Page 18 of Gonzo's Grudge
Darla—my roommate with her too-perfect hair and her too-loud laugh—arched back on my bed, straddling Collin.
Collin.
The first person to ever make me feel less than for wanting to take things slow. I wasn’t a prude, we had done things beyond kissing, but I didn’t go the distance. It was our first real date. We had hung out casually before so maybe he thought we had been dating. I didn’t know how he defined things. I only knew that from the minute I said no, he was a different person and I had become his number one enemy.
Their limbs tangled in the sheets I’d just washed that morning. Her painted nails digging into his shoulders. His mouth pressed to her neck, the same way he used to press to mine when he thought no one was looking and we were supposed to be studying. I could still feel the heat of his breath on my skin.
My lungs locked up. The air thinned until all I could hear was the blood roaring in my ears.
Collin’s eyes flicked up, catching me frozen in the doorway. For a split second, guilt flashed across his face. Then nothing. He didn’t stop. He didn’t move. He just turned back to Darla like I didn’t exist.
That was worse than all of it.
I didn’t scream. Didn’t cry. Didn’t demand explanations I already knew would be lies. I just backed out, shut the door quietly, and walked away.
The library was lit up like a beacon against the night, its tall windows glowing gold. I buried myself in a corner with my books, pretending to study, though the words on the page blurred with every blink.
I tried not to see Darla’s smug little smile, the way she’d swing her hair like every boy belonged to her. I tried not to hear Collin’s voice from back when he used to swear I was the only one who mattered. I tried not to think about how small I’d felt standing in that doorway.
So I read. I wrote. I underlined words I didn’t even comprehend. Anything to keep from feeling.
When the lights flickered, I realized I was the last one there. The librarian cleared her throat gently, offering me a sympathetic smile. “We’re closing, sweetheart.”
I shoved my notes into my bag, muttered thanks, and stepped out into the cool night.
The clock on my phone said almost eleven. Too late to want to go back to that room, back to those sheets, back to Darla’s voice filling the air.
So I didn’t.
Instead, I pointed my car toward Tennessee, the back roads pulling me closer to home even though I didn’t know if I wanted to face that either.
The night was thick, the road empty except for the occasional flash of headlights in the distance. I rolled the windows down, letting the cool wind slap against my damp cheeks. I hadn’t realized I’d been crying until the air stung.
And then it happened—sharp, loud, the car jolting hard. The steering wheel yanked sideways in my hands. One tire blew, then another. My SUV fishtailed before I got it to the shoulder.
Two tires shredded. On a back road through Dreadnought. Seriously, why was this my luck? I cursed under my breath, smacking the steering wheel with both palms. The silence after the engine shut off was deafening just the steady clicking of my hazard lights filled the space.
My phone showed one bar of signal. A bar that it couldn’t seem to stay locked to as it would occasionally blink to SOS mode.
I dropped my forehead to the wheel and let the tears fall hot and fast.
That’s when I heard it.
The low rumble of an engine in the distance, growing closer, deeper, like thunder rolling over the hills.
I wiped at my face, squinting down the road. A single headlight cut through the dark. The closer it came, the more my chest tightened.
The bike slowed, then stopped a few feet behind me. The engine growled, steady and commanding.
And then I saw him.
Gonzo.
Leather cut, broad shoulders, dark hair glistening with small flecks of gray shining through his beard. The outlaw who’d helped me before when my car’s battery cable had come loose on a different back road not far from here. The one who had stopped to check on me made it right without asking anything in return. The man who followed me to the safety of my gated community before returning back to what he was doing before finding me.
He swung one leg off his bike, boots crunching on gravel. His eyes scanned me, sharp even in the dark.
“You’re cryin’,” he said, voice low and rough. Not a question. Just fact.
