I'd Rather Not Read online

  Before I could ask her what was up with that, the view at the top of the hill startled me.

  “Oh,” I said as I caught my first glimpse of the house. “This is beautiful.”

  Oakley turned a smile onto me.

  “My parents’ dream home,” she admitted. “They built this right before we turned into teenagers.”

  “It’s awesome,” I admitted. “Beautiful.”

  Right out of goddamn Home & Country Magazine, honestly.

  The concrete spread out once it reached the top of the hill, spanning between a red and white metal shop and a white house with what I assumed was a wrap-around porch. Instead of the driveway leading up to the front of the house, it led to the side of the house to where a couple of bikes were already parked near the carport area.

  And watching us was Trance.

  He had two puppies at his feet, and he looked pissed.

  I parked the truck where Oakley directed me and got out, rounding the hood of the truck and offering her my hand before she’d even gotten the door all the way open.

  “Thank you,” she said, blushing slightly.

  I wanted nothing more than to press my lips against the stain of those cheeks.

  Instead, once she was firmly on the ground, I dropped my hands from her completely.

  I could’ve sworn it looked like her face fell the moment my hands did, but when she put a smile on her face just a few seconds after that, I decided that it’d been my imagination.

  “Ready?” she asked as she opened the back door.

  Before she could take her suitcase out, I did.

  She rolled her eyes when I even extended the handle for her.

  “Thanks,” she said dryly.

  I pulled out my own bag, and she rolled her eyes.

  But her eyes became concerned when she saw me shaking out my legs.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  I grimaced. “My legs get cramps easily. I should’ve probably taken a couple more breaks during the trip than I did. It would’ve prevented this.”

  She went to run her fingers through her hair and encountered her ponytail instead, but the force of her hand attempting to skim through her hair knocked it askew.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Is there anything I can do?”

  Before I could tell her that there really wasn’t anything she could do, her father arrived and took both her luggage and my small bag.

  “Glad y’all could make it,” Trance said. “How are you both feeling?”

  But his eyes were mostly on his daughter, who he was checking in with first.

  Not that I blamed him. I would check on her, too, if she was mine.

  Though she wasn’t mine and I would still check on her first.

  “We’re both okay,” she admitted. “Though Pace is cramping. Apparently, I was supposed to make him take more breaks than he did, and now his legs are irritating him.”

  Trance’s eyes came to me. “You need to go on a walk or something?”

  I shrugged. “More so I just need to stand up for a while. Sitting in a vehicle always makes it worse for some reason.”

  Trance nodded and gestured to the house with his head. “Follow me. Your mom’s in a pissy mood because of the number of people that have come up here today. I’m considering going to close the gate and making our family just get out and open it since the fucker’s broken. Again.”

  “What happened this time?” Oakley asked as she moved.

  She didn’t look like she was hurting as much anymore, and for that I was grateful. Watching someone as young as Oakley move around like she was ninety years old was hard. Especially since I was beginning to have feelings for the woman.

  “Guy came roaring up the driveway in his fancy car,” Trance explained as he pushed open the door to his home and gestured for us to head in front of him. “Almost ran both of the puppies over.”

  “Asshole,” Oakley muttered. “I made him pull over into the mud so we could pass.”

  “Probably going to have to go pull him out in a minute,” Trance admitted. “We’ve gotten so much rain lately that everything is just a big pile of mush.”

  Oakley shrugged. “Those hoity-toity wine goers are annoying.”

  My lips twitched as we walked around a corner and into a massive room that had such tall pine ceilings that at first, I could do nothing but stare.

  My manners flew out the door as I got a load of the wall of windows that surrounded us on two sides.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed. “This place is breathtaking.”

  “Thank you,” I heard Viddy, the woman that had insinuated herself into my life lately, say.

  I looked down with twinkling eyes to see Viddy viciously chopping up some carrots.

  “Hello,” I said to Viddy. “Happy Mother’s Day.”

  Viddy stopped chopping, turned, and promptly burst into tears.

  Trance sighed and moved toward his wife. When he got there, he quickly disarmed her of her knife, and then pulled her into his arms.

  I looked over at Oakley, who looked sad for a few long moments.

  She turned to me and said, “Mom’s too rude to say thank you, apparently.”

  Viddy laughed and wiped her eyes, followed shortly by almost catapulting her way toward me.

  She had me in her arms moments later as she said, “Thank you so much for saving the girl who made me a mom.”

  I hugged the woman back who was more like a mom to me than my own mom was.

  “I don’t regret even a second of it,” I informed her. “How are you?”

  She pulled away and lightly patted my chest before saying, “I’d be better if assholes didn’t drive up my driveway and try to run over my dogs.”

  Trance grumbled something over by the halfway chopped carrots.

  A hesitant knock at the door had Trance leaving us and heading that way.

  It was a couple seconds when we heard the ‘I’m stuck’ from a cultured male voice. Then Trance’s reply of ‘call a wrecker’ before he closed the door.

  Viddy started to snicker as Trance rounded the corner of the kitchen rolling his eyes, but his phone was already in his hand.

  “Yeah, hey, Leroy. This is Trance. When you get a call about a stuck car out at my place, can you give us an hour before you come out? We have a small get-together on the way out, and I want to make sure all our people can get here first before you block the driveway trying to get him out,” Trance said into his phone.

  Something else was said on the other end of the line before Trance replied with, “Have a good one.”

  That task done, Trance walked back to the cutting board and picked up another chopped piece of carrot.

  “Let’s finish this, and then let’s go outside by the pool. Daddy just bought me some new outdoor furniture for Mother’s Day. It’s so comfortable. I could literally sleep on it all day long.”

  ***

  Two hours later, the party was in full swing, and yet again, there was another unwanted visitor.

  “Watch this,” Oakley whispered on the cushion beside me.

  I looked over to where Oakley was gazing and winced when I saw Viddy march up to the car that’d just sped up into the driveway as if they owned the place.

  She leaned down into their open car window and let them have it.

  Needless to say, the car left at a much more sedate pace than it arrived.

  “I hate them.” Viddy glared at the woman that was currently making a U-turn in her driveway. “When the kids were younger, and we had more parties out here with the club, people would come flying down this driveway looking for that stupid winery.” She curled her lips. “Almost nailed Ford. I about lost my shit that day.”

  I would have, too.

  “I’ve actually charged them for coming down here, too,” she admitted. “I put up a ‘pay here’ honor system type lockbox. They had to collect a ticket and drop in five bucks to park. Th
en we redirected them to the road and sent them on their way to the winery with signs. But we got in trouble for that one. It was great while it lasted, though.”

  “We didn’t get in trouble. You did,” Trance said. “By me.”

  Viddy shrugged. “True.”

  “Have you called the winery about the sign?” I wondered. “If they just moved it twenty feet past your driveway, then people wouldn’t even give it a second thought. They’d turn down the road that was meant for them to.”

  “Oh, we’ve called,” Trance muttered. “They tell us to go talk to the state since the state was the one responsible for putting up the sign.”

  “Why not just knock it down or something?” Ford asked. “I’ve offered.”

  “Because I don’t want y’all to get in trouble doing it when it’s just a stupid sign.” Trance sighed.

  “It won’t be just a stupid sign if someone runs over a kid or a dog,” I admitted. “What’s it going to take?”

  ***

  It was hours later that I decided ‘fuck it.’

  I probably shouldn’t be doing what I was doing.

  Honestly, it was probably going to get me thrown in jail, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  My wayward youth was rearing its ugly head, and I couldn’t control myself.

  I had a flashlight in my hand, and pliers, an adjustable wrench, and a hacksaw in the other.

  I was going to take down the street sign.

  Loud, obnoxious voices had me pausing at the mouth of the driveway where the gate was once again closed, and I halted next to one of the large stone pillars as I listened to the men hoot and holler.

  It wasn’t until the voices grew distant that I decided to make my way toward the sign.

  And holy shit, it was a lot bigger than I thought it was.

  I bent down and started to loosen the bolts that were fastening the sign to the ground.

  A distant siren that sounded like it was getting closer and closer made my heart palpitate, but luckily being a cop, I was able to distinguish a medic’s siren from a police car’s siren.

  And when the ambulance finally rolled past, I was deep in the woods waiting.

  The sign was leaning all sideways and shit, but with the storms that Viddy and Trance had told us had rolled through the day before, I hoped that everyone would attribute its leaning to that.

  Luckily, nobody else passed as I took the bolts the rest of the way off.

  And when I lifted the bitch off the bolts, I groaned with its weight.

  My belly smarted, and I knew without a doubt that this was a terrible idea.

  I just hoped that I didn’t fuck anything up inside of myself, because there was no way in hell that I’d be leaving the sign here. I’d gotten this far…

  Though it was heavy, I carried that monster all the way down the longest goddamn driveway in the state. I even took breaks, as well as switched shoulders.

  I took shallow breaths because I was scared that my guts were going to spill out of the hole in my belly, and I prayed that I didn’t do irreparable damage to myself seeing as I really, really wanted to take Oakley on a date.

  Being dead from a hemorrhage inside of myself would’ve really sucked.

  Finally, I arrived at the house.

  Sticking the thing in the deepest corner of the garage that Trance worked on his bikes at, I made my way back inside feeling a hundred pounds lighter.

  Literally and figuratively.

  Entering the house as quietly as I could, I was unsurprised to find that someone was up when I entered.

  “What the fuck did you just do?” Trance asked.

  I knew that if anyone was going to notice, it would be him. Even if he’d been asleep for two hours now.

  “Would you allow me to tell you in the morning?” I asked, wiping sweat off my face.

  He took another swipe of the cake straight out of the box that he’d been eating when I arrived and stared at me.

  “I guess so.” He paused. “But you’ll tell me in the morning?”

  I nodded.

  “Fine.” He took another bite. “Want some cake?”

  Actually, I kind of did.

  “Yeah,” I said quickly, reaching for a paper plate.

  “Just eat off that other side,” he suggested.

  So I did, straight from the box like he did.

  “You like my girl.”

  I nearly choked on icing.

  “Yeah,” I admitted, not seeing the point in bullshitting.

  Especially not to the man that had so much influence in Oakley’s life.

  “Treat her right, or I’ll use you for target practice with the dogs,” he said. “Sans puffy suit.”

  I gritted my teeth.

  “But also, thanks again for donating a kidney.” He paused. “Without you, I wouldn’t have anything to worry about in the first place.”

  With that, Trance whistled to the small puppies still at his feet, who’d been licking up the crumbs he’d dropped as he ate, and walked away without another word.

  I watched him go, then went to the room that’d been given to me by Viddy.

  It’d been on the opposite side of the house from all the other rooms. A guest room that had so many goddamn pillows that they were taking up half the bed.

  After a quick shower, I allowed my heart rate to finally get back to normal levels.

  First the stealing of the sign, and then the admitting that I had feelings for my best friend’s father’s girl.

  Trying to distract myself of thoughts of said girl, I went back to what I’d done tonight.

  I laid in bed for at least twenty minutes, trying to tell myself that the nuts with my fingerprints wouldn’t matter. That there was no way that someone would stop and be able to find them in the tall grass. But I couldn’t help it.

  I’d never get to sleep if I didn’t just go and get them.

  So that was what I did.

  I got up, redressed—which included the long process of putting on my prosthetics—and headed back out.

  A five-minute walk later, and I was once again on the side of the road at the scene of the crime.

  The bikers across the street were still going strong, and I had to wonder what the hell they were doing next to the road.

  But honestly, I was too tired at this point to care.

  I’d done way too much.

  In fact, I was probably going to pay for my stupidity in the morning.

  But for now, I was fuckin’ happy and excited.

  Especially since Viddy had said it was something that she’d always wanted to do, but never had the courage.

  Chapter 10

  When I said I like it rough, I meant sex. Not the entire relationship.

  -Pace’s secret thoughts

  Pace

  The next morning, I was practically bouncing on my blades as I waited for Viddy to get her shoes on.

  “What is your malfunction, man?” Ford asked. “You’re like on crack or something.”

  I flipped him off.

  “Hurry up!” I said.

  Viddy’s eyes were bright as she stood up.

  “This better be good,” Trance said, coming out of the bedroom with a pair of sweatpants and his Crocs.

  “Dad, you look so hot,” Ford said dryly. “Those Crocs really do it for me.”

  Trance looked over at his son, who was also in a pair of Crocs himself.

  “Fuck you.” He looked pointedly at Ford’s shoes. “Your shoes are ugly.”

  I burst out laughing.

  “I don’t get it,” I said as I finally got myself under control.

  “Both of them hate Crocs,” Oakley said, looking adorably cute. “But Mom bought them both some for Christmas, and they had to wear them because she bought them for them. Except, they wear them more than they need to for obligation. At this point, they both secretly like them, but aren’t willing to admit it.”

 
I looked down at my feet. “I never really liked Crocs either when I had feet.”

  There was a long silence as everyone absorbed that news.

  “That’s morbidly sad that you can’t enjoy the comfortableness of Crocs anymore,” Ford said as he walked to the front door. “What the hell did you buy her?”

  “I didn’t buy her anything,” I said as I followed him outside.

  Trance and Viddy followed next, followed shortly by Oakley.

  “Then why are we coming out here?” he asked.

  “Because I wanted her to see her Mother’s Day gift,” I said.

  Ford looked at me over his shoulder. “You better not top my Mother’s Day gift.”

  I shrugged. I had no idea if I would or wouldn’t.

  I just knew that she said she’d wanted the sign down for ten years now, and none of her sons had ever done it for her.

  “What did you get her?” I asked as I led us all outside.

  “Something thoughtful,” Ford said. “That I could buy at that truck stop on the way home.”

  I snorted. “A card?”

  Ford shrugged. “It was either a card or a new set of wiper blades, and I happen to know that Dad just replaced those for her last week.”

  Trance snorted. “You have zero coolness.”

  Ford gasped in affront. “Dad, I’m so cool it hurts.”

  Trance grinned as did Ford.

  Viddy’s eyes were all for me as she pulled up to my side.

  “I’ve never been so excited before,” she whispered. “Oakley’s good at Mother’s Day gifts, but I have a feeling you’re about to shock the hell out of me.”

  I hoped I was.

  Leading her into the barn, we all came to a stop.

  It didn’t take her long to see it.

  The damn thing, even propped up all the way in the back with motorcycles and a tractor to block its path, still went up high over the vehicles.

  Plus, the LED lights that were lighting the shop were reflecting off the sign, making it a beacon.

  Oakley saw it first, that was when she burst out laughing.

  She placed her hand over her belly seconds later, and the tears that formed in her eyes made my belly tighten. I couldn’t tell if they were pain-filled tears or tears of joy.