“Let’s not discuss last night.”
“You were shaking.” I was mad at her for upsetting Allison, and I lost my temper, but my words, my actions—they weren’t bad enough to provoke the reaction Elisabeth gave me. She has her own demons, and I want to know their names, addresses and phone numbers.
She stands, fidgeting from head to toe. “I should get my backpack together.”
“Has someone hurt you?” I push. “Physically?” Because the emotional part is obvious.
She picks up her dishes and brings them to me. Her words pour out as if she’s in freefall. “I really need help with calculus. I want to drop it.”
I take the dishes from her, place them on the counter and cross my arms over my chest. I’m not letting this go. “What happened after I left town? My dad was dead and buried. Did my brother take his place as residing bastard?”
Elisabeth begins to shake, and her fear causes a wave of protectiveness to course through my veins. But her fear quickly turns into red-faced anger. “Fuck you.”
Fuck you. Elisabeth is a smart girl with a smart tongue. If that’s the best she’s got, it means that I just punched through a few layers of those walls she’s been fortifying for years. Fuck you. What a great comeback. I chuckle. “You’re still as stubborn as you were at four. Go get your stuff ready for school. I’ll drive you in today.”
“I’ll take the bus.”
I turn my back to her and load the dishwasher. “I’m making pancakes tomorrow.”
“I won’t eat.”
I laugh again. “Yes, you will. Allison’s making goat-cheese-and-tofu casserole tonight.”
And They All Lived Happily Ever After:
A Thunder Road Novella
Chapter 11
Pigpen
Growing up I didn’t believe in true love. I couldn’t wrap my head around the bull about a princess trapped in a castle and how some random guy who never met the chick before takes one look at her sad blue eyes and feels compelled to place himself in front of a fire-breathing dragon to save her life. No way that type of love was real.
Don’t get me wrong. When I was younger I believed in caring love, protective love. The type you have for your family, your friends, and then for your friends who become your family. That shit was and is real. For my friends and family, I’d take on the dragon without the armor and the sword. I’d slay that bastard with a smile on my face just to piss it off, but no way could there be some woman out there who owned me more than I owned myself.
Fairytales. That’s all that kind of nonsense was. Then I met her—a woman who slipped under my skin without even trying, who took possession of my soul with a smile and a blah blah blah, and that makes me grumpy. Like a damned toddler who had to eat peas and doesn’t want to take a nap.
In the back of the high school’s auditorium, I lean against the wall with my arms crossed over my chest and do what my club has allowed me to do—look from a distance.
Ms. Whitlock.
Let’s all take a moment to savor that name. Whitlock. Ms. Whitlock. Ms. Caroline Whitlock. Her name rolls off the tongue like a Spanish “r.” Blond hair slicked back in a perfect bun, white silk shirt, gray slim skirt that fits her so perfectly I can’t stop staring and blue eyes behind dark-rimmed glasses. She’s in her twenties, like me, and I have so much respect for this woman that I can’t bring myself to call her by her first name without her permission.
She’s gorgeous, she’s intelligent, she’s cold and she’s feisty. I can’t name one student who doesn’t think she’s a tyrant, and she has never looked once in my direction. Worse, I haven’t been able to do more than savor her from a distance. Why? Because she has been the English teacher to some of the teens of our motorcycle club. I’ve been told that throwing her on the back of my motorcycle would cause a conflict of interest.
Translation? If I were to date her and suck at the whole dating thing—which I do—then that might cause Caroline Whitlock to take it out on the Reign of Terror teens. I say they’re big kids who can handle failing a class, but when I saw those stupid doe-eyed teens going through all their life-threatening issues, I took a step back.
That’s all ending today. In a matter of minutes, all the pictures of Chevy, Violet and Razor’s coma-inducing high school graduation ceremony will be taken, and there will be two years before another club teen will grace Caroline Whitlock’s gum-coated classroom.
Tonight, I begin my quest to woo the most desirable woman in the world.
“The fact you like my English teacher is creepy.” Chevy stands beside me, graduation cap tilted on his head. He’s the spitting image of his uncle and my best friend, Eli. Dark hair, dark eyes and every bone is dedicated to taking care of the people he loves.
It’s gonna break a lot of people’s hearts when this kid leaves town to go to college in the fall. He lost his dad before he was born, but the club took him on, and now he’s everybody’s son. Chevy hasn’t patched into the club, the club’s initiation to officially become a member. Whether he does or not, he’s part of this big, messed-up family.
No doubt most of the club will be there when he plays college football. It’ll probably scare the hell out of the small college town when the stands are full of Reign of Terror biker cuts, but they’ll figure out quick that we’re all about supporting our boy and not about causing trouble.
Chevy makes a show of glancing back and forth between me and Ms. Whitlock. “There’s something wrong with you.”
“No, there’s not.”
“Yes, there is.”
“No, there’s not.”
“For some reason, women think you’re good looking and that you’re funny, so when you have women who give you their phone number without you asking, why her?”
Hence my road name, Pigpen. The guys in the club said I was too good looking, with blond hair, blue eyes, and a ripped body, courtesy of my service in the Army. To even the playing field, they gave me a road name designed to offset my appearance. I don’t have problems walking into bars and finding a one-night stand, but I don’t want a one-night stand. I want a date with Caroline Whitlock.
“That woman revels in people’s pain,” he says. “Do you know how many football games I almost missed because of her?”
“None.”
“That’s not the point. She’d shut her door to class thirty seconds before the bell. If you didn’t make it in, you were locked out and ran the risk of being reported for cutting. And as I stood outside waiting for her to let me in, she’d give the class a quiz no one could make up. I almost missed games because my grade would be low that week from the missed quiz.”
“Yet, you played.” Because he learned quickly to get his ass in his seat early.
While all the other teachers are taking photos with students, Ms. Whitlock is gathering papers at the podium and straightening them. Her long fingers slip along the edges to nudge them into line. How is it that she makes that simple gesture seem sexy?
“The point is she’s a sadist.”