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With some creative maneuvering, he got Jaime to her bedroom where she threw herself on her bed.
Patriot, fucking done with the whole scene, turned to leave her there to sleep it off, but Jaime pushed up onto her elbows, looked over her shoulder at him, and grinned at him, her smile sloppy. Her eyes were glazed with booze and her face was flushed, telling Patriot she was going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning.
“Patriot, wait,” she called when he turned once more for the door. “Y-you’re s-supposed to sssstay. Undress meeee. Fuck meeeee.”
He cursed under his breath, closed his eyes, and prayed to the god of fucks because he didn’t have much more to give.
“Goodnight, Jaime,” he growled. After three nights without Cilla, he could feel the nightmares circling, and he knew that, if he wasn’t in bed with his woman tonight, those nightmares would eat him alive.
Jaime shook her head and tried rolling off the bed, catching herself before she fell on her face.
“Nuh huh, y-you’re supposed to sssstay. I’m in-in danger. Roger did a good job—uh huh—he did the calls, made the texts—” She burped then hiccupped, but that wasn’t what had Patriot’s attention. Going still as death, he listened as she continued in her drunken stupor. “Roger…Ro-Ro-Roger said he could do it, he-he could get y-you to leave Cilla—that fuckin’ pig took you from-from me, so I-I took you back. Yup. Cuzzzz I’m in danger. Protective Patriot will keep-keep me safe. Roger said so-soooo, Roger was right…right, Patriot? My plan w-worked, right? You’ll sssstay, stay with me, sssstay away from fat piggy Ci-Cilla—” Before she could even finish her thought, she face-planted in the mattress, her loud snores filling the room.
His body tense, his stomach rolling, his blood pounding with anger and disbelief, Patriot shook his head.
What the fuck?
Looked like his night was going to stay shitty, and that his business with Cilla would have to wait. But how much longer could he hold out before he finally broke? Before she finally gave up on him?
SIXTEEN
For the first time since she’d started working there four years ago, Cilla called in sick to work yesterday. And today, she was avoiding her own home like it was a haunted house. Today, she was avoiding pretty much anyone and anything that would remind her about how absolutely humiliating Friday night was. Which meant she’d been dodging Stephie’s calls, ignoring her texts, and generally just being an elusive, pity-party goer.
After a night of crying herself to sleep, she’d spent all day yesterday holed up in her house, watching reruns of Homicide Hunter on Discovery ID, eating her weight in Flaming Hot Cheetos, and waiting for the inevitable pounding on the door.
But the pounding never came.
Patriot never came.
And the longer she’d sat there, waiting for him, for him to come, apologize, and tell her that Friday night was all a misunderstanding, the more she realized that maybe that ugly voice in her head was right. She was just a distraction for him, a game, and that the thing he was supposedly doing with Jaime wasn’t club business at all, but rather personal business. The kind that lead to him claiming her as his ol’ lady, and leaving Cilla to wonder why mean bitches always won.
Just barely missing running into the back of a man hauling a crate of oranges, Cilla took a moment to breathe before she bumbled into someone else. She was surrounded by the Sunday morning crowd at the flea market that took place every weekend at the Circle Drive-In. During the week, the small, local drive-in theater showed blockbuster movies on the big outdoor screens on their massive lot. During the weekends, though, that lot was converted to aisles of booths boasting local produce, collectables like Funko Pops and knives, trashy treasures, Airsoft guns, handmade gifts items like quilts, and basically anything that could be sold without a liquor license.
After her last two days, Cilla just wanted to disappear, but she also wanted to get outside, get a little sun, and maybe pick through the booths for treasures she could use to make her small home a little more colorful. Having been raised in little more than a double wide, Cilla was acutely aware that she was a thrift market kind of girl, but she sort of loved digging for the proverbial gold at flea markets, thrift stores, and garage and yard sales. And let’s not forget the all-in-one neighborhood rummage sale. Today, she had energy to burn and a few twenties looking for a new home in the pocket of a flea market vendor. So, she meandered up and down the aisles, her mind on Patriot, his betrayal, the pain of what happened, and the frustration at not knowing where to go from there.
Without thinking about it, she pulled her cell from her jeans pocket and checked it, once again, for what seemed like the fortieth time that morning.
Nothing.
Not a single text or call from Patriot. In two days.
Stephie had texted yesterday, asking if she was okay after the smackdown from Jaime and the Slutketeers the night before, but Cilla only replied that she was fine. When Stephie ranted about Jaime, Sasha, Tasha, and Marci and how they were skank bitches that only an asshole like Tornado—Sasha’s boyfriend—could love, Cilla only replied that she wanted to keep out of it. When Stephie texted and threatened to come over and spend the night commiserating about their terrible Girl’s Night and wanting a do over, Cilla had put her foot down, telling her friend that she just wanted to veg out in her sweats, and be alone for the weekend. With the promise of chocolatey baked goods the following week, Stephie had backed down…and Cilla had grown increasingly disgusted with herself. She hated lying to her friend, but what could she really tell her? “I feel like the biggest fool because the man I loved treated me like shit….” Or…what about, “I can never show my face around the club because no one there actually wants me around….” Or, even better, “Patriot is a lying asshole, and I never want to see him again!” None of those things would get past her bestie without all the questions from an out-of-the-loop Stephie. Since Patriot had basically demanded her silence about their “relationship”, Cilla hadn’t told anyone, not even her best friend. So not only did she feel like the biggest bitch because she lied to her friend and kept things from her, but also because she was such a pathetic loser, she’d actually believed Patriot when he told her she meant something to him.
Maybe I’ll just tell Stephie. It wasn’t like Stephie would tell anyone—which was Patriot’s fear—that word would get back to someone at the club and his “club business” would be compromised. But Stephie wasn’t a blabber mouth…and it appeared that her man, Horde, was already in the know, if his not-so-subtle glares at Patriot that night at the bar were any indication. She really, really wanted to tell Stephie, to unload all the pain, the humiliation, the fear, and the confusion on her friend. But to what end? What good would it to do open up her chest and pull her heart out, especially when she was so freaking conflicted.
Patriot…that night at the bar…that wasn’t him, not the man she’d met and fallen in love with all those months ago. She’d never seen him so…outside of his own control. The man was a soldier, a warrior, and mother-effing MC VP, he didn’t do out of his own control. He owned his circumstances, his situations…but that night, it looked like he’d let things slip right through his fingers, because he couldn’t make a fist, because he couldn’t punch it or strangle it or silence it with a death stare. That night at the bar, Patriot looked lost. Unfettered.
And that was why she was even contemplating talking to him if he called, or replying if he texted. But he had to make the first move.
If he even wanted to….
Her blank cell screen mocked her.
Even after all he’d done—or rather failed to do that night—she’d still held out hope that he would follow her, demand she listen to him, and then lay it all out on the line to earn her forgiveness, like in the shows she watched on Netflix.
Well, what the hell did all those stupid K-Drama romances know about real life? Nothing. Because the truth was that Patriot had let her walk out of Cool Hands, and he hadn’t given her a second thought.
For two hours, Cilla moved up and down the flea market aisles, buying thing she didn’t need but realized she just couldn’t live without, including a desk lamp shaped like a seashell, a canvas bag that read “Nixie’s Bag of Tricks” on the side, and a plastic bag full of lemons she was going to use to make several lemon meringue pies. When K-Dramas, gorging on junk, or binging on book smut couldn’t make her feel better, baking sometimes could.
