Chaos Chapter 7 #3
“Fuck, no! No way are you and my cousin hooking up. Go to the clubhouse if you want sex. Leave Bianca out of it. I can’t believe she’d agree. She must be desperate after the divorce. Or Byron broke something in her,” he snapped.
His disparaging remark pissed me off.
“Don’t you dare say she’s desperate or broken. That isn’t true,” I growled.
“It must be if she agreed to be a booty call. Bianca has never been one to do that,” he argued.
“She’s not going to be a booty call. I never said that she was,” I reminded him.
“Booty call, hookup, fuck buddy, whatever you want to call it, the facts don’t change. I’m not allowing it. You stay the hell away from her. I’ll go talk sense into her. She’s clearly not thinking straight. She has never agreed to be some guy’s casual fuck,” he snarled.
By then, I was standing. “Shut the hell up and listen! She’s not a fuck toy, fuck buddy, hookup, friends with benefits, or booty call. We plan to date each other. We want to see where it goes. To see if we can have something serious and permanent.”
That made him freeze in place. Astonishment entered his expression. He stared at me, blinking. I let the silence sit there for a good minute or more. He was the one who broke it.
“You have to be kidding. Is this a joke?”
“It’s no joke,” I told him.
“Chaos, as far as I know, you’ve never had a relationship with a woman that was anything but sex. You haven’t dated. Have you?”
“I haven’t dated or been in an exclusive relationship since before I became a Pagan,” I confessed.
“So why now? Are you feeling your age, having a middle-age crisis?” Mishap asked.
“I’m not middle-aged, asshole. I’m only thirty-six to your thirty-two—the reason why now is easy to answer.
I’ve seen for a while what having the right woman does for our friends and the guys in our chapter who’ve settled down.
I’ve never been opposed to having one. I just hadn’t found anyone who struck me in other ways, or made me want to know them in more than the biblical sense.
Not until I met Bianca. I won’t lie and say I’m not sexually attracted, because I am, but that’s not all I am.
And she agrees that it’s the same for her. ”
Mishap’s fists unclenched, and his jaw muscle no longer twitched. The tension in his frame slightly eased. Suddenly, he dropped back onto the chair. I retook my seat. He rubbed his forehead, then sighed.
“Chaos, I don’t know what to think. I’ve never heard you say a word about wanting a steady girlfriend or old lady. But assuming you do, I don’t know if Bianca is ready to have a relationship with anyone.”
“Why not?”
“She just got a divorce six, no, seven months ago. It wasn’t easy on her.
She moved here to be closer to me and to get away from her ex.
She didn’t want to run into him. He did her dirty, and he hurt her.
Left her with scars that might not ever fade.
I think she should wait before entering into anything serious with someone. ”
His words made me agitated. What if he was right? What if she wasn’t over her ex? I hadn’t asked her that. I fought down the need to leave and go to her place. To ask her if she still had feelings for the bastard who hurt her.
“Don’t you think that’s up to her to decide?
She’s an adult. She’s intelligent. I think it should be what she and I agree is acceptable.
I came to you so you would know that we want this.
I asked so there would be no misunderstanding that I was sneaking around behind your back or planning to be less than honorable with Bianca.
But as she said to me, she’s an adult. It’s her choice. ”
“What if I say you can’t anyway?” Mishap asked.
“Then we take it to the club. I explain my intentions and what Bianca and I want. You can voice your objections, but short of the club outright forbidding it, you can’t stop us.
And they’d need a really good reason to forbid it.
I don’t want conflict between us. You’re Bianca’s cousin, and she loves you.
But I can’t let you ruin what might be my chance at an old lady and family. ”
I was blunt, and I meant what I said. He sat there for several beats, then he spoke.
“I need to speak to Bianca. I’m going over there right now.”
“You aren’t going alone.”
“Why not? Afraid of what she’ll say to me?” he challenged.
“No, I won’t allow you to coerce her into changing her mind. I won’t permit her to be pushed into it.”
“I would never do that! I just need to assess where her head is and whether she’s thinking clearly and not reacting to what Byron did to her. That she’s not doing this as a way to get over him.”
“Fine, but you can do that with me there. If she changes her mind, and I mean truly changes it, then I’ll let it rest.” I didn’t say the words for now—no need to warn him that I would bide my time and try again with her.
“Okay, let’s go. She should be there. If she’s not, we’ll wait for her to show.”
And just like that, I was off to see Bianca and hopefully make her cousin see that we were both committed and knew what we were doing. And I needed to make sure she was over her ex-husband. I refused to be a stand-in for another man, or a rebound affair.