Lawless (King #3)(12)

I’m going to tell King to f*ck off. Tell him to shoot me if that’s what he really wants. As I see it, I’m about to right a wrong. I should have never sent her up to King at that party. I should have taken her to my bed and kept her there the second I laid eyes on her.

Instead my dumb ass sent her up to King to put a smile on his face.

Like that f*cker ever smiled.

Doe turns and looks up at King and even through all the hurt and anger on her face I can see clearly how she feels about him. I’ve never seen real love before, but I know that this is it and it makes my stomach turn because I know right then what I am seeing is the real thing. Shit, I can feel it. Like static electricity zapping the air between them.

It physically pains me to unwrap my arms from around her because I know it’s the last time I’d ever touch her because she didn’t belong to me. Never did.

Never could.

I walk past King and barrel into him with my shoulder, giving him a polite ‘f*ck you’ shove. When I get back up to the house I almost keel over when I feel the sting in the very center of my chest. It hurts so bad I think for a second that the motherf*cker changed his mind and shot me after all. Either that or I’m having a heart attack.

But when I open my eyes and look down I’m staring at my best friend Preppy, blood pours from his chest and he’s dying in front of me all over again. The life drains from his eyes and the pain in my chest intensifies. I look down and the blood stain on my chest matches Preppy’s. The pain becomes unbearable.

But the pain isn’t because of any bullet.

It’s because I couldn’t save him.

And then a swarm of bees attacked.

BZZZZZ BZZZZZZ BZZZZZZZ

Bees?

Bzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzz.

My burner phone vibrated on the end table, jumping around and playing the same cheesy ringtone all the burners I’d ever had played. Some f*cking happy tune that never seemed to match my less than happy mood.

I was thankful when it stopped dancing. I smashed my face back into the mattress.

Three seconds later it started again, and again I ignored it.

Three seconds after that it started yet again.

Only one person had my number and when I first left Logan’s Beach he called me every day.

I never answered.

The calls slowed to once a week.

I never answered.

When the calls stopped completely I felt a mixture of both hurt and relief.

The phone buzzed for the fourth time and I couldn’t take it anymore. I reached over and pressed the green button, holding it to my ear without saying a word. “Bear? Bear is that you?” a female voice asked.

Doe.

“I’m so glad you answered. You don’t have to say anything, but you need to come home. Something’s happened,” she said, the worry in her voice cutting through my fog.

I sat up on the bed quickly. Too quickly, and saw stars.

“I don’t know where to start. It’s just that…” she paused and it sounded as if she’d covered the receiver with her hand. “You’re so pushy,” she said, but not to me. There was a commotion on the line like the phone was being passed and I knew exactly who it was being passed to, even before I heard him murmur, “I’m going to make you regret that smart mouth of yours after the kids go to bed.”

I didn’t need to hear that shit. It was hard work sustaining the constant headache that pounded between my ears and I needed to get back to it.

“You there?” King asked. I responded with a grunt and the sound of my lighter as I lit a cigarette. The smoke opened up my lungs and sending just enough nicotine to my brain to make the rusted wheels in my head start turning again. “I’m here,” I said in case he didn’t hear my grunt, my voice dry and scratchy. I reached over for my bottle of Jack Daniels but it was empty.

I tilted it back and opened my mouth, the remnants dripped into my mouth.

One, two, three, done.

“You sound like f*cking shit,” King said.

“Well hello to you f*cking too,” I sang.

“We have a situation here more important than the sound of your f*cking voice and as much as I’d like to take care of it for you, I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“What?”

“Gus was here…”

Holy shit.

I leapt off the bed, and again it was too fast because I fell to the floor with a thud. The phone slid across the carpet. Turning over onto my back I grabbed the phone and again held it up to my ear.

At least I didn’t lose my smoke I thought, crossing my eyes to look at the cigarette still dangling from my lips.

“What the f*ck is going on over there?” King asked.

I looked over at the clock on the nightstand. “Don’t worry about it. What you should worry about is why a brother is at your f*cking door at three o’clock in the morning.” The MC was after me. As much as they’d love to take out King, killing civilians brought too much heat, but I still couldn’t think of a single reason why Gus would be there, other than taking out my closest friend to get to me.

“He’s not here anymore. He had a girl with him.”

“Gus has a girl? He’s an awkward motherf*cker, but good for him, I guess,” I said.

“No, shut the f*ck up and listen…”

“I’ve got a headache the size of the f*cking Grand Canyon so cut the vague shit and tell me what the f*ck is so important in the middle of the night that a text wouldn’t have been sufficient,” I said. The popcorn ceiling above me had blackish mold growing in the corners and if I closed one eye I could practically see the patch of fuzzy spores slowly growing into long-term lung issues.