Rosie

Age Seventeen

I couldn’t put my finger on when things changed for Luke and me. Like really changed. Morphed from a handful of almosts. Almost glances, almost declarations. All the almosts added up to nothing.

Because almost didn’t mean shit.

Almost dying? You’re still living.

Almost living? You’re still dead.

Almost pregnant? You’re not pregnant, go have a cocktail.

I grew into a woman. He noticed. I knew he noticed because I grew into a woman, and a woman knew when a man noticed her.

Once—a time I’d never told someone about, not even Lucy—he caught me and some guy making out in his car on the outskirts of Amber. We’d met at a party, and he didn’t know my family, which meant I had a real chance at finally giving up my V-card. My brother’s promise to kill anyone who touched me seemed to stick with any fuckable guy in town. I took what I could get.

Things were getting to almost sex when a blinding light illuminated the cheap and cliché act. When the door opened and the half-naked guy was wrenched out of the car with a violence I was all too familiar with, I was sure it was my brother. I scrambled out of the back seat, forgetting I was just in a bra and unbuttoned cutoffs.

“Hey! Do you have to—”

But it wasn’t a leather cut and a bike. It was a uniform and a cruiser.

And Luke, beating the shit out of my would-be deflowerer.

The cop, Luke, beating up a minor.

“You”—thump—“little”—thump—“piece”—thump—“of shit,” he grunted, punches enunciating his words.

“Luke.” My voice was soft, though it punctured his violence as if I’d screamed it.

In the headlights of his cruiser, I saw him drop the half-naked teenager to the ground, looking from him to his hands, dazed, as if he was wondering what they’d done when Luke had left the building.

Andy scrambled up, bleeding from the nose. “She was consenting, I swear,” he babbled through the blood. He pointed at me. “Babe, tell him you wanted—”

“Get the fuck in your car and drive off,” Luke growled.

He scrambled to do exactly that.

I was gaping at Luke, all traces of the night’s shots wearing off to see him in stark reality. Though being sober didn’t provide any more sense of logic to the situation.

His eyes moved from his fists to me—more accurately, my exposed chest. “Get your shirt on and get in the car,” he ordered, voice so rough it was barely recognizable.

I blinked. “Luke—”

“Now!” he yelled.

I jumped, as if I wasn’t used to people shouting at me, as if they didn’t do it on an almost daily basis. They did. Luke? Never.

I snatched my shirt, yanking it over my head, most likely ruining whatever was left of my hair and makeup. Andy had already started the car and was regarding me with panic, as if he was considering driving away even though the door was open and half of me was still in the car.

“Get in, Rosie, before he decides to lock us up,” he demanded.

I was about to do as he instructed when the savage version of Luke stopped me.

“Not with him. With me,” he ordered.

I froze for a split second, fear and joy mixing in my stomach even worse than tequila and red wine.

On autopilot, I leaned back and shut the car door. Andy didn’t hesitate in roaring backward the second I did so, blowing up dust with his hasty escape. Good thing I didn’t give him anything I couldn’t get back. Guy was a douche.

“Not a word. In the car,” Luke said, reading my mind as I glanced up at him to ask him what the fuck was going on.

I blinked again. “Front or back?”

He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. With himself or me, I wasn’t quite sure. “Jesus, Rosie, the front.”

I quickly darted to the door he opened. It slammed as soon as my butt was in the seat. I regarded the radio and police paraphernalia like an alien on a foreign planet.

The air thickened as Luke got in and slammed his door shut. The moment of silence between us, the first time we’d been truly alone, was both beautiful and terrifying.

“Seat belt,” he barked.

I glanced at him. “Seriously?”

He clenched the steering wheel in answer.

I did as requested, something extremely rare for me.

He reversed out of what was known as the second-best make-out spot in Amber. I didn’t go to the first because it was closer to town and had a higher chance of getting me caught by whoever Cade had gotten to stalk me tonight.

We didn’t speak for the longest time, the car too full of quiet for one of us to add words to it. Too full of questions and answers and almosts. The radio wasn’t even on: there wasn’t the space for music.

I watched Luke’s profile the entire drive through Amber, the lights illuminating his stiff jaw and granite features every now and then. I didn’t even realize he was taking me right back to the party before we were almost there.

“Why are you taking me back here?” I asked, tearing through the air in the car.

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

Of course he couldn’t exactly drop me off at home, saying, “I just beat the shit out of the guy sucking face with Rosie and stopped her from having her first time in the back of a car with a douchebag like so many other girls.”

If it was anyone else, they literally could’ve dropped me off and said that, verbatim. They would’ve gotten a pat on the back and a beer for their troubles.

Anyone but Luke.

There would be no pat, certainly no beer. Just a lot of fucking questions as to why the man who considers the law to be set in stone would so easily break it for the first daughter of a club he was intent on bringing down.

That’s what I was asking myself. Too afraid to ask him. Too afraid of the answer.

He pulled over a block away from the party. Even through the closed windows, I could hear the thumping base and screams of inebriated girls.

“Breakin’ this up in fifteen. You’ll want to move on before then,” he said, his voice both rough and flat at the same time as he stared straight ahead.

“Why?” I whispered, deciding to conquer my fear.

He wrenched his eyes to me. “Because you’re better than that, Rosie.”

It was meant to be soft, but it hit me like a punch in the chest. I unbuckled my seat belt, glaring. “Thing is, Luke, I’m not,” I spat. “You’re so intent on making me good, even if it’s just in your mind. Especially if it’s just in your mind. Maybe that makes you sleep better at night, I don’t know, but stop trying to make me into something I’m not so it suits you better. It’s fucking bullshit!” I narrowed my eyes at him as well as I could in the dim light. “I’ll tell you a secret. My brother and all those men with rap sheets as long as my Sephora receipt… all those criminals. Those outlaws?” I paused, letting the venom in my voice penetrate. “They’ve got nothing on me.”

I spat the last part out, jamming all my bitterness and sadness into it, before jumping out of the car and slamming the door shut. I didn’t look back as I stomped back to the party, where I would drink five more tequila shots and wouldn’t be gone by the time the cops showed up.

Luke was not among them.

I hated that I let myself wait long enough to look for him.

To hope.

Hope was deadly.

* * *

Rosie

Present Day

Four months passed after Gage left and things went back to whatever version of normal I’d constructed. Not that I’d ever, since birth, experienced something close to normal. I had convinced myself that it was good, great. The only thing worse than death was normalcy. Nine-to-five, white picket fence, two-point-five kids and a golden retriever.

But Gage’s visit, his words had shaken some of the cupboards of my minds so hard that the skeletons came out.

Not the bodies, of course. All of those were out in the open, except one. Crime and murder wasn’t something I had to keep a secret from my family, even now when things were as close to the straight and narrow as they’d ever be—that being a definite curve away from anything resembling normal society.

My skeletons were different. The ones I even hid from myself. That shameful yearning for the white picket fence, the dog—heck, maybe even the kids. The whole package. The fairy tale. With the man who represented all of that, the safety and order.

Luke.

But his version of safety and order was destroying the thing he considered a threat to that.

The Sons of Templar.

One hell of a Catch-22.

One of the many, many reasons that I shouldn’t think of that. Couldn’t. But didn’t a girl always want what she couldn’t have?

I downed my tequila, warm and cheap, but you couldn’t find anything else around here. It did the job. Kind of.

I twirled a piece of metal in my hand. An extremely dangerous one. Not a knife, or a gun. Worse than that.

A cell phone.

I’d purchased it in one of those shitty electronic shops that smelled of cigarette smoke and were packed to the gills with rudimentary rip-offs of all of the big names. It worked well enough. I was fingering the one thing I didn’t discard along with my phone. My SIM card.

Inserting it into the phone would mean that my old life would come tumbling back in, would mean that Cade, or even Luke, could find me. If he was actually looking for me, which was doubtful, if our last meeting was anything to go by.

Because of—or in spite of—tequila, my mind went there. To the last place it should have.

The past. With Luke. With my family. With everyone.

It stayed there for a long time.

* * *

I emerged from the past much like a person would surface from the water after almost drowning: breathless and gasping for air. Swimming around back there wasn’t healthy.

I tipped my head back and welcomed my shot of tequila.

I’d lost count of how many.

Not enough or too much, obviously, with my little trip down memory lane.

I regarded the SIM card. I was fucked now, so why not make it another signature Rosie Fuck-Up?

I inserted the card, waiting for the screen to light up. Which it did. Missed calls, voice mails, texts. The list was long; I guessed I should’ve counted myself lucky to have that many people caring about me. That many people who loved me.

Gwen: Hey, sis, so the hubby is a little worried about you. And so am I. I need a drinking buddy. Your nephew is entering the terrible twos, and Amy is pregnant and can’t drink. Which means she’s almost worse than the toddler. Okay, she’s definitely worse than the toddler. Please come home. I miss you and love you.

Gwen: And by a little worried, I mean Cade has broken four pieces of furniture.

Amy: Everyone’s having babies. And now Brock wants one. Despite the damage it will do to my vagina. I need backup. Not just for the vagina stuff.

Ashley: Hey, my love. I know why you needed to go, even though you never said anything. I get it. Just remember you have an entire family that loves you. That needs you. You’re the crazy glue that holds us all together.

Polly: My sister is lost without you. Which means I’m lost without you. She moved to LA. You were supposed to do that together. Come home.

PS. I’m in love and his name is Jared.

Bex: I’m betting you’ve already ditched your phone, because you don’t want to be found and you’re not an idiot. What you did for Gabriel and me, for the club, there are no words. I know what it cost you. Heal, then come home. You’ve got a wedding to be in, bridesmaid. You can wear anything you like. As long as it’s not fucking pink.

Mia: Hey, honey. Know you’re out doing your thing. Being you. Your family is a little worried, and us girls are battling toddlers trying to get out alive. We need you to dole out the drinks and keep us insane.

Lily: Hey, Rosie, I don’t know if you’ll get this, and if you do, I’m sure it’s lost in between all Cade’s text versions of frenzied grunts, lol. But I just wanted to tell you that I’m pregnant too! Asher won’t let me find out what it is. He wants a surprise. I hate surprises. Must be something in the water around here. Maybe it’s a good thing you left, morning sickness sucks.

Lucy: I’ve sent a thousand and twenty-one texts and left as many voice mails but I’m still going to send a thousand more. You’re my best friend. No matter what. Even though you leave me behind without a word to navigate this shit show called life without my partner in crime. It’s your fault if I get locked up because I don’t have you to drive the getaway car.

Cade: Get back home. Now. This isn’t fucking funny, Roe.

Lucky: Hey, honey boo boo, come home please. I’m scared Cade will shoot me. Also I’m worried about you, little sis.

Evie: Steg here, don’t have a darned cell phone and don’t get this texting shit. But we love you, girl. Don’t hesitate to call home if you need backup. Though know you’re strong enough to figure it out alone. Just remember, you don’t have to. You have a big family with bigger guns at your back.

Luke: I’m looking for you. I’m not stopping. I fucked up, letting you leave. I’ll go to the ends of the earth to find you. And I won’t let you go this time.

Each and every single one of those messages hit me somewhere in my soul, leaving it in little more than tatters when I read what I missing out on, what I was causing. It was physical, my yearning for all of them. Which I’d been ignoring, blocking.

Luke’s message hit me square in the chest. Simple. Not saying much but saying everything at the same time.

There were dozens more of the same as I scrolled through. I decided to move to the flashing icon of my voice mail. There were a lot of those too, but I was already torturing myself, and it didn’t look like I was going to stop until I hit bone.

I may have craved Luke with a fierceness that I could barely survive, but that wasn’t the only kind of love that held me together. My family was everything to me; therefore, their absence in my life had a yawning chasm where my heart was supposed to be. And my girlfriends? Not having them? It was almost as bad as not having Luke. Because they were my true soul mates. So hearing Lucy’s voice was like phantom pain in a missing limb.

“Rosie, this is my twelve hundred and fifty-fourth message,” she joked, her voice saturated with a false lightness. “And I’ll leave twelve hundred and fifty-four more until you call me back.” I smiled a little, her words echoing the text she’d sent. “Tell me where you are. I’ll come and pick you up from the Dominican Republic, Australia, even Wisconsin.” I choked out a little laugh at that. “Just let me know my best friend is okay, please. I need you.” My laugh was stolen by the single tear that rolled down my cheek hearing the hurt in her voice. A loud sigh followed. “Just call me, okay? I—”

Instead of whatever threat she was going to make if I didn’t call her back, I heard a swift and bone-chilling intake of breath. Even through a shitty connection, thousands of miles away, I could hear the fear in my best friend’s gasp. I could taste it, because her fear was my own.

“Lucy,” I yelled, forgetting momentarily that this was a message, that whatever was happening had already happened. I could only listen, a spectator in the past.

“Please be okay. Please,” I begged as crashes echoed through the phone.

“Now don’t do anything stupid like run, darlin’. I’d hate to have to kill you before we get to play with you.”

Then the line went dead. Nothing more. I yanked it from my ear, looked at in in horror, and then slammed it down on the table.

“No!” I screamed as bottles and glasses shattered to the ground.

No one around me even looked up from their drinks.

I stood, snatching my phone with the screen I’d shattered, my chair scuttling to the ground as I pushed it back.

I prayed it would still work to book me a flight back home and to my best friend. I prayed even harder that she was okay.

But God had never listened to me before. Why should He start now?