Page 15 of Brash for It
My lips tremble.“What am I supposed to do?”The question shreds out of me, raw, because I don’t have any other words left.
His gaze holds mine, steady, unbothered by my panic.“Go back inside,” he says.“Finish getting your shit done.I’ll be back to pick you up in an hour.”
“What?”My head jerks.“But?—”
“Consider me your ride share,” he cuts in, tone saying there is no argument.“But I gotta take the car first, darlin’.”
The edgy man chuckles, looking toward the sky.“She’s a mess, Pretty Boy.”
Pretty Boy.The name carves itself into my chest, sharp and certain.I can see where this man is seriously chiseled like a damn work of art even with the scar marking his cheek.
I don’t know what to do.My world is unraveling in the span of minutes.No car.No boyfriend.No phone line to call him, no explanation.Just leather-clad strangers taking away the one shiny thing I thought was mine.
Before I can find words, the spa doors open again.Trina hurries out, but she’s not looking at me.She smiles warmly at Pretty Boy, stepping close enough to press a kiss to his cheek, but he doesn’t release me for her.“Hey, stranger.”
Something in my stomach flips.
Trina glances at me, then back at him, easy like they’re old friends.“Everything okay?”
Pretty Boy jerks his chin toward me.“Her car’s leaving with me and Jasper.I’ll be back to give her a ride home in an hour or does she have more shit to get done in there?”
They are talking like I’m not even standing here and this is all simply decided.I sputter, clutching my useless phone.“My phone doesn’t even work anymore.I can’t—what am I supposed to?”I ask no one in particular.
Trina lays a hand on my arm, her touch gentle, grounding.Her eyes soften.“It’s okay.Kellum’s good people.If he says he’s gonna get you, he will.And he’ll make sure you make it home safe.”
Kellum, that is a unique name I think.Her words don’t erase the fear twisting in my chest, but they plant something else there too.Something I don’t want to name.
Pretty Boy or Kellum as Trina called him releases me slowly, like he knows I’ll stand on my own now.His presence lingers, heavy, impossible to ignore.
Trina squeezes my arm.“Come on, let’s finish.You’ll feel better once you’re done.”
I look back at the Porsche, at the chains cinched tight, at the men ready to drive away with the last shred of my stability.Then I look at Kellum, and something in his eyes pins me where I stand.
Intrigue.Fear.A dangerous pull I don’t understand.
I swallow hard, nod once, and let Trina steer me back inside to wait on the biker who just caught me before I shattered into a million pieces.
Trina threads her arm through mine like she’s shepherding a lost child, and maybe she is.The glass door hushes closed behind us, cutting off the clank of chains and the low rumble of the tow truck.Inside, the spa reasserts itself—soft music, eucalyptus whisper, the burr of nail files, the little subdued laughter of women who aren’t drowning.
My knees wobble.Trina steers me straight to a chair in one of the private rooms for waxing and presses a cool cloth into my hands.“Here,” she says, voice low.“Breathe.In through the nose, out slow.”
I obey because it’s easier than arguing.The cloth smells faintly of cucumber and something minty, and it draws heat out of my skin.I’m aware, hazy, of faces turning then politely turning away—the way women clock a crisis and give it privacy because they understand the currency of dignity.
With the door open, I can see out front.Through the window, my Porsche lifts, angles, becomes something smaller than ownership and larger than humiliation.Kellum doesn’t look back at me.He doesn’t linger.He’s doing a job.The man flicks his cigarette and crushes it with the heel of his boot, and then the truck is rolling, metal groaning over the asphalt, taillights flickering red as it pulls onto the street and disappears.
Trina squeezes my shoulder once.“Okay?”
“No,” I say honestly looking at my now destroyed nail polish.Then, giving my attention back to her, I lie.“But I will be.”
She nods like that’s the right answer.“We can fix polish.We can’t fix men.Let me do the first one and you can breathe while the rest settles.”After I get myself together, she leads me back to her nail station.
It’s ridiculous and exactly enough to keep me from bolting.I let her settle my hands back into the warm bowl.The water ripples around my fingers like I didn’t just see the last shiny piece of my life hauled away by strangers with forearms like tree trunks.
“What color?”she asks gently.
I’d picked a sheer pink earlier, the safe kind that says I’m low maintenance but never truly undone.Now the display of little glass bottles looks like a language I don’t speak.“I don’t know.”
Trina scans my face.“Neutral’s fine,” she says, answering for me, and plucks a bottle with a name likeSoft Sandor something I heard her whisper to herself.“Head back, relax.Good girl.”
