by Anne Malcom
I ramped up my death glare to the one I only reserved for people who pushed in line at Sephora.
It didn’t have its intended effect.
“Good girl,” he murmured, like I was some dog performing a new trick. “That’ll make it so much more interesting.”
He looked to Rosie. “You okay goin’ stag to the party?”
She cocked her hip. “Sure. You okay going in without any weapons to this war, soldier?” she teased.
Keltan’s eyes flickered to mine once more. “Oh, I think her bark is much worse than her bite,” he murmured. “Plus, I don’t mind if I lose this one. ’Cause even if I lose, I win.”
He made the words sound like they could have come from the end of a phone sex line—you know, if women were actually desperate enough to call such lines. Though, if women in general, and I in particular, knew that Keltan was at the other end of that call, I might just pay by the minute.
Or run a mile.
“Rosie, don’t you dare go to that party without me,” I ordered.
Something in my tone, something only my best friend might have been able to catch, gave her pause.
The smile left. A sliver of the sadness of those years ago surfaced. “Lucy,” she began.
“I’ll be two minutes. See you in the car,” I said firmly.
Rosie, never one to be ordered around, complied.
Not before giving Keltan a sad wink.
I focused on him, crossing my arms.
His jaw was hard.
“You do not get to do this,” I informed him. “Flit in and out of my life as you so desire. Demanding my attention like it’s your right.”
He stepped forward but didn’t touch me. “Your attention isn’t a right. It’s a privilege. One I want to earn. One I’ve been trying to think of ways to earn while protecting assholes and actors in L.A.,” he said. “Right now, I want to apologize. For the shit that went down after the shooting. To give you an explanation.” He glanced to the curb. “But it’s gonna take longer than two minutes, Snow.”
I didn’t flinch at the name. Not outwardly at least. “No. I don’t need it. What I need is for you to leave.”
His jaw hardened. “What we have—”
“What we had,” I interrupted, “were moments. Merely a handful. Not enough to fill a suitcase and certainly not enough to fill up a heart,” I lied. “Not enough to build on this fantasy.”
He stepped forward, grasping my jaw in his hands, not painfully but roughly enough to get my attention. As if his piercing stare and rippling waves of emotion that came with it weren’t enough to stop me.
“What we have,” he growled, “is everything. We had a thousand fuckin’ moments, babe. Sure as shit more than some people get in a lifetime. I’m a lucky bastard for having those at all.” His grip tightened, and his eyes glittered, like chocolate diamonds.
Two of my favorite things.
Encased in my one favorite thing of all.
Not that I was willing to admit that and say goodbye to… well, me.
I was too selfish for that.
Or perhaps cowardly.
Because Gray.
“Yeah, well, those are all you can have,” I said, hating my voice, my words, the fucking universe. “Because you once told me that I was broken. Too broken for you to fix. And that you were broken too.” My eyes didn’t waver from his. “I see it. What you saw in me. And I want to fix it too. But I can’t. Because I can’t fix me, and I’m not going to let our broken pieces cut each other anymore. So, I’m asking you. Politely. Leave. Before you make me bleed.”
His entire body was still. But unnaturally so. Horribly so. Because his eyes were a storm. And for a long moment I didn’t think he’d move.
But then he did.
And it cut me all the same.
But his staying would have cut me worse.
Or I hoped so. Otherwise, I’d fucked it up for the umpteenth time.
Then he turned. “This is me doing what you asked, Snow,” he rasped. “This is not me leaving. You’re gonna have to do much better than that to see the last of me,” he promised.
And on that, he left.
I watched him leave.
Then I got in the car with Rosie, who, for once, sensed the need for nothing.
No words. No questions. No jokes. Nothing.
Which was what I needed.
Or all I had left.
Four Months Later
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Explanations
So, you’re not replying to my other e-mails. Or calls. And I know you won’t see me. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been in my truck at least a dozen times these past few months, planning on doing it. Finding a way through to you. Without cutting you. I don’t give a shit about any scratches. I’ve got more than enough scars, and ones from trying to get you, I’ll wear with pride. Especially if they mean I get you.
Even if I don’t, I owe you this.
Because what happened in that bathroom, not giving you the why, it’s not in my nature.
I’m not big on words—a kiwi thing, maybe. Or just a guy thing. And our words in person haven’t been successful thus far. But these have. So, I’ll try.
First, I need to tell you that I thought being in battle, in wars, would be glorious. Somehow noble. I was a small-town kid from a country at the end of the world. Naïve. And I didn’t think I’d ever see battle. New Zealand soldiers are mainly made for peacekeeping.
Ian and I never were too good at peace.
So, they put us in battle. We were good at it. I don’t think there is such a thing that would ever make me less proud than being good at that. But at the time it seemed like something. But there was no glory in that. Sure as fuck no nobility. The things I had to do. Had to see. Nightmares.
But I can handle nightmares.
What I can’t handle is the memory of my best friend dying in my arms while bullets flew through the air.
That’s the simplest explanation for that day. Holding you in my arms with bullets flying around me had me back there. And for a second, I thought I was holding another corpse.
Fucked with me. Hard. So, I needed to make sure you were alive. We were alive. The simplest way I knew how. And then after, it wasn’t simple. And I was all kinds of fucked-up, babe. You didn’t deserve to drown in that. I left so you didn’t have to.
That’s it. I didn’t want you to drown. Not in that. I want you to breathe. Clean. Not air polluted by that.
I was waiting for my air to be clean again.
L.A. may be dirty and full of fuckin’ smog, but the air’s never tasted cleaner.
K
I got the e-mail a day ago. The words circulated in my head. Around and around. Unable to shake them. Unable to breathe that clean air.
“This has to stop,” I muttered to myself.
Something had to give. Sometime soon.
“Ugh, One Direction releasing pop songs without Zayne, I agree,” Rosie said, switching the station so AC/DC boomed through the speaker system. “I mean, you had a good run. Now go and endorse some shampoo and leave,” she shouted over the music.
Rosie didn’t believe in doing anything by halves. Including listening to music. It was either ear drum–poppingly loud or complete silence. I was used to it.
And the same went for every aspect of her life. She threw herself into everything. One thousand percent. Like she might die the next day.
She got wild hair and decided to do a countrywide road trip for eight months, and then I had to come and pick her up when that countrywide road trip turned into an intercountry road trip in Columbia where she ran out of money because she “bet it all on a horse that Jose ensured me was a sure thing.”
She didn’t love by halves either. She would die for her friends in an instant. Kill for them in a second. Her loyalty was unwavering—maybe a side effect from the club she grew up in, where loyalty meant more than anything. But
mostly it was just her.
Which was why she buried the greatest love she’d had since middle school down in serial dating and bad decisions and countless parties, constant motion. Because she was a motorcycle club princess. And the royal family didn’t fraternize with the very enemies trying to end their monarchy.
The law.
Her loyalty and love for that club meant she broke her own heart every single day because of what that patch meant to her.
I hurt for her. I wanted it to be different, but I knew I couldn’t reason with her. Not with Hurricane Rosie. Not with the family she loved so fiercely, more than herself.
She loved hard because she lived hard.
And because the club she loved so much taught her how easy it was to die.
She was my best friend, and I didn’t even understand her. You couldn’t reason or analyze a hurricane. You just weathered it.
And this hurricane, currently wearing a Grateful Dead tee, ripped jeans and combat boots—when the day before she was wearing a sequined miniskirt, sky-high heels and a cashmere sweater—wanted to party.
“Why we come here when neither one of us actually screws the guys inside that building is beyond me,” she groaned, nodding to the clubhouse while she parked in an empty lot.
I smiled at her, but it felt tight and unnatural. “Well, maybe because they’re our family, and we love them?”
She put her finger to her chin. “Could be. But I don’t love them that much to go nun on it.”
I grinned, that time more natural. “The free booze?”
“Getting warmer.”
“And although we may not indulge in the men, we come to look. Like window-shopping,” I deduced, grabbing my black purse from the back.
Unlike Rosie, I wasn’t a fashion chameleon. I usually dressed in black but favored other monochromatic styles. You wouldn’t see me in ripped jeans, though Rosie worked the shit out of them. Nor fluorescents—only Cyndi Lauper could rock the shit out of those. Audrey Hepburn was my muse. Even amongst the leather-wearing men and the rough culture that came with them, I wanted elegance. Maybe because elegance in fashion was so streamlined, orderly, unlike my life.
My mom and sister sure as hell couldn’t understand where I got it from. They wouldn’t wear anything unless it had at least one pattern on it, preferably five.
They could have been twins for how alike they were, equally as eccentric and crazy as the other, while Dad and I were the calm, sensible ones who balanced the family on the right side of well-adjusted.
Barely.
The family that was inside that clubhouse? That line between well-adjusted and plain old chaos was just a dot in the distance.
“I hate window-shopping,” Rosie declared, getting out of the car at the same time I did.
My heels clicked on the concrete as I rounded it and Rosie continued talking.
“It’s like going to a buffet when you’re on a no-carb diet and just staring at all the bread. Cruel, really. What harm could one little bun really do?” she asked wistfully.
I laughed. “Well no harm to you, of course. The bun in question? May or may not get shot by Cade.”
Her eyes flickered with something that was becoming more common of late. Something that worried me. Something connected to the lawman who had held her heart for well on a decade.
“Oh yeah,” she muttered. “That’s why.”
I opened my mouth to try and do it, brave her hurricane so I could help my friend, but she burst through the doors of the clubhouse before I could.
“All right, I’m here,” she exclaimed, holding her arms above her head. “I know, a dream come true for most. But I’ll quickly turn into your worst fucking nightmare if someone doesn’t get me a margarita and”—she glanced at me—“a very dirty martini, like yesterday.” Her gaze went to Skid, who paled slightly and damn near tripped over his motorcycle boots to do her bidding. The kid made prospect and, despite him scaring far too easily, I liked him. Then again, being scared of Rosie instead of the muscled and armed men probably made him the smartest person in the room.
I sighed and decided to roll with the hurricane for the time being, hoping the storm would settle soon before disaster laid in its wake.
Little did I know that disaster was already on the horizon. We were just looking the wrong way.
“So, this guy. He’s hotter than Keltan?” Rosie asked slyly as we strutted towards her car, flying high on the buzz of a cocktail each.
I glared at her. “Who?”
She laughed. “Oh, don’t play dumb with me, sister. I cheated off you for my entire high school career. The hot man candy with the accent and the eyes and the bo-dy. The one who’s so obsessed with you.” She started singing “Why You So Obsessed with Me,” and much better than Mariah Carey, in my opinion.
I folded my arms. “Did someone actually check for brain damage when you were dropped on your head as a child, or did they just hope for the best?”
I made the mistake of telling Rosie about Keltan’s continued contact—or stalking, as the authorities would call it—hoping to vent to her and then hatch a plan to scare him off.
We’d done that more than a couple of times with guys who didn’t get the whole “It’s not me, it’s you” conversation.
One actually fled the country once.
It was great.
I’d reasoned the brute would be harder to expedite considering he was operating a very successful and well-known security company in L.A., but I think Rosie once banged a guy working for immigration, so we could change that.
Extreme?
Maybe.
But protection of one’s sanity was serious business.
Or whatever sanity remained with Rosie as a best friend, the Sons of Templar as a family and Keltan as a… problem.
Instead of calling her pal at immigration, or calling in a bomb threat at his security offices, Rosie had decided to be Team Keltan. Merely because she knew me. Too well.
“Me thinks the lady doth protest too much,” she sang.
I scowled, leaning against the car. “You can’t quote Shakespeare when you thought King Lear was a DJ,” I snapped.
“King Lear is a great name for a DJ,” she countered.
I shook my head, rolling my eyes. They landed on an SUV entering the lot.
The windows were tinted so I couldn’t see the driver, but I knew.
I knew every single car connected to the club, mostly because the men drove bikes and I was friends with all of the women, who totally weren’t into SUVs.
Process of elimination.
And the increase in my blood temperature. Impossible, but it happened. I struggled to keep my breathing even.
I knew it was him. After our last conversation, I couldn’t exactly expect him to stay away. I’d be lying if I said I wanted him to. But I needed him to.
“Uh-oh,” Rosie said, following my gaze.
I swallowed. Hard. “We need to leave, now,” I said urgently.
Rosie folded her arms, the ones holding the keys. “But we’re going to another party to find eligible men.” She nodded to the SUV, which was parking. “He’s eligible.”
“Not happening,” I said through gritted teeth.
She tilted her head as the door opened. “Why, Lulu?” she asked seriously, using the nickname only she and my sister were allowed to use. “He is into you. Like crazy into you.”
I met her stare. “Exactly,” I said, my eyes moving of their own accord to meet his. A part of me tensed while another part sighed. A contradictory impulse that itched at my insides yet relaxed them at the same time.
“Oh, right,” Rosie replied, staring in the same direction, her mouth tight. “Trouble,” she continued.
“Trouble,” I agreed.
“And not our usual kind.”
I shook my head, watching as Keltan just stood there, staring at me. Like he was waiting for something. I knew what he was waiting for. Physics. The inescapable pull had my entire body revolting from
the distance between us. A carnal part of me urged my feet to go to him.
It relaxed slightly when Bex yelled at us. We had passed her and Lucky going into the party we’d just left. When I’d seen them, I was caught with a sort of melancholy. Both of them deserved so much happiness, yet the world decided to throw them a world of shit that Bex barely survived.
If I could hunt down the fuckers who’d locked her up and raped her, I would so make their deaths slow.
I was about elegance in fashion, but vengeance in life.
You can’t grow up around bikers and not be happy to deal death to enemies.
And I’d had experience. I may not have pulled the trigger, but I was responsible for the shot.
“Hey, bitch, don’t run with my lipstick,” Bex called, jogging over with flushed cheeks and wild eyes.
I grinned at her, sadness creeping in. She was doing it. Finding a way through.
And she was making sure Rosie didn’t steal her lipstick—the bitch was notorious for that.
Rosie folded her arms. “Okay, I’ll give it back, but only if I can keep these boots,” she bargained.
I heard and watched the conversation, yet my attention was barely on it.
Bex must have felt the pull too, despite being all wrapped up in her own form of trouble.
The right kind.
Her eyes moved over the lithe form that exuded something, even from across the parking lot. He didn’t even look perturbed at the viewing party. Then again, his eyes were focused on me.
“Who’s the hunk?” Bex asked.
“Lucy’s boyfriend,” Rosie replied for me, obviously changing her mind and deciding that any trouble was good trouble.
I could get whiplash trying to keep up with her mood swings.
I scowled at her. “He is fucking not,” I hissed, then focused on Bex, gentling my gaze slightly. She didn’t deserve my wrath; that was reserved for my insane best friend and the annoying hunk across the way. “He’s my stalker,” I told her.
She grinned, not nearly as forced and full of pain as her previous month’s attempts had been.