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I covered his hand with mine. “I know. Same.”
And it was the same.
I always had Joker’s back, but I felt the need to defend someone against him for the first time. It wouldn’t be good to let anything come between Joker and me, especially a woman. So I wouldn’t. I would eradicate all thoughts of Victoria Walsh from my head and keep my attention on the game.
Drugs.
Money.
Racing.
The rest could fuck off.
I partied harder than usual that night, drinking until my gut burned and my head swam. I smoked so much that my lungs sizzled, and my eyes were slits on my face. So when a pretty redhead sat on my lap and began grinding against me, I didn’t stop her like I usually did. I sat there and let her rub, although my cock didn’t budge.
I was so fucked up in the head that women couldn’t even get my dick hard. I played the part, taking them into the room and using my tongue on them instead of fucking them, but I knew I was broken. The guys thought I lined the girls up, but the truth was, I had never found myself inside a woman in all my life.
Technically, I was still a virgin, though I would never admit that to anyone. No one needed to know how fucked up and twisted my brain was. No one needed to know that Lorne Walsh had wrecked me so severely that my cock wouldn’t get hard.
“Let’s go to my room, baby,” I said, taking the redhead’s hand and leading the way.
I made eye contact with Joker and Crow as I passed them. I wanted them to see me with her. If they thought I was fucking and doing all the usual things a guy like me was supposed to do, they would never know I was incapable. Sex was a curse.
I tasted the redhead without ever learning her name. I closed my eyes and twirled my tongue around her throbbing clit until she dug her nails into my scalp and broke apart. And when she left my room, she went with a smile just as I had intended. As for me, I stayed in my bed and felt disgusted with myself.
I was dirty.
I was shattered.
And every time I got a woman off, I felt a little more cracked inside, knowing I could never do more than that.
I let the nightmares in that night. I tossed and turned in my bed, getting stuck in my sheets as Lorne Walsh repeatedly stole from me and my young body. When I woke Sunday morning, I stayed in bed despite smelling bacon cooking in the kitchen. When a man passed on bacon, you knew shit was fucked up.
THE WEEK WENT BY AS USUAL—dealing and dabbling with my bike. I fixed a broken neon and replaced my back tire. On Wednesday, I decided I had had enough of all the bullshit and needed to get away. I found myself four hours away on Tybee Island, sitting on South Beach with a beer dangling between my fingers.
I stayed for two days, enjoying the solitude on the beach and trying to flush my mind of all the bad memories that had reared their ugly heads over the past week. I gazed at the waves, the sounds of them crashing onto the shore relaxing me as I smoked a fat blunt and dug my toes into the sand.
Times like that made me miss Hawaii and the white sandy beaches. It reminded me of my mother and our Saturday visits to the beach. I thought of the times she tried to teach me to surf. Or when we would swim out to the sandbar and laugh for hours as we stared back at the tiny dots of people on the shore.
By the time I tore up the interstate on my bike to get back to Atlanta for our Friday night races at The Strip, I felt better. I had managed to wrangle the bad memories back into the cages of my mind, and I was ready to hang with my boys and win some money. It would be an even better night since Skull and Everly were coming—like old times. It would be us together again. I didn’t want my broken bullshit to ruin that.
Pulling up to The Strip, I saw Skull and Everly. She sat on his bike, her arms wrapped around his neck as he leaned against her. This helped to improve my mood. We liked Everly. She had become one of us. Plus, she could throw down in the kitchen. The way to this Hawaiian boy’s heart was a piece of fried chicken straight to his stomach.
I got off my bike and walked up to Skull with my hand out. He grabbed my hand, and we pulled in for a hug. I only hugged my brothers. Crow, Joker, and Skull respected my boundaries and knew I didn’t like being touched.
Everly smiled up at me. I was always happy to see her smiling, considering what her life had been like before Skull. I would never forgive myself for what we pulled on her initially, but I tried to make up for it. She was also the only girl I would allow a touch or a hug from. She kept her space and waited for me to hug her, which I did. We would do anything for her.
“I’m glad y’all decided to grace us with your presence,” I teased. They rarely came to The Strip, so we joked about it when they did. “Seeing the old married couple off the couch is nice.”
Everly laughed and shook her head. “Married? Not quite yet.”
Skull looked at Everly and then at me. I could tell that he was happy to see us joking around. For a while, we had been reserved around Everly. Even after she and Skull became a thing, we kept our distance for a time.
“You racing tonight?” Everly asked.
I rolled my eyes at her and laughed. She was as protective of us as we were of her. She had patched me up once after a stunt had gone wrong. Ever since then, she’d been cautious when she saw me racing.
“Yes, Mom.” I emphasized the word mom and ensured it dripped with sarcasm.
