“None of them were affected. Just ours,” he answered. “And it’s looking like he hoped that the fire would smoke us out, because across the street at Craig’s place, there’s a spot where it looked like someone hunkered down for a while. As if he was staking the place out. Watching our movements.”
“Then he likely would’ve seen y’all leave, right?” Bayou grumbled from beside us as we all walked up to the gate entrance.
“You’re right,” Slate grumbled. “If he was there that long, then he had to have seen us leave. Yet he waited until hours after we were gone to set the fire.”
“How do you know all this already?” Hoax asked.
“I have a couple of buddies still on the force,” he answered. “Who happened to be there when her dad arrived.”
I felt my belly tighten at the knowledge that I should probably go back home to deal with this. Yet the thought of leaving Slate literally scared the bejesus out of me.
My father would allow me to move back in with him, and I would if push came to shove.
However, I wanted to stay with Slate. I wanted to pretend like those phone calls didn’t just happen.
I wanted to pretend like nothing was happening and let someone else deal with the shit that was swirling around.
Worrying wouldn’t do me any good. I didn’t have any answers right now. And I sure the hell had no idea what I would need to do to protect myself.
So instead, I decided that for now I was just going to bury my head in the sand and ignore everything else.
There would be enough time to worry about that all later.
Which was why ten minutes later, as we were making our way to our seats, I smiled at the captain and said what I said next.
“Oh!” I walked up to the pilot. “Can I take a picture in there?”
And that was how Slate ended up taking a picture of me sitting in the cockpit with two pilots beside me laughing their asses off.
Chapter 14
If I got rid of everything that didn’t spark constant joy in my life, I’d be left with Harleigh and my motorcycle.
-Slate’s secret thoughts
Slate
The plane ride was the nicest one I’d ever experienced. At least comfort wise.
The plane ride itself still sucked.
After getting onto the plane and leaving Harleigh to converse with the pilots about ‘what that switch does’ and what ‘pulling down on that lever’ accomplishes, I popped a few Dramamine.
Once securely buckled into my seat and backpack safely stowed in the overhead bin, I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself down.
I’d never been a good flyer.
In fact, if I had to say anything about all of my flying experiences, it would be that they definitely weren’t something I would like to ever remember.
In fact, I hated them. Hated everything about flying.
Glancing over at the sound of something falling and hitting the floor, I narrowed my eyes when I saw that the seat across the aisle from us was filled with Linc and his wife, Conleigh.
Great.
My biggest fan right next to me for two and a half hours.
I returned my eyes forward, ignoring the fact that the bag Linc had dropped had spilled all out on the floor of the aisles.
Something rolled and hit my foot, and I leaned forward and picked up a bottle of water and handed it to him.
“Thanks,” Linc grumbled reluctantly.
I barely stopped myself from grinning.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I closed my eyes once again and returned to what I was doing before…trying not to freak the fuck out.
I didn’t really know what it was about planes, trains, and automobiles.
I’d always gotten motion sick. In fact, today when I’d learned that the only part of my house that burned was the garage—including the truck and Vanessa’s car—I was honestly relieved. Insurance would pay for the damage of both the house and the vehicles, and I wouldn’t be stuck with Vanessa’s SUV anymore—the one I’d tried countless times to give to my sister who just kept giving it back—making me feel obligated to drive it.
Vanessa’s SUV had been a birthday present for her. A present that was expensive as fuck, and her dream car. She’d been excited as hell at getting it, and she hadn’t even driven it but a handful of times.
I’d finished paying it off while I was in prison—my sister luckily keeping up the payments on it by using my savings to pay for it, and when that had run out, her savings.
Honestly, I should just give the money that I got from the insurance payout to her at this point. It made the most sense.
The seat next to me jolted, and the seatbelt started to clank.
I opened one eye and peeked out at Harleigh.
“You and those ears,” I muttered, closing my eyes again.
“What were you thinking about?” she asked as she smiled at me.
“The fact that I’m going to get an insurance payout for my car and I’m going to give that money to my sister since she was the one to pay for my car and house while I was in prison,” I answered.
“Really?” Harleigh asked. “Why did she do that?”
I shrugged. “She was supposed to sell my bike for me and then use the money off the sale of the bike to pay for the house and car payments. Plus, I had quite a bit in savings. But she didn’t touch any of it. Only worked her ass off to pay for my shit so I’d have a bike when I got home.”
Harleigh made a squeaking sound that had me opening my eyes again.
“What?” I asked.
“That’s so sweet,” she said. “I don’t think my brother would’ve done that for me. He would’ve found a way to pay for it, likely doing what I originally asked, but he wouldn’t have gone out of his way to work extra shifts just to pay for my shit.”
My lips twitched. “My sister’s a sweetheart.”
“My brother’s awesome,” she said. “But he’s definitely not that awesome.”
“Your brother cares for you quite a bit,” I told her. “You should’ve seen the looks I got when I got too close to you. My sister would pay my bills, but she definitely wouldn’t kill anyone if I was hurt in any way. Your brother, on the other hand…”
Harleigh’s lips twitched. “He would do that, wouldn’t he?”
“Undoubtedly,” I answered. “If I hurt you in any way, your brother would fuck me up and still be able to sleep perfectly that night.”
She snickered.
“The last passenger has boarded,” the flight attendant said. “Please make sure you stow all electronic devices bigger than a cell phone and be seated. The pilot will be leaving shortly.”
I felt my hands curl around the seat.
“Your sister said you don’t like flying,” Harleigh said. “Is it the motion part or is it a fear?”
“Motion,” I answered, swallowing hard. “Doesn’t matter what I take, I can still feel it. My head is all fucked up.”
“Have you tried those motion patches?” she asked. “And you do realize that all the rides that we’re doing at Disney World are rides that…”
“Ma’am,” the flight attendant said, interrupting Harleigh’s words. “You need to buckle in, please.”
“Oh, sorry,” Harleigh said as she hastily did just that. “I apologize.”
The flight attendant winked. “Don’t worry, honey. If I was sitting next to him, I wouldn’t be paying attention to me, either.”
Harleigh’s eyes sparkled when she looked over at me.
“What she says is true,” she snickered, then sobered. “So tell me, this week, will I be allowed to do you, or is that off limits?”
My lips twitched. “You can do me all you want.”
Harleigh fist pumped. “Yes!”
My lips turned up into a smile. “You’re weird.”
“I’m totally weird.” She tilted her head. “But what does that say about you that you’re doing me when I’m weird?”
I thought about that for a long moment, then s
ighed.
“That I’m weird, too,” I admitted. “Shit.”
Harleigh pulled out her phone and started to scroll through her text messages.
“That needs to go on airplane mode,” I told her.
“I know, but I wanted to look at these pictures,” she said. “My dad sent me some of the house.”
I leaned over to get a look.
What I saw made my stomach churn.
“Your house is a complete loss,” I found myself saying. “Shit.”
It was, too.
The only thing left standing was the fireplace and the back part of the house where the bedrooms were. Hopefully that meant that their clothes were all right.
“I think my dad was able to salvage my clothes and stuff. Luckily, I mostly lived in my bedroom. I’ve been eating so much at your grandmother’s bakery that I haven’t had to buy anything lately. And when I’m not spending time there, I’m sleeping in the hammock. The only thing I really did in the house was use my bathroom to shower and get dressed in my bedroom. Dre was still living out of boxes because he was hoping that things would go back to normal with Craig. The stuff he hadn’t fit in his room was in a storage building. This could’ve been a whole lot worse.”
“Where are you going to stay?” I asked curiously.
She grinned. “I’m totally gonna just keep living in your hammock. I might sneak into your bathroom to shower.”
I felt my stomach lurch when we started going backward away from the gate.
“What about your clothes? Where will you keep those?” I wondered.
“I’ll just leave them in my car. My driveway is still good enough.” She snickered.
I rolled my eyes. “Why not go back to your mom and dad’s place?”
She scrunched up her nose.
“I left there at eighteen. Started college. I just…I love my parents, but I don’t want to go back home.” She paused. “It’s disgusting.”
My brows rose. “What’s disgusting?”
“They just…they never stop doing it,” she whispered, leaning in so that she could tell me this like she was ashamed. “I don’t like listening to that.”
I burst out laughing, causing Linc and Conleigh to look at us from the side, and Rome and Izzy to look at us over their seats. Astrid, who had her own seat across the aisle from her parents, didn’t bother looking up from her tablet.
“You’re disgusted by your parents because they have sex?” I asked. “At least they’re still together and love each other. I can remember a time where I had to live at home, and the reason I hated it was because my mother never stopped bitching and complaining about how much work we were. Then my father beat the shit out of us because we were ‘little shitheads.’”
She flushed. “I guess when you put it like that, it makes me sound like I don’t appreciate what I have. I mean, I’m glad that my parents love each other. I’m also glad that I had a happy childhood…but do you know how embarrassing it was to have them do it while I had friends over?”
The plane’s engines started to pick up in sound, making me very aware that we were only a few seconds from taking off.
She quickly flicked her phone to airplane mode and then tucked it into the pocket in the seat in front of us.
“Any ideas on who you think burned my house down?” she asked.
That was when I realized she was trying to distract me.
It wasn’t working, but I appreciated the gesture.
“No,” I admitted. “But I do think that someone on the street had to have caught something. When I get home, if your dad hasn’t already gone door to door asking, then I’ll do it. Plus, we might’ve caught something on it earlier in the day. He might’ve slipped up.”
“He?” she pushed.
I shrugged. “I didn’t piss off any ladies lately, and neither have you that I know of.”
Her face closed down. “My dad said my almost-rapist was released last week on parole.”
My face went hard. “He won’t get to you, darlin’.”
And he wouldn’t, because I’d already set forth a series of plans to make sure.
One, I’d pulled a favor with the district judge—it helped that I helped deliver his child when I was a rookie—and made sure that a restraining order was filed before he’d even been released. Though, I supposed I should’ve mentioned a few days ago that I’d known that he was being released from jail. Bayou had informed me that it would be happening, and I’d hesitated in telling Harleigh because I didn’t want to see that look of fear on her face like I did right then.
Two, I’d had a couple of old buddies on the force make sure that they added Roan Forbes to their patrol. They’d be doing regular check-ups on him.
Then there was his parole officer, who also happened to be my parole officer.
Though, unlike me, Roan Forbes wasn’t a respected felon…though those two words were not usually heard in correlation with each other. But I was a respected felon. Nobody who knew my situation blamed me…hell, I didn’t even care. I didn’t miss an ounce of sleep at night, and wouldn’t ever.
Not when it came to protecting the weak.
Not when that man deserved what he had coming.
Three, I’d already planned on getting Harleigh to move into my place. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it…until this morning’s tragic news of her house and my garage burning down.
Now it’d be ridiculously easy to get her to stay.
Chapter 15
How to know she’s not wifey material: when she cooks eggs before bacon.
-Slate to some random stranger he met standing in line
Slate
“I don’t understand why anyone would think this is the happiest place on Earth,” I grumbled as I flopped face first down into the bed.
Harleigh, who’d followed me into the room looking just as worn out and exhausted, stared at me as if I’d just said something incredibly stupid.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “Did you see any crying kids today?”
I turned only my head to look at her.
“Now that you mention it, no,” I admitted. “But did you see any pissed off parents?”
Her mouth twitched. “Yes.”
“I saw one kid getting a spanking by the elevators. The elevators that, by the way, take at least fifteen minutes to finally get to you. What kind of building doesn’t have any goddamn easily accessible stairs?”
Her mouth twitched. “And then there was the kid in line who decided to crawl up onto the counter and help himself to the buffet. And the kid who puked on Mickey.”
Her mouth tightened as she tried not to laugh.
My dick started to fill with blood as she lifted her shirt and started to flap it, fanning herself.
Her tummy had a light sheen of sweat, and she looked absolutely edible.
I wanted to pull her into my arms and smash my lips against hers, yet I didn’t. Mostly because I was too tired to move.
“I walked over nine miles today,” I said. “I went to Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios. Who the hell’s idea was it to buy the park hopper pass?”
She started to laugh. “I think that was your brother-in-law,” she said as she stripped her jeans off. “Who looked just as frazzled, if not more so, than you. And did you see Bayou?”
Bayou, I’d learned over the last couple of years, hated when he was in crowds that he couldn’t control. And the crowd at Disney World was definitely one of those crowds.
At one point I’d noticed that Bayou was just gone. And after, Phoebe had told us that he just couldn’t handle all the loudness and the people touching him constantly.
I’d learned over the last two days that Disney World didn’t know the meaning of personal space. Not the facility itself or the fuckin’ people that came to it.
For instance, when going onto a ride, they shoved as many people as humanly possible onto a single ride. Or into the goddamn line.
I mean, what was it to them if I
wanted a small gap in between me and the person in front of me.
Sure, usually that person was Harleigh, and the gap wasn’t absolutely necessary. But then there were the other times that it wasn’t Harleigh, it was some Chinese man, or handicapped man in a scooter.
I couldn’t tell you how many times that I’d been molested—unintentionally of course—by the person behind me.
And for a man that needed to have his back watched at all times, it was incredibly uncomfortable to have someone so close and not put any distance between us.
Luckily Rome had seen the panic and had tried to always be behind me—with Izzy or Harleigh between us of course—and things had gone a lot smoother since.
“Bayou doesn’t like being touched. I’m not surprised that he never went on any of the rides,” I admitted. “I don’t like being touched either, but I made do. The rides were worth it.”
“I can’t believe the group has a babysitter here, too.” She shook her head. “I would’ve never even guessed people had this kind of pull. Who the hell has a babysitter at a resort to watch your kids for you so you can go play and be free?”
I shook my head. “They still have them at night. The babysitter is part of the resort’s amenities.”
She shrugged. “But still. That’s so cool. I didn’t realize that was even a thing.”
She flopped over onto her side, then kicked off her shoes one by one.
It was only as her socks were coming off that I saw the expanse of her back as she bent over.
My dick started to get hard—which I thought was nearly impossible after the day that I’d had—and I decided not to fight it.
After feeling Harleigh’s ass and back up against my erection the majority of the day, I was over trying to fight it.
She knew exactly what she was doing, too.
Reaching for her, I rolled her over onto her back and crawled over the top of her, loving the way her eyes widened in surprise at my move.
Using my knees, I pushed her thighs open wide to accommodate my big body, then dropped down so that she could feel my erection pressed against her.
F-Bomb (The Bear Bottom Guardians MC Book 9) Page 15
