“Are you gonna give me hell because the tailgate’s a different color than the rest of the truck? You got somethin’ against blue?” He’d gotten rear-ended back in Nevada some years back and replaced the tailgate, but never got around to painting it to match the rest of the white truck.
“No, this is the problem.” He pointed. “I can’t see your license plate number. You realize it’s the driver’s obligation to keep the plate clean at all times, right?”
The Moon temper rose up in him, and he eyed the filthy plate. Yeah, the letters and numbers couldn’t be seen through the grime, and Dickies was being a jackass. Some things never changed. All Zayden wanted to do was get home and end this hell of being back in Stokes after so many years.
He knew just how to clean the plate.
Stepping up to the back of the truck, he squared his hips, planted his feet… and unzipped his fly.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dickies ground out.
“Quiet or it’ll crawl back up.” He focused hard, and the spurt of piss left his body. He aimed the stream at the plate, splashing upward to wash away the filth.
Dickies sent him a glare that might make other men wither, but Zayden wasn’t other men.
He stuffed his cock back into his boxers and zipped up with a little flick of his wrist. Turning to Dickies, he said, “There. Now you can read it.”
“Get back into your truck, Moon,” he grated between clenched teeth.
With a tug on the brim of his Stetson, he sauntered to the truck and climbed behind the wheel, while Dickies returned to his cruiser to look up the plate or maybe jerk his meat.
He glanced back, and as soon as Dickies got out of his car, Zayden rolled up his window again.
This time when Dickies rapped on the glass, he put some force behind it.
“Can I help you, Deputy Dickies?”
“Dickinson,” he bit off. “You’ve got a string of prior arrests, Moon.”
“That so?”
“Bar fights. You broke a man’s nose.”
“Who hasn’t?” he drawled.
“You were arrested for using excessive force against a coworker at a construction company in Nevada.”
“Yeah, that wasn’t the best idea. I shouldn’t have gotten caught for that one. Moral of the story is always hide your weapons after a fight.”
“There are other incidents on your record.”
“So? Am I breaking the law now?”
Dickies handed him a piece of paper, and it flapped in the wind. For a moment, Zayden considered letting the air rip it from his fingers so Dickies would be forced to write up another, but in the end, he figured he’d fucked with the man enough for one day and took it.
Public urination. Fine of $250 plus community service.
Deputies didn’t hand out community service citations—he was using his power of authority to screw with him.
“Motherfucker. You always were a real dick.” He crumpled the citation in his fist and tossed it onto the floor.
“Don’t forget to pay that or see the magistrate to be assigned that community service.”
Zayden settled his gaze on the asshole until Dickies’ face mottled red. “You make a great welcoming committee, Dickies. Stokes, Colorado is in your debt.” His sarcasm had the old rival’s face growing redder with suppressed rage.
“Sorry to hear about your dad, Moon.”
Zayden grunted and reached for the button to roll up his window. “I’m not.” He started the truck and pulled away, leaving Dickies standing on the side of the road without the last word.
It didn’t make him feel any better to have gotten it, though. Now he had a nice fine and community service he probably wouldn’t stick around long enough to do. He was only here to see his father’s casket lowered into the ground, and then he’d hit the highway once more, heading far away from this Podunk town and all its horrible memories.
As he drove, some of them flooded back. Dear old dad passed out on the front lawn—again. Zayden closing the door and locking it for the night, telling his brothers Dane and Asher to let their dad lie there. But by morning, he’d always wake to find Chaz Moon passed out on the sagging couch in the living room, set up with a garbage can near his head in case he needed to puke, and Zayden knew it was Asher’s doing.
His kid brother never could stand to see their dad in his drunken state. He was the son who removed Chaz’s boots and hat and put a pillow beneath his head.
Well now nobody needed to help out their whiskey-soaked old man—he’d drank himself into an early grave, and good fucking riddance to the piece of shit.
“Screw this,” Zayden said for the millionth time of his life.
He could turn around, let the son of a bitch be buried without his sons at his side. When had he ever given a crap about any of them? Zayden made sure his brothers had food in their bellies and caught the school bus in the mornings. He’d dropped out of high school at sixteen to try to keep the ranch afloat.
The ranch… He didn’t quite know how to feel about the place. It presented a bog of bad memories—of getting backhanded across the face and nursing a swollen and bleeding lip too many times to count. Of too little money. Christ, there never was enough of that.
But there were good things about the ranch too. His brothers’ antics always kept him laughing. And the horses and the faded blue of the mountains looming in the distance. How the sky looked before a snow—an icy cold blue like it appeared right now.
Storm was a-comin’, and he’d be meeting it head on.
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Em Petrova
Em Petrova was raised by hippies in the wilds of Pennsylvania but told her parents at the age of four she wanted to be a gypsy when she grew up. She has a soft spot for babies, puppies and 90s Grunge music and believes in Bigfoot and aliens. She started writing at the age of twelve and prides herself on making her characters larger than life and her sex scenes hotter than hot.
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