Page 15 of Deception (Deranged Drifters MC #22)
Chapter Fifteen
Griffin’s Beach Rocco
“ R occo, why are there plates on the table?” Autumn calls out.
“Because we’re going to eat dinner,” Rocco answers from the office.
When he walks out, he finds her with her arms crossed over her chest as she tilts her head in annoyance. “There are four place settings.”
“We’re having company.”
Her eyes narrow, and he knows this probably isn’t a good idea. In fact, he’s certain this was a bad idea. “Who’s coming over?”
There was no way he could get Autumn to agree to what he wanted to do, and the doorbell rings out before he has to explain it. “It’s time to make amends.”
Her hand reaches for his wrist to stop him from opening the door, but she fails, and he opens the door.
“Hey, guys. Come in.”
“Thanks for the invite,” Colt says and gives a respectful nod to Autumn. “How’s it going?”
Lex holds a bottle of wine out to Autumn. “This is still your favorite, right?”
“Yeah,” Autumn says, snatching it from her hands. “Thanks.”
There’s no attempt to hide her hostility, and Lex just lifts her eyebrows when Autumn storms into the kitchen. “Well… this should be fun.”
“What’s for dinner?” Colt asks. “We’re starved.”
“Yeah, we’ve been looking forward to this all day,” Lex agrees. “Cooking or ordering?”
Whipping around, Rocco holds his breath when Autumn glares at the blonde. “Are you trying to say that if I don’t cook for guests that I’m somehow a lesser host than you are?”
“No, I was asking because if you were cooking, I’d offer to help. It’s kind of hard to help with the cooking if it’s ordered.”
One of the few things Rocco admires about Lex is her ability to handle hostility without reciprocating right away. Her brother definitely conditioned her to hone in on that skill. If Rocco was in her shoes right now, he would have bitten back. Hell, he’s tempted to, anyway.
“Well, I didn’t know we were having company, so I’m in charge of the menu,” Autumn says and glares at him.
“For all I knew, the two extra plates could have been for club bunnies since he likes to fuck them behind my back. Which isn’t all that different from inviting my ex-friends over as a fun little surprise. ”
Closing his eyes, Rocco sighs. “Autumn…”
“I’m not really hungry, so I’m going to get out of your hair. You three have a great night.”
She storms out, and when Rocco opens his eyes, Lex stares at him with arms crossed. “Don’t even start, Alexis.”
“But there are so many things to say right night now,” she says and forces a smile. “First, you didn’t think it would be a good idea to give her a heads-up we’d be here? No wonder she got hostile. You blindsided her.”
“Because she doesn’t want to be your friend,” he snaps back. “If I’d told her what was happening, she would’ve been gone before you even arrived.”
“Then why invite us?”
Breathing deeply, he tries to calm himself. “Because I think Colt was right when he said Autumn was outside the circle, and I want her back in.”
“Well, top tip: Fucking club bunnies probably doesn’t help,” she says. “I still can’t believe she’s stuck around after catching you more than once.”
“Because she loves me,” he bites.
Her hands lift in the air as she takes a seat at the table. Colt glares at him, but he doesn’t say a word. He knows better than most that his wife can more than handle herself.
The doorbell rings again, and Rocco goes to get the pizza he ordered. It seemed like a safe option, and he still has to feed his guests. Even if he wishes the curly blonde would go fuck off.
“Pizza sounds good,” Lex says. “Autumn will be upset she missed this.”
“Why?”
“She loves pizza. Probably her favorite food.”
Frowning, he shakes his head and sets the boxes down. “No, she loves Chinese food.”
“Because you love Chinese food,” she says and takes a slice to put on her plate. “You’re not a big fan of pizza, which I never quite understood. I think you might low-key be a serial killer. Anyway, she adjusted. For you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Alexis?”
“Well, Rocco ,” she says with a glare, “it means that Autumn loves you enough to change and accommodate you.”
Tapping his fingers on the table, he clenches his jaw as he speaks through his teeth. “Marriage?”
“She’s talked about her wedding since we were in the second grade. You will never get married, and she… adjusted. For you. She loves you enough to give up things, but you’ve never quite met her on that same level.”
“You think I should propose and sacrifice my own freedom just to make her happy?”
This dinner was nothing but a gigantic mistake. Lex will never stop being the world’s biggest bitch.
“Why is it sacrificing your freedom?” Colt asks and takes a bite of the slice he takes from the top box. “Is that why you were out fucking bunnies?”
Calm down, Rocco. Freaking out will get no one anywhere right now.
“Autumn and I had a few problems, and I found what she stopped offering elsewhere. Kind of like you and Diane, but I regret it. The moment I saw her face when she walked in on us, I regretted it.”
“I never fucked Diane,” Colt growls.
“I thought you just had a problem with strippers,” Lex says and picks a pepperoni from the cheese of her slice. “Stripper glitter and all that.”
Licking his lips, Rocco nods and grabs food from the smaller box he ordered for himself. He doesn’t like pizza sauce, so the only acceptable option is chicken Alfredo. “Yeah, I guess I’m not one to be tied down.”
“Then why don’t you let her go?” Colt asks. “She wants something you can’t give her, and she obviously isn’t giving you what you want to stay faithful to her. Why not just go your separate ways and find what makes you truly happy?”
“Because I love her!”
“Not enough to keep it in your pants,” Lex mumbles.
He slams his fist on the table. “Or maybe if you weren’t such a bitch, Autumn would be more willing to be your friend again.”
“Yeah, maybe,” she says with another shrug and picks another pepperoni from her pizza.
“Watch your mouth,” Colt warns.
The way he glares makes Rocco a little happy that a table sits between them. It won’t keep him silent, but at least he’s not within arm’s length to take a hit.
“I’m just saying that there might be more of an incentive to repair the friendship if Lex wasn’t—”
“I swear to God, I will break your fucking jaw if you call her a bitch again,” Colt cuts him off. “You think she’s a bitch? Because she can be. She can ruin your entire relationship with just one word.”
He laughs and looks at Lex. “Yeah? And what would that be?”
“Vicky.”
His face pales. “That’s not funny.”
“If you read what she wrote about you, you might think differently,” Lex says and chuckles. “Actually, you probably wouldn’t.”
“What she wrote?”
“Ky’s not the only one she outed in her diaries.”
Rocco hasn’t thought about Vicky in years. And he didn’t think anyone would ever know he slept with her in high school. After she died, he thought the secret died with her.
“She lied—”
“Don’t even try,” Lex says and smiles. “There’s no reason she would have. They were her diaries, after all. She never expected others to read them.”
“What’d she write?”
Vicky never told him what she thought of him in bed, and it gnaws at him. Especially since Lex knows and shouldn’t. He also wants to know how badly Autumn will react when Lex inevitably tells her.
Shrugging, Lex continues to pick the pepperoni from the pizza. Not eating the crust would normally drive Rocco insane, but he’s too distracted by the knowledge that Lex knows he cheated on Autumn with Vicky in high school.
“Wait, how long have you known?”
“Since Lane’s funeral. Felicity showed me something else Vicky wrote, and I read about your sexual encounter. There’s another Drifter from our class she was with. Gave him an incredibly favorable critique.”
“F-Felicity knows, too?”
“It’d be kind of hard for her not to when she’s read them.”
His stomach drops. “How many people know?”
“Enough,” Colt says, his tone angry. “Lex could have completely ruined you over a year ago, but she didn’t. Now, I think you owe her an apology for calling her a bitch.”
“Why didn’t you?” Rocco asks, no longer caring about his best friend.
Lex stares at him and sighs. “Because it would devastate Autumn. Felicity wanted to tell her, but I said to leave it in the past. There’s no reason she needs to know now.”
“What do you need to keep this to yourself?”
Whatever she says, he’ll do. Hell, he’ll find a way to lasso the moon and bring it to her if that’s what she wants. Whatever it takes to keep her mouth shut, he’ll do it.
“I’ve already kept it to myself,” she says. “I have no intention of telling her. The last thing I want to do is to be the person who tells her she settled for nothing.”
“Settled?”
She licks the grease from her fingers and stares at him. “You both have. But it’s your relationship.”
“If you two were still friends, and she came to you for advice about what to do because she’s unhappy with our relationship, what would you tell her?”
Rocco doesn’t know why he wants to know. Lex’s opinion hasn’t mattered to him in years, but he can’t stop himself. He needs to hear what she has to say.
“I’d tell her that she needs to follow her heart. My opinion got her pissed at me. She didn’t tell me when she earned herself a stalker, and then he almost killed Colt. You can say I learned my lesson with her.”
“I’m sorry I called you a bitch.”
Laughing, she wipes her hands and stands. “No, you’re not. But I’ll take it.”
“Thanks for being willing to try,” he says honestly and stands. “Sorry it didn’t work out.”
“At least we’re putting forth the effort. If she still pushes away, we know we did what we could.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
He walks them to the door, and Lex turns to look at him. “If she asks, can you tell her that I miss my friend? I know we can’t go back, but I’d like to try and move forward. There’s too much history to just throw away.”
Nodding, Rocco sighs. “I will.”
The couple leaves, and he can’t help but feel unsettled. Not because Lex knows about Vicky but because he feels maybe his view on things has been wrong for years. Worse, he realizes that maybe Lex isn’t as terrible as he made her out to be.
“Damn it,” he mutters and begins to clean up the pizza.