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“Hey, wait up.”
I turn to see Aviana jogging toward me on the sidewalk, backpack flying behind her, bright smile on her face. She’s always smiling, there isn’t a time I don’t see her making a joke and then laughing hysterically at it. She’s the most bubbly, happy person I’ve ever met and, considering the life she’s been given, that’s something.
She’s younger than me, god knows by how much, but that doesn’t mean I don’t notice how utterly fucking beautiful she is. Thick dark hair that frames the most incredible eyes I’ve ever seen. She’s got the skin of a fucking doll and the body of a goddess. She’s going to go places with looks like that.
Today she’s wearing a pair of jeans that fit a little too well, a tank that makes her tits bounce in ways not even I can ignore, and her hair is flowing around her, wild and untamed, much like her, really.
She’s fucking spectacular.
If I didn’t already have a woman, I’d be looking in her direction, no doubt about it.
“Aviana, what’s goin’ on?” I ask her, bringing a cigarette to my mouth and lighting it. I inhale deeply as she watches me with some sort of weird fascination.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” she says, falling into step beside me, puffing from her run toward me.
“I do what I gotta do to keep sane around here. Were you at school?”
She snorts. “How young do you think I am? No, I’m done with school. I was working.”
“Didn’t know you had a job.”
She laughs. “There are probably a lot of things you don’t know about me, Cohen. Where are you off to?”
“Lunch, then back to the club. King has got us on some fuckin’ mission. I don’t know, don’t really fuckin’ care right now, to be honest.”
“I thought you like being part of the club?”
She raises a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun as she stares at me. I take another long inhale of the cigarette smoke, slowly pushing it out once I’ve let it sit in my lungs for just a moment.
“I fuckin’ love the club, I’m just sick of doin’ the little crappy jobs. Be good to have somethin’ real good to be chasin’ after.”
Aviana rolls her eyes and grins at me. “Always chasing the danger. I don’t know why you’d want to risk your life like that.”
I shrug. “Why not, Avi?”
She laughs. “Why not, indeed. Can I come to lunch with you? I’m freaking starving.”
I nod. “Yeah, come on then.”
We walk to a nearby café. Aviana throws her backpack down and sits down with a huff, swiping the hair from her face. She looks to me and gives me the biggest damned smile I’ve ever seen come from something so small. She’s fucking beautiful. I can’t help but smile back, you’d have to be cold and fucking empty not to smile back at something that looks like her.
“What’re you havin’?” I ask her, glancing down at the menu.
“Burger, fries, and a vanilla shake.”
She doesn’t glance at the page in front of her, she already knows what she wants. I imagine her life is like that, knowing what she wants all the time. She’s strong willed and determined. I can’t see there being a time where she hesitates.
“You goin’ to eat all that?”
She winks at me. “You’re shouting, so yeah.”
I chuckle and stand, going inside to make an order. When I return, Aviana is staring out at the cars, a look of peace on her pretty face. She turns to me when I sit down and leans forward with her hand under her chin. “Briella told me you’ve got a woman now; how’s that going?”
I snort. “You know what it’s like, nothin’ serious.”
She nods, mulling that over. “Well, I hope you’re being nice to her. Women don’t get treated right anymore.”
I laugh, leaning back in my chair. “Do tell me more.”
She giggles. “You know what I mean, there are so many players and broken men out there now, nobody has their mind right. They’re all treating each other badly and pushing their broken pieces around for everyone else to stand on. Not me, I’d rather glue my shit back together then toss it on someone.”
That’s what I like about this girl, fucking magic.
“Well, you find a man that doesn’t treat you right and we’ll make sure he doesn’t sit down for a week ...”
She laughs. “You bikers, so tough.”
“Gotta do what we gotta do.”
We sit and chat for an hour, so fucking easily it’s like I’ve known her for years. I have known her for a little while, being that she’s friends with Briella and spends a lot of time around all of us, but I’ve never spent a great deal of time actually getting to know her. She’s a good chick, and she’s going to make someone really fucking happy one day. I don’t doubt that for a second.
One thing is for certain, I just made a new fucking friend.
And I like her a lot.
~*~*~*~
“HOW’S BRIELLA’S WRIST?” I ask Aviana as we walk toward a bar after her shift has finished.
Briella fell out of the tree at her eighteenth birthday a week ago, and since then has been moping around miserable because she can’t do anything. After that night, Avi and I started to talk daily on the phone and through text. For whatever fucking reason, we have a connection I can’t understand.
I’m with Samantha, but having Aviana in my life seems to bring me the kind of internal freedom I didn’t think was possible while I was living on this earth.
She does something to my soul—she makes it feel that much better.
“She’s still sulking.” Avi laughs, walking up to a stool and sitting down. “She can’t do anything, which sucks. How is Samantha?”
I grunt and sit on the stool beside her. “Fuckin’ hard work. Gotta wonder why I do it?”
“Why do you do it?” she asks, glancing at me.
A strand of her hair falls across her forehead and down over her mouth and she blows it off with a quick puff of breath. Fuck, she makes even that look good.
“I don’t fuckin’ know, to get laid?”
She laughs. “A man with a face like yours could get laid anytime he wants.”
“Not without puttin’ in the hard yards.”
Rolling her eyes, Avi puts up two fingers to the bartender who immediately gets her two beers.
“You come here a lot?”
She nods. “Every day after work. I like it here; it helps me unwind.”
Honest.
Aviana is the most honest person I know. Nothing holds her back, she just tells it like it is.
“Where is Samantha today?” she asks, taking a sip of the beer when it’s placed down.
“She’s workin’, no doubt finishin’ soon and demandin’ I come on over there,” I mutter, letting the cool amber ale roll down my throat.
“You ought to dump her, Cohen. That’s not nice. Remember what I said about men being nice ...”
I chuckle. “How could I fuckin’ forget?”
She looks to me. “If you don’t like her, you shouldn’t be with her.”
“Never said I didn’t like her ...”
“Do you?”
“What?”
“Like her?”
“Yeah, she’s okay.”
Aviana laughs. “If anyone ever refers to me as just ‘okay’ I’m going to flip a lid, seriously. You should be with a girl that you think of as more than just ‘okay.’”
“Show her to me, and I’ll take it.”
She smiles and then bumps my shoulder with hers. “Men, seriously.”
I grin and take another sip of beer.
“Does Briella know we’re hangin’ out?” I ask.
Aviana frowns. “No, but I don’t see why it would be a problem. She loves all you guys.”
“Nah, it wouldn’t be a problem. It’s nice, not sharin’ though.”
She laughs. “You’re right about that. I like not having to explain to anyone where I’m going and who I’m seeing. You’re like my secret friend. It’s a nice feeling.”
I snort. “Fuckin’ secret friend.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t like it.”
I do.
I do fucking like it.
More than she’ll ever know.
“You got a man?” I ask her, glancing at her reaction.
Part of me, deep fucking down, wants her to tell me no, she doesn’t have a man and has no intentions of getting one. But she’s eighteen and she’s fucking gorgeous, there must be men throwing themselves at her.
I hate that fucking idea, but I’m not entirely sure why.
I like our friendship; I like it just the way it is.
So why the fuck do I feel a certain way at the thought of her with another man?
“I’m sort of talking to someone, but it’s not serious or anything. We’re just chatting. He wants to take me out this weekend. I suppose I’ll go, see where it leads.”
“He a good man?” I ask her.
She laughs and gives me a sideways glance. “He’s not bad, Cohen. Not bad at all.”
“You make sure you call me if he shows up and he isn’t a fuckin’ good man, yeah?”
“What are you going to do, bash him?”
I lean in closer to her, and she sucks in a breath. “I’ll fuckin’ take his head off if he hurts you.”
She blinks, slowly, and then smiles. “Well, that’s a little extreme, don’t you think?”
I lean back. “Nope.”
She shakes her head but keeps the smile. “I like you, Cohen, I’m glad we’re friends.”
Me too.
Fuck, me too.