Chris laid in the grass, taking deep inhales since his brother was no longer crushing him. Anything to keep himself from crying.
With another shake of his head, Randy walked over to Chris’s worn, dirty teddy bear that had tumbled out onto the dead grass, along with the rest of his things, when the bag spilled during the struggle. His brother picked up the stuffed animal, stared at it for a second, then came back to where Chris laid sprawled on the ground. He dropped it onto his chest. “I’ll tell you what the fuck she’s done. Nothin’. So, don’t be such a fuckin’ baby. We’re better off without her.”
Chris laid there, staring up at the late afternoon sky, and a hot tear slid from the corner of his eye. He heard his brother stomp back up the steps, go inside and slam the front door shut.
From inside the house, Chris heard a muffled shout of, “Fuck her!”
He grabbed his teddy bear, hugged it against his chest and curled into a ball around it. “She’ll be back,” he whispered, unable to stop the tears anymore. No longer caring who saw him cry.
Shortly after, the tears stopped.
And much later, he forgot what she looked like.
Because that night, when his father got home, he burned every damn photo of her in that house. Anything she left behind was burned, too. Then he told them never to mention her name again.
That rule wasn’t difficult to follow because Chris never knew what her name was.
He’d only ever called her Mom.
Chapter One
Fucking Mondays.
Monday mornings were always the hardest.
Cage’s hand slipped down his bare chest and under the tangled sheet to find another reason mornings were hard.
With one hand wrapped around his morning wood, he yawned. He needed to take a piss but that wouldn’t happen any time soon. At least not until his current dilemma was resolved.
The toilet flushing in the small bathroom attached to his room in the club’s bunkhouse had his eyes popping open and his heart skipping a beat.
What the fuck?
Who the fuck was in his bathroom?
He jackknifed up to a seated position and glanced around the room, trying to remember everything that happened last night at, or after, the club’s pig roast.
They’d gone on a Sunday club run. Check.
They had a pig roast afterward since they had a lot of leftovers from the prior weekend’s charity poker run. They’d raised a shit ton of scratch for the Kids Can Do Foundation. So, he stuffed his gut full of good grub. Check.
He’d played a couple rounds of pool with Ozzy and scored a Benjamin. Check.
Then he lost it to Dodge at darts. Unfortunate check.
Billie had been trying to drag him back into his room all night. She didn’t succeed. Check.
Wait.
Or did she? Uncheck.
Fuck.
He scanned the floor for a female’s clothing. No black combat boots or goth shit. No heavy makeup staining his pillow. Thank fuck. Check.
He usually ended up hurting after Billie got her hands on him. She was into some crazy shit. Currently, he wasn’t sore, bleeding or bruised. Check. Check. Check.
He quickly continued to go through his night as he heard the water run in the sink.
Whiskey? Check.
Lots of whiskey? Check.
Too much whiskey? Fuck.
So much so, he didn’t have a fucking clue who was going to pop out of his bathroom like a stripper coming out of a surprise birthday cake.
Did it really matter?
Probably not.
The only problem was, one of the bunkhouse rules was no women overnight. He didn’t need Trip kicking his ass out of his room. He liked living here. It was cheap. He had his own crapper. He had full access to the stocked kitchen down the corridor. He could get drunk off his ass and just stumble his way back to his bed. And, best of all, plenty of pussy was always available.
He held his breath as the doorknob on the bathroom turned.
It was like spinning a roulette wheel. His dick could’ve been placed in anyone’s box.
Well, female only, of course.
The door swung open and...
He blinked.
The woman smiled and tossed her long platinum-blonde hair over her shoulder.
Well, at least she wasn’t fugly.
But he had no idea who she was. “Uh...”
Her smile widened as she climbed into bed with him. Naked.
He had to admit her body was banging.
Which was probably why he banged her. Even drunk he had good taste.
“We banged, right?”
“You don’t remember?”
Cage weighed his options on answering that with a lie or not. “Last night’s a little sketchy. We use a