Page 69 of Nothing to Lose: Lost Trilogy: Part 1
I don’t really need to use the restroom, but I don’t want to go back out there either. Instead, I take a seat on the toilet lid and start going over my entire conversation with Steve.
Something is off. Wrong even. Why is he seeking me out all of a sudden? He didn’t seem to care one way or another when I ghosted him after the initial shock on the day I caught him cheating. He called and texted, but then he just went away on his own.
Now, here we are, months later, and he is all over me. I don’t understand.
His words echo in my head again, reminding me of what set off my panic attack. He called mebabe. In all the years I was with him, he never called me that before. In fact, he felt that it was a trashy term, one that was beneath him to use. That is not something a person of his stature would say. He told me that once when I messed up and called himbaby.
But you know who does call mebabe? Puck.
The fact that Steve called me that combined with the way he said it, not to mention him telling me that he knows I am fucking a criminal, tells me that he knows details about Puck. But how? And furthermore, why would he even care about who I date?
This brings me to my other problem. Puck himself.
His message to me was nasty and uncalled for. As if I wasn’t upset enough over this entire situation, he managed to make it worse.
I am at the point where I don’t need anything or anyone. I have a good job, a house and more money than I could spend on my own. I don’t need these guys to walk all over me like this.
Even dad has been standoffish lately. Every time I called, he just wanted to know if I was okay. As soon as I’d answer, he’d tell me that he loved me, then hang up because he was busy. And he’s been out of town so much, I don’t even know what he looks like anymore.
It seems that everyone in my life is here to disappoint me in some way.
Time to take back the power.
Time to take care of me.
21
Puck
“Shortie,”I call out to him. “Let’s go over everything one more time, dude.”
The last couple of months have been brutal. I was okay before with getting little to no sleep. But I was somewhat relaxed from all the stuff I’d smoke or snort, and all the sex.
Sully’s been on me like a fly on shit about doing any drugs, so other than a joint here and there, I’ve done none of that.
On the sex part, Emily has been on my mind, constantly, to the point where I can’t even look at another woman. I am obsessed.
My visit to see her two months ago did more harm than good, for both of us. I couldn’t stay long because I had to get back to Texas. Between the two days to drive there, then two days to get back, I legit had a day and a half with her.
Leaving her after was torture. She cried and I had a hard time letting her out of my arms. Just a cluster all around.
Sully waited for me in a designated spot when I was ten hours away from getting back to the club. We got lucky that the run we had been sent on was an easy one and he’d been more than capable of handling it on his own.
Aside from that, I was fortunate that he had my back like that. He really is the best friend I ever had. If I could choose a blood brother, it’d be him. There was no way for me to go see Emily in the middle of all this cluster fuck without his help.
Now, I’m sitting in Shortie’s room, a fact I am not very happy about since it kinda stinks. Literally.
“When’s the last time you washed these sheets, Shortie?” I sniff the air around us and eye him with suspicion. I am not sitting on this bed. “Let me have that chair.”
I hold onto my laptop and watch Shortie while he takes piles of notebooks off his spare computer chair then pushes it toward me.
“Sorry about that, Puck,” he tells me, sounding quieter than he normally does.
I wave off his apology. “Let’s go over everything again.”
The fucking chair is so low to the ground, I freak out when I think I’m going to topple over. I clutch the laptop to my chest and say a quick prayer that neither myself nor my piece of equipment got harmed during the process of me taking a seat.
“I hope this is not a sign of how shit’s gonna go down,” I mutter to myself. “Start from the top,” I instruct Shortie.
