Chapter 22 Rowan
Rowan
I watch my brothers dancing with Daisy from the shadows.
Yeah, I lied in the end: I went to the reunion, after all. Only to see if operations were running smoothly.
I may as well see if our company’s resources are being well used. But I suppose it was an excuse to get out of the office.
Also, I wanted to get a glimpse of the girl I rejected in high school. Daisy looks radiant in her red dress, the one that gets my blood racing, and boy, am I really regretting my choices now.
Yet when Ash and Briar asked me to be one of her chaperones for the night, I declined. Why? Because Daisy just looks so happy.
I would only suck all that happiness away like the black hole I am.
Distance is the best course of action.
Besides, I can always be there for her from the shadows. I spy the way our former classmates regard her. They both revere and hate her…
Jealousy drips from the girls in waves. Who’d have thought that their former punching bag would blossom into such a beauty?
When Natalie approached her, I kept up my guard. I was ready to swoop in and stop that female if the need arose.
When she threw her arms around the Omega, a growl rumbled in my chest. Sure, she had my brothers by her side, but I could sense the threat from the former cheerleader, even from across the room.
If that inferior Beta female thinks that she can treat Daisy like she did back at school, then she’s in for a shock. A real, real shock.
I hope my brothers have the foresight not to leave Daisy’s side.
I swear, this building is a time machine of some kind. Did we truly enter a wormhole and go back?
Everyone sure acts like that’s the case.
For the love of God, Kyle Barlow is chugging back beer like he’s still eighteen, and that’s a three-day hangover waiting to happen.
Good. The fucker deserves it.
Nice to see our company’s finances are going to a good cause, after all.
When he downs his fourth beer, his bros cheer and roar in applause. Not that I would stoop to such uncouth levels, but I’d beat that puny Beta any day in a beer-drinking contest.
However, I don’t participate in any alcohol tonight.
Instead, I decide to keep my mind sharp. I don’t trust these people. I never believed that people could truly change or grow up, for that matter.
At least when you throw them into a room like this—a disaster waiting to happen. It’s just basic psychology. Everyone is just trying to reclaim their youth.
It’s pathetic.
Kyle stumbles closer to where I hide in the shadows. When he thinks no one is looking, he throws up into a corner, and I groan in disgust.
Revolting.
I will tell Robin to give the cleaners double pay; they deserve a pay rise after tonight. No hardworking person deserves to clean puke for anything less than minimum wage because some twenty-eight-year-old former has-been jock can’t handle his beer.
When he’s finished throwing up, he stands up straight, wiping the vomit from his lips. Then his cross-eyed expression finds me.
I deadpan at him, probably looking like a demon from hell in the darkness. A smartly dressed one, though; I still wear a suit, of course.
I’ve no idea why any girl fawned over this male. He’s still pimple-faced, still buck-toothed, as he narrows his eyes at me, trying to place me.
Kyle considered himself the king of our school. But he was merely the court jester. Natalie, the court whore…
And I hear that the court jester and the court whore only went and got married and had a couple of kids. Word on the street is that the two are going through relationship troubles. They’re sticking it out for the kids, of course; the only thing I can commend about them.
As a child of a divorced marriage myself, I can’t say that it is pleasant.
But neither Kyle nor Natalie has glanced at each other tonight. Instead, they use this night to escape and unwind, and to just feel young and without responsibility again.
“Wait a minute…” Kyle slurs, stumbling on his feet. “Rowan Thorn?”
I don’t respond. Instead, I turn away, finding my cousin with her pack near the DJ. It looks like I found the culprit for all this distasteful music.
Noelle’s eyes find mine. Her lips read, “Are you okay?”
I shrug, downing my glass of sparkling water. I’m about to find out, but really, I’m fine. This guy was never a threat to me.
“Holy fuck…it is you…You haven’t changed a bit!”
I sigh. “I could say the same for you, Barlow. Still a douche, I see?”
I meet the other male’s eyes. He freezes for a moment, sensing the obvious threat in my tone. But then he guffaws, staggering closer.
He throws his arms around me in a drunken hug. In the end, I humor the prick, but I push him away when he gets too handsy.
Was he feeling me up just now?
“So…” he snickers. “Are you still smart, Rowan Thorn?”
I meet his hazy, drunken brown eyes. “Yes.”
The Beta regards me strangely at first, and there it is: the hatred. I always made him feel stupid, after all. Even back then.
He wags his finger, cackling like a wily jackal again as he pats my back. He barely leaves a dent. “I almost got into college, you know… but then Natalie went and got pregnant. Our kid is nine now, and a total shit.”
I glare at him when he talks crap about his son. My dad often spoke that way about me when he thought I wasn’t listening. Only because I made him feel stupid, too.
Even at nine, I was correcting his grammar and math. And he despised me for it.
“A full scholarship...but I threw it all away… Don’t ever get married, Thorn. It’s a bloody trap. I had it all once...”
So he thinks he did.
Now I feel for poor Natalie. It looks like the former cheerleader is raising three sons, not two; I bet Kyle is an even bigger child in the end.
“Damn, I just want to feel young again... Like a king!”
He reaches his arms up, giving a loud whoop. All his bros join him in the camaraderie.
“Hey…” Kyle slurs, placing his arm around me again. “That chick over there…the Omega… dancing with your brothers… is that… Daisy Rose?”
I don’t respond. Instead, a growl loosens from my throat. Unfortunately, Kyle is too drunk to take notice of the warning.
“Fuck… she is fine... I bet you’re wishing you’d hit that now, Thorn. Ha!”
He nudges me with his bony elbow. The edges of my vision blur as his laughter makes my hackles rise.
He dares talk about her that way…
“Hey, you mind if I have a go? After your brothers are finished with her, of course. I’d have big shoes to fill after Ash is through with her, though. Damn, your brother could haul some wood back—”
Kyle’s words fail him now as I grip his throat, pushing him hard against the wall. We’re bathed in shadows, hidden from the rest of the room.
The Beta finally sobers when he meets the ire in my frozen eyes. “I… I was j-just kidding. Thorn... Come on… You know me…”
I speak through clenched teeth. “Yeah, I do. The class clown…”
He nods frantically. “Yep. The joker… I’m sorry... I didn’t mean to talk that way about your brother.”
“It’s not my brothers I’m pissed about.”
The Beta narrows his eyes. “Wait… Daisy Rose? Hold on… don’t tell me she’s actually—”
A growl slips loose from my throat, and his face blanches.
A shadow hovers on my right. “Rowan, let him go.”
Robin.
I take a few deep breaths. And then finally, I let Kyle go. He scurries away like the sewer rat he is, rushing to his mommy’s side—Natalie, I mean, of course.
When I turn, it’s not Robin or Noelle I find. But Daisy.
She stares at me with curiosity, Ash and Briar on her left and right, and I feel it, then. I really do want her. The moment I heard the shit spewing from Kyle’s mouth, something came over me—something primal and vying for blood.
Daisy is mine.
There are no two ways about it.
But I can’t have her. Because I can’t allow history to repeat itself.
I would only cause her misery.
I will not become my father. My father was a violent man—he often gripped men by their throats, too.
The guilt gnaws at me from the inside next. So, I leave, needing to cool off. But I sense her pining gaze all the same.
It’s for the best, though.
For the best…
Maybe then, we can all move on.