A Lovely Shade of Ouch

by Tymber Dalton

  Landry and Cris watched her go, the men wearing nearly identical smirks.

  “You have your hands full with her, don’t you?” John asked.

  “You have no idea,” Landry said, a smile slipping across his lips. “But she’s worth every bit of it.”

  “Do you think she’s going to be pissed off at me?” Abbey asked.

  “No,” Cris said. “She’s just having trouble wrapping her head around the fact that John has a life and identity outside of Venture.”

  “Our sweet Tilly is a vicious, sadistic thing,” Landry said. “Especially when she gets an idea in her head and goes into tenaciously protective mode.”

  “Yeah, I’ll work it out with her,” John said. “I will admit it’s been pointed out to me that even though one of my kinks is making people laugh by making Tilly blow up, it wasn’t fair of me to do that without her being in on it.”

  “Hey, better you than me,” Cris said. “I know she packs a wallop. I think I still have bruises from a couple of years ago when she let me have it.”

  “Ah, but you deserved it,” Landry said.

  Cris shrugged. “Never said I didn’t. It was worth taking every last one of them to get her to trust me again.”

  Landry slung an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close, kissing him on the temple. “And you have no idea how glad I am that she has.”

  John felt a slightly envious pang tweak his heart. No, he wasn’t gay, or bi, but the love the two men shared not just for each other, but for Tilly as well, was palpable.

  Don’t even go there.

  His offer to Abbey was genuine, and without any strings attached.

  If it meant he could help her out, great. If one day, maybe, she wanted more from him…

  Well, he wouldn’t deny that would be nice, too.

  Until then, he’d keep his cock locked up tight and his emotions in check. She’d been through enough lately, and the last thing she needed was to feel pressure from him.

  Although he wouldn’t mind taking a whack or two at Tom himself.

  Chapter Seven

  Abbey didn’t understand why it felt so comfortable clinging to John’s arm, but she wouldn’t question it.

  For the first time in two months, despite the odd looks she got from a couple of people who were probably wondering why she seemed to be there with John and not Tom, she almost felt…

  Normal.

  Since she’d hurt her back, she’d only been to the club twice. Mostly because Tom had insisted it’d be good for her to go. She certainly hadn’t felt like going, and hadn’t been able to do much more than sit and talk with friends.

  She wasn’t so dense she missed the disappointment in his expression, in his voice, when she wouldn’t play with him.

  He didn’t come right out and say it, but the fact that he’d packed a small toy bag each time and brought it showed her more than any words. He thought he’d hidden it from her in the trunk, but she’d heard him putting it together each time and taking it out to the car. He never brought it into the club, but he’d kept steering the conversations that direction, like he was hinting around that he’d like to play.

  He always did think he was smarter than me.

  If he’d simply asked if he could play with someone else, she would have said yes, but she wasn’t going to reward his passive-aggressive behavior by jumping ahead like that.

  Yet, he’d rebuffed her efforts to help him out sexually after she’d gotten hurt. She didn’t understand it.

  Not that it matters now, I guess.

  It still grated at her that she’d never put all that together before now. And it hurt that he’d said he loved her, yet when she’d really needed him the most, he ran away.

  Grieving that loss would have to come later. Shoving her feelings for Tom into a closet and locking the door was the only way she could get through the next few days and weeks. Once she’d healed up and was back on her feet—and alone in her own place—only then would she allow herself to grieve.

  John slowly matched her pace as he walked her out to his car, Tilly following and sheepdogging Landry and Cris in front of her. Before John helped Abbey into the car, she turned to Tilly.

  “He’s not an ax murderer.”

  “I hope not.”

  However, if looks could kill, Tilly would have murdered John a thousand times over.

  Just in the past five minutes.

  “Give him a chance.”

  “I’ve given him plenty of chances and he acts like an asshole.”

  “I’m standing right here,” John lightly said.

  Tilly reached out and poked him in the arm. “Yeah? Well, I’m right here. I’m warning you, you hurt her, and there won’t be anywhere for you to run where you’ll be safe.”

  “I believe you,” he said. Abbey gave John full credit, he didn’t even flinch in front of Tilly’s onslaught of thermonuclear hatred.

  In fact, besides the obvious, there seemed to be something…different about John today. Not just his fresh grief, either.

  Something…

  Strong.

  Or maybe it was just she felt tired and in a lot of pain and what was that line about the kindness of strangers?

  Although John wasn’t a total stranger. They weren’t exactly friends, but they were acquaintances.

  Even though she knew the area his house was in, she wasn’t prepared for it to be so…

  Normal.

  I’m doing a lot of thinking in ellipses today.

  What’s up with that?

  The subdivision was a couple of years older than Tilly’s, the lots a little larger, the trees a little taller. The lawns were manicured, apparently an HOA mandate based on how uniform they all looked.

  Tilly, riding with Landry, and Cris following in Tilly’s SUV, pulled up in the driveway as John was helping Abbey out of the car.

  As John walked her up to the front door, he waited until Abbey was steady and using her cane before he unlocked the door.

  Then he turned to Tilly. “Wait just a minute while I go hide the bodies.”

  She frowned. “What?”

  Abbey couldn’t help but giggle at his playfully evil grin. “I need to shut the alarm off,” he said. “Give me a second.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say that?”

  Abbey hooked her free arm through Tilly’s. “Cut him some slack.”

  “You sound like you’ve made up your mind.”

  “I haven’t yet, but please, he’s being nice.”

  “Still right here,” he said as he opened the door and entered the foyer. A few seconds later, they heard the distinctive sound of a keypad being punched before another beep.

  “Okay, all clear.” He flipped on a light and Tilly helped her inside.

  Abbey’s first impression was that John was a better housekeeper than she and Tom were. Her house was always presentable, and tidy, and clean. But especially since her fall, it certainly wasn’t to the standards she wished it was.

  John’s standards, even when he wasn’t expecting company, were obviously higher.

  Not even a museum feel. Just…squeaky clean.

  John walked through another doorway. “Feel free to search it top to bottom,” John called out to Tilly.

  “Cris,” Landry drawled as he looked around. “You’ve been slacking.”

  “When someone doesn’t have much of a life, they tend to express themselves in other ways,” John said. “Anyone want anything to drink or snack on before dinner?”

  Tilly led Abbey toward John’s voice. The place had a homey feel, comfortable. He obviously wasn’t a pig. Her quick eye did spot a half-full pot of coffee, now cold, sitting in the coffeemaker.

  She heard Tilly click her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she craned her head around, trying to find…something.

  Damned ellipses.

  “Well?” Abbey asked Tilly.

  “I haven’t seen his bathrooms yet. He could be a complete and total pig.”

  Landr
y let out a snort. “Love, I think you’re grasping at straws.”

  The kitchen was actually nicer than the one at her house. Abbey missed cooking. It was a chore she never minded, because she loved cooking and baking. It would be a joy to roll out dough on the large granite counter tops.

  Now, it was all she could do to lift a plate, much less lift a pot or pan full of hot food or boiling water.

  “This is beautiful, John,” Abbey said.

  “Thank you. It’s home.”

  He gave them the full tour, Abbey fully conscious that he kept his steps slow, pacing himself to Abbey.

  It was considerate.

  Tom would walk and then stop and impatiently wait for her, unless she specifically asked to hold his arm because of her pain.

  The bedroom that would be hers, if she wanted it, was actually larger than the one at Tilly’s house. She’d have her own en suite bathroom, too. By the time they returned to the dining room, even Tilly looked like she had to grudgingly admit it was nice. Tilly helped her down to the couch.

  “What about a lease?” Tilly asked.

  Landry interceded again. “Love, let me handle the contracts.”

  “I can print you off the one my last roommate signed,” John said.

  “How many roommates have you had?” Tilly asked, her tone finally edging away from confrontational.

  “Before him, two others. Similar situations, people needing a place to stay to get their life together.”

  “Kind of like me,” Abbey quietly said.

  “I’m sorry,” John said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “It’s the truth.” She looked around the beautiful house, a house nicer than the one she currently lived in. The pool was gorgeous, and he even had a hot tub. “How much a month in rent?”

  “I’m fully cognizant of workman’s comp issues. How much can you afford without it putting a serious strain on you?”

  “Well, right now, my share of the rent and utilities is around nine hundred a month, depending on the light and water bill. But we don’t have a pool.”

  “I’m not going to charge you that much. My friend only paid a hundred a month, plus groceries.”

  “I have to pay you more than that.”

  “Then you tell me what you want to pay.”

  She sucked at money negotiations. Tie someone up—or down—and beat their ass? No problem negotiating that.

  Money issues, however, she hated with a passion.

  “I want to be fair.”

  “Well, you tell me what you can afford.”

  Tilly held up her hands. “This will go on all night if I don’t step in. John, is three hundred a month all right? Plus groceries?”

  “Sure.”

  Tilly looked at Abbey. “Will that work for you?”

  “Yeah. It’ll actually help me out a lot.”

  “Settled. Shake on it.”

  John laughed. “You haven’t given me a full-body cavity search yet, Tilly. Sure you don’t want to dig up my backyard?”

  Tilly let out an exhausted-sounding sigh. “John,” she said, “I can tell she’s already made up her mind.” She turned to Abbey. “Look, I’ll drop my objections to this if you promise me that if it doesn’t work out, you’ll tell me immediately and let me move you in with us. Okay?”

  “How about this,” John said. “I’ll print the contract out and we’ll take it to dinner and go over it there. If you want any changes to it, we’ll make them, and then come back here to print and sign it.”

  “You’re sure you don’t mind me having George?” Abbey asked.

  “I wouldn’t have brought you here if I did.”

  “In the house?”

  “In the house.”

  Tilly let out another exhausted sigh. “He’s saying it’s okay, honey. Let it go.”

  “Why do you sound mad at me?” Abbey asked.

  “I’m not! Well, I’m mad, but at Tom, not you.” She slumped to the couch, next to Abbey. “I know you loved him. For him to just walk away like this, you have to admit it’s a massive trigger of the bad kind for me.”

  “Shit,” Cris muttered. “Guess I’m getting beaten tonight.”

  * * * *

  John deliberately went out of his way to not goad Tilly the rest of the evening. For starters, he felt emotionally wrung out. Second, he could tell Tilly was trying to make an effort.

  And third, he didn’t want to make things any harder on Abbey.

  Okay, slide the third reason to the top of the list.

  The more he learned about what happened, the angrier he felt at Tom. After Landry went through the contract over dinner and pronounced it satisfactory, they paid their checks and started toward the parking lot.

  Tilly sent Abbey ahead with Cris and Landry and held John back to speak to him.

  At first, John thought maybe she was going to give him another one of her warnings, but she actually shocked him.

  “Thank you,” she quietly said.

  “No castration threats?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Thank you for stepping up to do this for her. I really appreciate it.”

  “Of course. But you have to promise me one thing.”

  Doubt flickered across her features. “What?”

  He held out his hand to her. “If Tom gets the shit kicked out of him, I get to help. At least I get to help hold him down.”

  Tilly smiled, genuine, without the snark barrier in place, and shook with him. “Deal.”

  “You aren’t threatening him, are you?” Abbey called back to them.

  Tilly hooked her arm through John’s. “No,” she said. “We’ve signed a truce.” She squeezed his arm, hard, and muttered low enough only he could hear. “For now.”

  When they returned to John’s house, he printed two copies of the contracts for them to both sign. After he did, he handed Abbey a key, and then he handed one to Tilly, too.

  “What’s this for?” Tilly asked.

  “Front door,” he said.

  “Why are you giving me one?”

  “Are you not going to be helping her after her surgery?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, then you’ll need a key. That way she won’t have to get up to let you in. I’ll show you how the alarm pad works and program you a custom code.”

  Tilly looked at the key he’d given her as if she couldn’t believe she was holding it. “You’re just handing me a key to your house?”

  “Yep. And you two are the only other people who have them besides me.”

  “Huh. I’ll be damned.”

  Abbey smiled over her friend’s reaction and it lit John’s heart.

  Oh, shit. Don’t go there.

  “Tilly,” Abbey said. “You have to admit, he’s trying.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” But she smiled. “Why couldn’t you have hooked up with him instead of Tom?”

  Then Abbey turned the full force of her green gaze on him. “I’m beginning to wonder that myself,” she said.

  * * * *

  Why hadn’t she hooked up with John before now? They’d played together a few times. Then she’d met Tom, John hadn’t been around the club much, and things just naturally progressed from there. She wasn’t poly, didn’t have the time or energy to manage more than one relationship at a time. Not even multiple play partners, once she had a steady, primary relationship.

  What if John had come to the club more often during that time? Would she have ended up with him instead of Tom?

  Stop that.

  Woulda, coulda, shoulda wouldn’t help her through this.

  After they finished with the lease contract and finalizing arrangements for the move the next day, John drove her home. She invited him inside to look around, even though Cris and Landry had already given him a basic rundown of what she had to move. He brought her bags inside for her, leaving them on the bed so she wouldn’t have to carry them.

  “Can I meet George?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  She led him
outside to the lanai. George was, predictably, dug in under a layer of substrate inside his house. “If you lift that off, you’ll see him in there.”

  “I don’t want to disturb him.” He knelt down and peered in. “I can sort of see him. How big will he get?”

  “He’s fully grown. He’s not like a sulcata.”

  “A what?”

  “Sulcatas get to be a couple hundred pounds. He’s about as big as he’ll get.”

  “And he’s really over twenty years old?”

  “Yep.” She lowered herself into one of the chairs on the lanai. “We’ve been together a long time.”

  “How long do they live?”

  “Fifty years or more, easily.”

  “Wow. That’s cool.”

  “Yep. But they don’t swim. He’ll drown if he gets in a pool.”

  “Then we’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  Abbey stared at the tortoise enclosure. “This was his first large outdoor home,” she said. “He’s been so happy here. Before, I always lived in an apartment. He could run around inside when I was home, but he didn’t have a permanent outside home.”

  “How can you tell he’s happy?”

  “Oh, when he’s awake, he’ll come to me. We have a little daily ritual where I feed him romaine lettuce as a snack. He’s been able to free graze most of the year in this enclosure.” She choked back tears again. “Guess I’m back to buying his food for him and doing some container gardening for his greens.”

  “I’m sure we can do something for him like that at my place.”

  “I’m not going to ask you to take care of that. I might need help with his water or something, but I need to do as much as I can. And once I get my own place…” She didn’t want to think that far ahead and knew she needed to. “I’ll get either a condo or an apartment once I’m on my own. So he’s back to indoor living as of tomorrow.”

  She wanted to get off that topic. “So, tomorrow. Want me to make breakfast?”

  He offered her a smile. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll be here at seven and I’ll bring you breakfast,” John said. “Your job tomorrow is to supervise. That’s it. We’re going to have enough help from everyone that you can sit and watch.”