Quit Bein' Ugly

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  And, surprise, surprise, he hadn’t.

  Which really fuckin’ pissed me off because not only had he shot me, but he’d also tried to break into Carmichael’s house.

  And though I’d cared for her before, she hadn’t been mine.

  Now she was mine, in all ways, and that meant that I was even more brassed off because I didn’t want her hurt.

  I wasn’t sure what in the fuck had happened today, but I needed to figure it out, quick.

  Which was why when we arrived home to find the fuckin’ geek here that she worked with, I wasn’t very happy about it.

  With my arm around her shoulders, I looked at Alfie and narrowed my eyes.

  “Alfie, what are you doing here?” Carmichael tried to pull away, but I leaned on her harder, letting her know without words that I wanted her to stay where she was.

  That, and my shoulder throbbed like a motherfucker, and if I kept her where she was, that ache eased.

  She looked at me, seeing the strain on my face, and didn’t fight me.

  “Umm,” Alfie said as he looked from me to Carmichael and back. “You weren’t at school today.”

  Carmichael smiled sadly. “This one was hurt the day before yesterday. He needed some help. I’ll be back to work Monday.”

  “Oh,” Alfie winced. “I was worried.”

  “Nothing to worry about,” Carmichael shrugged. “Anything fun and exciting happen at school today?”

  Alfie shifted restlessly from foot to foot, his eyes focusing on everything but me.

  “No,” he answered. “School was fairly calm for a Friday. No fights broke out, and barely anyone stepped out of line. It was quite peaceful, really.”

  “Dang,” Carmichael snapped her fingers. “They always have good days when I’m not there.”

  I squeezed her shoulder, not liking the way her voice dipped, and a little bit of sadness entered her voice.

  “Probably because you weren’t there to shake everyone up,” Alfie teased. I narrowed my eyes, and Alfie took a step back. “Well, I better go. Um, uhhh, see you around? You still going to the Trades Days this weekend?”

  “No,” Carmichael sighed. “I think it’s going to be a lazy weekend on the couch.”

  She looked at me as she said it, and I felt something warm inside my chest at the thought of her spending a lazy weekend on the couch with me.

  It sounded… magical.

  I hadn’t had a weekend like that in a really long time.

  “Oh, well okay.” Alfie walked toward his bike, and I narrowed my eyes.

  There was a report of a bike speeding out of the area yesterday after my shooting, and I studied it hard.

  “Have a good one,” Alfie called as he fitted his helmet into place.

  “See you Monday.” Carmichael waved with her free hand that wasn’t wrapped around my waist.

  Then he rode off, leaving us both watching him go. Me likely for a different reason than her.

  “My place or yours?” she asked just as another car pulled into the driveway.

  My parents.

  Another car followed it closely.

  Ezra and Raleigh.

  Son of a bitch.

  That ‘nice and quiet weekend’ was about to take a flying leap right out the window.

  “Oh, boy,” Carmichael whispered when my sister got out of the car and all but flew her way toward me.

  “You got shot, and you didn’t call us?” she screeched, waving her hands.

  She tripped about halfway toward me on a rock in the yard, and she went down. But she was back up and still waving her hands like a lunatic seconds later.

  Ezra, not as annoyed, followed with their son on his hip, eyes on me, assessing.

  My mother wasn’t far behind, her eyes moving over the length of my body as if she could calculate my injuries through my clothes.

  “Wow,” Raleigh continued. “You get shot. Shot! And you don’t tell us a word. Flint does! How the hell do you get off thinking that we wouldn’t care?”

  I waited until she was close to me before I let Carmichael go and pulled her into my arms.

  “I’m okay,” I assured her, squeezing her as tight as I dared.

  She promptly burst into tears.

  I looked at my mother over Raleigh’s head, seeing tears in her eyes, too.

  “You shouldn’t have kept this from us,” she said to me softly.

  “I didn’t so much as keep it from you as wait to tell you until you could actually do something about it,” I admitted. “You were on a four-day cruise. The boat was out in the middle of the ocean. It wasn’t like me telling you would’ve made it get back here any faster.”

  They knew I was right, but still it burned.

  “Plus,” Carmichael said softly, “you would’ve just worried. He was just fine. Had it been more serious, I would’ve called myself.”

  My mother’s eyes turned to Carmichael.

  “Carmichael, dear.” She smiled. “How are you?”

  “I’m okay, Mrs. Crusie,” Carmichael replied. “How was your trip?”

  “Overall,” my father said as he came up to join the circle at the same time that Ezra did, “it was a good trip. Could’ve done without finding out my boy had been shot on the four-hour ride home.”

  Carmichael snickered.

  “That could’ve been done a little better, I’m sure,” Carmichael agreed. “How’d little J do on the trip?”

  Ezra hiked his kid up higher on his hip.

  “Did you know that my kid pukes like his mother?” Ezra groaned.

  At that, the tension released and I gestured for them to all follow me over to Carmichael’s house.

  “We have to let Lion and her new rescue dog out,” I said to the group at large. “Follow me over there.”

  “New rescue dog?” Raleigh asked. “I thought you were taking a few weeks off of that for a while?”

  “It wasn’t a new rescue dog as much as an old one,” Carmichael admitted. “Danger.”

  Raleigh sighed. “That sucks.”

  “Danger?” my mother said. “That’s kind of a scary name.”

  “Danger’s anything but scary,” Raleigh admitted. “Wait until you meet her. You’ll find out why.”

  Five minutes later, my mother was literally crying.

  She had such a soft heart when it came to animals.

  “Oh, that poor baby.” She sniffled. “Babe, we can take Danger home.”

  My father opened his mouth to protest, but then he saw the look on my mother’s face.

  “Umm,” Carmichael hesitated. “Are you sure? She’s a handful.”

  “I’m sure.” She looked at me then. “Are you up for pizza?”

  I wasn’t.

  I was up for lying on that couch and not getting back up, but obviously that wasn’t going to happen.

  In fact, I stood up, slowly, and started to shuffle toward Carmichael’s room.

  Without a word to anyone, I headed toward where I’d left my sweatpants from being over here a few days ago.

  Except, when I got down onto the bed, I could do nothing more than to carefully lie backward. Seconds after that, my eyes were closed, and I was asleep on the bed fully clothed.

  CHAPTER 13

  This girl absolutely loves cock.

  -Chicken t-shirt

  CARMICHAEL

  “Should I go check on him?” Raleigh asked me with an evil grin.

  I rolled my eyes and went to do it myself, walking into the room to find him completely out.

  He hadn’t even taken his tie off.

  Carefully walking into the room, I moved toward where he was lying and lifted his feet, slipping off his shoes.

  Next to go was his belt.

  When I had those two things off, I started on his pants.

  Slowly, I stripped him, knowing that there was a chance I’d wake him, but also knowing that as we’d left the courthouse, he’d taken a dose of pain meds, ibuprofen, and Tylenol.

  There was also a good
chance he’d be sleeping for a while. Especially after the long day that he’d had.

  I couldn’t let him fall asleep like he was. His legs were hanging off the bed, he was at an awkward angle, and I was fairly sure that it wasn’t comfortable at all.

  But first, I needed to get his tie and his shirt off.

  I tried to do it by leaning over him, except that didn’t work because Croft was a big motherfucker. He was large, muscular, and the bed made it awkward to reach him.

  So I climbed up on the bed and reached for his tie, easily unlooping it from around his neck.

  As I did, I kept my eyes on his face. He was sleeping hard. At least, that was what it looked like.

  When I got to his shirt, I found this to be false.

  Once the shirt was untucked and unbuttoned fully, I hesitated on removing it. It’s not that I couldn’t do it. I just wasn’t sure I could do it without hurting him. And hurting him sounded purely awful.

  I just decided to leave him exactly how he was when his big hands came up to cup my hips.

  His sleepy eyes opened, and he smiled at me.

  “Hey.” His rough voice sent shivers down my spine.

  “Hey,” I said. “I was trying to undress you, but short of cutting the shirt off of you, you’re stuck unless you help me.”

  He tugged me by my shirt until I was inches from his face, then he moved the rest of the way to place his mouth on mine.

  After a short, sweet, wet kiss, he let me go, and then patted my thigh. “Get up and we’ll get it off.”

  I did as he asked, coming to stand next to the bed and offering him my hand.

  He took it, used it almost zero, and came to a rest on the side of the bed.

  His face held a pain-filled grimace.

  Quickly, before he changed his mind, I stripped him of both his dress shirt and undershirt, and then gestured to the sweats.

  I helped him get them on, and it wasn’t lost on me how intimate this was. Nor was the erection he was sporting when I helped him slide them up his legs.

  “Can’t help it,” he muttered darkly.

  I smirked at him and stood up, leaving him sitting on the bed. Checking his wound, I grimaced at the angry red hole in his shoulder.

  “I don’t know if it looks better or worse,” I admitted as I stared.

  “Better, I would say,” he answered. “It’s healing.”

  When I went to apply another bandage, he shook his head. “Let it get some air. We can put another one on it when we go to bed later.”

  When we go to bed later.

  I nodded, trying not to let my giddiness show.

  “Your mom wants to order pizza,” I said. “Are you up for that?”

  He painfully got up to his feet and then pulled me into the curve of his arm before gesturing for me to walk with him out of the room.

  “Yes.” He paused. “Though, just sayin’, I’m allowing myself until Sunday to eat like shit, and then I’m back on the wagon. I’ve worked too hard to allow myself to slack off now.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  I’d be living this up if it were me.

  Cookies. Ice cream. White bread. Banana bread. French bread. Sourdough bread.

  Any and all carbs would be welcome.

  “That look on your face makes me think you want me fat.” He chuckled as he walked with me out of the room.

  I wrapped my arm around his bare torso and kept pace with him, surprised to find everyone on my couches waiting for us.

  “Sorry,” Croft said as he moved toward the couch where his sister was laid out. “I fell asleep. Move over before I sit on you.”

  Raleigh moved, obviously knowing he would do it.

  She stood up completely and went to snuggle with her husband who was on the oversized chair across from us.

  I sat down on the very corner of the couch, and Croft surprised me by not only laying down, but moving to where his head was in my lap.

  “Got a blanket?” he asked, shivering slightly.

  I reached for the one that was on the arm of the couch and unfolded it over him.

  He turned so that his face was pressed against my stomach and then closed his eyes.

  Before long, he was asleep again.

  I studied his face, my fingers automatically going to his hair where I sifted them through his lustrous locks.

  His face was peaceful now. The shadows of pain no longer there now that he was asleep. My stomach unclenched at the sight.

  When I looked up, it was to find Raleigh and Ezra grinning at me.

  “What?” I asked them.

  “Nothing,” Ezra said at the same time that Raleigh all but cheered. “You’re going to be my sister!”

  I was already shaking my head.

  “I don’t know about that…” I started.

  But it was Mrs. Crusie who said, “I’ve never seen my son so comfortable with a woman before in my life. And saying that, I’ve seen him with a lot of them. But you, my girl? You’re special. I’ve never in my life seen him act the way he’s acted with you over the last hour. Not once.”

  I felt my insides warm.

  “I think it’s the pain meds,” I hedged, not wanting to think too much into what I was feeling.

  Because thinking led to thoughts of ‘what was to come’ and I didn’t know what was to come for us.

  Croft was an enigma to me. A beautiful trophy to look at, but never to touch.

  And he might’ve given me the time of day today, but I wasn’t kidding myself. Just because we had sex didn’t mean that he would be there forever and ever.

  It meant for now.

  Which sucked because the more time I spent with him, the more I realized that he did mean the world to me.

  That he was special.

  That… I loved him.

  Shit.

  “I ordered pizza,” Mrs. Crusie interrupted my thoughts. “I hope that you like pepperoni, because that’s all anyone in this family likes. The weirdos.”

  I snickered. “I actually like just about anything on mine. Though, admittedly, meat lover’s is my favorite.”

  “Oh, thank God.” Ezra groaned. “I thought I was going to be stuck eating pepperoni pizza for the rest of my life. With you here, we can share a large now and I won’t feel bad.”

  I grinned. “Next time.”

  He winked.

  “My kids and husband are weird,” Mrs. Crusie continued. “But I’ve gotten to the point where I just go along with it, because it would take me a week to get through a pizza on my own. And I guess Ezra just wasn’t enough of a reason to get the good stuff.”

  I snickered at Ezra’s look. “I resent that.”

  “So tell me about your cruise?” I suggested. “I heard that there were some storms.”

  Ezra wrinkled his nose as Raleigh started to laugh.

  “Storms are an understatement,” she said. “There was a tropical depression that turned into that hurricane that barreled down the coast. The ship was rocking so bad that at one point we almost went vertical. Did you know that everything in a ship is nailed down besides food, drinks, and whatever the passengers bring on board? You want to know why? So they don’t fucking die.”

  “Language,” Mrs. Crusie admonished her daughter.

  “I almost died. If that’s not worth a fuck, I don’t know what is,” Raleigh countered.

  “It was pretty bad,” Mr. Crusie admitted. “There was one point on that last day that I seriously thought that I might not make it home. The worst part was knowing that my grandson was on board with me. That was fucking awful.”

  They were silent for a few long moments, and I thought about my own parents.

  With them both being dead for a while now, I only had Flint to think about. But just the thought of Flint and Camryn being on a ship that might sink made me feel somewhat sick myself.

  The doorbell rang, saving us from any more talk about death and almost death.

  Ezra got up to get the door and came back with four pizza
boxes.

  He set them out on the table between all my chairs, and I felt for the first time that my living room furniture was being put to use.

  It made me feel good to have everyone here.

  Flint and Camryn, when they made it over, just didn’t completely fill the room like the Crusies were doing.

  Pizza was passed out, and a slice was handed to me from Raleigh.

  I took a bite and moaned.

  “Oh, man,” I groaned as I ate. “I haven’t had anything this good in a while.”

  Pizza was a no-no when you owned a CrossFit gym.

  At least, according to Flint it was.

  I tried to set a good example, but when I was in the privacy of my own home, sometimes that didn’t happen.

  Ezra chuckled. “It’s been a while for me, too. Though these last few days I’ve eaten more than I have in the last few months.”

  “I heard that cruise ships will do that to you,” I admitted, taking another bite.

  A pepperoni slid off and landed directly on Croft’s forehead.

  He blinked his eyes open and stared at me.

  “What is that?” he asked, his eyes crossing trying to see what was on his forehead.

  I snickered. “A pepperoni.”

  I leaned forward and sucked it up into my mouth, causing him to groan. “Nice.”

  He slowly sat up, and when I say slowly, I mean like an old man slowly.

  He wiped the grease off of his forehead with his good hand and then reached forward for a piece of pizza with the other.

  He stopped midway and changed hands.

  “I can’t believe that you were shot,” Raleigh mumbled around a bite of pizza. “Have you heard anything more on who might’ve done it?”

  We were both shaking our heads before she could even finish.

  “Nope,” I grumbled. “We just know that the man that broke into my place—or tried to—and his shooter are one and the same.”

  Everyone stopped eating.

  “Someone broke into your house?” Raleigh gasped, leaning forward, pizza all but forgotten.

  I nodded. “Well, kind of. Yes? They stole my laptop and were gone before Croft could make it over here.”

  “Wow.” Raleigh shook her head. “And when did that happen?”

  “The night before I was shot,” Croft answered as he brought the pizza to his lips and took a hefty bite. “The only thing anyone knows is that the shooter ran toward a motorcycle and took off. That could be anybody. I know of four people that ride motorcycles in this neighborhood.”