Jaded: (Beautiful Biker MC Romance Series), page 21
“Brothers,” I greeted.
“Jess.” Axel gave me a fist bump.
Skip said nothing, just folded his arms over his chest and flexed his jaw at the same time as his biceps.
I grabbed a beer for me, a red Powerade for her.
***
She was on the phone, toying with a loose thread on the comforter.
“I’ll figure it out. Okay, bye.” She ended the call and passed me the phone.
I tossed my phone to the dresser beside hers as I put the drinks down. “Everything good?”
“As expected.” She opened the pizza box. “Thank you for this. I’m actually hungry, surprisingly.”
“Good.”
I waited to see if she’d say anything about her father. After a minute of silence where she stared off into space, I unmuted the small television that was mounted on the wall, asking, “What’s this?”
“Gilmore Girls. You can change it if you want. I’ve binged the whole series about eight times.”
“It’s all right. We can leave it on. So, I’ve got a joint chapter church tonight. We’ll head out in the morning, back to the cabin. Yeah?”
“Okay.”
“Unless… anything else you need to do here first? Anybody you wanna see?”
“Nope,” she popped the p with sarcasm and took a bite of the pizza.
“Conversation go bad with your father?”
“It went as expected.”
She offered no more information, so I dropped it and dug into my pizza.
“How is it?” I asked a few minutes later.
“Hm?”
“The no gluten pizza?”
“It’s not bad. This is the place I got it from living here.”
“You got an apartment? You need to check your mail or water your plants while we’re here?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t keep a plant alive if my own life depended on it. And I packed all my shit into my car when I came to Aberdeen. I was just renting a furnished room with a mini fridge and a hot plate.”
“Ah.”
“I let it go when I knew I had to leave. No job to be able to keep paying rent somewhere I wasn’t gonna be.” She shrugged. “Guess I’m homeless for the moment.”
“Where’s your father?”
“Here.”
“Here?”
“Sioux Falls, I mean.”
She offered no further information. Considers herself homeless despite the fact that she’s got a father and an aunt in town.
“Hard day,” I said. “The cop shop. Your aunt’s bad news.” Not to mention how bitchy her aunt was.
“Yeah. Hard day.” She scoffed. “Hard life. Just another day in the life of Gianna Jones.” She took another bite of her slice.
“Not every day you gotta identify the body of someone you care about and find out someone else you care about has cancer, baby.”
She washed down what was in her mouth while shrugging, then replied. “No, not every day, and I knew somethin’ was up when she said she had an appointment because that woman prides herself on not having seen a doctor since she was a kid. It’s gotta be bad if she finally dragged herself to one. But yeah… when the hits come at you on an ongoing basis, it becomes the norm.”
I squeezed her shoulder. She leaned into me, then changed her mind and moved over, straightening up. “I’m not lookin’ for a pity party, sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. None of this is on you.”
She set her eyes back on the TV.
I watched her chick television show with her while I ate a few slices, pondering shit before I rolled a joint, smoked half of it, offered it to her and she declined. She was yawning. Not talking. Still as far away as she could get on the bed. And though it wasn’t far, couldn’t be with just a double bed in a tiny room, it was clear to me she was trying to be aloof with me. I’d given her multiple openings to get shit off her chest, but she didn’t take any of those cues.
I decided to take a shower. Reflect for a minute before I settled on what move needed to come next. Either remove emotion from this thing and just look after her until this was done, or… make a declaration to her – tell her straight up where I was at and give her a chance to show me if she’s down to be in this with me.
I muttered, “Shower,” then shrugged off my leather cut, leaving it on the bed. After shutting the door to the bathroom, my eyes landed on four Band-Aid wrappers and what looked like an antiseptic wipe in the otherwise empty wastebasket. I stared at them while I took a leak. Her purple case was on the back of the toilet. After flushing, I flicked the lid open. It opened like a tacklebox, multiple sections filled with makeup. I moved it to vanity and took a closer look. In the top section was a clear zippered makeup bag with what looked to be white tissue stuffed into it. I hadn’t looked closely before when I opened this box. Now I could see what looked like a pencil inside that bag. I unzipped it. On closer examination I saw it was a retractable box cutter packed with squares of gauze, more Band-Aids, and individually wrapped antiseptic wipes.
Grinding my teeth, I put it all away, stripped, and got into the shower. I took time under the stream, braced on the tiled wall weighing it all out.
The fact she jolted when I interrupted her bath last night, then she hauled the shower curtain across for privacy. The drops of blood a few days earlier in the sink. Band-Aid on her inner bicep, an inconspicuous place on her body. Today, locking the door to the bathroom because why? Because I almost caught her the night before?
Those lines in the journal about nicks of a blade echoed in my brain. Should’ve made it dawn that she’s a cutter.
The girl’s got emotional issues that run deep. And no fucking wonder. I didn’t know a lot about her, but everything I knew so far … yeah, no wonder.
Did I want this baggage? After the bullshit hand I got dealt in my past, did I really wanna travel this road with the risks involved?
This kind of shit should warn me off, should make me see that this is not the girl I should claim, especially barely knowing her.
***
I threw the bathroom door open having left the water running, wondering what I’d catch her doing. I caught her with my cut. She had her nose to the collar.
She froze. I crossed my arms over my chest and jerked my chin up in question.
Her cheeks went red; she dropped it on the bed. “Love the smell of leather,” she muttered. “Sorry.”
I turned, shut the water off, and then stalked in her direction.
With a dark expression, I dropped the towel around my waist and reached into my bag for clothes. Her eyes were on me and not likely for nudity. More likely she was worried I was pissed off. If she wasn’t who I figured she was becoming to me, I might’ve been. A biker’s leather is sacred.
I pulled out a pair of her little booty short underwear from my backpack and put my nose to them. My eyes cut to her before I muttered, “I can sniff your clothes too. Too bad these smell like laundry soap instead of like you.”
She barked out a laugh.
Weight left my chest at seeing light dancing in her eyes after not seeing it for two days.
I exchanged her shorts for a pair of my boxer briefs, then yanked out my clean pair of jeans and my old Chili Peppers concert t-shirt, thinking on how to play things when she cleared her throat from her spot on the bed.
Our eyes met and I held her gaze, seeing a fuck of a lot of emotions there, but none of them resembling the humor of a minute before.
The emotions weren’t just about her sister, I suspected. Not only about her aunt or that conversation with her father. I had the strong suspicion this expression was about me, about her being wrong about where things were at with us. About the fact that she’s been trying to protect herself from thinking we’re gonna be anything and failing repeatedly, pulling back when she catches herself. And she’s grief-ridden, yet sharing headspace, I was sure, between the grief of her stepsister, the diagnosis of her aunt, worry about her safety, and whatever she was thinking or trying not to think about me.
She looked uncomfortable with my study of her.
The way I grew up, I know shame when I see it and my instinct told me she wore it like a shroud. What I’ve seen the last day or so along with how she’s tried to hold back, finding out she cuts herself feels like confirmation. In my experience, nobody who deserves to feel ashamed has this look of deep shame in their eyes.
Before meeting her, all I knew was the few tidbits I’d heard about her in locker room style talk from some of the club brothers, which said absolutely nothing about her character, only about the fact she was a sweet lay.
Her actions speak for themselves, though. And I’d been sifting through all I know about her during my shower. Yeah, it’s a risk taking on a woman who harms herself. Especially after the shit I’ve lived through. But something about Gianna Grace Jones tells me she could be worth the trouble. That having me, knowing I’ve got her back, could change her perspective about her life. She seems pretty alone. With a lot to give. And I can’t help but want it for myself.
She stuck by someone she cared about – her stepsister. She did the right thing in coming to Deke about what she knew about the Jackals hatching a plan to hurt some women, doing it despite the lack of means, which some would use as an excuse to stay out of the drama. Particularly after Rider warned her to stay away, banning her from the clubhouse. Some chicks would throw their hands up and use that as an excuse to stay out of it. And at least three of our women could’ve been killed if she’d done that.
She apologized to me for being bitchy after I read those two pages in her journal. I did her wrong and she didn’t hold the grudge for long.
She’s thrown by the way I’m treating her, by any kindness she gets. She’s been trying to remain aloof in order to stay firmly in her ‘place’ as a club hang-around, a biker bunny.
She doesn’t want to take charity from the club, wants to solve her problems herself, probably so that no one who has shitty things to say about her can feel vindicated. Doesn’t let people pay her bills. But she feels stuck. Nobody’s ever had her back, not her aunt, not her father, so when people try, like me and Delia, she shies away.
Her job is looking after lonely old people who need help. She gets attached to them and feels it when she loses them.
She hurt herself before hurting my mother’s feelings by not disclosing her allergy.
She has a voice like an angel and a body designed to tempt men to sin. And people treat her like shit because she’s beautiful. Because they’re either jealous of her or wanna fuck her.
She has nobody good in her life and she’s tired of disappointment so has stopped reaching for that through trying to be part of the brotherhood. Because she didn’t find the right in. Got labelled wrongly.
I might not know much about Gianna Jones, but I know enough to wanna know what else she’s about. To wanna know if she’s the woman who deserves to ride with me, to be beside me in my sheets long-term.
“Thanks for gettin’ rid of Skip,” she said as I got my neck through the t-shirt neck hole.
I shrugged on my cut and sifted my fingers through my wet hair to slick it back.
“You wanna tell me the story there?” I sat on the bed with a pair of socks.
“Not really. It’s ancient history.”
“Clearly isn’t.” I got one sock on and looked over my shoulder.
She shrugged and stared at the bed.
I made a decision. I pulled the second sock on, got into my boots, then I grabbed my keys, wallet, and phone. “Need to go out for an hour. Be back before church. Need anything?”
She shook her head.
“Want anything?”
“I want a lot of things,” she joked, playing with loose comforter threads.
“Yeah. Sometimes what you want is right in front of you. Just gotta accept it.”
Her smile vanished and she tilted her head, eyes searching my face.
“What do you think about that?” I asked.
She flinched.
“Sometimes you just gotta grab hold,” I told her.
She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked.
“A lotta things.”
“Spit it out.”
She shook her head.
“You wanna grab hold?” I asked.
She swallowed and shook her head, not in the negative of saying no, more like she wasn’t able to wrap her mind around what I was saying.
“Sometimes you think you can grab something and take it, but you really can’t.” She tied the thread off with a knot and let go of it.
Tryin’ to fix a comforter that’s not even hers. Stop it from fraying further.
“Sometimes you can.”
Her brows knitted together briefly before she sighed. “I don’t have the brainpower for philosophy most days, especially not today, Jesse.”
“You want anything? Booze, snacks for later, somethin’ else?”
“No, thanks.” She looked disappointed. She thought I was dropping it. Or that she was misreading me.
“You sure?” I asked.
She wants things. She’s just afraid she’ll never have them. And for reasons I can’t fully explain, I wanna give them to her.
“I’m just gonna watch some TV. Maybe sleep a little.”
I kissed her and turned for the door. I looked over my shoulder and gave her a look loaded with meaning. Meaning she just might’ve been starting to get by the way she sat, stiffly, looking alarmed.
Yeah. Time to get some things straight with her. Make sure she fully understands.
Pulling away so she doesn’t get attached. Longing looks when she thinks I’m not paying attention. I’ve watched her shake them off, read in her expression that she’s talking herself into keeping things in a certain place with me. Smelling my leather at the collar specifically tells me it isn’t about the smell of any leather, it's my leather and smells like leather and me. She was embarrassed when I caught her doing that. What else would I catch her doing when she thought no one was looking? Besides harming herself.
Yeah, I know she’s got a fuck-ton of shit on her plate, and it sounds mighty fuckin’ conceited to think I factor for her right now, but every ounce of my being tells me she wants me but is afraid to hope for anything beyond fucking. That’s why she tried to keep it light and fun at the cabin before getting the bad news.
Self-harm should probably be a deal breaker for me. But thinking on it I’m guessing it must come from self-loathing as well as from feeling attacked by a never-ending blitzkrieg of pain that makes you feel numb. That makes you crave sensation. Stopping the numbness. Feeling something. Using the pain to get your mind off the shit tormenting you. Feeling a different kind of pain. Maybe she journals to help. Plays music to help. Writes music to help. But when she really hurts, she cuts. And I don’t fuckin’ like it. Because I know that self-harm can escalate. Eventually, a person can cross a line chasing a bigger sensation. Or feel like they need all sensation to stop. They can do permanent harm beyond a scab or a scar. Yeah. Leaving scars on not only yourself but on the people who give a shit about you. It’s too easy to take it too far.
Still… I know, for some reason, that I want to know what it’s like to be with her without all this shit weighing on her. To know how she is when she feels free to be herself. Free to sing her heart out. Free to give what she’s got to give knowing it’s safe to give it. I wanna know what she’s like when she’s got wind in her hair, fire in her soul and my fingerprints on her body, marking her as mine. Just mine. Knowing she’s protected and treasured.
Can I get the pain and shame out of her eyes?
Don’t know why I can’t shake the need to be the man that accomplishes that.
***
Church was coming up soon, so I didn’t have a lot of time to fuck about. When I walked back in, seeing she was under the blankets, eyes on the television, still watching the same show … I sat on the edge of the bed with the shopping bag, pulled out a phone and handed it to her.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“New phone. Prepaid and I added it to my plan. I already put it on the Wi-Fi here and loaded my number.”
She sat up. “Why?”
It was a midrange prepaid but was better than the phone she already had.
“So you can call me, ya nut.” I bopped her nose with my fingertip.
She half-smiled and then immediately frowned. “I’m confused.”
“The old one is a bad idea. Got an update from the Valentines through their cop contact and her phone wasn’t on her when she was found. So, they might have her phone which’d give them access to your socials. They don’t need access to you. And the screen’s cracked, it’s ready for the trash. It’s here, though.” I dropped it on the bed. “If you’ve got pictures or numbers you need off it, grab ‘em. Be careful. Make a hundred per cent sure nobody you put on the new phone is gonna share anything about you with the Jackals. No social status check-ins. I’d like you to consider stayin’ off social media for now. Or create new profiles and make ‘em private. No updates public or private. Yeah? After you clear your pictures off, I hold this one in case any of the Jackals message you.”
She frowned. “I don’t need anything off that phone. Take it. And Kailey is the only one I knew who would’ve had ties to them. But… hostages don’t get to have phones, remember?”
“Changed my mind. My hostage does.” I dropped a peck on her mouth and pocketed the old phone.
She frowned.
“There’s more. Here.” I reached into the shopping bag and put down a couple notebooks, a coloring book, and a cylinder of colored Sharpie markers. “You left your guitar and your journals at the cabin, so here’s these in case you need an outlet tonight.”
“An outlet?”
I touched her face. “I figured out about the self-harm. All the bandage wrappers in the trash.”
She flinched and tried to shrink away. I didn’t allow it; I got closer, cupping her jaw.
“I saw the signs and then, yeah, I peeked in your tackle box. Saw your box cutter. Know that you’re not cutting paper hearts and snowflakes, baby.”
