Finders Keepers (19 page)

“Damn straight it was. There were girls at that party, we
were playing Spin the Bottle, and Clay felt moderately guilty since the night
before he’d clocked me pretty good with an empty bottle of Jack.” My mind
drifted back in time. I’d been a whole hell of a lot more hopeful at twelve than
I was at twenty-one. Even the hardened me had to admit that a few weeks with
Josie was changing that though. Not totally, but enough. Hope didn’t feel like
such a sham anymore . . . It seemed almost
plausible
again for someone
like me, with a past like mine. “But after that orange-stained mess, I gave up
on color and decided black was a safer option. At least when you were around.”

“I’m flattered. Thank you,” she said dryly. “But do you know
why I was so upset that I ‘accidentally’ spilled orange soda on you?”

I turned onto the highway and shrugged. “You felt like it?”

Josie grumbled something I couldn’t make out. “For a solid
week, I’d been practicing Spin the Bottle in my bedroom where I knew we’d be
playing it.”

“Hold up.” I glanced at her for a moment. “You actually
practiced spinning a bottle on the floor? I didn’t realize that was something
that required practice. I kinda just thought you put your hand on the bottle,
gave a twist, and voila, there was your kissing partner.”

“I wasn’t practicing how to spin the bottle. I was
practicing how to get it to stop where I wanted it to,” she said, totally
unfazed by my sarcasm.

“And why were you so concerned with perfecting your
bottle-stopping skills?”

“Because I wanted it to stop on a certain person.” Her fingers
stopped playing with my shirt button and dropped to my leg.

Jesse.
She’d been hoping it would stop on him. I
didn’t realize I was gripping the hell out of the steering wheel until my
knuckles turned white.

“Garth”—Josie sat up to look at me—“that person was
you
.
When I spun that bottle, I wanted it to land on you.” My eyes flickered back to
hers, but they couldn’t stay there long. Dark country highways were dangerous
enough with a person’s full attention on the road. “So all I had to do was
figure out where Megan Phillips would sit in the circle, and that’s how I knew
where to practice stopping the bottle.”

“What does Megan Phillips and where she sat have to do with
me?”

“She had the biggest boobs of all the girls who’d be there
that night, so I knew you’d sit right next to her. Since Megan and I were
pretty much sworn enemies even back then, I knew she’d sit across from me, as
far as she could get.”

I played that night out in my head. I hadn’t thought about
it in years, so the memory was a bit foggy. Whenever Josie was involved, I’d
managed to make a memory of it. I might not have had any picture albums, but I
did have memory albums. On every page was one of Josie. “But, Joze . . . I
didn’t sit by Megan that night.”

She shook her head. “No. You didn’t. You sat by me.” She
paused, looking like she was reliving the memory as well. “So when I spun the
bottle, it landed on Ben Clovis and yours landed on Megan Philips, and that’s
why I—you’re right—
dumped
orange soda on your brand new shirt.” That was
coming at me fast, and I couldn’t keep up. Why had Josie wanted the bottle to
land on me? Why had she wanted to kiss me? Why had Josie wanted . . .
me
?
“You know, I wasn’t even all that put out that I had to kiss Ben Clovis and
that you had to kiss Megan Philips. I was upset because I knew that would
probably be the only time I had an excuse to kiss you. The only time you’d have
a reason to kiss me back.”

We were just pulling up to the old gas station, and even
though I had dozens—possibly hundreds—of questions on my mind, I couldn’t seem
to ask a single one. So instead, I slid my hand behind her neck and pulled her
close. “But now you get to kiss me whenever you want.” I kissed her gently, and
she kissed me back just as gently. After our serious make-out session, it was a
welcome break.

“No bottles required,” she said, smiling at me.

“Thank. God.” Opening my door, I slid out and helped her
crawl down. “Why don’t you head on home now? I’ll hang out here for fifteen or
twenty minutes before I leave. Just so your parents don’t have anything to be
suspicious about.”

“No, don’t wait around. Just follow me,” Josie said, fishing
her keys out of her purse. “Besides, now that Colt knows about us, it’s only a
matter of time before someone tells my parents.”

“He better not or that thread I’ve been hanging on by is
going to snap.”

Josie wound her hands around my waist. “What’s the big deal?
I want my parents to know. I don’t want to keep us a secret any longer. You’ve
proven that you’re ready for this.”

“I’ve proven myself? Joze, it’s been three weeks.” I tipped
my hat back a bit because, from that look in her eyes, we were going to be
lip-locked pretty soon. My lips had had a solid half-hour break, so we were
good to go.

“And you’re saying that three weeks aren’t like three lifetimes
to you, Garth Black?”

She always had a point. She always seemed to know me that
much better than myself. “You’ve made your point—except three weeks are more
like three millennia for me.”

Josie laughed, coming closer until she’d rested her head
against my chest. “I want to tell them. I want them to know you’re the person I
want to be with. I want them to know you’re the person I’ve—”

The sound of screeching tires and flying gravel made us both
whip around. A jacked-up, shiny, and expensive truck slowed as it approached,
its headlights shining directly on us.

“Hope we’re not interrupting anything!” someone shouted from
the truck.

I spun around and locked eyes with her. “You need to get in
your truck and get home. Now.”

“Is that Colt and his brothers?” Her eyes were taking longer
to adjust than mine. “What in the hell are they doing here?”

That Josie had to ask demonstrated just what opposite kinds
of lives we’d lived. When a full truck of guys barreled toward me in an
abandoned parking lot late at night, I knew a serious ass kicking was on the
horizon. Josie saw the same thing and thought
I wonder what they want?
The
way we Montana boys figured things out was: You took my girl. I kicked your
ass. We were square. It took a hell of a lot of balls and maybe not a lot of
brain, but we settled matters the rough-and-tough country way. We didn’t sue or
knife tires—we kicked ass. That the Mason boys had left enough of their hippy
California roots behind to bring it like true country boys earned them a
smidgeon of respect in my book. Mason’s truck had rolled to a stop, and I heard
doors opening.

“Josie, baby, please . . . your truck.”

Her face went soft as her eyes shifted from the truck to me.
“That was the first time you called me baby.”

Kissing her quickly because I couldn’t help it, I led her to
her truck. I heard the Mason boys’ boots crunching gravel our way. “Unless you
get in your truck and leave
now,
that baby will have been less a term of
endearment and more a reference to the way you’re behaving.”

“Stop.” Josie pulled her arm out of my grip. “If you think
I’m leaving you alone with the Masons after what went down earlier, you’re the
one rationalizing like a baby.”

“Joze—” I wasn’t above begging.

“I’m not going anywhere.” She crossed her arms and held her
ground.

From the footsteps, we were out of time for her to escape
anyway. “You are so damn stubborn.”

“I learned it from you.” Glancing over my shoulder, her eyes
narrowed. “Colt, what the hell are you guys doing here?”

“We followed you,” Colt replied, standing in the center of
his four brothers.

“No one was following us.” I’d checked my rearview the whole
drive, half expecting the encounter.

“We didn’t have to tail your truck to follow you,” one of
the older brothers, Finn or Frank or Fart or hell, Filly, said. “All we had to
do was follow the stink of trash.”

Josie lunged, and I just barely stopped her. I knew enough
about the Masons to know they weren’t there to hurt Josie—that was about the
only point I could give them—but that didn’t mean I wanted her within arm’s
reach of any of them. She didn’t fight me like I’d expected.

She said, “Those are awfully tough words coming from a guy
who studies managerial accounting on the East Coast and orders a Blue Hawaiian
in a bar.”

I couldn’t help it—I smiled. Literally seconds away from
having five grown men jump me, and all I could do was smile at the firecracker
in my arms.

“And those are mighty judgmental words coming from a girl
who cheats on a good man with this piece of trash.”

Josie wiggled in my arms. If she didn’t stop fighting me, I
would be worn out before I got to the actual fight. “Since your dad basically
bribed the county prosecutor to have a DUI dropped from your record, I’m
putting it on record that your ideas of what a good man is are a tad skewed.”

The F-named Mason’s face went murderous. When he took a few
steps our way, I moved Josie behind me and lifted my hands. “Not another step,
Filly. Not another fucking step. I know why you’re all here, and that’s all
fine and dandy, but you’d better wait until Josie is out of harm’s way before
charging us again. So help me god, I might not be able to hold all five of you
off, but I will kick those pretty white teeth straight down your throat if you
keep coming at me with Josie right here.”

He slowed, but he didn’t stop. Colt and one of the younger
brothers had to block his way. “You call me Filly one more time, and it’s your
teeth getting kicked out.”

The testosterone was really starting to zap to life, and I
think the moment was catching up with Josie. It felt like she was trying to
herd me into her truck with her. “I don’t know your name, big guy, sorry. I’m
just keeping with the family tradition of naming one son after a barnyard
animal and running with it.” I pointed at one of the brothers still trying to hold
Filly off. “Colt,” I stated, moving my finger to the next one. “Horses’s Ass.”
And another Mason. “Jackass.” On to the youngest Mason. “Dumbass.” Ending on
the oldest Mason—whose face had miraculously managed to get a shade redder.
“Filly.”

Yes, I was stirring the hornet’s nest, but that’s what I
did. If I was going to get into a fight, I expected my opponent—or in this
case, opponents—to hit me like they meant it. No shots just because. There’d
better be some intention and hate behind each hit or else that was just an
insult to the fight. “By the way, just so we all have our facts straight, Josie
didn’t cheat on Colt. It’s hard to cheat on someone when they’re not even your
boyfriend.” Another Mason came for me, the one a year or two younger than Colt.

“Harrison, wait,” Colt ordered. “Garth’s right. Not until
Josie’s out of here.”

“I’m not going anywhere, so all of you just stop trying to
make me!” Josie hollered.

Colt and I both sighed. He said, “You might see things one
way, Black, but Josie and I have been together, on and off again, for close to
a year now.”

“Emphasis on the ‘off!’” Josie piped in.

I had an urge to kiss her again. Thankfully, I repressed
that urge because I don’t think Colt could have taken me kissing the girl he
was rather convinced had been his for the past year.

“Fine, you see things your way, and I see things
differently, but all of that’s beside the point. You all came here with one
thing in mind.” I unsnapped my cuffs and rolled up my sleeves. It looked like
another new shirt would be getting ruined. “And we all know it wasn’t to talk
this out.”

“There’s nothing to talk about when some trailer trash piece
of shit thinks he can take one of our girls.”

All of the Mason boys looked like they’d been drinking, but
I could smell the alcohol on Filly’s breath. In a fight, alcohol was a tricky
deal. If a man had consumed a few shots, he was more dangerous because he still
had full control of his motor skills, but his inhibitions were lowered.
However, a man who had consumed a few shots past the point of drunk was an easy
target—as I’d proven that night Colt had beaten the shit out of me. No motor
coordination and too temporarily brain dead for a logical train of thoughts.

Filly looked to be the only one who fit that
drunk-as-a-skunk profile. The rest were all varying degrees of dangerous drunk.
I was one tough son of a bitch, but up against five big guys who had everything
from a baseball bat to an empty glass bottle, I knew the best outcome I could
hope for was to leave the fight standing. I wasn’t walking away the winner, but
hopefully I’d still be walking. I would make sure most of the Mason boys woke
up tomorrow groaning. Clearing my throat, I stared down Filly. “You got that
wrong, big guy. It’s you rich California posers who think your shit doesn’t
stink thinking you can take one of our girls.”
My
girl, I added to
myself.

“I can’t wait to rub your face into the gravel with my
boot.” Filly tossed his jacket aside.

“Okay, enough comparing dicks here. Time to show what
they’re actually capable of.”

One of the older brothers held out his arms. “Ready when you
are.”

“Joze”—I glanced over my shoulder—“time for you to leave.”

She shook her head hard. “You boys need to get back in that
truck and get the hell out of here. We were minding our business until you came
along, so why don’t you go mind your own business and leave us alone.”

A couple of Colt’s brothers chuckled, but Filly, of course,
was the one to reply. “You made this our business when you cheated on our
brother with this waste of space.”

Before I knew she’d moved, Josie braked to a stop in front
of him. “The only thing that’s a waste of space around here is you, Finn.”
Josie slapped him hard across his cheek.

And that’s when things started getting ugly.