Chapter 23 Lola
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lola
He took me to this old, abandoned barn where we all used to hang out. No one was there that night because everyone was at the beach for my party. I don’t remember anything after that.
Fucker. He should be dead. I would have killed him for touching you.
I think Roman almost did.
- Conversation between Lola, age 20 and Scott, age 22
I woke up this morning with my cheek resting against Roman’s chest. Show me where to register and I’ll sign up right now to do that every day for the rest of my life. I feel like teenage me, except instead of getting lectured for breaking curfew I’m living all my fantasies.
I’ve seen Roman every night since that first time in the coffee shop and the goodbye kiss he gave me this morning still vibrates in my chest. I’m practically skipping down Main Street while Skyler slugs behind.
“You’re too happy,” she calls after me. “And it’s too hot to be moving that fast.”
We’re heading to The Lagoon for lunch because we’re having a mini-heatwave and I need the shore breeze almost as bad as I need their shrimp po’ boy.
It feels like everyone’s opened their ovens at the same time but despite wilting under the sun I’m riding a high I don’t think anyone can shoot down.
I know eventually, Roman and I will have to tell people—read Mase—about us, but for right now, Skyler is the only one who knows. Which means, for today at least, I can live in perfect blissful denial.
My world is nothing but feather kisses, delicate touches, and Roman’s beard on my thighs.
And Skyler hissing my name.
“Lola.” She hooks the back of my sundress, and I twist to face her.
“What? I’m allowed to be happy!”
Skyler’s loose braid catches on her oversized tee as she shakes her head and points farther down the road ahead of us. “Is that the pickup truck you were talking about?”
I follow her finger, my face flushing hot then cold when I see the same rusted brown pickup that sped away from my shop after the fire.
It slows down before turning into the parking lot for the Heart Home care leavers apartments.
“Come on.” Skyler snags my hand and drags me after the truck.
“What are you doing?” I hiss.
A young gangly man still in his teens hops out of the pickup. He slips on a Viper MC cut and glances around before taking out a backpack.
Skyler’s brows peak. “Paint me a picture of someone up to some shady shit,” she says. “Wanna find out what he’s doing?”
I cut her a look, like the very same thought hadn’t just crossed my mind. “That would be stupid. I don’t do stupid things anymore.”
Skyler’s blue eyes sparkle. “Good thing you have me then.” She makes it halfway towards the parking lot before I curse under my breath and follow.
Skyler smirks as I come up beside her, behind a tree.
“Welcome to the walking tour of bad decisions. First stop, the world-renowned Pine Rock parking lot where, if I’m not mistaken, you’ll get to witness a real live…
drug deal.” The humor drains out of her voice as we watch the guy from the pickup approach a man in a leather biker vest and hand over a wad of cash in exchange for a small plastic bag. My skin goes cold.
“Fuck,” Skyler hisses. She tugs on my hand, dragging me down behind a red Fiat. “I don’t think they saw us.”
I don’t answer her. I can’t. All I can do is stare at the reflection in the driver’s window of the car in front of us. At the man talking to the teenager. At the viper tattoo on his hand.
The distorted silhouettes of the two men stretch like they’re in a fun house mirror and the hot air compresses around me.
“Lola. Lola!” Skyler’s panicked whisper hovers just out of reach.
My breathing shallows, dry air cracking my lips. I’m locked in my body, stuck staring at the car window until the figures disappear and all it reflects is the tall pines surrounding the parking lot.
“Hey.” Skyler’s hand slips into mine and I manage to curl my cold fingers around her warm ones. “They’re gone. You’re alright.”
I swallow sand. Let out a shaky breath. And then anger fires inside of me, pissed the fuck off that I just panicked like that. Fuck him. Fuck him for making me feel like this.
“What happened, Lo?”
I brush tears I didn’t realize had fallen off my cheeks and turn to look at Skyler. “That man, the one with the snake tattoo. It’s the Viper MC tat.”
“Oh fuck.” Skyler’s mouth rounds. “That’s the guy?”
I nod. Rob Carson. The man who drugged me. Who touched me.
“I thought he was in prison,” Skyler says, her voice still hushed.
“He got out a couple of months back.” My mind whirls.
I know Max warned me he was released from prison, but I haven’t seen Rob since the night of my eighteenth birthday and now he’s here, in Pine Rock, only one street down from my coffee shop.
Fucker. He doesn’t get to do this. He doesn’t get to be here.
My chest hitches and my breaths start coming fast again. Too fast.
Skyler’s shape blurs in front of me. “Hey, you’re okay. He can’t hurt you. Not here.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and nod.
Skyler tugs me up to standing. “Come on, let’s go back. Forget the Lagoon, we can order a pizza for lunch.”
I force in oxygen and let Skyler lead me out of the parking lot.
I’m walking on autopilot, but my mind is running away from me. Rob Carson is out of prison, and he just did a drug deal with one of the guys who set my sign on fire. Who tried to run me over.
If I hadn’t been sure he was behind everything before, I sure as hell am now. But that’s not the only thing bothering me, because both the kid and Carson were wearing Viper MC jackets and Max swore to me that Carson had nothing to do with the Vipers anymore.
I barely touch the pizza, but Skyler keeps me distracted for the rest of the afternoon.
I want to call Roman and tell him about seeing Rob, but I’m honestly not convinced he wouldn’t go hunt him down and do something stupid to protect me. That man is the calmest, most stable person I know, right up until someone hurts me or I put myself in danger.
He’s busy anyway, hosting a farewell barbecue and beer night for some of the pickers who are leaving next week. I don’t want to bother him, so I lock up the shop and head to bed early.
I don’t sleep though. The pickup truck kid buying drugs off Carson plays over and over in my mind.
I don’t need any more convincing to know Carson was behind the fire.
That he’s the one sending those messages.
I just don’t understand why. He didn’t go to prison for assaulting me. He went down for possession.
That first message plays over and over in my mind.
I know what you did. You should have stayed away.
Max was there the day I got that message. The day he told me Carson was no longer associated with the Vipers. I didn’t think there was any way Carson could know what I did before I left town but if Max lied about Carson no longer being a Viper, what else has he lied about?
By the time the morning light filters through the flimsy curtains, I’ve spiraled to the extent of paranoia, and I have only one destination in mind.
I chuck on some clothes and make the long walk to the MC compound just outside of town. The hairs on the back of my neck prick, like I’m being watched. I look around but there’s no one there.
Rob wasn’t the only MC kid that went to my school, and I was friends with Max right up until the end. Until he told me we shouldn’t ever talk again. But he broke that rule first, so I ignore the feeling that I’m being followed and walk faster.
It’s not till the barbed wire fence surrounding the compound comes into view that my steps slow.
I shouldn’t be doing this, I know I shouldn’t. It’s the sort of stupid, reckless thing the old me would do. You don’t return to the scene of the crime. And yet I keep walking. I have to. I need to know what I’m dealing with.
The guy leaning against the gate, smoking, stands up when he sees me approach and my heart races. Despite the heat, he’s dressed in torn jeans and a black T-shirt under his cut. He eyes me behind the haze of smoke as I approach.
“I need to talk to Max,” I say, trying to hide the shake in my voice.
“Who?” the guy grunts.
Oh, yeah. “Wolf?”
Another grunt. “He’s busy.”
I grind the toe of my Converse in the dirt. “Can you just tell him Lola is here?”
The biker takes out his phone and types a message with one hand, then takes another drag. He stares at me while we wait.
“You his woman?”
“No.”
Max and I hooked up a few times, but nothing ever got serious. Thankfully, I’m saved from the biker’s never-ending stare as Max comes out from the clubhouse. He jerks his head at the prospect and the guy heads inside.
“What are you doing here, Lola?”
I stare at the man in front of me, with his corded arms and dangerous eyes. I remember sitting on the swings when we were in first grade and Max telling me he was scared of heights. That sweet little kid didn’t stick around for long.
In high school, he set up an unofficial fight night down on the beach. The name Wolf really does fit. Even back then everyone knew not to mess with him and the dark glower he’s hitting me with should send me scampering, but I have questions.
“I saw Carson today,” I tell him.
Max cuts me a look.
“He was wearing a Viper MC vest.”
I wait for a response, but Max just runs his tongue along his teeth.
“Selling drugs to a kid also wearing a Viper MC jacket.”
“Fuck. You get a good look at the kid?” he asks, dragging a hand through his hair.
Either Max is a very good actor, or this is all news to him. My shoulders sink a little. “Tall, gangly, shaggy brown hair. One of the same kids who set my shop sign on fire and tried to run me over.”
Max’s eyes widen. “Jesus, Lola, you didn’t tell me that.”
I point a finger at him. “You said Carson wasn’t a Viper anymore.”
“He’s not,” Max grits out.
“Then why was he wearing a Viper jacket? Why was he dealing to one of your guys? Why is he sending me those messages and trying to run me over?!”
Max stares at me as my chest heaves. I draw in a breath, my heart a painful beat behind my ribs. “Does he know?” I ask, my words dead quiet.
Max’s voice lowers, growling like the wolf he’s named for. “Lola…”
“Just tell me please. Is there any way he knows?”
Max softens. “He doesn’t know anything. And the messages aren’t from him.”
I blink up at Max, at the pity in his eyes. “What?”
“The number you asked me to trace. Those messages came from London. Carson’s on parole, he’s not allowed out of the country.”
“Oh.” I blink again, my brain trying to play catch up. I was so sure it was him. It doesn’t make any sense if it’s not.
“Look, last I heard Carson’s living out in Mount Bush. I’ll have some guys pay him a visit and tell him to back off. And I’ll talk to the kid, knock some fucking sense into him.”
I sigh, the adrenaline leaving me in a rush and making me shaky. “You’re sure he doesn’t know?” I ask.
Max’s eyes bore into me. “I haven’t told a soul. Now, leave.”
I nod and walk away before Wolf’s gaze gets any darker. Because he is Wolf now, the boy I knew as Max almost entirely gone.
I turn my back on the club, pausing for a moment when an SUV milling across the road catches my eye. There’s something familiar about it, but the car pulls away before I can place it.
I carry on walking, but the uneasy feeling doesn’t leave me because if Carson’s not the one sending the messages, then who is?