“He wants revenge,” Ghost said. “And he doesn’t care whose hand’s up his ass while he’s getting it.”
Fielding nodded.
“What were you doing here?” Ghost asked, tone sharpening. “Are they paying you off?”
The cop bristled again, insulted. “I’m trying to convince that stupidass Larsen that burning down his own buildings as a way to frame you guys is an idiotic move.”
Ghost smiled faintly, and glanced over at Aidan. “See? He does care about us. Huh, Vinnie?”
Fielding tugged in vain at the handle of the rear suicide door. “You guys need to lay low. There’s no way to help yourselves right now. Just keep out of the headlines and this’ll blow over.” He sighed. “Let me out.”
Aidan opened his door, allowing the sergeant to exit, and smiled broadly in response to the final look of warning sent his way before Fielding headed back across the street to his cruiser.
He closed the door. “Next move?”
“You up for a little espionage?”
Every time Ava let her mind wander, her thoughts went back to Mercy, to the picture of him in the slanted morning sun, one boot on the pavement, long legs holding up his matte black bike, little smirking smile under his black shades. He was gorgeous to her, mostly because he was hers, because she knew that when she walked out of this last class, he’d still be sitting there, waiting for her.
She was in serious danger of dissolving into a smiling idiot right here in her plastic chair.
Never had she been so glad to stow away her writing before. When her professor dismissed her, she left the AC-chilled meat locker classroom with a skip to her pulse and went outside to meet her man.
But the figure leaning against the bike rack, who straightened as she appeared and came toward her, was decidedly not her man.
He was the man she’d given up.
“Ronnie,” she said, startled and hearing it reflected in her voice. “Wha…what are you doing here?”
He was painfully pretty in her eyes this morning, every hair and khaki crease in perfect place. So cosmically different from everything she’d ever found sexy. “You wouldn’t talk to me,” he said, his smile almost sheepish, “so I thought I’d come run into you. You can’t hang up on me this way.”
Her headache was instant, throbbing in her temples and eyelids. “Jesus,” she whispered.
He stepped in closer, blocking the light. “What?”
“Nothing,” she sighed. “Look, Ronnie, to be honest, I don’t know where all this…passion, for lack of a better word…is coming from. I’m sorry about the way things happened, but I didn’t think you would be that upset.”
He frowned. “I’m not upset. I’m confused.”
“You didn’t seem confused the other day, when you were telling me how unbearable you find me.”
“Okay…maybe I was upset then. I had a moment. Not like you haven’t had a few lately.” He lifted his brows, encouraging her to agree with him.
She was suspicious, suddenly. “No. Two days ago, you were done. What changed your mind? You could do way better than me.”
“Ava–” He reached for her arm, a move she evaded with a quick step back. His expression hardened, making him look like a polished statue come to life. “You don’t want to throw away what we have. You’re just trying to punish me for what I said. I’m sorry. Let me–”
She took another step back, folded her arms across her middle. “Why are you acting like this?” Fear crawling down her arms, up her neck. “You don’t like my family, you don’t like the club, I’m not even sure you likeme. You can’t spend ten minutes with me without being on your phone. You’re texting another girl, aren’t you? Whatever,” she said, not letting him answer. “I don’t care. Just like you don’t care. So what are you pushing for?”
When she reached to flip her hair over her shoulder in mindless irritated twitchiness, his eyes followed the movement. They latched onto the side of her neck. Too late, she remembered the tiny mark there, the little dark place where Mercy had pressed his mouth and sucked at her skin last night, in the side yard. They hadn’t taken things too far, but she’d delighted in the kissing, the reckless teenage pawing at one another. She’d never had that with him, not a true teen romance, but something heavier and more high-stakes from the first.
She clapped her hand over the mark, but it was too late, a grim smile blooming on Ronnie’s face.
“So that’s it then. You went running back to your biker.” His smile widened in a nasty slice, teeth gleaming white in the sunlight. “Here I am feeling guilty, and you’ve been throwing yourself at that Neanderthal. You bring me home to meet your parents” – he took an aggressive step toward her – “and you fuck some other guy? Once a slut, always a slut, huh? You just can’t rise above bad breeding, can you?”
Ronnie’s shadow seemed to grow; Ava tipped her head back. No, it hadn’t grown, it had been covered, by a taller, larger shadow: Mercy’s.
“Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie.” At the sound of his voice, Ronnie went rigid, expression frozen, fear flashing in his eyes. “Youreallyshouldn’t have said that, my man.”
