PULSE: A Stepbrother Romance (9 page)

You saved me,
I thought to myself.
You and your stupid grudge are the only
reason I even stood a chance of getting out of there.

PENSACOLA

PRESENT DAY

F
or the first full week back in town, tensions
were still high with Saffron. It appeared that I had succeeded in isolating
her, and I was growing more comfortable with the distance. We barely saw each
other now. I spent a lot of my time out on the road, and she was always curled
up with one of her books whenever I was home at some reasonable time. That
worked fine for me. The more time she spent in the house, the better…

I’d
considered trying to patch things up, but I knew that I needed to keep her away
from me. I was running out of excuses, since I didn’t care too much about
Pensacola itself.

After all… I’d
spent a few years here.

Not that I’d
done anything with the time since I’d gotten back.

I’d visited a
few bars for a drink if I felt daring, but otherwise I just cruised around on
the bike. The furthest I’d driven was Alabama. I had barely recognized that I’d
passed state lines, and I rented a motel for the night. It had been this cheap,
sleazy place on the side of the road, offering me nothing but a night’s rest
and some truly
awful
porn all paid
for with Saffron’s black AMEX.

I watched it
anyway. I knew who I wanted the actress to be. But even
that
pissed me off, because the thought of another man touching her
made my blood boil.

It was on my
tenth day in Pensacola that I decided enough was enough, and that I’d see about
making something of myself while I was here. Things were quiet, and it was
clear my father was just being paranoid in sending us down here. Hitting the
road on my Suzuki again as I peeled out from the Beach House, I knew just the
guy to reach. He’d been my saving grace when I’d stepped off the bus in
Pensacola with a few thousand dollars and skeletons in my closet.

My stop was a
dive bar, a few miles away.
Reggie’s
,
it was called. It was this run-down little place with relatively horrible
regulars, but I knew the place and didn’t mind the atmosphere so much. Parking
outside, I kicked the stand into place and whipped out my phone. I thought I
had felt a buzz against my leg on the drive over; sure enough, there was a
text:

>
Grabbed a table. Back left. Welcome back.

With a small
smile, I slipped the phone back into its pocket. The bouncer near the front
turned to me as I approached, holding his hand out for my ID. A few seconds
later, he studied the unfamiliar card, running his thick thumb across the
edges.

“Out-of-towner,
eh? Might not be the place for you tonight.”

I assessed
him quickly. The immediate conclusion was that this guy was built like a brick shithouse…and
could probably take a punch like one. He stood close to a foot shorter than me,
but he was a stocky little bastard – broad shoulders, bulky arms, tight
abdominals under a thin shirt. Didn’t look like he’d skipped ‘leg day’ either
– with those tree trunk thighs, he could probably land a truly vicious
kick. Thick jet-black hair ran down to his shoulders, flowing around his meaty
throat, and his dark eyes peered menacingly at mine. This was a guy with a
hair-trigger temper, but he could keep his anger in check.

In short, I
liked the guy.

A
self-assured grin flashed across my lips. “Much obliged for the warning. I’ll
not be giving you any trouble tonight.”

The bouncer
looked me up and down. Without the smallest hint of emotion, he handed me back
my card. “See to it that you don’t, stranger.”

I gave him a
subtle, respectful nod, stepping around him into the bar. Across the throng of
bar tops and a small crowd around the dartboard, I spotted my friend in the
corner. It wasn’t hard to miss him – with his optimized physique and
imposing height, the bodybuilder could probably knock the bouncer out with a
single, well-timed punch.

It wouldn’t
be the first time I’d seen him do it.

 
“Welcome back, Bonesaw,” Darren grinned,
using the cage fighter nickname that the fans had unceremoniously given me. I’d
built quite the following here in Pensacola before I’d moved on… Knowing how on
edge I usually was, he had picked the table furthest into the corner, and left
me the chair that faced into the crowd.

Just the way
I liked it.

It was a
defensible position. No surprises.

Darren
motioned towards the Miller Lite that had been waiting for me, but I overlooked
it and watched the drunken men and their barflies.

“Aw, shit,
that’s right. You don’t do domestic, do you?”

“Domestic
beer tastes like cold piss,” I reminded him with a condescending smile, my eyes
on the bottle in his hand. “But it’s fine. I don’t need one tonight anyway. I’m
riding.”

“Fair enough,”
he nodded, taking a swig of his own premium bottle of frigid urination –
the classic Budweiser. “I’ve got to ask, man…what brings you back to Pensacola?
You haven’t been here in a little while, eh? Not since I saw you last?”

“No,” I
agreed. “Not for about three years now.”

“Right,”
Darren nodded. Another swig of beer.

“My stepsister
is here,” I told him. “I’m keeping an eye on her. Doing a favor for my father.”

“Your
sister?” He eyed me with a smile. “Didn’t even know you had one. Look at the
dreaded Bonesaw…from cage fighter to bodyguard in no time flat! But that’s what
family’ll do for a man, right? Always got to stick to the priorities…”

“How the
mighty have fallen.” I couldn’t help but grin too. Of course, nobody begrudged
a fighter looking out for his family – particularly a sister. Even in the
underground side of the cage-fighting community, there was a certain code of
honor – a
respect
that was
given and expected.

“So, how long
are you going to be down?”

“The rest of
the summer.”

“Cool. What
are you planning to do with yourself?”

“I haven’t
quite decided,” I answered. It was true – the options were wide open in a
place like this. “Does Luke still have New Horizons?”

“Barely,”
Darren laughed. “I don’t know
how
he’s
held onto it as long as he has…when we left, I wasn’t sure he could keep the
old cage together. We almost bet some money on that, remember? I’d be buying
you beers all summer!”

“Yeah, I
remember,” I smiled. “Glad the place is still around. Summer’s a long time out
of the cage. Thought I might get into a few little scuffles while I’m in
town…keep up appearances. You know how it goes.”

“Aw,
hell yeah!
” Darren smacked the bottle
down hard on the table. I flinched, expecting the glass to shatter under the
force of his movements, but it somehow held together. The drinkers at the next
few tables glared over at us, but Darren didn’t seem to notice. “Just like the
old times!”

I chuckled at
his enthusiasm. I thought back to how quickly he and I had become friends, or
how he’d helped pick me up last time I’d come to Pensacola… I’d counted on this
man once, and I knew he’d do me right now that I was back.

“That’s
right, man. Just like the old times.”

SAFFRON

Chapter 11

PENSACOLA

PRESENT
DAY

E
nough was enough. I was tired of moping
around our luxury villa, trying to keep out of his way. Sawyer clearly didn’t
want anything to do with me, and I was going to find out why. I knew he would
never explain himself without some prodding, so I did the next best thing.

I followed
him.

You see,
there was a small, white plastic box that dangled from my keys. It was a GPS
tagger that allowed me to easily find them from an app on my iPhone. The way
the device worked was to lead me to the general area from my phone, so long as
I had a decent Wi-Fi connection, and then beep loudly when I request local
discovery. It was a handy little white box, very small and easily forgotten.
Attaching it to his Suzuki while he took a mid-afternoon nap on the couch was
no trouble at all.

I tested it
on the phone, and sure enough, I got a fairly accurate reading from the app.
This gave me everything I needed to finally see what my darling stepbrother was
up to. Maybe I’d even figure out why I was being forced to spend the summer
holed up with him.

Even then, I
knew that it was a tremendous breach of trust, but I was so furious with him
that I gleefully ignored the consequences. When he left at night, I would
occasionally check up on him, forcing my eagerness deep down so that I could
concentrate on other, more important things, such as reading, shopping, or
occasionally going out to see a movie by myself.

To my
surprise, it seemed like he just drove around like a maniac. He’d hop on the
interstate going one way, drive that direction for thirty minutes, and then
whip around and do the same thing the other way. There didn’t seem to be any
rhyme or reason to it. Once, he drove over the state line and kept going, then
just stopped somewhere. It was hard to pinpoint exactly what he was doing,
because the cell reception out there was pretty weak, but it stopped tracking
him near an interstate exit with a pair of motels. I assumed he was just
stopping for the night, although I was afraid that he’d never come back.

The next day,
I checked the app a few times. He hadn’t gone anywhere since then, and after
lunchtime he was on his way back. Sure enough, he turned up an hour or two
later, acting as if nothing had happened.

I wanted to
mischievously jab at him.
Out all night
with a woman?
I would have asked. But I was too afraid of him to say
anything of the sort, and I stayed out of his way. When he came back through
the door, he made no effort to find me or check up on me, so I continued going
about my business.

But watching
my stepbrother leave the city and maintain an average speed of 80 miles per
hour at all times grew weary, so I dedicated my efforts elsewhere. Mostly, this
went back to shopping and reading, although there’s only so much shopping you
can do when you’re miserable, and the endless reading was finally growing
tiresome.

One night, I
decided to mix things up a little…and I finally visited one of the nearby
clubs.

Club Selene
looked like your regular beachside hotspot. With a darkened view of the ocean
through staggered floor-to-ceiling windows, plenty of mood lighting, and a
stunning bar area with a veritable fleet of liquors, it was my immediate choice
for a night out by myself. The dance floor wasn’t too bad either – the
local DJ was blaring the usual EDM fare, although scoping the place out showed
me that
this
disc jockey seemed to
actually know how to work with a crowd. Plenty of mid-twenties-somethings were
grinding and dancing on the floor when I fought my way to the bar, taking a
seat at an open spot and patiently waiting on the bartenders.

I must have
looked
like I had money, because some
tanned, sunglasses-at-night asshole was at my side in record time.

“Ayy bae, how
you doin’ tonight?” He flashed the kind of white teeth I expect that you get
from swishing bleach 24/7.

“Don’t call
me
bae
, you don’t even know me.”

I sighed,
glancing over at one of the staff. The three bartenders were accounted for,
taking drink orders from small pools of guests. The vapid flock of
self-entitlement clung to the wooden surface like packs of piranha, slathered
in not scales but designer clothes – instead of biting and pecking, they
shouted and squealed.

It was
disgusting. I briefly locked eyes with one of them, standing away from the
crowd, and she shrugged knowingly with me.

“Yo, you
gonna let me buy you a drink or what?”

I’d almost
forgotten about the loser bothering me. “No, I’m good, thank you…I think I can
manage my own drink.”

“Pfft…fine,
bitch
.” He wandered back through the
nearest throng. To my lack of amusement, he was greeted like a king, raising his
arms to a chorus of cheers and merriment.

“
Broskie!”
Some frat guy called out.

“Yeaaahh!”
This one was some valley girl.

Why am I even here
, I thought
to myself.

“Hi, sorry
about that…what can I get started for you?” He half-shouted the words over the
crowd, just before a round of cheers nearby.

I glanced up,
into the eyes of a charming young bartender, leaning over the counter with both
palms down. With his ginger hair swept back behind his ears, he flashed a small
smile, and my eyes fell to his waistcoat and tie.

“Yeah, I’ll,
uh…Malibu and Coke,” I told him loudly.

“Cool. Can I
see your ID?”

“Sure! One
second…” I withdrew the card from my pocket. I had thought better on bringing a
purse out to a club, considering that I had no idea how expensive the thing
really was.

He looked at
it with a quick, quizzical look, then handed it back. “Long way from home,
huh?”

“Yeah, ran
away to the circus.”

He looked
over at the throng against the counter, and I followed his gaze. “Well, I think
you found it, although it doesn’t look like you’ll fit in with ‘em too well…

“Think you’re
right. Bad plan.”

“Doesn’t mean
you’re in the wrong place.”

We shared a
smile, and he got to work mixing my drink. While he did so, I couldn’t help but
resist whipping out my phone and checking on Sawyer. Unsurprisingly, he had
left for the night, but this time was different – he’d stopped at a local
bar.

“A bar?” I’d
wondered aloud. It was interesting that he went to a bar the night that I did,
although there was no way that either of us were aware of the coincidence.

“What’s
that?” The bartender asked, slapping a napkin square down and placing a drink
on it.

“Oh, it’s
just a GPS app,” I mentioned without thinking.

“Yeah? You’re
tracking something?”

“Yeah, my
brother…” I paused, realizing what I was saying.

“You’re
tracking…your
brother
…might I ask
why?” He raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms.

“It’s
complicated.”

“…Right.
Well, I’ll leave you to it!”

He gave a
parting smirk, darting away to take care of other guests.

Great. One decent human interaction since coming
down here, and I blow it by being crazy.

I was in too
foul a mood to try dancing, and I just sat at the bar and sipped my drink. I
fought the compulsion to keep my eyes glued to the screen.
Is Sawyer picking up a chick?
I thought to myself grumpily.
What if that’s what he was doing in Alabama?

I shook my
head.
Why does it even matter? You two
hate each other. At least he isn’t bringing them back to the house! You should
just wait for him to get back, and then take that stupid tracker off of his
motorcycle.

Nodding to
myself, I decided on the course of action. But before I did so, I lost my
restraint just enough to pop open the app one last time…he was on the move now,
apparently.

Back to driving all around, huh?

I paid for my
drink as soon as I could get the bartender’s attention, leaving him a tip
larger than the original cost – just to maybe reverse his understandably
low opinion of me. In the meantime, I paid peripheral attention to the app.

By the time
everything was done and I was fighting my way through the throng, I called for
another ridesharing driver. I had every intention of just going straight
home…but then I saw that the motorcycle had stopped and parked beside a small
business.

One that was
undoubtedly closed for the day.

Talking aloud
to myself, I wondered, “…What’s
New
Horizons?
”