“Johnny boy?” He guessed and I nodded my head in agreement. He pursed his lips together tightly as he stared out into the ever darkening sky. “How do you feel about that?”
“I don’t see him that way. We’ve grown up together as neighbors, but he’s only ever been a friend to me. I guess I see him as more of an older brother I’ve been forced to spend time with,” I admitted. Double-D grinned and I followed his line of sight to see a figure moving away in the dark. As soon as I heard the motorcycle start up I knew who had been standing there listening to me. I glanced over at Double-D and saw the challenge in his eyes. He was waiting to see if I would be upset that Johnny overheard what I told him.
“He already knows. It hasn’t deterred him yet, but he knows exactly how I feel. I blame our mothers for the hurt it puts him through. They put all these unrealistic relationship goals on our shoulders since early childhood. Who knows, maybe if they had just left things alone I would have fallen madly in love with the boy next door, but for all their pushing I just ended up resenting being thrown in with him all the time.”
“You would have never fallen in love with Johnny boy,” Double-D informed me.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because you were meant for me all along.” He didn’t even look at me as he spoke the words. He sipped from his bottle again before glancing my way to see that my jaw had darn near come unhinged just before I managed to pull it back in and offer up a beautiful smile in its place.
“We’ll see,” I challenged.
“I know,” he insisted. “How did you end up here anyway? Wasn’t there a dance at your school tonight?”
I was taken aback that he’d known that. “There was, but…”
“But what? Don’t all high school girls live to go to those things?”
“Not all,” I muttered as I glanced down at my shoes. Then I took a chance and lifted my eyes to meet his curious gaze. “Embarrassingly enough, no one asked me to go.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Besides, I don’t actually know how to dance.”
His brows furrowed in on themselves, nearly meeting in the middle at the top of his nose with the gesture. Then he tipped his head to the side, taking me in, before he shot his hand out toward me, palm up. “C’mere.” One word. I followed his direction and placed my hand in his open palm. He took it and squeezed a bit in reassurance, and then he tugged me behind him until we were down on the grass beside the house. A window was open there and the music was streaming through, only slightly muffled. It was some sweet song that I had no doubt everyone inside was making out to. Not me though. Nope. Instead, Double-D used that same hand that held mine to pull me close to him. He wrapped his other arm around my waist and we stood there beneath the window with the music washing over us as the slight chill of the air sent tingling little shivers through my body.
“What are we doin’?” The question left my lips on a breathy whisper.
Double-D smiled at me and then the hand he had at my waist traced a path up my side until he got to my shoulder then up to tuck an unruly piece of hair back behind my ear. He then slid his fingers right back down the same path to my waist and gave a little push. I flowed with the movement, and spun out into the yard while he held tight to the same hand that had yet to leave his own. Once I had spun out completely he tugged and pulled me back into him. I fell into his chest in a fit of giggles. “Thought you said you couldn’t dance, sweetheart?” He spoke into my neck and I felt his smile against my skin as he did. Oh boy. Something heavy settled in my chest in that moment just before I tipped my head back and our eyes met.
“You must be magic,” I explained. His bluest of blue eyes dropped until he was watching my lips. I didn’t miss the fact that he licked his own, almost in anticipation of what I would taste like. I was sure of that even without being a mind reader, because I found myself wondering the same thing.
“If magic made it possible for you to be mine, then I’d welcome that shit no matter the consequence,” he admitted. His lips trailed closer and ghosted over my own before he dipped his head and placed a sweet little kiss just behind my ear instead. When he pulled back and saw the question in my eyes he simply smiled. “Your lips aren’t meant for me yet, Lucy Carter. They will be though.”
I had no clue what to do with that. I wanted so much for my lips to be on his in that moment. This sweet man, who also happened to be a bad boy biker, had the magical ability to have me dancing and wishing on stars. Double-D took a step back from me so that our bodies were no longer in contact. “Come on, we should get you home since staying with your friend isn’t an option anymore.” I didn’t even bother questioning how he knew I was supposed to be staying with Angie tonight.
Double-D saw me home that night. He had been smart enough to park his bike at the end of the road so the pipes wouldn’t draw my parent’s attention. After all, it wouldn’t do to have the biker my father was so worried about suddenly dropping me at home when I was supposed to have been with Angie tonight. Not that I lied about that part of my night, just that it hadn’t turned out the way I thought, and my father wouldn’t understand that Double-D had basically rescued me from that situation.
“I’ll watch from here until you get inside,” he confirmed as I slid my leg from the bike and attempted to stand on my own two shaky feet. I had ridden on the back of a bike before with my dad and with Johnny, but I’d never felt so unsteady getting off of one in my life. It was like even my body knew where I belonged and it was protesting the fact that I wasn’t staying there.
“Thanks,” I offered up on a soft exhale of breath before turning to face him. “For everything tonight, not just the ride.”
He grinned at me. “I’m counting down the days, Lucy.” That admission threw me for a loop.
“Counting down the days?” I asked, but he just winked at me and tipped his head toward my house. “You better get going. Knowing Jack, you’re already going to get the third degree about why you’re home tonight instead of staying with your friend.”
That was true. I didn’t really have anything else to add to that since my brain was still tossing around the idea that he was counting down the days for some reason. Maybe I was overly tired, but I quickly came to the conclusion that I was overthinking things and he couldn’t possibly mean what I thought he did. Surely, he wasn’t counting down the days until he could be with me. A man like Double-D didn’t wait around for a girl to become a woman.
Just two short days later I would get confirmation that I was right. It was probably the one time in my life I wished I had been wrong, because being right just hurt too darn much to bear.
Chapter 4
(Lucy – age 16, Double-D – age 19)
My chest hurt in a way I never imagined it could. I glared down at the ground as his words permeated the aura of indifference I attempted to project. It didn’t matter my hand still moved of its own free will to that painful spot over my chest before I managed to pull myself together and look up into the familiar green eyes that seemed to be twinkling in delight at the sight of my pain.
“Do you feel good about telling me that?” The words flew from my mouth before I could pull them back and I watched as Johnny’s shoulders stiffened and the delight in his eyes washed away into something more akin to concern. To hell with him, and what he thought he was going to get out of this. He hadn’t been gentle in telling me about the scene he had walked in on at their clubhouse the same night Double-D dropped me at home. Johnny hadn’t left out any details about the girls I knew from high school who were all over him and how he took turns fucking each of them out in the open for anyone and everyone to enjoy watching the spectacle.
“Did it make you feel better to hurt me that way?” The question slid from my lips just as potent as the poisonous images he had planted in my head. “Do you feel better about yourself now? Do you think you managed to accomplish some sort of goal for yourself, Johnny? All you managed to do was hurt me, and if you thought that was going to go well for you, I suggest
you pull your head out of your butt and grow the hell up!” I stormed off to the house where both of our mothers were standing on the front porch step watching the confrontation go down.
“Lucy!” My mother’s shocked gasp caught me up short.
“That was quite rude,” Abigail, Johnny’s mother, confirmed.
“Really? Telling your son to grow up after he described in graphic detail how a man had sex with not one, but two women, at his biker clubhouse in front of everyone wasn’t rude? I’m still a virgin!” Those last words were screamed into the neighborhood. That was something I could be embarrassed about later though. “The most I’ve ever done is kiss a boy, and he told me all about how a man stuck his… his…” I couldn’t bring myself to use the same words he had. Not that I was too good for the words, but because of the painful images they conjured of the man of my dreams having baseless, meaningless sex with women who were free enough with themselves to do those things. That would never be me, and I knew then that I would be more like Double-D’s ex girlfriend Patty. I didn’t belong, and Johnny had just made that fact painfully obvious to me.
“Oh, forget it,” I huffed out. “You can ask your son for all the details about the sights, sounds, and smells of the spectacle he just described for me in vivid detail. Then tell me I was being rude. He’s lucky I didn’t punch him in the balls.” I turned and ran then, not bothering to go into my home where I wouldn’t be treated with sympathy. I could already see it in their eyes. They were glad Johnny had told me what he had. I’m sure my mother probably wished he hadn’t been so detailed, but he had clearly filled them in on my infatuation with a certain biker. She would definitely be applauding his efforts for keeping me away from the town’s bad seed.
“Johnny, how do you know what happened at that clubhouse?” I heard my mother ask as I continued to get as far from all of them as was humanly possible. I was too far away to hear if he ever answered her or put her off again. My parents still didn’t know he was part of the club. I doubted his did either since I never saw him wear his prospect kutte near the house. If they did, I knew for certain my father would change his tune about me ending up with the man.
It’s strange that in that moment, when my heart was breaking, and my faith in people had been sorely diminished that I ran to my daddy for comfort. When I got there I watched as Double-D was pulling his bike out of the garage. He paused for a moment taking in my disheveled appearance the tears that were no doubt dripping down my slightly numbed face. It wasn’t exactly the warmest of days and I’d run all the way here, crying the whole way.
Seeing the man caused another sob to break free and I turned and ran to my daddy who wrapped me in his arms and pulled me into the office. I listened to the pipes on Double-D’s bike as he roared off to who knew where. It was obvious he didn’t care so I wasn’t sure why my own heart did so much that it hurt to breathe.
“What’s going on baby girl? You’re breaking my heart right now.”
I just clung to my daddy and mumbled nonsense into his shirt before finally pulling away once he had managed to guide me to his office. He sat me down in the uncomfortable worn out chairs he had in there. He once told me he ordered them that way on purpose so customers wouldn’t stick around to bother them every five minutes while they tried to work on their vehicles.
“What’s this all about, Lucy?”
“Johnny came to the house and t-t-old me,” I stuttered through that much before it became apparent that I really needed to blow my nose after the bawling session I just had. My dad offered up a tissue from the box on his desk and once I was cleaned up I started over. I couldn’t look my dad in the eye though. “I have a crush on someone,” I admitted.
“Johnny,” my father nodded knowingly.
“No, God no!” I yelled out in disgust, shocking my father.
“But your mother said,” he started but stopped as I vehemently shook my head in the negative.
“That’s part of the problem,” I moaned. “Mom and Mrs. Abigail always pushing him on me. I don’t like Johnny in that way, and I never have. Those two have seen to the fact that I am actually at the point where I can’t stand to be around him any longer.” My father looked shocked. Clearly, this was all news to him. I guessed he’d been taking my mom’s machinations as coming from me instead of some warped ideal she had built up in her head.
“Did you know Johnny is a prospect for the Aces High MC?” My father immediately turned red in the face and his scowl deepened the creases along his brow.
“No, I didn’t. He’s done a pretty good job of hiding that information, especially since I asked him about it the other day when I saw him riding his bike near their clubhouse.” My dad grumbled. “He lied to my face and told me he was just out for a ride.”
“Well, he is a prospect there. I know, because I dropped his bike off to him that day, and that’s where I had to go to do it.”
My father was blazing mad at that admission. “You did what?” His bellowing question put me immediately on edge. “You went inside that clubhouse?” I nodded my head timidly, worried about how he was going to react to that information.
“I’m going to kill that little shit. He knew I didn’t want you around those people!”
“Daddy,” I hesitantly began and he seemed to come back to himself and remember how upset I’d been.
“Did someone hurt you when you went there, darlin’?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking. You remember the boy who was here with his bike a while back, the one from that club?”
My father blew out a frustrated breath and nodded his head, apparently knowing where I was about to go with this. “Well, I liked him. He’s not that much older, you know. I… We…” I groaned not knowing how to say any of this. “I saw him around once in a while after that. He was always really nice and polite to me. Never tried anything,” I tacked on as I saw my daddy’s temper starting to rise. I decided to be honest at that point and told him all about the party I went to with Angie. I explained what I saw Johnny doing, how Double-D made sure I had a safe drink, and he took me away from the party outside to talk about normal stuff so I wouldn’t see anything else that might upset me. That part may have been a bit of an embellishment to put him in my dad’s good graces – lord knew why I cared – and it seemed to work, because his temper subsided as I spoke.
I explained to him about how Double-D gave me a ride home to see that I got there safely and no harm came to me, and then I told him what Johnny said to me today.
“That little asshole described all that to you? In detail?” He asked, once again his temper flaring with each word hissed out between his clenched teeth.
I nodded my head. “He did. I don’t know if it’s true. If it is,” again my hand found its way to my chest and rubbed over the spot that was aching. “Well, I guess its better to know now anyway, but it hurt to hear those words. It hurt to have those images painted for me like that.” Tears pooled in my eyes once more. “Why did he have to go and do it that way?”
“He’s an idiot with a death wish, that’s why.” I don’t know why, but my father’s response made me laugh, which in turn made him smile and look slightly less uncomfortable with the fact that his daughter had just cried all over him and told him a second-hand sex story that embarrassed me to hear, let alone retell it.
“Baby doll, I think it’s time you consider Grandma’s offer. Rose will watch over you, and you’d be doing her a world of good since she can’t get around that well on her own these days.”
My parents had made the offer a couple weeks before to send me to Florida to finish school. My grandma didn’t want to come back to South Carolina, but she needed help, and having me there seemed like the perfect solution to everyone. Up until tonight when a piece of my heart cracked, I thought it had been a crappy idea meant to punish me for daring to have a crush on the wrong boy. Now, I saw it for what it was, a reprieve. I could get away and not have Double-D’s ample sex life shoved in my face. Hopefully, it wou
ld give me time to forget about him and move on. I desperately needed to move on from this crush. I wished someone could tell that to the ache in my chest because it wouldn’t listen to reason. The stupid muscle there seemed to enjoy clenching and depriving me of oxygenated blood whenever he was near.
I didn’t even give myself a chance to think about it any longer. “Okay,” was my only answer and I didn’t bother speaking another word as my father locked up his garage and put me in his truck. It was then I noticed Double-D sitting at the corner on his bike watching the garage. When we drove past him I heard my father swearing under his breath. I still didn’t utter a single syllable as we pulled up to our house and walked right past my mother who started in on her lecture about my rudeness the moment we walked through the door. My father did though. I listened in as I continued on to my bedroom to pack my stuff.
“Shut the hell up, woman! You’ve been telling me she wanted to be with Johnny all this time not that it was some crazy non-existent relationship you old bitties cooked up for fun. I cannot believe you tried to pimp my daughter out to the neighbor. Did you know that he’s in that motorcycle club you don’t want her associated with? You know, the one you made me give up in order to be with you?”
A light started dawning on me then. My dad had never really been mad at the club all these years. He’d been a member, or at the very least had wanted to become one, until my mom gave him an ultimatum. It was her or the club. At least, that had been the gist of their story I had been able to glean from overhearing bits and pieces of their fights lately. I was proud of him for choosing his woman over the club, but even knowing that I might not be here if he’d chosen differently, I wondered if it would have been a better life for him. I wasn’t blind. My father was miserable with my mom. Sometimes, I thought the only reason he stuck it out with her was for my benefit. Then again, he was snowed over by her enough to never have noticed that Johnny wasn’t anywhere on my radar. I think my father truly loved my mother when they started out, and probably still did. The problem was, I don’t think my mother ever returned that love.
A Love So Hard (Aces High MC - Charleston Book 2) Page 4