Page 6 of Riley Goes Home

“It’s notfair that you have to have all this going on.” She gestured vaguely to my body. “And the capacity for super easy multiple orgasms as well. You keep developing cool drugs. How about one where I could be an omega temporarily?” She bent over and started twerking rather disturbingly, making me wonder if she had learned anything about my designation. “I don’t want any annoying mates hanging around the next day, but a whole lot of knotted cock for one night?”

“Please stop saying knotted cock,” I said.

“Why?” She started gyrating faster. “You get it every night. Surely you can say the words.”

“Because Gideon Crowe, the founder of our company and CEO is just about to walk through the door,” I replied.

“Shit!”

I couldn’t haveit then and I couldn’t have it now, so I stepped away from the two of them.

“Unless you guys have whole other kinks I’m not aware of, I’m going to go and pee alone right now.”

“Scream if you see any spiders in there,” Blake called out.

“Spiders? Spiders…!”

Somehow I managed to deal with the dangers of an Australian public toilet, but I admit I checked every cornerand the back of the door before I did what I needed to, only to emerge out of the toilet block to see this.

It felt like I spent half my teenage years eating out my own heart over the Vanguard boys, and I felt a whisper of that now. Watching them lean against the car and talk shit, it was like the ten years we’d spent apart never happened. We had a soccer mum van now, not the big beast the boys used to drive around in, but still. I could still see the boys they were in their smiles, in their gestures, which had me thinking.

Was this smart? Bordertown was my home once, but I’d barely thought about it again after I’d left. I couldn’t, not without the pain of being separated from them threatening to engulf me. We were together now. No one could dispute the bite marks on my neck, the babies in my belly, but somehow a small sliver of doubt remained. Were we ever free of that past? I didn’t know, but I was about to find out.

“Is there a decent road house on that map of yours?” I asked Haze as I looked over his shoulder at his phone. “I could murder a burger.”

“I know a place.”

Blake gave Haze directions as Fen wrapped his arm around my waist, steering me towards the car. “One extra juicy burger, coming right up.”

“And here we are.”

Ryan sounded relieved and just a tiny little bit bitter.

I pulled away from Blake and Colt, even though they were giving me the best massages. I couldn’t feel the back pain, the ache of my swollen feet, not when I saw the now-faded town sign appear. Those sheep grazing in the small paddocks, there were less of them. Some of the land had been given over to new housing estates, but that didn’t stop me from seeing it. The same road into town, the same oak trees flanking each side, the sameflowers waving in the breeze, the monument erected to World War I veterans. As we passed a bus stop, my eyes half closed and that’s when I saw her.

Teenage me waiting by the roadside, her arms wrapped around her books. She was entirely focussed on the road, waiting for the bus to appear, and because of that, she didn’t notice them. Or did she? Her back was ramrod straight, her whole body tense as the Vanguard boys strolled up to the bus stop, surrounding her like the pack of wolves they were. The books were plucked from her fingers and when she turned to see who took them, the rest of the boys clustered closer. Sliding their hands across her shoulders, lifting her ponytail and wrapping it around their hand as?—

“We all good, Riley?”

Fen, all of them, were far too attuned to the way I was feeling, and that went double since we got in the car. I forced myself to smile.

“I’m fine, just… remembering. The ice cream from the corner store.” I pointed a finger at the window as we drove past a shop, relieved to see a familiar sight. It looked a little older and more tired than I remembered.

“Damn, they were good,” Colt groaned.

“Especially when old man Blackford gave us an extra scoop,” Ryan added.

“Walking up to the fish and chips shop when the alphas were working late,” I said, staring at what looked like a new takeaway that had replaced the other one.

“And sneaking too many chips from a tear in the corner.” Blake chuckled. “The dads forcing us to go back and buy another order from our own money.”

“Climbing that tree.”

“Nearly getting run over on that corner.”

“Racing our bikes?—”

“Sneaking out to the park at night.”

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