Page 7 of Scotch: Unraveled

No, I don’t actually think he wanted orgies, but I’ve made my point—if the way Elise sucks in a sharp breath means anything.

Caitlin reaches over her cart to grab my hand resting on the cart handlebar giving it a gentle squeeze. Her comforting touch, her earnest ‘I’m sad for you’ eyes, honestly make me tear up yet again. And I take off without even sayinggoodbyeso they don’t see.

“He’s a good guy,” Elise calls after me. “You should really get to know him again. I think you’ll be surprised.”

The cashier rings up my purchases and I pay for them, getting out before Caitlin or Elise can jump me in the parking lot or something. I don’t trust those women now. One doesn’t corner an innocent person in a liquor store in polite society. That’s the rub thought, isn’t it? They don’t live in polite society. They’re Lords old ladies through and through despite their outward appearances. I mean, how dare they look professional and nonthreatening when they’re anything but? What gives them the right to come in to the daycare with their adorable kids and be all funny and friendly when that’s a lie? They belong to him. They’re his friends. If I don’t shut them down, I’ll never get out from under the fog of Rory MacGregor. A fog following me for almost a decade.

I spend a few extra moments sitting in my car in the parking lot, my hands gripping the steering wheel, my head pressed against my hands to decompress before driving back to Brighton’s house. The whole route including stoplights takes only a few minutes. Not only do I have to drink away my encounter with Rory, but now two daycare moms whom I actually liked and now… Ican’t. And that pisses me off.

Brighton takes the brown paper bags from my hands and replaces them by shoving sleep pants and a T-shirt at me right as I walk through the door. “Go get comfortable,” she orders, already having changed into her comfies.

“Those two Lords daycare moms, I saw them at the store,” I shout to her through the partially open bathroom door.

“Crap,” she hollers back.

“They stopped me. Wanted to know about me and Rory.”

“You don’t think they’re like stalking you, do you?”

I walk back out to her living room not totally dressed, the tee draping down over my stomach. “Nah.” Since we’re relatively the same size, her shirts pull a little snug across the chest so I avoid her button-downs to avoid button gap and my ass and thighs push the limits of the stitching along the seams of her jeans and trousers but I’m far from spilling out of anything, I tossed my clothes in the hamper inside her laundry closet as I walked down the hallway. I’ll just borrow something of hers to wear tomorrow. “I think it was just coincidence.”

“Do you think maybe you should look for another job?” she asks from the open kitchen.

“No way. I’m only a teacher there for a few more months, then I take over as director when Ms. Lockhart retires. The money is too good and there aren’t that many daycares in or around Thornbriar. That means I’d have to commute or move again.”

“I just got you back. You’renotleaving.” Brighton hands me off a cherry 7 and 7 and kisses my cheek, then taking hers, we walk to the sofa where I plop down, spilling a few drops over the rim of my glass onto my hand. No shame, I lick it off. Wasting even a drop of cherry 7 and 7 could be considered sacrilege. I tuck my legs under me, pull the blanket she left folded on the cushion over my lap and commence with my forget Rory MacGregor plan.

Several hours later, when I’m much drunker than I should be on a weeknight, Brighton squeezes my knee. “Seriously,” she slurs and because it’s slurred, it sounds more like ‘suriously.’ “Whatcha gonna do about Rory?”

I shrug. “Don’t really know. But I think it’ll involve making him sorry he ever broke my heart.”

“Good plan,” she says, her eyes drooping right before she passes out.

Itisa good plan. Screw you, Rory MacGregor. Screw you.

3.

Scotch a.k.a. Rory

“You think you can shut that kid up?” One of the crotchetier brothers, Crude, yells at me as I stand in the kitchen measuring formula into bottles. “I’m out here tryin’a get laid. If I wanted to hear that shit, I’d be at home with my own brats and old lady.”

That pisses me off for three reasons. First, I’m trying here. I’ve had them fortwo days, he’s lucky I’m doing this well. I didn’t ask for this shite. Second, it’s Saturday and there’s a Lords’ party going on. Some fine pieces showed up tonight. Brothers out there getting laid and I’m making up fucking bottles. Third, he’s a brother, so I’ll refrain from giving him a piece of my mind, but I fucking hate when men don’t respect their women. Ya took her on, ya built a family with her, put a ring on it, ya don’t stick your dick in any other woman. Period.

He’s a lucky bastard and doesn’t even realize it. How many men who want the love of a good woman can’t find it? Or us stupid shites who thought we had it once upon a time, but it turned out we were just fooling ourselves?

After it’s cooled enough so as not to burn the little ones’ mouths, I pour the warm water into the bottles, screw on the nipples and shake the ever-loving-shite out of each one before walking them back to my room. A couple pieces approach me on the way until they see what’s in my hand. Then they back off. Best they back off anyway. It’s not like I can bang ’em in my room with the girls there and although I don’t judge the brothers who do, I’ve never been one for pounding pussy over the pool table or the old sofa. I much prefer pussy pounding in private.

Jesus, you can hear them throughout the whole flipping hallway. I didn’t know babies cried so much. I don’t remember Gun crying so much. But sure enough, there’s Macie, red-faced and screeching. Mollie isn’t far behind. She’s crying, but at least it’s not that dimmable screech of her sister.

I use the trick Elise taught me, to use one of the blankets balled up to help prop up the bottle, because they’re not big enough to hold the bottles themselves yet. Once they settle and get sleepy, if the bottle slips, the crying’ll just start up again.

Mollie takes her bottle and quiets right away, whereas Macie, my problem child, refuses to settle. Going off the checklist in my head Elise gave me, I pick her up and bounce her. I kiss her head and try to comfort her. None of it works.

I pat her diaper and it doesn’t feeltoowet. It hasn’t been that long since one of the hot mamas came in to change her; I don’t think anyway. Macie and I walk over to the door. I open it and scan the hallway for Hannah—she’s a hot mama, a dancer at the club and Blood’s unofficial old lady, though the man really needs to get his head out of his arse and make it official because she’s fine as hell and sweet as sugar (though not as fine or sweet as Elise), and best of all, her room is only one down opposite mine. Right now, I’ll take anyone else. The problem is, I don’t see her or anyone else.

What if she needs to be changed? Is it legal for me to see their parts? How the hell do single fathers do this? Lucky for us, there’s always been a woman around for changing or bath time. Well, until now that is.

Before I pull my head back into the room, Duke and Caity round the corner into the hallway and he calls out to me. “Need to talk, brother.”

---