Chapter 11
Jax
“You going to tell me what happened yesterday?” Bentley says as she approaches me at the gym the next day.
“You called my cat a hussy,” I reply, a little breathlessly as I jog on the treadmill.
“I meant when we were here,” she says.
I stop the machine and wipe the sweat off my face. “What happened yesterday?”
“When we were talking about Bishop Royal.”
“What’s your fascination with him?” I ask, my anger rising. I don’t get it, she has a bona fide BMX champion right in front of her, but for some reason she’s caught up on Bishop fucking Royal.
“No fascination, I just want to know why you hate him so much.”
“Why, though? I don’t get it. I told you why I hate him, and yet here we are, still going over this shit.” I head over to one of the benches so I can do some light arm weights.
“I’m just trying to figure you out, that’s all,” she says as she follows me.
I stop what I’m doing and look at her. “I thought you hated me.”
She scoffs. “If I hated you, why would I be helping you?”
“The first day we met, what changed?” I ask. I’m genuinely interested in her answer.
She sighs. “Okay, so you might have had a point with the whole He-Man Woman Hater thing.”
I stop my crunches and raise an eyebrow. “Oh?”
She shifts uncomfortably and runs a hand over her now bright blue and green hair. “I have—” She swallows. “I’ve had a bad history with guys. Sometimes I can come across as hostile.”
“Oh, darlin’, hostile is one thing. When we met, you were glacial.”
She nods. “That’s fair.”
“So let me get this straight,” I say as I straddle the workout bench I’m sitting on. “You’ve a bad history with guys, so why are you being so nice to me?”
She shrugs and plays with her hair again. “I don’t know. I saw something in you and it called to me to help you.”
“I don’t want your pity,” I tell her, gritting my teeth.
“It’s not pity,” she says, “it’s…. I don’t know, I guess I can sort of relate to what you’re going through.”
“You totally ate shit at the Extreme Games and made an arse of yourself too?” I ask.
“No, but I understand recovering from injuries inflicted by something you love,” she says. Her eyes are downcast and her body language has changed. She’s closed off, arms wrapped around her torso, hugging tight. It’s almost as if she’s protecting herself, but from what? It’s clear to me now that there’s a lot more to Nurse Bentley than I first thought.
“Oh yeah?” I ask, intrigued. She nods and bites her lip. “Want to tell me about it?”
She takes a breath and looks around, seemingly realising where we are. “Do you want to get out of here?” she asks. I raise an eyebrow. “Not like that. I just, I don’t feel like doing this here.”
I nod and go to get up—and stumble.
“It’s still not better?” she asks, hovering over me.
I shrug. “It comes and goes. I think I may have overdone it on the treadmill.”
“Has your doctor—”
“The doc says it’ll take time,” I say, talking over her. “Sometimes it’s there, other times it leaves me—just like everything else,” I add, under my breath.
“Come on.” She offers me her hand. “Let’s get out of here.” I let her help me up and follow her to the car park. “Do you want to follow me?” she asks.
“Where are we going?”
“My place.”
My dick strains at my shorts at the thought. Hey, we may be friends and I might still be suffering the effects of a concussion, but that doesn’t mean I’m dead. I swallow roughly. “I’ll, er, follow you,” I tell her.
I hop into Mav’s car that he lets me borrow and follow Bentley back to her place. I’m still taking it easy when it comes to driving, even though it’s not in my nature to take things slowly. I will, though, as I don’t want this privilege taken from me. Public transport in some areas on the Gold Coast is practically non-existent, and I don’t want to burden Mav with my comings and goings. Or just goings; there hasn’t been a coming for me in a while. In fact, I think this might be my longest dry spell since I lost my virginity when I was fourteen. So with all the care and attention of an eighty-year-old, I follow Bentley to a bungalow right on the dunes at Nobby Beach.
I whistle as I get out of the car. “Nice place,” I say, taking in the weatherboard structure. On the outside the house isn’t much, but I know, given its location, it’d be worth more than a pretty penny.
“Thanks,” she says as she walks to the front door.
“If you don’t mind me asking, how on earth did you afford this?”
She shrugs. “It belonged to my grandparents. They bought it in the fifties and left it to me when they died.”
“Oh, sorry,” I mumble.
“It’s okay. They were good people, led good lives. You want anything?” she asks as she moves into the kitchen.
“Water would be great, thanks.” She pours two glasses, then walks past me, down a corridor to the living room that faces the beach. “Damn, this is a great view,” I say, taking a seat on one of her leather couches.
She looks out and shrugs. “Yeah, I guess it is. I think seeing it day in and day out, I kind of take it for granted.”
I take a sip of the water she offered me. “I get that, but coming from Booker it’s so different.”
We’re both silent for a while, each lost in our own worlds, before I break it. “So, you going to tell me what it is you brought me here for? Or is this all a ruse to get into my pants, ’cause I gotta say, you didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”
She shakes her head, then sighs and runs a hand over her hair again. I’ve noticed she does this a lot when she’s nervous. My ego likes the fact it seems to happen a lot when I’m around. When she doesn’t speak, I continue. “We don’t have to have sex straight away. I’m more than happy to make out or some other fun stuff. We can get to the good bit later,” I say as I wiggle my eyebrows.
She shakes her head, a small smile playing on her lips. “You never give up, do you?”
I stretch my arms out along the back of the couch. “Up until a few months ago I was the reigning gold medallist for every BMX discipline at the Extreme Games. Nobody had even been invited to compete in all of them until me. You don’t get that kind of accolade by giving up easy. Besides, you’re hot, and I have two working eyes and a fully functioning, albeit a little neglected, dick. It’s only natural I’d want you.”
She swallows roughly. “You want me?”
I throw her my signature smirk. “You know I do, darlin’. Want to know something else?” I ask. She nods. I lean forward. “You want me too.” Her breathing has picked up, and her nipples are standing at full attention. Yeah, she wants me, but she’s a fighter and she’s fighting it for all she’s worth. Good, let her try. It won’t work. She shakes her head. “Don’t,” I say, cutting off whatever lie she was about to spout. “It’s gonna happen, darlin’. Sooner or later you will give in. But we’re getting off track here. What does the mysterious Bentley— Hey,” I say, realising something, “what’s your last name?”
Now it’s her turn to smirk. “You mean you haven’t found that out already?” she asks, relaxing into her seat and crossing her long-arse legs.
I shrug. “I usually don’t stick around long enough to find out last names. Last names mean getting to know someone, who they are, where they come from. It puts ideas in people’s heads, and I don’t want to do that.” Well, until Quinn, that is. I feel a pang in my chest when I think about it, and rub it away.
“Should I be worried you want to get to know me?” she asks.
I shrug again. “I don’t know, should you?”
She stops and considers for a moment. “Nah, I think you’re harmless.”
I’ve got to admit that hurts, like really hurts, but I’ll die before I let her see that. “I beg to differ.”
“I’ll guess we’ll just have to wait and see who’s right, won’t we?”
“I guess we will,” I say. “So you going to tell me your last name?”
“It’s La Roche.”
“Oooh, fancy,” I sing-song. “Bentley La Roche, I like it. And how old are you, Bentley La Roche?”
“Surely a gentleman knows never to ask a lady’s age.”
I smirk at her. “Never said I was a gentleman, darlin’.”
She sighs. “I’m twenty-four.”
My face breaks out into a massive grin. “I love older women.” Without warning, she throws a cushion at my head. “Hey! Watch it! I’m recovering from a concussion here,” I say.
“Oh shit, sorry. Are you all right?” she asks, a look of concern on her face.
I grin at her again. “I may not be able to stand, but the reflexes have come back, so you’re lucky.”
“Fucker.” She gives me the finger.
“Eh, I’ve been called worse.”
“I’m sure you have.”
“So have we stalled enough already?” I ask, relaxing back on the couch again.
“You want to know why I’m helping you, right?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“The day we met,” she starts, “was the fourth anniversary of my break-up with my ex.”
“Okay,” I say, not getting why that’s a bad thing, especially for me.
“He was older than me, and things were good, until they weren’t, you know?”
No, I don’t know, but I nod anyway. She runs her hand through her hair and plays with the end of her braid.
“I thought Ethan was it for me. I thought we’d be together forever, get married, have kids, all that sappy stuff.” I have a hard time imagining Bentley ever being sappy, but again, I go with it. “It was little things at first, not liking my clothes, my friends, that sort of thing. Then it got to the point where, in his eyes, I could never do anything right. The slaps I thought were one-offs became kicks and punches.”
I clench my fists and anger flows through my body. Who the fuck is this guy? And how weak do you have to be to take your anger out on a woman? Fucking coward.
“The last night we were together was the worst,” she says, her voice bringing me back to the here and now. “I remember only bits and pieces of what happened before I woke up in hospital.”
“Please tell me this fucker is in jail,” I say, unable to keep quiet any longer.
She gives me a sad smile. “He is. Not for long, though.”
“What do you mean, won’t be for long?” I ask.
“They only tried him for aggravated assault. He was sentenced to ten years, which is the maximum, but he’ll probably be out way before then.”
“That’s bullshit.”
She shrugs. “That’s the criminal justice system.”
“Well, it sucks.” She nods. “So, not to discount your story or anything, but how does that relate to me?” I ask, confused.
“I understand what it feels like to be hurt by something, or in my case, someone you love. The hurt, the confusion, I get it.”
“Okay,” I say, “but I don’t. I’m not confused about my injuries. I got hurt. It happens sometimes. I don’t like it, but I know doing what I do there’s a good chance it could happen. It’s a risk I readily accept and hell, I probably even thrive off it.”
Now it’s her turn to look confused. “So you’re not afraid to get back on your bike again?”
“Hell no,” I say. “If I could I would’ve been riding all this time, but throwing 900’s when I can’t even spin on a desk chair isn’t a good idea.”
“But I see it in you,” she says, “the sadness, the longing, even though you know you shouldn’t.”
“You see that in me?” I ask, shocked. I thought I hid all that shit pretty well.
She nods. “I thought that had to do with your accident, but now I’m not sure. What is it?” she asks.
“It’s nothing,” I say, trying to play it down and get her to move on to something else. I look around the room, to help that process along. “So, ah, do you live here alone?” I ask.
“Yes, I do, but it’s not enough to get me to drop the subject,” she says.
I get up and pace between her couch and coffee table. “Why do you want to know? Is it so you can feel sorrier for me? ’Cause that’s what you do, don’t you?” I ask.
“It’s not that, Jax, I promise.”
“Yeah? What is it then?”
“It’s two people who have been hurt, by whatever, who are getting to know each other, sharing their pain and helping the other to heal.”
I shake my head. “I’m not in pain and I don’t need to heal.”
She gets up and puts her hands on my shoulders, halting my progress. “Whether you want to admit it or not, you are hurting. Tell me. I’m right here, Jax, let me help you.”
“No,” I say, escaping her grip. “You’ll leave, they always do.”
“Who?” she asks, concern written all over her face.
“Everyone.”