Quit Bein' Ugly

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  All the while, my dick stayed hard, which was rather awkward with only a small sheet covering everything.

  Luckily, she was too busy staying focused on my shoulder and not my dick to notice.

  Once I was settled, she looked at me worriedly.

  “Are you going to be able to get up in the middle of the night if you have to go to the bathroom or something?” she asked worriedly.

  Probably not.

  “No,” I admitted. “At least not feeling like this. But I can’t remember the last time that I had to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It’s been a whole lot of years.”

  She looked at me skeptically. “You’ve never had to get up in the middle of the night to go pee?”

  She sounded so skeptical, in fact, that I nearly laughed.

  I would have had I known it wouldn’t hurt.

  “No,” I told her. “I have very good control. Plus, I don’t drink all that often before bed, which helps with that.”

  “Okay,” she drawled. “Well, if you do need to go in the middle of the night, I’m going to be here. Sleeping on the couch. Okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Where does Lion sleep?” she asked.

  “Wherever she wants,” I admitted. “Usually on the bed, sometimes on the floor next to the bed. Likely she’ll want to be wherever you are tonight, though. She likes people.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m going to leave your door open. I’m here if you need me.”

  I gave her a thumb up with my good hand.

  She smiled at me, then walked away, looking over her shoulder once.

  Only, she didn’t meet my eyes.

  She looked at my dick.

  Which meant she didn’t miss the boner after all.

  Nice.

  CHAPTER 9

  Best fucking lawyer ever.

  -Text from Carmichael to Croft

  CARMICHAEL

  The next morning, I was woken up by cursing.

  Barely opening my eyes, I squinted at the ceiling in Croft’s living room and thought about how badly I’d slept the night before.

  It wasn’t that his couch wasn’t comfortable, or I was unsure about sleeping in a new house.

  Nope, all I kept thinking about was how Croft was shot in the parking lot of his work, and how I could’ve lost him before I’d ever had a chance to even have him.

  Which was also enlightening for me.

  I thought that I was okay with him and me not having a chance.

  I’d thought, more fool him.

  But now, I was thinking more fool me.

  I was thinking that I wasted six months of time when we could’ve been seeing how things went with us because I was prideful.

  I replayed that night meeting Karen, too. How he’d been courteous but had also been very good about redirecting her hands so that they didn’t touch him all that often. How, though he answered her questions, did not court her asking questions.

  That was when I realized that he was acting like the coach he was. The coach he should’ve been acting like if he was trying to recruit new members to the gym.

  Which then, in turn, made me feel stupid.

  Because I’d seen him do that with eighteen-year-old girls, seventy-year-old women, and forty-year-old men.

  Karen was no different.

  Because if she was, then yesterday at the hospital when he all but dismissed her wouldn’t have happened.

  Which left me with the thought of ‘I’d wasted a lot of time.’

  If we’d been together six months—if it’d worked—I could’ve been in a very good, comfortable relationship right now. We would’ve really been able to see what we did and didn’t like when it came to each other. We would know whether we were going to work.

  Oh, and I probably would’ve already had sex with him.

  Which, I had to admit, was something that had hung heavily on my mind all night long, too.

  Because I hadn’t missed the erection that he’d been sporting last night.

  I’d also not missed how sexy he looked with his shirt off and in sweatpants.

  More cursing had me swinging my legs over the side of the couch.

  Lion, who’d jumped up upon my exit off the couch, ran straight for the back door.

  I let her out, watched her for a few seconds, then went to start the coffee.

  Once that was going, I grabbed Croft’s antibiotic, his pain pill, and some ibuprofen before heading back up the stairs.

  It was only as I was entering his bedroom that I realized that I’d never put my pants back on.

  I was only in a short tank top and my underwear.

  Before I could turn tail and run, Croft cursed again from the bathroom, this time sounding like he was in serious pain, and I forgot that I was supposed to be getting some pants on.

  Knocking slightly on the barely cracked bathroom door, I said, “Are you okay?”

  There was a long pause and then, “I guess.”

  I smiled at his non-answer.

  “I have some pain pills. You want that?” I asked, knowing the answer but asking him anyway.

  “Yes,” he answered. “I do. Very much so. Can you bring them in here?”

  I pushed through the door to find him standing at the counter.

  He once again had his sweatpants on, but they hung so low that I could see the crack of his ass.

  “Your pants are falling down,” I said as I saw him.

  He groaned. “I know. I was putting them on when I tripped and nearly busted my ass. I caught myself with my bad arm, and now it hurts so bad that I’m seeing stars.”

  I walked up to him and took his good hand in mine, then dumped his pills into it. “Take those.”

  He did, swallowing them dry.

  “Thanks,” he grunted as he leaned his hand back on the counter and dropped his head.

  “You’re welcome,” I said as I bent down to help with his sweats. His foot was still caught at the bottom. “Point your toes.”

  He did, and I got the bottoms over his heel.

  He yanked his pants up the rest of the way, then went back to his original position.

  “Do you need help with anything else?” I asked him.

  “I need help with getting the toothpaste on my toothbrush,” he admitted. “But mainly because I brush my teeth by the kitchen sink every morning after I have coffee. But I don’t want to walk down there and do that just yet.”

  I patted him on the good shoulder.

  “I’ll go get the coffee and let your dog in,” I told him. “You finish up in here.”

  He said something that sounded like an ‘okay’ but I’d left before he could realize I was still in my panties.

  Something which I wasn’t sure that he’d noticed but had been in too much pain to say anything about if he had.

  I’d just let the dog in, and was starting on the coffee, when I realized that I should’ve put the shorts on first.

  Mostly because by the time that I’d gotten his coffee in a cup, I could hear him creaking down the stairs.

  I made a mad dash for the couch and yanked my shorts off the floor before doing that weird hopping around thing as I tried to get them on.

  I was just pulling them up over my ass when I saw him get to the bottom.

  He’d seen me, though, based solely on the smile that was taking over his face.

  “Shut up,” I grumbled. “Or I won’t give you any coffee.”

  He tried to wipe the smile off of his face, but he didn’t do such a good job.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I grumbled as I walked back to the kitchen.

  Lion was standing by her food bowl, looking pitiful.

  “You got dog food in here?” I asked.

  “In the garage,” he answered. “In a metal trash can right outside the door.”

  I nodded and headed that direction, finding the scoop hanging on the wall next to the trash can.

  Getting a small scoop for the puppy, I hea
ded back inside and dumped it into her bowl, then went back and hung the scoop up before heading back to the coffee.

  Once I had it in hand, I walked it over to the man that was now sitting at the kitchen island with his shoulders hunched.

  “The nurse asked me to clean the area and rebandage,” I explained. “Do you want to do that now?”

  He grimaced but nodded once before picking up his coffee and taking a hefty swallow.

  “You made it right,” he sounded surprised.

  Croft was a man who liked his coffee sweet. He didn’t like creamer, just a shit ton of sugar. And I was loath to admit it, but I paid way too much attention to the man.

  I’d only seen his coffee made three times before, once by him at his parents’ house for my brother’s and Camryn’s rehearsal dinner, and twice by Raleigh when I was at her house for a birthday or a party of some sort.

  I really shouldn’t have paid that much attention, yet I had.

  “Not many men like sugar out the ass in their coffee. I remembered when I watched your sister make it for you at your nephew’s first birthday last month,” I lied.

  He nodded and took another sip before placing the cup down on the counter in front of him then getting to work on the tape on his shoulder.

  When he had it all the way off, he grimaced and left it there for a few long seconds.

  “Do you want me to do it?” I questioned.

  He nodded pitifully.

  “Sure,” he hesitated. “Just do it fast, okay?”

  I wouldn’t do it fast.

  I didn’t want to accidentally catch a stitch and rip the damn thing out.

  But I wouldn’t delay.

  I was good with wounds and shit.

  I’d always been fascinated by them.

  What I was not fascinated by was the man that I had the hots for being the one who was hurting.

  That actually sucked quite a bit.

  “Okay, let’s do it.” I reached for the edges that he’d freed.

  Then, carefully, I pulled it all the way off, being gentle but not stopping until it was free completely.

  When I looked at the wound, I grimaced.

  It looked angry.

  “She said that you needed to watch for it to be hot to the touch, that could indicate infection,” I murmured as I felt around the wound with the palm of my hand. “It feels good, though.”

  He grunted out something that didn’t sound happy.

  I kept my smile under wraps and went about cleaning it, first the front side, then moving to the back where the exit was.

  Once it was all the way clean, I rebandaged it and then went to wash my hands.

  “Do you have anything to do today?” he asked curiously.

  I looked over my shoulder at him. “No, but yes. At some point I have to go get Danger. I have to go home and shower because I still stink from last night, and I have to go get your other prescriptions from the pharmacy for you.”

  He looked at me hopefully. “Any way I can tag along with you and get you to run me by my office for my computer? I thought that I would get to go back today and get it, so I left it there.”

  “Of course,” I replied instantly. “As long as you don’t mind me running by to get Danger, that is.”

  “I don’t mind,” he admitted.

  “Are you up to running by the gym, too?” I asked. “I left all my crap there last night. And I got off for today through Friday for school, but come Monday, I have to go back to my troublemakers.”

  He grimaced. “I don’t understand why you continue to stay with that class.”

  I went to the fridge and glanced inside, seeing nothing but healthy meals.

  “I guess because I don’t want to be that teacher who thinks that they’re irredeemable,” I admitted. “I don’t want them to think that I can be pushed away easily, either.”

  “What are you looking so hard for in there?” he asked curiously.

  I turned around and looked at him after closing the fridge door.

  “I’m looking for something that’s not healthy,” I admitted. “After yesterday, I need something that has carbs in it.”

  He grinned.

  “I have a stash of candy bars above the stove.” He paused. “But they’re dark chocolate, so not as bad as they could be.”

  I grimaced. “I don’t have any at my house. We started that eight hundred gram challenge a couple of days ago, and it was my stupid idea. I need to be eating the veggies and fruits, but I’d rather carve out my own eyeball with a spoon.”

  “Gruesome,” he chuckled. “And the eight hundred gram challenge is a good idea. It went over well last time we did it at the gym.”

  The eight hundred gram challenge was simple. Every day, you tried to get eight hundred grams of fruits and veggies. That simple.

  Well, simple in thought, not so simple in execution.

  “Do you ever get eight hundred grams?” I asked curiously.

  He shook his head. “Nope. I’ve tried, but I don’t eat enough. When I do have time to eat, it’s enough to get my protein and carbs in to fuel my workouts and my day. I get about five hundred, though, if I put my mind to it.”

  I was the same.

  I looked at my watch. “I need to get a shower before we go. Do you need anything before I leave?”

  “You’re going home to eat, aren’t you?” he asked.

  My lips tipped up at the corners.

  “Maybe,” I admitted.

  “Can I go with you?” he requested. “For some reason, nothing healthy sounds all that good to me, either.”

  I looked at him for a second and realized that he was one hundred percent serious. “Fine, but no judging me, okay?”

  He winked and came out of his lean against the counter to walk slowly toward the door. “Come on, Lion.”

  Lion dutifully gave up her food bowl to follow her master.

  I watched as he started to walk toward the door, slow and steady. He didn’t even look like he’d been shot.

  He looked like he was just sore from a workout. As long as you didn’t look behind the bandage, that was.

  “You coming or what?” he called over his shoulder.

  I jumped and hurried toward the door and him, grabbing my keys as I went.

  I’d at least been smart enough to grab those as I was leaving in a hurry yesterday from the gym. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to get into my house.

  As we exited his place, I found it very weird being at home when I would normally already have been at school for over an hour.

  When I’d started this job at the school as a substitute, it’d been on a temporary basis.

  When it’d turned into full time, I had no clue how much I would enjoy it. And hate it.

  It was stressful, rewarding, time consuming, and fun. What it was not was boring.

  But right now, not being there, I definitely wasn’t bored.

  I was excited.

  When I closed Croft’s door, he was already halfway down his front walk, heading straight for mine.

  I hurried to catch up, then passed him about halfway up my walk to open my front door.

  He looked around curiously once we got inside.

  He’d seen it the night of the almost-break-in, I was sure, but he was studying it as if he hadn’t.

  “It looks exactly like mine,” he admitted. “Only opposite.”

  That was true. Where my house was in a backward L shape, his was in a right ways L. The only thing different was the fact that I only had a carport and he had a garage.

  “I know,” I said. “It was weird being in yours last night, too. It’s even painted the same colors as mine. Obviously, they got a two-for-one deal on the paint when they were building these.”

  The houses themselves were all owned by the same person. The entire cul-de-sac we lived on, in fact.

  Though the other four houses on the block had the same overall design, they didn’t have the same interior and exterior floor plans. Nor did they have th
e same paint colors.

  He walked/shuffled behind me into the kitchen.

  His eyes missed nothing.

  Not the pots in the sink from my dinner two nights ago. Not the taco seasoning that I’d left out on the counter from my trip to the store.

  Not even the box of bagels that I should’ve probably thrown away two days ago.

  His eyes went to the cat food that I had on the counter, and his eyes narrowed.

  “You have a cat?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No.”

  He looked once again at the food. “Then why do you have cat food?”

  I grinned at him and opened my back door, showing off the empty food bowl.

  “Watch,” I ordered.

  So he watched as I picked up the bag of cat food, walked to the back door, and bent down.

  “Oh, pick up your dog?” I suggested.

  He did just that, only grimacing slightly when he stood up.

  I immediately felt bad but went ahead and filled the food bowl up.

  Then I waited.

  It didn’t take long.

  Waddling out of the trees came my Francis.

  “This,” I cooed as he came. “Is Francis.”

  Croft stayed silent for long seconds as Francis came right up to me and started to eat out of the food bowl.

  Francis didn’t take long to eat. He was a fast, fat boy.

  And when he was done, he waddled right back into the woods behind my house.

  Grinning, I stood up and turned around, only to find Croft standing right next to me.

  “Oh,” I cried, jerking back so I didn’t accidentally run into him and hurt him.

  “You have a pet raccoon,” he mused.

  “I do,” I confirmed. “Kind of. I found him one night on the side of the road. I thought he was dead, honestly. When I went to check my mail, he lifted his little head off the road and looked at me with these sad little eyes. I helped him onto the grass, then brought food and water to him in case. The next morning, he wasn’t by the road anymore, but on my porch. Then the next day, he was at my back porch. Ever since, he’s just been hanging out.”

  “Wow,” he shook his head as he looked over my shoulder at where Francis had disappeared. “Just wow.”

  I snickered and pressed my hand against his abs so I could close the door.