Chapter Ten
Rowan
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I sigh as I set the knife down on the counter and pull it out as I glance at the chaos around me. Shaking my head, I turn back to my phone and roll my eyes when I see Ash’s name on the screen along with his dumb smiling face. Silencing it, I shove it back in my pocket as I try to brush off my irritation but I’m not very successful. This is the third time he has called me today, which is less than the five times he called yesterday, but it’s still three times too many. I haven’t answered a single call since I spoke to him in Texas but he just keeps trying, leaving me increasingly agitated and rude messages. They started out innocent enough, with him saying that he hoped I was ready to talk and that he missed me but the last couple have been endless rants about me leaving him and what a cold-hearted bitch I am for leaving him and throwing us away.
Whatever.
You wanna know what I don’t give a single fuck about? Ash’s opinion of me. Besides, he doesn’t have a single goddamn leg to stand on after I found him, dick deep, in Holly, the skank.
“Who was that?” Tate asks, nudging me with her shoulder and I sigh as I glance over at her, rolling my eyes to emphasis my annoyance.
“Ash, douchebag ex-boyfriend extraordinaire.”
She makes a face as she looks up from her cutting board. “Are you still speaking to him? After what he did to you?”
“Absolutely not. The last time I talked to him was when I was in Texas and that was just to tell him that we were done and he needed to move on with his life but he’s not getting the hint.”
“How many times has he called?”
I arch a brow. “Today? Three times.”
“Do we need to be worried about him?” she asks and warmth spreads through my chest. When she says “we”, she’s not just talking about her and Lincoln. She’s talking about this club as a whole and every single one of its members. I haven’t been here all that long but that doesn’t seem to matter because as soon as I walked through the front door, I found myself a new little family. It doesn’t diminish the pain of the ones I’ve lost but it is nice to feel like I belong somewhere and that I’ve got people who have my back. After feeling so alone in Alaska, it’s absolutely incredible and this place already feels like home.
“No, Ash isn’t like that, at all. It’s just annoying that he can’t get a fucking clue. Besides, you would think Holly would be keeping him so busy that he wouldn’t even have time to worry about little old me.”
“Is that the girl he cheated on you with?” she asks and I nod. She makes a stabbing motion with her knife and I can’t help but laugh. “Were you direct with him?”
“Like a fucking lightning bolt.”
“Well,” she muses as she starts chopping again. “You could always just hand the phone to your brother and let him deal with this loser.”
“Ah, yes, but then I would have to tell him what this loser did and I thought we were trying to keep him from jumping on a plane.”
She purses her lips before her smile turns devious. “You’re right… but I could always have a little chat with him.”
“Are you even scary over the phone? Without your gun or taser?”
“Oh, don’t you dare underestimate me,” she warns with a heated look and I hold my hands up in surrender. Truthfully, I’m just giving her a hard time. I have no doubt that Tate could make Ash piss himself with her words alone and if it comes to it, I’m not above letting her do just that. I want to be done with the whole damn thing.
“Okay, I won’t and if he doesn’t leave me alone, I promise to let you loose on him.”
She grins and does a little shimmy next to me. “Christmas has come early this year.”
“Speaking of, is anyone planning on doing anything for Christmas? I mean, I realize everyone is feeling the stress of this threat against the club right now but we should at least put up a tree, right?”
“Maybe we’ll bring it up at dinner,” she says, motioning to the chaos around us. I look around the room and sigh. All of the girls have been running around this kitchen for the last two and a half hours, working their asses off to make some big family dinner for all of us and I know the guys have been super stressed the past few days but I don’t know that this will help. Actually, I’m not even sure exactly what happened but I did hear something about a cabin, some photos, and the threat to the club. The whole thing has every single member on edge and their paranoia has been getting to all of us. The tension has been almost unbearable and on top of all that, Travis has been locked in his room almost twenty-four-seven since yesterday morning and I haven’t gotten a chance to be alone with him since our little rendezvous in his car two days ago. My cheeks heat as I think about that morning. Honestly, I don’t know what came over me but I couldn’t stop myself.
Neither one of us could.
“You know what I really need?” I ask and she arches a brow as she glances over at me. “Everyone to take a damn chill pill. I mean, have they ever considered that they all are playing right into his hand?”
“Just give it a rest, girl. I tried the same speech with Lincoln and he damn near tore my head off. They’re all worried and us being so flippant about it isn’t helping.”
I sigh. “I’m not being flippant but there is no way that any of them are thinking clearly right now and it just seems like they are letting this guy get the best of them.”
“Has anyone explained the whole situation to you?”
“Yeah,” I whisper, my mind drifting back to the diner with Travis two days ago. “Streak did.”
“Then you know how serious it is.”
I nod. “I do. But I also think they need to be smart about how they handle all of this. Whoever this guy is keeps winning because they are all wound so damn tight and scared of the next thing that is going to happen.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, girl, but all we can do is try to help them chill out and think clearly. Which is why this dinner is so important… well, and we have an ulterior motive…”
“You do? What is it?”
She smiles. “The girls all want to be able to go out and celebrate Piper’s bachelorette party but we need to butter the guys up and convince them of that.”
“Good fucking luck,” I shoot back with a laugh. I’m new here but even I know this is a damn long shot and that’s putting it mildly. Hell, when Tate, Emma, and I ran to the store earlier for supplies, Blaze insisted on driving there so he could protect us. I considered protesting but, after the mood in the clubhouse over the past two days, I decided against it. She shakes her head.
“No, listen…we have a plan.”
“Well, I hope it’s something at the clubhouse because that is all the guys are going to agree to,” I tell her and she shakes her head as a smile stretches across her face.
“That’s why we’re going to suggest that we all go, even the guys. How can they say no when they will all be there to protect us?”
I roll my eyes. “Like this, ‘absolutely fucking not’.”