Accidental Abduction (Masked Men of Sage Springs #1)

Chapter Twenty-One

Hudson

“What the fuck, dude?” Reid’s loud voice startled me as he pounded on my passenger window.

His grin was obnoxious as I rolled down the window, and I knew Hazel must have told him that my seclusion with Charley wasn’t just platonic.

“Get in,” I sighed, motioning to the passenger seat. He could help me dig out the driveway. It was the least he could do after he subjected all the patrons of my bar to his nipple accessories.

“You fucked Charley,” he blurted out before he’d even closed the door. “Atta boy.”

“Shut up and buckle your seat belt. You’re helping me shovel my driveway and then I’m taking a hot shower before I indulge in your need for gossip.”

“I already shoveled it.” Of course he did, the helpful fucker. He made it hard to be annoyed with him. But it wasn’t his fault I was grumpy this morning.

“Thanks.”

“And I pitched that god awful Joker costume—I’m assuming Viv left on your porch—into the dumpster at the shop.”

“The what?” There hadn’t been anything on my porch before I left for the bar on Friday.

“There was a garment bag from the costume shop in Butterfly Ridge sitting on your front door mat covered in a foot of snow. The jacket inside was trashed by the time I found it, so I threw it away.”

“She’s gonna lose her shit,” I groaned, wishing I could just forget the last four years. Now that I’d spent uninterrupted time away from her, it wasn’t hard to see how toxic staying with her had been.

“Yeah,” he said with a grin. “She’s gonna have to pay a two-hundred-dollar replacement fee too. Marcy at the shop doesn’t fuck around.”

“I’m not even going to ask how you know how much someone gets charged for a ruined costume rental.”

“Probably wise,” he agreed. “But the bitch deserves it for how she treated Charley and Hazel at the party. If she hadn’t left when I escorted her to the door, the second time, I would have had Mikey throw her ass out.”

“What did she do?” I asked between clenched teeth, the leather on the steering wheel creaking underneath my harsh grip.

“I’ll tell you once we get to your place. Don’t need you getting pissed and driving us off the road.”

The rest of the drive I fumed as I let myself imagine what Viv had said to my sister and my... I wasn’t sure what Charley was, but she was mine.

Charley hadn’t said a word when we’d talked about Viv, and part of me was pissed she hadn’t told me, but the other part respected that while she’d made her distaste for my ex known, she hadn’t tried to kick the rotting corpse of our long dead relationship. After the second time she’d been brought up, we’d never talked about her again.

As we drove to my house, Reid kept talking about other things that’d happened at the party after I left, spending a suspiciously long time criticizing the pretty boy baseball player who had apparently asked Hazel for her phone number and danced way too close to be respectful—in his opinion—to my baby sister all night.

“You seem kind of rough this morning, not gonna lie. Did things not go well after you guys got up there?”

“No. They went a little too well. ”

“That good, huh? I told you that you were attracted to her. Seems like someone finally pulled their head out of their ass and tapped that hot piece of...”

“Don’t fucking talk about her like that.”

“Geez, I didn’t even say anything bad,” he chuckled, knowing I’d get riled up by him baiting me. “What is going on with you?”

“I think I’m in love with her.”

He was quiet for a beat, his voice incredulous. “After three fucking days? Does she have a pot of gold hidden inside her vagina?”

“Reid,” I growled, pulling into my garage and turning off the engine.

“Okay, okay. Wrong holiday.”

“Fuck off. It’s not like I just met her three days ago. But now I feel like a piece of shit. She’s Haz’s best friend. What if I just fucked up their friendship? What if she realizes she doesn’t want me?”

“Do you think she feels the same way about you?”

Contemplating my answer as we walked into the house, I went straight for the kitchen and pulled out two beers, nodding toward the living room. We spent a lot of time shooting the shit on my covered deck that looked out at the woods, but it was covered with snow.

“I don’t know. I think so, but we never really made concrete plans for what happens next. I told her I’d come over after I got cleaned up, but we both have to work tonight. How am I going to spend an entire shift with her while I feel like this?”

He popped the top of his bottle, taking a swig before he responded. “You fuck her first, and then you fuck her again once you close tonight. The wall in the storeroom is pretty sturdy.”

“Fuck off, asshole. No more fucking in my bar,” I laughed.

“I didn’t do it again… Friday night.“ The scary thing was, I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. The dude got off on fucking around in public places.

“No, you sick fuck. Not any night. Or I’m gonna come rub my balls all over your desk. ”

“No, you’re not,” he laughed. “Cause you know my balls have been naked on that desk way too many times for me to give a fuck.”

“Classy,” I scoffed, knowing that he wasn’t lying. But he’d been right before. He was single and if women were into his slutty ways, he could take advantage of it.

“Just sayin’. It’s seen some things.”

Some things I was disgustingly curious about because now that my adventurous streak had been re-awoken, I might want to try some things with Charley, but ew. I didn’t need to think about Reid’s pale ass.

“You’re disgusting. You have an apartment above the shop.”

“It’s seen some things too. But I thought we agreed you weren’t going to slut shame me anymore, Mr. Masked Kidnapper.”

“Fuck,” I groaned, knowing he would use that against me at some point. I just thought he’d keep it in his pocket to bring up later.

“You’re lucky your girl got a text off to Hazel before you left. Or your weekend might not have been as enjoyable.” I hadn’t even thought about it until the next morning, but thankfully my girl was smart enough to know Haz would lose her shit if she couldn’t find her at the end of the night.

“Hazel is gonna kill me. She seemed weirdly calm about it when she texted me this morning, but she’s scary when she’s pissed.”

“Haz’s adorable,” he laughed.

“Keep my sister’s name out of your mouth.” I didn’t like the tone of his voice when he talked about her lately. He was like her older brother; he shouldn’t think my sister was adorable. Although Charley should be like a little sister to me, but she was definitely not after what we’d done to each other this weekend.

“She’s like a tiny kitten. With razor sharp claws that she wanted to use to eviscerate Viv on Friday when she came after Charley. But she got in one good bat barrel to the crotch that had half the bar cheering.”

“Fuck. Why won’t she just go away?” Viv was the one who didn’t want me .

“I thought you wanted her to stick around?” he joked, but I was not in the mood to remember how desperate I was last week. I’d been trying to understand how a relationship that started as a six-month friend with benefits situationship had settled into me being her accessory boyfriend for years.

“Fuck you.”

“Love has made you grumpier,” he laughed, but I needed to get back to the bar so I could talk to Char. She would pull me out of this mood.

“Get the fuck out of my house. I’ve got shit to do,” I growled, only half serious.

“Are you sure you got laid this weekend? Because you’re not acting like you did.”

“Get out.” I pointed at the door again.

“Seriously dude, just tell her how you feel. You know she feels the same way. That girl has had hearts in her eyes when she looks at you for years. It just took you for-fucking-ever to figure it out.”

I wanted to deny what he said, but Charley had already told me about her crush. I just wished I’d been observant enough to notice. Not that I’d have ever acted on it.

“What did Viv do? Might as well just tell me and get it over with.”

He sighed, scratching the back of his neck. “She cornered Charley in the hallway and stabbed her with her fingernails while she insulted her because she was dressed up as the psychotic version of Harley Quinn. She accused Char of copying her. Now that I think of it, that fugly Joker costume she left on your porch makes sense. At least you dodged those bullets. I definitely would have made fun of you for that costume.”

“And what did Charley do?” I couldn’t imagine her taking that well. And I was now pissed she hadn’t told me about it. The girl’s protective streak was going to kill me.

“I stepped in between them before Charley hit her with the pink baseball bat she had to match her costume. Dragged Viv to the front door and told her to go somewhere else. ”

Nodding, I was thankful I had such great friends. Because Reid saving Charley meant that she was on the dance floor moments later for me to find.

“And she came back?”

He nodded. “Like a raging case of herpes.”

I motioned for him to go on as he laughed at his own joke.

“I found her yelling at Hazel about someone stealing your car wearing a mask ten minutes later. When Haz ignored her, she grabbed her hair and tried to pull her back to tell her where you went, but your sister grabbed Charley’s bat off a table and shoved it into her crotch, telling her to get the fuck out and not come back. I helped Mikey get her out of there with a warning we’d call the police if she came back, and we had the guys at the door keep her from coming back.”

Reid had a stupid, nostalgic grin on his face, his voice filled with pride at my sister’s violence toward my ex. I wasn’t sure if he was excited because of Hazel, or that Viv got kicked out of the bar.

“Thank you for taking care of it. I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”

“I’m not,” he laughed, tilting his bottle back to swallow the rest of his drink. “Hopefully, she’ll stay away from you in the future.”

But after I got cleaned up, and we headed back to the bar, I had confirmation she had no intention of listening to their warnings.