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  I came here for tacos, not pussy.

  And even if I were in the mood for pussy, she isn’t my type, and it has nothing to do with the sombrero.

  “A guy like you looks like he could go for something…bigger,” she flirts, her voice all breathless and flirty.

  “Only the five,” I tell her, not wanting to be rude and definitely not wanting in her pants.

  “A girl can dream,” she breathes as she punches the buttons on the register. “That’ll be $15.70.”

  I toss a twenty on the counter and hold up my hand. “Keep the change,” I tell her, figuring she deserves a tip for working this shit shift, dealing with drunk idiots like the guy who ordered in front of me.

  She snatches the bill off the counter, staring at my face and no longer my body. “Thanks, big guy. It’s my first tip of the night, and I’ve been here five hours.”

  “People suck,” I offer, rubbing the back of my neck and hoping to make an exit as quickly as possible.

  “They do.” She turns her back, yelling something in Spanish to the guys working in the kitchen. When she turns back, the smile is on her face again. “It’ll be a minute. The dumb shits are slow tonight. Sorry.”

  “No worries,” I tell her, stepping back. “I got nothing but time.”

  “You can take a seat, and I’ll call you when your order is ready,” she says, making change from the money I gave her and stashing it in her pocket instead of the empty tip jar.

  Now I have a dilemma.

  Do I sit at the table closest to the drunk guy rambling to himself or the chick who’s crying in her nachos like her dog just died?

  I look back and forth between the two and pick the chick because the guy isn’t something I want to deal with. He is talkative, although he is only talking to himself, but I’m not about to risk that changing any time soon.

  The safer option is the chick who hasn’t bothered to look up from her nachos, is continuing to cry, and hasn’t stopped eating. Between those tears and her chewing, the likelihood she is going to try to chat me up is slim to fuckin’ none, so I pick her.

  As soon as my ass hits the wood, the drunk guy, still swaying, breaks out in song like he is performing for a crowd at a stadium.

  “Christ,” I mutter, shaking my head.

  “Jimbo,” the sombrero girl says, leaning over the counter, stretching her neck to see him. “You didn’t drive here, did you?”

  He shakes his head. “Walked, babe. No license, remember?”

  “Only making sure.” She nods, pushing his bag of food out for him to grab. “Need a ride home?”

  His head shake is immediate. “It’s the type of night where you need to take in the stars.”

  “Shitshow,” I mumble, rubbing my forehead and avoiding the tragic disaster of a human being in front of me.

  “Don’t be watching those stars while you’re walking, Jimbo. Liable to end up in a ditch or hit by a car if your head is tipped upward, drunk, and not watching where you’re going.”

  “God will show me the way,” he answers, digging into his bag with one hand and pulling out a taco.

  Sombrero girl narrows her eyes and twists her thin lips. “God wants you at home so you can be at church tomorrow and not late for your daddy’s sermon.”

  Preacher’s kid. Not surprising. ’Round here, they go one of two ways. Devout or rebellious. Based on Jimbo’s current situation, he is stuck somewhere in the middle. He is a believer but has different feelings on God than his father probably taught him.

  “I’m never late, Tina Marie.” He sways as he backs away from the building and gazes upward with his first bite. “I’m right where God meant me to be.”

  “Lord have mercy,” the sombrero girl, Tina Marie, mutters, watching Jimbo with her eyebrows disappearing up and under the brim of the hat. She does a quick sign of the cross, mumbling under her breath until something behind her takes her attention away from the taco-eating, stargazing guy who’s wandering down the side of the highway.

  The crying chick is still crying, or at least, she is until her phone rings.

  “What?” she snaps, sounding more vicious than sad.

  “Where the hell are you?” the guy asks through the speaker.

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “Bitch, I want an answer,” he roars.

  I wince, not liking the name nor the tone in which he’s speaking to her, but I remain forward-facing.

  Not my chick. Not my business.

  “Get. Your. Fucking. Ass. Back. To. The. Hotel,” he says slowly, pausing between each word.

  “Let me lay this out for you,” she snaps, the wood creaking on her picnic bench as she shifts her weight.

  I want to turn around. I want to watch her because, based on her tone, she is not going to get her fucking ass back to anywhere the asshole is at, and I think she’s about to clue him the fuck in.

  “I’m. Not. Coming. Back. You. Fucking. Cheating. Bastard,” she replies exactly the same way he spoke to her, emphasizing every single word.

  He grunts. “Jo, I’m done playing. Your skinny little ass better be back in my hotel room in the next thirty minutes, or there’s going to be hell to pay.”

  She chuckles, but not because the shit is funny, but because the cheating bastard is delusional.

  I’ve heard that tone more times than I care to remember coming from my cousins—Gigi, Tamara, and Lily—and it is never followed by anything good.

  “Maybe you should find that blond bimbo you had spread out on my bed with your face buried between her legs. Call her and boss her skinny ass around, because this bitch… She isn’t coming back.”

  “When I find you,” he warns, his voice low and growly, “I’m going to make…”

  Then his voice stops, and there’s silence.

  “Fuck him.”

  I brace, waiting for the crying to start again, and right on cue, it does.

  “He ain’t worth it,” I tell her, keeping my back to her, giving her privacy even though she laid out her business in front of me, the sombrero girl, and whatever creatures are moving around at this hour.

  “Excuse me?” she asks, and it’s not in that sweet way that makes my balls tight.

  I turn, figuring she at least deserves my eyes when I reply. “He ain’t worth it.”

  Her eyes narrow as she wipes away the stray tears running down her face. “I don’t know who the fuck you think—”

  I lift my hand, stopping her from laying into me like she did the guy on the phone. “Babe. It’s none of my business. Or at least it wasn’t until you put that shit on speakerphone and decided to share with the world.”

  She peers around, probably noticing it’s only us and the chick with the hat, but she remains silent as I keep talking.

  In the dim lighting, I can clearly see she’s pretty, even with the puffy eyes and slick cheeks. She has long blond hair, piled high on her head in a messy bun with a few pieces falling free like they need to breathe. Her nose is slender and straight, clearly never having been broken before. Her cheeks are high, almost touching her light blue eyes, which are staring right at me.

  “But I’ve been sitting here for five minutes, listening to you cry. Figured something bad happened. Had your heart broken or some shit. But there’s no man in the world who talks to you like that and does shit like he did who’s worth those tears.”

  Her back straightens as she licks the cheese sauce off her fingers, drawing my attention away from her swollen eyes to her plump lips. “You don’t know me.”

  I nod, tapping my fingers against the worn wood of the table. “You’re right, I don’t know you. But I know women. Have a whole family filled with them. Someone talks to them the way that asshole talked to you, he doesn’t talk again for a few months.”

  She blinks, gawking at me. “He doesn’t talk for a few months?” she questions, blinking quicker.

  I hold up my fist. “This is my asshole muter.”

  She tilts her head, staring at my closed fist,
still blinking. “You have an asshole muter?”

  I smile, pointing at my hand. “Been muting assholes since Tony Mandello called my cousin a slut after getting in her pants. He was almost twice my size and a handful of years older, but he was eating through a straw for months, regretting those words.”

  “You broke his jaw?” she gasps, eyebrows up.

  “He was a dick and deserved sucking down a cheeseburger like a milk shake for what he said and how he treated her. These douchebags aren’t worth the tears.”

  She smacks her hands together, righting herself. “I’m not crying because of Jamison.”

  I scrunch my nose.

  “What?” she asks, immediately crossing her arms.

  “Jamison.” I snort, rolling my eyes. “Total pussy name.”

  “It’s the perfect name for a cheating bastard.”

  “It’s the perfect name for a man who barely has a dick, doesn’t know how to use it, and doesn’t care to satisfy anyone other than himself.”

  She blinks again, staring at me in shock, and my gaze dips down to that perfect pouty mouth of hers again. “Four inches.”

  “Four inches what?” I ask, moving my eyes back to hers.

  “His dick is four inches.”

  I rock backward, figuring he had SDS, Small Dick Syndrome, but not realizing he was that fucking small. I snort again, but this time louder.

  “And thin.” She holds up her pinkie finger and waves it. “Like super thin.”

  “Tragic,” I mutter, shaking my head. “And you dealt with that shit?”

  “Obviously, I was the one lacking since he needed to plant his face between the maid’s legs,” she says sarcastically. “Between his small dick, temper, and cheating, I’d say I got the better end of this breakup.”

  “You sure as fuck did. So, stop the tears, yeah?”

  She stares at me for a minute, blinking a few times, no doubt making judgments about me. Every single one of them is probably wrong too. “What’s your name?”

  “Nick.”

  “You live around here?”

  “Nope,” I lie because Jo seems like trouble and tragedy, two things I didn’t come here for.

  “Damn,” she whispers.

  I hold up my hand, knowing I’ll regret this moment for the rest of my life. “You need a man, baby?” I ask her, my gaze dropping to the rise of her tits, glistening in the dim moonlight, covered in her tears.

  “I think I’ve had enough men for a while, but I need a place to crash, and you seem like a really nice guy.”

  I bark out a laugh. “One. I’m not nice. I’m not Jamison, but sweet is not me. Two. I have one bed, and no one sleeps in it except me. Three. I don’t fuck random chicks who’ve been crying over the loss of four-inch dick within the last five minutes.”

  Her head jerks back like I slapped her with my honesty. She recovers quickly and leans forward, placing her palms flat on the table. “Well, aren’t you a wordy prick. Now, let me explain a few things to you, because we don’t know each other, but you’ve clearly already formed an opinion. One. I don’t need a bed. The couch will be fine.”

  I laugh and her eyes narrow. “Babe, you’re too classy for a couch. I’m sure you lie on seven-hundred-thread-count sheets, pillows of real feathers, and that high-tech body-sculpting mattress bullshit too.”

  She wrinkles her nose. “Asshole,” she mumbles.

  “Not making me want to change my mind.”

  She steals my move and holds up her hand, wanting me to shut the fuck up, so I do. “Two. You don’t look sweet, nor do you talk sweet. I may seem like whatever, but I can assure you, your opinion of me is wrong too.”

  “Nor,” I tease, still laughing. “Who the fuck says nor?”

  She gives me the middle finger. “Three. I don’t fuck guys who use their fists as a mute button. I also don’t fuck random dudes I meet at taco stands after midnight in the middle of bumfucking nowhere. I’m not thirsty for cock—’specially not starving for your dick, baby,” she says that last word so sweetly that if I weren’t listening to the entire lecture, I’d think she liked me.

  “Then there’s nothing more to say,” I tell her. “We’re both agreed.”

  She throws up her hands and stands. “You know what?”

  “What, babe?” I ask, genuinely curious where this crazy-ass chick is going to take the conversation next.

  “Never mind, jagoff.” She waves her hand at me and storms off, leaving her half-eaten nachos on the table. “You can go fuck yourself too!” she yells across the parking lot without looking back.

  “After the tacos,” I reply to no one as she stalks toward a car parked in the shadows where the lights don’t hit.

  “Order’s ready,” Tina Marie calls out, craning her neck toward the parking lot as the engine to the crazy chick’s sweet ride roars to life.

  I stand and move toward the counter, grabbing my tacos.

  Jo backs out, almost nailing my bike with her overpriced black luxury car and fishtails out of the parking lot before I make it back to the table.

  “Tacos are so much easier than pussy,” I mutter to myself, unwrapping the first taco.

  For ten minutes, I sit in pure silence, relishing the crispy goodness without listening to a crying chick or a dumb-ass drunk. Not giving two fucks about the grease running down my chin because no one’s watching or bothering me anymore.

  As soon as I’m done, I throw my trash and Jo’s in the nearby can, leaving the place how I found it, minus the crying girl with tons of attitude and a mouth that could suck a man dry in minutes.

  Back on my bike, heading toward home, I don’t make it five miles when I hit the first traffic light.

  Fuck.

  If you hit one, you hit them all unless you haul ass, breaking the cycle. I turn my head to the right, continuing to curse under my breath when I see it.

  The sleek black car Jo sped off in is under a light in a virtually empty superstore parking lot.

  Not my chick. Not my business.

  The light turns green, and I’m off before I let that voice in the back of my skull tell me to get my head out of my ass and make sure she’s okay.

  I already know she has no hotel room to go back to. And based on where she is, which is my hometown, there isn’t a decent hotel for at least fifty miles. Add in the fact that it is after midnight in the middle of nowhere, and I know she is stuck.

  Fuck me.

  “Always look out for a woman, Nicky.” My father’s words echo in my head. “It’s our job to protect them.”

  “Goddamn it,” I grumble as I make a U-turn, heading back to do what’s right, even if it kills me.

  2

  Nick

  I pull into the darkness, a couple dozen feet away, and watch her as she reclines the seat, curls onto her side, and closes her eyes.

  I glance up, cursing. I can’t leave her out here to sleep, but I’m also tired, and I know with her around, I’m not getting a wink of sleep.

  I exhale, climbing off my bike and stalking toward her car, hoping I won’t regret my next move for the rest of my life.

  I knock lightly against the driver’s side window with my knuckles. “Jo,” I call.

  Her eyes snap open, but she doesn’t move. She stares at me, wide-eyed. “What in the fuck,” she gasps, or at least I think she does since I can’t hear her but am reading her lips instead.

  “Babe.” I motion toward the glass. “Roll it down.”

  She blinks, her hand still tucked under her cheek, lying on her side. “Go away!” she yells loud enough for me to make out those words clear as day.

  “Come on,” I plead, stepping back and running my hand through my hair, trying to play it cool. “We gotta talk.”

  A second later, she sits up and grabs the steering wheel with one hand and gives me the middle finger with the other.

  This bitch is dripping with attitude.

  “You can’t stay here.”

  Her eyes narrow as she finally cracks the
window, but only enough so she can tell me, “You don’t own this place. Get the fuck out of here.”

  I stifle my laughter. Her attitude doesn’t scare me. Growing up Gallo, I don’t have a woman in my family who isn’t filled with piss and vinegar and wouldn’t make Jo seem like a kitten compared to her. “I know I don’t fucking own the place, but you still can’t stay here.”

  “Fuck off,” she replies, saying those words calmly, evenly, and softly. “Like, all the way off.”

  “All the way off?” I ask, making sure I heard her right. “How far do the fucks go?”

  She stares at me, her lips flat, blinking. “Are you for real?”

  “Real as they come, babe.” I smile. “But listen to me, you really can’t stay here. I’m not giving you shit, but it’s not safe. And if the homeless don’t bother you, the cops sure as fuck will.”

  “I’m too tired to drive back to Clearwater. It’s over an hour away. I checked my phone, and there’s one motel—they rent by the hour, by the way—and right now, they’re booked. So, since I have nowhere to go, I’m exhausted, and my eyes are so damn puffy, I’ll take my chances with the cops and the homeless.”

  I brush my fingers back and forth through my hair. “You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but other than being an emotional wreck with a mouth like a truck driver, I’m pretty sure you’re not going to whack me in the middle of the night.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “Only pretty sure?”

  I nod. “If you tried, I know I can take you, but that’s beside the point. My place is a few miles down the road, and you can crash there tonight and head back to Jamison tomorrow.”

  “I’m not going back to Jamison.”

  “Well then, you can go wherever the hell you want tomorrow.”

  She eyes me, studying my face, passing judgment on me. “How do I know you’re not a murderer?”

  I point to the camera on the light post next to her car. “Cameras everywhere, babe. If I were going to do you harm, I sure as hell wouldn’t leave any evidence.”

  “How is that even your answer?”

  “Babe.”