I hoped he was.
But I knew he wasn’t.
“No,” I admitted. “I’m just hoping that you didn’t think of it so I can stay at home and live my life happily instead of going to a goddamn theme park in the middle of goddamn spring break.”
“Not spring break,” Rome said. “It’s winter break. February. Spring break is in March or April,” he pushed.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes as I tried to think of my next argument.
As I was going through all the arguments in my head, immediately dismissing them as not good enough to get him to agree, I heard a car pull up.
Knowing the sound of the car by heart at this point, I opened my eyes to see the woman who had occupied a good deal of my thoughts lately pulling into her driveway.
I frowned and looked at my watch, noticing that she was eleven hours early.
What the fuck?
Moving without thought across the lawn toward where she was viciously climbing out of her car, I paused halfway there to watch her struggle with the seatbelt that she forgot to take off before getting out of the car.
When she finally got it unhooked and nearly fell out, I realized that she was pissed way the hell off.
“What’s going on, Harleigh?” I asked conversationally, leaning against the tree casually while also crossing my feet as if I was just resting there.
She looked up, narrowed her eyes, and then growled. “You.”
“Me?” My eyebrows rose. “What about me?”
“You left me in your bed, all alone, and didn’t come see me afterward!” She paused. “Not that I care about that, but you could’ve at least told me that you were done with me.”
My lips twitched. “But I wasn’t done with you.”
“Yeah?” she asked. “Then why can’t you come say hi or bye or you know…anything?”
I bit the inside of my cheek as I thought about how to word what I needed to say.
“Because I’m a bad guy, Harleigh. I’m not some romance hero that’s going to save you and live happily ever after,” I told her. “I’m an ex-con. A felon. I killed a man. Also, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be doing anything with me, even talking to me, at this point.”
Her brows rose and she crossed her arms over her chest as she tapped her foot.
“Well, want to know what I think?” she asked.
I smirked. “Sure, why not?”
She crossed the lawn toward me and leaned in until she was so close that I could smell the soft scent of her.
She smelled of baby powder, something citrusy, and coffee.
“Fine, here it goes,” she said. “I’m a grown woman. I’ve been a grown woman for quite some time. I make my own decisions. I fuck who I want. I stay with who I want. I do what I want, and I goddamn well can make a decision about my life without you making it for me.”
My hands clenched, almost itching to reach for her.
“I got put on mandatory leave today,” she said. “I’m in a bad mood. I didn’t sleep last night because I overthink everything. For example, whether we get to do more of what we did the other day. And each time I did get to sleep last night, your stupid bike would start up and or shut off right outside my bedroom window. Now, tell me what in the hell the reason is that you have to park it right there.”
I looked behind me to see Rome standing there watching us with avid fascination. And behind him, where I parked my bike next to the kitchen window, parked in between our two houses, caught my attention.
“I park there,” I said, turning back. “Because nobody can see that spot from the street. Also because I have a video camera on my alarm system that points right there. If anything happens to it, I want to be able to at least get a good video of it getting stolen.”
“You’ve had many things stolen from here?” she asked curiously.
“Yes,” I shrugged. “Actually, I’ve had my bike stolen before. Twice.”
Her brows went up. “Really?”
I nodded once. “Yes. But…it was my brother both times.”
“Your brother?” she asked in surprise. “Really?”
I nodded once. “Yep. He was a punk kid. Wanted to ride my bike to a girlfriend’s house both times. I got it back, but not before he put a scratch in the paint.”
She shook her head. “That’s just nuts.”
“It is what it is,” he admitted. “Do you want to go to Disney World with me?”
She opened her mouth and then closed it.
“You…what?” she asked.
“Do. You. Want. To. Go. To…”
She held her hand up for me to stop. “I heard exactly what you said. I just think I’m hearing things wrong.”
I grinned. “You didn’t. I really asked you to go to Disney World with me.”
She opened her mouth and then closed it. “That’s…insane. And something I can’t afford.”
I waved it off. “My brother-in-law is rich. He’s making me go.”
“I didn’t pay for the tickets,” Rome admitted, not even pretending to act like he wasn’t listening to every word. “I got them from the team owner.”
The team owner being the man that used to own his football contract before he’d retired to take care of his sick son.
“Who the hell just gives away Disney World tickets?” she asked curiously.
“The team owner,” he repeated. “And I have to go. Izzy’s making me. If I have to go, I think it’s only fair that others should have to be subjected to the same shit. I already asked Bayou. And he’s going to ask Phoebe. I also asked a few of the other guys, but everybody else said no. I fully expect Bayou to say no as well.”
“It’s not just tickets, though.” Harleigh looked like she’d been thrown a curveball and was running with it. “There are snacks and meals. You can easily spend a couple grand on food…and I don’t have that.”
Rome waved her off. “That’s covered, too. Swear to God. The tickets came with meal plans and shit. Three meals a day paired with two snacks. And that includes the kids, who don’t eat worth a shit. Trust me when I say we’ll have enough.”
She looked at me like I was part of the craziness.
I held my hands up in surrender. “It wasn’t my idea…but if you have two weeks off…what better way to spend it, right?”
“You just don’t want to go by yourself and be stuck with nobody to entertain you,” she countered. “What about the flight? That I might be able to swing on my own.”
“All first class tickets,” Rome said. “You don’t have to pay for that either.”
She sighed and looked up to the sky, which was a beautiful crystal blue.
“Not really sure this is the greatest idea…” she hesitated. “But what the hell.”
Chapter 12
I hate when bitches post ‘I can’t sleep’ at 3 am. Well, that’s because cocaine is a stimulant, Sniffany.
-Things you probably shouldn’t say to a drug addict.
Slate
I knocked on her door at six the next morning and wondered if I was making the wrong decision.
But when she answered the door, I knew that I wasn’t.
Why?
Because she answered the door wearing a pair of Minnie Mouse ears.
I opened my mouth, then closed it, wondering what in the hell to say.
But then decided…what the fuck.
“You look strangely adorable in those,” I admitted. “Are you a fan of Minnie Mouse?”
Not only was she wearing the ears, but she was also wearing the t-shirt. And the leggings. And the socks.
Oh, and the shoes.
“I didn’t know they made Mickey Mouse shoes in adult sizes,” I observed dryly.
“They don’t,” she admitted. “At least not these. I got them in the kid’s section at Target. Did I mention that I can fit into kid’s clothes? That’s what these are. My mom and I went shopping yesterday, and I’m fully prepared!”
She pointed to the
leggings and the t-shirt that were adorably cute…and matched.
“I’m not sure a kid is supposed to fill those out quite so well,” I informed her.
She grinned. “Do you want to see my Mickey underwear?”
I looked at where her underwear would be if she weren’t wearing pants over the top of them, then shook my head. “As much as I want to see them, it’s probably for the best that we don’t. Then I’ll want to do something about it, and our flight leaves in exactly three and a half hours. It’ll take us at least two of those to get to the airport.”
“Are we riding with Rome?” she asked curiously, turning around to pull her suitcase out.
Her backside was blocking the luggage from me, but when she backed all the way out of the house and her ass swayed to the side, that’s when I saw that it was Minnie Mouse, too.
“There’s no way in hell that you had time to get all of this yesterday,” I said. “You already had all this, didn’t you?”
She turned and looked at me over her shoulder so sheepishly that I couldn’t help myself.
Reaching for her waist, I pulled her to me and then looked down into her face.
“On a scale of one to ten, how excited are you right now to be going to Disney World?” I teased.
She bit her lip. Then said, “About a fifty-seven.”
I began to crack up.
“That’s a pretty high number there, darlin’,” I teased.
“I’ve been to Disney World once,” she whispered. “And I remember it like it was yesterday instead of fifteen years ago. Trust me when I say, I really, really wanted to go back. But my dad? Not so much.”
I dropped my mouth to hers and tasted cherry lip gloss.
Licking my tongue over her lips, and then plunging it deep inside her mouth, I found myself smiling.
“Let’s go to Disney then, woman,” I growled.
Izzy got out of the front seat and gestured to the front seat when we got close enough.
“Slate, do you want to sit up there?” she asked. “I know that you have motion sickness.”
There was no hesitating.
As much as I wanted to sit in the back with Harleigh, that wasn’t going to be possible.
Even if Izzy hadn’t offered it to me, I would’ve moved her ass anyway.
“It’s your fuckin’ fault that I’m going to this shit anyway,” I said as I walked to the back of the SUV and gestured for Harleigh to roll her bag to me.
When she did, I dropped the handle, lifted the bag, and nearly threw my back out while I did.
“Jesus Christ,” I grunted as I picked it up. “You’re going to be paying overweight charges on this bitch,” I called to Rome.
Harleigh covered her mouth with her hand.
“Do you think I should maybe separate it into different bags?” she asked.
I shook my head, allowing a grin to tip up the corners of my mouth.
“No,” I grumbled. “I’m just giving you a hard time.”
“I already told you all this shit is for free,” Rome called from the front seat. “Izzy, baby. Go ahead and shove my shit into the back, too.”
After completely rearranging everybody’s shit, I opened the door for Harleigh, ignored my sister, and then went to the front seat.
“That was rude,” Izzy said as she got in right along with me. “I gave you my seat!”
“And I wouldn’t be coming if you hadn’t married this man,” I countered.
Izzy snorted, as did the other cute person in the seat between Harleigh and Izzy.
“What are you laughing at, kid?” I teased, reaching back and tickling the little girl that had a bag of donut holes in one hand and a cup full of what I assumed was chocolate milk.
When I’d lived with them for the first couple of months that I was out, I found out all kinds of things about Astrid.
Such as she only drank chocolate milk, and god forbid it was anything but Borden.
Trumoo just wouldn’t do.
And the funny thing was that she could literally taste the difference.
I’d tested the theory before.
Astrid squealed when my fingers dug into her fat little belly.
“Nooooooo!” she squeaked. “Noooo, bad Swate!”
Harleigh started to chuckle right along with Astrid.
“How far are they apart?” Harleigh asked curiously, looking from the baby to Astrid.
She and Izzy started to talk about the kids’ age difference while Rome pulled away from the curb and accelerated out of the neighborhood.
“You should buy that house over by me,” Rome said conversationally. “Actually, you don’t have to buy it at all. I’ll buy it. You just live in it so I don’t have to deal with shitty neighbors.”
I shook my head. “I kind of like where I’m living right now,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at Harleigh who was deep in conversation with Izzy.
“Yeah,” Rome grunted. “But what about watching your family grow up? You know that they don’t have anybody else.”
I turned my head to study my brother-in-law.
“That was a low blow,” I said. “What the hell?”
Rome grinned. “Hate to say it, but you really are it.”
I knew that.
Rome’s parents and Rome had never really gotten along. Rome’s grandmother had suffered a heart attack that kept her from doing much when it came to the children. Though they still had quite a bit of interaction, she wasn’t able to do much with the kids other than visit for short periods of time.
Then there were my parents and my brother.
My parents had always been shitty.
They’d gotten shittier when not only I had defied them, but Izzy had, too.
My grandmother loved the kids, but unfortunately, when she’d chosen us over my parents, she’d also lost all the help that she had right along with them.
Leaving her to deal with it all on her own…not that she wasn’t fully capable of doing that.
But since she was so particular about how things were done, she had a hard time delegating duties.
That, and she was an old stubborn woman who was set in her ways.
“I’ll think about it,” I finally said. “But, just sayin’, if I did decide to move there, I’d be paying for it myself.”
Rome snorted. “Why does that not surprise me?”
I offered him a grin, then closed my eyes as my Dramamine started to take over, causing me to become drowsy.
It was only after I nodded to sleep, waking up about an hour later when we pulled into Buc-ee’s, that I realized that they were talking about me.
“Does he do this on planes, too?” the woman who’d been occupying my thoughts quite a bit lately asked.
“Yes,” Izzy said. “I heard a story about him in boot camp. He apparently puked on the plane and had to clean it up when they got to where they were going. I’m not sure he’s willingly gone on a plane ever since.”
“That’s awful,” Harleigh snickered.
“I can hear you,” I grumbled as I opened my eyes. God, I was tired as fuck. Dramamine really kicked my ass. “Why are we stopping?”
“Harleigh’s never been to Buc-ee’s,” Izzy said. “So I’m taking her.”
I snorted. “Yay.”
“They have like seventy-five bathrooms,” Izzy continued. “Slate, are you going in?”
I contemplated it for all of two point five seconds before I nodded my head. “They have these really good kolaches.”
Harleigh snickered.
“But aren’t you nervous that you’ll throw that kolache up on the plane?” she teased.
I looked at her out of slitted eyes. “Well, I wasn’t…but I am now.”
“Just get it,” Rome put the SUV in park and got out. “You’ll be pissed that you didn’t.”
He was right.
I didn’t get to get them very often. And I was on vacation… “Fine.”
***
We arrived at the airport with a
bout an hour to spare.
“There’s a really long fucking line,” I said as I took in the valet baggage check area. “Are you sure you don’t want to just walk in and check it?”
“No,” Rome admitted. “But I have to unload a double stroller, a Pack-N-Play, four large bags, and y’all’s shit. Then I have to get it parked and get back to y’all…just sayin’, but I’m dropping everyone off here.”
I shrugged and got out, hauling all of our shit to the side of the building before going back and collecting the baby.
Harleigh took Astrid by the hand as Izzy filled her hands with their carry-ons.
The baby stayed asleep during the transfer, but the longer I stood there with her curled against my chest, the more I became convinced that it was too fucking cold to be standing outside with her.
“You got a blanket in there, sis?” I gestured to her bag.
She started to dig in her bag and came up empty-handed.
“I think I left it in the car.” She moaned, eyeing Astrid’s blanket.
Harleigh started to snicker. “You take that from her and she’s going to lose her shit right here and now.”
I silently agreed. It was cold as hell, a cold front having rolled through overnight. And, on top of that, where we were located was also underground. Meaning there was no sun to warm us up at all.
“I know.” Izzy bit her lip as she pulled her phone out of her pocket and started to furiously tap her finger on the screen.
“Tuck her in your jacket and zip it up,” Harleigh suggested, reaching for the zipper on my jacket.
When the jacket was open halfway, she helped tuck the baby’s legs into the jacket, then zipped it back up for me while I held her close.
I grinned when the baby only snuggled deeper.
Harleigh’s eyes took me and the baby in, her eyes softening.
“You look good holding a baby,” she whispered, biting her lip.
Something passed between us then, making my heart start to pound.
“You want kids?” I asked curiously.
“Yeah,” she answered. “I want two or three.”
My lips twitched. “That’s it?”
She shrugged. “Yep. For now…”
“Meaning you could change your mind after the time comes?” I wondered.
F-Bomb (The Bear Bottom Guardians MC Book 9) Page 13
