Resenting Me
Page 14

Braxxon walks up behind Winter, wraps his arms around her, and she coos at him.
“What’s up, Angel?” he asks.
I’m nervous as hell.
“So, Lana came up with an idea that I’m in love with, but this is your county, so I thought we would run it by you first.”
I feel like throwing up.
“And...,” he trails off, waiting for her to continue.
“We wanna start a strip joint here, but not a dirty one. A classy one,” Winter says.
Deep breaths, Lana. He looks interested.
“I’m sure the brothers would be cool. I’ll have them vote on it in chapel later.”
“Really? That easy?” I ask.
“Well, yeah. You’re both exotic dancers, and if you own the place, you both might not dance as much, right?”
That is the basis of it, I want to say, but I see where he is going with this. He doesn’t want Winter up on the stage anymore. I smile a full-toothed grin at him.
“Just sometimes,” she agrees.
“Thank f**k,” he exhales.
I’m about to get up and go find Pyro when Braxx says that there will be one condition.
“What is it?” Winter asks.
The one condition is that we move into one of the club owned houses. It takes a little coaxing on his part but when he mentions a pool, we’re goners.
Braxxon hollers for the prospects and for Shadow, ordering them to go pack up our belongings at our apartment. He’s already on board with this, and he hasn’t even held a meeting on it yet.
I don’t question him. We’ve gotten what we wanted, and it took little effort on our part to convince him.
“Pyro is gonna be over the moon.” Winter laughs.
Crap!
“Shit, I gotta go check on him.” I groan and take off towards his room.
I don’t bother knocking on his door anymore. The last time I did, he went off, asking me why the f**k I felt the need to knock on his door, and why the hell didn’t I just walk right in. Those were his exact words. Needless to say, I haven’t made that mistake again.
“Pyro,” I call out.
His beautiful face pops from behind the bathroom door. “Yeah?”
“You all right?” I ask.
His hand grips the door to open it the rest of the way. He shrugs his answer, and reaching for his mousse, sprays some in his palm, and fingers it through his hair. “I’ll be glad when I can walk with swagger again,” he jokes.
“Of course you will. Got a second? I need to talk to you about something.”
He flips the toilet seat lid down. “Take a seat on my throne.”
I draw in a deep breath as I sit down, readying myself for this conversation. I decide to get straight to the point. “Braxxon is going to be talking to you and the rest of the brothers later about Winter and me opening a strip club here in Jamaica. We wanted to make sure it would be cool with you guys first. Even though he’s basically already said it was a go, and he’s making us move into the house with the pool, I thought you should hear it from me first.”
He stops squirting toothpaste onto his toothbrush, sits it down, and turns towards me. “So, you’d be here in Jamaica for good?”
I release the breath I’m holding in and nod yes while biting my lower lip.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this, Lana. You’re hot and cold with me. Should I be happy? Because if not, you need to let me know. I’m not used to feeling and shit.”
You and me both, Stefan, you and me both.
“Honestly, I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t give up on me. I know I’m everywhere emotionally, and we fight more than we talk, but I’d like to think you’d be happy about me staying here.”
He leans against the cabinet, crossing his ankles at the same time as his arms. “So, we just see where it leads, yeah?”
I don’t miss the fact he didn’t say whether he was happy about it or not. I’ve played so many games with him over the past two months, I don’t blame him, but I’ll take it.
“Yeah,” I agree.
“Okay, sweetness. Now stand up and give me some sugar before you decide to be pissed at me again.”
Asshole.
I’m sitting in the living room of our giant house, bored and restless. Waiting for things to start moving on Club Sated is driving me out of my mind.
So much has happened over the last few months. After Winter was kidnapped and raped, she helped murder someone and then tortured one of the guys that hurt her. And then on top of that, two weeks ago, Phil was murdered. I was as supportive as I could have been in that situation, but after the shock of it all wore off, I started pulling away from Pyro again.
All of those events factor into why I just can’t be with Stefan. I love him, I know that much, but I would rather love him from afar, because I’m afraid of what could happen if I let him in all the way. What if I fall even more in love with him and then something happens to him? I wouldn't be able to survive it.
The loss of my parents when I was seventeen makes me leery about loving people. It makes me afraid. Afraid of losing it all with the snap of my fingertips. I stay to myself as much as I can when it comes to feelings. Pyro hasn’t said anything to me about it though. We’ve had sex a few times, but that’s it. There is no conversation, just straight sex. It is hard to do, but we do it. He isn’t pressuring me, because I think, deep down, he gets it, he understands. That doesn’t mean he’s happy about it though.