by Huss, JA
Silence.
“Ronin?”
But the phone beeps three times and the connection is lost.
Chapter Five - Veronica
“He left you like that?” Rook says with shocked surprise.
“Yeah, can you believe the nerve of him? Got me all worked up, came on my leg, and then zipped me back up tight like he was wrapping a present to save for later.”
“What a fucking asshole!” Rook is always on my side. I love her. “But like, what did he say? I mean, didn’t you stop him and be all, ‘What the fuck, dude?’”
I crack the window, pull out my e-cig and start puffing away. “Oh, you know. The usual caveman bullshit he always pulls.”
“Pfft. Yeah, Ronin tries that shit too. I’m like, No.”
“Oh, I love the caveman bullshit, actually.”
Rook takes her eyes off the road and looks over at me. “You do?”
“Oh, fuck yeah. Spencer is one hundred percent caveman. So he was all, ‘I’m the motherfucking boss of you, Bombshell.’ And I was all—well, I was actually stunned silent that he was gonna leave me hanging.” I take a puff and blow out a stream of vapor, making little smoke rings as I do it. “So I sorta just agreed with him.”
“What? Veronica, don’t let him walk all over you like that. God, Spencer, I dunno. He’s hot and all but Ronin and I are like… partners. Spencer is too intense for me. He’s bossy and… and intense. I would not be able to handle him.”
I sigh. “God, why do I love that man so much, Rook? I don’t get it. He treats me like total shit. Like I’m garbage. And still, I’m practically wetting myself whenever he touches me.” I puff and pout for a few seconds. “It’s like I lose all control when I’m near him.”
She turns the truck onto Spencer’s private road, which he even named after me back when we first started dating. He lives on Bombs-A Way. It took months of paperwork and I have no idea how much it cost, but sure as shit, that’s what the road is now called. It used to be Private Road 13, so Bombs-A Way is much better. And cuter.
“Why is he so confusing, Rook? I just don’t understand him at all. I need to get away from him. Maybe I’ll move to Denver when you go home.” The thought of Rook leaving me is upsetting all of a sudden. “Are you guys moving back when the season’s over? Or you gonna move to Boulder for school? Maybe I’ll go to Boulder with you.”
Rook sighs deeply. “I dunno about school, Ronnie. I sorta suck at like—all of it.” She stops to laugh a little so instead of getting concerned that her dream of film school is going down the tubes, I relax and just listen to her problems for a change. “I mean, film school still sounds fun and all. I’d still like to do something related to movies. But I’m just not into the bullshit classes I have to take in order to get that piece of paper. I mean, I have that cool camera Ronin got me for my birthday. And I have a ton of money. Why can’t I just start making movies? Why do I need to go to school to make movies? I know what I like to watch and those movies aren’t bizarre artsy fucking bullshit. They’re popular films that make millions. So can’t I just make movies I like until I get good enough for people to take notice?”
I puff and ponder.
“Be serious with me now, Ronnie. Do you think you need an art degree to do what you’re doing?”
I cough on the nonexistent smoke in my lungs. “To be a tattoo artist? I dunno.” I shrug. “I was always an artist. Generally people who want to go to art school are already artists. They do it to make their parents feel better about their career choice. But in my case, I think I just wanted to prove that I was smart enough, ya know? Like I’m just as good as all those kids at CSU, even though I’m a Vaughn.”
“Exactly!” Rook squeals as we pull into Spencer’s driveway. “I think I just want the degree to prove I’m not trash. And back when Spencer was body-painting me he told me something. Something like—painting naked girls is his one true talent. The one thing he was born to do, the one gift he was given at birth. He said he did an internship with a famous painter or something, but basically he said he just knew how to do it. That’s sorta how I feel about movies. I can make movies, I just know it. But what I can’t do is college algebra.”
I laugh at that. “I had a tutor. I’m not a math girl either.”
She shakes her head and laughs with me. “Yeah, well, Ford’s been busy with his new life and I’m too afraid to get another tutor after what happened with the last one.”
Rook’s math tutor last semester ratted her out to all kinds of bad people. Of course, he didn’t understand he was helping the bad guys, but it’s hard to let that shit go if you’re the one on the receiving end of a plot to kidnap you and sell you to a Columbian drug lord.
“Hey, how come Ashleigh didn’t come, anyway? I thought you said she was coming?”
“Oh, baby Kate was fussy. She’s teething and stuff. Six months is a hard age. They start getting opinionated and demanding. Getting ready to crawl and assert some independence.”
Rook says all that like she’s a fucking pediatrician. I bet she read all those mother-to-be books back when she was pregnant, before she lost her baby to a terrible accident.
Rook parks the truck in front of the carport and shuts it off.
“Does it make you feel sad? When you watch Ford and Ashleigh with Kate?”
She looks out the window for a few seconds. You can see the river in the winter because all the trees are bare. And there are a few deer over there looking for food. “You know,” she starts softly. “It sorta does. And not just in the obvious ways. Ford and I are good friends. And Ashleigh is perfect for him. But we’re not as close as we were. And the baby. God.” She stops again and I’m tempted to change the subject so she won’t have to face these feels. But she continues before I can do that. “Kate’s so beautiful, ya know?”
Rook looks over to me now, all sad and shit. I nod. “Yeah,” I say back just a softly. “She’s very adorable.”
“I’m going to the doctor after this,” Rook blurts out suddenly.
“How come?”
“That was my excuse to get rid of the camera crew, but also—” She looks over at me, and for a moment I get the feeling she’s afraid to tell me something.
“What? What is it?”
“I’m gonna have them remove my birth control implant.”
“Yeah?” I smile big and lean over to hug her. “So—moving on?”
She shrugs. “I just look at Ashleigh and I’m a little bit jealous.”
“Wait. You’re jealous of Ashleigh? Why? Shit, Rook, from my end, you have the perfect life. Ashleigh’s life is pretty good too, I guess. She’s married and happy. Got the kid, the house, and the dogs, even if they are certified weapons. But you’ve got everything she has, plus you’re you. There’s no other Rooks in the world. I’d switch with you any day.”
“What? Seriously, Veronica. Look at you. Your man calls you Bombshell for a reason.” Rook laughs.
“Maybe. Except he’s not my man. Is he? He obviously thinks I’m some sort of throwaway trash from the way he treated me this morning. And it’s not anything he said, it’s just—the way he walked away like it was nothing.” Rook just stares at me, unsure of what to say. And that’s the problem, there’s nothing to say about it. Not really. It happened. He did it. “He thinks I’m nothing. So maybe it’s time for me to walk away and think of him as nothing?”
She gives me a crooked smile as she shakes her head. “So that’s why you’ve gone to all this trouble to get a Shrike Bike, you’re wearing his leather jacket, and you took the job as his personal assistant? Not likely, Veronica.”
And she’s right. What the fuck am I doing? I’m just playing right into his hands.
I open the door and jump out, grabbing my pack and hucking it over my shoulder. “You said you had a helmet I could use?”
Rook gets out her side and meets me at the bike. “Yeah, it’s down in my apartment. Come on, we’ll go get it.”
She keys the code on the door and
it reminds me of the last time I was here. “Did you know Ford spent the afternoon with me on Christmas Eve?” I ask as the door clicks open.
She walks through the door into the kitchen and I follow her in. “This last Christmas? Really? He never said anything to me, and I talked to him on the phone that night.”
“Yeah, he caught me coming out of Anna Ameci’s with Carson, back when I had that one date with him. And he wanted to show me Spencer’s office, to try to convince me that Spencer still cares.”
Rook stops dead and I slam into her back before she turns around. “You were dating Carson?”
“Just that one time,” I laugh. “I figured I needed to put Spencer behind me, right? And I wanted a guy who was like the complete opposite. Carson sorta fits that bill, right?”
“Well, uh, yeah. I guess. But it’s a little overkill, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, well, Ford, he’s the perfect anti-Spencer. So seeing him that night—all nerdy and shit—I realized Carson was just a dweeb. Plus Ford showed me Spencer’s office. Have you ever been in there?”
“No, what’s in there?”
I walk off towards the hallway, then turn around and beckon her. “Follow me and I’ll show you.”
“I don’t have the code for the office, Ronnie.”
“That’s OK, I do. I watched Ford when he opened the door that afternoon. And normally I’d never remember a six-digit code, but this one is hard to forget.”
“Why?” she says as I stop at the office and key in the code for the electric locking mechanism.
“Because it spells Ronnie.”
I open the door and flick on the lights and she gasps, just like I did back in December when Ford was the one flicking on the lights.
“What the hell is this?” Rook asks as she makes a full three-sixty to take in the room.
“I have no fucking idea, Rook. That’s what makes him all the more confusing. Ford said they call it the Ronnie Shrine and even though that might be a little bit flattering, it’s verging on creepy for me. I mean, if we were together, then yeah. I’d like my man to have his office walls filled up with photographs of me naked and done up in these body paint costumes.”
It thrills me that he looks at me like this when he’s in here, and I’m a little bit uneasy about that thrill. Because there’s not just one image. But six of them. All me painted up to look like different things.
She walks over to the cyborg image and her fingers reach up to touch it. “I was the cyborg too,” she says softly. “God, I have to admit, Ronnie. I know he’s your guy and it’s probably weird that he painted me in all the same outfits as you, but that was the best summer of my life.”
I sigh. “No, I totally get it. Because those two years he was painting me up instead of you—well, those were the best two years of my life as well. And I miss them. I miss him so very badly, Rook. It makes my heart hurt, ya know?”
She comes over and pulls me into a hug. “I know. But Veronica, surely this is a good sign. He has to love you, bitch.”
I chuckle against her and then she joins in.
“He has to love you. You can’t even see your tits or pussy in these pictures, they’re covered in paint. He has them on the wall because he wants to be surrounded by you. If he just wanted pictures of his work on the walls, Ronnie, he could’ve put me up there, because all those photos were taken by Antoine, they’re stunning. And if he just wanted naked girls, he’d plaster porn up there.”
She’s right, but when I look back up at the images, instead of feeling better, I feel worse. I’m almost overwhelmed with the memories as they flood in…
Chapter Six - Veronica
Three Years Ago—Bellvue Farm
“Come here,” Spencer says seductively as he reaches out for me. “I want to show you something, Bomb.”
I place my hand in his as he holds the screen door open for me. I walk through and we descend down the front steps of the old farmhouse and start walking across the grass. We’ve only been dating a week, and even though I’ve been at his house almost every day, we’ve never been back in the shop.
But that’s where he takes me now, and it’s got my stomach all twisted up. Not because I’m nervous or anything. It’s because I’m half a step behind him, so every few paces, his head turns and he flashes me this oh so fucking sexy grin. It even comes with a twinkle.
A few paces on he does it again, like he’s a boy with a secret. And while I might not know exactly what that secret is, I do know what it’s about. Sex.
Because Spencer fucking Shrike is nothing but sex. One hundred percent sex, one hundred percent of the time.
“Are you nervous, Bombshell?”
“No,” I lie.
He chuckles as we reach the shop door. “Maybe you should be?” He stops here and pulls my face to his, his lips gently caressing mine for a second, then his tongue takes over and I almost melt right there in the driveway. I even have a flash of concern that I’ll fall and skin my knees on the gravel.
But then his strong arms wrap me up and hold me steady as he whispers in my ear. “I want to show you something, OK?”
I nod, because I lose all control around him. I’d agree to just about anything.
“You ready?”
“Yes,” I whisper back.
He smiles and opens the door, waving me in.
I look around expectantly, waiting for something to happen, or at the very least for something to be different. But it looks the same as it did last week. Bikes. Some complete, like the Blackbird. Some in process, like the knockoff of the Blackbird he’s building as his first custom Shrike Bike.
It smells like a garage, like all garages smell. It smells like home to me, because my gramps, my dad, and all my brothers are bike mechanics as well as tattoo artists.
Spencer closes the door quietly and then tugs me off towards a dark hallway off to the left. “This way, Bomb. I’ve got a surprise.”
My stomach flips again. “What kind of surprise?” I ask, more curious than afraid. But I am a little bit afraid. It’s dark in this hallway.
He stops at a door. “You’ll see, baby.” And then he takes his keys out of his pocket and unlocks the door, opening it wide enough for me to step through.
And I see the very last thing I ever expected to see.
On the far side of this drab prefabricated shop building is… something breathtakingly beautiful. A large glass-walled atrium filled with trees and plants, the air sweet with well-cultivated earth, young trees, and sunlight.
I walk forward into the room. “What’s this?” I ask, astonished, twirling in place for a moment, trying to get a three-sixty view of the place. “It’s like a greenhouse.”
“It is a greenhouse. Only… a fancy kind. I told you this was my gran’s place until I inherited it.” Spencer stops to take a deep breath. “My gran was a botanist before she married my gramps. He died a long time ago, left her a bunch of money. They lived down in Denver, in the house I grew up in. And after he died my gran came up here to the farm and dedicated her life to plants.”
When he looks back at me I’m smiling as I picture this. Our relationship is so new, I have no history on him yet. I know he’s the heir to Shrike Bikes. I know he was in some trouble last spring and he got kicked out of the University of Denver, that’s why he transferred up to CSU as a senior. I know he’s hot. He’s a bit on the controlling caveman side, and he’s a spectacular lover.
I look up at the dome ceiling and I’m blown.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” he asks, as he leads me to the center of the atrium, right underneath the geometric panes of glass that allow the sunlight to filter through and cover the ground in amazing patterns.
“What’s weird?” I ask, only half able to pay attention to his words.
“Dedicating your life to plants.”
This makes me look at him. “Is it? She must’ve loved plants, though, right? Like you love bikes and I love…” His eyes search mine for a few seconds and I’m su
ddenly completely off balance. I want to say art, but my mind says you.
He drops my hand and reaches out to touch the leaf on a nearby sapling. There are no fully mature trees in here, it’s far too small to house them. But there are plenty of young trees. Some almost as tall as the ceiling, which would be about twenty feet if I guess correctly. And one tree that is bigger than the rest, right in the center of the place, surrounded by the most perfect sea of grass I’ve ever seen.
“Aesculus glabra,” he says in a whisper.
I smile. Because seriously—Latin? This man is nothing but surprises. “What’s that mean?” I ask, mimicking his low voice.
“Ohio Buckeye.” He chuckles.
I study the trees more closely now, looking to see if they’re all the same. “They’re all buckeyes?” He nods. They have buckeye trees outside the student center on campus. That’s how I even know about these trees. “This one is too big to be in here,” I say as my eyes find the tallest tree and then travel all the way up to the ceiling where the branches are reaching for the sun. “What happens when it outgrows this room?”
When I look over at him, he’s studying me, tilting his head a little. “What do you think happens?” And then something changes in him. It’s small, not even something physical, but something… internal. Like my answer to this question is critical.
“There are only two options.”
He smiles and nods his head. But he stays silent.
“Cut down the tree or tear down the building,” I answer.
“Which do you think will happen?”
I look around at this beautiful place. The glass is a work of art in and of itself. They are not just rectangular panes, they are all different types of shapes. Triangles mostly, but some are square, some are circular, outlined by thick metal lines, similar to a stained-glass window, except all the glass is clear to allow the sun to shine through.
I look at all the rows and rows of potted plants, then a wall of hedges along one side of the room. My eyes take in the many saplings. Some are even out of the ground, their roots wrapped in burlap. Like they are waiting to be transplanted. There’s a system of pipes with spray nozzles over many of the benches holding seedlings, and there’s a workroom off to one side that looks like an office.