Vexed Read online

  “Yeah. You looking for Romeo?”

  “Sort of.”

  His mouth tips into a smile at my vague answer. “Why don’t you wait by the bar?” He reaches past me and shuts the door to Romeo’s office.

  We don’t make it to the bar before Romeo’s door opens. I turn, hoping to see him, but it’s Karina’s dad leaving. “Hi, Mr. Rivers,” I call out. Behind me, Luck laughs.

  “Athena? What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I, uh...came with Karina.”

  “You shouldn’t—”

  “She’s with me.” Romeo’s big frame fills the doorway and he muscles past Mr. Rivers. “You lookin’ for me, Shortcake?” The harsh tone of his voice and expression on his face softens as he approaches me.

  “Yeah, kinda.”

  I think the smile on his face is the first one I’ve seen outside the bedroom, and it’s completely focused on me. I sway a little on my feet, and he wraps me up in his arms, picking me up for a not-so-quick kiss.

  When he sets me down, Mr. Rivers is gone.

  “How do you know Karina’s dad?”

  His smile vanishes. “That’s club business.”

  My lips part for a follow up question, but he places a finger over my mouth. “Not your concern.”

  The hot flare of my temper rising must be visible on my face. Romeo’s eyebrow quirks. “You offended, Shortcake?”

  “Yes,” I snap as I turn to head upstairs.

  He wraps his hand around my arm, pulling me back. “That’s the way it is around here. Ol’ ladies stay out of club business,” he says against my neck.

  Confused, I shake out of his grasp. “I’m not an old lady.”

  “No,” he agrees, so quietly I have to lean in closer to hear him. “Not yet.”

  10

  All night I’m back and forth in my head. Wait to explain to Romeo that I’m headed to California, or make a clean split?

  I’m afraid if I tell him my plans, he’ll try to make me stay. And I’m afraid I won’t be strong enough to say no.

  I already sent my deposit to my roommate weeks ago. Signed up for my acting class. I have to go.

  That whole thing with Karina’s father and Romeo maybe being interested in her has been bothering me too. Even with him sound asleep next to me, I can’t shake the bad feelings that followed me all day after overhearing that conversation.

  It wouldn’t be the first time a guy tried to use me to get close to my best friend.

  I change my mind a thousand times as I slip out of bed, slide on a pair of jeans, collect my things, and scribble out a quick note.

  Luck’s downstairs at the bar.

  “Hey, Athena.”

  I strain for a casual attitude. “Hey. You’re at the bar early.”

  “Inventory, darlin’. Not drinking.”

  “Oh.”

  “Where you headed?”

  “Um, home. Just need to check in with my parents before they like call the National Guard or something.”

  He chuckles. “Good plan. Will we see you later?”

  “Sure.”

  I’m shaking like a leaf by the time I get into my car.

  Why?

  We haven’t made any promises to each other. He’s not my boyfriend. I don’t have to run my life decisions by him.

  Common courtesy, nitwit.

  I ignore that little voice.

  I know I’m alone in my bed before I even open my eyes. No soft, warm girl curled up against me. The knowledge fully pulls me from sleep.

  “Athena?”

  The room’s completely still and quiet. Sitting up, I take notice of the fact that her bag’s gone. My eyes dart to every surface her stuff had been taking up space on, finding nothing.

  What the fuck?

  Then I see it. The little white piece of paper.

  * * *

  “What the motherfuck is this shit?” I shout to the empty room. She left? Thank you?

  This better be a motherfucking misunderstanding. Enraged, I storm downstairs to the parking lot. Her car’s gone.

  I’m stunned stupid.

  Next stop’s Dante’s door. His bike was in the parking lot, so I hope to fuck he’s here.

  He answers breathless and shirtless and I don’t give one fuck what I might have interrupted.

  “What?” he snaps.

  “Where is she?” I’m too crazed to even form a more complete sentence.

  “Who?”

  “Athena.”

  “How the fuck would I know?”

  Karina’s voice drifts through the crack in the door, and I shove it open all the way. She’s scrambling into a T-shirt and I’m so fucked in the head, I can’t even appreciate the brief glimpse at her naked rack.

  Dante knocks me back out of the room with a hand to my chest. A second later, Karina scurries around him.

  “What’d she say?” she asks.

  “Nothing. She left me a fuckin’ note.” I hand it to her and she reads it quickly.

  “Oh, shit. I didn’t think she was still going.”

  “Going where?” Dante asks before I get a chance.

  Karina bites her lip and glances up at Dante as if asking for protection from my rage.

  “Los Angeles,” she finally answers.

  “What?” She could have said Mars for all the sense that makes to me.

  “She wants to be an actress—”

  “You knew about this?” I shout as I take a step closer.

  The meaty hand is back at my chest, stopping me from getting any closer to Karina. “Watch yourself, fucker. Yell at her again, and I’ll tear your head off,” Dante says in a smooth, even voice that does little to calm me down.

  Karina’s got inner strength, because even though I’m raging like a bull, she steps up and looks me in the eye. “She just told me about this plan of hers a few weeks ago. She supposedly has an apartment lined up—”

  “What?” I hate how raw and hoarse my voice comes out, but I just spent fuck knows how many days with Athena and she never mentioned any of this.

  “Babe, go call her,” Dante says, and Karina steps back inside the room.

  “Sorry, brother. I didn’t know.”

  “It’s going right to voicemail,” Karina says when she returns, the phone pressed to her ear. She looks up at me with apologetic eyes. “I’ve been telling her for days to talk to you about it.”

  “She went by herself? Does she even know anyone there?” Dante asks.

  “I don’t know. She told me she found her roommate on Craigslist. I warned her it sounded like a bad idea.”

  “Jesus Christ, she could be meeting up with anyone,” I grumble. “Why didn’t you talk her out of it?”

  “I tried, but Athena’s pretty headstrong when she wants to be,” Karina answers calmly.

  Dante nudges her inside their room. “Go wait on the bed.” Great. How thrilling, my fucked-up situation can be an excuse for him to spank her ass or whatever kinky shit the two of them get into.

  He steps out into the hall and shuts the door. “What do you want to do?”

  I know he’s asking if I want his help going after her.

  Fuck that.

  “Nothing,” I say, straightening my shoulders. “It was just a fuck. Doesn’t mean shit. Just woulda been nice to have a head’s up so I could replace her.”

  Dante shakes his head. I’m not fooling him.

  I’m not fooling myself either.

  11

  I pretty much cry the entire way to Los Angeles. Why, I don’t know, since I left of my own free will.

  My phone blows up about two hours into my trip. Karina. I shut the phone off and keep driving.

  What Google Maps told me was a five-hour and fifty-five minute trip, ends up taking me eight hours. The traffic at this hour is ridiculous. I end up driving around the street ten times before I see the small entrance to the parking space behind my building.

  The apartment’s a lot seedier than it looked in the ads.

 
The neighborhood’s supposed to be decent. The rent’s certainly high enough. It’s close enough to my acting classes that I can walk. The first pang of excitement hits me.

  I made it.

  I’m here.

  You’ve been waiting your whole life for this.

  Is Reed upset that I left?

  All those little whispered thoughts go through my mind as I stare at the building. My new home.

  My excitement gets snuffed out when I enter our building. Our apartment is on the second floor. The door is wide open and people seem to be coming and going. I’m exhausted and just want to sleep, not deal with a bunch of strangers.

  “Roxanne?” I ask, poking my head inside.

  “Ohmygod!” a short blonde shouts and hurries over. “Athena! You’re finally here. I was about to rent your room out to someone else.”

  Since I’m paid up for the month, I hope that’s a joke.

  “Everyone, this is my new roomie, Athena. Be nice.” Most of the people she introduces me to are around my age. Under the pounds of makeup caked on her face, I figure Roxanne, or Roxy as she insists I call her, to be around twenty-two or twenty-three.

  She shows me to my room, which is miraculously clean and quiet, given the party going on in the living room.

  “You gonna crash?” she asks from the doorway.

  “Yeah. Sorry. It was a long drive.”

  “Okay. I’m about ready to kick some of these fuckers out anyway.”

  “Thanks.”

  “We’ll chat in the morning and I’ll show you around.”

  “Sounds good.”

  I close the door and I’m relieved to find an extra lock on it. After sliding it into place, I strip and dig out Romeo’s T-shirt to sleep in. It smells like him and today hits me like a bag of nickels to the face. What the fuck did I do? I really like him. Maybe…

  I convinced myself I’d see him when I go home for the Fourth, but by then he’ll probably have moved on to one of those girls in his club and forgotten about me. And if I’d given up on my dream for him and then he dumped me later, I’d be furious with myself.

  Besides, how was a long-distance relationship between us really going to work? Was he going to ride out here every weekend to see me? Would he insist I come home?

  You didn’t even give him a chance to figure it out.

  “Shut up,” I mutter to myself like a crazy person.

  I pull out a set of clean sheets, and not trusting Roxy’s housekeeping skills, make the bed.

  Big day tomorrow.

  12

  After a week of drinking and generally being a dick to everyone in sight, I still can’t stop picturing her every time I try to go to sleep. Those steel-blue eyes haunt me every god damn time I close my eyes.

  Wolf pounds me on the back on his way into church. “You’re pathetic.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “You need to get laid,” Whip says.

  Is everyone planning to give me shit today?

  “Melody brought one of her friends with her,” Cricket suggests. He just got voted in, so no, I’m not real receptive to dating advice from the little punk.

  “Worry about your own dick,” I snarl.

  “Just tryin’ to help, Prez.”

  No shit. Getting someone else underneath me would probably help me move on, but I can’t be bothered. My dick must be broken, because he’s not interested either.

  Once I’m seated at the head of the table, some of the fog lifts and I finally concentrate on something besides her.

  Wolf raises his hand. “We got word that one, Red Storm’s trying to move into Dragon territory. And two, they’re patching in LEOs now.”

  A round of what-the-fucks go around the table. If Red Storm’s being infiltrated by law enforcement, that could be bad for all the MCs in the area.

  Dante sits forward. “How reliable?”

  Wolf puts his hand up and wobbles it back and forth. “Too early to tell.”

  “Who gives a fuck then?” Dante asks.

  “Hey, just passing along information.”

  “This info come from Tucker?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is Bolt asking us for help with pushing them out of their territory?” I ask.

  “Not yet.”

  “Good. Then Dante’s right. Not our problem.” Tucker going into Red Storm territory to gather information still bugs me, though. Yeah, he said it was to help right the wrong done to his daughter, but he’s also a known liar. “Just to be safe. I say we reroute our next shipment through Nevada and have Fang truck it instead of Tucker.”

  “Works for me,” Dante agrees. Everyone else gives their yeses.

  We go through a list of less-exciting club business. There’s a surprising amount of tedious paperwork involved in running a successful outlaw motorcycle club. Any bunch of assholes can call a building a clubhouse and play outlaw biker. To survive and succeed at it takes some skill, hard work, and cunning. All my brothers have those qualities or they wouldn’t be wearing the Iron Bulls patch. For the first time, I’m the one not pulling my weight because I’m fucked up over a chick. It pisses me the fuck off.

  When we break, I stay behind to talk to Wolf and go through some papers. Once I’m satisfied I’ve done some actual work, I join my brothers in the common area.

  Ignoring the degenerate acts going on around me, I spot Dante and his girl at the bar with Luck. No, I will not go over there and casually ask if she’s heard from Athena. I don’t give a shit.

  Against my better judgment, I approach the bar. Karina gives me a look that’s part fear and part pity. I hate that I lost my shit in front of her the other day. Hate that I let her see how much her little friend got under my skin.

  Aware that it’s completely unreasonable to blame Karina for my misery, I can’t help the annoyance that creeps over me when she’s near. So I ignore her completely.

  Luck passes me a Jack and Coke before I open my mouth. Probably for the best, otherwise something stupid’s about to roll off my tongue. Dante waits until I’m a few rounds in to needle me.

  “Prez, you must be, what, ninety percent alcohol by now?” he asks with a smug face I’d love to punch if I didn’t think I’d miss and hit the wooden pillar behind him.

  Luck has more respect for his president than Dante does and asks if I want to switch to soda.

  “No,” I snap at Luck. Then I turn my pissed-offedness on Dante. He’s the one I should really blame. Asshole just had to hook up with some chick with a friend. Never mind if girls didn’t bring their friends by, we’d have the same tired pussy day after day. I’m not in a logical mood or making sense at the moment. “Fuck off,” I spit at Dante, without turning my head.

  He laughs. In what’s left of my peripheral vision, I spot Karina shaking her head at him. Christ, I don’t need a girl trying to stick up for me.

  That’s the last straw. I stay here much longer, I’m bound to throw a punch or say something mean to Karina and I’m in no condition to defend myself from Dante’s sledge-hammer sized fists.

  Even worse, the longer I’m around Karina, I’m afraid I’ll cave and ask if she’s heard from Athena.

  No. Not happening.

  Leaning over the bar, I snag an unopened bottle of Jack Daniels, and let my middle finger fly at everyone in the room.

  Drunk and alone, I take my sorry ass upstairs.

  Stupid little girl.

  I’ve been called that more than once during my first week in Los Angeles.

  It wouldn’t be so annoying if it wasn’t true.

  Every day it becomes more and more clear how pathetically underprepared I am. Hollywood isn’t glamorous. It’s hard work, dead ends, and mean people. The whole myth about being “discovered” is just a myth, I’m finding out. It’s hard to be discovered in a place where every town in America seems to have sent their two most beautiful people.

  I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t return Karina’s dozens of calls. Surprisingly, she hasn’t mentioned Ro
meo at all. She does let me vent for a long time, though.

  “Tall, pretty blondes are everywhere. I’m one of thousands. Not only that, but most of them have been auditioning for commercials, or enrolled in theater schools since they were kids. They’ve got experience working on sets in small roles that I never even knew existed. They’ve worked for nothing in projects like student films, experimental plays, short films, showcases... I don’t even know where to look to find the non-paying roles, let alone the paying ones.”

  I stop and take a breath, and her laughter comes over the line. “You’re so brave.”

  “I’m an idiot.”

  “Well, that too.”

  Before I chicken out, I blurt out the question I’ve been dying to ask. “How’s Romeo?”

  She’s silent for a minute. “He…he wasn’t happy.”

  “Really? But it was just a fling. He must have girls in and out of his bed all the time.”

  Even over the line, I sense her irritation. “Yes, but he really seemed to like you. I haven’t known him that long, but he seemed different with you. Now he’s back to being a nasty jerk.

  “Sorry.”

  She’s not done making me feel like shit though. “You were the first girl I saw him with more than once.”

  “Ew.”

  “Shut up. You know what I mean. I’ve never seen him get upset over a girl leaving either.”

  He was upset? “Should I call him?”

  “Maybe. You should’ve talked to him before you left. I think leaving a note pissed him off the most.”

  Shame washes over me. That was a shitty, cowardly thing to do. “He showed it to you?”

  “Yes. Thank you? Really?”

  “Well, you know my parents always insisted I write a thank you note.”

  She chuckles. “Yes, princess, but I don’t think a thanks-for-taking-my-virginity-note was what they had in mind.”

  See, I am a stupid little girl. “I didn’t know what to do,” I admit miserably.

  “Obviously. Are you still coming home for the Fourth?”