F-Bomb (The Bear Bottom Guardians MC Book 9)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “You’re handy to have around,” I teased as I wrapped my arms around his neck and dropped a kiss to his bearded cheek. “And man, my foot really, really hurts. Is it possible to break something by having a stroller roll over it?”

  I hadn’t realized just how much it was hurting until he’d lifted me off of my feet.

  I stuck my foot out so that he could see it and winced.

  I’d worn sandals thinking that I wanted to look cute for dinner. What I’d ended up doing was offering my feet no protection from the mob that was about to surround us.

  “Fuck,” he said, sounding concerned. “Do you…” The lights went out everywhere, and people started to squeal in excitement all around us.

  Then the most magical light and firework show that I’d ever seen in my life started.

  And when Aladdin lit up the castle, Slate started to sing, and his voice literally took my breath away.

  Because, surprise-surprise, he sang even better than my dad.

  My dad, who sang me songs every single time I asked him to. My dad, who sounded like a better version of Josh Turner. My dad, who had always been the best singer I ever knew.

  Slate Solis blew Max Tremaine out of the water, and he took my breath right along with it.

  ***

  An hour later, Slate was holding me on his back in front of the elevators, cursing silently underneath his breath as more and more people crowded us to get on the elevator.

  “We could take the stairs,” I suggested. “Someone propped open the fourth-floor door, remember?”

  “That someone being me,” Slate grumbled. “This goddamn elevator is the stupidest thing I’ve ever witnessed in my life.”

  It really was.

  There were five elevators in total, and only three of them worked. The other two were for people coming down from the roof—people who paid a shit ton of money to access a private club up there—and staff. To make matters worse, from the hours of eight until ten in the morning, and then again at six until ten in the evening, the elevators got so jam-packed with people that the wait for an elevator could take upwards of fifteen to twenty minutes.

  And the stupid thing was, there were no stairs that accessed the rooms. You could leave out of the stairs at either end of the hallways, but you couldn’t come back up.

  “You can put me down. I can walk,” I told him.

  Maybe.

  I wasn’t sure what the lady had done to my foot, but it’d gone from being swollen just a little bit and aching, to swollen a lot and throbbing with pain.

  It was very possible that I’d broken something in my foot by her running over it.

  Though, I felt somewhat vindicated as we were leaving out and Slate accidentally stepped on her foot when she tried to cut us off with her stroller.

  “No,” he said. “We’ll take the stairs. And I’m not putting you down.”

  And he didn’t. Not until he’d climbed four sets of stairs and set me down to rest on the bed.

  “I’m still hungry though, Slate,” I told him, smiling slightly when he gently placed me upright on the bed, scooting me until my back rested against the headboard. Seconds later, he was putting a pillow underneath my foot.

  “I’ll go get food,” he said. “And I’ll get some ice on the way back up.”

  I smiled at him. “That sounds perfect.”

  After placing a quick kiss on my lips, he dragged my cell phone charger over to me, handed me the remote off the end of the bed, and then left the room without another word.

  It was when I was considering losing my pants that I realized that I really, really had to go to the bathroom.

  Also, I hadn’t taken a shower yet and I was fairly sure I smelled like sweat and sex.

  Sure, we’d changed into clean clothes after our afternoon festivities, but that didn’t mean I was clean.

  So, while he was spending thirty minutes ordering us food and lugging it back up here, I’d take a quick shower and hope that I didn’t slip and die while he was gone.

  Plus, maybe if I got it done before he got back, he wouldn’t be too mad at me for doing it without him. Because ever since he’d seen the swelling on my foot, he’d refused to let me do a thing. Even open the hotel room door for him.

  Acting fast, I hobbled to the bathroom and started stripping off my clothes on the way.

  It was halfway through my shower that I heard what I thought was the hotel room door opening.

  But when he didn’t come in and start ripping me a new one, I finished up my shower, packed all my stuff into the zipper compartment of my travel cosmetic case, and then got dressed in the clothes I’d set out this afternoon for me to wear home on the plane tomorrow.

  Once I had everything all nicely stacked and ready to go, my foot was throbbing once again, and I was fairly positive that something in my foot had to be broken for it to be hurting this bad.

  This was no ordinary pain.

  And what kind of loser got ran over by a stroller and broke her foot?

  Obviously, this loser.

  But I wouldn’t go see a doctor while I was here. I’d go see one in Kilgore tomorrow when we finally made it home.

  Hopefully the worst of the pain would be taken care of by the ibuprofen that I had next to the bed.

  Thinking to grab a glass of water on the way to the bed, I bent down and reached for the small refrigerator that was right outside the bathroom door. When I stood back up, I found my gray Magic Band sitting on the counter.

  I frowned hard, wondering where it’d come from.

  I’d lost it and had to go to the front counter at our resort to get a new one.

  I’d thought I left it at Animal Kingdom but…

  Something hard hit me in the back of my head, and I fell to my knees before rolling all the way over to my back and curling in on myself as I tried to figure out what in the hell just happened.

  Chapter 18

  Safety first. Just kidding. Coffee first. Safety is 3rd or 4th.

  -Coffee Cup

  Slate

  Texting my sister that something happened to Harleigh’s foot and we wouldn’t be making it to dinner or movie night out by the pool tonight, I warily waited for the elevator.

  I’d tried to take the stairs again, but someone had found the towel I’d propped the door open with and had removed it, meaning I’d had to haul my ass back down the stairs and wait for the goddamn elevator.

  “This is ridiculous,” I muttered darkly as eight people with strollers tried to shove into the elevators. “If you’d fold those up, five more people could get on.”

  One mother frowned and did just that. “Sorry, been a long day.”

  I got on and didn’t say a word, frustrated and pissed off that the hotel didn’t have better accommodations to get up to your room.

  That was definitely something I would mention to anyone who ever expressed interest in staying at this particular hotel.

  The doors to the elevator closed, and I stared at the stainless-steel door, ignoring the kid that kept kicking me in the shin.

  I also ignored the way the woman at my side was smiling up at me, and the way she was at least six months pregnant.

  Only when the doors opened did I practically vault out of the elevator and toward our hotel door, thankful that the damn thing was at least close.

  A muffled thump from inside the hotel room had me cursing.

  She’d fallen.

  I just knew it.

  She’d tried to get up and had fallen because there was something seriously wrong with her foot even though she was trying to downplay it.

  Using my band to get in, I pushed open the door without giving it much thought and threw the door closed, slapping the lock home before turning around and coming to a complete halt.

  “Didn’t think that I knew you had a thing for her, did you?” Charles asked, hovering over Harleigh’s prone body as if he would stomp on her at any second. “Well, you’re not that observant. But I am. I watched, every single sec
ond that you were in there. I had people there to tell me your every move. To tell me that the only time that they saw you show any interest at all was when this tiny little woman came in. A tiny woman that needed a place to go…and where else would I put her but right next to you.”

  First, the fact that Charles was in my hotel room shocked the shit out of me.

  Second, the fact that Harleigh was looking at me with utter fear and revulsion on her face made me want to tear him apart with my bare hands.

  Thirdly, I’d known that Charles had owned the house next door to me. It’d been his grandmother’s. His grandmother had perished in the house, only to be found weeks later by Charles who had finally deigned to grace his grandmother with his presence. Something that I would never, ever do to my own grandmother.

  But that just showed the difference between me and Charles. Charles? He’d allowed his own grandmother to rot—literally—for two weeks before he’d pulled his head out of his ass far enough to begin to worry when he didn’t hear back.

  Me? Well, I would’ve been freaking out within a day, if not hours.

  Now that I worked with her part-time at the bakery, I was there at least two to three hours every day. I’d notice in a heartbeat that she hadn’t opened, or that bread wasn’t made when I arrived.

  Charles kicked Harleigh with the sole of his foot, knocking her backward and away from him slightly.

  I was happy that she was farther away from him, definitely out of kicking distance, but pissed off beyond belief that he’d just kicked her.

  “Are you even listening to me?” Charles hissed.

  I gritted my teeth and nodded once, trying not to look down at Harleigh who was trying to inch herself away from where Charles was.

  “Leave her alone,” I said. “She didn’t ever do anything to you.”

  I was confused.

  Really and truly, I had no idea what the hell was going on.

  When I’d spoken to him earlier, he’d acted like it was one big coincidence that he was there when we were.

  And honestly, it could’ve been a coincidence. Harleigh had shown me three different people on her Facebook that had come at the same time that we had—all from our area.

  It wasn’t that much of a stretch for Charles to go, too.

  But now that he was spouting off random thoughts about me and Harleigh, I had a feeling that this was no random encounter with us at Disney.

  “It was also nice that Harleigh’s roommate was willing to pay whatever the fuck I wanted just so he could be closer to the boyfriend.” Charles snickered. “I raked in pay-dirt on them for years.” He paused, smiling slightly at something only he knew. “But I had to fan their fire. Play them against each other a little bit.”

  “What?” I asked, confused now.

  “I found out their life story about two seconds into knowing the two of them. Both men love each other.” He looked disgusted. “And the one living across the street was shit at hiding the fact that he more than knew who his neighbor was. So I got to asking around, made friends with him. When I found out he was set on leaving, I made sure to offer him my other rental house. He jumped on it. Two birds and one stone and all that.”

  I rolled my eyes, which was a mistake.

  “You think I’m joking? You think this is funny?”

  No. I thought this was a colossal fuck up on my part, and I wanted to go back to the real world.

  Yet I didn’t say any of that, because Charles was quickly showing me that he was unstable, and I didn’t want Harleigh anywhere near him.

  And I didn’t care what it took on my part to get him away from her.

  I would make sure to hold my cool no matter what.

  “All of you and your petty problems,” he snickered. “And here I am missing the love of my life, and nobody even thinks about her anymore.”

  So we were getting down to the point now.

  Thank God.

  “You’re going to have to explain that statement to me,” I murmured softly. “I have no idea what’s going on right now.”

  Charles sneered, his hand shaking with rage as he pointed at me.

  That was when I saw the glint of silver—a knife—tucked up under his sleeve that he had concealed by wrapping his hand around it.

  I guess that was the good thing about Disney World.

  It was utterly impossible to sneak shit into the park. They checked you at the gate, they checked you at the Monorail, and they checked you at the hotel. I should be counting myself lucky that he had a knife and not a gun at this point.

  “You know how fuckin’ hard it was to insinuate myself into your life?” he asked. “How hard it was to pretend that you were my friend and that I didn’t care one bit that you got to sleep next to her every night while I had to sit there and act like it didn’t kill me that your hands were on her?”

  I shook my head.

  “I suggested double dates as much as I could, hoping just to get some time with her.” He laughed hollowly. “And the one time that I get to spend with her, that I get to have her, I can’t even remember because I got so drunk, acting like I cared that some stupid kid died, trying to pretend.”

  A snick of air had me glancing at the door that separated our room from Rome and Izzy’s. There were two doors. One on our side, and one on theirs. Neither one was locked because this morning Astrid kept coming back and forth between the two rooms as she gushed about meeting princesses that day.

  That was when I saw it crack slightly open.

  I couldn’t see anybody, but I knew that someone was there.

  Someone had heard Charles raising his voice.

  I just hoped that it wasn’t Astrid.

  Goddamn, talk about bad.

  That would be a monumental clusterfuck.

  My eyes returned to Charles when he continued to talk.

  “Tried to force her to come home with the fire,” he sighed and took two steps away from the door. Though good, it also put him closer to Harleigh, who’d managed to creep almost to the balcony doors. “But neither one of you gave a fuck. Who the hell doesn’t come back home after their house is set on fire?”

  Us, apparently.

  Thank God we’d stayed on course, or there was no telling what he would’ve done.

  “Well, I’m happy that I managed to make it down here. Because it’s better to be done here, anyway. So many people.” He shook his head, a small smile lifting up the corners of his mouth. “Do you ever think about what you want to say, what you want people to hear, right before you die?”

  I didn’t answer him.

  “I know what I wanted Vanessa to say to me,” he whispered, sounding broken.

  I glanced at Harleigh only to return it to Charles just as quick when I saw her creeping closer to the sliding door.

  “And you let her die,” he growled. “You sat there and allowed her to get shot.”

  No, I hadn’t.

  I most certainly hadn’t.

  “And when you went back to take care of that prick for killing my Vannie, you didn’t even finish the job.” He laughed. “I did.”

  My heart stopped.

  Everything inside of me just froze for an instant in time while I soaked in his words.

  You didn’t even finish the job. I did.

  Oh, holy fuck no.

  No, no, no.

  Was he telling me that I hadn’t killed Vanessa’s killer?

  That was when Harleigh lost her shit.

  “Are you fucking telling me that Slate went to prison for killing a man…and it wasn’t even him that killed him, it was you?!” she shrieked.

  “Harleigh,” I warned.

  But she didn’t heed my warning.

  She went off like an atomic bomb.

  One second she was crawling away, and the next she was crawling like a rabid badger straight into danger.

  She took him out at the knees, surprising him.

  That was when I realized that if I didn’t move, she would get stabbed.
/>   I just knew it.

  Hauling my arm back, I rocketed my fist forward and punched straight into Charles’ throat.

  Seconds later, people started pouring out of the door between Rome’s room and mine, the first one being Linc James.

  He caught Charles by the hair and ripped him away from both Harleigh and me before anything could be done in retaliation.

  Charles was disarmed moments later when he tried to stab Bayou in the face.

  Little did Charles know that Bayou was used to dodging blows from inmates all the time. A slow stab from Charles was nothing in comparison to a desperate inmate wanting to get away by using a homemade shiv made out of toilet paper and spit.

  Rome was closer, though, walking into the room like the linebacker that he was and hitting Charles so hard in the chest with his shoulder that Charles’ head snapped forward despite Linc holding onto his hair.

  Knowing that it was handled for now, I reached forward and drug Harleigh to me by her good leg. She was still trying to get a few good punches in to the mostly incapacitated Charles.

  “Let me go, goddammit!” she hissed as she tried to crawl forward once more. “I’m going to fucking murder him. I’m going to claw his eyes out with my toenails and make him eat them.”

  I chuckled as I finally pulled her into my chest, and took my first breath of air since I’d entered the hotel room minutes earlier.

  It’d lasted all of four and a half minutes, but it was long enough for it to take ten years off my life.

  “He smashed my pizza, too!” she screeched.

  That was when I started laughing.

  I couldn’t help it.

  I buried my face into her neck and lost it.

  “I can’t believe you are laughing right now.” Harleigh hissed. “I’m never speaking to you again.”

  Out of all the things she could be pissed at me at right then, she was pissed about that?

  I gathered her up in my arms, brought her into my chest, and then pressed a kiss to every available spot on her face. Showering her in kisses.

  God, I’d been so close to losing her that it was honestly terrifying to think about.

  “Stay down, motherfucker,” Linc growled.

  That was when the rest of the Bear Bottom Guardians MC women entered the room, one by one until there was no more risk to my Harleigh.