Page 11 of Sparrow

Sighing, her head fell back on the bed. Sure, he was what, sixteen at the time. He didn’t know what that meant—offering a girl a ride on his bike. Well, he wasn’t in a motorcycle club at the time anyway. So, it didn’t mean shit at sixteen, except to her. She wanted nothing more than to ride on the back of his old ass silver Fat Boy. She didn’t care if it was rusted out and falling apart. It was his bike and he was proud of it.

We’ll go for a ride when I get there.

It may have taken years, but he’d been there, and she’d given him a ride all right. She snorted at her own horrible joke. Gallows humor, she supposed. Closing her eyes and covering her face with both her hands, she let out a groan, exasperated with herself—how pathetic could she be? No grown ass woman was this obsessed with their high school crush at twenty-four. She really needed to move the fuck on.

The door to the apartment opening jolted Sparrow out of her nostalgia. “Mom?” she called from the room, already scrambling to pack everything back into the box. She couldn’t explain any of this, nor did she want to.

“Babe?” Pipes called back.

What the fuck was he doing home? He’d literally just left!

Frantically, she scooped everything back in. Letters, lollipops. Their apartment wasn’t huge, she had mere seconds before he’d be in the room. She didn’t have an explanation, and with his recent bouts of erratic behavior, she really didn’t want to test his patience.

“Get dressed,” he said from the doorway of their bedroom.

Popping up from the side of the bed, wearing a black Roughneck Riders support tank-top and teal boy-short panties, she peered at him. “Where are we going?”

It was barely five o’clock. The clubhouse never woke up before eight. He rarely brought her there before ten, when the party was full-on raging.

With pinpoint pupils, he grinned as his gaze swept over her. Stalking into the room, he reached for her. Stepping around the bed, and away from her incriminating box, she went to him.

“For a ride and then the clubhouse.” His wide palms rested on her hips as her own snaked up over his shoulders. “Remember when we used to just go for rides?”

His faded blue jeans had tears in the knees. The gray Harley Davidson t-shirt he wore was wrinkled and untucked. Over that, he wore his cut, the brand new patches practically glowed they were so white. Gone was the prospect patch on the left side. Now it saidPipes, and below thatMember.

That patch, his colors, made her tie to the club stronger as long as they stayed together. One step closer to being accepted, as much as any woman could be, by the club her father had once led. In time, maybe she could find her way back to that dream she had. Maybe she could go back to school once things did calm down. Her timing was probably off before. She just had to wait until everything calmed down.

Forget Jacob.

As her attention lifted to his face, she saw the sheen of sweat and his bloodshot eyes.Jacob didn’t look like that, ever. Internally wincing, she scolded herself.Stop comparing them. One was a fantasy, the other was her reality.

Biting her lips together, she took a deep breath. “You sure you don’t want me to drive?” she suggested.

Ducking into the bathroom, he grabbed a small mirror. “Why?”

Because you’re fucked up. “You’re still celebrating,” she suggested with a weak smile. Celebrating what, she didn’t know. He always seemed to find a reason to “celebrate.” At this point, it was just her word for “you’re fucked up” that seemed the least offensive. “I just figured it would be safer if I drove you home.”

“Mmmmm,” he hummed as he swayed with her to music that only he could hear. “I’m not celebrating yet,” he teased, and gave her short kisses to the tip of her nose. “Butwewill be tonight.”

He brought his calloused hand to the back of her neck. The rough skin of his hands sent a shiver up her body as he pulled her against him, tilting her head upward to look into his beady eyes. They hadn’t always been that way, but when he used, they got that way. Recreational use had become daily.

“No one rides up to the clubhouse in a cage,” he all but growled in her face. “I’m not going to be the first. If I can’t ride you home,” he sniffled, “we’ll crash there.” The smirk on his face was laced with intention.

She bristled at the suggestion. “Okay.” She hated when he got high, let alone when he expected to fuck her when high. The worst was when he wanted to fuck at the club while stoned. Half the time his shit didn’t work. He got angry and blamed her. Then she had to spend the night navigating that. It’d be a long night.

His mouth came over hers, crushing her with a hard kiss, the force of which bent her neck backward. After he bit down on her lip, hard enough to get her to squeak, he pulled back, chuckling. The hand on the back of her neck left, only to crack down across her ass.

She jumped as the sting radiated through her flesh.

“I love how it jiggles. Wear a thong so I can see it when I’m plowing you later.”

It was all she could do not to roll her eyes at him. He wouldn’t be plowing shit if he used anymore that night. “Okay,” she agreed, walking away from him.

“Get dressed.” He repeated the original order before turning toward the bathroom. “We’re leaving in ten minutes. So, look sexy.”

Sighing, she hung her head and scanned the box of memories. What she wouldn’t give to go back and do something, anything differently just to change this future. Fuck the time-space continuum.

Arguing with him about the ride would only piss him off. Digging through her dresser drawer for socks, the edge of a photo grazed her hand. She pulled out the picture of her and Jacob from the rally. She was fifteen. Running her finger along the edge, she frowned at how much her life had changed in eight years.

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