by Blythe Reid
“Please,” he begged once more.
“Spencer, I’m sorry. I just can’t.” I walked away from him. I passed Isobel on my way out and paused. I was sure that I owed her some sort of explanation.
“Come to my house tonight,” she said. She didn’t even ask me. She just told me to come to her house.
I told her I would be there. Because regardless of what was happening, I still wanted to be her friend. I still needed somebody like her in my life.
She gave me a hug, and then, I left. I went back to my house with a heaviness in my heart. I didn’t know what to do or think. I had been really starting to like this guy. But I knew I couldn’t continue on. There was no way. Who knew what was going to happen next week? It could be something worse than what was going on now.
I sat down on my couch and thought about the last week with Spencer. I wished I had taken him up on his offer to hang out with him and his kids at his house and spent more time with them. If I’d known things between us would be over just as fast as they’d begun, I probably would have. It was hard for me. I sat there, and I tried to wrap my head around everything that was going on.
I thought about the morning before the shooting. How hot it had been to be with Spencer. And how happy I’d felt. I hadn’t expected to feel that happy after losing my virginity. I had expected to feel awful about myself. But I didn’t feel that way after I slept with him. I felt more like an adult than I had in my entire life. I also felt something else. I was afraid to admit that maybe it was love.
It wasn’t strange, though, because I had felt something the moment I met him. But just when I realized that, it broke my heart. Being with Spencer could have been my chance at real love, and I blew it. But I knew I had to protect myself. I was getting in way too deep and way too far ahead of myself.
11
Spencer
It had been two days since Alissa walked out of my life. I wasn’t sure if she was gone for good, but I wanted to at least give her a couple of days to calm down, before I went and bothered her some more.
I also wanted to talk to her about everything and get to the bottom of it. I really cared about this woman. She needed to know that, and I needed her to know that.
I’d even called Isobel the night before.
“What am I supposed to do?” I’d asked her. I knew I sounded like a whiny boyfriend, but I couldn’t help it. There was just something so amazing about Alissa that made me a completely different person.
“Go to her house,” she suggested. “Confront her? Ask her to love you back?” I knew her last response had been a joke, but she had a point. If I didn’t even try, I was never going to find out the truth. And that was exactly what I needed. The truth.
“I don’t want her to think I’m stalking her,” I said to her.
“She wouldn’t think that,” Isobel said. “Quit being a pussy, and go get your girl. I’ve never seen you act this way with another woman before. Obviously, she means something to you.”
She had a point again. I had never behaved this way. I knew it was love, but I had never felt this way before. I had never felt the need to chase a girl down. I also had never been rejected before, and so far, she’d rejected me twice.
“Don’t tell her I called you,” I’d said to her and hung up the phone.
Then, I made a plan that as soon as I woke up this morning, I would head to her house. The thought of going to see her actually made me a little nervous. The stakes were too high. If Alissa was truly a woman that I could fall in love with, I couldn’t fuck this up. And this was a problem I couldn’t solve the way I handled most of my problems. I couldn’t use violence or intimidation to get Alissa back. I had to be gentle, honest, and vulnerable. Those weren’t exactly my strongest traits.
I didn’t know what to expect when I showed up to talk to her. All I could hope for was that she would open the door and agree to talk to me. Just open the door and let me say what I needed to say. That was all I wanted. Once I said my piece, the ball would be in her court, and she’d hold my future in her delicate little hands.
I had a meeting set up with the Viper’s president the next day. We were going to sit down to get this shit figured out. I should have been focusing on that, but before I could even think about that meeting, I had to get Alissa back.
I knocked on her door and braced myself for what she was going to do when she opened it and saw that it was me. The door opened slowly, and her beautiful face peeked out at me, looking gorgeous in the morning light.
“Hi,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“Hey, can we talk?” I asked her.
She nodded, moved to the side, and let me inside. She shut the door behind me, and I grabbed her hand and led her over to her couch. This was the first time I’d ever been in her apartment, but I didn’t have time to worry about where I could and couldn’t sit. She sat down next to me, and I took both of her hands in my own.
“I’m so sorry for everything that happened,” I said to her. “I swear that things like this usually don’t happen.”
She made a doubting sound and looked decidedly unconvinced.
“You don’t believe me,” I said, shaking my head. “I promise you, Alissa. Nothing like this ever happens with the club. There’s never any violence.”
She still looked skeptical. Part of me wondered what I was doing there, trying to convince a random chick to be with me. I’d never behaved like that before. Usually, I couldn’t give a shit if a woman wanted me or not. Once I got what I wanted from them, I was done with them, and I was more than happy to never hear from them again.
But there was something about Alissa that drew me in. It was like nothing I had ever felt before. She had turned my world upside down, and I wasn’t ready to let her go. I opened my mouth to speak again, and she held up a hand to stop me.
“Don’t,” she said, her eyes flashing with anger. “Just save it. I’ve asked around. Your club is really dangerous, and so are the people you associate with and that you do deals with. I don’t even know what those deals are, and I don’t think I want to know.” She was talking fast and didn’t even give herself a chance to breathe.
“Will you please just listen to me?” I asked her. I was practically begging. Hell, I’d been begging her for the last few days whenever I talked to her. But fuck it, I just wanted her to listen to me. I needed her to hear me out.
I leaned forward intently. “Are we dangerous? Yes. But the violence hardly ever blows back into town. We’re really good about keeping our business away from town and the community. This is the first time anything like this has ever happened. I’ve done a damn good job at controlling things that are going on. As of right now, I have a meeting set up with the president of our rival club. And I’m going to get this all sorted out. For real, this time. I promise you. It’s not going to happen again.”
I stared at her and waited for a response, but it was clear that she wasn’t even going to respond to me.
“You are so frustrating,” I said to her. I stood up and started pacing around her living room.
“I’m frustrating?” she asked. “You’re not really convincing me to stick around. Like, telling me I’m frustrating is not going to make me run into your arms.”
She really was infuriating. She wouldn’t even give me a chance to explain things to her. She wouldn’t believe me when I told her that things like this hardly ever happened. I needed her to believe me. She didn’t think we would ever work out, and I didn’t want her thinking that.
I sat back down on the couch and grabbed her hand again. “Tell me, how do you feel about me?” I asked her.
She shrugged.
I groaned. “Please, just answer me,” I said to her. I did my best to keep my voice gentle. I didn’t want to scare her off by sounding too harsh. I wanted her to know that I wanted to have a serious conversation with her.
“I don’t know, okay? I don’t know how I feel.”
“I think you know,” I said. “Maybe
you’re a little confused, and maybe you’re afraid to admit how you really feel about me, but I think that deep down, you know exactly how you feel about me.”
She didn’t respond to that.
I shook my head. “You need to figure out whether you want to be my old lady or not. I want an answer by Friday. And if I don’t get an answer by Friday, I’m going to assume that you don’t want to be with me, and we’ll cut ties. I’ll never contact you again if that’s what you really want. But if it’s not, I need to know by Friday.”
I stood up.
“I want the violence to end first,” she said.
“I’ve already got it figured out,” I said to her. I didn’t know how else to word it to convince her that I did, in fact, have a handle on things.
“I’m serious, Spencer,” she said. “I can’t be doing this. I’ve barely even been around for a week, and there’s already been bad violence. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do if it gets even worse.”
“It’s not going to get worse, all right?” I said. “Everything is going to be just fine. I’ve got it figured out. You’ve got to trust me, and you need to listen to me. I need you to understand that I would do anything to protect those that I care about. Trust me. This will be the last time anything like this ever happens.”
She didn’t say anything. She just looked down at her fingers. I wanted so badly to comfort her more. I wanted to make her feel better. I wanted to kiss her again, but I also didn’t want to press my luck. I didn’t want to push her away even more, when all I wanted to do was pull her in closer.
“Friday,” I said, and then I walked out of her apartment.
I had nothing else to say to her. If she wasn’t going to talk with me, there was no reason for me to even be there. And I found myself really hoping that she was going to make the right decision.
12
Alissa
Isobel had called earlier and asked me to come over to her house. I had agreed, as long as I wasn’t going to run into Spencer. She told me that wouldn’t happen.
I thought about how Spencer and had interacted at my house. And I felt bad for the way I had treated him, but I also didn’t know what to do. I had so many feelings for this man, but I didn’t know how he felt about me. For all I knew, he just wanted to keep fucking me.
When I got to Isobel’s, I was greeted by two little boys. Adrian and Louis.
“Alissa!” both boys yelled at the same time. They each ran up and hugged me. It was a little hard for me to see them, since I had no idea what was going on with me and their dad.
“Hi, boys,” I said to them.
“We missed you so much!” they said.
My heart broke for them. What kind of a mother just left her children? I could never even imagine it. I didn’t have kids, and I didn’t know what it was like to have children, but still, I could never wrap my head around the fact that a mother would just up and leave her children and never check on them again. It made no sense to me.
I looked to Isobel and mouthed, “What the fuck?” I wasn’t mad, just curious.
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. It was totally last-second. He had nobody else to watch them. I was kind of put in a tough spot. He’s my brother’s best friend, and like, I’ve grown up with him.”
I laughed. “Seriously, Isobel, you don’t have to worry about it. Shit happens. I’m not worried about it. I still want to hang out with you.”
She smiled at me. “So, what’s going on with you and Spencer anyway?” she asked as she led me back to her kitchen and dished out macaroni and cheese for the kids.
“Well, he came over to my house this morning, completely uninvited,” I said. “And he gave me an ultimatum.”
“An ultimatum?” she asked.
“Yup. He told me that I had until Friday to decide whether I wanted to be with him or not.” I shrugged and shook my head. It was frustrating. I didn’t know what I really wanted. I felt like he wasn’t really giving me enough time. We weren’t even technically a couple. We’d had sex one time. That wasn’t exactly a relationship.
“Wow,” she said. “He’s really serious about you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“Well, the last girl he dated, they went on four dates,” she said. “She gave it up to him on the last date, and then he was done with her. He wanted nothing more to do with her. I’d had high hopes for that one. But I’ve never seen him chase down a woman he’s already had.” After a moment of silence, she asked, “What are you gonna do about it?”
“I honestly don’t know,” I said.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know how I felt. Everything with Spencer had just been sprung on me, and then everything else happened with the shooting. It was just too damn much to process. The things I needed to think about all just seemed to be piling up. I wasn’t great at making huge decisions so quickly, which was probably why I was always alone.
“How do you feel about him?” she asked.
“Well, I know that I really want to get to know him,” I said. “I’ve got this strong connection to him, for whatever reason. I can’t get him out of my head, Isobel. I’m serious. But this is all so foreign to me. I’ve never felt this way about a guy before.” I felt weird for admitting that I’d never been in love before, but it was true.
Isobel smiled at me and walked over, and the two of us sat down at her kitchen table. “That’s fate,” she said. “The undeniable connection that you’re feeling. That’s fate. Don’t let it slip away. Because he could be the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
“He could also be the worst thing ever,” I said. “There’s a lot of violence.”
“Listen, there really isn’t a lot of violence around here,” she said. “Sure, they do things outside of town with other clubs, but it never blows back on us. This is the first time something like this has happened. We’re all trying to figure out how to cope with it.”
She stood up and went back into her kitchen. She grabbed drinks for the boys and brought them out to them. And then she came back and sat next to me again.
She was right. I’d never even stopped to think about the fact that everybody else was just as affected as me, and yeah, I was acting like a big baby. It made me feel guilty.
“I guess you’re right,” I said. “I’m just nervous about the violence.”
There was a knock at the door and then the door opened. Spencer walked in. I felt my heart skip a beat, and butterflies filled my stomach the second I saw him. But I also felt nervous, because we weren’t on the best of terms right then.
Isobel looked at me. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t expect him to come back so soon.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said.
Then she got up from the table and walked over to where he was standing in the living room.
“You figure anything out yet?” he asked me.
“No,” I said. How could he expect me to figure anything out? It had only been a few hours since we even had the conversation. He was really frustrating.
“I’m meeting with the club president tomorrow morning, in case you were wondering,” he said to me.
“That’s good,” I said to him.
Then I stood up, walked over to Isobel, and gave her a hug. She apologized, again. I told her not to worry about it, and then I left and headed home. I couldn’t bear to be around him anymore. All I wanted to do was run over and hug him and kiss him. I wanted to confess my love for him. I wasn’t even understanding my own thoughts.
It had been so hard for me to walk past him like that. I didn’t even look at him. I knew if I did, I would’ve started crying. I would’ve broken down. I didn’t want to do that in front of him. I couldn’t do that in front of him. Especially not in front of his boys.
I got in my car and drove home. It was hard for me to drive home and not cry. A few tears slipped out, but I wiped them away and continued driving. I had to focus on driving. I couldn’t just break d
own. I needed to get home, at least. But I really wanted to be far away from him. Away from all our crazy feelings and thoughts. There was so much that had been going on, and I wasn’t even sure what do with anything I was feeling.
I pulled up to my house, got out of my car, and went inside. I wiped a few tears away and sat down on my couch, in my empty living room, all by myself. I thought about what had gotten me to this point.
13
Spencer
I looked at Isobel. I was still standing there in disbelief after Alissa had just walked out. She didn’t even look at me. That was what hurt me the most. She didn’t even realize what she meant to me.
“Will you watch the boys overnight?” I asked Isobel suddenly.
“Sure, where are you going?” she asked.
“I’m in love with her,” I said. “I’ve got to go tell her.”
“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea,” she said.
I thanked her, gave each of my boys a hug, and then I ran out of the house. I jumped on my bike and rode as fast as I could to Alissa’s house. I got there, ran up the steps, and knocked on the front door.
The front door opened, and she stared at me. “I thought I had until Friday,” she said.
“Yeah, but I can’t wait that long,” I said to her. I grabbed her and started kissing her. To my surprise, she started kissing me back. I took that as a good sign.
I kissed her harder, and my tongue delved into her mouth. I wanted her more than anything in the world, right then and there. I had never felt a lust more powerful than I did in that moment.
