“You wouldn’t let me,” she said with confidence. And she was right, but I didn’t know if I could stop myself from touching her in any way that would not be classed inappropriate in her current condition.
Instead, throwing some bills down on to the table between us, I led her out of the diner and back towards the bench that we had occupied earlier.
“Hence waiting for your, Uber, Peaches.”
We sat in silence, waiting for my ride to turn up. It felt so easy to be open with this guy, this man, and I didn't know why that was. For the past couple of hours, I had spent with him well, it was the first time in forever that I'd actually felt like myself. Like I was an actual person and not someone's daughter or girlfriend. I was just me, Nala and I liked that. I enjoyed spending time with him.
Grabbing a pen out of his back pocket, he grabbed ahold of my hand and began to write on it. His touch was warm, sending tingles shooting over my entire body. God, I wanted those hands all over my body. Even though he was older, Jesus he was thirty-one years old. I should not be having thoughts like that about him. Even if it was what I wanted, what I craved.
"My number, if you need anything. Call me" unable to form any words, my eyes just stayed on my hand, the hand he was still holding in his "I mean it, even if it’s for a ride somewhere or to deal with that debatable boyfriend of yours."
Looking up into his translucent blue eyes, I couldn't understand why it felt like I could trust him. Why did I feel the safest I had ever felt in another person's presence like I did right now?
And why the hell was I kind of turned on by him?
I had never felt anything like this towards Brandon, and I had known him almost all of my life. Then this stranger on a motorcycle essentially crashes into my life, and I kind of want to jump his bones. Even if he was thirty-one. God, I was as bad as those girls in school with Mr. Bronx.
I had always thought that there was something wrong with me. I was not a bundle of hormones as my peers seemed to be. All they talked about half of the time was sex, and it hadn't interested me. Until now, apparently. He was thirteen years older than I was. It was wrong to be having any kind of feelings towards him. Wasn't it?
Who the hell was this guy, this man?
We continued to just stare into each other's eyes. Like they were magnets, unable to move. My body began to lean forwards ever so slightly as my phone made a noise. Making the both of us look down, breaking whatever connection we'd had. My Uber was almost here. Damn it.
Clearing his throat, he moved to sit slightly further back, putting distance between us at the same time as dropping my hand. "Remember, you will get through this, you can get through anything. You just gotta fight for it, Peaches," pulling out another cigarette, he hesitated to light it. "And let me know when you wanna go for that ride, okay?" He wanted to see me again, and I couldn't help the flutters that that thought alone brought.
Just as I was about to speak, a bright neon green car pulled up, my Uber.
Everything in me did not want to get in that car. No part of me wanted to go home to face my mom. The woman who had put me in the emergency room. How could she do that, to me?
Sensing my hesitation, he nudged my knee with his own as my ride honked the horn.
Staying on the bench, I could feel his eyes burning into my skin as I walked towards the car. Watching me the whole time I moved. He did not take his eyes off me, not until the car pulled away. What the hell just happened?
Stepping into the too white kitchen, I found mom waiting on the other side of the island just watching me with her big green eyes, that were a lot like my own. Apart from mine have these speckles of turquoise, courtesy of dad.
I was so angry and disappointed in her actions and what she had done to me. No part of me could trust her now, not after putting me in the hospital for something as stupid as trying to control someone’s, no, not someone it was me, my weight that she was trying to control. It was unforgivable, really.
Being away from Ashby, I could now feel my anxiety growing. Rising just by looking at her. He had kept me calm. Almost content. In fact, it had been the most relaxed that I had felt in, well forever. There was not a time I could think of when I had felt at such ease with another person, apart from Claire, I guess….
Why did I say that I wanted to come home?
Maybe I should have said yes to going to his clubhouse when he had invited me. I wonder if I called him now, would come and get me?
My hand hung loosely at my side, the feeling where he had touched me less than half an hour ago, still consuming my senses. It still felt as though it was burning from his touch.
"Where the hell have you been?" She demanded.
I was surprised not to find dad with her, but he was always out of town on business, and she probably didn't want him to know what she had done. If he even was on business, that is. A part of me thinks that maybe he just stays away to keep the peace. I had heard them argue one too many times when he had been in town. He could be a scary man when he was angry; there was something in him that always put fear in me. Not that he had ever shown me that side of him, I just knew it was there. Bubbling under the surface.
Honestly, I don't know the last time I had actually seen him in this house. Christmas?
I mean, it had been so long at this point, were my parents even still together?
"I can make you a smoothie" those words made me take an instinctive step backward. She could not be serious right now, could she?
"No thanks" there was not a chance in hell I was putting anything into my body that she had touched, never again.
Poison me once shame on you, poison me twice shame on me, and I was not ending up in the emergency room because of something like that again. It was embarrassing enough once. There were people on the edge of losing their life who could have needed that bed instead of little old me.
"We need to talk about this," her left eye was almost twitching as she spoke, "You need to get over it," Jesus.
"Talk? You want to talk about how you have been putting drugs in my breakfast to make me skinner?" because, at the end of the day, that was this was about. There was no other reason for what she had done. "I don't know how you ever expect me to get over this mom if it was you, would you forgive your mom for it?"
"Listen, Nala"
"No, you listen, I don’t want to talk or even look at you! How could you do this to me?"
"I am always looking out for your best interests."
"Like hell, you are looking out for my best interests" my voice was so loud it was almost a scream "you put me in the hospital mom, do you have any idea what could have happened to me if it continued?"
"Do not swear at me."
"Are you serious right now? You cannot seriously believe that what you have done is okay? It's not a normal thing to do" I was going to say that it was not normal to do something like that to someone you love, but I wasn't sure she even knew what love was anymore. I think she just wanted to own me, like some kind of belonging and not a person, just like Brandon. They were two peas in a pod.
"Nala"
"No!" Slamming my hand down onto the breakfast island between us. "I need some answers, mom."
When she didn't speak and just stood there with pursed lips, her eyes never moving from my own, I knew this was a lost cause. She was too far gone in her own head and had talked herself into thinking this was an acceptable thing to do.
"I know you have always had this obsession with food and weight."
"Nala, you need…"
"No, you need to let me speak. How long have you been putting them in my food? Was it just breakfast or all of my meals? Hell, did you put it in my water bottle too?"
When she didn't speak, I had gotten half of my answer. It wasn't just my smoothies that she had been doing it too.
"What's so wrong with me for you to do something like this?"
"You will thank me when you're walking down the aisle with Brandon Matthews, Nala."
"No,
" throwing my hands in the air, in a Claire fashion, my voice became even louder. "Is this what this is all about you marrying me off into a richer family?" We weren't hard done by, but Brandon's family were on another level. They had this ridiculously huge mansion that they called a house, holiday homes across the world. The trouble was money doesn't make you a decent human being, and I had spent enough time around Brandon to know I didn't really even like him at all. We were pushed together by our parents years ago, and I had always felt a little lost, a little out of place in this world I lived in, and now I knew why. It was because I didn't belong in it.
"Me and Brandon are never getting married, mom, I don't love him" I didn't even like him. "We're practically broken up" I sounded so confident, but would I ever actually have the balls to go through with it? He seemed to have this hold over me, and all I wanted to do was break free of it, but it was so hard.
"What has love got to with anything?" Acid dripped from her tongue, disgust evident in her tone.
Everything.
"Does dad know?" Her silence once again gave me the answer that words failed, too. "Does he know that you have been poising me, mom? Do you know how badly that could have ended for me? Or was it that you are so scared that if I am not what you want me to be, that all of your little minion friends think I am anything but perfect, that will reflect on you? Well, wake up call, mom, I am not you, I am my own person, and you do not get to make those kinds of decisions for me!"
"Do you see him here, Nala? He is too busy working than knowing what is best for you! I know what is best for you, me! Now let me make you this smoothie and be thankful that I care about you. Brandon is not going to want you if you pile on the pounds, like that friend of yours."
"There is nothing wrong with Claire, and even if there was, it is not your place to comment on it!"
"You will not embarrass me" Her words echoed Brandon's. Was I that bad of a person that everyone just saw me as an embarrassment?
"And that is just it, isn't it? You are scared that I am going to be an embarrassment for you? If I don't fit this perfect little box that you have set out for me? Well, guess what, mom, no one is perfect. There is not one single person on this earth who is, so you need to sort your own head out and stop being such a fucking bitch”
"I have already told you, do not swear at me."
"Or what?"
"You're grounded."
"I would like to see you try."
She opened her mouth, about to go on another tirade, I'm sure, but I stopped her, holding a hand in the air.
"Save your breath," Sighing, as I increased the hold on my backpack strap in my clammy hands. "Let me leave so you can shove that knife in my back instead of my heart because that is already dying."
One more look at my so-called mother, I turned my back to her and climbed the stairs, two at a time, while holding on for dear life onto the handrail. Yeah, so I could not call him to come and get me. There was no way that I could get on that bike with how badly my legs were still shaking.
Ignoring her shouts and screams below, I slammed my bedroom door behind me and jumped into the shower. Removing the bracelet from the hospital and throwing it in the trash can.
My eyes stayed on the number he had written on my hand, memorizing every digit. The burn of his touch was still tingling my flesh. Without thinking about it for a second longer, I grabbed my cell phone and saved his number. I probably wouldn't use it, but what harm could it do to keep it? I wanted to keep it.
I kept thinking about what he has said about having me on his bike. My body wrapped around his. Jesus, the way he spoke to me, was almost as sexy as he looked.
He was just so hot, but he was also older than me. Several years older, why would he want me when he could clearly have any woman out there on the planet.
That damn waitress could not stop herself from flirting with him when she took our order at the diner. I don't think she even noticed I was there until he asked me what I wanted to order.
Sleep alluded me, and the longer I laid there in bed, I felt more and more on edge in this house. I needed to get out of here and, as far as I could get from my mom, who was, without a doubt, sound asleep right now.
Realizing that there was no hope I could sleep in the same house as her and throwing my feet over the bed's edge, I could feel my breathing becoming labored.
My cell phone was flashing with unread messages from Claire. How do you tell your best friend that you passed out, twice, because of something your mom had done?
How can you even start to explain that to another person when you didn't even understand it yourself?
Unable to take my eyes off the phone, I couldn't stop myself from reaching for it to send a text message to the newest number in my contacts list. As soon as my finger opened that new message, I found myself standing in the middle of the room, breathing so deeply I sounded like one of those women in labor on tv.
Typing quickly, I didn't allow myself to think about what I was actually doing before hitting send.
Nala- I've changed my mind.
It took less than two minutes for his reply to come through.
Ashby- Who the fuck is this?
Nala- Peaches, can you come and get me?
Ashby- Address. Now.
Unable to contain a small smile, I quickly sent him my address so he could come and rescue me. Darting around the room, I threw on a clean red hoodie and some distressed denim shorts, sliding my feet into some plain white tennis shoes, continuing to breathe deeply.
Grabbing my school bag, I crept down the stairs. I knew that she would be sleeping soundly, but the last thing I needed right now was her catching me sneaking out of the house and driving off into the night with one of The Unholy Confession bikers. She would lose her damn mind. Even more than she clearly already had.
It should have taken him longer to get to my house. I knew that, but before it should have been possible, a set of headlights were coming down the street. Disappointment filled me that it was not motorcycle headlights, but instead a large jet-black jeep.
Moving my feet as fast as possible in the pitch black, I was at the passenger door before he could open his.
"You okay?" He asked, but his eyes were on the house behind me.
"I can't stay here."
It took a moment, but eventually, he moved those pale blue eyes to mine, giving me this look that sent shivers down my spine.
"Get in."
We drove in silence and he seemed mad while I felt like I wanted to either be sick or sleep for a week. Maybe even both.
Pulling in through a set of large metal gates, with spikes on top, my anxiety hit an all-time high. There were huge motorcycles everywhere, along with a few cars like the one we were currently in.
Music was blasting from inside of the enormous warehouse looking building. The sound was carrying through the darkness and vibrating up through the concrete floor beneath the jeep.
The slam of his car door made me flinch.
Had this been a mistake to come here?
Maybe I should have just stayed at home. Read a book or something and then sneak out before mom woke up in the morning.
"Come on," he opened my door and was looking at the building that was full of his crew. The Unholy Confession bikers.
Gulping loud enough, I was sure he would be able to hear it. "I don't know if this is a good idea," finding my voice, I looked at him as he held continued to hold my door wide open. Waiting for me to get out.
"Don't be a pussy, Peaches, come on" grabbing ahold of my arm, he tugged me out of the vehicle and along with him. My feet were skidding slightly as I struggled to keep up. As if I was not having enough trouble with staying vertical today as it was.
Walking in through the door at almost one o'clock in the morning, I was shocked at the number of people on the other side of it. Thirty or forty, easily.
This room seemed to be a bar of sorts. The walls were covered in what looked like postcards, crucifixes, photogra
phs, and a large American flag hanging above a snooker table in the corner side on the opposite side of the room from where we were.
The men and women seemed to part as we moved through the crowd, all sending a mixture of confused and surprised looks at Ashby and me.
My eyes fell on the shorter man, Pinky, who had been with him earlier and then Marilyn. Who looked at me with wide angry eyes, as another tall woman, wearing barley anything was glaring. She had long black hair that was almost touching her bottom as she continued to stare daggers in my direction. I was unsure if it was aimed at Ashby or me for a second, but no, it was defiantly at me. What had I done?
Peaches: MC Romance (The Unholy Confessions Book 1) Page 5