Rowe (Henchmen MC Next Generation 4)

Family Tree

Valen and Violet(Vi) - Adler and Lou’s kids

Layna - Edison and Lenny’s daughter

Louana (Lou) - Luce and Evan’s daughter

Junior - Breaker and Alex’s son

Nave - Lazarus and Bethany’s son

Willa (Wills, Willow) - Paine and Elsie’s daughter

ROWE

CHAPTER ONE

Billie

“I want to make something very clear. You and me, we are never going to be a thing. So you need to stop trying. It’s getting sad.”

“Ugh!” I screamed, the sound echoing off the woods surrounding me, dropping down to my knees from a downward-dog position, pressing my forehead to my yoga mat. “Damnit damnit damnit,” I hissed, banging my head a few times for good measure.

I’d gotten good at fighting off my intrusive thoughts.

People looked at me and saw love and light and my carefree demeanor. What they didn’t see was just how hard I’d needed to fight through my own issues to get to that place.

And I’d fought tooth and nail to overcome a lot of anxiety that had crept up on me in my early teens. It was the root of all the yoga and meditation, the essential oils and the herbal teas.

They were born out of necessity to allow me to be able to control a mind that was naturally inclined to obsess over things that happened, things that could happen, or things that never happened.

I was a world-class overthinker for a little chunk of my life.

So, after spending years working on controlling it, it was beyond frustrating to be plagued with intrusive thoughts again after so long without.

Well, no.

Not intrusive thoughts.

Not the plural.

It was one.

One thought.

One memory.

Four sentences.

Twenty-seven words.

Yes, I’ve counted.

When I was busy, when I was working, or with friends or family, I managed to keep my mind in the moment. Where it belonged.

But in the quiet moments that I held so sacred? When I wanted to reconnect with my soul and spirit and the magnificent world around me?

That was when those words came flooding back to me, ruining what used to be my favorite parts of my day.

It had been months. Months. I shouldn’t have still been dealing with the aftermath of those words, no matter how cruel and cutting they had been.

Sucking in a slow, deep breath, I released it on a scream so loud that the family of red-breasted nuthatches startled in the willow above me and flew away.

“The fuck happened?” a rough, familiar, out of breath voice asked, appearing out of nowhere a moment later.

“Nothing,” I said, sighing as I dropped back onto my ass to look up at the brick wall that dared to call himself a man… and my cousin.

“You screamed,” Malcolm said, taking a hand through his hair. “Did you get stuck or something?”

“Stuck?” I repeated.

“In a, you know, position or whatever they’re called.”

“They’re called asanas,” I reminded him. “And, no, I didn’t get stuck.”

“Then why did you scream?”

“Let’s call it a different form of yoga,” I said, rolling my neck.

“Well, if you’re going to practice screaming yoga, a heads-up would be nice. I ran all the way here,” he said, gesturing to my little special place in the woods surrounding his home.

Sure, I could practice yoga in a studio or in the park or even on the beach, but I never felt as connected to the world around me as I did when I was in the woods, surrounded by massive trees, the sounds of birds, and the soft trickling noise of the creek I set up on the soft grass beside.

This place was my bliss.

And I’d been coming more and more frequently lately.

Ever since…

Well, ever since someone I really cared about made it clear he thought I was needy and pathetic and not worth his time.

“What’s going on?” Malc asked, making it clear my eyes had betrayed me once again.

“Nothing. I just… I needed to get that scream out. Have you ever just had a scream trapped right here?” I asked, pressing a hand at the base of my throat.

“Can’t say I have.”

“It’s kind of like when one of you guys gets so frustrated that you need to pound on a punching bag,” I explained. “Because you all hold your tension in your shoulders. A lot of us, meaning female-identifying persons, we hold it in our throats and hips.”

“Well, how do you get it out of your hi—no, no I don’t want to know,” he said, holding up a hand when my lips started to curve up.

If there was one way to chase away a bad mood, it was by making your loved ones massively uncomfortable with sex talk.

Try it.

It’s cathartic.

“What is it you’re choking on then?” Malc asked, looking down at me with those knowing eyes of his.

I always thought of Malc as an old soul. Like his father before him, he was prone more toward silence, to listening, to communing with nature in his own way. It was also why he’d somehow managed to put up with all of his female cousins even through our—admittedly very obnoxious—teen years.