There were two cars and a bunch of motorcycles in the driveway when we got there, and when we got inside, I heard Shelly shouting.

“No! I want my sons. Alla them.” Shelly was practically screeching in her scratchy two-pack-a-day voice. It did not sound pretty. I rushed in behind Rider.

Blow, the one who’d be moving to Aberdeen to be VP, was there, as was Axel, and three other members I had seen, but couldn’t recall names of.

Shelly was in the family room, on the brown leather couch, two black eyes, bruises on her face, and she was holding her arm funny. The bikers were all standing, Blow standing right in front of her, looking like he was the one trying to reason with her.

The place had been spotless when we were here a few days before. Now, it looked like a cyclone had been through it. There were beer and booze bottles all over the coffee table. Overflowing ashtrays littered the place with the scents of stale cigarette smoke and skunky beer in the air. A big hole in the wall glared at us, and broken glass littered the hardwood floor outside the range of the area rug.

Blow, standing there in jeans, cowboy boots, and a denim Dominion Brotherhood vest, jerked his chin up at Rider and continued trying to reason with her. “Your arm is broken, Shell. You gotta go to the hospital.” He folded his bare arms across his chest, highlighting some seriously big ‘guns’. The guy had full colorful tattoo sleeves that reminded me of Rider’s, but they were in color. I wondered if Lick had done Blow’s tattoos, too.

“Ride,” she whimpered as we were moving into the room. Her whimper melted into a bit of a glare when she saw I was behind him.

“C’mon, Mom. Hospital first. We’ll go from there after.”

“Where’re your brothers? Are they comin’?”

“Me and Jenna were closest, so right now you got us. Let’s go.” He lifted her up carefully into his arms. She winced and held her arm protectively.

“My purse. My cigarettes,” she whined, motioning toward the table.

“I’ve got them,” I told her and lifted up the pack of cigarettes and the lighter. “Where’s your purse?”

She jerked her chin toward the big brown leather couch. I saw a black silver chained big hobo bag sitting on the floor beside it.

I grabbed it and we headed out the door. Rider put her in the front passenger seat of the borrowed SUV we had and buckled her in. I got into the back seat.

There were men getting on their motorcycles behind us and two of them followed us, two more got into a car and headed in the opposite direction.

“Who did this, Mom?” Rider demanded, seething with anger.

“Mantis,” she mumbled.

“When and why? Tell me the story.”

“There’s no story. I was having a little get together last night. He showed up, beat the shit outta me, and threw me at the wall, then left. I called Deacon. He didn’t answer. Called you. You didn’t answer.  Obviously, you were caught up in her.”

The venom with which she said ‘her’ was…wow. This woman hated me, and she didn’t even know me.

She went on. “Spency has me blocked. Jojo answered her phone and sent Blow, till one of youze’d bother answerin’. Did yer father tell you all to ignore my calls?”

“No, Mom. He didn’t. We all have a lot goin’ on. In case you hadn’t heard.”

“You’re with your new piece, though, she’s not on lock down with yer sister, so obviously---”

“Do not fuckin’ call Jenna my new piece.”

My brows shot up. I stayed quiet in the back seat.

Shelly was quiet.

“Who else was there?” he demanded.

“Huh?” she asked.

“You said you were having a get together. Who was there when this went down?”

“No one,” she said kind of loud.

“What?” Rider was showing he was irritated. “Explain.”

“Explain what? Can I have one a my cigarettes?” she called over her shoulder, not very politely.

I scrambled and leaned up and then passed her the pack and her lighter.

She took them without acknowledging me and then struggled with one hand to get one out of the pack, her other arm sort of dangling uselessly.

“Want some help?” I leaned up between the seats.

“I got it,” she grumbled.

“Seatbelt on, gorgeous.” Rider ordered, reached over, took her pack, and tapped one out of the pack, lit it, and passed it to her.

I’d never seen him smoke. The easy way he did that, it was obvious he used to smoke.

I sat back and buckled in, then I cracked the window.

“Party was over. My friends’d gone. The Jackals must’ve been watchin’.” She puffed on her cigarette.

“When?” Rider demanded.

“Last night.”

“What time?”

“Around… I dunno; late. What the fuck, Ride? I wasn’t watchin’ the clock. I was getting’ thrown into a wall in my livin’ room!”

I could see his eyes in the rearview mirror and they were so angry it made my blood chill.

We pulled off a main street onto a side road and then down another side road and finally pulled into hospital parking lot.

Two motorcycles had followed us. They pulled off towards a parking area while Rider pulled up to the door at the emergency entrance and said, “Can you get in there okay?”

“I can walk, yeah,” she muttered.

“Jenna,” Rider said, “You good to take her to the desk? I’ll park. Gotta make a few calls, talk to the brothers. Be in soon?”

I gave him a nod, grabbed my bag and Shelly’s bag, and jumped out.

I opened the door for her and held my hand out to assist her in getting out. She half glared at me, but took my hand and then let it go once she was standing. I glanced at him and his expression? Yikes.

I did not have a good feeling about this. Things were obviously about to be taken to the next level in this war between the Wyld Jackals and the Dominion Brotherhood. I closed the door and he drove off.

She took a few more puffs off her cigarette by the door and then dropped it on the ground and didn’t even bother crushing it with her heel before stepping in through the automatic door. I stepped back and stepped on it and then rushed in behind her.

***

It was fifteen minutes later, and I was sitting in a waiting area, watching her through the window while she smoked and seemed to be arguing with her son.

She’d talked to the triage nurse and I heard her say she “Just got beat up”. The nurse offered to call the police and Shelly waved her non-injured arm impatiently and said, “Just put my arm in a sling or whatever you gotta do so I can get outta here. Hate fuckin’ hospitals. Spent way too much time here lately.”

She was so scowly and angry that the triage nurse just got on with things. I was quiet, at her side.

“Are you next of kin?” The nurse had asked.

“No, she ain’t. My boy is out parkin’ the truck.  He’ll be here in a minute. You wanna go sit?” She huffed at me. “You don’t need to hear my personal details, do ya?”

Awkwardly, I jolted. “I… I’ll just---”

“Leave my purse,” Shelly snapped. I’d put it on her lap and walked to the waiting area and sat.

The waiting area was big and filled with chairs all around the perimeter as well as a few clusters of chairs in the middle. It had a few televisions on, muted, but with news channels with subtitles on it. I could see out the windows that two of the bikers that had come with Rider were by a smoking shelter with him. They were smoking, and he was on his phone, pacing, while talking into the phone.

A minute or two later, Shelly went out there with them, lighting up.

Rider got off the phone and was talking to her, his arms folded across his chest. She was waving her right (working) arm while smoking. Her left arm was now in a sling.

I sat there, sort of frozen, watching her rant at him while he stared at her angrily.  I didn’t know what I was missing, but he looked skeptical. Like he didn’t believe whatever she was saying. And he wasn’t hiding it. He pointed toward the door and turned his back on her and was dialing a number on his phone. She took another few hauls and then threw her cigarette on the ground and crushed this one with her high-heeled black leather boot and waltzed back in.

She sat down in a chair across from me. 

There were only two other people in the large waiting room and one was near us, the other was way on the other end of the room.

“They call my name?” she asked me.

“Not yet,” I answered.

She made a disgruntled sound.

“Need somethin’ for the pain. Assholes makin’ me wait.”

“Do you want something from the vending machine?” I asked. “I have a bunch of change.”

She shook her head, annoyed, and didn’t look at me. She was looking out the window at Rider talking with the other two bikers.

“You think you know him? Think he’s the best thing since sliced bread?” She still had her eyes aimed out the window, but she was obviously talking to me.

“We’ve only been dating a little bit so we’re still getting to know one another,” I said.

“He’s got a taste for wild. A taste for rough.” Her eyes moved to me and traveled the length of me. “Don’t look like a girl who likes a rough life.”

I had jeans and a nice top on, a pair of heeled ankle boots. My hair was a bit disheveled since we’d rushed, and I’d only slapped on a bit of mascara and eyeliner in the car on the way to Shelly’s from the cabin, but I’d had a good hair day the day before and it didn’t totally look like bedhead. I didn’t look as rough as the day she met me, but I certainly didn’t embody “Uptown Girl” right now, either.

“You like gettin’ your rocks off with bad boys? You like bikers?”

I shrugged. “Never dated a biker before Rider.”

She laughed. Laughed like it was hilarious and shook her head at me with a snide sympathetic look.

“You’re in for a rude awakening. These men like to share women. Like breakin’ the law. Expect their pieces to overlook a lotta shit. Did you know this whole war thing started because of his sex drive? Him and his buds gangbanging some ho bag? Doubt you can keep up with him, honey.”

I gave her a tight smile. “He told me about it, yes.  An unfortunate misunderstanding.” I wanted to defend him. I didn’t want to argue with her, though.

Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t believe me. You’ll see. If you stick around long enough, you’ll see. He tell you about his kid at least?”

I startled.

Her eyes brightened. She snickered. “Didn’t think so.”

His kid? His kid?

“He tell ya that Lick went to jail for him?”

“He did, actually.” I replied, shakily. My heart was now racing, and I was in a cold sweat.

“Oh. He told you he beat that security guard with a steel pipe? Hurt him real bad. Guy had brain damage. Lick went down for that. Did five years.  Five.”

Rider was doing a bro shake with the two guys and then they wandered off in the other direction. Rider had his phone to his ear again.

“Ride’s ex, Melanie, keeps sniffin’ around with the baby, tryin ta get Ride to buy diapers, but he kept tellin’ her to fuck off. He ain’t about doin’ a test to prove or disprove whether that boy’s his baby. Looks just like him. Spittin’ image. She was over yesterday, lookin’ for him. Askin’ where she could have him served with papers. Asking me for diaper money. My ex cut me off, so I don’t even got the money to buy my grandbaby diapers. Ride’s all about fuckin’, fightin’, and ridin’. He ain’t about consequences of his actions, that’s for damn sure. A high-class rich bitch like you won’t put up with that shit for long. No one can tame that boy so don’t think it’ll be you. He might be enjoyin’ some designer pussy right now, but it won’t last for long. Don’t let yer heart get involved, Jennifer. Enjoy the dick, but keep yer heart outta it.”

I was staring at him, talking on that phone, pacing. He ended the call and then started heading for the door. I didn’t bother to correct her on my name.

She was sitting, watching me, a smug smirk on her face.

I swallowed and blew out a breath.

A moment later, he was coming toward me, a muscle still ticking at the hinge of his jaw. He sat down beside me and threw his arm around me and pulled me close and then kissed my temple. I was stiff. A little bit dumbfounded.

“Michelle Valentine,” a nurse called out from behind a half-opened door at the other end.

She got to her feet.

I got up, too.

“Be there in a minute, Mom.” Rider tagged my hand and stopped me from advancing.

“You don’t need to come in with me. Neither of ya.” Shelly informed us. “You watch my purse, though?”

I nodded woodenly, and Rider reached for it and put it on the empty chair beside him.

She went in the direction of the nurse.

I sat.

“She’s full of shit. Mantis wasn’t at the house last night. I don’t know what the fuck she’s playing at. Don’t know who beat her up or why she’s trying to escalate things with the Jackals like this.”

I rocked back, confused.

“Sorry we’re stuck here right now, babe. Gotta stay and see what’s what. We’ll get her home and then drop you at the compound. Then I’ll head back to the cabin, grab our stuff myself and be back to the clubhouse as soon as I can. Gotta get this shit figured out.”

I opened my mouth, about to reply, when his cell started ringing. He glanced at the screen and I saw it had Spencer’s name on it.

“Be back.” He headed toward the exit.

I sat there, reeling. Numb. Dizzy. Emotion making my chest hurt.

A kid. A little baby boy the spitting image of him. An ex. So much for never having been in a serious relationship. Had he lied to me? If so, what other lies had he told me?

***

I spent the next hour in that waiting room and I’d spent it mute and mostly alone, while Rider was in and out on phone calls, talking to his mother in one of the exam rooms. 

He was striding toward me, looking tweaked.

“Let’s get you dropped off. She’s gonna be another hour at least. She’s getting a cast on her arm. Just saw a Jackal ride by so don’t like how exposed we are here, especially you. I’ll drop you at the compound, come back, take her to the house, then I’ll run back to the cabin and get our stuff. Here. Let’s drop her bag off to her.” I passed him the purse, then he grabbed my hand and I followed him in through to the examination rooms. He let me go, went behind a curtain and handed the bag off, then grabbed my hand and we left.

When we were inside the SUV and heading out of the parking lot, he reached across to grab my hand. I pulled it away.

“What?” he looked at me, confused. I glared at him. He reared his head back in surprise.

We were at a red light. 

“Who’s Melanie?” I whispered, staring into the intersection, my chin quivering.

His head jerked in surprise and he stared at me, letting my words register. He shook his head. “That fuckin’ bitch,” he muttered. “Her scam is backfiring so she’s punishing me by sayin’ shit to you.”

“Huh?” I looked at him.

“Melanie’s nobody. My mother’s really fuckin’ spankin’ me this time, ain’t she?”

“She said Melanie was there yesterday. Trying to get money for diapers for the baby boy that looks exactly like you. Spitting image, if I remember her words.”

Rider’s eyes shut tight and he shook his head.

The light turned green and we moved forward.

“You have a son?” As soon as I said it, my heart started to hurt harder.

“He’s not mine.”

“She says he’s the spitting image of you.” I swallowed down what felt like a ball of broken glass.

“He’s not. He looks like Mel. She’s full of shit.”

“Did you do a test?”

“I don’t need to. I know he isn’t my kid.”

We were quiet. I was aching. He looked like he was seething. He was driving fast. Sort of angrily, recklessly.

“She’s such a fucking bitch. Jealous. I’m the last of the family, boys anyway, payin’ much mind to her and now she sees you as a threat, so she decided to poison you so that you drop my ass and I’ve got more time for her. Bitch is venomous, Jenna. Don’t take all this shit in.”

I said nothing. I stared out the window.

“Jenna?”

I shook my head.

“Fuck,” he grumbled.

We rode in silence the rest of the way.

He walked me to our room and when he shut the door, I folded my arms across my chest.

“You never had sex with that baby’s mother?” I asked.

He grimaced.

“Did or didn’t you sleep with that baby’s mother around nine months before he was born?”

“Jenna… It’s not my kid. Just trust me on that.”

“Did you fuck his mother?” I got louder.

“It’s complicated.” His phone made a noise. He glanced at the screen and then his face went harder. He shoved the phone into his front jeans pocket.

“It’s comp---what the fuck? Did you or didn’t you fuck her?” I shoved him. He was grinding his teeth.

“It’s not my kid. I don’t need to do a test.”

“If you fucked her… What? Can’t you remember?” I was right in his face.

“I fucked her up the ass, Jenna. That’s it. Last I heard, a girl can’t get knocked up that way.”

My mouth contorted with disgust. I stepped back.

“She’s got mental problems. She’d been stalking both me and Lick for months before I moved. That baby is six months old already. She was hasslin’ us when she was pregnant, too.”

“Your mother called her your ex.”

“She wasn’t. We hooked up. Once. My mother doesn’t know dick about my love life. Never has.”

“You never fucked her the regular way?”

“Never. The baby is possibly Lick’s. Though it could be anyone’s.”

“Wh-what?”

“Yeah. We had a threesome with her. He was in front, I was in back. We were all on E, but she was on other shit on top of it. She was fucked up. We were both gloved and she swears we weren’t and says it was the other way around, that I was in front. Now knowin’ Lick’s dead and she can’t get nothing out of him, she’s probably gonna lay it on thicker. Try to turn the heat up and make it my problem.”

“Oh my God.”

“I know. It’s fucked,” he grumbled. “Can’t believe my mother told you about that shit.”

“You’re the one that’s fucked!” I accused.

“What?”

“So many things. First. This problem is a baby. It’s a little boy. A person.”

He gritted his teeth.

“Second, an Ecstasy-fueled threesome?”

He looked at me and rolled his eyes. Like I was ridiculous. How was I being ridiculous?

No. Fuck this.

Fuck.

This.

“I can’t. I can’t do this shit.” I had handfuls of my hair in both hands. I was shaking my head.

No. No more of his.

“What shit?”

“You have threesomes and gang bangs and rough sex and roll your eyes when I find it disturbing. You carry a gun like it’s no biggie. I’m just … I’m me. I like nice sheets. I like having sex indoors, in a bed, like… 95 % of the time.  I don’t think we’re gonna work.”

“Jenna.”

“No. It’s better to stop now,” I said.

“You fuckin’ with me?” he shouted.

Sadly, I wasn’t. I was not kidding. I was scared out of my mind that if I got in any deeper with him that I would not be able to recover when he walked out on me, when he cheated, or when he gave up trying because I wasn’t truly his type. This was all evidence that it was inevitable. I had to get off his roller coaster. Like now.

“No.” I shook my head.

“This is bullshit.”

“I’m Jenna, the good time girl. Not the crying miserable scared girl. I don’t like what feeling things for you have turned me into! This early on, even. This isn’t me! Unsure of myself. Letting you plow over my walls and decide everything. I’m not good at this. I can’t do this. I won’t.”

“We’ve just gotta ride out this storm, Jenna. The rainbow’s comin’.”

“It’s seeming like it’s gonna be a never-ending storm, Rider. Golf ball-sized hail is just pelting me over and over and…I’m done. I have to be.” I wrapped my arms around myself.

“I can’t fuckin’ do this now. The brothers are pollutin’ the street waiting for me. We need to go and take her back home and then ---”

“Then go.” I shrugged.

“I’ll call you later.”

I didn’t say anything.

“We’re not done,” he informed me.

I held my lips tight.

“We’ve barely gotten started. We’re not done.”

“You’d better go. Stop polluting the earth and all.”

He grabbed me and pulled me to him and took my face into his hands.

“Let me go.” This was killing me. My hands went to his wrists and I tried to pull his hands away. He didn’t let me, yet still managed to hold my face tenderly. His eyes. His proximity. The way he was holding me. This was killing me slowly.

“Not happening.” He kissed me. A bruising, punishing kiss that wasn’t gentle, though his hands still kind of were. “You’re mine.”

“Yeah, well you’re not mine,” I returned, bitterly. Pain twisting something in my chest up tight.

“I am,” he insisted.

I shook my head and tore my eyes away from his. “Go.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Rider, please.”

“Jenna.”

“Go.”

“I’ll be back soon, baby.” He caressed my cheeks with his thumbs.

“Don’t.”

“You’re just scared. I’m in this. For the long haul, Jenna. I’m not giving up on you. Fuckin’ forget the bullshit about before we met. I don’t want that life, don’t need it. Been there, done that, and I want and need you. You.”

Ouch.

I think my face betrayed my emotions. He kissed my lips, my forehead, and then he gave me a look. A look of depth, of promise, of warning all at the same time. And then he was gone.

And I was gutted.

***

Two Days Later

He wasn’t just gone. He was gone, gone. It’d been two days. Two long and excruciating days. He hadn’t shown up. He’d left me at the clubhouse and sent not a text, not a single word. Forty-eight hours to marinate and stew in my pain.

A few hours after he’d left, a knock on the door brought my bags via Bronto, so I knew he’d already taken his mother home, made it to the cabin, came back, and then what?

And now, out of nowhere, forty-eight hours later, he was approaching me in the TV room. Looking tired, worn out, wearing jeans and his leather jacket.

My eyes met his and I immediately looked back to the television.

“Joelle, give us a minute?”

Jojo got up and left the room. I’d been sitting, cross-legged on a recliner. We were watching a Tiny Houses marathon.

Jojo was in slightly better spirits today. She knew her mom had been beat up and was all riled up about it, but not in a ‘Who hurt my mom?’ way, more of a “What the fuck is she doing now?’ way.

Good that Jojo was in slightly better spirits, but I wasn’t. I’d been faking it, though. I didn’t want to stress her out. I didn’t want to add to her mourning process by telling her that I wasn’t going to be her future sister-in-law, that I wasn’t joining the Dominion Sisterhood. I was biding my time until this crap was over and then I was going to see whether my parents had sold my salon or not. If they had, I’d leave town.  To where? No idea yet, and I couldn’t think that far ahead. All I knew was that inside, I was destroyed.

I’d given up on the possibility of any sort of ‘us’. There was no Jenna and Rider. There wouldn’t be. It was bad enough what his mother had said to me. Okay, maybe he wasn’t that baby’s dad. Maybe Melanie was just a hook-up. And he’d already told me he fucked up and felt all sorts of guilt about Lick doing time when it should’ve been him. And he was a stupid teenager. Teenagers fuck up.

It wasn’t just what Shelly had said. It was adding all of it together, all of it, the gang bang, the attitude at the beginning, the telling me I was bad in bed, the games he tried to make me play at the cabin because… would I have to change who I was to fit him and his sexual appetite? And to top it all off, knowing what I’d said to him after the hospital and then vanishing for two whole nights and not even texting me once. Not once. I hadn’t seen him in 48 hours.

To me, those actions spoke louder and clearer than any words would’ve. I’d always ended things at the first sign of alpha-hole-ism and I’d let things go on way longer than a sane me would’ve. Way longer.

And now here he was, squatting in front of me and putting his warm strong hands on either side of my face. He looked deep, impossibly deep, straight into my eyes with those green-blue eyes of his.

And my heart seized. I was gonna drop dead from a broken heart right here. Dead. Gone.

“How you doin’?”

I blinked. I blinked again. My lips parted in surprise. No. in shock.

Was he really saying this to me? After a two-day disappearance right after I told him we were over?

“We’re gonna head home. Things are simmered for a minute. Some shit went down.  We’re goin’ home. We’re all gonna be watchful. You’ll have a prospect on you at all times for the foreseeable, but we’ve gotta get back to life.”

I blinked again, dumbstruck.

“Let’s go pack.”

I got to my feet, feeling a bit zombie-like. He grabbed my hand and we headed back toward our room. When we were inside, he grabbed his Duffle bag, which I’d already packed and zipped up the day before yesterday, figuring as soon as he was back, I’d throw it at him.

He tossed it on the bed and then grabbed my bags from the floor by the bed and put them on the bed.

“Go grab your stuff from the bathroom,” he ordered and started piling my shoes from the floor into my bag. Haphazardly, as if it didn’t matter how he packed them.

I glared at him, arms folded across my chest.

“Put my stuff down. I can do my own packing. You’re putting shoes on top of clean clothes.”

His eyes moved to me.

His expression was hard. It’d been sort of hard even back in the TV room, but now we were alone and face to face, and fuck him.

“My stuff from the bathroom already in here?” he asked, gesturing to his bag.

“I packed it the day before yesterday.”

He pursed his lips.

“In case you showed up. So, I could throw it at you.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Give me five minutes to get ready and then you can drop me off.”

“Drop you off?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be stayin’ at your place with you,” he said.

I felt my face go screwy. “No, you won’t.”

“My place burnt down. I’m not stayin’ at Ella’s when you’ve got your own place. This way, you’re safe at night, too.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. if you give a shit enough, feel free to ask a prospect to drive by once in a while, but I’m having an alarm system put in my apartment when I get home and there’s already one at the salon. I’ll accept your help with a prospect during the day for now, since you got me into this, but that’s all.”

“Jenna, what the fuck are you goin’ on about?”

“You can’t be serious,” I informed him.

He made to make a move toward me. I put my hand up, warning him to stay back.

“Sit down a sec. Talk to me,” he invited. He sat down and patted the bed beside him.

“Nope. Done talking.”

“You’re done talking?”

“Done with all of it, Rider. Just done.”

I held my face stoic. He wasn’t going to get any more emotion from me. I’d been publicly numb since the hospital the other day. I was going through the motions with his sister, but when I was alone, I was a mess. I was all tapped out on emotion right now.

Okay, actually, I was lying to myself. I was fighting back the emotion. And him, after leaving me alone for two days without even a text after how we left things?  That was going to make it easier.

Or was it?

I didn’t like how he was looking at me. It was threatening to crack my armor. He’d been gone 48 hours, and while the first 24, I’d been wallowing, the past 24? Fortifying my armor.

There was a knock on the door.

He glared.

“Answer that,” I said, snidely.

He huffed and went to it.

Spencer was there. “I’m heading out now. I got Jojo. I’ll see you when we get there. You’re staying with your girl, I take it?”

“Wait,” I called.

Rider opened the door wider and Spencer leaned in and looked at me.

“Hey, Jenna,” he said.

“Hey. Can I get a ride back with you?” I asked.

Spencer’s eyebrows furrowed. “Somethin’ change with your plans?”  He was asking Rider, not me.

Rider’s expression was like stone.

“My plans,” I corrected.

“I don’t fuckin’ think so,” Rider glared at me warningly.

“It’s not up to you,” I snapped. “Spencer?”

Spencer just stood there.

“Can I get a ride with you, Spencer?”

“No. You can’t,” Rider answered for him.

Spencer just stood there, looking uncomfortable.

“I asked Spencer!” I spat.

“Sorry, Jenna. Ride’s not cool with it, I can’t.”

Fuck. Now he has to go and stop trying to stir shit. I would’ve thought he’d be all over this one.

“Fine. Fuck.” I threw my hand up in the air and stormed to the bathroom and slammed the door. I gathered all my stuff and went back out. Spencer had gone and Rider had his back against the door, his arms folded, his eyes on his feet.

“Sorry I didn’t call you the past two days,” he said softly. “A lot of shit was fuckin’ with my head.”

I started tossing my stuff into the bag and didn’t reply.

Unfortunately for me, he kept going.

“I had a lot of shit to deal with on top of that. We got a lot done with the Jackals. Things aren’t 100% clear, but we worked hard to get to where you and Jojo don’t have to be locked down, just watched. I should’ve called you, though.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said.

“It does. I took some time to think, too. After the blow-up before I left. About us.” He took a step toward me. “Being away from you for two days, I know I want us. I know it down to my fuckin’ bones, gorgeous. I’m sorry I didn’t call, but a lot was fuckin’ with me. My head’s clear now. And I want you.”

“No!” That came out as if it was an angry, tortured sound that had been ripped out of me.

Shit.

He winced.

“No.” I steadied my voice. “You left me after that scene for two days without even a text and…”

“Did you text me, Jenna? Or are you being hypocritical here?” he demanded.

I ignored him and kept talking “It gave me a lot of time to think, too, and I’ve decided I’m sticking by what I said when you left me here two days ago. I’m still done. Just done, Rider. If you don’t wanna drive me home, let your brother bring me. Avoid hours of awkwardness stuck in a car together when there’s nothing left to say. Let it go. You’re you. I’m me. And I know I’m done. This isn’t a game. This is me saying we’re over. We’re finished.”

He sucked on his teeth a second, looking supremely pissed. He lifted his phone out of his pocket. “Spence.”

I stood there.

“Drive Jenna home?”

All the air left my lungs. I was going to have to fight hard to stop myself from collapsing to my knees.

“Yeah,” he added and ended the call, grabbed his Duffle bag, then turned away and left, slamming the door.

Done.

Okay.

I took a big breath.

So, he was done, too.

Well, good.