12. Morgan
MORGAN
I look around my torn up bathroom and place my hands on my hips. What the fuck? I swore I put my pills in the medicine cabinet, but they’re gone. I can’t find them in my purse, my bedroom, or here. My apartment looks like a tornado ran through it.
My phone vibrates on the counter, the rattling giving me a reprieve from the confines of my mind, the thought that I might be slowly losing it.
“Hey,” I answer.
“You busy?” Quinn asks. There’s a slight echo and her voice is a little distorted so she must be in her car.
“No, trying to find the birth control pills you sent over. What are the chances I can get pregnant if I miss a day?”
“It depends. Did someone fuck you raw and come inside you the past few days?”
Try the past several weeks. My tongue drags along my lips. “…yes.”
She gasps. “Bitch, who? The fuck? The biker. Oh my god, you fucked the biker again. There’s no one else you’d fold so fast for.”
“His name is Creed. And I thought we were covered, so I let him…you know.”
I can hear her sigh. “Morgan—okay, this is my bad. I assumed you knew when I got you in with my colleague, but he must not have explained it. Babes, you have to use protection for at least the first week you’re on it. It doesn’t start on the first day.”
I groan. “No, I knew this. Like deep enough in the few crevices of my smooth brain lately, I knew this. I just—god, he makes me reckless and I kind of like it.”
Quinn laughs. “Yeah, I bet he does. Let me double-check if it’s okay to take Plan B and get back to you. I don’t remember off the top of my head.”
“Thanks. Sorry to make it all about me. What are you doing?” I ask, moving to change out my sheets. I hate getting rid of the smell of him, but we made way too much of a mess for me to comfortably sleep in them again.
“Guess who is officially graduating and sitting for the AANP next week?” Quinn gushes happily.
I gasp. “Bitch, are you saying you’re officially a doctor?!”
“A nurse practitioner, and I have to pass the exam first. But I’m so close!”
I grin. Quinn and I met freshman year of college.
Two different programs and yet somehow every Tuesday and Thursday we ended up at the same coffee shop.
We were inseparable after that, especially after we moved into a single-bedroom apartment that I could afford on my salary since nursing kept her so busy that she could barely work.
I think those years fortified our friendship to the point that nothing can break us.
“I knew you could do it! How do you feel about it?”
She heaves a big breath. “Like it’s been a long time coming, and also like I really haven’t started yet.”
“That’s how it felt waiting until I was twenty-one to apply to the police academy.
The years felt so long, then it was here, and bam…
holy shit, I feel like a newbie,” I tell her with a small laugh.
Maybe it felt longer because I graduated early with my degree, having done most general education credits during high school.
She snorts. “Then you complained about how easy it seemed.”
I grimace. “I was a little arrogant, wasn’t I?”
“We were young and the universe hadn’t knocked us down just yet,” she offers.
I smile, abandoning the task of trying to find my birth control. I’ll worry about it later. “I miss you. I miss living with you. Even with Creed coming by most nights, there’s a different type of silence living alone.”
Quinn gasps. “Oh my god! I thought I was being such a baby about it. I’m glad I’m not the only one. I miss you too. I’m going to come visit as soon as the semester is over!”
“Yes! Please! Let me know what days so I can make sure I’m off.
” I glance out my window at the roar of a motorcycle in the distance.
My heart skips a beat wondering if it’s Creed.
He kind of just shows up when I’m home, and I have no idea where he parks or walks in from, but he seems to always know when I’m not at work.
“So besides getting it on with the hot biker, how’s being closer to your dad?” she asks.
I move to my bed, sitting down and wrapping my arm around my leg.
“It’s…I guess it’s everything I should have expected, instead of hoping for more.
We’ve only had one dinner together, and that was before I started working.
He ignores me at the station and usually has one of the other deputies give me my duties.
Every time I’ve tried to get him over for dinner or go to his, he blows me off.
I don’t know, Quinn. Some days I feel like I uprooted my life for nothing. ”
“Oh, Morgan honey. It wasn’t for nothing, even if your father doesn’t pull his head out of his ass. The experience is never a waste. I’m sure the environment is different from here in Arizona.”
I snort. “Oh yeah. The other day some drunk kept trying to catch one of the seagulls on the beach, claiming it had a message from the president for him.”
“Is that illegal?”
“It is when he swings a knife at anyone who tries to stop him.”
My best friend laughs. “I can’t imagine the characters you get at the beach.”
“Warner told me that with summer coming up soon it will get worse. There hasn’t been a year they haven’t lost someone to the cliffs or the surfing point.”
We both fall silent for a few seconds.
“That’s sad to think about.”
I nod, even if she can’t see it. “Water is dangerous. I don’t think a lot of people know how much exactly. Even with my swimming lessons from school, I’m not sure I’d be able to handle the waves when they get rough. I’ll leave it to the Coast Guard.”
“Ooh, Coast Guard. So fancy, working with the big guns.”
I smile at her teasing, knowing there was a time I heavily debated going into the federal job. “What about you? You ask Doctor McHotty on a date?”
“No, I overheard one of the nurses say he makes rounds. As in, takes a woman out, fucks her, and disappears,” she says. “I can’t blame the man, I do the same. But you know I’ve been thinking about wanting something a bit more serious.”
“Maybe you have to look somewhere you normally wouldn’t?”
“Like a biker bar?” she quips.
I shake my head with a laugh. “Maybe? I don’t know. I haven’t met anyone else in the club to know for sure.”
“Hmm. Maybe I can come back and we ask for Creed to take us?” It’s not a bad idea, but how can I ask him when I’m hiding him from the rest of the town? Quinn and her logic are going to get me in trouble.
“God, I miss you,” I tell her.
She sighs. “Miss you. I’ll come and visit soon, okay?”
* * *
“You wanna ride with me or you wanna take your cage?”
I bite down on my lip. My heart and mind are at war because logically we should take my car, but god, I want to be on the back of his bike.
Creed smiles, clearly seeing what I want, and grabs a helmet from one of his saddle bags.
I take it from him and climb over behind him. My hands slide over his waist and then wrap around him. He turns slightly to face me. “Just know I bought that specifically for you.”
My heart flutters and I squeeze him tighter. He could be lying, but something about Creed makes me feel like he’s not much for lying. “You don’t need one?”
He shrugs. “I should.”
I scowl playfully at him. “But you won’t?”
“Probably not,” he says with a wink. “Still wanna ride?”
Rolling my eyes, I hold him tighter.
“You sure? I can’t be held responsible for what happens when you get on the back of this bike,” he teases further.
I stare at him suspiciously. “What do you mean? I can’t break the law, Creed.”
He snickers. “I just mean if you fall in love with me because—”
“Oh my god. Shut up,” I tell him, unable to hold back my snicker. My heart does a little pitter patter, and I move closer to him. “I’ve always wanted to ride on the back of one of these. I used to see the Sedona Sinners in town, and it just seemed so fun.”
Creed raises his eyebrows. “Never asked? I can think of a few men who would have taken you in a heartbeat.”
I worry my lip for a second, studying his face. “You know they’re outlaws, right? One percenter? I could never…with my job.”
Creed doesn’t respond to that, his hands tightening on the bars of his bike. He must feel my own squeezing hold. He tilts his head back, his stare unrelenting as I blow out a breath.
“Ask, Morgan.”
“Warner says you guys have gone legit as of a few years ago. Is that true?”
His hands slide off the bars, and he crosses his arms over his chest. “A little late to have second thoughts.”
A nervous thread pulls my heart, squeezing it gently as I shake my head. “No, I think this is the right time.”
His adam’s apple rises and falls as he swallows. “Yeah?”
I shrug, tearing my gaze away first to look over the empty street. “Yeah,” I reply. He’s not dumb; I know he’s not. I can see the intelligence in his eyes, and he understands I’m hinting at the depth of my feelings that are starting to bloom for him.
“All our businesses are above board.”
I look back at him. “You probably shouldn’t tell me any more.”
His lips quirk. “Probably not. Now can I take my woman for a ride?”
The possessiveness of his words fills me with joy, and I nod excitedly.
He makes sure I’m holding him properly and then we take off.
I press my face against his back, feeling the motor under my legs as we fly.
My smile is hard to contain. It’s like soothing an ache you didn’t even know existed until the pain is gone.