Oxygen Deprived (Kilgore Fire Book 3) (2 page)

“Well, she should,” I muttered. “Speaking of Ellen, she’s on!”

I was now on day two of my five-month house arrest, and I was fairly sure by day seven, it was very likely I’d be bouncing off the walls.

Naomi and I watched about five minutes of it before she stood, stretching her arms up high over her head.

“I’m going to Wal-Mart. Do you want me to get you anything?” She wondered. “I’ll drop it off tomorrow on the way to pick the kids up from school.”

I shot up off the couch and ran to my office, picking up a piece of white computer paper and folding it in half.

Once I was sure the marker wouldn’t bleed through, I picked up the only writing utensil I could ever seem to find, a Sharpie, and quickly wrote down a list.

Once I had that done, I walked back to the kitchen where I pulled out seven twenties and walked back towards where Naomi was still standing, watching the show in front of her.

“Here,” I said. “This is my list.”

“Aspen,” Naomi started. “This only has a TV on it.”

I nodded.

“Yep,” I agreed.

“But, I thought the chief of police ordered Danny to give all your stuff back,” Naomi sounded confused. “That doesn’t make sense to get you a TV.”

I gave her a look.
“Does your brother ever do what he’s supposed to do?” I asked
. “I doubt he ever follows orders unless The Chief makes him do it, and even then he’d actually have to come over to ask me whether he gave it back. It’s not like Danny’s going to offer up that information.”

Naomi grimaced.

“My brother’s a dumbass,” she muttered under her breath. “I’ll get your TV back for you, but I’m not spending this money on it. I’ll buy you groceries instead.”

“Hmm,” I said. “Just make sure you get me some cheese squares.”

“Aspen,” Naomi hesitated. “You can’t eat like that when you have no way to workout. You’re gonna get fat.”

“I’ve got it all planned out,” I evaded. “I can go all the way to the end of my yard on the back side, and all the way to the sidewalk in the front. It’s exactly five thousand two hundred and eighty feet if I make the loop around seven and a half times.”

She looked at me.

“How’d you figure that out?” She tilted her head.

I shrugged.

“I got bored this afternoon, and my uncle left that roll thing that measures out distance,” I pointed to the measuring tape that was on the table next to the door.

She snorted.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll bring you some food back tomorrow. And if my brother doesn’t drop the TV off, I’ll make sure to bring you one.”

I threw my hands around my best friend.

“You know I don’t blame you, right?” I
confirmed.

She sighed.

“Yes,” she nodded. “But I’m the one who set you up with him in the first place. I thought he’d changed his ways. Had I known he was just going to go back to his cheating and whoring around, I would’ve never given him the permission to date you.”

I gave her a look.

“Since when has my boyfr—err…your brother done anything that he was supposed to do?”
I
raised a brow. “You could’ve told him all day long to stay away from me, but he would’ve inevitably done exactly what he wanted to do in the end.”

“Well,” she headed to the door. “It doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”

I stared at the back of her head. “Naomi,” I muttered. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Stupid?” She said sweetly. “Never.”

A banging at my door woke me up.

I startled, sitting up and dislodging the cat from my feet, effectively pissing him off and justifying the attack he launched on my feet not two seconds later.

“Motherfucking cock-sucker!” I growled, yanking my feet away.

The cat looked up at me with his adorable, mutinous eyes.

“Go fuck yourself, Urchin,” I growled.

Urchin didn’t bother to look innocent anymore, instead he hissed at me.

“Fucker,” I muttered as I hauled my annoyed and sleepy butt out of bed.

Grabbing a robe, which just so happened to belong to Danny, and wrapping it around my shoulders, I walked to the front door and peeked through the peephole.

My eyes narrowed and my lip curled in disdain as I took in my ex-boyfriend, the bane of my existence, on the other side of the door.

“What do you want?” I
asked him, looking back over my shoulder at the clock above my fire place.

Three in the morning. Awesome.

“My sister’s making me bring the TV back. If you want it inside, I suggest you open the door or I’ll leave it on the front porch. And we both know you won’t be able to move it,” Danny said nastily.

“Just leave it,” I ordered. “I’ll get Jonah or Downy to move it tomorrow.”

Danny had the nerve to laugh.

“Go away,” I growled through the door.

He did, making sure to take the TV to the very border of my yard first.

Danny left, but not before he accidentally knocked the TV over, leaving it sprawling in the wet grass just outside of my ankle bracelet’s range.

“Son of a bitch,” I growled, yanking open the door in time to see Danny speed off in that stupid – but nice – pickup truck of his that we’d picked out together. Although I did manage a small smile when I noticed it still looked a bit worse for the wear.

I walked down the sidewalk, stopping just at the edge of my yard.

I stared down at the ankle bracelet, lifting my robe out of the way, and tested it.

The instant my foot went out of range, it started blinking red.

Then Mrs. Fairchild’s words drifted through my brain.

“You’ll have ten seconds to get back in the safe zone, or a police cruiser will be sent to your house to see why you’ve stepped out of your yard.”

Grimacing, I moved back inside my yard and stared at the TV.

It was definitely deliberate.

“Damn him!” I growled in pure frustration.

The sound of a door opening from across the street had me looking up in time to see my new neighbor come out with a pretty lady latched onto him.

He gave her one hell of a hot, wet kiss and then lifted his head from the woman’s mouth.

“’G’night,” the man muttered, setting the woman away from him. “Thanks for helping.”

My brows rose.

Was that code for ‘
thanks for sucking my cock
?’

The man’s eyes came to me when the woman went to her car, giggling and waving over her shoulder the entire way.

He watched me, but I turned my eyes down to the TV once again.

The car finally left, and I sighed, turning around and heading back to my front door.

“You getting rid of that?” I heard, the man’s voice a lot closer to me than he’d been when I started heading back to my door.

I turned to find him standing in the middle of the street.

“No, I just got it back. Last time I checked, it worked fine,” I replied. “But I can’t get it back in my house.”

“Why’s it outside in the first place?” He wanted to know.

I pinched my lips as I glared at the man.

“Because my ex-boyfriend dropped it off there, knowing damn well I couldn’t get it.”

“Interesting,” he said. “Do you want me to bring it in?”

I weighed the benefits of getting the TV inside against the possibility that he might be a serial killer.

Knowing damn well I couldn’t live without the TV, I decided to take a chance with my life and said, “Please.”

The man didn’t even hesitate. I quickly moved out of his way, sweeping my hand through the night air in an embellished fashion to direct him towards my door.

“After you,” I murmured.

He picked the TV up as if it weighed nothing, and easily walked up the path and into the house, stopping once he was in the living room.

“Where do you want it?” He stopped.

I pursed my lips and pointed to where it used to be.

“It used to be right there, hanging above the mantle, but if the wall mount wasn’t laying out there with the TV, then you’ll have to just put it on the floor, I guess,” I pointed to a blank spot where the recliner I’d bought Danny used to sit.

His brows furrowed at my mention of him taking the mount, but he placed it on the floor anyway, stepping back once I had.

“Thank you,” I sighed softly. “I really appreciate it.”

Now get out of my house, please. I don’t really want to die.

He must’ve sensed my thoughts because he headed to the door without another word, not stopping until he was down at the end of my yard standing next to my mailbox.

“Don’t let him into your house anymore,” he said. “And I’d suggest changing your locks. If you want to get new locks, I’ll put them on for you.”

I lifted my robe up slightly to show my anklet monitor.

“No can do, sir. I can’t go out even if I wanted to,” I informed him.

His eyes went down to my ankle, his gaze being captured by the blinking red dot.

“You’re on house arrest?” He wondered, surprise evident in his voice.

I nodded. “Yep.”

“Why?” He pushed.

There was no way he didn’t know.

None.

I’d been the talk of the county; my own brother was a cop.

There was seriously no way he didn’t know why I was on house arrest, but I decided to tell him anyway.

Tomorrow.

Instead of saying goodbye, or even a ‘see you tomorrow’ I closed the door without another word.

I couldn’t handle anymore adulting right now.

Tomorrow would be soon enough.

I’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission.

-Rule of thumb

Aspen

“No, no, no,” I cried, watching as the smoke started to pour out of the open oven door. “Why?
Whyyyy
?” My questioning exclamation came out in a pitifully whiny and frustrated twang that I just couldn’t help.

Today was New Year’s Eve, seven days after my asshole ex got me put on house arrest, and I was going stir crazy.

I’d cleaned everything, top to bottom, and the house was immaculate now. There wasn’t one thing I would need to clean for at least a month.

However, now I needed to focus on getting the smoke out, or I might suffocate to death in my own house.

Walking to the window above the kitchen sink, I pushed it out and open.

The smoke billowed out, and I was amazed at just how much smoke one little turkey could produce.

“Surely, it can’t be that bad,” I murmured to myself, coughing slightly when I pushed further into the kitchen to come to a stop in front of the stove.

I grabbed the oven mitts beside the oven, thrust my hands into them, and then bent over to grab the turkey from the oven.

It was heavy.

Really heavy.

But I managed to finagle it out and onto the kitchen counter without too much fuss.

It was then I got my first good look at the turkey.

“Black’s probably not okay to eat,” a man said from behind me.

I gasped, turning around to see a man in full turn out fire gear behind me and right behind him were two more.

The one closest to me, though, was my newest neighbor. The one I couldn’t stop thinking about.

The one who was currently staring at my ass.

“What are you doing in here?” I asked warily, backing my ass up against the counter so he could no longer see my cheeks.

The dastardly man smiled.

Fucking smiled!

“You have smoke coming out of your house,” he said as if he was talking to a child. “Smoke, where we come from, means fire. Fire means the fire department comes. Right?”

I glared at him.

“Nothing’s on fire,” I muttered darkly.

“Well, we didn’t know that, and your door was hanging wide open, so…” he shrugged.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“So you just decided to come in without my explicit permission?” I
asked, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring at the man.

“Jesus Christ. Ridley, where the fuck are
you?” Downy, my brother, yelled from somewhere beyond the kitchen.

“I’m in the kitchen,” I called loudly. “And stop calling me Ridley! My name is fucking Aspen! Use it!”

I hated being called Ridley. By him, most of all.

My name was Aspen Ridley Crew, and ever since I could remember, he’d called me Ridley. I don’t know why, and I could never get him to tell me. Yet, it was incredibly annoying. No one called me Ridley. I didn’t even like the name Ridley.

“What the fuck are you doing in your underwear?” Downy snapped the moment he saw me.

“Well,” I gestured to the room and people around me. “I was by myself up until about thirty seconds ago, so I don’t know why I wouldn’t be in my underwear if I was in my own goddamned house!”

Downy frowned. “Why are you so mad at me?”

I narrowed my eyes.

“Gee, I don’t know,” I drawled. “How about you don’t ever stop by? Or how about the fact that you only come by when you need something, or I’m potentially burning to death?”

His eyes narrowed.

“And you’re half the reason I’m stuck in this hell hole in the first place,” I muttered darkly, pushing in between him and my new neighbor. “Go home.”

Downy followed me.

“Your ass is hanging out of those,” he muttered. “And why can’t you ever do anything right?” he asked. “I tried really hard to only get you house arrest. Do you know what could have happened for assaulting a police officer?” He continued. “You could’ve gone to jail. Not to mention the man’s my friend. How does it look to have your sister beat the shit out of your friend?”

I turned around and stared at him incredulously.

“You got the fact that Danny cheated on me, right?” I
asked.

He frowned.

“He was with a female officer, and they weren’t fucking. They were working,” he countered.

I laughed then.

“Yeah,” I said. “That female officer was fucking my fiancé. On duty. What would you have done if you’d walked up on Memphis fucking Nico?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “First of all, Nico has a wife. Second of all, don’t bring my wife into this. She would never cheat on me. She’s too good of a woman to do so. You must’ve done something…”