Pulse: A Stepbrother Romance (2 page)

Derek raised his glass, and a field of drinks answered him.

“To Recker. He was a bit of a tool, but no one deserves to get gunned down like that for no damn reason.”

Silence fell as those present drank.

The harsh taste of whisky rolled down my throat, burning in familiar fashion. Once I hadn’t been able to drink the stuff, long enough ago that the memory was foggy.

“I can’t believe you didn’t get those bastards that shot him,” Tim said. “I would’ve torn their heads off for doing that to Recker.”

That was almost cordial for Tim. He’d never liked me, thought I was too high and mighty because I’d finished high school and could have gone to college. In return, I’d never spared him a second of my time.

“Fuck off, Tim,” Derek said. “Chris had to watch Recker die. What would you’ve done, gone after them and gotten popped?”

“I would’ve brought my piece to the bar, obviously,” Tim said. “You don’t go out to O’Malley’s without your gun, everyone knows that. If they’re smart, anyway.”

The tendons in my hand hurt. It was clenched into a fist so hard it shook.

Or maybe it’s the whiskey.
We’d been drinking for a few hours, mourning Recker’s death, helping each other get through the pain.

Even now, there was more numbness inside than actual grief. A man I’d known for years and who I’d spent a good part of my life as friends with lay in the morgue, and I couldn’t even pretend that I was barely keeping it together.

Derek topped off his own glass, and then mine.

“Let’s do another. I don’t know about you lot, but I know Recker would have wanted us to drink to him in style.”

The crew was a rough group. Most of us worked at a warehouse near the docks—dirty, dim work that didn’t need a high school education.

Derek was the self-proclaimed leader. He had done nothing to earn the title beyond claiming it for his own, but that was enough. Until he’d done it, no one figured we needed a leader.

A half dozen men who worked by day in the warehouse and spent most of their time together afterwards. Whether it was ease or sheer lack of imagination, it dragged on me. Seeing the same faces day in and day out made the monotony of life that much less appealing.

I won’t be seeing one face anymore.

Recker hadn’t been the first man from the crew to die, and he wouldn’t be the last. The men were uneducated and proud of it. Shit disturbers, as some called them.

I needed out.

“Hey, Chris, hit a line.” Derek passed me a mirror.

A rolled up dollar bill sat on the plate, along with a small pile of white powder, some of it cut into lines of the fine stuff.

“I’ll pass tonight,” I said. “I’m not feeling it. Recker just died last night, you know?”

“Chris, just shut the fuck up and do a line.” He stared at me.

There was no reason to listen to him. Drugs and violence, wasting time by wasting away. It wasn’t the life I wanted to lead. I’d had little choice, but I could make a change.

“Chill, Derek. I don’t want to.”

It had gotten quieter as the others looked at us.

“Look at this guy, doesn’t want to honor his friend by having a good time,” Tim said. “Or is he a pansy?”

I gritted my teeth. “Shut up, Tim. I’m sick of your shit. Just because you’re a cokehead doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to be.”

The mirror in front of me didn’t move. It still hung there in Derek’s hand, waiting for me to take it.

The others chipped in.

“Come on, Chris. Just let go, man.”

“Hit a line and let’s go out. We need to do it for Recker.”

“Do it, Chris.”

My determination took a beating. These were all of my friends in the world, and they wanted me to become just like them. What else was there for me?

Derek smirked as I took the plate from him and set it on the table in front of me. I rolled the bill a little tighter and lined up my pass. Holding one nostril closed, I put the end of the bill in the other and sucked in deeply as I watched the powder get vacuumed up the makeshift straw and made sure I missed none of the fine stuff.

I sat back and gave a few more sniffs so none of the expensive drug would go to waste.

It didn’t take long to hit. The familiar wave of alertness washed away some of the alcoholic haze, and I sat up straighter.

“Better?” Derek asked.

It felt superb.
Why would I want to abandon this feeling?

“Better,” I agreed with a nod.

“Good. Let’s head out to the bar. I think we should check out O’Malley’s and see if we can’t just find those pieces of scum that took out Recker.” Derek patted his waist where he always kept his gun tucked. “This time it’ll turn out differently for them.”

There was a frenetic energy to the crew as we stood and readied ourselves before hitting the street: part alcohol, part cocaine, and part bloodlust.

I let the group pull away from me a little as we walked. Derek’s apartment was a handful of blocks away from O’Malley’s, and we would get there soon.

This doesn’t feel right. I don’t want this.
The thought of confronting the men who had shot Recker and getting justice made my stomach turn.
I mean, they deserve it, but that doesn’t mean I want any part in it.

We got close to another busy bar: Swim. It was supposed to be clever since it had a section with pool tables. I always thought it was pretentious. There was a line of girls filing in the door as we walked up. The one at the front gave me pause.

Those eyes…

The others hadn’t noticed that I had fallen behind yet. Standing on the street in front of Swim, I decided.

No more death tonight.

It was almost enough to convince myself that the real reason wasn’t the girl who had walked into the bar moments before with the piercingly beautiful eyes. I had seen them last night.

“Come on, Leah. You haven’t had enough shots yet,” Tyra yelled over the electronic music as she grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the bar.

I let myself be pulled. It had been a long time since I’d drank this much, and there wasn’t any reason I shouldn’t keep it going. I had both a relationship and a friendship to mourn.

“Two liquid cocaines!” Tyra shouted at the bartender.

I shuddered. “Hey, you promised you’d never make me drink one of those again!” The sugary cinnamon liquor and Jägermeister combo always spelled trouble for me.

“I lied!” she said as though she couldn’t be happier about it. “Loosen up, Leah. You’re a free woman now! You need to check out the men in here and size them up for a nice rebound bang.”

The bartender pushed the shots across the bar and took the bill Tyra slid to him.

Still not happy about the situation, I clinked glasses with my friend and took the shot back. It burned all the way down. The cinnamon was intense.

We put our backs to the bar to look over the crowd. It was the busy night for Swim, with cheap pool and a house DJ to blare electronic dance music over the crowded floor. Bodies gyrated to the deep bass and there were even lasers and smoke machines to make the bar feel more like a club.

“Ooh, what about him?” Tyra asked. She pointed at a group of guys standing off to the side. One of them had a chiseled face and well-kept hair. It looked like he was well-built under a buttoned-up shirt with a popped collar.

“Oh, God, no,” I said. “He looks way too douchey. I feel like if I slept with him he would look at himself in the mirror the whole time.”

Tyra laughed. “That’s the whole point of a rebound bang! You want to grab the hottest guy you can, it doesn’t matter if he’s a tool. You won’t be keeping him around for any longer than tonight. What about him?”

Another model-esque physique straining the tight shirt he wore. Tyra's type was becoming clear.

“Jesus, Ty. If you want him, then help yourself.”

“Hmm, I might just,” she said, making eyes at the man as he walked by. “I’ll be right back. You better have picked out a target by the time I get back!”

“Oh, go on,” I said. “I said nothing about wanting or needing to pick up a guy tonight. I wanted to get things off my mind. You do you.”

Her attention was already on the tall hunk who had set up at the bar a few spots over.

“Well, that’s no surprise,” I muttered to myself. Tyra’s preoccupation with the relentless chasing of dick wasn’t new, but I was usually in a relationship and more reserved. It didn’t feel right that I could do the same thing if I wanted to. Not that I would. That wasn’t me.

A man came up to the bar to my right. “Mind if I grab a drink here?”

“No, not at all, go…” I trailed off when I saw his face. “You!”

“Me,” he agreed, nodding. The bartender came to take his order. “Pint of Sam Adams. You want anything?”

I froze. The man I saw on the street the night before actually stood right beside me and was offering to buy me a drink. He still looked like trouble, a man I shouldn’t let anywhere near me.

He also made my pulse race and gave me a twinge between my legs I couldn’t ignore.

“I’ll take the same,” I told both the man and the bartender.

“You come here for the pool, or the dancing?” he asked.

There were even more people on the dance floor than before, if such a thing were possible. The DJ was better than I expected, threading the latest hits from the big names together and mixing them up in a way I hadn’t heard before. The pool side of the bar was emptying as the night wore on and more people hit the floor.

“Neither, specifically,” I replied. “I haven’t been out for a while and apparently this bar is the hottest spot on Thursday nights around here. My friends dragged me out to celebrate.”

“Celebrate?” Were his eyes a touch darker than they were before?

Of course. His friend died just last night. He can’t be in the mood for celebrating.
What an inconsiderate thing to say.

“Being single. I walked in on my boyfriend and best friend going at it last night after I saw you.”

He winced. “Ouch. That’s rough. Where are your friends now?”

“Well, Tyra is right over—huh.” The bright blonde curls had disappeared from where she’d been making her moves on the hunk she’d been talking to. The table where the rest of the girls had been sitting was now occupied by a group that couldn’t have been anywhere near legal drinking age. “I’m not sure. They aren’t there anymore.”

It would be just like Tyra to see me talking with a guy and shoo everyone away so I had no choice but to keep talking to him.

“Looks like you’re stuck with me.” He passed me my beer and tossed a bill across the bar. “I’m Chris.”

“Leah.”

“It sounds like you need something to get your mind off of things, don’t you, Leah?”

His eyes burned into me as they did last night. My mouth dried under the sudden intensity of his regard. A gulp of beer helped to wet my throat.

“Um, what do you mean?”

“Well, you had a serious jolt, and I had one of my own. It stands to reason that we’d both want something to get our minds off it for a little while.”

Oh my God.
As much as Tyra kept joking about a rebound bang, I hadn’t seriously considered it. At least not until Chris looked at and talked to me like that.
He can’t seriously be propositioning me this quickly.

“What, uh, what did you have in mind?”

“There are a number of things we could do. You could wrap your hands around some smooth wood and I could show you how good I am at getting it into the hole.”

He’s just going right for it?
It was a bold move, and it got me hot just thinking about it, but there was no way I could let myself be taken home by a man who asked for sex within seconds of hearing I was single. Not to mention how dangerous he was—the complete opposite of the type of guy I knew I should look for.

“Look, I’m flattered, but I’m not going home with you.”

“I’m not asking you to.” His eyes held mine and the corner of his mouth tugged upward a little.

“But you said…”

“I was asking if you wanted to play pool.”

“Pool?” My mind fogged over. I blamed the alcohol, although I couldn’t deny his effect on my ability to think straight.

“If you’re up for it,” he said, “I usually like to bet something on the game. I wouldn’t want to take advantage of such a hot young thing like yourself, though.”

“Hey, now. You’re kidding yourself if you think you can beat me. I’ve been handling hard rods for years.” I gave him a wink. He wasn’t the only one who could sling innuendo around.

His eyes narrowed and he smirked. “In that case, how about we play for a kiss?”