Chapter 10 – Ava Jade #2
“See you, Rick.”
Tattoo Guy shook his head, slinging his back over his shoulder as he left.
Rook didn’t speak again until the door shut behind him. He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed, his name flexing over his knuckles. “You good?”
“Feels like a betrayal,” I found myself saying, the honesty almost too heavy.
“Because of what happened to your dad?”
I nodded. It wasn’t the only reason, but it was the biggest one.
The fact my mom got the drugs that drove her half mad from the Kings didn’t help.
They were also the reason she became an addict.
And the reason the collector came knocking for money she didn’t have.
Why he decided to take what was owed from my flesh instead of her empty purse.
Why he gave me no choice but to end him.
Awakening my darkness and changing me forever.
Rook nodded solemnly to himself, brooding.
“It’s fine,” I muttered. “It needed to be done. Now Diesel will stop bitching at me. Worth it for that alone.”
My attempt to lighten the mood seemed to work only halfway, but I’d take it.
Rook had spent the last two nights with me at Briar Hall, in my bed, and somehow I’d managed to keep my hands to myself after the slight setback at the rally field.
It wasn’t without herculean effort though, and seeing him now, naked save for the towel and dripping wet…
I want to lick him.
My skin bristled at the traitorous thought and I cleared my throat as I went through the motions of making two shitty lattes, my skill at frothing the milk seeming to only get worse day by day.
I’d made it clear to Grey and Rook after the fiasco in the smashed car that what happened between us didn’t mean I’d forgiven them or that I trusted them. They didn’t say it, but I could see in their eyes that it didn’t mean I’d gained their trust back yet, either.
And Corvus…
Well, Corvus barely said two words to me since rally night. He showed up for classes and threw himself into finding out more about whoever set up the art display in the school atrium last week, doing everything he could to ignore me.
I knew he was pissed because someone could’ve been hurt in the crash, or, you know, if I’d actually managed to take the thirty foot jump, but we were all still alive, weren’t we?
In hindsight, maybe I was being reckless, but fuck if it wasn’t fun. We’d needed that.
I slid one of the latte’s to him on the counter. “You should go get dressed or we’ll be late.”
“Does it matter?”
My brows drew. Did it?
“Corv has already spoken to administration.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You’re exempt.”
“From?”
He grinned mischievously behind his mug as he took a sip. “From everything. Being marked late. Absent. Using your phone during class, if you still had one. And a myriad of other fun things.”
“Like not getting expelled for fucking the vice principal?”
He lifted his mug in a salute. “Exactly.”
“Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’m hungry as fuck and have absolutely no desire to cook.”
“Cafeteria?”
“Please.”
He strode back to the bedroom to get dressed, standing in such a way that he damn well knew I could see him as he let his towel fall to the floor and pulled on his jeans.
His back tatts extended down to cover part of his magnificent glutes and the urge came again.
To taste him. To bite him like he bit me on rally night.
The twin crescents of his teeth marks in my calf were crusted over now, but I fully planned to scrub the scabs off in the shower later, ensuring the markings would scar.
“You talk to Becca any more this morning?”
“With what?” I asked. “I don’t have a phone, remember?”
“As if you couldn’t break into mine.”
I pursed my lips, nodding.
“No. I haven’t. Not since our calls Tuesday and yesterday.”
I’d done as Diesel had asked and set up a call with Becca.
Her on a payphone and me on Grey’s burner cell.
We now had a good idea of what the creep looked like.
Brown hair long enough on top to show it was wavy.
Blue eyes. A pale complexion. Slim, but muscular.
About six feet tall. She had no photos of him since he wouldn’t let her take any, smart fucker, but the description was good. So was the other intel.
Diesel already knew where they were meeting since he’d bugged the place.
It was a little bunkhouse on the edge of Thorn Valley that Ace had been renting in cash for several months.
But Becca’s intel also told us that he sometimes asked her to meet him in other places.
Or rather, to pick him up in other places.
Which explained why the passenger seat of her car was always set for someone much taller than I was.
Specifically, from a Quickie Mart just inside Ace territory.
It cemented the theory that he was an Ace, but on the next call, when I’d asked Becca Diesel’s new question about his gang ink, she’d said he didn’t have any. No ink at all.
She’d been fucking this guy for months, so I wanted to believe she had an intimate knowledge of every inch of his flesh, but… that may not have been the case.
The guys I slept with before the Crows never saw my scars and there were six inches of them cuffing both my upper thighs. They didn’t see them because I didn’t want them to see them. If I could hide that, this guy could hide a little ‘A.’
“Is it getting any easier?”
“What?”
“Talking to her.”
My chest tightened. “Not really.”
I got off the phone as fast as I could each time we spoke even though Becca was brimming with questions of her own. Was I okay? Was I in any trouble because of her? Did I need her to come back?
The questions were only put on hold for the apologies.
I knew she meant them, but I wasn’t ready yet. Trust was a fragile thing, a new thing for me. I didn’t know how she could earn it back or else I’d tell her.
“You guys’ll work it out,” Rook assured me, sounding so sure.
“How do you know that?”
“You think the guys and I haven’t gone through shit? Man, I could tell you stories… This one time Grey?—”
“Grey what?”
“Nah. It was a long time ago. We were younger. Still learning how to trust each other. It wasn’t always easy, you know. It won’t be for you and Becks, either, but she’s your sister. Maybe not by blood, but by choice. You don’t throw that shit away for one mistake.”
I must’ve pulled a face because he snorted, coming over to tug the empty mug from my fingers. “Come on, Ghost. Let’s eat.”