Chapter 34 #2
“If there are any complications or he spikes a fever, call me immediately.”
Rett nodded. “I will.”
“I know. He’s in good hands,” Doc said. “I’ll be leaving, then.”
“You need to check over Haz,” I told him.
He was getting a little too comfortable here. Drinking my tea. Telling me what he was doing.
Doc turned to Haz. “Are you injured again?”
The little brat shook his head. “No, I’m fine.”
In no mood, I grabbed Haz’s head and turned it toward the doctor, showing him the stain of red where he’d been bleeding from his ear. “A gun was fired at close range. His eardrum burst.”
“I understand your concern.” Doc agreed, setting down his bag.
That was more like it.
“I’m really fine,” Haz insisted.
“Are you having trouble hearing out of that ear?” Doc questioned.
Hazard turned sheepish. “Maybe a little.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I demanded. Fuck, if I’d have known that, I would have brought him back here immediately. What if making him wait caused more damage? Jesus, what if he went deaf in one ear? He’d learn sign language and talk me to death with his mouth and his hands.
“We were busy,” Haz said as though it were no big deal.
Grabbing him by the shoulders, I leaned in. “Does it hurt? Are you in pain?”
“I’m fine, Kieran. I promise.”
I made Doc check him out anyway. In the end, there wasn’t much to do for a ruptured eardrum, as he was already on antibiotics for all his other injuries. He didn’t need drops, but he was supposed to keep the water from getting in it in the shower.
I swear, if any more of him was unable to get wet, I was going to have to give him a sponge bath, which was annoying and not at all a turn-on.
I saw Doc out and was about to decontaminate my entire kitchen when my phone rang. I recognized the number because Haz had called it a time or two.
“What?” I answered.
“What in the hell have you done to my fish store, you impertinent little shit? Everything is ruined! There are blood stains on the floor, for fuck’s sake!
You’re fired! FIRED! I’m going to sue! When I’m done with you, you won’t be able to get a job anywhere in Buffalo! No! The entire state of New York!”
I opened my mouth to reply, but he kept going.
“And I saw the receipt for the plecos! Forget it. You can’t have them. If you even step foot on my street, I will have you arrested for trespassing. In fact, I’m going to flush those suckers down the toilet.”
“Stop.” I spoke quietly, cold compared to the heat he was blasting.
There was silence and then, “Haz?”
“No.”
“Ah, put him on the line.”
“You have the nerve to call my phone, threaten my boyfriend, and then say you’re going to flush my babies down a toilet?”
“Y-your babies?” he stammered.
“I was going to offer you a million cash for that decrepit old excuse for a fish store, but after this display of complete idiocy, I will give you half. Frankly, you’re lucky I’m willing to go that high.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Five hundred thousand cash. Take it and leave town. Don’t ever breathe in Haz’s direction ever again,” I said flatly.
“What makes you think I’ll sell you my store?”
“Because if you don’t, I will kill you.”
Threatening people over the phone. Killing without a contract. You know, just more shit the me from a week ago would never do.
“A million, you say?”
“No. I said five hundred thousand. You threatened my children.”
He scoffed. “T-they’re fish.”
“You want to bet your life on it?” I deadpanned.
“How soon can I have the money?” Suddenly, he seemed a lot more interested in being reasonable.
“Day after tomorrow. I’ll meet you at the store with the contracts and the cash.”
“I’ll be here.”
“Get someone over there to board up the door.”
“That’s not my—”
“The answer is yes.”
I heard him swallow. “Yes. Okay.”
“Make sure you feed the plecos before you leave.”
“Okay.”
“If anything happens to them, I will personally flush you down a toilet. Piece by piece.” I ended the call and tossed my cell on the island. It knocked over an empty water bottle.
What a fucking shit show.
A light sniffle had me whirling.
“Haz,” I rasped. Shit, I hadn’t even heard him sneak up on me.
He sniffled again. I noticed the tears on his cheeks.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, stepping toward him.
With a sob, he flung himself at me, his light frame knocking into me so hard I rocked back on my heels.
“Baby doll, tell me.”
“You called them your babies,” he wailed.
That’s what this was about? Oh, for shit’s sake. “You heard me on the phone,” I commented.
His cheek rubbed against my chest when he nodded. “You called them your babies. And your children,” he repeated. “You got them a door. You love them,” he wailed.
“I love you,” I said simply. “And you love them.”
“No,” he said, jerking away from my chest to blink at me with those big, innocent wrecking balls for eyes. “You love them too.”
I pursed my lips.
His lip wobbled.
I sighed. “Fine. They’re not as ugly as I might have said.”
Hugging me, he swiped his tears on my shirt. “You’re a way better fish daddy than you are a plant daddy.”
This was what my life had become.
“I love you, Kieran. So much.”
And it was better than I ever expected it to be.
Haz pulled back. “You really bought the Neon Reef?”
“If you want to run the place, you’re going to have to quit all those other jobs,” I said.
“You’re going to let me run it?”
“It’s yours now. You can run it. Sell it. Pay someone else to manage it. Whatever you want.”
His eyes rounded. “You’re giving it to me?”
“I sure as hell don’t want it.”
He started crying again. My shirt was soaked. I might keep this one, add it to the new wardrobe.
“It’s too much. You can’t just give it to me. I don’t deserve it.”
I lifted him off his feet, and his legs wrapped around my waist. “You do deserve it. I’m going to make sure you have everything you could ever want.”
“I already do because I have you,” he whispered.
I swiped the wetness from his cheeks and leaned in, kissing him so deep it wasn’t just our tongues that tangled but our fates. I would never let him go. He changed my life. Me.
No version of myself in the past thirty years would ever have seen this coming. And even if I’d seen it with my own eyes, I still wouldn’t have believed it.
But seeing Haz wasn’t believing. It’s feeling.
It was living.
And for a hitman like me, life had always been elusive. Until a little hazard showed me how to defy death by loving him.