ROCK F*CK CLUB (Girls Ranking the Rock Stars Book 6)

by Michelle Mankin

My head pounded so hard, it made me feel sick. Nausea with an impending migraine meant it was going to be a bad one. But it was guaranteed to hurt less than my heart did right now. Gale and I might be an imperfect whole because of my deficiencies, but that whole—even as briefly as I’d been a part of it—had been the best perfection I’d ever had.

  “And the facts are?” His brows formed a deep V of displeasure

  “I’m wrong for you. I told you.” Tears gathered, burning my eyes. “I tried to tell you, over and over again.”

  He leaned closer. “Don’t throw away what we’ve found.”

  “Found, but not mine to keep.” I lifted my chin higher. “I’m fixing that now.”

  “You think you’re backed into a corner. You can’t see a way out.”

  “There is no way out.” Not for me.

  He frowned. “You won’t even give me a chance to be your champion. You think our love isn’t strong enough for this test.”

  The test was here. Dismantle our love now, or watch it and him get crushed later. I had no choices left that were good ones.

  “You’re giving up, abandoning me like Diana did,” Gale said, speaking again before I could. Something dark and terrible flashed in his eyes. A vulnerability. One I knew because he’d cut himself to the bone to share it with me.

  Every fiber in my being rebelled against exploiting it. I loved him too much—or not enough, depending on your perspective—to plunge a knife into that deep wound.

  “I’m my own champion,” I said, retreating to familiar ground. The dangerous energy blasting off him seemed to absorb all the oxygen in the room. “I do my fighting alone.”

  “Not anymore.” He wouldn’t let up. Every statement I made, he countered.

  “We’re done.” I clenched my fingers so tightly, my nails sliced my skin. “Why can’t you accept that?”

  “Because I didn’t have a choice back then with Diana. I have one now. So do you.”

  “And I’m making it.” I shook my head.

  “You’re making the wrong one.”

  “Go, Gale,” I cried. “Please go.”

  Pain hammered in my temples. Tears spilled, leaving warm trails of wetness on my cheeks.

  “No.” Desperate, he grabbed my forearms and yanked me into him.

  My head snapped back from the force of the motion. I was no longer alone, but not being alone didn’t keep the black edges of a migraine from creeping in.

  “I don’t want you anymore.” My stomach lurched on the lie, and so did I as my knees weakened.

  “I don’t believe you.” His voice and expression set to sweet, he gently brushed back a lock of my hair.

  “Believe me or not.” My throat was scratchy, but I had to see this through. “Us is a fantasy that’s over.”

  He blinked slowly. The softness disappearing, he came at me, and he came at me hard. “Is it a fantasy the way you come apart for me? The way you beg for my cock? The way you curl into me, even in your sleep?”

  “Hormones. You’re good with your cock.” I lifted my chin higher. “And I can’t be responsible for what I do when I’m unconscious.”

  “You need me.”

  I did, but I curled my fingers into fists, resisting that need. “I need you to be gone. I need this to be over.”

  “Everything okay here?”

  We both turned as a man wearing overalls and a backward green John Deere ball cap approached us.

  “Back the fuck off,” Gale growled at him.

  “Can’t do that, mister.” The brim of his ball cap lifted. “This is my parents’ place. And my mom raised me not to look the other way when someone was in trouble, especially a lady.”

  “You got the trouble part right,” Gale muttered.

  And I took that stab right where it needed to be taken. Deep.

  “Right. Enough said.” I was holding on by a thread. My head pounded and my vision was starting to tunnel. The tattered pieces of my heart spilled out the gash in my chest onto the nice clean linoleum. “I’m more trouble than I’m worth. My mother always said so. My father couldn’t even be bothered, but his absence said it all. And it’s time for you to admit what they knew.”

  “Jo.” Gale’s jaw tightened. “Not true.”

  “Josephine. Not your Jo. Not your anything anymore.”

  His eyes flashed. “You need to calm down. Go to the hotel with me.” He reached for me. “We can talk this through.”

  “No.” I waved him away. “Talking won’t change the facts. I can’t protect you if you won’t leave.”

  I turned to the convenience store clerk, seeking refuge where I had to. “Are there cops out here if he won’t leave me alone?”

  “Sure.” The guy’s John Deere cap bobbed with his head. His eyes were wide but glistened determinedly. “I can call ’em for you, if you like.”

  “That won’t be necessary, will it?” I shifted my gaze to Gale.

  His jaw was so tight, I could see a muscle ticking from the strain. “Don’t do this, Jo,” he gritted out, his voice dangerously low.

  The fine hairs at my nape lifted at the warning, but I pressed on. “Already done.”

  He jerked his chin up once and turned. The ground swayed beneath me as I watched him go. All those places inside me that had finally seemed to fit together properly blasted apart.

  As I’d suspected, nothing was right without him.

  My legs giving out, I slid to the floor as the bell rang to end it all. He stepped through the door. Then he was gone.

  No more Gale. No more light, hope, love, or goodness. Nothing was left. Cold, I wrapped my arms around myself.

  “You okay, miss?” the helpful clerk asked.

  “No.” I shook my head. I would never be okay again.

  “Need a doctor?”

  “The only person qualified to fix me just left.” I let out a nervous, almost hysterical laugh.

  The clerk glanced toward the door, then back at me, looking unsure, his face almost as green as his cap.

  “I’m not unhinged. Not totally,” I said to assure him. “Just trying to do the right thing.”

  “He likes you an awful lot.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Seems like a nice guy.”

  “He is. The best.” I rubbed my head and swallowed hard. Closed my eyes as the pain nearly engulfed me. I’d never had a migraine this bad.

  “Sure you can’t work it out? I can go get him for you.”

  “No.” My denial trembled, but I held firm. “I think I might need to lie down for a minute. In a dark room, if you have someplace like that, and it’s not too much trouble. I’m getting a migraine. A really bad one.”

  “Sure. There’s a cot in the storage room.”

  “Perfect.”

  I made myself stand, and when I wobbled, he took my arm. Together, we moved toward the back of the store. If anyone saw us, they would have thought I was drunk. That’s how I felt—nauseated, head pounding, limbs weak, heart completely broken.

  “What’s your name?” I asked my companion as he helped me lower myself onto a faded old cot in a tiny room.

  “Earl,” he said.

  “Thank you, Earl. If you’ll leave the light off, I’ll just sit,” and sprawl out here and die, “for a minute until the pain passes.” If the pain passes.

  “Okay.” He bobbed his head.

  I threw my arm over my eyes and lay down as the door clicked closed. A few moments later, my cell rang with a familiar ringtone, and I answered it.

  “Jo,” Dolly said in my ear. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s done. It’s over. He’s gone.” Pain slashed through me swift and sharp, stealing my breath.

  “You don’t sound good.”

  “Migraine.” I let out a dry laugh, feeling like all the liquid in my body was gone. As suspected, all that remained without Gale was skin over brittle bones. Plus, lucky me, I also had an jackhammer pounding inside my head.

  “You really want it to be over with Gale?” she aske
d.

  “No, Dolly, you know I don’t. I told you that before I ended it with him. He is—was—the best thing that ever happened to me. But I’m the worst that ever happened to him.” I let out a shaky breath. “Hopefully, I ended it soon enough. If he denies me, none of what we talked about with Besille should blow back on him. He can move on.”

  One of us could, at least. I would never look at another man.

  “Yeah, well.” She let out a fluttery breath. “I’m sorry.”

  “What’s there to be sorry about? I finally did the right thing.”

  The door to the storage room burst open, and blinding light spilled into the room. I removed my arm from my eyes and squinted toward the door.

  “You fucked up, Jo,” Gale said. His voice was in two places—at the door, and blasting into my ear from my cell.

  “Dolly,” I said. “What did you—”

  Gale drowned me out. “She conferenced me into the call after I phoned her from the parking lot, asking her what the fuck was going on with you.”

  He shook his head, his image blinking in and out of focus. He was a silhouette, standing in the doorway with the light behind him, and it hurt in more ways than one to look at him.

  “Lucky you have a friend who thinks fast. She got the convenience store clerk on the line too, so he knows not to call the fucking cops and to call a doctor instead.”

  “A psychiatrist?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” Gale let the sarcasm rip. “The thought definitely crossed my mind after this stunt.”

  “I’m sorry.” All the juice in my body gone, I felt like dust that could blow away. I moaned as the slamming in my skull spiked.

  “Fuck, Jo.” He exhaled heavily. “Why do you do shit like this to yourself?”

  “You cuss a lot when you’re mad.”

  “Not mad. I’m upset.”

  “Oh well. Sounds mad.”

  “Give her the Excedrin,” Dolly said, her voice sounding strangely far away, even though I still had my cell to my ear.

  “Let me have that.” Gale approached, took my cell, and offered me a bottle of the headache medicine I usually carried around with me but had forgotten to pack for this trip.

  “Where did you get that?” I asked.

  “Dolly gave it to me to pack for you.”

  “Oh.”

  He gave me an exasperated look. “You going to open it before your head explodes?”

  “I can’t get it open.” My hands trembled, shaking the pills inside the plastic.

  “Need some help?” he asked, softer this time, nicer.

  “Yes.” I nodded, then whimpered as the pain spiked again. “Please, Gale, will you help me?”

  “Finally.” He let out a breath. “I thought you’d never ask.” He took the plastic container from my hand and gave me the bottle of water he’d had under his arm. “Drink,” he said firmly.

  I drank.

  “Take these.” He extended his hand, palm side up with the caplets resting on it.

  I dropped my head, put my lips on his skin, and sucked them directly into my mouth.

  He hissed in a breath and raked a hand through his hair. “Sorry. Even wretched like you’re obviously feeling, you’re still sexy to me.”

  As I lay back down carefully, he took a seat on the edge of the cot and gently stroked my hair back from my face.

  “You practically killed me out there.” His eyes searched mine. “You done being a shithead to me?” he asked as I guzzled the water.

  “I was trying to save you.”

  “From the best good I’ve ever had?” His brows lifted to his hairline.

  “From Besille.”

  “Yeah, I know. Dolly filled me in on the latest development. Don’t care about him. Don’t fucking care about the rest of the world, or what they think either. Care about you.”

  “I love you.” The fight draining from me, I closed my eyes, but the hammering continued in my skull.

  “Love you too.” He swept the pad of his thumb across my cheek. Rough over soft. Perfect. “Let’s try this again. Instead of pushing me away, just ask for my help. Like you did with the pills.”

  “I’m not worth helping,” I whispered, cracking open my eyes.

  “Not true, and that seems to be the crux of the problem, your wrong thinking about yourself. You are so fucking worth helping. Let’s try coming at this another way.” He tilted his head, and glossy layers of brown fanned his shoulder. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Right. I’m a smart, good-looking, well-traveled guy. A little nerdy, but I’ve been around plenty. Been back and forth across this continent too, and in all that time, I’ve never met a more beautiful, loving, interesting, sexy, challenging, though sometimes infuriating woman than you.”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, my brain sticking on the infuriating comment.

  “You’re welcome.” He stroked my arm, and even with the migraine brewing, fire licked my skin. “Just keeping it real. But the rest of real is up to you.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  “This is not just happening between you and me. It’s a done deal. You said you don’t have experience with relationships, but you do, pretty deep meaningful ones with your brother and Dolly. So you know how beautiful love can be when it’s working right. When the road is clear.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, no more roadblocks. I told you I’d just go over them. And I could keep doing that, but it’s not good for us. You’re slowing us down. Keeping us from getting to the good stuff together.”

  “What good stuff?” I’d already experienced so much good with him, but I wasn’t opposed to more.

  “When I tried to talk to you about it at the beginning of our trip, you gave me that moment-by-moment bullshit.”

  “That’s not bullshit.” I blinked slowly at him.

  He glared at me. “Marriage, yes or no?”

  My heart raced, stealing my breath. “You asking me to marry you, Gale?”

  “Not yet. You know me; I have to do it fancy. But I will.” His gaze was unwavering.

  “Holy shit!”

  “Is that a yes?” he asked, his gaze suddenly very intense.

  “Fuck yes.” My eyes stung with a fresh batch of tears. This time good ones.

  Gale grinned. “Good.”

  “Good is all I think you know,” I mumbled as my lips curled.

  “Kids?” he asked.

  “Yes, Gale, I would love,” my heart skipped a beat, “to have children with you.”

  “Great.” He nodded. “So, now the hard part. When you’re in trouble or feel threatened or you feel like either of those things might happen to me, what do you do, rather than go into solo protective mode?”

  “Ask you for help?” I whispered.

  “Yeah, babe.” His expression went so soft, my insides got warm and squishy. “Let’s rewind this whole fucking scenario so you can try it out on me.”

  “Gale, I’m in trouble. I think all the bad stuff I ever did, everything in my past, is gonna come out, and it’s gonna hurt you and me. Can you help me?”

  “Yes, Jo. I will. Everything and anything I can do to make things better, I’ll do. You know why?”

  I shook my head.

  “C’mon, babe.”

  “Because you love me?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded.

  “Because you’re smart and brilliant, though nerdy and bossy.”

  “Yeah. I know the best woman for me when I see her, and you’re it. I’d die for you, Jo. No hesitation.”

  “I don’t want you to die, Gale.”

  “I don’t want to either. It’d be so much more rewarding for both of us to just fucking live.”

  Josephine

  I WOKE TO NEAR darkness and silence. Blessed silence without any accompanying slamming pain inside my head. I was weak. After a migraine this debilitating, I always felt like I’d run a marathon without any cheering or a prize at the end.
r />   Groggy, I tried to sit up but couldn’t. A heavy muscular arm draped over me, weighing me down.

  Gale. I placed my hand on his hard forearm, not to remove it, but to savor the warmth of being held by him. His face was planted in the side of my neck. His beard and mustache were soft against my skin, and his light rhythmic breaths lifted tiny wisps of hair around my ear.

  My nipples tightened. My pussy throbbed. My blood heated. But he was sound asleep.

  Despite the late hour, I could see light around the edges of the blackout curtains over the window beside the bed. It was well past his usual wake-up time. For once, I’d woken before him.

  As I became more fully aware, the later events of the previous day came back to me in a rush.

  Our argument. The tiny storage room. A doctor who had come after I’d retched repeatedly and wanted to die to escape the pain. The physician had given me an injection that cut down my nausea, and some kind of pain reliever that had eventually knocked me out.

  I’d come to briefly inside a pickup truck. The doctor’s truck. He had a night shift at a clinic inside the Grand Canyon National Park, and had driven me there. Gale had followed on the motorcycle.

  And now?

  We were in a room at a hotel Gale had reserved before I messed up. No sunset or canyon seen. Wasn’t that just my kind of luck?

  Yet, I didn’t feel unlucky as I turned my head to gaze at Gale. All that I wanted. All that I needed. I felt like I’d gotten a reprieve. Light instead of a dark, long, lonely endless night.

  Gale looked so peaceful in his sleep. His earnest brow was smooth. His chiseled lips slightly parted. His hair soft as satin where it brushed my skin. I was in a bralette and panties, my usual nightwear, this pair a dove gray that reminded me of his eyes. He must have undressed me and redressed me.

  Imagining it gave me a pleasurable shiver. Even though I didn’t remember any of the events that led to us being in this room together. Sadly.

  But what to do now?

  The pads of my fingers tingled with the urge to touch him. Take advantage of his sleep. Run them over his masculine skin and defined muscles. Do all the things I shouldn’t have a right to do anymore, but because he was who he was and believed in me, I did.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Gale muttered, cracking open his eyes as he peered up at me.