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“Okay…” he drawled, tipping his head for her to continue. He crossed his arms, waiting for the shoe to drop.
“And—” she curled into herself and shivered, another uncharacteristic Jaime move, “—I think he’s been following me. I’ll be in the store or walking down the street, and I’ll feel eyes on me, ya know. Then, when I look, I’ll catch a glimpse of him. He’s always there, and I think he might get worse.”
Shit. That wasn’t good.
Patriot nodded, knowing that situations like hers could escalate.
“What do you need me to do about him?” he asked, mentally already texting Frost, Locust, and Horde about handing out a beat down on a motherfucker.
She must have read his thoughts because she immediately raised her hands, shaking them violently.
“No, no! You can’t get the club involved!” she bleated.
He leaned back, shocked at her vehemence. No club involvement? The hell?
“So why are you coming to me with this? I am club, Jaime,” he replied sharply.
Seeming to deflate, Jaime dropped her chin and looked up at him balefully, her blue eyes wide and blurring with unshed tears.
Shit.
“You’re my friend, too. One of my…best friends. I just need you, Patriot…” she murmured, taking a step closer. “Getting the club involved would make things way more complicated.”
Tension revved through him, his internal alarms blaring like a tornado was headed his way.
She leaned into him, finally sinking he claws into his chest. She peered up at him, her eyes pleading. “I need you, please, to…to act like my boyfriend.”
What. The. Fuck?
He opened his mouth to dismiss her bullshit notion, but her next words silenced him hard.
“You do this for me, and I’ll promise to never tell Stallion that you betrayed him.”
THREE
Cilla stared at the ceiling over her bed blankly.
Numb.
But aching. Her chest hollow yet so full of sorrow it was overflowing into the very depths of her soul. Never in her life had she felt such unrelenting pain, such burning yet chilling agony. Was this what heartbreak felt like? How long would she have to endure the affliction until it was as numb as the rest of her?
Why did it have to hurt so much? Why was love like acid poured over vulnerable flesh, quickly eating away at the soft parts until all that was left was a pool of what could have been?
Her head pounded from a night spent crying into her pillow, and her eyes were desert dry. She blinked, trying to get some moisture back into her eyes.
Five minutes ago, her alarm clock screamed into the new morning, telling her it was time to get up and get ready for her early shift at the diner. Thankfully, she’d switched shifts with Dana, because she’d stupidly planned to have a late night the night before, so she wouldn’t want to wake up too early to go to work. Dana would work today, and Cilla would work Dana’s afternoon shift tomorrow. She should have turned the alarm off last night, but she’d been…preoccupied. She slapped it silent, annoyed at the noise, though she’d already been awake when it had gone off. She hadn’t slept well the night before, her slumber restless, her body wanting to move but her mind wanting to shut down. And her heart…it wanted to go back to the Unchained clubhouse and rewind time to the night she first walked through the doors behind Stephie. If she could go back, she’d have turned right around and gone home where her heart was safe.
But she couldn’t go back in time, just like she couldn’t go back to that clubhouse. Ever.
Last night, after sobbing into her hands for what felt like hours, Cilla had finally collected herself enough to slink from the bathroom stall. Not bothering to check her reflection to see if she was okay to face people without looking like a crackhead raccoon, she pushed through the bathroom door, walked down the hallway toward the main room with the bar, and immediately ran into the biker named Clusterfuck. How he got that name, she didn’t know, nor did she care.
“Hey there…” he’d slurred, huffing his whiskey sour breath in her face. She recoiled. “If-if you-you’re lookin’ for Patriot, he’s in his room with Ja-Jaime.”
Now that she knew the truth about Patriot and Jaime, hearing that they were together shouldn’t have been a surprise. But it was. He’d been talking to her right before she’d gone to the bathroom. Yeah, she’d been gone a while, but a smidgeon of her heart had hoped he was waiting for her to get back and make a night of it with her.
But he was with Jaime. In his room. And they were probably celebrating his return with a sex marathon.
Now that she knew they were a thing, it shouldn’t hurt to envision them together in his bed. Naked. Him kissing Jaime and touching her, and pleasuring her in all the ways Cilla had dreamed he would do to her.
