Page 13 of Wait For Me

“You sure do, kiddo. It was probably just a poor choice of words on your dad’s part. You know how Tripp is. He gets something in his head, and he can’t let go.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He’s worried, kiddo. Thinks harm might come to you out there. Doesn’t want the last conversation he has with his daughter to be long-distance.”

I sighed. “Thanks for the guilt, but I’m an adult now. Did he think I’d just marry one of the club brothers, pop out ten kids, and never leave?”

“I think he hoped you would marry a brother, remain a virgin, adopt ten kids, and never leave.” Uncle Mack was being serious. Aunt Viv and I laughed. I didn’t bother informing anyone that my virginity was still intact. It was something that bothered me quite a bit. I was nineteen going on twenty and still had never even been properly kissed. It wasn’t because I was a prude, or saving myself for marriage, or any other pious reason. Stupidly, I had allowed my crush to take up a pedestal in my mind where I also tucked my virginity away for him to take. He was too busy screwing everyone else to notice though, so I still had it.

“I have to go, my shift starts soon,” I lied. I didn’t have a shift until tomorrow. There was a party that one of the girls who worked the restaurant down the street had invited me to. I thought about going later because kids back home, who knew I was an MC princess, didn’t tend to invite me to parties much. They tripped all over themselves, sometimes, to get an invite to the clubhouse on a Friday night – something I never offered. The idiots didn’t realize that I didn’t have that kind of pull. My brother, having prospected for two years before turning eighteen, had been allowed to invite people – especially the girls who had already come of age.

It made me a little sick to think about that though because I knew who most of the girls ended up spending their nights with. I’d seen some of it firsthand, unfortunately. Not for the first time, I wished that Jared had been different. I honestly liked everything else about him except his whorish ways.

It was weird to think about him because several times over the past few months in my travels, I thought I’d seen Jared. One time, in Memphis, I could have sworn I saw him in a restaurant eating across the street from the hotel I stayed in. I’d even sent a text to Uncle Mack asking if Jared was out on the road. He laughed at me and told me the boy was partying it up in the clubhouse per usual.

I almost went to go talk to the man after that. If it wasn’t Jared, maybe I was supposed to meet this guy, and fate just had them confused at first. Then I told myself how fucking stupid that sounded and took my ass to bed. Being all alone on the road was taking a toll on me. I continued thinking that when I thought I’d seen him in Texas, Oklahoma, and briefly in Colorado too before I landed in Loveland. There had been no sightings of him here. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was thankful for that or not. Part of me missed seeing his apparition on the road, it made me feel less alone.

A knock on my door startled me, before I remembered that I had plans to party tonight. I got up and moved to the door.

“Who is it?”

“Room service!” Shayla called out. I popped the locks, moved the chair that had been wedged under the door, and slid it open for her.

“Damn girl, are you paranoid or what?”

“I’m nineteen, and living in a hotel right now, a girl can never be too careful.”

“I guess so. You know, we’re looking for a third roommate before winter,” she hinted again.

“I won’t be here for winter,” I reminded her.

“Oh yeah. Shoot. Why do you have to leave again? I thought you were looking for your perfect spot in the country to land? It could be Loveland. Obviously, we have all the cool people here.”

I laughed while applying my mascara, using the cheap mirror that was hung on the wall. It was the same mirror that I nearly broke when I was checking behind it for hidden cameras when I first got the room. Maybe I was paranoid.

Nah. It’s just being safe. My dad and uncle would have my ass in a sling if I didn’t check things like that and barricade doors.

“Let’s go,” I told her as I set the door with a little trick that would let me know if anyone had been in my room while I was gone. I had the ‘do not disturb’ sign hung on the door, but that didn’t mean shit to most people.

~*~

The party was a bust. Maybe it was me, then again, it could have just been because I was basically an interloper. Everyone here knew everyone else. They looked at me like the unwanted tourist crashing their party and honestly, that wasn’t too far off from the truth. Loveland was never going to be the place where I settled down. It was beautiful for sure, the people were wonderful, but I was picky and chasing a feeling, thinking I would know it as soon as I landed in that place where I was meant to be for the rest of my life.

I might not believe in romantic love anymore, but I suppose my romantic heart transferred to places instead of people. Searching for my own personal utopia would probably lead me down the same dark path that chasing love had. I rolled my eyes at myself for being so damn cynical and wandered outside. The noise from the house hosting the party behind me trailed at my back for a little while as I strolled away.

“You lost?” I turned to see a gorgeous, older man standing there two houses down from the one I just left. He was in slacks that looked to be part of a tailored suit, though the jacket had been discarded, as had the tie – if there ever was one. All that was left was a dark button-down dress shirt with the top few buttons opened to reveal a smattering of dark chest hair. It matched the short, well-trimmed hair on his head and the beautifully trimmed beard and mustache too. The man was handsome in an upper-class businessman kind of way that I was not used to.

The men I grew up with were all rugged, ex-military, bikers with shady pasts, questionable futures, too many tattoos to count, and shaggy appearances. They were handsome in their own way. This man was something shiny, new, and polished to perfection though.

I grinned, not the least bit ashamed about having been caught taking in an eyeful of the man. When he spoke, it was clear that he also had no qualms in calling me out for lustily gazing at him the way I had. “See something you like?”

“I’m definitely not lost, and I was just admiring your suit.”

“I’m only wearing half of it,” he insisted.

“Mmm, but you are wearing it so well.” Where the boldness in my words came from, I will never know. I hadn’t necessarily been shy – considering the way I was brought up, it wasn’t possible to remain shy, but being bold had never been my thing either. Then again, coasting down the safety of the slow lane hadn’t done much for me in the past.

“Are you local here?”

---