Bastian's Storm (Surviving Raine 2)

e of those salads with green stuff in it you couldn’t actually identify. My fingers tapped repeatedly against my leg as I tried to keep my mouth too full to join in any discussions.

Not that I had anything to add to them.

“So proud of my girl,” Nick said with a wide smile. He tossed his arm over Lindsay’s shoulders and gave her a stupid-ass grin.

Every word that came out of his mouth I wanted to pound back into his face. It wasn’t the words themselves; it was the way he said them. It was the way he beamed at her like she was the center of the fucking universe. She was eating it up, too.

I kind of wanted to puke.

Raine smiled at both of them before tilting her head to look at me. Her smile faltered immediately as she watched me tear into another bite with my fingers clenching the knife so tightly, it probably looked like I was trying to brutalize the cow.

“Only two years at the store, too,” he continued.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I muttered, no longer able to keep it inside. “It’s a customer service job. She’s not on the board of directors.”

Half a second of silence before Nick sat up taller and glared at me.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Nick finally snapped.

I glared right back.

“Let’s see where to start.” I tapped my finger on my chin. “Oh yeah—you’re a dickhead.”

“Bastian!”

I slammed my hand down on the table and stood up.

“This is fucking pointless!” I yelled. “I can’t sit around here and pretend all this is just fine and dandy, Raine! It’s bullshit!”

I wasn’t really sure exactly what was bullshit, but I was pretty confident that there was bullshit about the room. I didn’t like it. In fact, I couldn’t fucking tolerate it another second.

“Jesus, Bastian…” Lindsay’s face crinkled up as if she’d just seen some poor girl on the beach in Wal-Mart flip-flops. “Calm down already.”

I curled my fingers into a fist, my nails digging into my palms. I wasn’t going to hit her—I wouldn’t actually do that—but the desire was certainly there. I was pretty sure if I did, Nick would come to her rescue at that point. Pummeling him was a very attractive idea, and I found myself actually considering making a move on her just to get the opportunity to hit him.

I glanced in Raine’s direction, and all those thoughts left my head. She’d never fucking forgive me if I did something like that, and the only thing that could possibly relieve some of the tension I felt was knowing once these two idiots were gone, I’d take Raine to bed and forget about this whole evening.

It occurred to me that I might have already blown that opportunity.

“Fuck this,” I muttered as I stood up and grabbed my jacket from the hook on the wall.

“Bastian, where are you going?” Raine asked.

“Getting the fuck out of here.”

Raine pushed away from the table and started to walk over to me, but Nick, who was closer to the door, beat her to it. He stepped around me and blocked me from getting from the doorway to the elevator.

“Come on, man,” he said with his hands up in some kind of stupid-ass surrender motion. “It’s all good. No reason for you to go.”

“Get the fuck out of my way!” I yelled. I shoved Nick aside and grabbed the handle of the door. I wasn’t about to wait around for the elevator, so I slammed both hands onto the metal bar on the door to the stairs and started down them, skipping two steps at a time until I reached the bottom. About halfway down, the sound of Raine yelling after me had diminished enough to be forgotten.

Every muscle in my body was painfully tight. I tried to keep my mental focus on getting the fuck out of the general area and not on going back upstairs to punch that asshole in the face. If Raine hadn’t been there, there was no doubt in my mind that I would have beaten the shit out of him, and it was only her presence that kept me from going back up there.

I needed a major distraction, and thankfully, there was something on the lower level that was good at capturing my attention.

Inside the underground parking garage were two spaces for our vehicles. One contained Raine’s Subaru, which she had driven from Ohio prior to going on the cruise that landed us both on a life raft. Next to it was the only thing I had bought since we arrived in Miami—a Honda CBR600RR.

My motorcycle.