Keycard
Eight hours later . . .
Lash Caldiwell
“DUDE DOES SOMETHIN’ TO PISS me off, can I lay him out?” Freddie asked, him driving, Lash in the passenger seat watching the orchard trees pass by as they neared the quaint farmhouse.
“I’m thinkin’ you’re not gettin’ who this guy is to Ivey,” Lash replied quietly.
“Right,” Freddie said and Lash knew he saw him as Lash did. Sitting on his porch swing, arm stretched out resting along the wide back of the swing, beer bottle in his hand.
Grayson Cody.
Ivey didn’t have a picture of him but she’d gone into detail describing him.
Lash thought she was glorifying a memory.
But she had not come close.
The faded jeans, the tight, gray t-shirt stretched across the wall of his chest, those shoulders, that hair, that ass, those long legs, those fucking eyes.
Jesus.
He was not Lash’s thing, too butch (way too butch) but that didn’t mean Lash couldn’t appreciate all that was him.
Freddie parked behind a rusted out, old, light blue pickup truck that really needed to be put out of its misery.
As they drove up, parked and even now, Grayson Cody’s long body kept swaying in that swing but his eyes never left the car.
Lash turned to Freddie, pulled in a breath and stated softly, “Okay, my man, in a minute you are gonna hear a bunch of shit that’s gonna knock your socks off. So, two seconds to prepare, Ivey is my best friend, outside you my only real one, as you know. What you don’t know, she is not my lover. She’s my friend. And I’m gay. You tell anyone, I’ll shoot you and you know I’m not fucking with you about that. Deal with it. We gotta move on, like, now.”
Freddie’s eyes were big but Lash didn’t have time for Freddie. He turned and folded out of the car.
Then he walked through the thick, green grass to stand at the side of the porch opposite Grayson Cody.
He’d scanned his surroundings while they drove up so he kept his gaze steady on Cody.
But he got it. He got it just with that man. With the way he looked and with the way he held her, touched her and spoke to her. He also got it with all that was around him. The peach trees, the faraway mountains, the fields that were waves of green and wheat brown, this house.
He got it.
He got why this man was the one and only man for the beautiful Ivey Larue.
Now Grayson Cody needed to get it.
He heard Freddie get out, his door slam and he knew Freddie was leaning against the car.
Cody’s eyes flicked to Freddie and back to Lash.
Then he asked the right question.
“How is she?”
“Not good,” Lash replied and watched Cody’s square jaw go hard even as his body remained relaxed, lounging and swaying in that porch swing.
Ivey would look cute, curled up against him in the crook of that arm thrown wide.
It was time to get this party started so Ivey could live a life, curled up against her man, in that swing, in the crook of that arm thrown wide.
“She’s Ivey so she told me what she told you about me,” Lash shared and Cody stared at him a second then jerked up his chin.
He gave him no more.
Lash crossed his arms on his chest, settled in and stated, “Now I’m here to tell her secrets.”
Lash watched with no small amount of fascination as his body went alert.
Very nice.
Lash went on.
“I do this for her and that means you get something out of it. She has no clue we’re here. She finds out I did this, it could swing either way for me. But what I know of her, how she feels about you, the opening you gave her, I’m hoping she’ll find it in her to forgive me. But you’re about to get a gift, and if you don’t handle it with care, you answer to me and Freddie.”
He jerked his head back to indicate his friend at the car but didn’t take his eyes off Cody.
Lash also kept talking.
“Not now, but eventually, you have my promise that you’ll pay if you break her again. We will make you hurt worse than the hurt that has crushed down on her her entire life. Not just the seven years she’s been jacked up about you but all the twenty-nine she’s endured. And when I say you handle it with care, I say that the next twenty-nine and beyond better make up for every minute of the last, and if you don’t break your back to do that for her, I’ll break it for you. Do you understand me?”
His gaze was laser sharp. He was listening. He was hearing. He was beyond interested.
But Grayson Cody didn’t say a word.
Lash decided to take that as an affirmative and kept going.
“You told her you’ll be waiting. My advice, Cody, is to start gettin’ impatient really fuckin’ fast. You don’t, she’ll slip through your fingers because my girl has no intention of coming to you. You know snippets of her past. You saw her strip. You said shit then and you said shit today and she’s spent the day convincing herself that she’s done her penance for not believing in you by bailing you out and now the best thing she could do for you is let you live your life. You need to disabuse her of the notion you think she’s a step up from a whore and you need to do that quick-like.”
That got him something.
A clipped out, pissed off, “Fuck.”
“Right, I get you, my man. You were her first, you’re that type of man, seein’ her do what she was doin’ would rile you. Type of man you are, pissed off, you’d share. You need to make fast work of rightin’ that wrong.”
That got him something else. The swing tipped back as Cody leaned forward, boots to the porch, elbows to his knees, gaze still locked to Caldiwell.
“You need to move your fancy-ass Lincoln so I can get my truck out,” he demanded.
Lash smiled.
Then he said softly, “I’m not done.”
“Well, finish it, man. I don’t got a lotta time.”
Lash’s smile got bigger before it faded from his face.
He dropped his arms, took two steps forward and crossed them again.
“Her momma was bad news.”
Lash heard Cody suck in a hissed breath but he kept talking.
“You think about all the ways a momma could be bad, Ivey’s momma went one better. Ivey and her brother had two different fathers. Neither of them knew their dads. Ivey because hers is in the penitentiary for twenty-five to life for murder one.
Lash lifted a hand and dropped it, still talking.
“A caution, I found that shit out. She has no clue about that either and I haven’t told her. He was just gone by the time she could cogitate and her mother never shared. Casey didn’t know his dad because even his momma doesn’t know who his daddy is. They did not grow up in a safe home. Only thing Casey knew all his life was lookin’ out for his little sister. Feedin’ her. Gettin’ her dressed. Gettin’ her to school.”
Lash drew in a deep breath, kept his gaze locked to Cody and started into the really bad shit.
“She grew up, started gettin’ pretty, with the man parade Momma had in and outta that house, Casey’s protection had to shift. He loved his sister. He grew watchful. He took her back. What he feared would happen, happened. One of Momma’s men got an eye for Ivey and started makin’ plays. Casey could only do so much. Momma was blind to that shit, and even if she wasn’t, she didn’t fuckin’ care. So he kept on comin’ over.”
Lash ignored Cody’s jaw visibly tightening and went on.
“One night, Casey heard shit he didn’t like and did what he always did lookin’ out for his sister. He walked in on his twelve-year-old sister fightin’ off a biker. Casey took a baseball bat to that shitbag motherfucker, bashed his head in, packed them up and stole the very little there was that was worth something. Cleaned out the biker’s wallet, his passed-out mother’s purse, her car, took off and never looked back. Then he did the best he could.”
Another deep breath and Lash gave more.
“Now, I looked into this shit after Ivey told me about it and that guy didn’t die. It was touch and go but he didn’t die. He isn’t right, surviving a head wound like that, but he also isn’t dead. Still, police were lookin’ for Casey and Ivey Bailey for a while. Years passed, trail got cold, case went stale, it’s done.”
Grayson Cody didn’t move, didn’t even twitch but his eyes were burning laser sharp into Lash.
So Lash kept going.
“I know you know him and think he’s a piece of shit. What I heard, he is. But Casey saved his sister from a fate one step down from death. And he did it when she was at an age where that kinda shit, shit that could fuck up a grown woman for life who was strong, could seriously fuck up a sweet, innocent twelve-year-old girl so she’d never be the Ivey you know and I know. He kept her alive, he kept her safe and he made it so he could give Ivey to you, me and Freddie. He fucked up along the way but I think you get why she stayed tied to him, loyal and felt she owed him.”
Lash hesitated a beat to let that sink in before he carried on.
“I don’t know this new shit that’s come out and what she’s told me of him, I can believe he’d be involved. What you need to know is, there is one person on this earth who could tear her from you and that was him. He came to her, fucked up, face mangled, scared outta his brain. Or tellin’ her that shit. She loved him. She owed him. She went with him. But you gotta get she went thinkin’ she was comin’ back. He also convinced her you were in danger and not just you, the entire town of Mustang. So, just like yesterday, she acted fast and not thinkin’ to keep you safe. And, while I’m sharin’, she thought you replaced her, you tore her shit right up, shredded, my man, tatters. She believes this entire town thinks she’s trash. And still, she got word this town was rocking and it took her five minutes to decide to lay out her savings to steady that boat.”
Lash watched Cody close his eyes and drop his head.
To that, Lash called out, “I’m not done.”
He then watched Cody’s muscled back bow as he drew in a deep breath before Cody tipped his head back to look at Lash.
“There’s been no one since you,” Lash whispered and immediately, he saw it, felt it. Cody’s body went statue-still but the air around him started undulating with the depth of emotion coming off him. “She danced for me but only for me. She was a waitress when I found her. She never dated. Never had a boyfriend. Nothing. Not even another kiss. You were her one and only, Cody, and you still are.”
“Move your fuckin’ car,” he growled instantly.
“What?” Lash asked, Cody’s beer bottle landed with a thud on the porch by his boot and he surged to his feet sending the porch swing flying.
“I said, move your fuckin’ car.”
He walked forward, dropped down off the porch and walked right by Lash to his truck. He opened the door and it creaked loud.
Lash turned to him, saw Cody pause, change direction and stalk back to Lash.
“Keycard,” he demanded, hand up, palm up.
Lash’s lips twitched and he dug out his wallet.
“You get another room tonight, man,” Cody went on.
“Right,” Lash muttered, pulling out his keycard and handing it to Cody who tagged it swiftly, turned and stalked back to his truck. “Better move the car, Freddie,” Lash called but Freddie was on it, smiling a huge-ass, motherfucking, white smile.
Freddie got in and barely got the car out of the way before the truck reversed then swung around and sped down the lane.
Lash sauntered to the Lincoln and folded in the passenger seat.
After he got his door closed and seatbelt on, Freddie took the lane a lot more slowly.
“I think that went well,” Lash muttered.
“Fuck yeah,” Freddie muttered back.
There was silence.
Eventually from Freddie, a quiet, “Dude, you’re gay?”
Lash sighed.
Then braced.
Then affirmed, “Yeah.”
“I so have a cousin I need to introduce to you. You are totally his type,” Freddie replied. Lash’s eyes cut to him, Freddie glanced at Lash, back at the windshield and again he smiled a huge-ass, motherfucking, white smile.
Lash looked to the lane and stopped bracing about half a second before he started grinning.