Dauntless (Sons of Templar MC #5)(29)

I darted out of the car before my speech filtered into his mind. These guys were weird as f*ck, taking rejection to be foreplay. Not what I had in mind. I slammed the door and sauntered towards the clubhouse. I didn’t look back but I still heard his shout.

“You’re killin’ me, firefly.”

I gritted my teeth. “Nope. Saving you, actually,” I muttered.





Chapter Seven





“Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”

-Morticia Addams



I’d clutched my beer so hard I thought it might snap, and somehow resisted Gwen and Amy’s offer for cocktails. I wanted hard liquor more than I wanted a new pair of Doc Martins, but I knew it was a slippery slope. The minute that drink trickled down my throat was most likely the minute I lost it all. So I said no. Being stone-cold sober at a biker clubhouse wedding reception was like being at a One Direction concert—not fun.

Being stone-cold sober on Planet Earth was not fun.

In addition to Lucky’s stare and pretending not to watch him shrug off the girls, I had to deal with the narrowed eyes of Evie, who had been perusing me since I walked in the door. Or, more accurately, watching Lucky watch me. I’d been the object of disapproval many a time, so I recognized it on her face. Mostly, it didn’t hurt; I’d learned to let such gazes bounce off the hard shell I created. But this one slithered through the cracks and stung because I knew what she was. The matriarch of this little family. Motley it may be, but this gathering of outlaws and ‘whores’ and the rugrats running around was a family. One Lily had been welcomed into with open arms. One that, despite my outward protests, I yearned to be a part of.

That look cemented my outsider status, despite the warmth I got from the rest of the women. Kindness was all well and good, but it wasn’t real most of the time. Disdain may be uncomfortable, but at least it was real. It was too much—the happiness in the room; the hard, kohl-rimmed stare of the biker queen; and most certainly the hazel gaze that itched my skin worse than withdrawal.

I had to escape. The only reason I’d stayed that long was because I loved my best friend and didn’t miss the way her gaze flickered to me every now and then. Didn’t miss the way her smile dampened just a little when she took me in, concern evident on her face. Nor did it escape me that her husband, who had hold of her the entire time, glanced my way when she did, his own gaze hardening.

I tried my best for jaunty smiles when that happened. I wasn’t going to f*ck up Lily’s wedding day with a breakdown. I’d done enough.

So it was lucky I slipped outside when both of them were heading off down the hallway to consummate their marriage, based on the look on Asher’s face and the blush on Lily’s.

I sucked in a breath of fresh air, flattening my back to the outer wall of the clubhouse. There was a sprinkling of men in cuts around the grassy area, most smoking and drinking beers. A couple glanced my way but didn’t give me a second look. I wouldn’t give me a second look either.

I tried to suck in another breath. Useless. The air was too f*cking clean, too crisp. My shaking hands reached into my bag and I managed to get what I was looking for.

Sucking in the poison and smoke was a relief. One that curbed the craving—not a lot but a little. Enough that I could go on standing and not curl into a little ball in the corner.

I didn’t smoke before. Abhorred it, actually. Being premed, I’d learned all about the effects of the little death sticks. Yellow nails and decaying teeth? No, thanks.

Ironic that I stayed away from cigarettes but took the needle without as much of as a second thought. They were the only things that got me through, swapping one addiction for another. Though the way I was feeling right then, an early grave was a little too enticing.

I managed about five seconds of peace with my death stick. Alone time wasn’t something you got even when you lurked on the fringes of this outlaw family.

“You doing okay, sweetie?” Rosie asked softly, her brow furrowed in concern as she leaned beside me on the wall.

Like Evie’s, that look punctured my shell too, but for a different reason. Because it was genuine. Because she cared. Ever since that day at our place, she’d treated me with respect and kindness, not with judgment or disdain for dragging her into my twisted world. It was unnerving, something I could get used to but something I didn’t deserve. I couldn’t escape it, though, as she texted almost every day and came around to Lily’s, all the while acting like I was a girlfriend, not an ex-stripper junkie.

I did my best to smile at her. “Totally fine. Peachy, in fact.”

She raised a perfectly plucked brow at me. Everything about the f*cking women in this club seemed to be perfect. Gwen and Amy looked like they strolled straight out of Vogue and their outfits could fund a deposit on a house. Or keep me in drugs for the rest of my life. You know, if I did that sort of thing.

Rosie was different. From what I’d seen of her she changed personas with her outfits. Right then her chocolate curls were a mass of plaits on her head, spiraling down her back. She was wearing a vintage maxi skirt with a huge split down the thighs and a barely there crop with a multitude of tribal necklaces looking like they’d snap her skinny neck.

I looked like… exactly what I was beside her. A junkie stripper.

“Bullshit,” she said, snatching the smoke from my hands and taking a puff for herself.