‘Don’t worry,’ AJ adds, putting his arms back around me. ‘Any shit comes our way… we can handle it. Together.’
I squeeze his fingers. AJ goes back to kissing me. Chase groans in objection at yet another PDA.
‘Did you message Aubri yet?’ I ask him when I pull away.
Chase flushes pink. ‘Don’t really know what to say. Tryna change my douchey ways.’
AJ cracks up. I nudge him in the ribs.
‘Just ask her out for a drink,’ I encourage Chase.
‘Yeah, man, don’t leave her hanging,’ AJ adds.
Chase rubs the back of his head. ‘What if she says no?’
‘Why would she say no? She’s already said she thinks you’re cute.’ I shake my head. ‘My god, how my life has changed. I’m giving dating advice to Chase Brennan.’
While the boys laugh, I glance across into the crowd of bikers and college students. There’s a tightness in my chest. I can’t see Doug, and I wonder if he’s left the bar, or what he’s done with the video he recorded.
I know it’s a question of when – because it’s only a matter of time – he’ll show it to his mother.
I try not to care, but by Saturday afternoon, AJ has already picked up on my unease.
I know Doug. I know the way his mind works. He’s vindictive. An asshole of the highest order. Someone who always looks for an opportunity to put himself before all others. Which is why I know he won’t show my father and stepmother the video of me kissing AJ immediately. He won’t, because he knows me too, well enough. He knows not showing them only prolongs my torture.
‘We’re a couple,’ AJ tells me in Rapture, rubbing my shoulders and attempting to ease the tension. ‘We tell ’em so. It’s no big deal. It’s not like they can break us up.’
On his bed, I lean into him. ‘I know that. I just wish he hadn’t caught us out like that. I should have just come clean before now. Having him video us makes it feel like we’re sneaking around.’
‘Technically, we have been.’
He smirks at me, when I give him a look over my shoulder.
‘Come on,’ he says, getting to his feet and holding out his hand. ‘We’re riding to Canyon. We’ll go to Boulder Creek so you can introduce your handsome biker boyfriend to your dad, and the bitch he went and married. Did I just say that out loud? I meant Evelyn Wallace.’
My lips curl into a smile as he hauls me up off the bed.
‘Then you can tell ’em to stick their apartment because you’re moving in with me.’
‘Now that just makes me sound ungrateful.’
He pulls me in closer for a kiss. ‘Did you change your mind already? About finding an apartment with me?’
‘Of course not.’
‘So, we kill two birds with one stone.Dad, Evelyn, this is AJ, who I’m madly in love with. He happens to be from Rapture, but we’re moving in together so he can make love to me every night of the week. Twice if I’m a good girl.’
His words have me giggling. ‘I might have to say the clean version of that statement.’
‘Whatever you’re comfortable with, baby. So long as you make it clear that you’re mine.’
He pulls me in for another kiss. Within a few seconds, it’s obvious that we have unfinished business in AJ’s bed.
It means it’s getting dark by the time AJ’s bike rolls up outside the closed gates of my father and Evelyn’s house in Boulder Creek.
Inside my backpack, I feel my phone begin to vibrate against my back.
Looking up at the house through my visor, my blood runs cold. Doug’s car is parked in the driveway. He must have come straight from college football training.