Page 25 of Jax

Ronnie caught me looking at her toes and I could see the nostalgic smile twitching at the corner of her mouth. The same one that had almost got me. But she suppressed it like I had, and we pretended it never happened.

“I see,” Ronnie replied and I almost forgot what I had said to her which wasn’t necessarily a lie. I didn’t come because I was told to. I came because I couldn’t bring myself not to.

I hated it. Despised that part of me that had turned my wheels around and had them heading back from the state line I had almost hit on my drive and coming straight back to this motel.

Back to the very thing I had been trying to forget about.

“Well, I’ll be fine now. I’m being moved to another room. A safer one I hope.” She shrugged, gesturing to the door. “I’ll be at the farm at the same time later today.”

I doubted that there would be a safer room. Not with the only form of protection the old motel had was the fat basset hound laid flat across the owner’s porch, snoring so loudly that the stones on the ground rattled.

“I still have your truck,” I replied, fiddling with the bike key that was in my pockets. I swear I’d done more fiddling with keys this week than I had with girls.

“Then I’ll get the bus.” She shrugged at me, turning to grab the trousers she’d had on last night, which were currently in a pile on the floor, and started digging through them until she pulled out the hair tie from last night.

With expert ease she grabbed handfuls of her wild brown hair and had it up in a messy bun, leaving only tendrils to brush her deeply tanned nape. The afternoon light coming through the window lit her face up with slight jagged lines, and for a moment they looked like scars on her face, but when clouds came over and the light was gone, it was as if I could still see them, sitting there, underneath the surface.

I stopped looking.

“Dammit,” I hissed. I turned toward the black bag on the bed, picked it up and put it over my shoulder, the lightness of it bringing forth too many questions. I walked out the door. “Get changed and meet me outside.”

I heard Ronnie yelling something or other after my exit. I chose to ignore her, favoring to meet up with Jeremiah, who was speaking into his radio scanner.

He stopped as I approached, putting the speaker back through the window of the car as he took one look at me and the bag in my hand and said, “I’ll tell the owner he doesn’t need to set up a new room.”

I gave him a nod and walked back to my bike, making the one phone call to make what I needed happen, then shoved Ronnie’s black bag into my saddle bag. I didn’t usually ride with them, but somehow I knew it’d come down to this. The second I got that phone call that her room had been broken into, I knew.

Boots resounded in my ears as Ronnie walked out the ground-story room, passed the ice machine, and came down the porch steps toward my bike with her pajamas in her hands, wearing the same clothes from yesterday. I could have let her change into fresh clothes from her bag, but I would have spent too much time arguing with her before we got anywhere.

She was coming with me whether she liked it or not. Not that I liked it either. But this way was quicker.

“Why. Where. And why,” she demanded, bundling her pajamas under one arm to prop her hands on her hips.

“You said why twice,” I said, looking down the few inches between us. Ronnie was one of the taller girls that I’d met, even without the boot heels and the bun making her seem taller. It was nice not having to break my neck to look a girl in the eye, like most of the time.

“Then you better answer me twice as fast,” Ronnie retorted, not moving from her spot a few feet from me. She was close, and I got a good look at her. The way her body was now slimmer, and although she didn’t have a lot of curves, there was still a subtle dip around her waist that made her stomach look even longer and flatter as it descended into the waist band of her long jeans. The old worn pair of jeans had seen better days. They came up a little at the heel where her cuff met her boots, but that was just one of the problems she faced being a size four with legs that went on for miles.

A lot of the muscle she’d had back when she was seventeen had been lost, and the simple sight of that told me that she hadn’t been riding as much as she used to.

I saw Ronnie’s skin grow red at the long looks I was giving her. She was quiet, waiting for my reaction to the now grown body of the dorky teenager I used to know.

I didn’t give her one. I didn’t even let myself have one because that was territory I refused to step into.

“This place isn’t safe. I’m taking you to one where it is safe. Happy?” I replied.

“No,” she scoffed, as if her answer wasn’t clear as day. One look at her was all I needed; her hands moving from her hips to across her small chest, her heel beginning to tap on the ground; it was obvious.

“Just get on, Ronnie.” I turned back to my bike, not wanting to argue anymore, and dropped onto my Harley. My legs stood comfortably on either side, waiting to kick up the stand as Ronnie refused to move.

The heat was scorching. Summer was bearing down on Fellpeak and the motel provided no shadows. My leather was beginning to get bleached under the light and my skin was starting to burn. My white shirt did nothing to help my arms either, but I wasn’t about to take my cut off when riding through my town. Not a chance.

“Where are we going?” Ronnie persisted, green eyes squinting in the sunlight as she fought not to break the hold she had on my chest to shield her eyes. She was a Texan girl, through and through, both against the sunlight and the stubborn streak that reached down into her bones.

It had pissed me off when we were kids. Looked like it still did.

“Why do you have to know?” I retorted.

“Because I’m the one going there.” Ronnie pouted. “Why won’t you tell me?”

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