Renegade (Bad Blooded Rebel Series) (11 page)

After
a few moments of catching our breath, I pulled out of her and zipped back up as
she pulled her jeans back up and fastened them. Turning and falling into my
arms, she said, “That was perfect. God, what is it about us and bathrooms?”

I
laughed and kissed her. “I don’t think it’s the bathroom. It’s the thrill of
getting caught.”

“Well
whatever it is, it’s something I don’t mind repeating over and over,” Everleigh
said, grinning playfully. I pulled her close to me after she zipped her jeans.

I
brushed a few strand of hair away from her face and said, “So, are you ready to
go back out there?”

She
bit her lip and smiled at me. “It’s going to be hard to convince people we
didn’t have sex in here.”

“Do
you really care if they know or not?”

With
a slight blush in her cheeks, she grinned and said, “Not really.”

I
kissed her beautiful mouth once more, then we unlocked the door and walked out
of the bathroom to rejoin the group.

After
spending a few more hours drinking, shooting pool, and catching up with Jagger
and the guys, I felt more like myself than I had in a while. Everleigh had
laced herself into every part of my life, including charming the pants off my
friends and I loved it. It was nice to have a girlfriend that everyone you
cared about loved as much as you did.

After
laughing at something Logan said, I looked back and noticed Everleigh yawning.
I checked the display on my phone and it was almost one in the morning…that
meant it was time to head back to the penthouse. She was sitting on one of the
stools against the wall when I approached her. “You tired, gorgeous?”

She
smiled at me, her eyes sleepy. “Just a little bit.”

“All
right, just let me say goodbye to the guys and we can head home.”

“Okay,
I’ll go get Danni,” she said and stood up. She kissed me quickly and walked
away in search of her friend.

I
turned and walked toward the group, who were all gathered around the pool
table. “Well, you guys, this has been fun but I think I’m going to call it a
night.”

Cash
snickered and said, “Already, bro? It’s not even one in the morning yet.”

“Well,
if you were going home with a fucking hot ass girl like Everleigh knowing you
were going to get laid you’d cut the night short too,” Logan said, tipping his
beer toward me.

“Uh,
thanks,” I said, chuckling.

“Where
did your hottie go anyway? I wanted to say goodbye,” Zayne said, grinning.

“She
went to find her friend Danni so we can head out. She just got into town today
and is staying with us.”

“Oh,
the smoking little blonde? I saw Jake leading her off to the back room a little
bit ago,” Cash said. I tensed and looked around for Beau, hoping he hadn’t
heard that. I didn’t see him anywhere so I relaxed.

That
relaxation didn’t last long because suddenly I heard a commotion coming from
down the hallway leading back to the bathrooms. The next thing I knew I saw a
distraught Danni running toward the front door of the bar with Everleigh in
tow. I started to follow but before I could get close to the door Jessie beat
me to it. “I’ll check on her, go find out what happened.”

I
tapped her arm and said, “Okay, thanks, Jess.” I walked back toward the
bathrooms. As I made my way a petite bleach blonde girl came running out of the
men’s room passing me as she ran toward the door. Once she was gone I looked up
and someone else was coming out of the bathroom behind her, buckling his
belt…Beau. I walked up to him and narrowed my eyes. “What did you do?” I
growled.

“Shit,
shit, shit!” he said, zipping his fly. “I have to talk to Danni. Move out of
the way,” he said trying to push past me.

I
shoved him and he fell back against the wall, surprised. “You’re not going
anywhere, Beau. What the fuck did you do?” I yelled.

“I
fucked up!” he shouted, shoving me back. “I got pissed at Danni and I fucked
everything up! Is that what you want to hear?”

“No,
what I wanted to hear was that you kept your word to not fuck some other girl
until you talked to Danni first! You looked me in the eye today, Beau, and you
told me that you were going to try and see if this thing with Danni was just a
passing fling. Now I see you coming out of the bathroom zipping up your pants.
What the fuck happened?”

He
collapsed back against the wall and ran his hands through his long hair. “I saw
her with Jake tonight when Jude and I first got here and I was pissed. He had
his hands all over her and I was so jealous I couldn’t see straight. I wanted
to grab her away from him and tell him to back off but I didn’t. Then when I
saw him leading her off toward the back by the bathrooms I…I’d never felt such
rage in my life. I wanted to kill him,” he said. As he spoke his eyes became a
mix of crazy and distraught.

“So
you decided to just fuck some random chick? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“No,
I followed them down the hallway. I was going to stop them and tell Danni that
I’d been a dick and that I wanted her but when I found them, Jake already had
his tongue down her throat,” he said angrily. He blew out a frustrated breath
and continued, “After that I just saw red. I thought if she was moving on then
I would too…so I did. I found the first girl I saw and took her into the
bathroom. We hadn’t been in there long before Danni walked in on us.” For the
first time he sounded ashamed.

“Why
did she come into men’s room?” I asked.

“She
was looking f-for me,” he said, his voice breaking. I was so pissed at Beau
right then but it was hard to be completely angry when I saw his expression. He
looked destroyed and on the verge of tears. I’d never seen him like that
before. He slid down the wall and dropped his face into his hands. “I’ll never
forget the look on her face…I can’t believe I fucked this up.”

Kris
and Jude came out into the hall at that moment. Jude asked, “What’s going on?”

I
looked from Beau to Jude and glared at him. “What’s going on is that he took
your shitty advice and Danni walked in on him fucking some bitch!”

Jude
held his hands up and said, “Hey, you don’t need to get shitty with me man!
Beau is a big boy and he fucked this up all by himself. I just suggested it. I
didn’t force him to do anything. Besides, he told us both that he was going to
wait to fuck anyone until he talked to Danni.”

“Well
he didn’t,” I said, my anger rising. I repeated the story to Kris and Jude. I
know that it must have seemed like I was overreacting to the whole thing, but
the truth was that Danni was already family to me: if she was hurting I wanted
to kick whoever’s ass was to blame. Unfortunately that happened to be someone
I’d loved like a brother since I was five years old.

I
heard a tortured sob coming from Beau and I looked down at him. He’d sank down
to the floor and had his head in his hands. “Her face…” he mumbled.

Kris
tapped me on the arm. “Let’s get him out of here and back to his apartment. There
are still people here with camera phones and I’m sure he doesn’t want this on
the news later,” he said, and I nodded. As we helped Beau up off the floor and
took him out the back door, I texted Everleigh and let her know that I’d be
home late and to have John take them home. I put my phone in my pocket and we
all left the club.

Once
we were all piled in the cab, my phone rang. I pulled it out to answer it,
expecting it to be Everleigh, but it wasn’t. It was Kip. Getting a call from
him at one in the morning wasn’t good. Dread immediately spread through me as I
answered the phone and got the worst news I could have possibly gotten...the
news that I was afraid would cause Everleigh to finally break.

Everleigh

“Danni,
wait up! What happened?” I asked, already knowing the answer to my question
judging by the look on her face and the unstoppable tears pouring down her
cheeks. I followed her out of the bar into the cold. Beau had broken her heart,
just like I was afraid he would do. She was sobbing uncontrollably as I
approached her and wrapped her coat around her shoulders. “Was it Jake?”

“No,”
she cried, “you know it was Beau.”

“What
did he do?” I asked as Jessie came out of the bar and joined us.

“Danni,
are you all right?” she asked, and Danni shook her head.

“I
can’t believe he did this,” she said.

Jessie
turned to me and asked, “Beau?”

I
nodded silently and we both looked at Danni. “What happened?” I asked again.

Wiping
tears from her cheeks, she said, “I didn’t know he would be here tonight but
that really didn’t matter to me because he didn’t seem like he wanted to be
anything other than friends now. I mean, when I saw him again this afternoon at
the studio I wanted to tell him that I missed him so bad, but he just acted
like he didn’t care anymore. When Jake started hitting on me tonight I decided
to just go with it because hell, if Beau didn’t want me why shouldn’t I go for
it with a sexy guy that was into me, right?

“Well,
of course Beau shows up here looking so sexy that it literally hurt me to look
at him and the minute I saw him my heart skipped a beat. I knew we needed to
talk and try to work this thing out, but every time I looked at him he was
glaring at me and Jake. I was getting sick of it so I asked Jake if he wanted
to go out back with me to get some fresh air, hoping Beau might get jealous and
actually fight for me but of course he never came.

“When
we were outside, Jake kissed me but I pushed him away before it went any
farther than that. The truth is that I love Beau,” she said, and I gasped. I’d
never heard Danni say she loved any guy before…ever. “I know it’s stupid and
you tried to warn me, Ev, but I didn’t listen and went ahead and fell in love
with him anyway.

“I
told Jake that I wanted to be with Beau and he backed off, telling me that Beau
was his friend and he wasn’t about to try and come between us. I came back into
the bar to find him and tell him what I’d been to chicken shit to admit and
asked the bartender if he’d seen him. He told me that he’d just seen Beau go
into the bathroom,” she said, crying harder.

I
immediately knew what had happened before she had to say it. “Danni,” I said,
putting my arm around her.

“He
was fucking some girl against the wall,” she sobbed. “He didn’t even lock the
goddamned door. That’s when I ran out…I couldn’t even look at him after that.”

At
that moment my cell phone pinged and I looked to see that I had a text from
Ryder. He told me that he and they guys were taking Beau back to his place and
that John was going to take us back to the penthouse. I decided to text him
back later as John pulled up in the SUV and we all piled into the back in a
much worse mood than we were in when we got here a few hours ago.

The
ride back to our apartment was quiet but once John’s cell phone rang it was
also tense. Judging by the way his face changed as I watched in the rearview
mirror my worry was quickly shifting from Danni’s broken heart to whoever he
could have been talking to that made him look worried. John never got worried
about anything; he was always so calm and collected. Something was seriously
wrong…I could feel it.

As
we stepped off the elevator I noticed John walking very close behind me. I
looked at Jessie, wondering if she might know something, but she just shrugged
her shoulders. As I got my key out and unlocked the front door, I asked, “Okay,
John, what is it with you? Why do you look so freaked?”

“We
should get inside and wait for Ryder, he will be here in about five minutes,”
John said.

“I
thought he was going to Beau’s place. Why is he coming back here already?” I
asked, my eyebrows drawing together. I was getting more nervous by the minute.

“I’m
not sure but don’t worry, he’s probably just wanting to check on Danni,”
replied Jessie.

The
way John was looking at me wasn’t sitting well. He was smiling and trying to
look comforting, but something was very wrong and he obviously was trying to
distract me until Ryder got home to give me bad news.

We
walked into the apartment and as soon as we were all inside John quickly locked
the door. Shaking my head, I led Danni into the living room. We sat on the
couch together after I handed her a tissue to wipe her tears. Thankfully a few
minutes later, I heard the front door open and Ryder called out, “Everleigh?”

“We’re
in the living room,” I replied, anxious to know what was going on. I was
wringing my hands together as Ryder walked into the living room. Instead of the
relief I usually felt when he was around, I felt my stomach flip as I saw his
expression. It was a mixture of anger and fear. “Ryder, what’s wrong?” I asked,
terrified.