Page 24

Chapter Twenty-Three

Jax

“I ’ll see you around.” I smirked, leaning down into the convertible car, pressing my lips against the sticky, glossed lips of the girl.

“Sure thing, sugar,” she purred, sending me a wink.

She started her engine and the little, impractical thing surged down the road, bumping at every small rock on the path and into the distance.

I tucked my hands into the pockets of my jeans, not bothering to see her off and turned toward the house. A heavy sigh sank from my lips as I looked up at the big stone building, complete with its marble columns and elaborate brick work and water fountain. It stuck out like a sore thumb compared the beautiful gold and green fields and the quaint little barn house surrounded by the lush jade evergreens hugging it from behind. I’d preferred that kind of house.

One where the floor boards would creak as it welcomed you home. Where the old door sat propped open most of the day like it was always inviting you in. And the long billowing curtains that were always pulled outside by the wind, as if waving to you from afar. That kind of house, compared to the cold marble floors, empty corridors, and pristine décor was like an unchanging magazine cover. Just a facade—

The screech had my heart leaping from my chest as I spun hot on my heels to see the cloud of dirt and dust sputtering into the air. “What the—”

“Hey, you bitch!” my fling yelled. “You almost damaged my car!”

I grumbled under my breath as the dust started to clear and a figure standing in front of the hood of the car came into view. “Oh shit….” I saw Ronnie’s wild brown hair, and hands pressed out on the hood where she had reached out to stop it from hitting her.

All the memories of my other flings came to mind. Specifically, the moments when they met Ronnie. And despite it belonging to my family, Ronnie didn’t like girls coming onto her turf. Even more so when they thought they might pick a fight with the innocent, virgin girl who dogged me around everywhere.

My feet were already jogging over to the scene, ready to tackle the wild beast before she could get a handful of extensions to add to her trophy collection. “Ronn—”

“Sorry.” Ronnie’s quick apology had me almost crashing into the side of the car. My eyes went wide, and my breath caught in my throat as I tried to comprehend what had just happened.

Did Ronnie just… apologize?

“Do you think ‘sorry’ is enough, you brat!” the girl screeched, kicking open her door and pushing around the side of the vehicle, stepping into Ronnie’s face.

“Sorry,” Ronnie grumbled, ignoring the girl’s challenge, choosing to cut around her and instead began walking around the car.

She skittered away with her brown hair falling in front of her face, eyes downcast to the ground before the girl could get a hold of her. “Ungrateful brat,” the girl tutted before inspecting her car. “Daddy will go crazy if I damaged it.”

I ignored her.

My eyes trailed to the little anomaly dashing over toward her old creaky house before she bypassed it and headed for the woods behind it.

I frowned.

What—

A second, loud beep had me jumping again as I turned to see the car had disappeared from beside me and moved to the entrance/exit of the drive. A group of boys were laughing and pointing in the direction of the house, shoving and pushing at each other like a pack of hyenas.

My frown deepened.

I sent a glare to the boys hanging at the front, and catching the look, they sent me defensive ones back, but cleared the area and scrambled away. The rich girl, whatever her name was, blew me a kiss, as if I did it for her, before she pulled out the drive and disappeared down the road.

My feet carried me down the path of invisible footsteps until the dirt road turned to a bed of green and brown pine needles crunching under my feet. It didn’t take long before I found the big white rock that sat at the edge of the tree line and overlooked the cliff face.

I observed for a moment, brown hair draped around her face, knees tucked under her chin, and the quiver to her shoulders.

“Don’t tell me you’re crying?” I grumbled, stepping out into view.

Her hair flung into the air as she snapped her gaze to face me. Her little red eyes were swollen and puffed with her unshed tears, the brightest parts of her green irises shiny and glossed with moisture.

“Don’t be silly.” Ronnie sniffed, tugging on her sleeve as she shoved the material against her eyes and scrubbed so hard I was surprised she had any skin left. “I wasn’t crying.”

“Hmm…,” I grumbled. “Are you sure?” I dropped my shoulders until I teetered into her line of sight from her little rock. She tried to avoid eye contact, but I followed her gaze until she got fed up and fixed me with her stubborn glare. “Ah! There you are.”

“Who do you think you are? My dad?” she hissed. “Stop acting so stupid. I’m not six anymore.”

“Six? Fifteen? Does it make that much of a difference?” I shrugged.

“I’m sixteen.” She glared, shrugging her shoulders with that teenager attitude we all knew and loved.

“Ah, I see.” I nodded. “Well, I don’t actually. You haven’t really changed. You still look six to me.”

Ronnie rolled her eyes, and it was at that point, I noticed the black smudges under her eyes.

“What in God’s name are you wearing on your face?” I grunted, grabbing her by the chin to turn her face to me. The dark smudges of mascara smeared under her eyelashes with some of it clumped on her lashes in uneven streaks.

Ronnie tore her chin from my hand, her warm skin replaced by the dry heat, as she went back to scrubbing off her face. “It doesn’t matter.”

Ah. That’s why the boys were there. They were making fun of her.

“You shouldn’t wear makeup. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Thanks for joining the majority opinion,” she hissed, turning her body away from me.

“Hey!” I grabbed her by the knee and moving her with ease back to facing me. “Don’t give me that kind of attitude.”

“Like I said,” Ronnie hissed. “Stop acting like my dad.”

I growled. If I could throw this girl from this cliff….

“Look,” I sighed. “Girls only wear makeup because they want to attract boys who are into that kind of shit. You don’t need to be trying to get fellas like that.”

“You hypocrite,” she grumbled. “You like those kinds of girls. Even though that girl who just left was a total cake face.”

“Yeah, and you don’t need a fella like me.” I pocketed my hands. Even I knew what a piece of shit I was to girls. The amount of hearts I broke wasn’t news to me. I just wished I cared. Which I didn’t. And neither did the other guys who were like me.

“I don’t care,” Ronnie argued back. “I’ll like whoever I want to like…” Ronnie’s face dropped down to glare at the ground, and I almost missed the quiet follow up. “…even if they’re exactly like you.”

I felt the realization dawn on me and it all made sense.

“Don’t tell me…,” I groaned, my hand rubbing down the length of my face. “You still haven’t gotten over your crush on me?”

“On you?” Ronnie gasped, her face glowing bright red as she tried to look everywhere but my face. “O-Of course I have! I’m not a little kid anymore. And besides, who would want you? I like someone else.”

“Someone else, huh?” I raised my brow. “Somehow I don’t believe you.”

“Well, believe me.” She turned to fix me with a pointed, determined glare. “I. Don’t. Like. You.”

I sighed, dropping onto the rock next to her. “I liked it better when you were honest and admitted it when you liked me or when you were crying….”

“I told you!” Ronnie snapped. “I wasn’t crying.”

“Your red eyes tell me otherwise.”

“It’s hot! I’m just flushed!”

I scoffed. “At least you still use the same excuses.”

“I do not!”

“Do,” I retorted.

“Do not!”

* * *

“…D o,” I looked down at the black screen of the cell phone in my hands.

“What did you say?” Hunter threw me a confused look, sitting down at the creaking office chair. The thing cried under the huge man’s mass, too small and cheap to hold his weight.

“Doesn’t matter.” I shrugged, leaning into the plush waiting chair propped against the small office wall. You could see clearly into the workshop through the glass behind my head, but it was double-glazed so they couldn’t see back in. It made this an even more convenient place to have this discussion.

“What are you going to do?” Hunter gestured down to the white cell flipping between my fingers.

I looked down at the foreign thing, as if I didn’t know what a cell was, nor what it did. But I did know. Even if I wanted to pretend I didn’t. This wasn’t just another object or trinket. This was a cell phone. One that had been tucked away in the pocket of her duffle bag.

In the draw Ronnie had shoved closed from me the second she felt my presence. The image of her puffed eyes and wet cheeks overlaid my vision and a deep, defeating sigh fell from my chest.

“I don’t know…,” I slid my thumb over the warm screen. “Maybe it’s just a spare one. It’s not like we have just one phone either. Lamb, for sure, has dozens.”

“You don’t believe that.” Hunter sighed, green eyes seeing right through me.

“How else do I explain the burner that only has our numbers on it? Or the expensive smart phone is hidden in a drawer, turned off, and buried under her underwear,” I growled, placing the thing on the desk between us. “No matter how you look at it, I can’t find a good excuse for her.”

“It’s suspicious,” Hunter grunted in agreement.

“Every instinct inside me is screaming that something is up. Something happened… and I’m not just talking about the accident.” My hands fumbled with each other, the pressure of my thumb buried into my palm growing with my anxiety.

“You said you didn’t care about her past.” Hunter sighed, sitting upright in his seat, forearms pressing against the wooden bench. “You didn’t want to know.”

“I know.” I winced, the pain of my words like a physical punch to my chest. The ache of the conflict of emotions was ragging turmoil inside of me.

Even driving in circles to and from town couldn’t handle the building unease in my chest since I’d found that thing. I’d managed to get through church, but it didn’t take long for Hunter to drag me down to his garage. He didn’t even have to force it out of me. I spilled everything about Ronnie’s phone and her reaction and the other thing I had found tucked at the bottom of the drawer.

“But the ring….”

Hunter winced. The stoic man didn’t always show much emotional diversity on his face except around his wife, nephew, and daughter. So whatever expression had been on my face, must have been a severe one to cause such a reaction.

He didn’t respond with words, or anything of comfort, because we both knew what was up with that ring. No matter how long I had been trying to push down the brewing thoughts since the second I laid eyes on the grown Veronica Marsh, I couldn’t hold them back any longer.

The way she had changed. Her attitude. Her looks. Her words. Something had changed her. Someone had changed her.

I thought about the gold band that had slipped free when I had reached in for the phone. My whole world felt like it had come to a stop. The clatter of it against the bottom of the wooden drawer still ringing in the back of my mind.

Everything I pretended not to notice about Ronnie had all made sense in that moment. Everything I pretended not to see had become so crystal clear.

“She got married.” The words felt alien out of my mouth. The image of Ronnie walking down an aisle, wearing a white gown and going to bed with another man… it was too surreal.

“You know that’s not the end of it, Jax,” Hunter frowned with his heavy brows. The shit light of the office made his face shadowed and harsh, reprimanding me without words. “You’ve got the best eyes in the club; don’t tell me you haven’t seen it.”

“I didn’t know you thought my eyes were so pretty.” I smirked, but Hunter’s frown deepened, and the false smile fell from my face.

“It’s not hard to see the kind of life that girl’s been living. All the brothers don’t know her like you do. Didn’t know her when she was younger. But it’s easy to see that she had been through something long in the making before the accident.”

“But—”

Hunter shook his head, rising from his chair. The thing breathed a loud, creaking noise in relief, but it was drowned out as Hunter came to tower over me. He grabbed me by the lapel of my shirt, dragging me to my feet. I couldn’t stop him if I wanted to.

“Life’s full of shit we don’t want to do, Jax. But if you want to move forward with her, there’s no use pretending her past didn’t happen. You can’t accept only who she is now. You need to accept her past too. Don’t be a coward.”

Hunter let go, and my heels hit the floor hard, a shock jerking all the way up to my knees and hips. My body lost balance and my ass landed into the plush chair with an oomph .

“What about waiting for her to tell me herself?”

Hunter’s dark expression sobered into one of distance and pain. He stared out the window just above my head, but I knew he wasn’t really looking at the garage. He was looking at the ruby-red bike parked in the second bay, covered in a dust sheet. “In our life, waiting ain’t worth the time you’ll lose.”

Hunter sat back down in the chair, and silence cascaded down between us. It wasn’t heavy or angry. It was clear.

“Thanks, brother.” I smiled, reaching down into the pocket of my jeans and pulling out my own cell phone.

Hunter’s chin jerked in response just as I landed on the name I wanted to see. It rang once before Lamb’s cocky voice appeared on the other end. “What you need?”

“A favor.”