What Is Love (The Bridge Series Book 1)

by Ashley N. Rostek

The wrong side of the bridge. That turn of phrase was used a lot here in our city of Summerhaven. We didn’t have train tracks; we had the Kendry Creek Bridge that separated the north side of Summerhaven from the south.

The south side wasn’t necessarily run-down or dangerous. Sure, there was more documented crime and even a motorcycle club, Haven’s Rebels, that claimed that side of the city as their territory, but it was mostly normal middle-class people in cookie-cutter neighborhoods just trying to survive in this hellish world.

As I turned my hands in the water, dark splotches around my left wrist caught my attention. My stomach dropped as anxiety made my heart pump a little faster. Before I had started drawing, I’d unthinkingly pushed up my sleeves a little to avoid getting them dirty.

Monroe Walker, who was from the other side of the bridge and the son of a Haven’s Rebels MC member.

“The worst thing about having your life planned for you is that you can see the future. I’m going to go to a college I don’t want to go to, while shackled to a guy I don’t want to be with. It’ll be expected of me to be the perfect, loyal fiancée. And by perfect, I’ll have to be supportive of his hopes and dreams all while faking an orgasm every time I have to have sex with him. He’ll be loyal to me. That is, for at least halfway through freshman year of college. His excuses will be that he got too drunk or he was tired of getting teased by his frat buddies for being tied down or some other stupid reason I won’t care to know. I’ll turn a blind eye because what else am I supposed to do? We’ll get married after graduation and I’ll go work for my grandfather’s company. I’ll eventually get promoted quickly because I’d rather be at work than home. My husband will continue to sleep with other women but won’t bother hiding it anymore and his excuse will be that I work too much. Again, I won’t care. Better them than me. Also because I’ll be too busy sitting on my assistant’s face, not having to fake anything, between meetings in my corner office.”

“What the hell did you put in that joint, Roe?”

“I’m a little scared to ask her to give it back to us,” Blondie said. “Or are all girls at Kendry this candid?”

“What if I don’t want to be powerful?”

“What if I want to be an assistant?” he said.

“I’m not sure you’re qualified to be my assistant.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Oh, I’m qualified.”

Maybe people were confusing orgasms for love. An orgasm could be pretty magical.

“Something can be as terrifying as it is beautiful.”

He glanced away. “Yeah. That’s very true.”

“For me, love is like a penis. I know what it is, I know what they look like, but I don’t know what it’s like to have one. I’m afraid my lack of understanding will show.”

The MC president looked young. He had to be in his late thirties to early forties, and was tall with a muscular build. His hair was bright blond and long enough to be pulled back into a man bun. His beard was a few inches long but looked well kept. His arms and the tops of his hands were fully covered in tattoos. He wore leather and silver chain bracelets on one wrist, a black wedding band on his left hand, and chunky silver rings on his right.

His hands dropped from his neck and fisted at his sides. The annoyance was gone, and anger took its place again. The way he looked at me right then told me he’d hit me one day. Seeing that pain in my future tore into what little spirit I had left. It was a surprise I still had one at all after growing up with a mother like mine.

“Because I’m not worth your help, Roe.”

“And I’m embarrassed, and I don’t have it in me to pretend and lie to you right now.”

“Have you lied to me...

“I lie to everyone. Like how you sell weed to these shitheads, it’s how I survive. I’m a lying,...

“Have a thing against pretty boys?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be able to look in the mirror,”

“I’ll let you eat my burger, too, if you continue moaning.”

“Why did you invite me?” That question had been on my mind since I’d decided to follow him here.

“I forget about what I should and shouldn’t do when I’m around you.”

When your mother and I were dating, she was having an affair with another man, named Abraham Kane.

“Sometimes it gives me blue ovaries if I read a whole book only for them to kiss on the last freaking page. No offense, if that’s what you enjoy.”

“Are you offering your hiding spot to me?”

“If the library doesn’t work out anymore, you can come here.”

“Then you won’t get to be alone,” I...

“I don’t think I’ll mind being alo...

“Maybe next time I’ll get you to smile at me.”

“I’ll enjoy watching you try.”

“Is it really weak to live in fear every day because someone who is supposed to love you would rather hurt you?”

“I’ll have my interview now.”

“I know my work is good. Compliments just make me uncomfortable.”

“Why?”

“Because when you go your whole life being told how worthless you are, it’s hard to believe when someone else says the opposite,” Reid said as he stared at the armchair pushed up against my bedroom door.