Wasn"t that the understatement.
"Is it because I damaged your sink?"
"Not my sink," he said with a haughty sniff. "And it was damaged to begin with. No way you could have pulled that s.h.i.t out of the ground, so get that higher than thou look off your face and sit your skinny a.s.s back down."
He might have been right about that but I wasn"t about to sit down.
"I think I want my phone call."
"No phone calls."
"I think I want to know what time it is."
"f.u.c.k off."
I think I might bend these bars in two, I thought, my hands tightening their grip on them.
Glad I didn"t say it out loud. Nothing happened. Hulk I wasn"t.
So I continued to stare at the guard. I thought about kicking up a fuss about police brutality and being hit on the head, I thought about threatening them over my rights and how I didn"t have. But thinking didn"t do me any good. They would just say it was in self-defense, and who would they ask as a witness? Gus? They"d let him out early if they could get him to twist his version of events around.
I wanted to sigh. I wanted to exhale all the anger and frustration boiling inside of me but that would only show weakness. I wasn"t weak. I was going to get out somehow, I just didn"t know when.
"Declan Foray?" Someone yelled from down the hall.
My head whipped up as did the guard"s. He looked less than pleased.
The Step-Up cop was in front of me with a wary smile on his face. He must have been fantasizing about tasing me again.
"You"re free to go, your bail has been posted." He stuck keys in the lock and the door opened.
"What?" I asked, shocked, really.
"You sound as surprised as I was," he commented, grabbing me roughly by the arm and leading me down the hall. I heard the guard growl in my wake.
We came into a room where they gave my meager possessions back and I caught a glimpse of a clock. It was at three. And judging by the dim light that streamed in through the windows as I was escorted into the waiting area, it was three in the afternoon, the next day.
Holy f.u.c.k, how long had I been out for?
Not only that but, holy f.u.c.k, what the f.u.c.k is Ginger Elvis doing here?
Across the room, rising up from his seat, like some redneck giant from Planet Flannel, was Max.
It took every bit of control to keep myself from wrapping my hands around his fat neck and squeezing.
So much control that I could barely move. It was like being tased all over again.
"Don"t look so happy to be free," he drawled in his stupid accent. He sauntered over to me and laid his hand on my shoulder. "Would you rather they put you back in there? I still have the receipt."
He waved it in the air with his other hand. I was proud of myself for just swatting away his freckled hand and doing nothing else.
"I could kill you," I said, seething the words through grinding teeth.
"I reckon you shouldn"t make such threats in a police station," he said in a lowered voice. He turned and ambled out of the room and into the blowing cold wind outside. "Come on, I"ll give you a ride to your car. It"s at the impound lot. Did you hit a deer or something?"
I was in no mood to talk to him. I was so f.u.c.king angry and relieved at the same time and my feet were itching to take me back to Perry.
We got in his truck and I shuddered at the thought of Perry being in this car with him. I knew she had, I could also smell it. He knew too. He had another idiotic grin on his face.
"You could thank me, ya know," he said as he flipped the engine.
"Where"s Perry?"
He narrowed his eyes at me. I narrowed mine right back. As the guard learned, you don"t play the glare game with Dex Foray.
Finally he said, "She"s fine, don"t worry about her."
"Don"t worry about her," I growled. "You f.u.c.king d.i.c.kwad. Because of you, she"s in danger."
"She"s not in danger," he said, bringing the truck out onto the street. "She"s at home and she"s fine. And it"s because of you this whole mess started in the first place so if I were you, I wouldn"t throw stones."
Throw stones? I was beyond throwing stones.
I headb.u.t.ted him instead.
I felt nothing but pleasure as my head connected with his cheek. He dropped the wheel for a few seconds and the truck wiggled down the lane.
"What the f.u.c.k?!" he cried out, reaching for his face with one hand and trying to regain control of the wheel with the other. A few other cars honked in the twilight until the truck was under his control.
"Pull over," I said, my teeth grinding.
"f.u.c.k you."
"Pull. Over."
Max took one look at my face, his eyes watering, and gave in. I was absolutely seething. I didn"t want to do anything to him at the police station, but now that we were a few blocks away, there was nothing stopping me from going apes.h.i.t on him.
He pulled the truck to the side of the road outside a small house. I wondered if the owners would mind if I murdered someone in their front yard. A big red-headed someone. He was so full of s.h.i.t, he"d make fantastic fertilizer for their garden.
I reached over and turned off the engine. My fists curled at my side.
"Do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?" I asked.
"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about, Dex?" He rubbed at his cheek while looking pained.
"I"m giving you a choice in how you want your a.s.s kicked, Max," I replied.
He frowned. "Maximus. It"s Maximus. Why do insist on calling me Max?"
"Because that"s the name I know you by. I don"t know this Maximus who f.u.c.ks me over and sleeps with my...my...woman."
I cringed at the way it came out and knew Max was going to throw it back in my face.
I was right. He laughed without it reaching his eyes. "Your woman? Your woman? Oh you"ve got to be kidding me, man."
"You know what I mean."
"No, actually I don"t. I reckon you"ve got you and Perry"s relationship completely wrong. Your woman wants nothing to do with you."
"That"s not true," I protested. My protest sounded weak and I hated that.
"It is so. Brother, you have no clue what you did, do you?"
"Don"t call me Brother," I barked at him.
"Don"t call me Max," he shot back.
"I know what I did, all right? It doesn"t matter."
He raises his brows to the roof the car. The look said, holy s.h.i.t you are in denial. And I was. But I needed to win this argument. I still wanted to kick his a.s.s and he distracting me with words.
"If you reckon that it doesn"t matter to Perry," he started.
"Get out of the car," I interrupted. "I can"t kick your a.s.s in here."
He eyed me wearily. "And why do you want to kick my a.s.s again? Is it because I just bailed you out of f.u.c.king jail with my own money?"
Actually, that was part of it. I hated the idea of being in debt to Maximus. Er, Max. Douche.
"I want to kick your a.s.s because you"re a traitor, that"s why."
He snorted. "Seriously?"
"You took advantage of her." The thought of Max putting his hands on her, his tongue on her...I had to stop thinking about it. If I kept on, Max would be missing his b.a.l.l.s.
"I did not," he said. "She wanted it."
"She wasn"t herself," I sneered. The anger was getting harder to suppress.
"Well how was I supposed to know that?"
I sat back a bit, feeling smug. "Exactly. You don"t know her at all. So you wouldn"t know that."
He looked out the window. "And how does that make me a traitor anyway?"
"Have you not heard of something called the Bro"s Code?"
He laughed again, this time it shook the car. I had to wait impatiently for him to calm down enough to speak.
"You are really something, you know that pal?" he finally said.
"f.u.c.k off, I"m not your pal."
"And thank G.o.d for that. Dex, you slept with my girlfriend. Or did you forget that along with everything else from New York?"
"She came on to me." It was true, too. No excuses, but I was in a terrible place when it happened. There was a reason I tried to forget everything that happened in New York. Too many memories. Too many ghosts.
"And Perry came on to me."
I narrowed my eyes at him, searching his face for the truth. His jaw was tense and the skin beside his eye was twitching. I didn"t know if it was because I hit him there or that he was lying.
"I highly doubt that," I said, even though my voice wavered with uncertainty. "But even without that, you not only turned on me but you turned on her. She told me everything that happened. You hung her out to dry when she needed you most."
His face went cold. "I did what I had to do."
"What the f.u.c.k does that mean? No one said you had to side with her parents and make her look like a nutcase. No one said you had to pretend that all this supernatural stuff was bulls.h.i.t. No one made you do this stuff. You f.u.c.ked it up yourself."
He grew silent. I didn"t like the silence. I wanted him to come back at me with words. I wanted to keep wanting to hit him.
"That"s not true at all," he said quietly. "You have no idea."
"No idea about what? You were being a selfish p.r.i.c.k."
"Oh, and you weren"t? You destroyed her."
"And you turned her in. Fine pair of men we make."
I clenched my fist and sat back in my seat, suddenly angry at myself as well. All Perry needed, deserved, was a man in her life that would love her, support her and make her his world. He had his chance. So had I. Now I was afraid it was too late.
"Anyway, I didn"t turn on her. Her parents wouldn"t have believed me at any rate."
I shook my head. "That"s not the point. You should have sided with her no matter what the cost."
"The cost would have been greater than you realize," he said. His drawl was low and there was a hard edge to his voice. It commanded my attention.
What the f.u.c.k did that mean? I want to ask him that but I wasn"t sure what kind of answer I"d get. Something about all of this was tugging at me but my brain couldn"t really focus on what or why.
"Why did you come here?" I asked.
He twitched then composed himself. "What do you mean?"
"Why did you come to Portland? Why did you contact Jimmy?"
He shrugged. "I wanted a change of scenery."
I watched him closely. He wasn"t meeting my eyes.
"You have good timing, you know that?"