Chasing Claire (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club) (12 page)

Reno seemed totally confused. And I couldn’t blame him.

I had no idea what I was talking about.

I hung up the phone, slumped against the Jeep, and waited for somebody to send someone to fix this. It was no use to try and hold back the pity party any longer, so for the next five minutes I gave the tears full permission to run down my cheeks and drip off my nose.

Then I got into the Jeep and tried again. When I heard the click of that stupid engine, I collapsed in total defeat.

After what seemed like hours and hours, the club utility van pulled into the driveway, driven by a prospect I had seen once or twice before. When I turned my tear-stained face to him, he looked at me sheepishly through the windshield and motioned to the cable wires that he had in his hand. He wanted me to pop the hood.

I looked at my watch for the hundredth time, and felt sick with disappointment. I did not have time for this. I reached down and pulled up the release lever. Then I laid my head against the steering wheel and let the tears flow.

“Aw, baby, don’t cry.” The voice cut through my crying jag.

I looked up just as Reno reached through the open window and unlocked the door. Then he pulled me gently out of the car and into his arms.

I heaved and sniffed all over the front of his leather cut.

“Claire, honey. I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s going on,” he said softly, rubbing my hair and patting my back.

I nodded into his chest, and wiped my nose noisily.

Still heaving, I managed to get the words out. “I . . . am . . . going . . . to . . . be . . . late . . . for . . . my . . . first . . . day . . . of . . . school.”

I felt his chest rumble.

“It’s not funny,” I heaved and tried to pull away.

He pulled me tighter into him.

“No, Claire, it’s not funny. It’s great. You and this school shit.”

Except for that one incident in the clinic and the other time when Reno and I had glared at each other from across the field, I hadn’t seen him at all, and as far as I knew, he hadn’t seen me.

“You do? You know?” I sniffled and looked up at him.

“Of course I know. Just because I’ve been acting like a dick doesn’t mean I haven’t been paying attention.” He looked at me and ran his thumb down the curve of my cheek.

Then Reno said this: “Claire, I don’t know why it took me this long to get what a prick I’ve been, but I’m there now, and it feels like shit knowing that I hurt you. I’m sorry, baby.”

And there it was.

Maybe there was more to talk about between us, maybe there wasn’t. Maybe there would someday be a Reno-and-me that made sense, maybe not. I just knew that I missed what we sometimes used to be.

“I’m sorry” is always a good start to finding your way back to something that you thought might have been lost forever.

I put my head against Reno’s warm familiar chest and felt the rest of the tension in me release. And that last part had nothing to do with being late but everything to do with finding myself back in his arms.

“Let it out, baby, give it to me.” Reno just kept rubbing and patting.

Then when my sputtering and heaving had died down to just small gulps, he pulled me away from him and brushed away my tears with the back of his hand.

“Alternator’s gone, boss,” the prospect called out to us. “Won’t be able to do much with it today. Orders are to get the van right back and ready for a shipment.”

Big heaving sigh. I shrugged my shoulders in resignation. “Well, that’s it then, game over.” I brushed away the rest of my tears and felt the corners of my mouth fall down. Disappointment streamed over me like a cold winter rain.

“Honey, the game hasn’t even started yet.” Reno grabbed my hand and led me to his bike. He must have followed behind the van. I had been too deep in my own pity party to hear the rumble of his pipes.

“What time do you have to be there, Claire?” He strapped the helmet on my head.

“Eleven o’clock.” I looked at him with hope in my eyes.

“Plenty of time, baby. Just wrap your arms around me and hold on tight.”

Then Reno started his engine.

And, having all the faith in the world that he would get me exactly where I needed to be and when I needed to be there, I did it.

And he got me there.

Not only on time.

But with a full ten minutes to spare.

CHAPTER 20

O
nce we pulled onto the campus, I got nervous all over again. Reno turned into the parking lot and killed the motor. I got off the bike and stared at the sight before me.

The central campus consisted of a few large brick-covered buildings and a grassy area called the quad.

I thought about the many scholars that had stood where I stood now, on the edge of something wonderful and terrifying. The structures themselves intimidated and impressed—aged, ivy-covered, and beautiful.

Damn.

After all the headaches, and fears, and self-doubts about doing this thing, a thing that was way, way out of my comfort zone, here I was.

I had really done it.

“Thank you for getting me here, Reno,” I said formally.

“You are welcome, Claire. Happy to be of service,” he said back to me, just as formally.

Then we grinned at each other.

“Reno?”

“Yeah, Claire?”

“Do you know what a syllabus is?” I pulled at the heavy backpack on my shoulder.

“Sure, Babe. Everyone . . .” He stopped when he saw the expression on my face.

“It’s an outline of the important information of the class. It gives you shit like due dates, assignments, and other stuff you need to know,” he finished and grabbed the backpack from me.

I nodded. That made sense.

“Do you know where your first class is?” he asked me.

I handed him everything that I had printed off the Internet.

He looked over the pages, then he looked up at the buildings facing us. Reno grabbed my hand and off we went through the pretty cement arches.

Reno walked me to the front of the building of my first class. My nerves did jumping jacks in the meantime.

“I can stay and see you through this.” Reno stood close to me, his hand on the small of my back.

“Thanks, Reno, but I got this,” I muttered. I eyed the four imposing structures before me. There was also a sign on the corner of the last building that I had not noticed before. It said “North Campus / South Campus Shuttle” and it had an arrow that pointed to a narrow alleyway.

So there was more. I sighed thinking I was never going to find my way.

“You got this, Claire?” Reno increased the pressure on my back.

I answered with a confidence that I came nowhere close to feeling, “Of course I do.”

“Glad to hear it.” Then he leaned in and whispered. “Where’s your next class going to be?”

He had me there.

“I can ask someone, or go in the general direction,” I said with more certainty than I felt.

Just then, the doors to three of the four buildings swung open
wide and what seemed to be a million people poured out in a quickly streaming mass.

“Okay, Babe. Check it out. Ask someone.” Reno folded his inked biceps.

I tried. But nothing came out. I just stood there in the middle of it all, ridiculously opening and closing my mouth like a baby bird.

Reno let that go on for about a minute and a half.

“Hey man, can you tell me where this is?” He placed himself in front of the dreadlocked guy who was about to walk past us.

Without completely stopping, the guy glanced at the printout and said, “Uh, I think it’s over in North Campus somewhere. Not sure. You might hafta take the shuttle. Wish I could help, but I got maybe two seconds to piss and grab a smoke before my ass needs to be sitting in World Lit. Good luck, man.”

Then he disappeared into the sea of scholars.

Reno arched an eyebrow at me.

I took another look at the imposing buildings and the crowds. Then I thought about the ten minutes between classes, and the braided guy who seemed to know what he was doing, but still didn’t have enough time to pee, smoke, and help me out.

I looked back at Reno then. Dark aviator glasses hid his eyes. He stood a head taller than the crowd hurrying past us. His biceps stretched and strained out of the MC cut, its leather branding him a Hells Saints outlaw. He stood out like a column of fire in a deep pool of water, beautiful and burning bright.

“Reno, don’t go,” I said suddenly. As the edge of panic closed in on me again, I tugged on his arm and held on for dear life.

He hesitated for only a second. Then he said, “Babe, you have to get moving. You’re running out of clock. You’re on the second floor, room number 25B. I’m going to wait for you right here and you’ll be out in about forty-five.” Reno untangled himself from me. Then he actually shoved me toward the building.

Geez.

I looked back at him one more time before the pressing crowd pushed me through the door.

Reno smiled at me.

Then he winked.

Taking that smile and that wink with me, I headed into my next big thing.

CHAPTER 21

W
hat the hell were you thinking?” I asked myself for about the millionth time. It had been a few weeks since that first day of school and I was swimming against the academic tide.

And that was on a good day.

On a bad day I was drowning in it.

I looked through bleary eyes at the pile of reference books before me. I had been in the college library all morning and had made little progress. The big red D slashed against my first psychology research paper glared back at me in reproach.

“Hope springs eternal.”

I almost laughed out loud when I saw the quote from Alexander Pope flash across the laptop screen. Thank you, Mr. Pope, and whoever had the foresight to program in those inspiring words as a stock screensaver. I shook my head, closed the computer, and reached for the bottle of pain-reliever that I kept in my school bag. The new laptop had cost me a small fortune. I had bought it straight from the college bookstore. It came with all the right software, a faux leather bag, and a kick-ass sleeve. It also came with unlimited tech support and a generous warranty.

Even more important than all those great features came the sense of promise and belonging that had filled me when I opened the computer and placed it on a desk for the very first time. Having it had made me feel like I fit in.

Lately when I opened the laptop I just felt dumb.

This is what you wanted
, I reminded myself. I was officially a college student, and I was trying my best.

But there were definitely times when my best was not good enough.

I had to remind myself that all this was still relatively new to me and that I had had small triumphs along the way. There were times when I did not feel like a complete idiot and not all of my grades had been Ds. As a matter of fact, most of my grades were not Ds.

But they were not As either.

I was determined to keep trying my best. On the days when everything came together, I was filled with a sense of happiness and pride that I had never experienced on this level before. And really, I was learning so much. Attending these classes had also helped me turn a negative into a positive. In order to survive a childhood with the perpetually depressed and barely there Jack Winston, Raine and I had had to be organized, skilled at observations, and filled with a fierce determination to succeed. It turned out that these qualities were exactly what I needed to rock the college world. Unfortunately a strong academic background was also needed to rock the college world.

Although I was mostly doing okay, there were definite gaps in my learning that put me at a disadvantage. In my child development class, I had recently read that childhood crisis takes up to ninety percent of working memory.

That explained a lot.

But I was not going to give myself a pass. What’s done was done.

I told myself if I could do it then, I certainly could do it now.

I had this.

Just not today. I didn’t have it today.

Today was a pain in my ass.

I sighed as I looked at the mountain of work ahead of me, and took another look at my watch. The tutor I had hired from a poster in the bookstore was five minutes late and I was paying by the hour.

Then I looked at my phone buzzing with a text message. It was Reno telling me he might be late.

Reno.

Hope springs eternal.

Reno had been as good as his word. Even after that first day he had continued to give me rides back and forth to school.

While my vehicle sat waiting for the alternator, Reno had told me it was a good idea for the Jeep to have a tune-up. Once I consented to the tune-up, the boys found a whole lot of other things that needed to be replaced or repaired. The Jeep was only a few years old, and Diego had loved it. Since I had firsthand knowledge of just how well my brother-in-law took care of the things that he loved, I was kind of confused at the growing list of replacements and repairs that kept my ride away from me and on the back of Reno’s bike.

But then again a lot about Reno and me was confusing.

For the last few weeks, Reno and I had been on what I guessed you could call a learning curve. We were learning to get back to a place where we had never been before. It was new, strange, and at times oddly frustrating—a place where we were careful with one another. I wasn’t even sure how we had gotten here. Or how long it would last.

From that first ride to class, Reno never brought me right home after school. We would run errands together, go out for lunch, or just take a ride through parts of the area that I had never been to before. On the weekends, if I had a shift to do at Reds, he would pick me up and hang out for a sandwich or a beer. Then he would be there to bring me home.

Reno didn’t spend all of his time with me though; our nights were our own. I spent my nights knee-deep in books. I had no idea who or what Reno spent his nights knee-deep in.

I couldn’t get the scene of him and Cherry out of my mind. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t. It hurt me every time I thought about it. The fact that I knew Cherry was a permanent fixture around the club didn’t help much.