Sky Cowboy (20 page)

Out From Under (The Lovers Duet #1)

By Selene Chardou

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azon, Kobo and Apple

IT ALL STARTED with a boy.

Well, technically, he was a man, but I’d only recently just graduated from high school the Spring before and was on winter break from the University of Nevada in Reno so I still thought and referred to him as a boy.

I hung out with my brother, Trey, at the Demon’s Bastards Motorcycle Club compound, an activity that would have gotten me grounded for a month if my parents ever found out but I wasn’t too worried about that. My mom and dad were visiting my aunt and uncle in Connecticut and wouldn’t be back until after New Year’s, when Tristan and I would go out to dinner with them to celebrate my acceptance and departure to the prestigious Stanford University.

It would be weird starting my school year in the Winter quarter after attending UNR for the Autumn semester but despite my grades and extra-curricular activities, I’d still been placed on the waiting list for the prestigious Ivy League university.

We lived in the small town of Pine Bluff, Nevada. Population ten thousand. No, everyone didn’t know everyone else, but there was a grapevine and it always seemed like everyone always knew what everyone else was doing. We didn’t know each other personally but we knew of one another and in a town that size, my parents were very well known.

So were my two brothers and I.

Tristan was the jock of the family. He’d left on a full ride to UNLV due to his excellent football record and a 3.7 GPA. He’d also been accepted at the University of Southern California but had no desire to leave my parents in Pine Bluff without one son who could make it home in less than a day’s drive.

I was the brains. I played tennis at school and although I was good, I wouldn’t be challenging the Williams’ sisters or Maria Sharapova any time soon. I opted not to try out for a sports scholarship but used my sports activities and my volunteer work at the local convalescent home to my advantage. My 4.3 GPA (due to the advanced college courses I took at Lake Tahoe Community College) easily should have guaranteed me a spot but despite everything, I’d been placed on the wait list and had to attend University of Nevada in Reno for the first semester.

My parents were extremely happy about my Ivy acceptance because my mother had gone to Boston University, and my father had graduated from MIT. They were both Boston natives, though my mother grew up in Beacon Hill while my father was raised in Dorchester. All three of my brothers and I were born in Boston but the family had moved to Pine Bluff when I was only five—Tristan had been nine and Trey, my oldest brother, had been thirteen.

Trey was the reason I was able to visit the MC clubhouse without being picked on by every horny, attached and unattached biker in the club. I had extra protection with Clooney who I had been secretly seeing on the sly for eighteen months.

He was a prospect, only twenty-two years old and still baby faced with his soft Celtic looks, gray eyes and light brown hair with blond streaks throughout. He was built yet lean due to two tours of duty in Iraq with the Army. He’d had his leg shattered when one of his unit’s Humvees hit a land mine and although the VA hospital managed to repair most of the damage, it was the MC who gave him the money to see a specialist and actually get the steel rods placed in his right leg, followed by physical therapy.

Clooney still walked with a slight limp but at least he didn’t have to use his walking stick and he’d almost healed to the point where he could run.

He was the man I’d given my virginity to and although we both knew there was zero chance of me ever becoming his old lady, we liked
each other a lot. Too much because I was going to miss him with his girlish, creamy complexion covered in a handful of tats, and his lean body. I would even miss the scar that went from his left hip all the way down to his calf where the multiple operations had taken place. It was a thin, pink scar which had keloid and was slightly puffy against his otherwise perfect skin.

I lay on my stomach in his bed in the clubhouse and ran my hands over one of the military tattoos on his smooth, hairless chest.

“So, what happens now? When will I see you?”

Ugh, I wanted to avoid that question like the plague and wondered why I felt like our situations were reversed. Why did I feel like the man and him the chick? I knew I would let him down whatever I told him but it was no use.

“You probably won’t see much of me,” I began in a cautious tone. “Stanford is no joke and I will have to work my ass off to maintain a good grade point average. I probably won’t be back until Spring Break or maybe summer vacation—I’m not exactly sure yet.”

“Christ, that’s a long time. Why are you leaving now?” he inquired, as he stroked my soft, dark hair.

Clooney loved my hair for some reason, though there was nothing special about it except maybe the natural chestnut highlights running throughout.

“I want to settle into dorm life and school starts on the sixth of January,” I lied smoothly.

Due to my unique circumstances, Stanford had given me two extra weeks to settle in and prepare. I would still be required to do the assignments due for my classes but I wasn’t expecting to show up physically for my courses until the twentieth of January.

The reality was, I just wanted to get the hell out of Pine Bluff and be around intelligent people my own age. I loved my parents but they were suffocating and although we’d spent Christmas together, their departure was a relief to me and gave me room to breathe. I would be able to prepare for my new university and a couple days after they returned, I would leave and be on my way to starting a new life in California.

Thank God for small favors.

He sat up in bed and stared at me before a smile graced his face. “I’ve got good news. I heard from your brother and the club’s
gonna patch me in.”

“Oh, really? That’s great news for you. It’s what you have been working for all this time and now you’ll be a full member of the club. Congrats.” I hated the flatness in my tone but at the same time, it also gave me the out I desperately sought.

Now the opportunity presented itself before me, there was no way I wouldn’t take advantage.

I bit my lower lip and looked down as he took my hand into his and our fingers intertwined. It was a beautiful sight, his creamy skin against my olive-toned skin. It provided me with the perfect excuse not to speak at all and for us to just enjoy a comfortable moment of silence.