s car and cupped his hand around the cigarette in his mouth, lighting the end.
I hated how handsome the man looked while he slowly killed his lungs. I hated smoking, but whenever Pipe did it around me, it made me sigh and wish I was the cigarette in his mouth.
Argh! This man made me whacked in the head. Who in their right mind wished to be a cigarette?
He inhaled deep and turned his head to blow the smoke over his shoulder.
“Nickel and I are going to run to the hotel to get a room for the night, and then we’ll be over to Alice’s.”
Nickel put his arm around Karmen’s shoulders and tucked her to his side. “You gonna ride with us?” he asked Pipe.
He shook his head. “Nah. Just make sure there is a couch for me to sleep on.”
“You wanna come to the store with us?” Alice looked at her watch. “And if you guys want beer, then we need to go now. They stop selling alcohol at eight.”
Pipe took another drag and shook his head. “What the hell kind of town stops selling alcohol at eight o’clock on a Friday night?”
“The kind that lives in the stone age and has a population of five hundred,” I explained. If Pipe didn’t like it, he was more than welcome to go back to Weston.
“There's that sass,” he mumbled.
I didn’t want him talking about my sass. He used to tease me all the time about it, but that was when I actually wanted to be in the same room as him.
“Okay,” Alice whispered. She moved around to the other side of the car and slipped into the driver’s seat.
I rested my hand on the door handle. “Try to keep u—” My words died in my throat when I heard the Alice lock the door. I yanked on the handle, and the door didn’t budge. Oh, hell no. “Alice, open this door,” I demanded.
I hunched over to look in the car and saw she had a huge smile on her face and was shaking her head. “Nope. You need to catch up with your friends. I’ll go to the store, and I’ll meet you at your place.”
“What? I thought we were going to your place.”
She shook her head and started the car. “No. I’ll run to the store, grab a movie from the rental place on Main, and then I’ll be over.”
No. I did not want them coming over to my house. That was the last place I wanted Pipe to be. “Alice, we are not going to my house.”
She shook her head and shifted the car into reverse. She cranked up the radio and slowly crept the car backward.
Pipe stepped back from the car, and I tried not to think about that damn cigarette in his mouth.
Focus, Nikki.
“I can’t hear you,” Alice shouted. “See you in half an hour at your place!” She stomped down on the gas, rocketing the car out of her parking spot.
“I hate her,” I growled as I watched her taillights fade as she pulled out of the parking lot and down the street.
Karmen clapped her hands together and gave a little jump. “Well, Nickel and I will run to the hotel, and we’ll meet you at your place.”
“No,” I insisted. “I can ride with you guys to the hotel, and then we can all head over to my place.”
“Nonsense. There’s no reason why we all need to go. Nickel and I will only be a few minutes.” Karmen grabbed Nickel’s hand and pulled him over to her car. “You don’t by chance have ice cream, do you?” she asked.
“Does it snow in Alaska?” I asked. I don’t think I ever had a freezer lacking ice cream. “Cookie dough, mint chocolate chip, and butter pecan.”
Karmen pumped her fist in the air. “I knew I could count on you to satisfy my weird cravings.”
“Hey, hey,” Nickel called as he opened her door. “The only one who is going to satisfy your cravings is me.”
Karmen rolled her eyes and ducked into the car. “You’re such a man,” she mumbled.
“Last I checked, that was something you liked about me.” He slammed her door and rounded the front of the car. “Try not to kill each other,” he called.
Once again, I was watching the taillights of a car I wished I was in.
“You know, I really thought you would have been a bit more excited to see me, sugar.”
I looked at Pipe and tried not think about everything that drove me crazy about him. “If I had wanted to see you, I knew where to find you.”
He shook his head and inhaled deeply. The end of the cigarette burned bright, and his eyes stayed trained on me. He tossed the half-smoked cigarette on the pavement and stomped on it. “That mean you never wanted to see me again?”
Truer words had never been spoken. “It wasn’t on the top of my list.”
“You mind telling me why that is?”
I looked around and decided this was not the place I wanted to have this conversation. Hell, I never wanted to have this conversation with him. “No.”
He shook his head and strutted over to his motorcycle. “You can’t shut me down that easily. But I’ll let you have a little reprieve ‘til later.” He tossed his leg over the bike and looked over at me. “I promise not to bite, sugar, even though I know that’s something you’re into.”
Why that rat bastard. A smirk spread across his lips, and all I wanted to do was punch his lights out and walk home. He would, of course, bring up something from the one and only night we had spent together.
“You don’t get to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like you can talk to me like I’m someone you care about.”
He frowned and tilted his head a little bit. “Who said I didn’t care about you, Nikki?”
“Sometimes it’s not what you say, but it’s what you do.”
He shook his head and cranked up the bike. He grabbed the helmet that was hanging from the handlebars and held it out to me. “Hop on.”
Good. He wasn’t going to argue the fact that he did care about me.
As I strapped on the helmet, I remembered the first time I had ridden on the back of Pipe’s back. The feel of my legs wrapped around his strong, muscular body combined with the rumbling of the motorcycle was enough to drive me to the brink of ecstasy. When I first met Pipe, I thought he was handsome, but when my body had touched his, I went up in flames. The man was beyond hot.
“Do you know where I live?”
Pipe smirked and revved the engine. “I was just there, sugar.”
I swung my leg over the back of the bike, sitting back as far as I could without falling off the back end.
Pipe looked over his shoulder. “You don’t think you need to hang on?”
I gripped the seat between my thighs and shook my head. “Just don’t go fast and I’ll be fine.” It was less than a five minute ride to my place, and there was no reason for Pipe to drive like a bat out of hell.
“Suit yourself.”
Pipe rocketed out of the parking lot, and I lasted two point five seconds before I plastered myself to his back and wrapped my arms around his waist.
Damn man.
*
Pipe
I didn’t want to go to her house.
The feel of her body wrapped tightly around me was something I didn’t want to end. She had only been on my bike a handful of times before, but I remembered each time vividly.
Once we got to her house, I wouldn’t have her to myself anymore. Karmen would squirrel her away, taking all of her time.
“What are you doing?” she hollered over the roar of the engine.
I was getting five more minutes alone with her. I wasn’t familiar with Kales Corners, but it was a tiny town. It was virtually impossible for me to get lost.
By the time we made it back to her house, I knew she was pissed. Her friend was waiting on the front porch of her duplex, a perplexed look on her face and plastic bags were at her feet.
“What in the hell was that?” Nikki hissed. She catapulted herself off the bike, whipped off the helmet, and shoved it at me.
I shrugged and didn’t answer. The problem was, I had no idea what that was. I wanted to be next to her, but I knew that wasn’t something I should want.
“Well, gee golly. I thought for sure I was going to be the last one here.” Alice scooped the bags off the porch and watched Nikki climb the steps to her. “I had no idea what kind of beer to get. So I got three different kinds.”
Nikki grabbed two of the cases of beer off of the porch, pushed open the door to her house, and disappeared inside.
“You think you can grab the other one?” Alice called to me.
“Got it.” I hung Nikki’s helmet on the handlebars but didn’t move from the bike.
Alice watched me for a few seconds, her head tilted to the side before she followed Nikki.
I hung my head and closed my eyes.
What in the hell was I doing?
*