That had been a very long time ago. And she harbored no such feelings now. In truth, she hadn’t really thought about Aidan at all, up until she’d met his younger sister in a creative writing course they shared.
Small world.
But even then, she’d had no desire to lay eyes on Ava’s over-tattooed, cocksure brother again. But then she’d read this story, and he’d come trampling through her thoughts, graceless and crass as ever.
“Idiot,” she muttered to herself, and dropped her eyes to the paper in front of her, yanking her focus back in the right direction.
Papers. Then poems. No more dwelling on stupid bad boys with gorgeous curly dark hair and –
“Argh,” she growled through her teeth. “What the hell?”
“What the hell what?” a voice said from the other side of the table, and she jerked upright, leaving a big red skidmark from the pen across the paper. Awesome.
So absorbed in her thoughts, she hadn’t heard her sister come in the back door. The sister who now stood opposite her, in the process of letting her backpack, gym bag and purse slide off her shoulders like she couldn’t be bothered to hold onto them anymore. The straps slithered down her limp arms and all the gear hit the linoleum with a muffled thump. Erin’s look was one of the barest interest, like she’d walk off mid-sentence if Sam didn’t make this entertaining.
“Nothing,” Sam said, attention returning to her paper. “Just talking to myself.”
“You do that a lot.”
“Hmm.”
Erin’s chunky-soled sandals clopped across the floor as she went to the cabinet above the sink, pulled down a glass and filled it at the tap.
“Practice go okay?” Sam asked as she scanned the first paragraph of the essay. This poor student had no idea what a thesis statement was.
“They put me on the top of the pyramid,” Erin said, voice proud.
“That’s great.” Also no surprise; Erin was tiny and fine-boned, and flexible as a cat. She made cheerleading look like walking. Breathing. Something natural and easy. Sam’s attitudes about cheering notwithstanding, she and her mother had both been delighted to see Erin excel at something – besides attaining boys’ phone numbers. The problem was, however, that she didn’t seem to like cheering itself any better than the other after-school activities she’d tried, she just liked the attention it earned her.
If nothing else, it would look good on her college apps and it was getting her out of the house and giving her something productive to do this summer.
“Jesse was there,” Erin continued, even more proud. “He came to watch me.”
Sam lifted her head and turned to regard her sister over her shoulder. Erin stood leaning back against the sink, arms folded over her puffed-out chest, water glass still in one hand. Her flyaway blonde hair was coming loose from her ponytail in a way that looked artist-rendered. After cheer practice, she’d changed into an indecently short black miniskirt and a white tank top that showed her pink bra. She looked twenty-two instead of fifteen. She looked like trouble waiting for the perfect moment to unfold.
“Oh,” Sam said, trying not to sound too concerned. When she “started talking like Mom,” as Erin put it, Erin tended to run toward sin even faster. “Jesse Irvine?”
“Um, duh. What other Jesse is there?”
Thank small favors for that. “Well, that was…sweet…of him.”
Erin tossed her hair with a little smirking smile. “He brought me home.”
Sam couldn’t keep her mom-ish frown to herself. “I thought Trina’s mom was giving you a ride?”
“She was, but then Jesse showed up, so he did.”
“I didn’t know Jesse had his license.”
“Duh.”
“Erin, how old is Jesse?”
Erin sipped her water and glanced away, affecting a bored expression. “Eighteen.”
“Oh my God!”
“Oh, so what?” Erin rounded on her, scowl dark.
“I thought he was your age!”
“Like I said, so what?”
Sam swallowed the semi-panicked lump in her throat. “Please tell me hasn’t graduated yet.”
“Back in May.”
“Christ.”
“OMG, what is the big damn deal?” Erin slammed her glass down on the counter, water slopping out of it.
Sam abandoned her pen, twisting around to fully face her sister. “The big damn deal is that he’s a legal adult and you’re–”
“Oh no, don’t even go there. What, like I’m some dumb kid? Excuse me, but, like, no.”
Sometimes, Sam doubted their blood relation. How could they be sisters?
She took a deep, steadying breath. “Boys that old aren’t exactly paragons of virtue. If he’s pressuring you, or asking you to–”
“Puh-lease, Sam. Jesse likes me. Why do you always have to think the worst of everybody? Like he’s trying to, what, rape me or something? He’s my boyfriend. You know, boy-friend. That thing you’ve never had.”
Sam straightened up in her chair, cheeks growing warm as someone half her age called her out on her love life. “I’ve had boyfriends.”
“Yeah,” Erin laughed. “I’m sure things are sooo hot with you and Dick.”
“It’s Doug.”
“Whatever. You don’t know shit about boys, Sam, so just butt out.” She left the room with a toss of her ponytail for emphasis, leaving all her gear on the floor for someone else to pick up. God knew she wouldn’t come back and collect it later.
Sam sighed. She’d never been much of a sister to Erin, but more of a second mother, especially after Dad’s passing. She’d been fifteen when Erin was born, and had changed her diapers, bottle-fed her, carried her around when she was colicky. Dad had died two years after that, and even though Mom had never asked it of her, Sam had taken it upon herself to pick up the slack. She’d gone to UT, even though she’d been accepted to UCLA, and she’d worked odd shifts and she’d made sure she was there when her little sister got off the bus in the afternoons. No, there weren’t a lot of guys in her past, because she’d been focusing all her energy on working, getting her education, and taking care of her family.
Not that Erin appreciated that.
Not that men did, either. She’d dated casually, and she’d had sex just enough times to need to count it on two hands, and now she had this thing – whatever it was – with fellow professor Doug Schaffer at school. But she hadn’t entertained a full-on crush since high school.
Since she’d endured an unrequited girlhood passion for Aidan Teague.
Well fuck him and his motorcycle. She didn’t have a thing for bad boys anymore.
And she had papers to grade.
The next day, after class, Sam called Ava and asked if she needed any help arranging furniture or unpacking boxes or anything, really. Ava replied that she was pretty much done at this point, but that she wouldn’t say no to lunch, girl talk, and an opinion on paint colors. Sam put down the windows in her outdated battleship of a Chevy and headed for the Lécuyer house with a grateful sigh.
After much internal debate about revealing Jesse Irvine’s age to her mother, she’d decided this co-momming thing worked better if they were honest with one another. Mom had been upset – in a concerned way, and not an angry one. And Erin had exploded at the dinner table, yelling at both of them, storming to her room without eating dinner. Sam had rapped on her bedroom door that morning and gotten no answer. So it was safe to assume she was the enemy now. And Mom had been near tears and not sure what to do. “I just wish she could take after you more,” she confided. Sam wished that too, even if there wasn’t much to recommend about being her.
The hot air coming through the windows eased the AC-generated chill in her muscles, and the loud rumble of the old car vibrated the knot from between her shoulders. It was one of those picturesque, surface-of-the-sun Southern summer days that stirred heat mirages off the pavement and drove kids to the ice cream parlor en masse. It was summertime and it was ho
t all over the country, but only the South reveled in the magic of that heat. All the café tables at Stella’s were full, sunlight glinting off silverware and the smooth plastic lenses of sunglasses. Every loud jacked-up truck in Knoxville seemed to be on the road, sunburned arms of rowdy boys hanging out the open windows, whatever bro-country was most popular blaring from their staticky speakers.
Pure magic.
Ava and Mercy’s little white house still needed the outside tackled with fresh paint and shears for the shrubs, but it no longer looked uninhabited and morose. It was starting to look alive, like a sleeping creature peeking out at the world through cracked lids.
Sam parked beside Ava’s truck in the drive and let herself in the back door, into the narrow mud room where the washer and dryer had been installed, and where various pairs of boots were lined up beneath the coat rack.
“Ava?”
“In here.”
“Your back door was open.”
“Only ‘cause I knew you were coming. Turn the deadbolt for me, would you?”
She did, and followed her friend’s voice into the kitchen. Ava had made cold cut sandwiches and was taking the plates to the table, where fresh bags of chips and frosty cans of Coke waited. Even from a distance, Sam could tell the bread was deli-grade and soft, and her stomach growled.
“I just put Remy down,” Ava said as she sat down in front of her lunch and reached for her Coke. “Which means a circus could set up shop in here and he’d still sleep for an hour.”
Sam grinned as she pulled out her chair. “You know, if you have another baby, it’ll probably be his polar opposite.” If she and her sister were anything to go by.
Ava frowned. “Probably. Siblings seem to be at either ends in this family.”
Meaning her and Aidan. Damn, she really didn’t need to think about Aidan.
And meaning –
“Things haven’t been good with the half-brother?” she asked and took a bite of her turkey on sourdough.
Ava shook her head. “He and Merc hate each other. I guess they have their reasons.” A shadow passed through her eyes; there was a story there Sam wasn’t privy to, and she knew enough about the Lean Dogs not to press. “But the thing that bugs me is they’re both trying to pretend they’re not related. And, hello, I’m a skeptic, but all they have to do is look at each other. You saw Colin, right? I’m not imagining the resemblance?”
“They could be twins,” Sam assured. It had been eerie to see a short-haired, snarky Mercy come into the living room a few days before. “Fraternal, not identical, but yeah, they are for sure brothers.”
Ava nodded in agreement. “Between that nose – it’s their grandfather’s – and that coloring – the grandmother was full-blooded Cherokee – there’s just no question. They even move the same way.” She shuddered. “And Mercy refuses to accept that they’re related.”
“It’s shocking and awful for him,” Sam guessed.
Ava sighed. “He thinks his father was a saint. And by all accounts, the man was a wonderful father. But even wonderful fathers fall weak. Hell – my dad hooked up with a sixteen-year-old for God’s sakes.”
Sam felt her brows go up, and Ava smiled.
“My mom. He claims he didn’t know how young she was.”
Sam nodded, swallowing down sandwich, pretending her own mother wouldn’t have gone through the roof over the age difference. If Eileen Walton knew that Ava’s husband was thirteen years older than her, she would have disapproved of this friendship, whether Sam was thirty-years-old or not.
“I wish,” Ava continued, “that he could see this as a positive thing, because he thinks his whole family’s dead, and turns out, he has a relative after all. I think it could be really good for him. But he hates Colin.”
“Well,” Sam said, “there’s hate, and then there’s hate. If Colin did something really awful to him, that’s one thing. But if it’s just personality clashing, maybe he can get over it.”
“Maybe.
“And I have a real hard time imagining anyone doing anything really awful to your husband and living to tell the tale.”
Ava snorted. “Yeah.”
The sound of a motorcycle engine cut through the afternoon, distant and growing louder. Ava cocked her head, listening as it drew closer. “My brother,” she said decisively, and popped a chip into her mouth.
It shouldn’t have, but Sam’s stomach shriveled into a little ball, her appetite fleeing. She forced herself to swallow the bite of sandwich in her mouth and reached for her Coke, taking a tentative sip. She shouldn’t care at all that Aidan was approaching the house. She didn’t, in fact. Nope, not at all. Her pulse was not knocking against her eardrums, and her palms were not suddenly clammy.
As the growl of the Harley grew louder, punching as the bike rolled over the curb into the driveway, Ava stood. “I better go let him in.”
Sounds of the bike shutting off. Ava’s bare feet on the hardwood. The back door opening.
“Why are you here?” Ava said.
“Dude, can’t you just say, ‘Good to see you’?” Aidan said.
Boots coming in, door shutting, footfalls returning.
“No, but really,” Ava said as brother and sister entered the kitchen.
Sam sent her gaze skittering across the kitchen, fixing it to a white cabinet face across from her. It was an automatic reaction, one she kicked herself for mentally. An old habit from her teen years that it turned out she hadn’t shaken – don’t stare boldly at the cocky, swaggering, dark-haired outlaw boy with the gorgeous chocolate-colored eyes. Just act cool and natural, and like she didn’t know he existed – then ogle him from the corner of her eye when he sat down.
God, I’m pathetic.
She was also thirty now, so she hitched up her shoulders and purposefully turned her face back to the siblings. She wasn’t just some girl in Aidan’s class these days; she was his sister’s friend, and she had every right to be here.
“…borrow his .30-0-6,” Aidan was saying. He opened the door of the fridge, leaned in and plucked a beer off the top shelf. As he did so, his wallet chain swung forward, catching sunlight in fast glimmers. His cut had that chafed, weather-beaten look of leather that was used hard, the patches dusty and faded. Sam stole a look at his ass as he was bent forward at the waist, and silently wished he didn’t wear his jeans so baggy.
“It’s in the safe,” Ava said beside him. “I’ll go get it.”
Aidan twisted the top off his beer and flicked it onto the counter, took a long pull, head tilted back, throat working as he swallowed.
Sam told herself, aggressively, that it didn’t matter if thirty looked damn good on the man, she was not interested.
“I can get it,” he said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “It’s in the bedroom closet?”
“First off,” Ava said, holding up one finger, “Merc doesn’t want anyone knowing the combination to the safe. And two” – second finger – “do you really want to go pawing through my closet?”
“He doesn’t want anyone knowing the combination?” Aidan repeated with apparent disbelief. “Don’t you know it?”
“It’s in my house, so yes, I know it. And it’s nothing personal against you – it’s just his policy. This is a home thing, not a club thing.”
Sam had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Aidan’s expression was a hilarious blend of indignant, wounded, and doubtful. Like he was wondering when the hell his little sister had turned into this adult who was someone’s wife and most trusted confidant. By all rights, Aidan’s face was one of those severe, laser-cut ones that shouldn’t have been capable of much emotion, but that had never been true. He was dramatically expressive, even with those cruel, slanted eyebrows.
“I’m family,” he protested. “We’re brothers and brothers.”
“Just wait here,” Ava told him, spinning and leaving the room. Sam thought there was a small pleased curve to Ava’s mouth, a private delight in being able to trump all type
s of brotherhood in this one small instance. It made Sam want to smile too: the women of this club, she was realizing, were the secret beating heart of the organization, in possession of a power over the men that most probably missed, because it was subtle and pretty.
But when Ava was gone, realization crashed over her: She was alone with Aidan. And the last time they’d been alone together, things had gone badly.
Aidan had dropped out of school partway through their senior year. He and Kevin – Tango – both. Not surprising, considering Aidan spent more time in detention than in class, but still, it had seemed sort of extreme in Sam’s eyes. Lots of guys hated school and bitched about it, disrupted class and flunked the occasional course. But most didn’t just give up. And even fewer dropped out because they’d just been fully patched into their father’s motorcycle club and were too busy being an outlaw to bother with studying.
The first week of that senior year, Sam and Aidan had both been held after class by their English teacher, Mr. Murdock. Aidan because he’d thrown a wad of tape across the room and gotten it stuck in Melissa Parkerson’s hair; Sam because she’d been accidently placed in regular Lit, when she should have been in AP. Mr. Murdock told them both to wait, and then Mrs. Adams from down the hall had poked her head in the door, breathless and frazzled, and said there were two students fighting in the hall, could Mr. Murdock please come try to assert his “masculine advantage” in breaking the boys up.
“You two sit tight. I’ll be back,” Mr. Murdock had said, and sprinted from the room.
Then, it was just them.
Sam eased down so she sat on the edge of the desk in the front row, books clasped to her chest, almost protectively. As much as Aidan made her knees weak, left her belly tight with this new adult tension she had no idea what to do with, he spooked her a little too. She had no idea how to act in front of him.
Aidan wasn’t allowed to wear his prospect cut at school, but he didn’t need it; everything about him screamed renegade. His Levi’s were ripped down the front and the hem of the left leg had gotten caught in the top of his boot. A very heavy black boot with spur straps made of chains and ragged laces that cinched them all the way up to mid-calf. He wasn’t supposed to wear a wallet chain, but he’d left it on and stuffed it down in his pocket; it was sliding out now, a bright silver snake defying orders as it crawled down onto the teacher’s desk he leaned against. He had a new tattoo on his left forearm, and his sleeves were pushed up far enough for her to see the gauze he’d wrapped around it. Another school rule: no visible tats. He was wearing an old Molly Hatchet concert shirt that must have been his father’s. It fit him well; he clearly worked out a lot. His hair was, as always, spectacular, black-dark under the fluorescent tubes, wildly curly, like a little boy’s.
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