The kissing game, p.1
The Kissing Game, page 1
Also by Marie Harte
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Books. Change. Lives.
Copyright © 2020 by Marie Harte
Cover and internal design © 2020 by Sourcebooks
Cover design by Olga Grlic
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the publisher.
Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Cover
To all the readers who’ve been asking about Rena and Heller for years, this book is for you. And as always, to DT and RC.
One
On the first cold Friday of the new year, Axel Heller stood in Heller’s Paint and Auto Body and glared from his newest employee to the unfinished Escalade sitting all by itself in Bay 2.
The Seattle weather made the concrete in the floors radiate cold. Icy winds and sleet beat against the reinforced walls offering them protection from a harsh winter, but Axel wouldn’t call it warm inside. It didn’t bother him any though. Braced against the cold in a thick cable-knit sweater, jeans, and his comfortable leather boots, he felt nothing but toasty as his rage grew.
I so do not need this right now.
Mateo and the always-reliable Smitty waited with the new guy, no doubt ready to intervene should Axel’s infamous temper flare out of control.
Lately, it didn’t take much to set him off. His mother’s death still hurt, a fresh wound even after six months. And his family…
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, saying nothing, just studying the idiot unable to follow. Simple. Instructions.
It didn’t help that Axel had just ended a call from his father. As usual, it had been filled with nothing but arguments and swearing in guttural German. He could only be happy his father still lived in Germany and rarely made the occasional trip stateside to visit. Otherwise Axel would probably be in jail for patricide.
At the thought, he smiled.
Mateo took a step back and shoved the new guy—Rylan—forward. “Take him. I’m too pretty to die young.”
“Asshole,” Rylan muttered before confronting Axel. “What the hell, man? You wanted us to buff out the Corolla and set the quarter panel for the Kia, so we did. What’s the problem?”
Behind him, Smitty shook his head and stood with his arms crossed over his chest. Axel didn’t have many friends, but he considered Smitty one of them. And he knew Smitty had problems with the new guy, but they’d been hoping to work them out.
Axel took a step closer and looked down at Rylan, who finally had the sense to shut up. Count to five. No, ten. Breathe. Remember, Rylan needs his face in one piece. Probably. “The problem is I told you hours ago we had a change of plans.”
“But I thought the Corolla and Kia would be faster. I mean, we did get them both done today.”
Axel curled his fingers so he wouldn’t be tempted to wrap them around Rylan’s neck. He’d spent the afternoon away, working on taxes with an overpriced accountant, content at least that the shop work would get done. “I trusted you to pass the message to finish the Escalade first because the client paid extra to have it done early. But seeing as Smitty and Mateo helped you with the lower-priority work, I’m guessing you didn’t tell them.”
“Hell no, he didn’t,” Mateo muttered.
“Now we’re going to be behind next week unless your sorry ass is in here tomorrow, on a Saturday, fixing your mistake.”
Rylan flushed. “Oh, ah, well, I can do that.”
But I don’t trust you to do anything on your own. Axel mumbled under his breath about shoving a rock-hard head through a cement wall, idly wondering if his father had secretly sent Rylan to screw with him.
“When he talks in German, the shit’s ready to blow,” Mateo helpfully pointed out.
“Shut up, Mateo,” Rylan snapped. “Look, Heller, I’m fine to work tomorrow. You don’t even have to pay me overtime.” He swallowed at the look Axel shot him. “Or at all. I’ll make up for my mistake.”
But Axel had already made up his mind. “Get out. Everyone go home. I’ll see you Monday.” He knew Rylan had been trying to help, but the guy kept messing up and putting them behind. If Rylan wasn’t so skilled at sanding and refining, as well as having an incredible eye for detail, Axel would have fired him by now. But with Kelly out for another month dealing with some family issues, he had to admit they needed all the help they could get.
Instead of relaxing tomorrow, Axel would have to come in on his day off and fix the mess. He knew what the Escalade needed, and sadly, it wasn’t as if he had anything better to do with his time.
The crew departed, Rylan still trying to apologize as Mateo tugged him out the door. Smitty paused by the exit, his red Mohawk like a stream of fire. Full of muscle and tattoos, he looked like a bruiser but was one of the calmest, nicest guys Axel knew. “I’ll swing by to help you with the SUV.” Because Smitty knew Axel would fix the issue himself.
Axel grunted.
Smitty grinned and left without another word.
Axel leaned against a workbench and stared at his pride and joy, a paint and auto body shop he’d put together without help from anyone.
He scrubbed his hands over his face, wondering if the whiskers should stay or go. He’d been too busy to care about keeping his cheeks smooth, and with his constant visits to Stuttgart, Germany, helping his aunt and cousins as best he could, he’d been slacking off with the business.
The grief always sitting under the surface welled up, threatening to drown him in it. Taking deep breaths, he forced himself not to think about the past. Instead, he dwelled on the living, and on one particular individual he found fascinating.
The cement floor blended with the whitewashed walls as thoughts of fine-as-hell Rena Jackson intruded. He heard himself sigh and flushed, glad the guys weren’t around to see him acting like a lovesick moron.
He’d fallen hard for the stubborn woman from the first. But smart chick that she was, she wanted nothing to do with him. He thought they’d become kind of friends. After all, he considered her nice cousin a friend. And her other one, the she-wolf with attitude, well, if not a friend, then a colleague of sorts. They shared the same paint specialist, though the she-wolf did tend to hog him at her repair shop more than she should.
Something he’d once again take up with her as soon as he got a minute to more than breathe.
Hell. He needed a break. One beer couldn’t hurt. And it had been a while since he’d been at Ray’s. He ignored the secret hope that lingered—that he might see Rena there.
* * *
Three fallen dickheads later, Axel had worked off a decent head of steam in the bar’s
“I catch you here again,” Ray said to Fletcher and his asshole buddies moaning on the ground, “there won’t be enough of you left for anyone to identify. Now fuck off before I let Earl and Big J do what they’ve been wanting to all night. Axel was just a warm-up.” It wasn’t as if Ray didn’t still have some fight left in him. A retired boxer, he had the fists, and face, of someone who’d fought too many rounds. The fists looked like he’d won most of them, but his face suggested he’d lost more than a time or two.
Behind Axel, the bar’s bouncers waited with shit-eating grins. Trouble, those two, but they liked Axel taking care of their business. They had enough to handle with all the—what had Rena lovingly called the clientele?—riffraff in the place.
Fletcher stood with help from his seedy friends and shot Axel the finger. “Your ass is mine. I won’t forget this, dickhead.”
Axel just stared, not saying a word, and waited for the idiots to limp away. Funny that Fletcher couldn’t seem to recall he’d been the one to start the fight. Axel hadn’t even stepped a foot out of his truck before Fletcher had been in his face. The dumbass was apparently trying to make up for getting walloped a few months ago.
Axel turned, praying his favorite person in the world really had stayed home tonight. God forbid she see him do yet another thing involving brutality.
To his chagrin, she stood by the entrance behind the enthusiastic crowd cheering him on and collecting bets.
Rena shook her head at him before turning to go back inside.
Fuck.
He sighed, feeling down, and forced his feet to take him into the bar to apologize. He didn’t want to tell her Fletcher and his cronies had had it coming. The crap they’d said about her and J.T., her nice cousin, just because they had darker skin… Rage threatened to consume Axel. He hated bigotry of any kind, and that kind of intolerance aimed at Rena?
He forced himself to calm down, needing for once to make a good impression. He wanted Rena to see him as more than a giant mauler. She claimed he fought too much, and maybe he did. But the things they’d been saying about her had bothered him. A lot.
Everything about her captivated him. Her laugh was real. Contagious. She had full lips, the cutest dimple, and a lovely face he’d more than once fantasized caressing. Her skin was a warm chestnut brown, and the golden-brown curls framing her angel’s face made her amber eyes almost glow.
God, he would give anything to hold her close.
When around her, his troubles faded, and joy took their place. He couldn’t explain it except to tell himself love at first sight must exist. At least for him.
He’d told his mother about Rena a month before she’d passed, and she’d agreed. He had it bad for the bartender-slash-waitress-slash-hairstylist. His mother had also agreed that he needed to make a move.
But fear kept him back, that he might do the wrong thing and scare Rena away. The idea that Rena would someday be his felt more unattainable every time he screwed up in front of her. And then the drama with his mother and father, his mother’s death, it all conspired to keep him distant, apart. Cold. Because numbness made the hurt bearable.
Pushing through the crowd, he tried to fight his fragile hope she might smile his way. He would have felt better about beating the losers outside if she hadn’t seen him. Now his therapeutic workout in the parking lot was all for nothing, and the balled-up tension inside him threatened to freeze solid under an icy wall of self-preservation.
But Rena could melt him with a smile. If only she’d give him one.
He found an open spot at the bar and looked around, but she didn’t appear. Instead, crowds of his kind of people, hardworking men and women who liked keeping a low profile—especially around law-enforcement types—milled around tables and danced by a new jukebox playing some funky metal-dance mix. Piercings and tattoos decorated visible skin, and denim and work boots seemed the dress of choice.
The booths and tables in Ray’s were mostly clean. Axel’s feet didn’t stick to the floor too badly, and the smell of stale beer didn’t offend as much as the few smokers puffing away in Ray’s nonsmoking bar. Most of the occupants adhered to Ray’s rules: no fights inside, no cops, no drugs, and, most importantly, no fucking with the staff.
For all that Axel didn’t like Rena working in the place, he knew she had so many friends and family around that no one messed with her without major consequences.
He cracked his knuckles, once again gratified they’d met Fletcher’s big mouth and drawn blood.
“Yo, Heller. What can I get ya?” Sue asked, smacking gum as she waited for him. She wore a black T-shirt that said Bartender in big white letters. Her many tattoos, piercings, and braids made her an obvious fit for the place.
“A dunkel—a dark ale—for me tonight.”
She nodded.
“Is Rena here?”
Sue gave him a sad look as she handed him a glass. “Sorry, slugger. She was just leaving when you showed up to pound Fletcher into hamburger. Nice work, by the way.”
“Ja.” He sighed and drank the beer down in one go.
Sue watched him with wide eyes.
“One more, then I leave.” He had no reason to stay, not now that Rena had gone.
“Sure.” She poured him another. As he drank this one more slowly, she said, “You know tomorrow night’s Rena’s last, right? We’re having a party. You’re coming, aren’t you?”
Had the time come already? “When does it start?” Panicked at the thought of Rena leaving, though he’d known she would at some point, he did his best to appear unconcerned. How the hell would he see her now? To get up the nerve to talk to her? At least at the bar he had an excuse to hang around and watch her. With her working at her new salon, he couldn’t come in every day for a haircut. Could he?
“Seven. We’re gonna do a cake, food, and drinks, of course.” Sue smiled. “Lara’s baking her famous chocolate chip cookies.”
He’d had them before, and he looked forward to having them again. “Yes. Gut. I’ll be back.”
“Sure thing, Arnold.” She chuckled. She must have seen his confusion because she explained. “You know, like Arnold Schwarzenegger? ‘I’ll be back,’” she said, sounding not at all like Axel. At his lack of expression, she shrugged. “Ah. Whatever. See you, Heller.”
He left, not satisfied or relaxed in the slightest. Now he just felt tired.
Axel drove home, washed up, and slid into bed. He stared at the picture on his nightstand the way he did every night, now that she was gone. In a plain brown frame sat a photograph of him and his mother when he’d been a boy, both of them smiling at each other. A festival filled the background, the bright-red balloon clutched in his hand a reminder of a precious gift—that there had once been better times, that at least one person in his life had truly loved him.
The picture framed the clear affection between a mother and son.
Axel forced himself to close his eyes and fall asleep before he did the unthinkable and cried. Again.
* * *
“Happy birthday, dear Jane, happy birthday to you!” Rena blew on the festive red noisemaker until it straightened its curl, glad she’d made it in time after her shift at the bar. Everyone waited for the delighted girl of the hour to blow out her candle, then her mom cut the large sheet cake into squares while her father twirled his little princess around.
Along with the other revelers, Rena cheered, awash in the joy of family. Having been introduced to the boisterous, loving McCauley clan through her cousin Del’s marriage, Rena had been to more birthday parties and picnics in the past year and a half than she’d been to in her life. Del had married Mike, and Colin—Mike’s son—provided Rena an honorary nephew to spoil.
She looked around but didn’t see Mike, her personal hero, so she nudged her cousin, who stood wolfing down a plate of mini corn dogs and chicken wings. “Hey, where’s Mike?”
Del smiled, and the overhead light shone on her brow ring. “Colin and Mike are coming as soon as Colin’s basketball game is done.”
