Page 5 of Dirty Like Jude
So far, hadn’t happened. I’d probably never know why. Like most of my crew, even though I knew every detail there was to know about Lexington Miller Davenport on paper—and other details that would never be written down any-fucking-where—I’d never truly know what made him tick or the exact reasons for hisloyalty.
As long as he remained loyal, I didn’t give onefuck.
I picked up my keys; my fingers were fucking vibrating. My nerves were twitching, muscles tense, heart slamming blood through every tissue in my body—adrenalinresponse.
I stood just inside my front door and took a deep, slowbreath.
And wondered what the fuck Roni wasdoing.
Andwhyshe was still doingit.
FuckingMr.Murphy.
Roni’s fuck buddy of the month—well, the year—Tyler “Taze” Murphy, was leaving her place at seven in the morning.Again.
Which meant he’d spent thenight.
In Roni’sbed.
Again.
With her hot-as-fuck body wrapped around him. With her hands on him. With those jade-green eyes of hers and that thick black hair, and her smell… all over him. And no doubt, her throaty, horny, sweet-ass voice telling him what to do toher.
Because no way that kid knew how to satisfy Roni Webber on hisown.
I grabbed my gym bag and slammed out the door, tossing the fucking morning paper aside on my way to the driveway. I had no use for newspapers or the entire “news” reporting industry. When you’d seen the bullshit they printed, the shit they gotwrong, over and again, about people and things youknew, you knew better than tosubscribe.
Some previous tenant had subscribed, and the papers just keptcoming.
I kept tossing them into the neighbor’s yard, and my neighbor kept leaving apples and figs from the trees along her back lane or bread from the bakery up the street on my porch in return. Once, she’d even voluntarily baked a pie forme.
Pretty sure she was hoping I was gonna fuck her, but that was never happening. Way too close tohome.
I was rabid-protective of myprivacy.
Too bad for other people, I didn’t always feel the same abouttheirs.
I knew a lot about my neighbors, but not because I was interested or looking. I just knew how to read the clues without looking veryhard.
When I was interested, I lookedharder.
I knew, technically, that Taze was Roni’s “boyfriend.” Meaning they had some kind of fucked-up relationship where they regularly had sex, held hands in public and, presumably, he pretended he wasn’t fucking anyone else and she pretended to believehim.
Not my idea of love, but each to their fucking own,right?
I also knew what Taze looked like naked, which was un-fucking-fortunate. Had a vivid mental image of him—and his piece-of-shit friend—fucking Roniat the same time, permanently branded into my graymatter.
If you asked me, Roni Webber deserved better than some twenty-three-year-old blond pretty boy wannabe-thug who’d share her with who-the-fuck-ever at a club party and cheat on her on a weeklybasis.
But no one had askedme.
I got into the Bentley and peeled out of the driveway, and just like pretty much every morning, I headed west, toward Jesse’splace.
Day-to-day, I was personal bodyguard to Jesse Mayes, shit-hot rock star, Dirty’s lead guitarist—and my best friend. In general, I went where he went. Every morning, whenever possible, we started the day together with a jog or a workout. After that I’d take him wherever he needed to be, or we’d split and meet up later; whatever his scheduledemanded.
Which was why he’d bought me this car after we came home from the last Dirty tour and he realized I’d driven the Range Rover into the ground. I tended to do that to cars, and no way Jesse was riding bitch on one of my bikes. So here Iwas.
This was the only moment of my day that was kinda-sorta my own, early in the morning, before I got toJesse’s.
