Twelve of Roses

“You know this isn’t how one-night stands work, right?” I asked him, sitting my coffee down.

“I’m not a one-night stand; I’m your neighbor,” Max corrected, still smiling.

He was always smiling. I wondered what it was like to be genuinely happy and carefree, something I would never have the privilege of knowing.

“The neighbor I had a one-night stand with,” I pointed out.

“It wasn’t a one-night stand. I’m going to have you again.”

“Get over yourself.”

“And get inside you?” he asked, leaning towards me.

What?

“You’re such a cheese ball! You did not just say that.”

We laughed for a few seconds before his expression turned somber. When he looked as serious as he did right then, he reminded me of Con. I could almost trick myself into believing his eyes were bright blue instead of black.

Jesus, Rose. What the hell is wrong with you?

“I want to take you to dinner.”

Then he said things like that, smacking me in the face with reality.

“Maxwell,” I groaned. “Max, I know what you’re trying to do, and it’s never going to happen.”

“I just want to take you to dinner.” He held his hands up innocently. “As a friend—you’re new here, right? Don’t you want some friends?”

Shaking my head, I sighed for the thousandth time that morning. He was right: I did need to try to form more relationships here.

“What are you afraid of?” he asked in a soft voice.

Hurting you. Fooling myself.

“I’m not afraid of anything. I just don’t want a…relationship,” I trailed off.

“Then we won’t have a relationship. I’ll just be your friend with COD.”

“What is COD?”

“Cock on demand.” He shrugged.

I cradled my head in my hands to hide my grin. I hadn’t smiled this much in a long time. Being able to laugh at his childish sense of humor made me feel a million times lighter.

“I get off at eight,” I gave in.

“Then dinner will be at eight thirty,” he drawled, smiling victoriously at me. When his phone began to ring, he answered it, and I watched that beautiful smile fall right off his face.

If only I could have freeze framed this moment ten seconds earlier.

Chapter Nine

Present

My past and present collided on the side of the road on the way to work.

I was none the wiser, paying no mind to the small crowd of people and caution tape, driving right on by it. My mind was still on Max, hoping everything was okay. He left before he was even off the phone, talking low and barely sparing me a second glance.

Lauren, my new co-worker and something close to a ‘friend’ gave away the plot as soon as I walked into the salon.

“Did you hear what happened?” she asked, following me to the back room where our employee lockers were.

“Nope,” I huffed, pulling my hair into a makeshift ponytail, still oblivious to the distress the usually perky brunette was in.

“They found Jamie,” she breathed out on a sob, twisting the butterfly charm on her necklace.

I had no idea who Jamie was, but her tear-filled eyes alerted me that they were close. Or at least acquaintances.

“And is Jamie hurt?”

“She’s dead,” she choked out, practically throwing herself on me.

“Okay, let’s go sit,” I soothed, walking to the waiting area with an arm around her shoulders. Her body was trembling so violently I knew that if she didn’t calm down, she would make herself sick.

After a few more minutes of her crying, she finally started to speak again.

“They found her on the side of the road. If it wasn’t for her scorpion tattoo, they might not have even recognized her.”

An image of the blonde from the Gooskis flashed through my mind. How many blonde women in Black Pine had scorpion tattoos?

I wanted to ask what she meant by not being able to recognize her but didn’t want to trigger anything, so I impatiently waited for her to continue.

“It’s like they tried to make her look like someone else. Her hair was dyed red, like yours…and,” she hiccupped, taking a deep breath, “they cut off her finger.”

Her words reverberated inside my brain, striking me like a single bolt of lightning. It could be completely unrelated, right? It had to be.

Con was dead.

Ponty-Poole’s Sheriff Reynolds had confirmed it—personally.

“Do you want to go home?” I swallowed down my rapidly growing paranoia and tried to put the distraught girl beside me first.

“No. I’ll be okay. We weren’t super close—we just went to school together.

Besides, I don’t want either of us to be alone right now.” She shook her head back and forth and forced a smile.

I forced myself to do the same, tempering the chaos that was threatening to take over my psyche.

It was no surprise that such a violent crime slowed business down. I managed to sneak to the back and shoot off a text to Molly, telling her to call me ASAP.

Lauren seemed to be coping okay, answering the phone with a small dose of pep in her tone.