Page 4 of Orphan Girl's Mountain Men

Well, as much silence as we can get, what with the crickets chirping outside, the occasional howl of a coyote, and the grinding teeth of the other two men.

They look like they want to murder me, especially Dean.

I know he turned off the radio to piss me off, but I don't take the bait. I'm determined to keep my good mood.

"What a night," I say, staring out the window. I can feel them glaring daggers into the back of my head, but I ignore them.

That fight at the bar wasn't my fault. I won't let them make it my fault. I didn't ask for God to make me such a hunk that some asshole's girlfriend snuck into the men's bathroom to get freaky with me.

It's not like they haven't had something similar happen to them. They probably have. Hell, Lennon has women making googly eyes at him everywhere he goes. As for Dean, he attracts his fair share of dames too, when he's not scaring them off with that intense stare of his.

But when it's me, suddenly they have a problem with it.

Or maybe it's because I actually say 'Yes' to the random women who proposition me. I couldn't possibly have known it would lead to an all-out bar fight so early in the evening. They have to get that, right?

"You realize that fight wasn't my fault," I say.

They both start speaking at the same time.

"The fuck it wasn't."

"What the hell is wrong with you? I thought you'd grown up a little, but no. Why would you make out with someone's girl in the bathroom?"

"Clearly, I didn't know she was taken."

"You didn't think to ask?" Lennon says, sounding incredulous.

"No. Everything happened kinda fast." She'd followed me into the men's bathroom, locked the door behind her, andjumped on me. Stuck her tongue down my throat right as I was washing my hands. Hadn't given me a chance to ask questions like, 'Who are you?' or 'Do you have a potentially murderous boyfriend?', even if I'd have thought of asking them. Which I hadn't.

I like bold women, and I haven't gotten laid in what feels like ages—might even have been as much as two weeks. It didn't matter that I didn't know her from Adam, and yeah, okay, I was too drunk to care. She was hot in her skinny jeans and revealing halter top, and I was horny enough that any reservations I might have had didn't last further than the first kiss. I spun her around, shoved my jeans down, getting ready to pull my dick out.

That's when her damned boyfriend broke down the door with five of his dumbass friends, ready to kill me.

He got the first hit in, but only because I had my jeans down and it restricted my movement. After that, I managed to take two of his friends and him down. Luckily, Dean and Lennon arrived in time to deal with the rest of them while yelling at me to pull my pants back up.

I chuckle. It would be a funny story to tell someday. Obviously not today, but by next week, when all this blows over, it'll be hilarious.

"I can't believe you were actually going to fuck that girl in the bathroom without even knowing her name," Lennon says, his voice thick with judgment.

Lennon's pretty judgy about my lifestyle because he's only been with one woman his entire life. Georgia, his high-school sweetheart, whom he married right before he got deployed. When he got back, they went at it like rabbits and had their daughter, Grace. Unfortunately, cancer happened, and Georgia died three years ago.

Lennon still hasn't gotten over it and hasn't even tried to look at another woman since, despite all the attention he gets because of his monster sized muscles.

As beautifully tragic as his love story is, it also kind of blinds him to how the rest of the world is. Most of us don't find love stories like that, don't even come close to it. Most of us don't want it. The idea of loving someone that much and losing them terrifies me. I don't want to be driven mad by grief so strong that everything else ceases to matter. I've watched Lennon go through it, and in my opinion, no amount of love is worth that much pain.

So, for people like me, we make do with what we have—fun little romps with hot, nameless women in seedy bar bathrooms.

"No one asked you to get involved," I remind him. "I could've handled those assholes on my own." I let out a confident chuckle, though it feels forced.

Inwardly, I wince. They are right, of course. By my age, I should know better. I should be settled down with the woman of my dreams, raising a kid of my own, like Lennon's.

It's not that I don't want to—hell, a lot of me wants exactly that. But it's hard to picture that kind of life when you grew up watching your parents rip each other apart every damn night, a constant cycle of petty fights and lies—of broken promises, empty threats, raised voices, tears, and even bruises some nights. Mind you, it wasn't one-sided, they were both to blame. Mom gave as good as she got—probably more, thinking about it. Love in my world always seemed like something painful, like a trap you couldn't get out of once you were stuck. That's why I run from it. Not because I don't want it—but because I'm terrified of it.

And that's the kicker: I'm terrified of letting someone get too close, of letting my guard down. Of becoming trapped like Mom and Dad had been in a painful, loveless relationship.

"You shouldn't have needed to in the first place," he says. "Fuck, man, I'm tired of having people stare at me sideways when I'm in town because of the shit you pull all the time."

"That's not the reason people stare at you sideways," I remind him. I can give him at least three other reasons. Aside from his mean looks, there's also the fact that he's huge. At six-foot-three and two hundred-something pounds of pure muscle, Dean is second in size only to Lennon, and I'm not far behind either—of course I'm better proportioned (it goes without saying) and far better looking than either of those two dead beats. Seen together, I admit we look like bruisers, but at least I have the decency to smile at people. Dean looks like he wants to punch the world in the face, and Lennon hasn't smiled since his wife died.

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