Alone on Earth

by Susan Fanetti

  And she felt guilty even thinking about it. That was stupid. She was clearly available. She hadn’t meant enough to Bart that he could even be bothered to end it cleanly. There was no reason at all she should feel guilty about kissing Tanner, on screen or off, or about considering sleeping with him. But she did. She felt guilty, and that made her feel lonely.

  She’d been looking forward to a rare evening in her empty house, but now that she was alone in it, she just felt sad.

  She went to her room and changed out of the clothes she’d gone to work in. Despite the new changes she was trying to make, when she left the house she still always dressed for the possibility that she would be photographed—which was the case much more often than not. But now that she was safely home, she didn’t need the costume. She stripped to her skin and pulled a long-sleeved t-shirt dress over her bare body. Then she went into the bathroom, washed the makeup off her face, and looped her hair into a loose ponytail. Tonight was a wine and book night. She supposed she should eat, too, so she’d see if whatever Trevor had marked for her dinner seemed interesting at all. It probably wouldn’t; dinner was usually the lightest meal Riley ate.

  Still thinking about Bart but trying to push him aside, she padded to the kitchen and opened the fridge. Trevor had prepared a plate of fruits and nuts—what a surprise. She rolled her eyes and closed the door, then pulled a bottle of pinot grigio from the wine cooler next to the fridge. She poured herself a big glass, then went to the living room and tucked herself into her sofa with her wine and her iPad.

  The wall facing the sofa was almost all window, leading out onto the terrace. In mid-fall, even in Southern California, it was too chilly to be outside tonight, but still she loved the view. Despite the reflection cast by the lamp next to her, the night view of the city below, twinkling and flaring in so many colors, entranced her. She set her iPad in her lap and stared out the window, thinking and sipping her wine.

  Why couldn’t he at least just tell her he was done? She felt weak and needy about it, but she did, in fact, need some kind of closure. Without it, a little voice camped out in her head, finding ridiculous reasons to hold out some hope—or to find reasons to feel guilty, to wonder if he needed her and couldn’t get to her. It was all absurd. She wanted that voice to shut up.

  She finished her wine and looked down at her iPad. She woke it up, intending to open her bookshelf and select one of the books she’d been reading—maybe the spy thriller for tonight. Instead, she tapped the Messages icon and scrolled to Bart’s name. It had been weeks now since she’d even tried to contact him, but she just needed to know. She just needed him to say he didn’t want her. Then she’d be able to quiet this constant drone of loneliness.

  In her head, she wrote the sentence, I just need to know. On the screen, she typed the letter “I,” then paused, her fingers hovering over the touchscreen keyboard.

  Wait! What the fuck was she doing? Had she no pride at all? Was she trying to give him more reason to laugh at her? Or roll his eyes? No. No way. She was stronger than this. She didn’t need him to give her closure. She could simply close that door herself. She canceled the message.

  Except she didn’t. She’d accidentally hit “send” instead. She stared at the screen in horror as the message popped up in the thread. Only the letter “I.”

  “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  Riley sat there, feeling embarrassed and anxious, waiting to see if he would respond in any way. No. After five or ten minutes, she set the iPad aside and went to refill her glass. When she came back to the sofa, she finally opened her book and started to read, making a Herculean mental effort to ignore this fresh humiliation and close the door on what had, in the end, been nothing more than a fling that she’d allowed to take too much hold over her heart.

  ~oOo~

  By the bottom of her second glass, she was doing pretty well at not thinking about Bart or that stupid message she’d sent. The book was good, and she was feeling warm and cozy, her knees and elbows tingling pleasantly, the way they did when she got tipsy. She thought about getting up for another glass, but she’d pulled the cashmere throw over her legs a while before, and she wasn’t inclined to get up. She even thought she might just sleep here on the couch tonight, next to the glittering city. It was her couch, her house. She could do what she wanted. She settled in a little deeper and swiped her finger across the screen, turning the page.

  She was starting to drowse and lose the words she was reading when her doorbell chimed. She sat up and looked down to check the time on her iPad, but it had gone to sleep—so she must have, as well. The doorbell chimed again, twice this time, and she woke up the screen to check. Not even nine o’clock. Oh, she was a wild one tonight. She tossed back the throw and went to her door. She hardly ever answered her own door. And people all but never rang unexpectedly.

  She turned the lock and opened the door, not even thinking to check the window in it first.

  Bart was standing on the other side.

  He smiled crookedly. “Hey, princess.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “What—what are you—what?”

  Riley looked seriously confused—and maybe a little drunk. She also looked gorgeous, so tiny, standing there barefoot, in her loose, dark blue…shirt? Dress? He wasn’t sure. Her hair was mussed and messily tied up. And dark brown. After the initial shock, Bart saw how much it suited her.

  Her eyes narrowing, she let go of the door and took several steps back, as if she were backing away from him. “Why—how—why are you here?”

  He ignored the distinct lack of welcome in her eyes and stepped over her threshold. “I missed you, babe. We need to talk.”

  Her laugh was tinged with acid. “Are you high? Turn around and get the fuck out of my house.”

  He hadn’t expected anything else. Hoped, maybe, but he’d known he had no right to expect anything but anger from her. He’d been a total dick. No—it wasn’t even that. He’d been a coward. But he wanted to try to make it right if he could. He needed to try. He needed to fill the hole in his chest. Fuck, he’d missed her so much.

  “No. Please, Riley. I’m sorry. I’ve been such a dick. But let me try to explain. Then I’ll go, if that’s what you still want. But I told you the truth when I told you I was in love with you. I still am.”

  She snorted in derision and crossed her arms. From across her entryway, he could see her pulse beating in her throat.

  “I know. Haven’t been acting like it. But I swear, babe. It’s true. If you feel anything like you did in Signal Bend, then hear me out. Please.”

  He listened to the drum of his own pulse in his ears as she stared him down. Finally, she asked, “What are you even doing here?” Her voice was softer in the question, and he felt some ember of hope that she’d let him try to explain.

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about. Can I?”

  After another long, motionless silence, she nodded. Then she turned and walked into the house. Nearly faint with relief, he followed.

  He’d been in town for a week. Coming into the Scorpions clubhouse, patched in before he’d even met his new brothers, had been a surreal experience—it still was a surreal experience. There’d been a party the night he arrived, at which he was presented with his new kutte, and at which he’d had to show that his Horde ink at been blacked out—and then they’d inked him. The whole night had been a weird concoction of welcome and hostility, and he’d come to understand that he was being forced down the L.A. charter’s throat.

  In the week since that night, he’d made an effort to find his place and see these men as his brothers and to show them he was ready and steady, that his ties to the Horde were broken. But inside, he felt like he was falling apart. He wouldn’t have said he could have missed Riley more, but once he was in the same city with her, and feeling homesick as all fuck, she was basically all he thought about.

  Still, though, he’d been staying away, trying to get a grip on what it meant to be a Scorpion, how much risk
their business put their loved ones in. Before he went to her—if he went to her—he’d needed to be sure he could keep her out of harm’s way. He still wasn’t sure.

  But then he’d gotten her text. Just one letter, “I,” and nothing more. He’d stared at his phone for a long time, waiting, hoping to get another message, one that finished the thought, but that single letter was all he had. The more he’d stared at it, the more it had seemed like a complete message in itself—an assertion, a question, a demand, a plea, all at once. And then he couldn’t stay away any longer. They were in the same city. She was half an hour away—less, on his bike. The distance that had for weeks seemed unspannable, even since he’d been in L.A., was suddenly insignificant, and he’d walked out of the clubhouse and ridden to her, not knowing what to expect when he saw her, but sure he had no right to expect a welcome.

  But here he was, following her into her—spectacular—home. The space was open and airy, seeming bright even with few lights on and the wall of windows black with night. She walked through the living room to the kitchen; there was no discernable break in the space from one room to the other. He saw an empty wine glass and an iPad sitting on a sleek glass and wood table, next to a long, white leather sofa.

  The view out those windows was breathtaking—the whole of the city spread out at the foot of the hills, the lights seeming to move and sway with life. Jesus.

  She switched on the lights in the kitchen, and the space blazed bright. There was a long dining table next to the window wall, its pale wood the same as the kitchen cabinetry. A wide island separated that eating space from the kitchen workspace. The counters were pale grey marble. The appliances were top of the line.

  She stopped behind the island, gripping the edge of the countertop in her hands as if she were using it as a shield. She looked especially small in this airy, wide space. He stopped on the other side, trying to respect the boundary she clearly wanted.

  “Your house is…amazing, babe. Damn.”

  She didn’t really react to the compliment. Her voice without affect, she said, “Thank you. What is it that you need to say to me?”

  He was going to need to do this right, not screw it up. But he was flying blind. He’d never cared so much about a woman. He didn’t really know how to talk to one who was angry with him, not when he wanted to make her stop being angry.

  He cleared his throat and gripped the island, unconsciously mirroring her posture. “The first thing I want to do is explain why I stayed out of touch.”

  She huffed. “You can try.”

  Undeterred, he went on. “A lot has changed since I saw you. I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t get hurt if you were with me. I wanted to know I could keep you safe before we got started.”

  “I thought we were already started.”

  The light caught her eyes, and he saw that they brimmed with tears. He wanted to touch her, to hold her, to make her feel how he felt about her, and he walked around the island to her side. She took a step away, farther down the island, but only that one step. He stopped and put his hand on the grey marble, reaching toward her. “I know, babe. But you know how intense things were. They got more intense after you left. I had to understand my own life before I could risk bringing you into it.”

  She blinked, and the tears overran their limits and streamed down her face. She let them, and Bart watched as they dripped daintily from her chin. He took another step, and this time she didn’t move away. “I thought I was already in it. And then you were just gone. Without a word. I thought I’d done something wrong. I thought I’d been a fool.” She sobbed once, and then shook it off with angry jerk. “I thought you were laughing at me.”

  “What? Riley, fuck no!” He closed the space between them and loosened her grip from the counter, wrapping his hands around hers. The touch of her skin on his went through him like a bolt, through his arms, down his spine, and into his cock. He nearly gasped aloud.

  She didn’t pull away, but his touch seemed to weaken her, as if that bolt he’d felt had been energy sapped straight from her. Her head tipped down so that all he could see was the sweetly messy knot of dark hair at the back, and she whimpered quietly. Without looking up, she said, “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

  He had to strain to hear her. Fuck. He’d really hurt her. He’d known it, but to see her here, so small and beautiful—and so sad. Fuck.

  “I didn’t tell you because I’m a coward. I should have. I knew the whole time that I was being an absolute festering dick, but I didn’t want to tell you what was going on and have you say you couldn’t deal with it, and I couldn’t talk to you without telling you. I didn’t know what to do.” He let go of one of her hands and lifted her chin so that she had no choice but face him. Her expression was an uneasy, unsteady blend of anger and hurt.

  “I never stopped missing you. Not for a second.”

  Regaining some strength, she yanked her head out of his hold. “And I’m supposed to just forget what the past few weeks have felt like?” She scoffed and put her hands on his chest to push him away. Then she stopped, her eyes fixed on his chest. “This is different. Your…vest thing. It’s different.”

  “My kutte. Yeah, it is.” He wrapped his hands around her wrists and held her hands on him. “That’s the other thing I need to tell you.” With a breath for fortitude, he continued, “I’m not Horde anymore. I’m a Scorpion now. L.A. charter.”

  “What? But—you said being Horde was your life. And the Scorpions—those are the guys who…that guy who had me…” She pulled back, fighting to free her arms from his grasp, but he held on.

  His throat was constricting, but he forced his voice to be strong. “I know, Riley. I need to explain. I’ll go after I explain, if that’s what you want.”

  She was still trying to pull away, and he realized that she’d underplayed how badly Shiv had scared her. Yet he held on. “Riley! Babe, please. Just hear me out.”

  “Then let go of me! I need some space! I can’t think with you so close!”

  He let her go, a little flame of hope catching in his chest. She turned and went around the island, stopping near the table, looking out through the windows at the city below.

  “So say what you came here to say. How did you end up one of those animals?”

  Bart stood where he was, the island between them once more, and told her. He told her everything that had happened that weekend, including what had happened to Wallace and Grady, how CJ and Vic ended up, and why the Scorpions were in Signal Bend so hot in the first place. Then he explained the bargain he’d made.

  Throughout his whole, long monologue, Riley never turned from the window, and she never said a word. When he was finished, they stood silently, the wide space of the room between them, her back still to him. He watched her small body, looking for signs in her posture about what she was feeling.

  At last, she turned around. “We did this? The film? It’s our fault?”

  It was so far outside his own mind that he didn’t understand at first what she meant. When he did, he came around the island and went to her. He stopped a couple of feet away. “No, babe. The Horde signed up for the movie. You didn’t just jump down our throats. We brought it on. We thought it would help the town. And it did. But everything has a dark side, too, you know? But this isn’t Hollywood’s fault.”

  “It’s mine, though. That guy was trying to take pictures of us, because of my shit with Devon. He’s dead because of me. Wallace, too.” She took a shaky breath. “God!”

  Unable to stand there and let her deal with this on her own, Bart pulled her close. She let him, leaning into him at once, and he held her as tightly as he could without hurting her, bending down to press his lips to her head. “Don’t, Riley,” he whispered against her hair. “It’s not on you. None of it is on you.”

  Her face tucked into his kutte, her voice muffled by the new leather, she asked, “How can you say that?”

  “Because it’s on me. The Horde and the Scorpions. What my life is. T
his is what my life is. Especially now.”

  As soon as he said the words, he knew that he had to go. He loved her—fuck, he needed her—but he couldn’t pull her into this world. As a Scorpion, even if they left him in the clubhouse, at his computer, he was outright outlaw. The L.A charter ran a huge, well-known custom bike shop, and that was their work of record, but what they really did was run drugs and guns, full time and in quantity.

  The Horde had clung to a Robin Hood philosophy of saving the poor and downtrodden, but Bart had always known that was a rationalization as much as it was the truth. Still, they had done actual good, and they had kept Signal Bend together. They still were.

  The Scorpions, though, they were in it for the jack. Pure and simple and no joke. And they made it in stacks.

  So far, the L.A. Scorps seemed like they could be decent guys, for the most part. They were definitely mellower and just in general more socially acceptable than Sam’s crew, but still, they were not the Horde. The vibe in the clubhouse befit men who routinely spent their waking hours on the wrong side of the law and not infrequently on the edge between life and death. It was wilder, rougher, and louder than the usually laid-back atmosphere in the Horde house. The women were more plentiful and harder around the edges. Bart could not imagine delicately beautiful little Riley ever stepping foot into that space. Actually, he could imagine it. He had—he had nightmares about it.