Dirty Secret: A Bad Boy Romance (Bluefield Bad Boys Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

was when it hit me, a suffocating feeling that made it seem as if the walls, the roof and the ground beneath my feet were all turning in on me. It was something that I knew Kellan had dealt with many times, even if he didn’t talk about it much. But it had never swallowed me before. I froze and waited for my heart rate to slow. Instead, it seemed to be charging off in every direction as if jolts of electricity were pulsing through my veins. My skin prickled as if cold, clammy fingers were poking at it, and the egg sandwich I’d shoveled down for breakfast was threatening to launch back out of my stomach. My recurrent nightmare was coming back to me in one epic long flash.
    “Dawz? Hey, Dawson.” Kellan’s voice snapped me back from the darkness that was pulling sharply at my confidence. “You all right?”
    I nodded but couldn’t pull up an answer.
    The light on Kellan’s cap shouted at me like the angry light the cops shined at you when you were screwing around in the backseat of a car. “Dawz, get a grip. We need—”
    It was all I needed to push me off a cliff that I’d had no idea I was standing on. The pressure, the looming threat of being swallowed by the earth, flattened beneath the fossilized remains of a tree, had gotten to me, and there was only one, unsuspecting target in my path.
    “Fuck you, Braddock. You think just cuz you’re a fucking pretty boy, you can be the only one who crumbles down here? Got news for you, bro, we’re all in fucking danger down here.”
    Kellan’s jaw clenched, and his face pulled tight beneath the small brim of his yellow cap, a cap that might stop a small avalanche of debris from killing you but that was otherwise comical safety gear for a kettle bottom. My partner and best friend didn’t say a word as he started the drill and pressed it into the rock ceiling above our heads.
    The twist in my mind slowly unraveled as we finished securing the steel strap and the rest of the roof. Kellan and I worked in our chalk dusted tomb without a word to each other. I knew I’d stepped over a line in our friendship, a line that should never have been crossed. It had been the tension of the moment.
    With the last bolt of the morning set, we crawled out from the mined out section and stretched our legs for the first time in two hours. Kellan walked ahead of me toward the cross entry, a passageway that would take us to the underground station for break.
    “Look, Kellan, I lost my cool—”
    Kellan spun around as if he was in the fight ring. He looked angrier than I’d ever seen him. My helmet clinked against the solid ribs of the mine as he pushed me up against the cross entry wall. He jammed his forearm against my neck. Of the three of us, Kellan, Tommy and me, Kellan was the smallest, but he was still tough as fucking iron, especially when he was pissed. And he was definitely pissed. I could have fought back, but I didn’t need to. I was getting what I deserved.
    “Lost your cool? Yeah, I’d say you lost it. Don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you, but we’ve always got each other’s backs down here, remember? Whatever the hell is bothering you, deal with it. Just don’t fucking take it out on me.” He shoved his arm harder against my neck, temporarily choking off my air. But I didn’t smack his arm away. I stared down into his angry face and waited for him to back off. Which he did.
    Kellan pulled away his arm and headed toward the break station without another word.

Chapter 4
    Lenix
    “Hey, Lennie, grab me the rest of that chicken out of the fridge while you’re snooping around in there,” Duff called to me over the kitchen island.
    Duff, our keyboardist and, more importantly, our primary composer, was the quiet member of the group. When he wasn’t tapping out tunes on his piano, he was reading or playing video games. He was tall and thin, like a stick figure with shaggy black hair, and for the most part, he was the complete opposite of Brick when it came to