Sinful Protector (Roughshod Rollers MC 2)

I head for the snacks and pick up a couple of bags of chips. I throw in a bag of candy for good measure and then head toward the coffee machine. I fumble with a paper cup for a second and shove it under the table before flicking a switch.

I lean forward to smell the dark liquid as it fills up the cup, suddenly very much looking forward to drinking it. A tiny corner of my brain tells me that it’s not a good idea, that I’ll end up bouncing off the walls for hours, but I don’t care. I need this coffee right now. I find a little packet of milk and a few packets of sugar and stir them all in. Then, once I’m done, I put a lid on the cup and carry everything over the counter.

The girl looks over my purchases, unimpressed.

“Bit late for a party, don’t you think?” she drawls.

I ignore her, unwilling to admit that I’m buying all this for myself. She shrugs at my silence and rings everything up, uncaring.

“That’ll be sixteen dollars,” she says.

I swipe my card through the machine on the counter, and she puts my food in a plastic bag. As soon as she hands it over, she picks up her magazine and goes back to ignoring me, despite the fact that I’m still in front of her.

Rolling my eyes at her rudeness, I pick up my purchases and leave the store. I sip my coffee as the automatic doors open.

“Mm,” I hum in appreciation.

The warmth of the drink seeps through me, chasing away the cold chill of the night. I sigh and stand there for a second, basking in the cozy feeling. The coffee in one hand and the bag swinging from my other lifts my spirits, and there’s an extra spring in my step as I turn away from the shop and start to head home.

/> I don’t get more than five steps, however, before a shape looms out of the darkness. Startled, I stop, and the figure stops too, just as surprised to see me as I am to see them.

“Jesse?” I burst out, blinking wildly.

Jesse Willis stares back at me, mouth slightly open. His hair is disheveled and he’s loosely gripping an almost-empty bottle by its neck. From his dilated pupils and the flush on his skin, I can tell that he’s been drinking quite heavily.

Jesse is the last person I want to see right now. I haven’t seen him in weeks, not since our loud and very public break-up.

“Allie?” he asks, squinting at me. “That you?”

I wish I hadn’t said anything, now. Maybe I could have pretended not to know him and scurried away, but I’ve already said his name. The good feelings that I had gotten from the coffee swiftly disappear.

Jesse and I had had a tempestuous relationship. His temper and my stubbornness had clashed frequently, until it wasn’t unusual to see us screaming at each other, whether we were at home, on the bus, in restaurants or on the college grounds. If I’m honest, we should never have lasted as long as we did, but I stuck it out in a relationship for two very long years. Eventually, though, enough was enough; we weren’t doing each other any good; all we were doing was torturing each other.

Jesse, unfortunately, hadn’t been on the same page as me. He hadn’t taken the revelation that I wanted to break up very well and, at the time, I didn’t understand why; he was just as cruel to me as I was to him. There was no way he still wanted to be with me any longer.

In the weeks since we broke up, I’ve come to understand that it was a possessive thing. Jesse was always very possessive, which is just one thing that caused several arguments between us. He didn’t actually like being in a relationship with me any longer, but I was his and losing me was hard.

He tried to convince me to change my mind several days after the break-up. He followed me all the way to the grocery store, shouting at me all the time. When I still refused to get back together with him, he had knocked over an entire display of soup cans and stormed away.

It was the last I had seen of him until tonight.

“How have you been?” I ask politely.

He scowls, surprise quickly being replaced by anger.

“You think you have the fucking right to ask me that?” he demands, and I sigh quietly.

Here we go again.

“Sorry,” I try. It’s against my nature to back down, but it’s late and I’m tired, and I just really don’t want to deal with this right now. “I’ll get out of your face. Have a nice night, Jesse.”

I turn to go.

“Wait!”

I debate not stopping. I don’t owe Jesse anything. Our relationship had been bad from start to finish, and we were better off never seeing each other again.

But the desperate quality in his voice makes me pause and I sigh before turning around.