13. Chapter 13
Rox
The knock on the door startled me enough that I sat up too fast. My head was a pool of muddiness as dizziness took over.
“Rox, it’s Grayson, can I come in?”
“Yes,” I called out watching as Cowboy turned the door handle with ease. Was it unlocked? He was carrying a bag of greasy food and a bottle of water.
“Figured you’d be hungry.”
“At least you’re thinking about my welfare.”
He didn’t respond, but I could see the stiffening of his jaw as if he were biting back what he really wanted to say.
The smell from the bag was intoxicating, making me wonder when I had last eaten. Cowboy pulled out a juicy burger and I just about drooled at the aroma.
“Is that…”
“Yes,” Cowboy laughed. “Some things don’t change, do they?”
I grabbed at the burger and carefully unwrapped it, not caring if I got burger juice all over me. This was one of the hardest things to give up when I moved away.
“You’ll get indigestion if you inhale it like that, Rox,” Cowboy warned with a smirk on his face.
“Worth it,” I said around a mouthful of food. The taste of the greasy burger was second to none, and it always had been. The best damn greasy burger joint in all of Sydney and it was just down the road from the clubhouse.
Once it was gone, Cowboy smirked at me and handed me my bucket of fries.
“How you holding up?” he asked, seriously. “I know your stay here hasn’t been…optimal.”
I snorted and almost choked on a chip. “You mean by being manhandled by my ex-husband, thrown around like a ragdoll and marked permanently, sure, my stay hasn’t been optimal. I’m close to asking for my money back.”
Cowboy rolled his eyes. “You and Myth…you’ve always been…intense. Wild, reckless, yes, but together…it’s a sight for sore eyes.”
“We’re not together, Grayson. He is holding me hostage because he’s a caveman and doesn’t like the word no.”
“He’s not a monster, Rox. He has never stopped loving you. When you left, it changed something in him.”
“I’m sure he had plenty of girls jumping all over him to replace me.
” I hated that it still scored painfully across my chest when I thought of him with other girls.
I was engaged to another man. A man who was incredibly pissed off right now, but engaged all the same, yet the simple thought of another woman being in Myth’s life had me on edge.
Being back here had me all kinds of fucked up.
“You’d be surprised.”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
Cowboy shrugged. “When he comes to talk to you, Rox, be open to it. Tell him what you went through, because I imagine it wasn’t easy when you left, and then tell him what you truly want. He won’t keep you locked up forever. He’ll listen if you truly want to leave.”
“It definitely wasn’t easy,” I said, almost wistfully.
“What happened?”
“Let’s put it this way, I left fifteen years ago and I only found myself in London seven years ago.
I have no family who wanted anything to do with me because I was a biker whore, so I did what I could to survive.
I found myself lost to drugs because it numbed the pain of seeing my best friend kneeling in front of my husband and losing him because I couldn’t bare to know that he wasn’t mine anymore. ”
Cowboy looked down, and I could see he felt bad for me. Those days were long behind for me, but being back here brought up how lost I truly had been.
“Why didn’t you call one of us? I would have come and got you. Even if you hated him, Myth would have done anything to help you get your feet on the ground.”
“I wanted him to chase me, to pick me. I wanted to be what he wanted and he never came for me.”
Tears burned the back of my eyes as I remembered the feeling of my hope dwindling with each passing day.
“He knew he fucked up, Rox. He didn’t want to hurt you anymore. If he knew there was a chance, nothing would have stopped him from finding you.”
I shook away the bad memories and finished my fries, the food now tasting sour in my mouth.
“Why won’t he let me out?”
Cowboy sighed. “It’s not safe right now.”
Cowboy would never lie to me. He always told the truth, even when it hurt, so I knew he was being honest.
“Are the Royal Bastards at war, Grayson?”
The way he lifted his head and the grim expression on his face told me the answer before he carefully avoided telling me the truth. “Not yet.”
And I was here, in the clubhouse, while a war was brewing.
“Myth is due back soon,” he said, before pushing off the bed and taking the rubbish with him. “Talk to him.”
“Why can’t he just let me go?” I found myself calling out as he got to the door. His hand on the doorknob, he turned his head slightly, not quite looking at me.
“Ask him what happened to Stacey.”
With that, he left the room and closed the door behind him. I didn’t even try to see if it was locked again, all of his words tumbling around in my mind had me reeling.
I still fucking loved the asshole. One way or another, we were going to be either each others’ salvation or ruin.
Fifteen years ago
Detention Hall, Carnegie High
Another fucking detention slip. My mother was going to flip her lid.
I groaned as I stood outside the door, all my friends leaving down the end of the hall to go home.
Fuck this. I could just leave. Go home and face the wrath of missing detention later, but I knew my father would be called then, and my mother would lose her ever loving shit more than normal.
The divorce hadn’t been easy on her. She was one bad decision away from actually losing the plot and my siblings kinda needed her.
So instead, I came here, to school, to rebel.
My bright purple pink and blue streaks through my dark brown hair was the first thing I did much to my mother’s horror but as she said, ‘could have been drugs’.
Next was my first tattoo, on my ankle because why not, and she’d ripped me a new one about it.
I liked it. It was a little skull and he had a thorny crown.
My religious grandmother was horrified, and truthfully, I hadn’t even thought about the religious links to the thorny crown, but I wasn’t sorry I got it.
Now, it was my failing grades, which of course the school had made my dad aware of and now I was copping it from both sides, and to my dismay he’d been taking it out on my mum.
I didn’t hate my parents, even if they thought I did, in fact, I loved them.
I knew they were doing their best given the circumstances but I was different.
I always had been, but now I wasn’t afraid to start to express it.
I just wished they could accept me this way, rather than throw up threats to send me to boarding school and the looney bin.
“Another one?”
I turned to see my best friend Stacey standing next to me, a grin on her face as she saw me hesitating at the door.
“Yeah.”
“Your mum is going to flip.”
“I know. Think I can ditch?”
“And stay at Carnegie? No way.”
That was true. I had tried that before which was why I knew what would happen if I did.
“It’s one detention, Roxy. See you tomorrow.”
I watched as she flounced her way down the hall toward her boyfriend, Carnegie’s superstar soccer star. He already had offers to go pro and he was only seventeen. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and walked her out of the building with a smile on his face.
Slowly, I turned back to the door and opened it. Stepping through, I knew all eyes turned on me, they usually did, and the teacher manning the detention today sighed.
He hated me.
And I hated him with equal measure.
Fucking C-grade prick of an asshole. I aced that paper, he just didn’t like that I opposed his beliefs.
“Ah…Miss Terrence, pleasure to have you back here.”
I rolled my eyes as I moved toward the table at the back corner.
While I walked, even though I knew there were eyes on me, I felt heat rise on the back of my neck.
As I sat down in my chair, I turned back and noticed some of the usual suspects here with me, that was comforting at least, but there was a girl in the front, who looked like she was about to cry, and one other.
I knew his name was Adrian, and he was trouble. His dad was a bikie and everyone said how bad the Royal Bastards were for Sydney, but I’d never seen them out and about.
Adrian was looking at me with an expression I couldn’t read before he gave me a slight wave and tilted his head, before he turned back to the front of the class.
Something about the action had my heart beating frantically and my breath was hard to come by. He was devastatingly beautiful. Dark hair that hung over his forehead messily, his hair was a little longer than the normal kids but not too long. Just enough to pull to hold on when he kisses.
God! Why was I imagining kissing him?
I turned away before he noticed I was still looking at him, and looked down at the table.
“Miss Terrence, I suggest you pull your homework out. We wouldn’t be wanting to get a C grade again, would we?”
I wanted to hurl my newly sharpened pencil at his stupid face. A few snickers from around the room had my blood heating, but not for long. The sound of a table being dragged from the centre of the room had everyone’s attention snagging.
Adrian was moving his table next to mine to the teacher’s protests. Adrian stood up tall when Mr. Cane came toward us, and when he did, Mr. Cane visibly paled and stepped back. “As long as you’re helping each other, I’ll allow it.”
Adrian sat back down and I stifled a giggle. I’d never seen Mr. Cane pale like that. It was highly amusing.
“So are you going to help me?” I asked him. He turned those gorgeous green eyes on me and I was breathless.
“With schoolwork? No. But if you want me to beat the crap outta him…yeah, I can do that.”
My breath caught in my throat and I had to look away from the mesmerising way he was looking at me.
“I’m Adrian.”
“I know.”
His smirk almost did me in. “You been looking me up, kitten?”
I scoffed, “Hardly. Everyone knows about you.”
Adrian rolled his eyes. “Do they?”
“Fine then, Man of Mystery, tell me about you.”