Unruly

by Ronnie Douglas

  I pretended to think. “Nah. I’ll just write new ones and keep you.”

  For a moment she stared at me in silence. Then she reached out to cup my cheek. I could smell the mix of menthol cigarettes with her vanilla and lavender perfume. It was a scent that was uniquely her and always had been. “You could write amazing things if you wanted.”

  “Maybe I will,” I said softly. “Or maybe I’ll just sing a little.”

  “When you’re ready . . . I’d love to hear them.”

  I nodded.

  “Your daddy would be so proud of you already, Ellie, but knowing you’re singing again . . .” She teared up. “I know he’s up there smiling at us.”

  “Or saying, ‘It’s about damn time,’” I added.

  “That too.” She blinked away tears, which mostly just meant that they clung to her mascara-heavy lashes. Then she patted my cheek and lowered her hand. “Go on with Alejandro. He’s not running despite meeting me, so he’s got balls at least.”

  Alejandro? I glanced back at Alamo, who had walked back toward his Harley. He looked a little perplexed, but Mama did that to a person when she was in a mood. I looked back at her. “Did you threaten him?”

  She patted my cheek again and stepped around me. When she turned back, she grinned. Then the door closed on me as I stared at her.

  I shook my head and walked out to Alamo.

  “She’s a bit intense,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Family is supposed to protect family. She was just making it clear that you were to be treated like you should.”

  “How’s that?”

  He slung his leg over the bike before answering. “With respect. Kept safe.”

  I climbed on the bike behind him, not sure what to say. It wasn’t that I wanted to be disrespected or hurt, but I got the impression that Alamo was already keeping me so far away from him that Mama’s warnings were far from necessary.

  We exchanged no other words. He turned on the bike, and after he checked to be sure my helmet was on, he eased out into the street. There was something like teasing at the start of a ride. The engine wasn’t nearly as unrestrained as it could be, and the initial slips and slides into and out of traffic weren’t as fast as they could be. Everything was still low-key.

  And I kept my distance from Alamo. He wasn’t mine, and from the way he treated me, he had no interest in being mine. There were moments I thought he might—glances that proved that he was aware that I was female, hints of heat in his eyes, and a slow rolling drawl as he spoke. Today, though, the man steering the massive motorcycle underneath me was as distant as he could be while sharing a small space. My knees were against him, but I stayed back as far as I could.

  He kept the speed moderate, and the only hint I had that he was in possession of the passion I knew he had simmering inside was when we were stopped at a light and some asshole and his buddies pulled up alongside us in an overpriced sedan. The passenger had his window down, and he was all but leaning out.

  He grinned, staring like I was something cheap and easy. When the sleaze made what I guessed was to be a sexy come-on face at me, Alamo let out an honest-to-goodness growl.

  The sleaze ignored him and said, “Damn, girl! Why you wasting your time with—”

  “Mind your fucking manners,” Alamo snapped.

  “You want to start something?” the sleaze taunted.

  Alamo put the kickstand down, and for the first time I got a glimpse of the man that I’d heard about. Up until that moment, I’d seen only the sweet biker who, while distant more often than I’d like, was infallibly gentle. This was another face of Alamo.

  “Four of us. One of you,” the man taunted from his car. He stared at Alamo, and I wanted to point out that Wolves weren’t unaccustomed to brawls. The buttoned-up man in the sedan didn’t strike me as a fighter; neither did the others I could see in the car.

  “Let’s just go,” I murmured, my hand coming down on Alamo’s biceps. The touch of his bare skin under my fingers was electrifying, so much so that I didn’t pull away.

  Alamo glanced at my hand, but he didn’t reply.

  “They’re not worth it,” I added.

  “Slide off.”

  I listened. Maybe it was being raised around Wolves. Maybe it was a biological need to obey that tone in his voice. Either way, I dismounted the bike and stepped to the side.

  The light turned green, and cars went around us. The sedan didn’t move. Alamo didn’t look away from them, not even for the cars zipping by us.

  “Open the door,” he ordered.

  Unlike me, the men didn’t obey him. The window rolled up and the locks came down. From the look on the front passenger’s face, I could tell it was the driver who was responsible for both.

  The men were all clean-cut, khaki-wearing, and didn’t look like the sort to even pay attention to a woman on the back of a Harley—at least not so as to be obvious about it. Guys like them looked, and more than a few made stupid remarks when they saw me on my own. It didn’t happen often. Once it was obvious that I was frequently in the company of bikers, most men discovered manners, but when they thought they could be asses with impunity, they were.

  The door started to open. Presumably the nitwit in the passenger seat had unlocked it.

  Alamo stepped closer and reached for the door handle.

  All I could do was try to take in what details I could. I looked closer at the car. Dark blue. Newer. No visible dings or scratches. No defining traits I could see on the two passengers in sight.

  Someone inside—not the passenger in the front seat—was yelling, “Go! Jesus, just go.”

  As the sedan sped away, I noticed North Carolina plates. I suspected Alamo saw them too. For a moment Alamo stared after them, and then he walked back over to the bike as if nothing had happened.

  “Someone you know?” I asked.

  “Not that I recall.” He shook his head. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Good.” He threw his leg over the Harley, shrugged, and said, “They had no business looking at you like that.”

  I couldn’t help it. I leaned forward and kissed his cheek. He drew in a sharp breath and froze. If he were any other man, I’d think his reaction was interest, but from the way he’d been so far, I was doubtful. Maybe he was trying to be polite. Maybe he thought I was throwing myself at him. I wasn’t sure there was any way to ask that, and he wasn’t offering any clues.

  We stayed like that, him motionless and silent on the bike and me standing in the street behind him. The light turned yellow, and cars rolled up behind us. Finally he said, “Get on.”

  Mutely I obeyed.

  He didn’t comment, but simply restarted the bike. Once the light changed again, we were back in traffic as if nothing had happened.

  By the time we arrived in Memphis, I think we’d exchanged maybe five short sentences, and those were simply for the purposes of navigation. I wasn’t angry so much as hurt, but being hurt was making me angry. I hadn’t been the one to start shit in traffic. I hadn’t done anything to encourage the fools in the sedan, and I hadn’t done anything wrong by thanking Alamo for thinking I deserved respect.

  But I was the one being given the cold shoulder.

  “If you want to go somewhere else, that’s fine.” I met his gaze and held it. I’d put up with a lot, and honestly, being ogled by strangers hadn’t felt that disrespectful. Having my friend act like this, on the other hand, felt a lot like disrespect.

  “I’m here with you,” he said. He didn’t sound particularly pleased about it, though, and I wanted to hit him for it.

  Instead, I walked into the bar with a silent biker at my side. Alamo wasn’t being rude per se, but it was pretty obvious that he didn’t want to be with me. He looked about as happy as a man who just had his bike trashed. He hadn’t. Traffic had been decent. The weather was perfect. Aside from that one incident, everything was good, but he was acting as if he was miserable.

  Abruptly I spun aro
und so we were face-to-face and asked, “If you didn’t want to be here, why’d you agree?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.” I folded my arms over my chest and leveled a glare at him. “If you want to be a jackass about being with me, you can turn around and go. I’ll call the bar and have someone come out and fetch me home.”

  “I came with you. I’ll carry you home.” He matched my glare, as if he had a right to be angry. He didn’t. I hadn’t done a thing that was wrong, and I wasn’t going to be treated poorly for no reason. I’d had enough of that in my life.

  “Don’t do me any favors.” I started to walk away, and he caught my wrist in his hand.

  The moment I glanced down at his fingers where they were curled around my wrist, he released me. “I like doing you favors, Ellen. We’re friends, darlin’. Friends do favors.”

  “We’re friends?”

  “I thought so,” he said carefully.

  There were a lot of other things I wanted to say. When he thought I didn’t notice, he looked at me like we were something a lot different than friends—unless he meant the sort of friends Noah and I had been. When we had been on the road just now, he’d been ready to rip into people for looking too long at me. When I touched his arm or kissed his cheek, he tensed like he was under siege. I couldn’t decide if it was interest or distaste. He was far more confusing than I knew how to handle.

  “Go sing, darlin’,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to frighten you back there on the street, but you’re safe with me.”

  I startled at that. I didn’t want to laugh at how wrong he was about my reasons for being upset, but I did need to clarify one thing. I shook my head and told him, “I’m not afraid of you. I grew up with the club. My closest playmates were . . . bikers’ kids like Killer and Noah.”

  Alamo said nothing.

  Deciding that blunt might be best, I added, “You’re acting like you don’t want to be here. That’s the problem.”

  For a heartbeat or three, he didn’t reply. Then he shook his head and told me, “There’s nowhere I’d rather be, Ellen . . . Now go sing. Your voice is like to calm even the most savage beast.”

  Chapter 9

  BEING ONSTAGE WAS LIKE BEING DRUNK, BUT WITHOUT any unpleasant side effects. When I sang, the world clicked into order. If I was sad, I let my grief into the song. When I was angry, my rage fueled the lyrics. When I had an audience, I felt like all of the people watching me were lending me a bit of strength and energy. I’d heard people call it a high, but that wasn’t quite the right term for me. When I was singing, I became stronger. If I didn’t need the music to channel an excess of emotion, I simply become more. I became sexier, confident, and alive when I was in the right mood.

  When I finished singing and walked over to Alamo, he was looking at me exactly like I wanted. I could see the desire in his expression. Once you’ve seen that look, that almost lean-in, that simmer in someone’s eyes, you recognize it when it happens. In that instant, I knew he wanted to kiss me. It was right there, a possibility that I desperately wanted, but he took a step back from me.

  “You’re incredible,” he said.

  I took a step toward him, and he flinched like he wanted to back away. I tilted my head up and looked at him, holding his gaze and refusing to pretend that I didn’t see the hunger there. I couldn’t force the words, though, couldn’t ask why he was retreating from me.

  “Thank you” was all I managed to say.

  He nodded. “So . . . I don’t know what the plan is now. Are you done or—”

  “I am.” I didn’t intend to back up, but then he folded his arms over his chest, and I felt it like it was a slap. All the confidence from singing felt smothered by that gesture. It was foolish, but for a heartbeat, I felt crushed.

  Never again, I reminded myself. I wouldn’t waste my energy where I wasn’t wanted. I wouldn’t settle for half. I wanted to be drunk on desire. I wanted to be unrestrained. I wanted to be adored and feel as powerful and complete as when I sang.

  “Can you take me home?” I asked.

  Alamo nodded again. He remained physically distant, although his words were kind. He complimented my voice, telling me that he was “honored” that he’d gotten to hear me twice—and then he took me home. I was glad he liked my voice, but I wanted him to like all of me. When he let his guard down, he obviously did, but I wanted it completely. Instead, he was all but running from me. It made me feel like I was sending out a creepy stalker vibe or something. The truth of the matter was that friends don’t avoid one another the way he was dodging me.

  Since Alamo was running more hot and cold than I could handle, the next few times I decided to sing in public, I drove myself. My poor car wasn’t really up to the extra miles, but it was what I had, and I didn’t feel like begging for attention. Honestly, I was starting to think there was something wrong with me. For years I’d been resigned to clandestine meetings and no proper dates—except when I went out with people in my attempts to get over Noah. Now that I was over him, I was interested in another man who seemed to want nothing to do with me. It was hell on my self-esteem.

  But I couldn’t say that I was shocked over the next few weeks when Alamo continued to keep his distance. I couldn’t even say I was shocked at how close Aubrey and I became either. I was focused on being a good friend, singing, working on my designs—any and everything but how lonely I was and how ridiculous I was for being interested in Alamo.

  Of course Aubrey and Killer’s drama was doing a great job of distracting me here and there too. Earlier in the day, she’d called and said she needed a friend.

  I’d taken her to a movie, a distraction we obviously both needed, and afterward we started to talk as I drove us to the diner.

  A part of me was dumbfounded when she stared out the front window and said, “Zion is leaving the Wolves for . . . us, me, however you say it.”

  I whistled. “Damn. You tamed—”

  “No. I didn’t. We hung out and—”

  “Hey,” I interrupted, glancing her way briefly. “Not a criticism. Like I said, he was bound to fall hard when he fell. I just underestimated how hard.”

  “I’m scared,” Aubrey whispered. “What if he’s making a mistake? What if I’m not worth it?”

  There were few things she could’ve said that would establish this was not a mistake. That happened to be one of them, though. I might fail at my own love life—or even just having a love or sex life—but I knew enough to be sure that she wasn’t failing. She might not see it, but she was head over heels in love. Killer, of course, hadn’t bothered denying that he was in love. They were the real thing, even if Aubrey was still afraid.

  Gently I told her, “Sweetie, the fact that you’re even worried about that instead of what if he hurts you is proof that he’s not making a mistake.”

  She gave me a tremulous smile.

  I hoped that this meant good things for both of them—and that it meant that Aubrey would be staying here in Williamsville. It seemed crazy that Killer would leave the club. He had never had commitment issues. It was Noah who had struggled with that . . . and me. I didn’t think much of it until recently, but I wasn’t much better than Noah had been. I didn’t commit to singing. I didn’t date anyone I might’ve ended up with for real. Instead, I fussed over design, which I enjoyed but wasn’t a passion for me the way singing was. I stayed with a man I knew wasn’t going to date me openly.

  I could blame Noah for our years of half togetherness, but the fact of it was that I was responsible too. Killer was the only one of the three of us who knew what he wanted. He wanted Echo’s approval, so he spent years training and became the club enforcer. He wanted Aubrey, and he’d been dogged at pursuing her. The other women before her? He barely learned their names. He wasn’t rude, but he was clear. Noah and I had both played at being half in, half out. Noah was a Wolf, but not. I was devoted to the club, but never involved with a Wolf who wanted a relationship. We both played around at school, purs
uing careers that weren’t the one—and we’d dated people who were never going to be the one.

  I shoved those unpleasant revelations in a box and returned my focus to Aubrey, who was silent at my side now.

  “Aubrey?”

  “Mmm?” She stared out the car window.

  “Talk to me,” I ordered. I was trying not to press her for details, but my patience was wearing thin. Her ups and downs with Killer mattered to me. They were both people I cared about. I was rooting for them, hoping that they’d actually found a solution to what could’ve been an insurmountable problem.

  Aubrey and I had made it to Mama’s Grub and Grill, and she was still quiet. Obviously, there was more going on than she had said so far. She was already a dear friend, and as I’d never really had close female friends, I was still trying to figure out what was normal. I wasn’t entirely sure what was “normal” for girlfriends—and considering that what I wanted to talk to her about was an area I was lousy at and it involved my childhood friend, the whole situation was a little weird.

  But I was a Southern woman, and that meant that I knew that tea and food were step one of sorting out most troubles. That was why we were at Mama’s Grub and Grill. It was a little family diner. The front of the building was actually a shiny trailer that had been attached as a room expansion to the diner a few years back. It was a quick and dirty way to add a room, but it worked and I liked the look of it. Aubrey stopped and stared at it briefly, but then she smiled. That was one of the things I liked about her: She was surprised now and again by things that were not unusual here, but she adjusted and saw the upside rather than turn up her nose. I appreciated that my newly transplanted friend saw the beauty in the South rather than dismissing it.

  “Let’s get a table,” I suggested as we crossed the lot toward the diner.

  Aubrey nodded, her gaze taking in pickup trucks and battered cars. It was far from a classy joint, but there wasn’t any place that had better food—except my mother’s table.

  We weren’t even in the door before we were stopped by the roar of a Harley. I hoped for a heartbeat that it was Alamo or even Killer. It wasn’t. The biker most awkward to run into was the one blocking our way.