I've been to the clubhouse before, but always with Austin beside me, one hand on the small of my back, his presence making everything make sense. Without him I'm just a girl who doesn't belong here, and every instinct I have is reminding me of that.
I push the door open anyway.
The smell hits me first. Beer, leather, cigarette smoke and with a scent underneath it all that I can't name but that's warm and almost animal. The main room is big and open, pool tables at one end, a bar running the length of the far wall, sofas and low tables filling the middle. Music is playing somewhere, a song with bass that I feel more than hear.
And then I see what's happening on the sofas and my face goes hot so fast I feel dizzy.
There are people openly having sex. Not hidden, not even particularly tucked away, just happening, in the middle of a room where other people are drinking and talking and playing pool like it's the most normal thing in the world. A woman with her top off in a man's lap. Another one on her knees in front of a man in a cut who's got his head back and his hand in her hair. I don't know where to look. I don't know how to arrange my face. My heart is hammering in my chest and I'm thinking about Austin stepping into this world every day, about what Brick told him, about what the women here are for, and everything Ipromised myself I wasn't going to feel is flooding through me at once.
How is he going to stay away from this?
"Hey, Savannah. You looking for Austin?"
I spin around. There's a guy about Austin's age leaning against the wall near the door, arms folded, watching me with an expression that's somewhere between sympathetic and amused. He's got a cut on with PROSPECT stitched under the Black Saints patch, the same as Austin will have soon, and I recognise his face from around town.
"Seb," I say, relieved to have a name to put to him. "Yeah, have you seen him? He knew I was coming."
Seb glances around the room at a couple of the other men who are watching us. There's an edge to his look that I don't fully understand, a warning that passes too quickly for me to catch.
"He's in his room. He asked that you go on up." He pauses, and I get the impression he's choosing his next words carefully. "Good luck in college, Savannah. You'll be great."
The way he says it makes fear twist in my stomach, but I can't work out why. I'm already moving toward the stairs.
"Thanks, Seb."
I walk through the room with my eyes straight ahead and my jaw set and I tell myself I'm not going to react to anything I see and mostly I manage it. The stairs are at the back. I take them two at a time.
Austin's room is the third door on the right. I know because he showed me once, a quick tour of the upstairs when the place wasempty, both of us laughing about something I can't remember now. I walk to it and I don't knock because it's Austin and I've never needed to knock for Austin in four years.
I open the door.
For a second my brain doesn't process what I'm seeing. The light is different in here, late afternoon coming through a gap in the curtain. There are two people on the bed and one of them is Austin and the other is a blonde woman I've never seen before. She's moving on top of him with her hands on his chest and her head thrown back. Austin's hands are on her hips and the sound she's making is the kind of sound I only make for him.
The world goes very quiet.
I stand in the doorway and the quiet stretches out until I become aware of tiny things with terrible clarity. The way the light catches the woman's hair. The fact that Austin's boots are on the floor by the door in exactly the careless way he always leaves them. The sound of music still coming up from downstairs, faint and distorted.
Then Austin sees me.
The colour drains out of his face. His hands go still on the woman's hips and his eyes find mine. What I see in his eyes is fear, sharp and immediate, and underneath the fear is an emotion I can't read. Can't or won't.
I want to pull her off him by her hair. I want to find something sharp and use it on both of them. I want to scream until the walls cave in. Instead I stand very still because if I move I'll do one of those things and I'll never get out of this building.
"Sav, I'm sorry, it's not what it looks like."
I hear my own laugh come out flat and strange. "Oh, so she's not bouncing up and down on your cock. It just looks like that. Did she tie you down and fuck you?"
The woman on top of him turns her head and looks at me and has the absolute nerve to smile. "Oh girl, that sounds like a great idea. Maybe we can do that the next time, Austin."
My hand moves before I decide to move it. I pull back and I hit her across the face with my open palm, hard enough that the crack of it echoes off the walls and she shouts and grabs her cheek.
"Sav, what the fuck are you doing?" Austin's voice is sharp, but he still doesn't move her off him and that detail lodges in my chest like a piece of glass with jagged edges.
"I want to kill you right now." My voice comes out steadier than it has any right to. "But I know if I do that I won't get out of the front door alive. I hate you with every part of my being. I hate that you cheated on me, but I hate more that you cheated when you knew I'd find out. You're a fucking coward, Austin. You could have just told me, or waited until I left in a week's time."
"But…" he starts.
"Don't." The word comes out like a door slamming. "Don't even try. I can't believe I wasted four years with the one man I thought would be my everything, and you do this to me." My throat tightens around the last part. I won't cry here. I won't give either of them that. "I hope she's worth it."