two together.
This was exactly the reason why I had doubts about getting involved with Tana. She was my best friend. The light to my darkness. With the possibility of sex in the picture, all of a sudden our friendship took a new, awkward turn. If it was this bad now, how much worse would it get after we’d seen each other naked? After I’d felt her come apart under me? I savagely squashed the thought when my dick started to flagpole to attention.
She stood up, opened the prescription bag, and held out a round container. “The pills. I wanted you to know.”
I clenched my teeth together, then exhaled when visions of the two of us naked, sweaty, and driving each other crazy wouldn’t stop flashing in my mind. “Give me a time frame.”
“The doctor said to take the first pill within twenty-four hours of my period—”
“I don’t want to know all the shit about your period. Just give me a date.” I knew I sounded like a jerk but it was my fear of damaging us speaking. This was new territory for our friendship. I felt out of my normal and part of me regretted saying I would have sex with her. It was smarter to tell her this was a mistake but I didn’t know that I was strong enough to watch her walk away with some other guy.
She crammed the container back into her purse. “Dammit, Ryan. Is this part of the asshole act you use to make sure girls don’t waste their hearts on you?”
“Who says it’s an act?”
“I do, because I know you better,” she snapped.
“You don’t know the me you’ll fuck.”
“Whatever, Ryan.” She turned around to stomp back toward her car.
Beneath the anger, there was a hitch to her voice. Any other girl, I would have gone right back to wiping down the tools. But Tana wasn’t any other girl. I couldn’t let her walk away.
“Hey!” I caught up to her before she could get into her car. I stuck my hands in the pockets of my jeans to keep from reaching for her. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“You didn’t. I can separate sex from friendship, Ryan, and I can do it without acting the way you’re acting. If you changed your mind about sleeping with me, all you have to do is say so.” She sounded like she had an attitude a mile wide and that she wasn’t hurt, but I saw her lower lip tremble slightly.
I didn’t have a chance to respond to that because a black SUV pulled up behind her car, blocking her in and when the driver’s door opened, I knew my past had just caught up to me.
Chapter Four
TANA
When the SUV pulled up and the driver’s side door opened, Ryan’s demeanor changed. The expression on his face was one I’d never seen before. He looked totally different. Hard and mean. Like he was about to kick ass.
“Don’t say a word and don’t react to anything anyone says,” he warned.
I nodded and turned my attention to the guy walking toward us. He was a skinny Asian guy, probably in his late twenties. Not handsome, but eye-catching. His face was square, defined with all sharp edges like the old comic book heroes. His pupils were so big, it looked like his eyes were filled with black oil. He was dressed in black and every tattoo lining both his arms was just as devoid of color as his clothes.
“Ryan. How you been, my brother?”
“What do you want, Chanos?”
“Am I so unwelcome?” He flung his arms out. “I can’t pay my brother a little visit for old times sake?”
His gaze flicked to me and his eyes crawled over my skin. I shuddered.
“You traded up, bro. Nice. You wanna deal for the ‘ho?” Chanos reached out his hand toward the side of my face and I clenched my teeth together, fighting the urge to slap him.
His hand never connected with my skin. Ryan moved, putting himself between the guy and me. “You wanna keep that hand?”
Chanos’ eyes widened with surprise and he lowered his arm. “You boned out and you want to talk that trash?”
“I didn’t bone out. I took a bullet and we were clear.”
“Yeah. We
Learning to Kill: Stories