Page 11 of Angel

“No,” Cage answered truthfully.

“Getting sick too?”

Cage shrugged as he unlocked and opened his apartment door. “Possible,” was the only word he said before closing himself inside. Unfortunately, his type of illness wasn’t one that a bottle of Dayquil could cure.

CHAPTER 2

Eventually Angel had to get back to work. Despite the fact that she owned the tattoo studio, Inked Ya, she still received most of her income via commission. No tattoos, no commission. No commission, no money to pay the bills.

It took over a week for her to get herself out of bed and moving. Her heavy bleeding had slowed to spotting and she no longer had to wear the postpartum pads the hospital had given her. Tessa kept up the flu charade, which Angel appreciated. The ol’ ladies helped with Bree. Abby had offered to take Bree for the duration of her illness so Angel could recover in peace, but her house wasn’t as wheelchair accessible as Angel’s. Though doable, it would have been difficult for Bree to live there. Instead, Bree spent her days with Cassie, Bulldog and Abby’s teenage daughter, and the other club kids at the clubhouse or in the communal backyard referred to as the Pentagon.

Bree was clearly concerned about Angel, which made Angel feel guilty for having neglected her daughter. She may have lost her baby, which was devastating and heartbreaking, but she still had a daughter. She needed to rejoin the land of the living.

“Want to come to work with me today?” Angel offered as they ate breakfast together for the first time in over a week.

Bree immediately perked up. “Yes!”

Inked Ya was part of the store fronts on Main Street. On its right was a barber shop and on the left a flower shop. Across the street was a bookstore and diner. Prior to adopting Bree, Angel had lived in the apartment above the shop and ate most of her meals at the diner. The apartment had been a single studio room that had fit her needs perfectly and gave her space away from the clubhouse during some of the rowdier parties.

Angel loved a good party, but she would never be one for sex out in the open where people she had to face the next day could see her. Steel had become like a father-figure to her, and Angel had no desire for him to witness her in a compromising position as they all had with some of the other patched members.

The modular home Angel had purchased was specifically designed for a wheelchair inhabitant. With certain modifications in mind, Angel had made changes to her tattoo studio too. She wanted Bree to be welcome at her place of business, as well as any other wheelchair users. The building was old enough that certain modifications hadn’t been required or necessary until Bree had entered her life.

Bree would be starting high school in less than a month and was extremely nervous about it. Not only had she not been to school in several years, but she had a history that none of her other classmates had. Small town or no, kids could be mean to each other. Bree was a wheelchair user in a school of obnoxious and hormonal teenagers.

Cassie was not ready to go to high school. Though the two of them were similar in age, Cassie’s agoraphobia—her fear of going outside—tended to increase whenever the topic of school was raised. Abby was doing her best to homeschool Cassie, though she needed Harper’s help at times. It gave Abby a sense of purpose since she had no work history or high school diploma to apply for a job.

Lila, Abby and Bulldog’s six-year-old daughter, would be starting school too. Mount Grove had two school buildings. The elementary school, which was kindergarten through grade seven, and the high school, which was eight through twelve. The elementary school was on the opposite side of town from the high school where Harper worked and Scotty, and now Bree, attended. Lila acted like this was a fun new adventure and she didn’t mind being separated from the others, but they all knew she was nervous.

Angel was grateful Harper was a teacher at the high school and could get to Bree at a moment’s notice if needed. Pirate, Jumper’s brother and a newly patched member of the club, also worked as a security guard at the school. Angel knew that Bulldog planned to talk to Pirate about considering transferring to the elementary school so Lila had someone from the club readily present. Since she’d been MIA from club business for the past week, Angel didn’t know if Bulldog had spoken to Pirate yet. Angel also knew that Lucky preferred having a patched member at the high school where his wife and son were. She’d missed enough that she was going to need to catch up on certain events.

Bree was excited as she pushed herself into the shop. When Angel first had to go back to work after Bree had been discharged from the hospital, Bree had come with her daily. As Bree got stronger, and with the help of some of her club brothers willing to watch her, Bree had been able to start staying at the clubhouse while Angel worked. Sometimes, Angel would drop her off at the club’s Harley-Davidson dealership to spend the day with Demo or whoever was on the sales floor that day. Bree would proudly wear her denim cut that announced her as a club kid and work the sales floor with the best of them.

Angel always wore her cut to work. Though the tattoo studio was hers alone and not a club business, Angel was proud to be a Via Daemonia. Her cut was not something she needed to hide. Bree had followed suit and started wearing her cut when she was at the shop with Angel too.

Bree immediately went to the welcome desk and pressed the button to lower it down. She pushed her wheelchair right up to the desk chair and transferred herself easily to it. Angel watched with a sense of pride she hadn’t known she was capable of before meeting Bree. It had taken a lot of hard work for Bree to become as independent as she currently was.

It was hard to imagine that a year ago, she’d been dying in a hospital bed.

With her hormones still heightened from her chemical pregnancy, Angel felt tears well in her eyes and quickly had to wipe them away. Bree was worried enough about her as it was.

As Angel went to get her station set up, she heard the bell ring behind her. Patrick, a flamboyantly gay man with rainbow hair and enough piercings to set off a metal detector, came in. He had been the first tattoo artist Angel had hired when she’d started to get too busy as a one-woman shop. Though he loved Mount Grove’s small-town vibe, his biggest complaint was that he had to leave town to get his rocks off due to the lack of a gay community here.

“Bree, my darling, my love, it’s been too long!”

Bree giggled as she opened her arms to Patrick for a hug. When Angel had called the studio that first day to inform them that she was at the hospital and what was happening with Bree, Patrick, Delilah, and Katie all dropped what they were doing and headed to the hospital to help with the blood drive efforts. Delilah was their third tattoo artist and a single mom after kicking her deadbeat drunk of a husband out. Katie was their receptionist, a perky woman who sometimes could be a bit of a ditz but always meant well. All three of her employees had welcomed Bree into their lives with lots of hugs, kisses, and support.

Based on their schedule today, Angel and Patrick had back-to-back appointments all morning. Delilah wouldn’t be in until that afternoon as she only had a half-day due to a dentist appointment. Katie would be spending a good part of the morning helping Angel and Patrick clean up, sanitize, and prep, so it was good Bree was there to also help with the phones and checkout.

Since Angel had been out for over a week, Angel had Bree start off the day by contacting Angel’s cancelled appointments to rebook. Bree said she didn’t mind staying late so there were two appointments that she scheduled for Angel around dinnertime. Angel planned on putting a takeout order in with the diner for all of their lunches and then Bree’s and her dinner too.

As Angel worked throughout the day, Bree would interrupt to remind her to drink water or take a break to eat something. Angel had lost some weight during her week in bed and still looked reasonably pale.

The worst part about returning to the land of the living was not pretending that everything was fine or lying about being sick, it was the realization just how nasty and terrible she’d been to Cage. Regardless of her feelings, which she was woman enough to admit were hurt, she never should have spoken to him as she had. Cage’s proclamation that he wanted to try to be with her was like a bruise to her already battered soul.

He didn’t know that though. Like the rest of her brothers, he believed she’d had the stomach flu. He had no idea that she’d just lost her baby—or that there was a part of her that blamed him for putting her in that precarious situation in the first place.

It wasn’t Cage’s fault.

---