Devin
After leaving her place, she headed to Scott’s. He lived in a small cabin on a lot behind the bar, with a clear view of the road, the bar, and the motel.
Scott was standing on the porch in workout clothes, looking flushed and sweaty… and wearing a shit-eating grin.
“What?” she asked when he just stared at her expectantly.
“Nothing, just…” He stretched then crossed his arms over his chest. “Went out for a nice long run this morning and saw someone doing the rideshare of shame. Then,” he inspected his nails.
“Not long after, saw that sexy as sin cryptid ride out of there like a wet dream from that show I can’t stop watching over and over. ”
Devin could do little more than blush and shake her head. Last night had been something out of her wildest fantasies. It was supposed to be a healing of sorts, a hurdle that she needed to clear to move forward, but it had been so much more and she didn’t know how to process any of it.
“Oh, no you don’t, sister,” Scott admonished her and she slipped past him to head inside. “We have a deal, and I want details. Dirty sweaty pierced tongue details.”
They’d settled on the couch, splitting the breakfast sandwich Harmon had made. Scott removed the top of the bagel while Devin gaped at him.
“What? Too many carbs. I didn’t just run five miles to carb-load.”
Devin just rolled her eyes and snatched his discarded top to nibble on. “If you couldn’t tell,” she waved down her body. “I never skip carbs.”
Scott’s eyes hardened at her words. She realized how similar his look was to Jasper’s when she’d talked down about herself.
Funny thing was that her comment was habit. She’d made fun of herself for so long before others could, that even though she didn’t actually feel bad about her body that morning, she’d made the comment out of habit.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Scott.” She patted his knee. “Really it’s just… normally what I’d say when someone mentions calories of food or sizes, or anything really. Honestly, I didn’t even think about it, certainly don’t feel it, not right now, not after…”
She trailed off because how could she explain it to someone who looked like Scott did. The type of man who ran miles, as in multiple, to start his day.
Did she believe everything Jasper had said about her body? No. Did she believe that he believed it? Yeah, maybe. Did it erase years of hating the skin she was stuck in? Absolutely not. But did she feel a bit kinder toward herself this morning? Most certainly.
And wasn’t that a start?
How could she be completely repulsed by the body that had been capable of so much pleasure? Ecstasy like she’d never known. She couldn’t.
She had Jasper to thank for that. When he’d looked at her the way he had in the mirror, with reverence and longing, he’d gifted her a microscopic piece of love for herself.
If he’d give her more of those looks, she could hoard those tiny pieces, collect them.
With enough bits, she could cobble them together into something resembling self-love and appreciation for the body that he’d worshipped so thoroughly.
“Damn, woman. He must’ve dicked you down good to cause that look on your face. If you don’t spill right now, I am no longer your friend.”
Smacking his arm playfully, Devin tried to weasel out of spilling anything. The memories were for her, and she felt greedy over their time together. “It was… nice.”
“Nice? Your grandma’s apple pie is nice. A cold beer after a long day is nice. If sex is just nice, I’ll stick to Rosie Palm and her five sisters. Too much prep and effort for just nice. Besides, you’re a lying bitch. Nice doesn’t do that.” He pointed at her face.
“You are practically glowing under all that tension and nervousness. Only freak nasty does that. Give me something, sister. Anything. Just a morsel. Let me live vicariously through you. I haven’t been with a man like that in far too long.”
“Well, he certainly knows what he’s doing.” She threw her hands up to halt the questions she knew he’d probably rapid-fire at her about technique and size.
Scott had zero boundaries. He was an open book sharing all his exploits with her.
She wished she could return the favor. If Jasper had been some random encounter, maybe she could’ve.
Instead, she felt protective of it, almost like it was more than just a get back on the horse experience she’d needed.
“It was better than nice, it was amazing.”
“I bet it was.”
“Yes, but it wasn’t just the sex. It was him, or rather the way he looked at me.” She twisted her hands in her lap. “It was like he saw me, Scott. Saw past the rolls and the cellulite. He looked at me like I was desirable.” Like he cared, really cared.
“Girl, I’ve been telling you that since we met. You just never believed me. So…” he waggled his eyebrows. “Are you two a thing now? What does your brother think of that?”
Devin’s head snapped up. “He doesn’t know and if he ever found out, all hell would break loose.”
Scott’s eyes flashed with something and a devilish grin crossed his lips. “So, would the big beefy bikers fight? All sweaty muscles and testosterone? Because if so, yes, please.”
Despite the gravity of what lay ahead, Devin laughed. “First of all, my brother couldn’t look less like a biker if he tried, and secondly, I don’t want them fighting. The last thing I want to do is drive a wedge between my brother and the people he cares about most in the world.”
Scott raised an eyebrow in a way she understood all too well. “Spit it out. Go on,” she told him.
“You, Devin. He cares about you the most in the world, but you hammered that wedge in with your own two hands. Why do you always put everyone else above you?”
Scott just hit on something she wasn’t ready to face yet.
“Look, I must get on the road. You sure you don’t want to tag along for the ride?”
“Did you change your mind?” She knew what he meant without explanation. He wanted to come with her to face down Thom and her mother, but she’d refused.
“No.”
“Then same.”
They stood and he opened the door for her. “I already told you I love you, Devin, but I won’t lie to them for you. I won’t call them, but I will spill my guts so fast if anyone asks.”
Devin smiled. His devotion as a friend was unwavering, but that didn’t mean he was blind. He’d always told her he would put her first, even if it cost them their friendship because he would protect her from herself if it came to that.
“Then I have nothing to worry about, because they won’t.” The only person who could or would connect them was Jasper. The bar didn’t open until later and he didn’t know where Scott lived.
“I want hourly reports.”
“Not happening,” she replied as he opened her driver’s side door.
“Okay, every six hours.”
“Twice a day with special dispensation for unforeseen events.”
“Deal.” She rolled down the window and started the car as Scott leaned in and kissed her cheek.
“Be careful.” He leaned back. “For the record, I like you two together. I think you ought to come back here, tell him everything, and beg him to make you his ol’ lady.”
“If I can do this for myself, I’ll be in the right frame of mind to do just that.”
She was pulling away when she heard Scott whoop and holler. “Do it with a blow job. No man can say no when a hot mouth is wrapped around his cock,” he shouted to her car as she was leaving.
A smile crossed her lips. Why not? Why not drop to her knees and beg Jasper to be hers? They could date afterward because God knew, Lucas would demand blood and a shotgun wedding as soon as he found out about them anyway. Why not just jump in feet first to the deep end?
The drive was exhausting, both physically and emotionally. She couldn’t stop her mind from going one hundred miles an hour. Ping ponging back and forth between the past and the future. Digging up events that seemed wholly unrelated but not at the same time.
She didn’t want to think anymore but think she did. About last night, about what she was doing, about how absolutely livid Lucas and Jasper would be. Hell, the club, both Provo and Omaha would feel that way.
It took her months to see how immature she’d been about the whole thing in the beginning, but Devin couldn’t seem to think rationally about it. Then once she had, it was like she was stuck. Trapped in the cycle of secrecy and guilt she’d created herself.
Maybe it was because when her mother had taken fifty dollars, yeah, fifty fucking dollars from Lucas’s best friend for her virginity, it locked her into some emotionally stunted prison.
At least that’s what she’d gleaned from therapy.
Whenever she’d been faced with trauma since, she reverted to the way she’d processed things then.
Another wave of guilt crashed into her; she’d never told Lucas about what her mother or his friend had done.
She still recoiled when she heard him mention Vince’s name in passing.
Thank God they were living in two different worlds now, so she never had to see him again.
The likes of Vince would never show up in a biker clubhouse.
Being faced with him every time Lucas came to visit from college, the leering, the catching her alone, was almost too much to bear. She couldn’t imagine what she’d have done if he’d followed Lucas into the club. They’d be bound for life.
Devin didn’t blame Lucas for leaving her with their mother to go off to college, he had to live for himself and not for her. He’d been living for her from the moment their father disappeared.
Besides, Lucas didn’t know how bad it was, they’d both hidden it from him for different reasons. Her mother because she didn’t want to lose his support, and Devin because she didn’t want to hurt her brother, her protector.
She’d done the same, left someone in a less-than-ideal situation, and that was the source of her fucked-up bullshit as of late. She’d left a helpless woman with Thom in order to free herself.
Ida had been the reason he’d locked Devin away in his house, to take care of his bedridden mother and what did she do? She’d left.