Chapter Thirty-One
Iwas still on the fence, still arguing with them, despite the fact that they had me convinced V might not have gone back with that cunt, and seemed to be nesting in my old room for some strange reason. The tipping point?
Forcible removal. They said that Micro and Grease were going to have to physically remove her or lose thousands if they delay the demo party again.
Put their hands on her. That’s what they meant.
In my mind, which was already filling with rage, I saw them literally manhandling her out of there, while she argued and raged at them.
The thought of them touching her, even for non-sexual reasons, had my blood boiling in my veins.
Before they’d even finished telling me, I was already grabbing stuff and jamming it into my backpack.
I ignored their smug grins, and put them to work helping me, and we were out of there in fifteen minutes, and on our rides.
Weirder than every other moment without my cut was this one.
Riding with my brothers, staring at their cuts, while I wore none.
I wanted it back and I wanted it now. But first?
Keep them from touching my woman. Or the woman I wanted anyway.
The ride home took hours, because I was way up past the Midlands when they found me, but it’s amazing how fast you can get somewhere when you’re worried about someone.
I had to keep Nixie safe, which affected my speed a lot, but I’d refused any stops or breaks, except for refuelling when we needed to.
When we arrived at the club, I could see differences already. There was heavy machinery on site, parked up and doing nothing. Hardly anyone was there, no brothers milling around shooting the shit, and just one prospect on the gate, who took one look at me and broke into a grin.
“Welcome home, brother.” I nodded at him, and followed the others inside.
“Oi, he can’t come in here. He’s not wearing his cut,” Stag yelled from the lounge door. Ha. At least some things haven’t changed.
My eyes found V’s car almost immediately, as I scanned the place for any sign of her. It was backed up to the dorm block, and I could see Grease there jawing at her.
Fucker.
I got off my ride, lifted Nixie from her carrier and passed her to Has, and then I was running right for that fucker. I’d break his fucking face if he was touching her.
“Get the fuck away from her, cunt!”
I landed on Grease, and we both crashed onto the dusty ground, while he cursed and shoved at me to get me away from him.
We scuffled, until people started pulling us apart, and his shit-eating grin when we were finally standing again should have pissed me off, but I was too busy looking for her. And there she was. Standing in the doorway of my room, wearing one of my hoodies, and looking strangely fragile.
I turned back to Grease, pointing a finger right at his smug face. “If you touched a fucking hair on her head, you’re dead.”
He just laughed, slapping my hand away and walking around the side of the car.
“She wishes. You’re welcome, by the way.”
For what? I turned to look at V again, seeing a bundle of my clothes hanging loosely in her hands, and that look of stunned surprise on her face.
“You’re really here,” I said softly, still half convinced they’d lied to get me here.
“So are you,” she pointed out, taking a deep breath and casting her eyes over me, like she was checking me for injuries or something.
“I uh…” I stepped closer to her and she shoved the armful of my clothes at me, disappearing into my room while I stood there like an idiot, still right there when she returned with more.
“Uh… I’m being evicted. Or I guess you are. I don’t know.” She edged past me and dumped the clothes into the boot of her car, grabbing the ones I was still holding like a dickhead.
“They gave me five minutes, Rocket.” Her breath suddenly rushed out of her and she dropped the clothes, throwing herself into my arms.
I held on tight, squeezing my eyes closed against the rush of emotion I felt as she began to cry.
Fuck me, did I do this to her? Something hit my chest, and then again, and I pulled back to watch her wail on me with her fists, calling me a bastard, and an asshole, sobbing the words out, amid the repeated word sorry. That one appeared a lot.
I caught her wrists, because that was starting to hurt, and she was going to hurt herself if she kept going.
“Babe, look at me.”
“You left me!”
Fuck me, that lump of sorrow was back in my throat, because watching her fall apart reminded me that both of us were involved in this whole fuck up, and I’d been so focused on me, that I’d failed to consider how she felt.
Of course, I’d thought she’d replaced me, so… yeah… I think I’m still an asshole.
“I’m sorry. Babe, I’m sorry.”
She dissolved into more sobbing, and I dragged her into my room, away from all the prying eyes that seemed to have fucking come out of the woodwork, so I could let her keep a little of her dignity.
I held her against my chest, stroking her hair as she cried, one of her fists gripping my jacket in a death grip.
As I cast my eyes around the room, I could see it was almost empty of everything.
My furniture was gone, and my big TV, everything except for the bed, which wasn’t mine anyway.
The bed had been stripped except for one pillow, which was still in the same blue case it’d been in when I left. My pillow?
I cleared my throat, more emotion clogging it as I absorbed what that meant.
They’d said she’d nested in here, refusing to leave, and here was the evidence.
Even as the room was being taken apart for the demolition, she was here, wearing my clothes, preserving everything else for me, and my pillow still lay in my place.
“I’m sorry. I should have waited. I should have listened.”
She gasped a ragged breath, and nodded. “Prick,” she whispered, and I grinned. There she was. The woman I’d been trying to hide away from, apparently for all the wrong reasons.
“I was a prick, yeah. A twat. A tosser.”
She nodded again. “Asshole.”
This time I laughed, and it felt like weight lifted from my soul with it, like I shook away a little of the pain I’d been carrying, and the fear.
I carried a lot of that. Always had. So much to fear in this life, but the main ones for me had been not fitting in, not being accepted, not being wanted or loved.
Doesn’t take a genius to work out why, but it caused me to run away from her instead of discussing things.
“Forgive me?” I tried, and she shoved my chest, backing away from me with a glare. Her face was still pink and teary, but her eyes were fierce.
“Forgive you? For… For walking out? For not giving… me a chance to… explain?” Her voice kept hitching with the after effects of all that crying, but when I reached for her she shook her head.
“I thought… you knew me… knew my r-reasons for being… afraid.”
I nodded, willing the emotion back so I wouldn’t fucking cry all over her too.
“I fucked up, V. I felt rejected, and I overheard what sounded like more rejection. It tipped me over the edge. It topped up that gage of ‘not good enough’ and I lost it. I’m sorry.”
She waved a finger imperiously in the air. She was trying to pull on that usual anger and fierceness, but she was oddly vulnerable, her breathing still ragged and shaky.
“Two fucking weeks, Rocket. Two weeks! Do you have any idea what that’s been like?”
I dragged a hand through my hair.
“I mean, yeah, it sucked for me too. I was completely alone. All I had was my fucking dog, V. Nobody else. At least you have people to turn to. Family. I don’t have that.”
She swallowed hard. “I have been HERE. I have been fucking here this whole time. I went to work for a bit, but then I started getting cover instead, because I didn’t want to…
to be away, and this room,” she glanced around her, “I was making it nice… for us, but you stayed away. This was… was all I had of you. I was alone too.”
Jesus. I stepped closer and she backed up a step. It was like one of those dances, only she wasn’t letting me touch her at all.
V
Now he was back I was torn between relief and anger. I wanted to rage at him, and also wrap myself around him and never let him leave a room again. I wanted to scream and cry, and kick him in the balls, but I also wanted him to hold me again.
“Are you really here? Like, back for good, I mean? I don’t want to get my hopes up, because some fucker recently trashed them for me.”
Rocket’s jaw clenched, and he folded his arms in response.
“The way I remember it, I put my fucking heart on the line, and you stepped over it in your rush to escape me. I fucking love you, you insane fucking psycho.”
Psycho? What the fuck? How rude of him, but then there might have been a teeny bit of accuracy in his statement. And that wasn’t the most important word he’d just said anyway, was it?
“I was freaking out, dickhead. I needed time. I was afraid things were moving too fast. So, what? You gave me a few hours and decided enough was enough? You turned up at my place of work to do what?”
He sighed. “To apologise, okay? To beg you to let me wait for you. To be your friend until then. I just didn’t want to lose you.”
“I was never saying yes to him, you know. I was being a sarcastic idiot. That’s what I do when I’m hurting. He was badgering me, and hounding me, because she left him. I didn’t want him. I don’t.”
Rocket stepped closer, his arms dropping to his sides.
“Wanna punch me, baby? Will it help get some of that anger out?”
Oh, how I wished. “My hand is only just recovering from nearly breaking it on that fucker’s face, so no thank you. Although I might kick you in the balls.”
His hands immediately covered his junk. “Nope. Kinda need those intact. I mean… not that I’m suggesting… you know…”
Idiot. I watched as his frown deepened.
“Hang on, you did what to your hand?”
He forgot how much he cared for his man bits, as he came over and reached for my right hand, knowing that’s the one I’d have used, or maybe I was moving it differently. I let him take it and he cradled it gently in his palms, sliding his thumbs over it.
“You really hit him, huh?”
“Right in his asshole face,” I replied, releasing a slow breath, as calm flowed over me with his presence.
He was really back. I forgot how much it improved every room, just with him being in it.
Sure he was loud, obnoxious, and all of that, but when he let someone see his heart, suddenly it was like it lit him up from inside.
“Why don’t you show them this side of you?”
He lifted his eyes, but he was still stroking my hand, and I was inclined to let him, because I’d missed his touch.
“I’m not in love with any of them.”
I swatted him with the other hand, and he grinned.
“Weakness isn’t something I like showing people. It gets used against you. Trust me, I’ve been there.”
“Love isn’t weakness, Rocket. It’s strength. It’s connection. It’s something many of them have probably never felt in the same way, but it doesn’t make you weaker than them. It makes us strong together.”
He turned my hand over in his, stroking my palm softly.
“Forgot how it feels to touch you, to feel your skin against mine.”
“I’m serious.”
“Me too. Wanna stroke my cock? He’s been missing you too.”
Ugh. I shoved him away and returned to picking up the last few piles of clothing that I’d neatly folded.
“Nope. Lemme do that, you stubborn wench.” He gathered up the clothes I held, and I let him, casting my eyes around the room that I’d been wallowing in. The room they were taking away from me.
“They kept trying to make me leave, but… I couldn’t go.”