Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
RYAN
NOW
I walked into the clubhouse and noticed my dad and Cruz were standing in the corner of the room talking in hushed whispers. When my dad saw me enter the room, he quickly stopped their conversation and Cruz walked away, making his way outside the clubhouse and patted my shoulder on his way past. It had been tense in the clubhouse for the last few weeks since I denied Dad’s motion to do a job that involved drug trafficking.
Haz walked up beside me, passed me a beer and started talking about his plan for tonight. It’s his birthday tomorrow and he wants to go out to the local bar for some wings, beers and pool. He’s invited most of the Vipers and told them to bring any girls they knew because typically Haz was looking for a hookup. I’d known Haz for a long time and had yet to see him go on any more than one date with a girl. He had commitment issues. Not that I was really the relationship expert or anything; I hadn’t even been on a date in five years.
“You need to bring baby Davis,” Haz said as he pointed his beer at me.
I rolled my eyes in return. “You need to stop calling her baby Davis Haz. She’s an adult.” He laughed at me and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Oh trust me, Ry, I realized. She needs some fun and what’s more fun than my birthday?”
I pushed his hand off me. “I’ll try, but Lexi doesn’t want anything to do with the Vipers anymore, so don’t hold your breath.”
My dad made eye contact with me from across the room and started walking over in my direction. I hadn’t spoken to him in about a week, the longest we’d ever gone without discussing club business or just a general father and son catch up. As he was almost standing in front of me, my phone started to ring. I looked down and noticed it was Ty, who’s current job was keeping an eye on Silas Gray.
“Ty, what’s happening?” I asked into the phone as I ignored my dad’s stare and walked outside.
“Silas is at the cafe again but he’s not with any other Horsemen this time. He’s with some guy, but he’s not wearing a cut.”
“Who would he be meeting in our town? Don’t confront him on your own, Ty. Keep your distance but keep your eyes on him at all times.” The last thing I wanted was for Ty to confront Silas on his own and end up hurt or killed. Silas had no reason to be meeting someone in our town; he had no business here. I hadn't mentioned to anyone else that the Horsemen had been in Haven Cove. I didn’t want to raise the alarm until I knew what exactly they were doing here and what we would be getting ourselves into.
It had only been a few days since I last saw Lexi, when the boys cleaned up both the front and back yard at her house. I looked through the photos she gave me every night and I had left my dad some of the photos of him and Scotty, which I noticed he had since framed one and put it on our wall of fame which held pictures of Vipers since the beginning.
I sat on my bike and turned on the engine before pulling away from the clubhouse and driving towards Lexi’s house. As I drove down the main road, I noticed a bike in front of me and I sped up to see the cut. It was a Horsemen, but not just any Horsemen; it was Silas. I stayed on his tail and there was no way he didn’t know I was behind him. I sped past to overtake him, and as we were riding side by side, I looked over at him before accelerating past him and turning down Lexi’s street. I would find out why he was here having meetings with people in our cafe but for right now at least he knows he can’t come into my town without me knowing.
I pulled up out the front of Lexi’s house and couldn’t see her rental car in the driveway. I walked to the front door and knocked to see if she was home, thinking maybe she’d returned the car. When she didn’t answer the door, I sat on her porch steps and waited for her to come home. I tried to ignore the thought that maybe she’d left without saying goodbye.
I could feel someone watching me. When I turned to my right, I noticed the neighbor watching me through her window before she quickly pulled the curtain closed.
It was only thirty minutes later that I saw the silver car pull into the driveway and Lexi opened her door holding a bag of groceries. She walked towards me, tilting her head.
“Ryan, what are you doing here?” she asked as she put a hand under the paper bag to get a firmer grip on it. I reached out and grabbed the bag from her and held it in my hands.
“I’ve come to pick you up.” I walked up the steps towards the front door and she followed behind me.
“Pick me up for what, exactly?” She walked past me and put her key in the door to unlock it. Once we walked through the door, I noticed she had done more cleaning out since I was last here. It was hard to ignore the boxes currently filling the lounge room and how empty the house was beginning to look.
“This place sure looks empty for someone who’s planning on staying,” I said as I put the bag down on the hallway table.
“I never said I was staying here, Ryan. But if you must know, I actually canceled the real estate agent who was coming out to price the house. I don’t think I can let this place go.” She walked into the lounge room and started running her hand along one of the boxes. “The boxes are for things I want to keep but don’t want in the house anymore. I’m going to put them in storage. Then I have been just throwing everything else away. My dad kept so much stuff that should’ve been thrown away a long time ago.” I watched as she looked around the room and then back towards me as I remained standing in the doorway of the lounge room. Every time I looked at her it took me five years into the past.
“This time, if you decide to leave, can you at least say goodbye?”
“I said goodbye last time, Ryan. I told you I couldn’t be here anymore.” She did say goodbye, however, at the time I thought that meant for the day. But when I got home, she wasn’t there. But I didn’t want to upset her or argue with her tonight; I wanted her to relax and have some fun.
“You might need to grab a jacket.” I looked at her white singlet and denim jeans as I took in how her body had changed as she got older.
“Let me get this straight. You just show up here unannounced, and assume I will go somewhere with you when you won’t even tell me where you’re taking me? What if I already had plans?” She put a hand on her hip, trying to look annoyed, but I could see straight through her.
“Did you have plans?” I asked, raising my eyebrow.
She rolled her eyes. “That’s not the point here, Ry.” Hearing her say my old nickname made my throat tighten. I grabbed the bag of groceries from the hallway table and walked past her into the kitchen to start putting them away in the cupboard and fridge. She kept everything in the same place it had always been so I knew where to put everything without disrupting her organization.
“I’ll finish putting these away while you go upstairs and grab a jacket.”
I heard her sigh but she didn’t respond. I heard her walking up the stairs and I remembered the amount of times I snuck up those stairs and past her dad and brother’s rooms.
When Lexi came back downstairs again she was still wearing the same white singlet and denim jeans, but she now had a black leather jacket on over the singlet and she had changed out of her white sneakers and into a pair of black boots that had a small heel. Her lips were now coated with a red lipstick and I could smell the vanilla and caramel scent of her perfume.
“Is this okay for our mystery location?” She laughed as she did a little spin to show me her full outfit. I smiled because it was the first real laugh I’d heard from her in five years.
“You look perfect, Lex.” I stepped closer to her and reached out behind us to open the front door and as she went to walk out the door, she grabbed her black purse from where she had left it on the hallway table earlier. She reached into the bag to grab her car keys which made me laugh. I reached out and pushed her hand back into the bag.
“You don’t need those. You’re riding with me,” I said to her and walked ahead of her so I could grab the spare helmet from my bike and hold it out to her. She looked as hesitant as she did the first time she got on my bike in the car park of the restaurant six years ago, but she did it then and I knew she’d do it now.
I sat on my bike, put my own helmet on and turned the bike on as I let her take her time pretending to contemplate getting on my bike. She took a deep breath before pulling the helmet on her head and sitting behind me on the bike. I felt her hands reach around me and loosely grab onto my hips, just enough to keep her balanced, but as I drove down the driveway and headed towards the main road, I could feel her hands wrap tighter around my waist and her face rest against my back.