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“How about now, today, on our way to my place?” Colt asked, interrupting my thoughts, causing me more anxiety than I’d felt since I first learned I was pregnant.
My throat tightened, and my mouth went completely dry. “Now?” I asked, trying to absorb the concept. “Like in right now?”
“His place is closer than mine. He’s right up the road. He lives in a small cabin on Tammy and Jimmy’s property. Might as well rip the bandage off all at once.”
“All at once,” I repeated, as those bumbleberry pancakes soured in my stomach.
He reached over and took my hand, his big, strong hand covering mine, and I knew I could and would do this.
Mickey deserved to know, and I would be the one to tell him… like right now.
“Holy crap… we’re doing this.”
“It’ll take us a few minutes to get to his house, but yes… right now.”
I sucked in a breath, grinned over at him, and said, “I think I’m going to be sick. Pull over.”
And for the next ten minutes, well, let’s just say, things got unexpectantly ugly.
Mickey 5
There were days when you opened your eyes and knew it would be a great day. When everything was going your way, and you were on fucking track with a plan for your life that could only bring you mass amounts of wealth and happiness.
This wasn’t one of those days.
I woke up feeling like total fucking shit, not just from the hangover that threatened to blow off the top of my head, but from the pain in my jaw, shoulder, and hand.
My jaw hurt from where Daryl clipped me, and my shoulder hurt from me trying like hell to throw a decent punch, and my hand, well, it fucking ached from punching at anything that came my way. I don’t think I ever completely connected with Daryl’s face, but that wasn’t the case when it came to Scotty. He had the beginnings of an epic blackeye where I finally connected while he tried to pull Daryl and me apart.
“What the fuck were you thinking trying to fight with Daryl? Do you have rocks for brains or what?” Scotty asked as he stumbled into the kitchen, looking for his first cup of coffee. He wore light-blue PJ bottoms and a sleeveless, loose-fitting black t-shirt. Scotty was one of those guys who dressed for bed. Me? If I wore briefs, it was only because I fell into bed before I’d thought to pull them off. It wasn’t as if I paraded around naked or anything like that. Before I came out here for breakfast, I’d slipped on a pair of long shorts, but I couldn’t be bothered with a shirt. Besides, I couldn’t find a clean one in my closet.
“I didn’t like what he said,” I told him, while I nursed my second cup.
“I’m right, then.” He knocked on my head, as I jerked away. “You do have rocks in there. That’s the only reason anyone would start a fist fight with Daryl Geller, ex prize fighter. How’d you get home? I looked for you when the dust settled but couldn’t find you.”
“Tammy. She wanted to make sure I was all right.”
He grabbed a clean mug out of the dishwasher, poured in the coffee that he’d set up before he went to bed, using the timer option on the pot. Then he took a seat at the opposite end of the kitchen island.
“A lost cause if there ever was one,” he muttered, staring down at his mug of steaming hot coffee. “You’re never all right. That’s the fucking problem.”
We sometimes shared his two-bedroom cabin on Tammy’s property… Tammy and Jimmy’s property. There were several cabins they rented out or used as guest houses for family, friends, the talent they booked for Dirty Coyote, or for hopeless assholes like me.
Scotty owned his own place over in Cricket, a town not far from here, but lately, he’d been bunking in with me during the week. We didn’t always get the Coyote closed until three or four in the morning. Scotty didn’t want to get on the road and drive for an hour just to turn around and come right back a few hours later. He usually went home on his days off, if for nothing else but to get away from me for a few days. And from the way I’d been carrying on, I wondered why he’d spent the night at all.
“You don’t know what he said,” I told him, getting up to refill my cup.
Scotty ran a hand through his sandy-colored hair, as if that might get it off his forehead, but all it did was swish it around.
He was one of those ruggedly good-looking guys who didn’t have to do much to look great. He barely worked out, yet his shoulders and abs looked as if he lived at a gym. He had thighs any surfer would envy, and a face that turned a woman’s head, even if she were too old or too young to even be thinking about him.
“Fill me in, brother. Let me know what triggered you like that. Let’s see if I agree with your reaction.”
I poured my coffee, added milk and enough sugar to make it taste like a dessert, sat back down, and pulled in a breath. “He said I needed to man up. That I was a good-for-nothing waste of manhood, and somebody should teach me a lesson on how to treat a woman. That CindyLou deserved better than the likes of me.”
Scotty took a couple of sips of his black coffee, placed the mug down in front of him, folded his arms, and leaned forward on the island, fists holding up his head as he stared at me. “First off… what in that statement is a lie? And secondly… what the hell does CindyLou have to do with any of this?”
I hated telling him this fucking part. I knew he wouldn’t like it, but it was too late now for me to try to sugar coat it.
