Page 62 of Snared Rider

Chapter Sixteen

Ten years earlier…

I feelhis eyes on me.

Even from across the room I know he’s watching me and I can’t stop the shiver of pleasure this knowledge brings. Casually, I shift my gaze from the beer in front of me and around the common room until I find him.

He’s standing at the bar with Derek and Tap, a pint glass clutched in his hand. His dark hair sits just above his shoulders, longer than he usually wears it, but it suits him. He’s brushed it back from his forehead but a rogue strand has fallen forward into his eyes—eyes that are devouring me from across the room.

I tug my bottom lip between my teeth and reluctantly drag my gaze from him, back to my drink. I want to jump his bones right now. I want to run across the room and throw my arms around him but I don’t.

I don’t because no one knows about Logan and me.

“So, twenty in a week, B,” Jem grins. “You’re about to step off the gravy train of teendom and embark on the murkier path of real adulthood. Sure, you can still do what you want, when you want, but you’ll never have the energy, money or time. It’s all downhill after twenty.”

I raise a brow at him. “Thanks for that uplifting pep talk.”

“Don’t mention it.” He leans back in his seat, grinning.

It’s funny how different he is from Logan—and Adam, in fact. Sometimes, I wonder if he was found under a cabbage patch. Jem is so laid back he’s practically horizontal. Then again, he didn’t suffer the same tribulations Logan did growing up.

Logan was barely in double digits when their father died. After he recovered from the crash he became the man in that house, even though he wasn’t one yet. He had two brothers, two sisters and his mother to keep together. It was—and still is—a job he takes seriously.

My thoughts move from Logan to my birthday next week. It’s coming around fast. I know the Club is planning a spectacular bash for me—they always do for birthdays—but in all honesty, the only person I want to celebrate it with is Logan and that is not going to happen. It can’t happen because no one knows about us yet.

“Are you nervous about becoming a real adult then?” Jem questions, and I open my mouth to tell him I’ve been a ‘real adult’ for two years already, but I don’t say anything because I am nervous about leaving my teens. I’m not sure what I want to do with my future, something I’m sure I should have figured out by now.

Shouldn’t I have my shit together by the time I hit twenty? A career planned? A path decided?

I have none of these things.

Dad talked about continuing my education. I left college with good exam results, but the nearest university to Kingsley is in Leeds. And that is miles from home. I wasn’t keen on moving away from home after I finished college at eighteen, but I’m even less enamoured with the idea now I have Logan.

And I do have Logan. We’ve been sneaking around for weeks since he rescued me in London. I’ve been in a daze ever since, a Logan fog. It still doesn’t seem real.

“I heard through the grapevine you applied for Cambridge,” I say, changing the subject from me to him. “Is it true?”

My grapevine being Logan, of course. I was surprised to hear Jem was not only considering going to university, but that he had already put in an application form. It seems all very sudden.

To my amusement, Jem shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Is he embarrassed?

“Who told you that?” he demands.

“Does it matter?”

He lets out an irritated breath. “Gossipy fuckers.” I grin and wait for him to speak again. He doesn’t make me wait long. “I’m not just a pretty face, B. It turns out I’ve got a brain too. Prez wants me to get some education behind me.”

He’s annoyed, which surprises me. Logan didn’t give the impression Jem didn’t want to go but looking at him now I can see he’s not sold.

“You’re not keen?”

He snorts and plucks at his kutte. He gained his top and bottom rockers—the patches that identify him as a full member—eighteen months into his prospect term.

“They let me put on the kutte and work for nearly two years to earn my colours. Now, I’m being told the only chance I have to sit at the top table, to become an officer, is to graft for three years at university—something no other patch has had to do. Slade didn’t go to university before he got his VP patch, nor did Jack before he was given Secretary. It’s bollocks. So, no, I’m not fucking keen, but what choice do I have? I don’t go, I never get that chance to progress.” His teeth grind together as he adds, “I do go, I miss three years here. I’m going to be twenty-fucking-four by the time I come back.”

I didn’t expect him to divulge so much, and he’s divulged a hell of a lot more than Logan did. I frown at his sullenness. It is so out of character for him, which tells me how much this is affecting him.

“It’s unfair to push you into education when you don’t want to go.”

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