Chapter 23
“Holy shit, bro! There’s a mini Skin Walker in there, and he’s stuck in a shift.”
Standing just behind James as he peered through the door into Alise’s apartment, Recker was shocked and then confused. “What?”
“Yeah,” James peeked back into Alise’s apartment. “He’s a tiny thing, and he looks pissed.”
Recker reached around James and shoved the door open before brushing past and hurrying into Alise’s apartment. His eyes scanned the space and then landed on the source of James' dismay.
“James,” he growled. “It’s a fucking cat.”
James lingered in the doorway eyeing the cat warily. “How do you know? That thing could be a…a…”
“A fucking cat,” Recker supplied again. “Jesus, man!” Dropping his head back he pinched the bridge of his nose a moment before righting his head. “I already regret bringing you, and we’ve been here for all of two fucking seconds.”
“You gotta be sure about these things,” James countered angrily. “You can’t just go marching into trouble, man!”
“Trouble?” Recker looked from James to the cat. “Yeah. All nine pounds of fury right there. S’pose I should just be glad it’s not a shark, right?”
“I’m just saying, you never know.”
Recker shook his head and frowned at James. “Does your nose even work?”
James inhaled and looked around. “Yeah, and it’s telling me Alex and Alise aren’t here.”
“You don’t need your nose for that,” Recker muttered. “We’ve been pounding on the door for five minutes. I’m sure that if they were here, they’d have answered.”
James started digging around. “They said a tattuesday. There can’t be that many tattoo parlors in town. Let’s just go hunt ‘em down.”
Recker sighed knowing they didn’t really have any other choice. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
James stalled though, his hand slowly reaching out to the all black cat with pretty green eyes who stared at him menacingly from atop the kitchen table. When James' hand got too close, the animal jerked back and slapped a clawed hand at James, causing him to stumble back before he hissed, “How dare you be so cute and not let anyone pet you!”
Recker hid a grin before ordering, “Let’s go, James.”
In his truck, Recker tried to stifle the anxiety flowing through him. He felt sick inside knowing he’d hurt Alex. Yeah, he had to ask about her past for work, but he was genuinely interested too. He wanted to know everything there was to know about Alex and not just because it was part of his assignment. She wasn’t just an assignment to him, and that was the problem. She was supposed to be.
***
Alex sat in a little dive bar in downtown Great Falls waiting on Alise to get back from retrieving her cell phone from where she’d left it in the passenger seat of Stoney’s borrowed car. She and Alex had foregone tattoos because the wait was too long and now Alex knew she’d had too many drinks to make it back to StoneCrow safely, which meant she’d be spending the night on Alise’s couch. Already half shot, Alex peeled the label off her fifth bottle of beer and hummed along with the song blaring from the jukebox. She couldn’t decide if her girl’s night out had been a good idea or not. Sure, she was having fun catching up with Alise, but the more she drank, the more pissed she got at Recker and the harder it became to keep from telling Alise why she was so upset. Even now, it was hard to admit to herself that she’d been so wounded by Recker’s behavior because she’d grown fond of him.
Fond! She snorted at the weak word. She was more than just fond of Recker Rhodes, and it fucking sucked because his treatment of her today showed that he felt nowhere near the same.
Slamming a drink of her beer, Alex eyed the door and wondered what in the hell was taking Alise so long.
Outside, Alise slammed the door of Stoney’s car without even looking up from her cell phone. Punching in her code, she wasn’t surprised to see she hadn’t missed any calls. No one called her…ever! Truth be told, Alex was her only friend and she’d honestly been shocked to get a text from Alex earlier because the last time she’d talked to Alex, she’d been told not to expect to hear from her anytime soon.
Lowering her phone, Alise took one step and plowed into a hard body. Stumbling back, her ankle caught, and she knew she was gonna land on her ass. Bracing for the impact, it never happened because strong hands caught her and hauled her upright before steadying her.
“Who are you?”
Alise looked up at the guy asking the question. Her natural instinct was to give a smarmy retort, but the guy was huge, and he was looking from her to Stoney’s car with an intense familiarity.
“I’m…going inside.” Alise made to step around the guy, but he caught her arm and spun her back to face him.
“What are you doing in Stoney’s car?” He glanced around. “Where’s Alex?”
Canting her head, Alise studied the guy a moment before asking, “You him? You Recker Rhodes?”
The guy shook his head once. “I’m James.”
Alise jerked her arm out of his hold. “Don’t know any James, so if you’ll excuse me.”
James planted himself in front of her. “But you know Alex?”
The guy was cute, Alise would give him that, but his nosiness and persistence were downright annoying. She considered lying to him, but if he knew Stoney and Alex, he had to be a friend…right?
“Not that it’s any of your business,” she clipped out. “But yes, I know Alex. We’re friends.”
“Alise?”
Her eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. “H-how do you know my name?”
James didn’t answer, just countered with a question of his own. “How do I know you’re actually this Alise chick? You could just be pretending to be her because I caught you breaking into Alex’s car.”
Annoyed, Alise jammed her fists onto her hips. “Who in the fuck would want to pretend to be Alex’s friend just to get into her car?” She waved toward the vehicle. “It’s not even really her car. She’s just borrowing it. Besides,” she held out her hands, empty save for her phone. “Do I look like I took anything?”
Canting his head, James drawled, “That phone could be…”
“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Alise jerked the cell up and then was punching and swiping it furiously before turning her phone and shoving it an inch from James’ nose.
Jerking back, James just made out a picture of Alex and Alise wearing tiny dresses with wings sticking up off the back behind their heads as they smiled drunkenly at the camera.
“Me and Alex in our fairy costumes at the Zombie Crawl.” Pulling the phone back, Alise swiped her finger against the screen before shoving her phone into James’ nose again to reveal another picture, this one of them wearing button up shirts with shorts and high socks. On their faces were thick-rimmed glasses with thick medical tape in the middle. Their hair was parted down the middle and banded into pigtails. “Me and Alex at the Herd-O-Nerds Pub Crawl.” She didn’t pull the phone back this time, just swiped her finger and James watched a slide show of the two women dressed in various costumes and in various stages of inebriation while Alise spouted, “Alex and I have spent significant time together donating to various charities. We are friends, dick hole!”
James tore his eyes from the phone and asked, “Charities? Like Anheuser-Busch?”
“Hey!” she barked pulling the phone around to look at the picture on the screen herself. “These pub crawls were all sponsored events with the money going to great causes!” Lowering her phone, she lifted her chin haughtily. “Alex and I are practically fucking saints!”
James snorted, “Yeah. Saint Patrick’s day.”
Lowering her chin, Alise frowned at him. “I know who you are.”
“Oh yeah?”
“You’re Michelangelo.”
Dark brows spearing down, James shook his head, crossing thick arms over an impressive chest. “Wrong.”
Now Alise was snorting and tossing in an eye roll to boot. “I don’t mean that’s your name. Alex said she has some friends that are like the Ninja Turtles. Clearly, you’re the Michelangelo of the group.”
Lifting his chin, James let his eyes fall shut as he crowed, “Thank you!”
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
“Actually, it was. Michelangelo is the cool one, the fun one.” His eyes snapped open, and he waggled his brows. “The cute one.”
Alise laughed, inwardly admitting that James was, in fact, pretty cute.
“Where’s Alex?” The second masculine voice had her spinning, but the eyes of the behemoth behind her lacked the warmth of James’.
“Recker, this is Alex’s friend, Alise. Alise, this is Recker.”
“Oooooh,” Alise made the exaggerated sound while studying the guy from head to toe. Alex hadn’t said that she was crushing on this Recker guy, but she didn’t need to. Some things, friends just knew.
“She’s in the bar,” Alise jerked her head toward the building. “But you may want to steer clear for the night. She isn’t in the mood for male company.”
Recker’s lips just thinned before he growled, “Too bad.”
Alise had to jog to keep up with Recker’s long strides toward the bar. When she turned to see if James was following, she caught him openly staring at her ass. She wanted to flirt with James, but first, she had to do something to keep Recker from stalking into the bar and ruining Alex’s girl’s night out.
“Hey! She really doesn’t want to talk to you right now. I swear if you go in there, it’s only going to end badly.”
Recker didn’t even slow, and Alise felt unease wash over her. Glancing back at James she asked, “Can’t you stop him?”
“Nope!” James popped his lips on the ‘p’. “Man’s on a mission. Best step aside, woman.”
Oh God! Alise ran to beat them into the bar so she could warn Alex.