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THE GLOW OF THE FULL moon glittered off the calm water of Lake Conroe. The lights from the city dotted the distant horizon. Hank Williams boomed from the Jeep's speakers. Sitting on the hood of his Jeep, a Glock balanced on his lap, Ajay sipped from a bottle of Jack Daniels. He took a drag from his cigarette.
His mom had been brutally murdered.
Mee Maw, Gramps' wife of more than six decades, the most sweetest, loving surrogate grandma Cam and he could've hoped for, had been brutally murdered.
And many others. By a serial killer living amongst their small podunk town . . . living amongst so many he loved.
Emms.
He took another sip.
Don't put absolution for your sins onto her. That's a heavy load she doesn't deserve to carry. And the fact you'd put it on her proves you are the selfish, prick I always knew you to be.
Selfish? Probably, but he loved Emms. Or at least he suspected he loved her. Difficult to know for sure since he had no clue what being in love was supposed to feel like.
But he had to make things right. Not for her, but for himself. So, yeah, he was being a selfish prick. And he was strangely comfortable with that.
But the rest . . . he could let go. No more women. No more letting the people he loves down. Ajay hurled the nearly empty bottle into the water.
Maggie was right about so many things.
And so was Jags.
Bury the past. And never look back.
First, get her back.
He slid off the hood and jumped behind the wheel.
Second, find him, whoever he was. And kill him.
––––––––
AJAY CLIMBED THE TREE beside Emm's bedroom. He tried her window, sure Emms would've locked it.
It slid open. Well, damn. Maybe she wasn't as pissed as she made out.
As he climbed inside, a shadow in the corner caught his eye. He glared through the darkness and saw her.
Emms stood with her arms folded over her chest. "I knew you'd come."
He stepped toward her.
"Stop."
He did.
"I shouldn't have reacted the way I did," she said. "I knew who you were. I had enough people reminding me of it constantly. I shouldn't have been surprised."
Ajay ignored her shaking head and took a step.
She held out her hand, barring him from coming closer. "Was it all a lie? Just to sleep with me?"
He sighed. "There's nothing I can say or do, is there?"
"I've laid awake, thinking about you . . . and me. I'm sure that in another time, another place, we'd be good together. But not now. Maybe not ever."
"You don't mean that."
"You see the world in black and white, which I guess is probably necessary for soldiers. No room for doubt or hesitation. But I only see gray. I can't live in your world and I don't want to, no more than you want to live in mine. We see things differently, experience things differently. We don't even speak the same language."
"What the hell are you going on about?"
"You tell me I'm pretty but that's not what I hear. I hear, 'Want to have sex?'"
He scoffed. "We may have different dialects but you hear what I'm saying pretty fuckin' clearly."
"We have nothing in common. I think we're confusing friendship with . . . something more."
He swatted her arm away. With his palms on the wall, he trapped her head between his arms and whispered against her lips. "I want to fuck you. No big surprise, I'm sure. But that doesn't make me a pig, it makes me a guy with a working penis. No more games. No more mixed signals. "
"You're the one giving mixed signals." Her voice rose an octave in an obvious mocking tone. "'If a woman like you could love a guy like me then there's hope.'"
Ajay shushed her. The last thing he needed was her father waking up.
She gritted, "What a crock."
He came here tonight having no idea how he was going to fix this cluster fuck. He could beg for forgiveness. Swear the slut meant nothing to him. It was all so fucking cliché.
"Why?" she simply asked.
"Why what?"
"You're going to make me say it?"
"Fuck yeah."
She groaned. "Why did you . . . you know?"
"Fuck her?"
"Yeah."
Good question, he thought.
Two knocks on the closed bedroom door. "Sweetheart?" her dad said, "Everything alright?"
Emms gasped! Her arms flailed and slapped at Ajay, shoving him into her closet, silently, slowly closing the door.
Ajay put his ear to the closed door.
The squeak of a door opening.
"Emily?"
Must be inside the room now.
A grunt.
Ajay heard the door close. He waited a fraction of a moment before opening the closet door. He stumbled through the darkness, kicking what-seemed-to-be a sleep shirt. Some kind of cartoonish puppy on the front.
He approached her bed where she lay on her back, seemingly staring up at the ceiling. "No more women. I promise."
She tossed the comforter aside and sat up. "More crock talk. Lies. Nothing but lies."
"Emms." He palmed her cheek and sat on the bed. "I've never lied to you."
"No?"
"Never."
"So it's everybody else you've been lying to?"
"I've promised nothing to any woman . . . but you."
She grimaced and stared at him questioningly.
Ajay went to the foot of the bed. With a hand on each of her legs, he slid her down the mattress until she was flat. He climbed over her, blanketing her body with his own, her head wedged between his propped forearms. "I will never hurt you again."
"You're right. You never promised me anything." She spoke with an eerie casualness that gave Ajay cause for alarm.
From what he knew about women—and he knew much about women—an animated screeching woman was not be taken seriously. Whatever prompted the ranting could typically be fixed with words of affirmation, at the least. And at the most, mind blowing sex.
But when a woman reacts to a man's fuckery with calm and sincerity, well, that's when shit gets real.
She scoffed. "This ref is calling a penalty. Loss of fifteen yards."
He laughed. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"You're still in the game, but you got some ground to make up."
So damn happy to be in the game, he grinned and kissed the side of her neck. He nudged his painfully erect cock at her groin, dry fucking her with subtle, round thrusts at her sex. "When I take you it will be hard." Sliding her spaghetti strap down her arm, he sank his teeth into the tender skin of her shoulder blade. "Fast." Kissing the crook of her neck, he groaned, "And raw." He drew her skin into his mouth, leaving a pink smudge, a blatant mark of possession.
She pushed him off. "Crossing the line of scrimmage. Loss of another five yards." She turned on her side, facing away from him.
The day he met Emms, he told her he hated games. And she took it as a challenge, promising to find a game he'd like. This game analogy was probably her attempt at passive aggression. Cute.
Until this moment, he hadn't found a game he liked. But with her as an opponent, he'd play whatever the hell game she wanted.
He'd even play by her rules . . . for now.
Ajay spooned behind her. "So you like football?"
"I like all games. But chess is my favorite."
He whispered close to her ear. "My pawns are in place, sweetheart. And I'm coming for your king."
"Check. Yes. But nowhere near checkmate."