No. I think I’m losing my goddamn mind.
“Yeah.” I squeeze her hips. “Keep going.”
She purses her lips, then climbs off me. “Are you shitting me? It’s been six years, and Ashton’sstillcockblocking me!”
“What?” I ask, sitting up to watch as she climbs out of bed and starts putting her clothes on.
“Oh, come on! Don’t give me that bullshit! We both know you’re not into this tonight, and there’s a blonde with a spectacular rack to blame.”
“You’re insane, you know that? I’m just tired. This has nothing to do with Ash.”
She stops, holding her pants and cocks her head to the side. “And you’re full of shit. Look, you wanna talk about your feelings? Great, I’ll listen. You wanna finish what we started? Perfect. But if you wanna spend the evening lying to yourself, get out. I’ll finish my damn self.”
I glare at her. She has no idea what she’s talking about. Sure, I don’t like that Ash’s back. I don’t want her here. But my issues are way bigger than some girl I dated a million years ago. I’m almost twenty-seven years old, not some teenager pining over a girl I can’t have.
She lifts a brow. “That’s what I thought.”
I scoff. I’m not doing this. Not tonight. Lily knows damn well what she’s doing. She’s pushing my buttons on purpose.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Grinning like she won, she flings herself back onto the bed. “I know everything.”
Without another word, I grab my clothes from thefloor, then yank open her bedroom door. “You can be a real bitch, you know that?”
“Love you too. Toodles!”
My skin crawls as I bolt. Maybe I’m more bothered by Ash than I’m willing to admit, but what good does it do me to sit and talk about it. What I needed was to forget about it. But I can’t even seem to do that right tonight.
This shit doesn’t happen with Lily. We’re the perfect match for that reason. She doesn’t want anything from me, and I’m not capable of giving more than this anyway.
She’s safe. A way to blow off steam that my club can’t take from me.
The club is the only thing I can have that I won’t break, and it’s the reason I can’t have anything or anyone else.
9
GABE
MAY 8 YEARS AGO
This year was supposed to be about freedom. Being our senior year, we should be doing whatever the fuck we want, but I might as well be chained to the clubhouse table. Freedom’s an illusion. You’re tied to the school system until they spit you out, then you’re just another pawn in the government’s game. I guess if I have to choose the club or being another cog in the wheel, I’d choose the club, but I’m never going to get that choice anyway.
My dad’s proud to have something to hand down to me, and don’t get me wrong, I do love it. It’s been my life, but these days he seems to want to talk about my future with the club rather than normal shit.
Nothing this year has been how I expected it to be.
JT’s up Katie’s ass these days. Barely eighteen and he acts like they’re married or some stupid shit. Shane’s secret—I say that lightly because honestly, he’s the only one that still thinks it’s a secret—drug problem is so far out of control he spends most of his time so high he might as well be in outer space.
I keep my head down as I strut into school a whopping ten minutes late. Shouldn’t be a big deal, but it will be. Thank God we only have another couple weeks of this shit.
“Mr. Abbott,” the principal, Mr. Wallace, shouts down the hall. “My office.”
Groaning, I spin on my heel. “Fuck me.”
“Watch your mouth,” he says, heading for his office.
Surprise! He called my mother. Want to know who wasn’t surprised? My mother. I swear that fucker calls her once a week.
