Chapter Fourteen
I’ve never wanted to break a fucker’s face so much, and I’ve never met the cunt, but the second that changes, he’s losing any features he has in that ugly ass face of his. Not even his fucking mother will recognise him when I’m done.
“Babe,” I murmured, rubbing V’s back as I dragged her down with me, and lay on my bed holding her.
If you’d told me I’d have her in my bed, I’d have laughed it off, but this was never what I’d have chosen.
How the fuck could that asshole have told her she was unattractive, or chosen someone else?
How the fuck didn’t he see how amazing she is?
“He didn’t deserve you, V. He was a dumb fuck.”
She was shaking her head, crying too much to speak, but was she trying to stick up for the cunt?
Fuck me. All that strength and bravado was hiding this.
This fucking damage. This destruction that one asshole caused, by thinking he was better than her.
By trying to diminish her, so he could feel better about his cunty actions.
I’d find him and break every bone in his body so nobody would ever want him again.
“V, listen for once, instead of running that mouth of yours,” I earned a snort from her, despite the tears, so I continued, “Him being a cheating fucker doesn’t mean you did something wrong.
It doesn’t mean you’re not amazing, and strong, and beautiful.
It means he’s a fucking asshole, who didn’t understand what he had, and threw everything away for the fucking Wish version of you. ”
She snorted again, a giggle escaping, before another sob followed. Fuck me. How do you even begin to fix what another person broke, when you don’t even have the right to try?
“Wanna go punch a prospect?”
She gasped, her head shooting up to finally look at me, as she dragged a palm over her teary cheeks.
“What… the fuck!”
“There she is. I missed you. There was some weepy bitch in your place, and you were nowhere to be seen.” Fuck me, I’m cruising for a bruising here, but let this be what she needs to hear.
“How…” she started to laugh, and slapped my chest as she lay back down with me.
“See? This is the woman I was getting to know. Beating on me, tearing me new asses, all that shit.”
“Ew, don’t say asses and shit in the same sentence, Rocket.”
“See what I mean? It’s all don’t do this, don’t do that.
Don’t say moist…” I trailed off as she gagged and shuddered, but her tears were fading, and that’s all I wanted.
It was useful knowing these key words to trigger reactions from her that weren’t sadness or pain.
If I had to fucking misuse them, I had no problem with that.
“So, can we watch TV like two normal people who don’t want to scare a puppy with all that snotting or whatever?”
V laughed again, dragging Nixie up against her neck, giggling again as her little tongue swiped over her teary cheek.
“And that’s just fucking favouritism, that is. If I’d licked your tears away, you’d have got all pissy with me,” I murmured as I unmuted the Friends episode currently playing, just in time for a mass of laughter after a typical Chandler joke.
We woke up wrapped around each other the next morning, with Nixie laying over my neck, chewing on V’s hair.
Fuck, if she found me touching her like this, she’d kick my ass, never mind her hair being chewed to bits by my fucking pup.
“Shhh, let’s just move, little one, don’t wake her.”
“Already awake, dipshit. How much did we drink last night? I feel like crap.”
I moved faster, since she was already awake, lifting Nixie away and cursing as my elbow landed in a wet patch. She’d peed on the fucking bed again.
“Could you be quieter, dammit?”
I grinned to myself as I set Nixie down on the floor on one of her damn pee pad things, and checked the rest of the bed. One little tiny pee patch that my elbow managed to find on the whole bed. Hell, at least she didn’t piss on me, right?
“You want some painkillers? I’ve got uh… I’m…” I started rooting through my only drawer, digging out a pack of paracetamol, but I only had beer to wash it down with, didn’t I?
“Lemme go get you some water, babe. I’m not really set up here with shit like water or whatever.”
She snatched the pills and sat up, finding her half empty, flat beer from last night, washing two down and groaning.
“Never happened, you never saw it,” she murmured, laying back down on the bed, while I cursed myself for not having a better setup here. I should have at least stocked some fucking water and stuff. I just didn’t take the greatest care of myself in that way, but I wished I had now, for her.
She was snoring softly again already, so I tucked the dry bedding around her, and picked Nixie up, heading outside for her morning poo.
“Hey, brother. Heard you’ve got company in there,” Micro said as he stepped out of the building, having crashed here overnight too apparently, “hello little girl,” he cooed to Nixie, crouching down to see her, but withdrawing his hand pretty fucking fast as she snarled and snapped at him.
“Good girl,” I murmured softly, smirking at him.
“She’s a bit of a savage,” Micro said as he stood up, checking his finger for bitemarks.
“Maybe you shouldn’t touch a girl without permission. Seems to me that’s something you should already know.” Fuck me, why was I picking a fight with him? His smile had dropped off his face at my words, and he sighed.
“Yeah. Okay. Uh, there’s coffee and stuff in my office if you want some for your guest.” He shoved his key in my hand and disappeared back into the dorm block, while I kicked myself. Why was I being such a cunt to him? He was trying, really trying, so why the hell was I being a douche to him?
I wanted to follow him and apologise, because he didn’t fucking ask for that, but apparently I woke up on the cunty side of the bed.
The thought of that word made me smirk though.
V really hated it. I guess a lot of people struggled with it, because it was probably the harshest insult you could throw at a person, but in a club, in groups of men, it didn’t always have the same bite to it.
Sometimes it was just something else you called your friends, like it wasn’t an insult at all.
Micro reappeared, helping his massively pregnant old lady outside, where she first eyed the pup and wiggled her fingers at her, then glared fiercely at me, while Micro avoided my eye altogether. Fuck me.
“I’m sorry,” I called out, but apart from a quick nod from Micro, there was no response.
Hell. I followed them, tugging Nixie along with me.
“Seriously, I was a cunt. I didn’t… I really didn’t mean to be so-”
“We’re kinda in a hurry here,” Micro snapped, gesturing to Sophie, who I now realised was clutching her stomach and gasping. Fuck me. Baby time?
“You need a ride somewhere?”
“Taking the van,” he hissed, trying to lead Sophie toward the hugely fucking uncomfortable van that’d be the worst way for her to head to the hospital. No fucking way could we let that happen.
“Gimme a mo. Don’t leave.”
V
My head was still banging, but when Rocket burst back into his room like a hurricane, I was instantly awake again, and glaring in his direction.
“Seriously?” I held back any further crankiness, because he looked a little frantic.
“Can I borrow your cage?”
“My what?”
He groaned. “Car. Your car. Sophie’s in labour. She needs to get out asap.”
Fuck me. I had no idea who Sophie was, but time was clearly of the essence, so I had to make myself move. I shook my head at him, grabbing my jacket as I struggled up from the bed, grimacing as my sleeve pressed against my skin, and felt damp. What the fuck.
“Did you drool on me or something?”
Rocket snorted. “Nixie might have peed on you. Sorry, babe. She peed on the bed too.”
Charming, but hardly the only time a puppy lost control, right?
“Where is she?” I asked, as I rushed to the door, and started outside. Rocket was running alongside me, Nixie in his arms.
“Right fucking there, are you blind?”
He was right, there was a heavily pregnant woman standing by the other building, and a frantic man beside her.
“Fuck’s sake, we can’t just fuck around.
This is it. The fucking big moment,” he was hissing at everyone around him, while his wife rolled her eyes, breathing carefully as she clutched her huge stomach.
I felt a pang of envy, because I’d wanted that, and would maybe never experience it.
Would this be the closest I’d get to the start of a new life?
“Let’s go,” I said, pointing to my car, as the prospect named Joey hauled the gates open, and everyone fussed over the woman, Sophie, I think Rocket said.
It was a fifteen minute drive to the hospital, but you know what?
In an emergency, at this crazy hour of the morning, it’s possible in eight and a half minutes, which coincidentally was longer than the gaps between her contractions at that point.
The president guy I’d met last night was flapping, and she was trying to calm him down.
Surely it should be the other way around.
“Like a fucking comedy sketch innit,” Rocket said, grinning at me as cursing grew louder behind us.
“Need the prospects to clean the room we were in,” the President said, and Rocket shrugged at him.
“What’s your point?”
“Her fucking water broke all over the bed is my fucking point!” Huh.
By the time we delivered them to the hospital, and they disappeared down the hall, Rocket was messaging on his phone, and seemed to be getting a ton of responses.
Someone was chatty, but while that was going on, I was slumped in a chair, wondering if I could just go home now.
“Told them in the group chat, as per my fucking President’s demands, and the poor prospects are on the cleanup duty. Thank god I’m not one, because fuck that.”
He dropped heavily in the seat beside me, and that’s when a nurse caught sight of him.
“You can’t have a dog in here!”
He froze, trying to tuck Nixie further into his cut. “She’s uh… one of those blind dogs.”
I started giggling, and he glared at me. “Like for helping me see. I’m blind… not the dog. She’s my…”
The nurse was smiling now, shaking her head at him.
“You’re not buying this, huh?” She pointed to the exit, and glared again, until he stood up.
“I need to uh… I guess, wait in your cage, no fuck that, I’ll walk about outside.” I got up and went with him, because I needed the fresh air, and I wanted to know what his beef was with my damn car.
We strolled around, letting Nixie sniff things, and smiling proudly when she climbed over small obstacles in her path that any other dog would manage easily, but her little legs struggled with like they were mountains.
It was like parenting, but she wasn’t mine, and neither was he.
I think I was starting to wish he was though.
If only I could be sure it wasn’t just rebound needs, and that it was actually real.
I didn’t want to lead him on, or hurt him, because he’d clearly been there already, and was still hurting.
Motorcycles started filling the car park, one or more at a time, and Harley spotted us instantly, leading Caroline in our direction. My cousin was flourishing with him by her side, and pride once again welled inside me as I watched her holding on tight to his hand as he dragged her toward us.
“Any news?”
Rocket barely looked at him, clearly still holding grudges from the day before, or at least before things had taken such a dark turn. I cast my eyes around, wondering if Has-Been would show, or any of the other guys I’d seen last night.
“Come on, man. I didn’t mean to be a dick to you.”
Rocket glared at Harley. “This isn’t the time or place. Your President’s in there with his old lady. We don’t have any news, because apparently fucking dogs aren’t allowed in there.”
Caroline giggled, crouching down to hug Nixie, and lift her up. “I could stay out here with her. I don’t… it’ll be too crowded in there anyway.”
I gently tugged the lead out of Rocket’s hand and patted it. “We’ve got this, dude. Go be with your biker brothers again.”
“But babe…”
I shook my head, but the damage was done, Caroline’s eyes lighting on mine with excitement.
I groaned. Great, now she would be thinking we were doing it.
Pity we hadn’t, to be honest. I felt like there was a missed opportunity last night, but for some reason a good meal and a few beers knocked us both right out.
“Come and check in now and then, but we’ll wait in my car if it gets too cold.”
“That fucking cage,” he murmured, unexpectedly reaching out to cup the back of my head, as his lips pressed against my forehead.
Wow. Why was that so sweet and sexy? Ugh.
He was destroying all my boundaries, crashing over them with kindness and sweetness, and just the right amount of snarkiness. Damn him.
“Okay, VP, lead the way.”
I watched him leave, waving a few other bikers in that direction as they parked up and looked around them.
“Babe, huh?”
I groaned again. “It’s not a thing. He just… he calls me it like a… Oh shut up.”