Tempted Read online

  Tempted

  Blurb

  She was my world.

  I wanted to give her everything…

  But things changed in a heartbeat.

  I went off the rails and made some bad mistakes,

  Crime, Gang, and Bikes became my new world.

  I made the worst possible version of myself.

  And now, years later I see her again.

  She is more beautiful than ever before.

  She is bringing that desire out of me once more,

  To be that good guy she once fell in love with.

  And, I am tempted to be with her again.

  The only problem - it isn’t always easy to leave a bad life behind.

  Do you think she would give me a second chance now?

  Index

  Chapter 1 – Artie

  Chapter 2 – Rose

  Chapter 3 – Artie

  Chapter 4 – Rose

  Chapter 5 – Artie

  Chapter 6 – Rose

  Chapter 7 – Artie

  Chapter 8 – Rose

  Chapter 9 – Artie

  Chapter 10 – Rose

  Chapter 11 – Artie

  Chapter 12 – Rose

  Chapter 13 – Artie

  Chapter 14 – Rose

  Chapter 15 – Artie

  Chapter 16 – Rose

  Chapter 17 – Artie

  Chapter 18 – Rose

  Chapter 19 – Artie

  Chapter 20 – Rose

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  Chapter 1 – Artie

  What the fuck am I doing with my life? I wonder as I stare around the club headquarters, trying to work out exactly how I ended up here. I always loved my motorcycle, ever since I first got it, but I never thought that I would end up in a motorcycle gang. This isn’t really the path that I was ever supposed to take.

  “But here you are,” I whisper to myself as I suck back the rest of my beer. “Here you are…”

  I suppose I do know the moment that the strings connecting me to the planet were cut leaving me floating through life with nothing real to keep me fixed, but I try my hardest not to think about it. Ever. It’s too hard. Yet as I watch the rest of the guys in the motorcycle gang enjoying life in the club house, the memories that I do my best to push down at all times come flooding to the surface making it hard for me to breathe.

  Lee Harper. My very best friend growing up, the person who I told everything too. Of course, I had all of my brothers who I could go to about anything as well, but he was the one person outside of my family who I could really trust. We went through everything together, we grew up as the best of mates, and our love of bikes came at the same time. Our parents were worried and warned us of the dangers, but we didn’t care. Together, we agreed that the danger was a big part of the excitement. It was what made us happy. That adrenaline rush was unlike anything else we had ever experienced, and we weren’t about to let that go for anyone…

  I thought that we would go through life together. I assumed that me and Lee would go to business college together, and that everything would be amazing. I never envisioned a life without my best friend in it. Which only made the night of our graduation party that much harder to deal with.

  He wasn’t on his bike that night because he was drinking alcohol. We all were. Me and Lee might have liked the danger of riding our bikes, but we never would have done so drunk because we wouldn’t have wanted to needlessly endanger ourselves or other people. Which is ironic, I guess, considering what did happen.

  I didn’t know that Lee had left the party. I was drunk and having the best time, enjoying my night with my girlfriend, living my best life knowing that the summer ahead was going to be the best of our lives before everything changed for the better. Before college and then the world, which was going to be our oyster.

  But Lee wasn’t enjoying himself so much. I think that he might have drunk too much too quickly, so when another guy in our class, but not one that we were particularly friendly with, was leaving the party I guess that he decided to go as well. The last decision that he would ever make as it turned out…

  The car accident was a bad one. A really bad one. No one can quite decide if it was the driver of the car that Lee was in, who was a little bit over the legal alcohol limit, or the over worked lorry driver who could have easily fallen asleep at the wheel, is to blame, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter. The end result is the same thing. All the three guys lost their lives and I lost my best friend. Lee’s mother always said that it was going to be his bike that killed him, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t his fault, that’s the only thing that anyone can be sure of, which is why it’s such a tragic shame. For me to lose him like that in such a needless way… it crushes me. I still hate it.

  “I managed to get nearly ten grand,” one of the newer guys to the motorcycle club cries out proudly beside me, shaking me from my thoughts of the past. “I think I’m going to love it here. I am going to prove myself.”

  I resist the urge to roll my eyes as the other guys clap him on the back with happiness, glad that he is sliding in to the criminal side of things so well. That’s never been for me, it’s always been something halfhearted if I have ever participated in anything, and I haven’t ever been involved with the more violent side of things. Butch normally wants all of the members of the club to be a part of everything so that we are all on equal territory and no one can go squealing to the cops, but for some reason he has always given me more of an easy ride. Probably because I came to him fresh out of high school when I needed to escape my home town and the grief that came from it, so he knew that I needed an easy ride. I’ve proven my loyalty to the club since then so Butch isn’t worried about me. I can just carry on floating on the surface of things. Hanging about on the edge of existence.

  Then again, I am twenty-nine years old now, on the edge of a new decade of my life, and I don’t know if I want to keep floating through life in a meaningless way with absolutely no firm roots anywhere. This has gotten me through my twenties, this is what I have needed to help me recover from losing Lee, but now… well, now I don’t know if there is something else out there for me. I don’t know if this is the life that I want. Then again, I don’t know if I can change things. I don’t know if there is anywhere else in the world that I can belong.

  I sigh loudly and suck back some more beer, hoping that it can take the edge off. I have been living under this big black cloud for far too long and there isn’t much that can get rid of it at all. The beer helps from time to time, but I don’t think that it’s going to today. Not when Lee is all that I can think about.

  I slide my eyes closed for just a moment and think about how different my life would be if Lee hadn’t gotten in to that car, if he was still alive. I know for sure that I wouldn’t be here. Instead, we would have had that amazing summer together, we would have gone to college and had the best time, we may have even ended up starting a business together which is something that we talked about a lot. I would have still had a lot to do with motorcycles, but it would have been a different way. Not me in the middle of some motorcycle gang which survives through crime… God, if Lee could see me now, he would kick my ass for who I have become. He would throttle me and tell me that his death shouldn’t have affected me so much. I should have carried on with my dreams anyway.

  Sorry, Lee. It sucks to think that I have let him down. I think that might be why I am still in pain. Sorry.

  “Hey, handsome…” Tara grabs my arm and causes my eyes to snap open. Butch’s sister spends far too much time here flirting. Usually with me, even though I have made it extremely clear that I would never got here with her. Not a chance. Butch hasn’t expressed that he doesn’t want anyone fooling around with Tara, but I’m pretty sure that it’s an unwritten rul
e. Especially since I couldn’t marry her. I don’t even think I can give enough of myself to her to even be in a relationship. I’m too lost for all of that. “How’s it going? You look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders. What can I do to cheer you up?”

  I snort out a mirthless laugh. “There isn’t anything that you can do, Tara, thank you.”

  But she doesn’t take this as a hint to leave me alone, she remains right where she is even though I do think that it’s pretty clear I’m not in the mood for any kind of conversation with anyone. I’m not going to be rude to her though, Butch isn’t the sort of guy that I ever want to be on the wrong side of.

  “What’s on your mind, Artie? Why do you look like the world is coming to an end? Do you need to get laid or something because I have to be honest with you, I haven’t ever seen you with a woman? Oh my God…” She squeezes my arm really hard. “Are you a virgin or something? Is that what’s wrong with you?”

  “Grow up, Tara,” I reply gruffly. “Don’t be stupid. Of course, I’m not a virgin.”

  “Well, you haven’t ever had a serious relationship then, because you do not seem like a boyfriend type…”

  God, once up on a time, everyone thought of me as the ‘boyfriend type’ because I was in a long-term relationship. Well, one that lasted eight months which is basically forever in high school terms. We were the ‘real deal’. Our friends always assumed that we would be the high school sweet hearts who got married and lived happily ever after. I wasn’t even worried about leaving her behind in high school while I went off to college because we were so strong… or we were until Lee died anyway. That changed everything. I went from being the perfect boyfriend to being a real asshole. As I lost my way in life, I sacrificed a lot of my personality, I became insular and angry at the world. I pushed her away, made her hate me, then left town to come here.

  I had Rose Smith once up on a time, she was the one for me and I still think that she is my ‘one’. I lost out on my chance of real love and that isn’t something that I can get back now over a decade later. When Lee died, I did as well which is why I live this empty life, because it’s all that I deserve. I should be the dead one.

  “I’m not the commitment type,” I tell Tara with a one shouldered shrug. “That’s all. I don’t think that’s strange. Not everyone is. I am happy being a lone wolf, thank you very much.”

  “Well, you sure as shit don’t look happy to me.” There is a real spite to Tara’s tone, and I don’t quite know where it has come from. “You look like you want to crash your bike or get caught on the wrong end of a shootout. I sometimes don’t know why my brother keeps you around when you’re so depressed and boring. It isn’t fun to be around. Butch might be blinkered when it comes to you, but I’m not falling for it.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about…?” I start before I realize that I just don’t care. “Never mind.”

  “Oh, just fuck you, Artie. Honestly. I don’t know why I even bother talking to you. It’s awful. You always manage to bring me down, even when I am in the best mood ever. It’s pointless. You are pointless.”

  With that, she storms off. I probably should try and work out what crawled up Tara’s butt, but I don’t really care. I’m just glad that she isn’t here giving me more shit. She can hate me all that she wants, but she isn’t going to change me. She isn’t going to make me happier. I don’t think that anyone can do that for me. Not even me.

  Chapter 2 – Rose

  “Are you there already?” Nikki, my coworker and best friend asks me, her eyes trying to dart behind me so that she can see my scenery rather than the close-up image of my face on her phone. “It looks warm.”

  “It is,” I admit with a half-smile. “And it’s much better than some of the places that I have been…”

  “So, why the hell do you look so nervous? You can’t be scared about the meeting, Rose. You must know that you got this already. You are the top sales woman on our team, that’s why you get sent on all of these exotic sales trips. You can charm the pants off of absolutely everyone and make them buy whatever you want.”

  I laugh and nod, appreciating my friend’s pep talk. I don’t know if I am the best sales woman that the company has, but I do make them a lot of money. I do well, and I know that I have this meeting all tied up…

  “It isn’t the meeting,” I confess, my eyes hitting the floor as I have to bring this up again. “It’s the place.”

  “Oh, of course.” Nikki’s eyes flicker with recognition as it hits her where I am. “I forgot, that’s where your high school boyfriend moved to, isn’t it? And you really don’t want to run in to him…”

  I can tell by the way that she says ‘high school boyfriend’ that she doesn’t really get it, but, how can she? No one can because the guys that most people date in high school are just that. Someone that they once went out with when they were a child, not old enough to really understand the mechanics of real love. But that isn’t what Artie was to me, he was my world, everything centered around him, I thought that he was the one for me. It wasn’t a big grand romance worthy of a movie or anything like that, it crept up on the pair of us over time, but it was perfect. I knew then that he was the one that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.

  I might have done as well had his friend not been killed. Sure, things were really shit afterwards and he was a massive asshole to me, but I understood. He didn’t have an out let for his grief, so that’s basically what I became for him. I would have stayed that as well for as long as he needed me… if he hadn’t run away alone, without me.

  God, I was stupid. I held on to him for far too long telling people that once he recovered from his grief, he was going to come back for me. I was naïve and childish, I thought that we still had a chance. I didn’t know that he had gone forever and wasn’t ever coming back for me. Not until it was time for me to go to college.

  The heart break that hit me then years later could have derailed me as well. Luckily, I have always been strong enough to get over that. I distracted myself with my studies and eventually did really well, leading me to the job that I have now and all of the success that comes with it… but that doesn’t mean I have fully recovered.

  “You probably won’t see him, Rose, I wouldn’t worry too much,” Nikki continues, doing her best to make me feel a little better about this. “He might not be there anymore, he may well have moved on, and even if not, there is very little chance of you seeing him. Even in a small town there are a lot of people. Think about all the other places that you have traveled and not seen people you know… I’m sure that it’s going to be fine.”

  I wish that I could share her confidence but I’m not sure. “I hope you are right, Nikki.”

  “Just remember that you are a strong and confident woman, Rose, that you are not the girl you once were in high school. If you do see him, it could be some kind of closure anyway, couldn’t it? Then you could move on and actually find someone that you aren’t comparing to him the entire time.”

  Woah. That is something that I do, but it isn’t something that I have ever shared with Nikki. I haven’t ever told her that Luke wasn’t as romantic as Artie or that Mike wasn’t as sweet which is why I couldn’t ever get passed the first couple of dates with them. But she has seen it anyway which is crazy.

  “You might be right,” I murmur. “I don’t know. I suppose we shall see.” I start walking towards the hotel, taking in my surroundings as I go. “You know, this place is nothing like where we grew up. It’s hard for me to imagine Artie here. It doesn’t seem like an exciting enough place for him.”

  “But the Artie that you knew was years ago. He could have changed. You have.”

  “Yeah, that’s true. I guess I don’t know him anymore.” I shake my head hard. “I probably shouldn’t even worry about him anyway because I need to get ready for the meeting. The boss said that the deal isn’t going to be a difficult one for me to tie up, but that these guys like to go out for dinner a
nd drinks afterwards…”

  “That might be fun,” Nikki squeals excitedly. “It isn’t often that you get taken out and spoiled by the companies that you are doing business with. I would take it as a good thing. It’s better than eating alone.”

  I don’t mention my fear that there is more chance of me bumping in to Artie if I’m not eating in my hotel room alone, but I’m sure that she feels it the same. I guess Nikki is right though, I am going to have to see if I can make the most of this crazy situation. It’s only for one night anyway. It is what it is…

  “Anyway, I better get going,” I say to my friend. “I need to check in to the hotel. I will talk to you later.”

  “You go and kick ass at the meeting and call me afterwards. Let me know how you get on, okay?”

  We say our goodbyes and I end the video call, ready to really embrace my night here, in the same place as Artie. I was so uncertain when I first heard about this job, I almost didn’t want to do it, but I know how the excuse of ‘oh, my high school boyfriend lives there and it’s awkward’ will sound to a boss, so I couldn’t go through with it. It just doesn’t sound like the sort of plausible thing an adult, twenty-six-year-old woman, would still be worried about and I don’t want my good reputation at work to be tarnished with this.

  Artie has ruined enough of my life already. I don’t want him to wreck anymore.

  “It will be fine,” I whisper to myself. “I can handle this. It’s going to be okay…”

  Then again, no amount of pep talk is really going to help me to feel better. All I can really do is focus on the meeting and hope that I survive this place with my head intact. Actually, I’m pretty shattered, so what I really want to do is get my ass inside that hotel room and I want to take a nap so that I’m nice and refreshes, on top form to get these sales done. The best thing for me to do would be to have Artie out of my mind completely. I need to compartmentalize and push him in that locked box where he normally stays.