Page 31 of Five
This demonic shitty day couldn’t end more miserably. But that’s Sod’s Law, isn’t it? Maybe I can drown myself in the river and get eaten by alligators. Are there any alligators in the Chicago River? Baby piranhas? A lost anaconda?
I moan and shudder, making Pink jump down the bed with a hiss my way. It takes more than a moment for me to kick my own misery in the balls and let anger take the reins.
That tosser, wanker, dead-from-the-neck-up, nobsocket owner of the club, Mr. Hot Shot. He will feel my wrath as soon as I can get some strength into my aching body again. I slump back, and with the movement, a warm comforting scent enters my nostrils. I raise my arm and draw my nose near the incredibly soft fabric of Gabe’s suit. I’m about to take a cautious inhale when the bedroom door starts opening.
Like a kid caught stealing an extra chocolate biscuit, I quickly slide my arm back under the blanket as I turn my head toward Ollie. He isn’t moving, standing in the room’s threshold, simply staring at me. Then he lets out a high-pitched scream and runs toward me. In the next breath, he’s on me, pulling me up and squeezing me like a used lemon slice.
“Death by boa constrictor, now I know the feeling.” I sound like a three-pack-a-day geezer.
Ollie doesn’t let go of me. “If I ever get an ulcer, I’ll name it after you,” he grumbles, but I can hear the relief in his voice at seeing me awake.
“Ulcer Boone? It’s catchy,” I retort.
“Ulcer Gremlin sounds better,” I hear Sully-doo’s joking voice. I can barely shift my body with Ollie still wrapped all around me, but my eyes find him standing near the door.
“You scared me. You can’t leave me, Lor, remember our promise?” Ollie whispers in my ear. Of course, I do. I even have a tattoo on my hip as a proof.
“I need you,” he adds, and damn, it's nice to hear it since I’ve felt a little left out after he found Rague. I’m very happy for them. Hell, I know how much Ollie deserves love and happiness, but I’ve missed him. His life has been so chaotic lately that we’ve barely had time to see each other.
“Everybody needs a Lori,” Sully-doo says sweetly.
“Aw, I love it when you pump my tires. I surely am a limited edition.” I wink at him even though I’m strangely uneasy. I feel off. My muscles have turned rigid, and I’m trying like hell to relax against Ollie. When he lets me go, the stiffness lessens a little. It’s like my body doesn’t want to be touched.
“You’re the peanut butter to my jelly toast,” he quotes the words of the very clingy boy I dated in junior high, Gooey Louie.
“Together we are puke-inducing, then.”
His throat bobs, and then he lets out a short laugh. It sounds wet, but he’s clear-eyed by the time he stops. Rague quickly appears behind him, pulling Ollie’s back to his front.
“How do you feel?” he asks me.
I shift my body until my back is against the wooden headboard. “I wouldn’t be opposed to you using your shiny axe to chopmy head off right about now. But other than that, I’m bloody thirsty.” I cough and Sully-doo passes me the water bottle, handing me also a couple of pills. I don’t ask what they are for, just down them with the water.
Michael enters the room, and after a couple of seconds when he is not followed by Raph I ask, “Bones! Where’s Bully Boy? Why isn’t he here groping you?”
“Raph is not here,” Michael replies as he starts checking my vitals.
“Not here means away from you.”
Michael sighs as he lets go of my wrist and replies with a nod.
“Open the window, KKJ,” I tell Rague. “I need to see the pigs flying in the sky, looking up, and forming fart clouds.”
“Pigs can’t look upward, and it’s nighttime.”
“Raph is at the base,” Michael clarifies. Oh, okay that’s the only reason Raph would detach himself from his husband’s cute butt. “I’m glad to see you’reyouagain.” He doesn’t sound very glad.
“Do you remember what happened?” he then asks with a serious tone.
I feel my cheeks grow warm, but I don’t lower my eyes. “Some of it. I know I was dosed, and I remember the killer pain and some of what followed.” The memory of the contrast between my wrecked, blissed-out state and Gabe’s immaculate, composed selfis so positively filthy. It’s also deeply and bloody embarrassing, but at the same time hot beyond belief.
“Did you get Mr. Hot Shot?” I ask, then looking at their confused faces I add, “The owner of the club.”
“Philip Bailey is in the wind. The club is closed for now, Rami and the triplets released some rats in the kitchen, which the firemen were not very happy about. We’re focusing on the drugs now; Hunter and his cousin Opal are working to find out the source of the components, which Sari figured out thanks to your and Gabe’s blood samples,” Rague explains.
“Gabe was dosed, too?” He looked fine by my recollection. Not as sex-crazed as me.
“Less than you. He took only a sip of his drink.”
