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  Then he went to the liquor store, got that booze, and drove to the location, stopping behind it at the loading area where Cherry told him to go.

  A kid came running out as High angled down from the truck.

  “Got a delivery,” he told the kid. “From Tyra Allen. Donation. Champagne.”

  “Right.” The kid nodded, not looking into High’s eyes, something High didn’t like all that much because there was no reason why he wouldn’t. Before High could get a lock on that, the kid muttered, “Be right back.”

  Then he turned and sprinted into the building.

  Fuck.

  He hoped this didn’t take forever. He didn’t have anything to do that morning but he had to go view more houses early in the afternoon. Something he wasn’t looking forward to. Something he didn’t like doing and not only because he’d already seen eighteen of the fuckers, none of which was right for him and his girls. But also he’d started that mission not liking moving through other people’s houses trying to visualize their shit gone and new shit in it so he could make it a decent place for him and his babies.

  On that thought he caught movement, focused his attention on the door, and felt his body snap tight.

  Millie.

  Fucking Millie walking out, her hair back from her face in twists and pinned at the base of her neck in a big bun, her body encased in a turtleneck sweater dress the color of toffee, a dress that skimmed every fuckin’ curve—and she had a lot of them—her feet in shiny, fancy, sexy-as-fuck high-heeled boots.

  The bitch had worn her hair down to get his dick at Bill’s field.

  This time, she was using the dress.

  His body tightened further.

  He’d been played.

  Worse, he’d been played and he didn’t even know what game was being forced on him. He hadn’t seen her in twenty years, now she was everywhere.

  Goddamned fucking shit.

  Instantly pissed beyond reason, High didn’t catch the look on her face as he took two steps toward her, growling, “You’re shittin’ me.”

  Tack had warned him. He’d said that he and Cherry had run into Millie and Cherry was getting a mind to stick her nose into High’s business.

  Obviously, she did and Millie went all in.

  Goddamned Millie.

  Fucking bitch.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, and, no less pissed, High missed the tone of her voice and still didn’t take in the expression on her face.

  “Was a long time ago, woman, but lesson you taught me I learned,” he clipped. “Can’t imagine how you’d think you could play me again.”

  “How I could… play you?”

  Christ, she was good at what she did. If he was a dumb fuck thinking with his dick like he did back in his twenties, he’d actually believe her confusion.

  “Donation from Tyra Allen?” he bit back.

  He noticed her face pale and didn’t give a fuck.

  “Tyra Allen?” she asked.

  “Jesus, bitch,” he gritted, taking another step toward her, also noticing she stiffened even as she took a step back. “You and Tack’s old lady maneuvered this bullshit.”

  “I… I was told the champagne was here,” she said, her voice shaky, and it would be. She was a player, the female kind, which meant the worst kind, but she wasn’t stupid. She couldn’t miss he was pissed.

  “Yeah,” he returned. “The donation from Tyra Allen.”

  “A family called Masters donated it,” she told him.

  “Right,” he gritted. “And Masters is Tyra’s maiden name.”

  Her eyes got big and fuck him, the bitch was forty-one years old and that was still cute.

  Cute and false and total bullshit.

  He took three more steps toward her, which took him right in her space.

  “Told you I did not wanna see you again,” he reminded her tightly.

  She stared up at him, unmoving, like she was frozen.

  “I meant it,” he kept at her. “You got this one time. You pull this shit again, you will not like the consequences.”

  “What shit?” she asked like she wasn’t following. Fuck, like she was so lost, she barely knew English.

  “This shit you got goin’ with Tyra,” he bit out. “Not that you’ll give a fuck but you keep this up, you won’t just piss me off, you’ll twist shit with Tyra and Tack. Those two started out with the worst kinda rough patch you can go through. They earned smooth sailin’. Do not be the bitch who makes trouble for them.”

  “Tyra,” she whispered like something was dawning on her.

  He bent closer to her and smelled her like he had that night at Bill’s.

  She smelled different from before, when he thought she was his. Her hair. Her skin. All different.

  Probably expensive shampoo and definitely expensive perfume.

  He wasn’t into that crap.

  But fuck it if he didn’t like it on her.

  “Never again, woman,” he stated. “Hear?”

  “She… she came to me and—”

  Done with her, he lifted a hand to grab her elbow in order to get her attention and say words to make that clear.

  He intended to make a point, not hurt her.

  And he didn’t hurt her. He barely touched her.

  But she pulled away, taking two quick steps back, stumbling on her heels and righting herself, all of this like he’d grabbed hold, twisted, and caused agony.

  “Don’t touch me,” she hissed, and it finally hit him that her expression had seemed dazed.

  Now she was pissed.

  What the bitch had to be pissed about, he did not know.

  What he did know was her being pissed made him more pissed.

  “Now you’re gonna play that game?” he asked low.

  “I’m not playing any game, High,” she snapped, and fuck…

  Fuck.

  She’d never called him High. Not once when they were together.

  Why did that feel like a punch to the gut now?

  “Take your champagne and go,” she ordered.

  “Get your boys out here to come and get it,” he countered.

  “We don’t need it,” she returned, lifting her chin. “I’ll figure something out. Now just take it and go.”

  “You talked Tyra into shellin’ out for it, don’t be stupid. It’s here, take it.”

  “Regardless of what you think, High, I am not in cahoots with Tyra. She’s in cahoots with some women called Elvira and Lanie. They have the wrong idea. So I’d suggest you get in that truck, take yourself and the champagne back to Tyra, and explain to her that you don’t want to see me as I’ve already explained to her I don’t want to see you.”

  “Right,” he sneered. “Like I believe that.”

  “I don’t really give a fuck what you believe,” she returned, cold as ice. “But at this moment, I have an event that’s happening in T minus six hours and forty-four minutes, so I also don’t have time for your crap.”

  He went from being extremely pissed to being fucking ticked.

  “My crap?” he ground out.

  “Your…” she leaned toward him, “crap.” She leaned back and continued. “You won’t go, I will.”

  And on that, she started to turn.

  So High got back into her space, rounding her and stopping close enough to halt her progress.

  “Don’t you fuckin’ walk away from me,” he growled.

  “Don’t you tell me what to do,” she fired back.

  He ignored that and ordered, “Get your boys to come get this shit so I can get gone.”

  “You’re so fired up to help the kids at King’s Shelter, you find some guys to help you unload,” she returned.

  “Not gonna say it again,” he informed her.

  “I’m not either,” she retorted.

  “Bitch—” he started on a growl but stopped when she rolled up to her toes so she was an inch from his face and everything about her assaulted him so—fuck him, goddamned weak—he ac
tually couldn’t go on.

  “If you call me a bitch one more time, High, I swear to God, you’ll regret it,” she threatened.

  “What you gonna do?” he asked cuttingly. “Suck my dick clean off?”

  Hurt slashed through her features, reciprocating pain he fucking hated that he felt ripping through his gut, before her eyes fired.

  “God, you’re an asshole,” she hissed.

  “Bet I get you on your knees and I get my cock in you, one end or the other, you’ll stop thinkin’ that,” he replied.

  “That’s never gonna happen again,” she announced acidly.

  “Right, like this whole scheme isn’t your play to get more of my cock.” He tipped his head to the side and asked sarcastically, “What happened, baby? The well run dry?”

  “Move away,” she demanded.

  “You get your boys to unload, fuck your face in the back of my truck,” he offered.

  “Move away,” she bit.

  He shrugged. “All the same to me, you want me to take your pussy.”

  She again rolled up on her toes. “Move… away.”

  He lifted his brows in false shock. “Up the ass?”

  She glared at him, trying to stare him down, entering a new game she couldn’t win.

  And she didn’t.

  So she tried a different tactic. He knew it when he saw the wet hit her eyes.

  Another game she couldn’t win.

  “Prettiest crier I ever knew,” he whispered, and heard her breath catch, her gaze turning searching.

  Stupid bitch thought she got in there.

  But he was not lying. Back in the day, anytime anything moved her to tears, she didn’t ugly cry, getting all red and making faces. She wept like the practiced actress she was.

  “Okay, baby,” he kept at her. “I’ll give you what you want since you didn’t get it last time and I know how much you love it. Eat you before I fuck you. Just get your boys to move the fuckin’ booze.”

  Her head snapped sharply like he’d struck her and he felt that in his gut too.

  “I think I hate you,” she declared, sounding genuinely rocked, not to mention looking the same damned thing.

  Good at this.

  A master.

  “No thinkin’ about it on my part,” he replied.

  She sniffed, getting control, then squared her shoulders.

  “Fine, High. You win. I’ll ask Scott to round up some boys to unload the truck. Now,” she tipped her head but held his gaze, “will you move out of my way?”

  He immediately stepped to the side.

  She didn’t hesitate moving her round ass to the door, through it, disappearing in the shadows.

  He stood there, looking into those shadows for far too long before he lifted his hand, tore his fingers through his hair, and moved to his truck.

  He had eight of the twelve cases out and stacked by the door before the kid came back out with a bud.

  They’d barely cleared the last box before he slammed the back down and moved to the cab.

  He drove straight to Chaos, parked at the foot of the steps to the office of the garage, got out of his truck, and took the stairs two at a time.

  Cherry’s head snapped his way the minute he opened the door.

  He saw hope there.

  Then he saw her shut it down, assume a neutral expression, and lift her brows.

  Oh yeah, he’d been played.

  “Everything go okay?” she asked on a small smile.

  “Don’t,” he replied, not even having come all the way in, standing in the open door.

  This wouldn’t take long but his message would be clear.

  She looked uneasy before she asked, “Don’t what?”

  “Respect,” he said softly. “You got it, Cherry. You know it. Don’t lose it. Just don’t. Hear?”

  She swiveled her chair his way, starting, “High—”

  “Don’t,” he repeated. “Hear?”

  She stood. “I don’t think you understand.”

  “No, babe. You don’t understand. And I’m askin’, Tyra, listen to me. I’m askin’ for you to stop. No matter what she said to you. Stop.”

  He watched her brows knit and she asked, “What she said to me?”

  He wasn’t going there.

  “Done with this,” he told her. “And you’re done with this. Then we’re good. You’re not done, we’re not good, Cherry. And honest to fuck, I don’t want that so don’t make it that way.”

  Then he moved out of the door and kept moving even when he heard her call, “High!”

  He jogged down the steps, got in his truck, and turned around in the forecourt even as he saw Cherry moving down the stairs.

  He then drove out of Ride and didn’t look back.

  * * *

  “You think she’ll let it go?” Boz asked.

  High and his brother were sitting at Boz’s kitchen table, vodka bottle and glasses in front of them, no ice or mixers.

  It wasn’t that kind of night.

  They were talking about Cherry.

  And Millie.

  Fucking Millie.

  She was back.

  Twenty years of her as a ghost in his head, haunting his memories, plaguing him, making him wonder how the fuck he was so goddamned stupid that he read it so fucking wrong.

  And she was back.

  Not a ghost.

  Looking for him at Bill’s.

  Throwing herself at him.

  Christ, when the bitch had pulled at his belt so she could get to his dick… Christ.

  Shit like that, he could talk himself into forgetting.

  He could talk himself into letting her have whatever the fuck she wanted… again.

  Giving it all… again.

  Just to have it back even if it was a lie.

  Hell, he could talk himself into taking the pain, twenty more years of it, just so he could have it back.

  Even if it was only for a day.

  He poured more vodka in his glass, looked to Boz, and answered his question, “She’s Cherry. No tellin’ what she’ll do.”

  Boz took up his own glass and threw back a slug, dropping it to the table, saying, “Tack’ll talk some sense into her.”

  “Boz, brother, you been ridin’ the Tack and Tyra train with the rest of us for almost a decade. Woman does what she does. He gets off on it. It’s the way it is.”

  Boz leveled his gaze on High.

  “It is,” he said quietly, “in any other thing. But this is you, High. You and Tack got your history but this is you, a brother, and this is you and that cunt. He knows. He knows that bitch. Cherry does not know.” His voice lowered further. “He’ll talk some sense into her.”

  High tasted sour in his mouth, listening to Boz calling Millie those names.

  He’d long since stopped wondering when that reaction would leave him. The automatic need to defend her. He was used to it now, and at least he no longer wanted to shove his fist down the throat of any man who referred to her that way. And in the beginning when the brothers had been so ticked at what she’d done, that had been a serious struggle.

  High didn’t reply to Boz mostly because there was nothing to say. With Cherry, especially if she and Millie had roped in Elvira and Lanie—the first crazier than the last, but not by much—there was no telling what would happen.

  He just hoped none of those women pushed him too far. He liked them all. They were Chaos, even Elvira, who held no claim to a brother. Family was family and they were family, the kind that earned a thick thicker than blood.

  But too far for a man like him was just too far.

  He also didn’t reply because he was done for the night.

  So he took up his glass, threw back the vodka, then put it to the table.

  “I’m turnin’ in,” he muttered, shoving his chair back.

  “Right,” Boz replied. “Later.”

  “Later, brother,” High returned as he moved to the back door, out it, down the long fence at the side of Boz�
�s house and into the big space where Boz was letting him keep his RV.

  This was where he was staying since he’d given the house to his recently made ex-wife, Deb. And this was something he’d done because he didn’t want his girls’ lives fucked any more than they already were.

  Cleo, his oldest, was hanging in there. She was tough, like her dad. She was also smart. And she was his girl. She loved him completely. She loved her ma, too, but she was her dad’s girl. And no matter how hard he and Deb tried to hide it, she’d sensed they weren’t happy and now he sensed she was relieved it was over.

  Which sucked.

  Zadie was having problems. His baby girl had her head in the clouds in a way he could look back and see her in her crib, staring up at the mobile, not seeing that shit but seeing her tiny baby dreams. She didn’t sense anything. His baby was ten years old and she believed she was going to marry a prince in a way that scared the fuck out of High because it was a way where she wasn’t going to let go of that dream.

  She never let go of any dream.

  Like having a happy home with Mom and Dad together.

  So she wasn’t hanging in there. She hated that they’d split.

  Which also sucked.

  He needed to get them settled. Get in a house so the change didn’t seem temporary. Get them their own room, a space that was theirs in a place that was his.

  At twelve and ten, they needed their mom now, so he didn’t go for half custody. They needed stability. They got their dad every other weekend.

  He and Deb had made a deal. They weren’t at each other’s throats. They’d just lucked out and came to the conclusion at the same time that enough was enough. They didn’t love each other, never did. He’d knocked her up and he was not the kind of man to let that responsibility slide when she said she was going to keep it and she’d needed him financially. So they got married.

  But they liked each other and they both figured it would be better to end it still doing that than it turning bad, something, as both their lives slipped away in a marriage neither enjoyed, that was happening.

  So Deb was good with him coming over for dinner. Going to the girls’ recitals and sitting with her. Picking them up and having them at the Compound or taking them out for pizza or ice cream when it wasn’t his time to have them.

  He didn’t get to see them every day, which didn’t suck.