Unruly (5 page)

“Don't you ever want . . . I don't know . . . to
matter
? To be in love? To get so drunk on someone that you don't want to get out of bed?”

He stared at me for a moment. The frown that flashed on his face was echoed in his voice as he said, “But you always have fun when we—”

“Never mind.” I took a steadying breath. I didn't want to argue. I wasn't trying to talk him into anything. I had decided, and I was terrified that if I tried to explain, he'd talk me into staying. He'd done so often enough as it was. It wasn't something I could let happen again.

Sometimes saying goodbye was exactly what a woman meant—not a trick, not a plea to change. Noah and I weren't ever going to be what I needed or what
he
needed, and discussing it wouldn't change reality. It was sad and it hurt, but that didn't mean it was the wrong choice.

“Let me
go
, Noah.”

He looked up and met my eyes. Maybe he understood. Maybe he was willfully obtuse. “Sure. You need to get to class.” He smiled a little. “I could give you a ride.”

“I'm fine on my own,” I said levelly. “Just step aside.”

At that, he tensed, and I knew he understood far more than he wanted, but instead of making things easier, he gave me this determined look and said, “Take your space and rest or whatever it is you think you need, but . . . I'm not going anywhere.”

I sighed. Where was this determination when I wanted him to take a chance on us? Where was it when I
wasn't
already walking out the door? I wasn't going to go backward—and even if I wanted to, he wasn't offering me something worth going back to. He might not be going anywhere, but he wasn't willing to claim me as his woman or even publicly acknowledge that we were dating and had been for a long time. Noah might believe that what we had in private was enough, but it wasn't. Not for me. Not anymore.

Never again
, I reminded myself.

Noah opened my car door, and I slid into the seat without another word. It would almost be easier if I
were
mad at him. Getting ugly was something I could do. Yelling was high on my skills list. Walking away wasn't something I'd ever done. It felt like failure, and I didn't particularly like the feeling.

I swiped at a few stray tears as I drove away from him. It was for the best. He might not see it yet, but if we stayed the way we'd been, I'd end up hating him. Right now I thought I could still find my way back to friendship. It wasn't going to be right away, but I believed it was possible. First, though, I had to manage to stay quit of him.

The next few weeks felt a lot harder than I anticipated. It wasn't that I necessarily thought it would be easy after Noah and I stopped being whatever we were, but I don't think I expected it to be as hard as it was. Stupid little things throughout the day made me think of him, and I kept starting to text him or email him or call him only to realize that I couldn't. We'd been in each other's back pockets for most of our lives, and going from that kind of closeness to total silence was hard.

By the third week, I realized that I really missed my
friend
, not the man I'd been sleeping with, and somehow that made things even less comfortable. There was something a little heartbreaking in the realization that what I wanted back in my life was my
friend
, not my lover. I wanted to find a way to have one without the other, but I wasn't sure we knew how to do that yet or if I could ever have Noah's friendship once I started dating someone else. I wanted to believe that we were adult enough to do that, to go back to where we had been, but we had never been known for bringing out the best in each other.

I was able to distract myself soon enough, however. Not only did the new semester start up, but my old English teacher's granddaughter, Aubrey Evans, moved into Williamsville. Echo was interested in her, and I wasn't foolish enough to ask whether it was because of who Aubrey's grandmother was or because Killer was sweet on her. It didn't matter, though. I simply did as I was told—sent Aubrey out to the bar, kept my eye on her when I saw her on campus, and let her know I was around if she needed anything. It wasn't
just
spying for the club. I liked her too. It had taken all of three minutes for me to like her enough to want to call her a friend.

Nothing I did was unethical. I sent her to apply for a job, and I gave her my phone number. I might have done both
without
knowing Echo wanted her looked after. As it was, it was both a genuine act of concern and obedience to the Wolves. It worked out. If it hadn't, I would've defaulted to club orders. That was simply the way of it.

There was no harm in it.

The harm came from the way that watching Aubrey put me in Alamo's path again. I was at the ice cream shop indulging in some well-deserved dessert therapy when I ran into him. Dairy Delight had a small yard behind the shop, so after buying a cone, most people went through the back door to the benches, tables, and chairs out there.

I stopped in shock at the sight of Alamo. He was sitting on a picnic table outside the shop with a red-and-white cone. It was an oddly adorable look for a leather-vest-wearing, six-foot-plus, muscle-bound biker.

“Strawberry and vanilla?” I asked. The shop had only four flavors: the standard vanilla and chocolate, plus two daily specials.

“Better than
that
.” He crinkled his nose at my chocolate and pistachio cone. “You got a problem with strawberry?”

“I like things that are either dark or have a bite.” I shrugged and stepped up to the bench. I had a moment of wondering if I ought to be thinking about propriety, but shook it off and sat on the table like I always did if it was cleanish. Alamo's gaze dropped to my bare legs briefly, and I had to hide my smile by licking my cone—which made his gaze shift abruptly.

“Why are you so concerned with Killer's girl?”

I stared at him. I knew damn well that Aubrey wasn't the thought on his mind as his gaze lingered on my legs or on my mouth. He knew her only through the bar, which was a lot less well than I knew her. He
also
had known Killer only a few weeks. Admittedly, they were both people who were easy to care about, but I wasn't so innocent as to mistake a sudden digression for anything more than a distancing tactic.

And I wasn't interested in playing games where I was the loser anymore. I took a leisurely lick of my cone, swirling it as the tip of my tongue carved patterns in the ice cream. Once I had his attention, I smiled and said, “Well,
darlin',
I've know Killer since we were in nappies. I'd pull a trigger for him. I'd take a slug for him, so don't
ever
suggest that I might have any ill intent toward that boy.”

Alamo held his hands up in a gesture of surrender, which was silly looking with a pink-and-white ice cream cone in one hand. “Just asking, darlin.”

“Well, unless you're Killer or Echo, I'm not answering.” I smiled to be clear that no sting was intended, but I wasn't going to be interrogated or allow him to do so to pretend he wasn't looking at me like I was the next treat on his mind.

He watched me in silence for a moment before asking, “Are you doing okay?”

“I'm fine,” I said firmly. That tactic did a lot more to take the flirt out of me. I didn't want to talk about anything serious, didn't want to be reminded that he'd seen me sad. I wanted to be lighthearted. “Perfectly fine.”

“That you are,” Alamo said after a moment. He grinned at me and this time he looked at my legs very obviously. “Any man would have to be blind to not notice that fact, darlin' . . . and I suspect blind men would catch on the moment you spoke.”

I laughed. “Damn straight!”

We sat there for a comfortable moment before he stood and tossed the rest of his ice cream in the trash bin. “You holler at me if you need a friend.”

Biting back the exceptionally inappropriate response that I had, I nodded. What I needed was fun, relaxation, and a good ride. He looked like exactly the right prescription for all of the above, but he tossed the word
friend
around so pointedly that I wasn't about to ask how far his definition of friendship stretched. I wasn't sure I was ready to be there with another man either. Being over Noah wasn't the same as being ready to ride with another man.

So I kept my peace and said goodbye to Alamo. My ice cream cone wasn't anywhere near as satisfying as a good ride and post-ride roll with a gorgeous man could be, but it was a helluva lot less complicated.

Chapter 5

A
FEW MONTHS LATER
, I
WAS A LOT LESS SATISFIED WITH
desserts and . . . well, everything in my life. I'd become closer and closer to Aubrey, who had definite plans for every detail of her life—too much so, really. I didn't want to be that ordered, but talking to her made me realize that I had short-changed myself. She hadn't meant to give me a wake-up call, but she had. Now I needed to figure out what to do with that epiphany. It was one thing to realize that you needed to change your life. It was another to figure out
how
to do it. Making any real change seemed huge and overwhelming. Even figuring out where to start seemed like a task I couldn't begin. I wanted to, but I didn't know how.

I went to look at my design notebooks. If I was going to get to a new place, I'd need new designs . . . or maybe just more samples. What I'd love to do was find clothes that reflected the sense of the South, to create pieces that captured not only the romance and the ferocity that Southern women embodied but simultaneously flattered women who weren't afraid to have dessert. Too many styles were about hiding any perceived imperfections or were simply unflattering to women with curves.

Southern women—black, white, and brown—had a “don't cross me” attitude that they could demonstrate while being ladylike and delicate all at once. It was, to my way of thinking, the epitome of what it meant to be a woman. It was what bikers' women were like: graceful and terrifying simultaneously, appreciative of a strong man but not afraid to handle things themselves. If I was going to design clothes, I wanted them to speak of that duality.

I started sketching. I wanted clothes a woman could wear onstage, knowing that all eyes were on her. In my mind's eye, I pictured the small stage at BB King's Blues Club. What would I feel sexy and confident wearing up there? Maybe the key was looking to the classics—just like in a lot of the music I liked.

Over the next week or so, I mentioned my plans to Aubrey a few times, sorting through her closet and trying to get a sense of her style. I offered to lend her a few of the clothes I'd sewn from my new ideas. Her self-esteem was starting to grow, but there was still something tentative in the way she moved and acted. It was as if a stronger woman hid under her skin. I'd see glimpses of her, but then she'd insist on locking that sultry and ballsy side away. Clothes, in my opinion, are modern armor. We don't need them to stop arrows or blades. We just need them to give us courage, like armor once did. If I could reach my ideal, it would be in this area.

Aubrey and I had lunch together several times, and she was fast becoming a good friend. I was still surprised to see her name on my caller ID not an hour after I'd just seen her.

“Miss me already?” I answered, instead of saying hello. “Class
just
ended.”

“Are you busy tonight?”

“What happened?”

She lowered her voice to say, “I think Noah sort of hit on me . . . or something.”

I almost laughed aloud at how shocked she sounded. I liked Aubrey, but her confusion when guys found her attractive baffled me. Too many women were like that, and I hated that Aubrey was one of them.

“And you're offering him to
me
instead? I'm not sure he's going to go for that idea.”

“Ellen!” Her answering laughter let me know that I'd done my job as a friend. Sometimes that was what I valued most in friendships, the parts that weren't obvious. I could handle the obvious ones too, of course, so when she asked me to go to the races and act as a buffer with Noah, I agreed. I wanted to be there for her. I was also hoping that letting Noah see that I was okay being around as his friend would help us reach the place I wanted us to be. I wanted things to be better. I missed the friendship part of what we'd had. He knew me in a way that I wished we could have back—although admittedly sometimes I wished the same thing about Killer, and it had been years since we were truly close.

I got myself ready, and then I went to dress up Aubrey. She seemed to think my urge to do so was a joke or selfless, just a favor to her. It wasn't. I was trying to design, and she made a great model. We were roughly the same size—although she was a bit bustier than I was.