Fireball (Cheap Thrills #1)(44)

I want to say I never thought about him, never had flashbacks of our short time together, but I’d be lying.

He should have told me, but he didn’t. Maybe he wasn’t just like my dad, but he was a liar by omission, and that was something I was struggling with.

The skin on my thigh pulled as I shifted position on Jose’s sofa, reminding me about my new tattoo. That’s what broke the dam and curling up in a ball I let it all out. I cried for my mom, I cried for Jose, I cried for Olivia, and I cried for Dave.

And I damn well cried for myself.





Chapter Eleven





DB





Nine days later…

It had been over a week since the night everything went to shit. I’d hardly slept, and I was now at the stage where I wanted to rip everything apart with my bare hands.

I’d seen Tabby and had even tried talking to her, but she was functioning on automatic pilot. Normally she wore bright colors, clothes that suited her colorful personality, but every time I saw her now she was wearing gray or black. It was like someone cutting a peacock’s tail off and it gave me a sharp pain in my gut each time I saw her.

Both Larry and Rita had been charged and bail had been set, but interestingly enough Luli hadn’t come forward to pay it for her. I’d called Dad last night to ask about it, not that I cared if Rita rotted in a cell where she was someone’s bitch, but I’d wanted to make sure he was ok, and he’d said he’d call me back. The fact that he hadn’t left me wondering what the hell was going on.

In the meantime, Larry had spilled everything when we’d questioned him, even helping us to identify who’d been responsible for the break-ins. Rita had invited some of her ‘friends’ to Piersville, friends who dealt in nice candy like cocaine and speed, and they’d decided they had a new market to shop from in the form of other people’s belongings. These friends just so happened to be the two men who’d been at Jose’s, and who’d gotten away while we got Olivia back from Rita, and dealt with both of their arrests. After a day of searching, we’d found them in a tent deep in one of the wooded areas on the outskirts of town near a large lake.

Actually, the word ‘found’ wasn’t the right one seeing as how someone had called in reports of a man screaming in the area and when we’d investigated it, we’d found them. Come to find out, one of them had stood on a snake, type unknown because in their own words ‘it was dark as fuck’, and it was that which was making him scream. His friend had become paranoid that the snake was going to come back after taking some of his own product that appeared to have been laced with acid. His wicked hallucinations meant that he was sitting in the middle of the tent with a gun in each hand. We’d approached cautiously, and showing how out of his mind he was with the drugs, rather than shoot at us, he’d fallen flat on his face begging us not to bite him.

Larry had even helped me with my inquiries into why Doctor Douche had come into Jose’s room to discharge her after Olivia had been born. After some encouragement from Rita in the form of her mouth on his cock, he’d agreed to help them get the baby. The plan had been for him to go in and take the paperwork they had given Jose to complete, take the forms the hospital would complete afterward, and then they would change some details and register the baby as theirs. This hadn’t been done out of love or desperation for a child together, far from it. They did it out of spite and in retaliation for tying Rita up with a yellow bra and having her arrested, and for Larry being hit with a breast pump, kicked out of the house, and arrested as well. The doctor hadn’t counted on me being present, and when he’d realized that I was there for Jose, he’d had to come up with Plan B, which was a bullshit one and gave him away.

This might sound like everything was going right because we had the answers we needed, but it was everyone else who was acting like an asshole now that we’d put those assholes away. Hurst Townsend had decided for some reason he was my new agony aunt and relationship guidance counselor in one package. Every day, he’d text me with ideas on how to win Tabby back around, links to florists and those fruit bouquet places online, links to Cosmopolitan articles, questions on how I was feeling, offers to go grab a drink…it was insane.

Ellis was holding himself back, struggling with not being able to check on Jose and Olivia. I knew nothing had happened between them, but it appeared that she’d been on his radar in a big way long before he’d shown up on hers. I’d gone to see him for some new ink yesterday, and he’d said about four words to me throughout the whole time he’d been working on me. This wasn’t like him, and when I’d asked if he’d spoken to her at all, he’d shut down completely and focused on what he was doing.

Then there was Dad. I gave not one shit was Luli was doing or saying, but I did still care about him. I hated the predicament he’d gotten himself into and the fact that he hadn’t been able to cut himself free from her, and because of it all his silence was unnerving. I couldn’t go to him without giving shit away though, especially when I wasn’t open to even hearing about dropping the charges against Rita.

Throwing my pen across my desk in frustration, I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes for a minute. As if the Devil’s ass hole was watching me, a knock on the door of my office ruined that plan only seconds later. Expecting to see Rory or one of the guys, I was confused when Hurst stuck his head around it.