Page 36 of Give Me What I Want

Ronan looked past her, his gaze locking with mine as I furrowed my brow in confusion. I had no idea what was going on. Ro was never lost for words, never shy about speaking his mind, so why the hell was he standing there looking at me as though he needed help?

“Exactly.” Bea pushed up onto her tiptoes, attempting but failing to cut off Ronan’s line of sight, then made a high-pitched noise of frustration before storming away down the bus. “Fucking men!”

Ronan didn’t move. His expression remained the same until the door slammed behind her and the sound of thumping music echoed from the room she had retreated to.

He shook his head, seeming to return to the present, exhaling loudly.

“What were you trying to say to her?” I asked hesitantly.

“No idea,” Ronan said with a shrug, and I genuinely believed him. Ronan didn’t lie. “But she’s bloody insane if she thinks that we’d be happy with someone else in her place.”

I nodded my agreement. “Do you think she’s right, about it being Garth?”

“I dunno,” he shrugged again, then stared towards the bedroom door as the music was drowned out with a loud scream of anger. “I’ll go and calm her down.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I asked, making my own advance towards the door. “I can do it. You two probably need a little space from each other.”

“She’ll hurt you, Cole.” Ro gave me a stern look.

“I can take it.”

“You shouldn’t have to. She’s mad at me, so she should take it out on me.”

“Or go crying to Mav,” I muttered, barely loud enough to be heard over the screaming coming from the bedroom.

Apparently, Ro had heard me though, pausing and turning to face me. “You get her joy, Cole. Don’t take it for granted. I don’t know how long she’ll allow us to have her this way.”

I wanted to ask him how he felt about it all, but the words got stuck. So instead of voicing my genuine feelings, I grinned and twisted my hair into a bun as I retreated to the front door and slipped on a pair of shoes. “We can’t all be as fun as me. Enjoy your hate fucking, I’ll be down in One Last Time’s bus when you’re done.” The last thing I needed when I felt so strange was to listen to Ro ‘calm her down’.

“Oh, and Ro,” I called out before stepping out into the sun. “Give her one for me.”

Cringing at my own words, I closed the door and ran straight into Jordan.

“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” I said, grabbing his arm and pulling him away from our bus. “I think someone might end up in the hospital today.”

“We all need to go back in there,” he said urgently. “Look.”

He pulled me forward a few steps and pointed to the front of the bus. My stomach twisted in a tight knot as I took in the words written in bright pink letters sprayed just below the windshield.

‘Stupid Little Whore’

“What the fuck is that?” It was the dumbest question in the world, but those words were the only ones to leave my mouth as my jaw set.

“A taunt,” Mav said coldly as he appeared behind me. “Someone isn’t happy.”

“Do you think someone knows what…what we’re doing? With…” I whispered, not sure if I should finish my sentence, gaze darting around, searching for a culprit. But we had only been parked up for about twenty minutes, and it was the middle of the day. So, that meant that this must have happened at night, and we had been travelling across the country with those words on full display, and we’d had no idea that they were there.

“It might be about that. Or it might be an admirer of Ro. Not everyone is going to like that they aredating,” Mav said, ever the voice of reason. “Either way, it’s aimed at Bea, and we cannot let her see it.”

“She won’t,” I said, glancing along the bus to the blacked-out bedroom windows. “She’s going to be busy for a while. Hang on, how did Ro not notice this?”

“He’s not as observant as he thinks,” Maverick stated, a slight cockiness to his voice as the corner of his mouth twitched.

“Go on, Top Gun, gloat,” I managed to tease, making him scowl back at me.

“Don’t call me that.” He rubbed his chin, thick fingers wrapping around his sharp jaw as he stepped closer to the front of the bus. “Right, who knows how to get this off? Looks like spray paint.”

“It looks dry, so it won’t just wash off easily. I think I read something about petrol getting it off, let me go and grab Garth and see what he thinks,” Jord offered, turning his back on us and making his way across the forecourt where all of our vehicles were parked up.

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