Chapter 30
SIENNA
Isabella and I used to be friends. Not best friends, not by a long shot. Angel Mendez—Rogue’s ex—was her BFF, there was no doubt about that. I was not part of that world before I met Zane. And not for long after I met him either.
But our families moved in similar social circles, so Bella and I were often at the same parties, bored to tears, getting secretly drunk, while immaculately dressed men and women did the same thing under the guise of their fancy parties.
Bella seems to have moved as far away from that world as is possible, while I’d lingered and withered in it until very recently. She seems at home in this clubhouse, surrounded by all these bikers, and I want to be just like her. No. I will be just like her. This place is already growing on me.
No rules. No need to act proper and speak the right words. No need to get drunk just to survive.
It’s just me and Bella now, because Melody had one iced tea with us then left for her shift at the ER, where she works as a doctor. Apparently, several MC members are currently in the hospital, but neither of them would tell me more than that and I didn’t want to pry. I’m not one of them. Yet.
“So, how did Zane find you?” Bella asks. “Did you call him?”
I shake my head. “I should’ve done that. Years ago. But I didn’t know where he was.”
“You should’ve tried to find him anyway,” Bella says in a much colder tone than what she’s been using until now.
I can’t believe that’s just because she’s such a good friend of Zane’s.
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life,” I say. “I’m hoping I can correct some of them now. I’m trying really hard to, anyway.”
She nods. “That’s all we can do, right? I’ve messed up pretty badly too. Or my family has, anyway. But the Rogue Angels are nothing if not forgiving.”
She laughs, but it’s a sad sort of sound.
I raise my iced tea in a toast. “Here’s to making amends and a better future.”
We used to make silly toasts like this as teenagers at those fancy parties. We’d drink alcohol then, whatever we could get our hands on, but it’s a little too early for that right now. This toast is far from silly though. I mean it from the bottom of my heart.
“And to both of us being back home, where we belong,” she adds.
We both drink to that.
“Wait, you were gone too?” I ask after.
Back when I last saw her, she was trying to get away from her controlling mafia family, and I was trying to get away from my abusive asshole of a stepfather.
We’d both found our escape, and the love of our lives in the men currently having a meeting in the back of this building somewhere.
I squandered my chance of happiness then.
But I figured she had been here this whole time, enjoying her happily ever after.
Her eyes turn hard and sad at the same time. “It’s a little early to go down that memory lane, but sure, fine…”
She clears her throat.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I say and raise my glass again. “Here’s to new beginnings. And forgetting the past.”
She smiles and toasts. Then we talk about other things, like all the stuff that’s changed in LA since we lived here.
Lots, by the sound of it. I wonder if I’ll look up my mother while I’m here.
I wonder if she’s even here. Last I heard from her, she was all into sailing because her newest boyfriend liked it.
So maybe I’ll just leave her to it. I hadn’t spoken to her much in the last decade anyway, and don’t miss her.
But I did miss Zane. And that once again becomes painfully clear to me as he emerges through the door behind the bar. I even missed him just now, even though he was gone for less than an hour.
He’s carrying the saddlebags with our clothes in them.
“I’m ready for bed,” he says. “You coming?”
I place my glass on the table and smile at him as I stand up. “You ask that like I’m going to say no.”
He looks genuinely confused for a second. It’s a nice change from the dark scowl that usually masks his beautiful features. “I just thought… since you slept the whole way… you might want to hang out down here, get reacquainted.”
I shake my head. “The two of us haven’t done enough reacquainting yet as far as I’m concerned.”
Bella laughs, Rogue, and Blade who followed him out here chuckle, and Zane actually blushes. And it all makes me just a little bit happier than I was a second ago. And I was already plenty happy then.
“Let’s go then,” he says and I wrap my arm under his, say good night to the others and walk with him to the stairs at the back of the barroom.
His room is on the second floor, a bare space furnished only with a double bed, one of those free-standing clothes hangers, and two chairs for nightstands. The bed is unmade, just like he left it when he went looking for me. I like that thought very much.
He seemed very tired as we walked up here, but once the door closes behind us, he drops the saddlebags and pulls me into an embrace, kissing me with the freshness and passion of a man who’d just woke up from a restful sleep.
I can taste the road in the kiss, the nighttime wind and the scent of the ocean following us here.
And I can hear the humming of his bike and the whooshing of the tires against the asphalt as he brought me home.
But most of all I can feel just how much he’s wanted to kiss me.
For the whole night probably, for the last decade, possibly.
We take off each other’s jackets, I help him remove his boots and his pants, he helps with mine. But then we just lie there on his unmade bed, kissing, touching each other, slowly, sensually.
His hands are caressing my hair, his lips soft against mine. My hands are touching every part of him I can reach, the hardness of his muscles somehow softening under my hands.
My eyes are closed and I’m transported back to our beginning. To the long lazy days and weeks when the only thing that mattered was getting our fill of each other. To the time before everything went wrong. When we were young and in love and nothing else was as important as that.
And my chest, my whole body actually, is now bursting with the kind of happiness I haven’t felt in years. Not since that magical time.
To have it back now is all my dreams coming true. Past, present, and future.