Whiskey Neat (The Uncertain Saints MC Book 1)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  My eyes closed in mortification.

  “The lady’s car is blocked…how about you go move it for her?” The man’s deep voice said.

  Griffin.

  Shivers tore down my body, and I looked over my shoulder in time to see the glare Griffin aimed at the poor officer.

  My God…the man had sex pulsing through his veins.

  I turned around as the officer moved past the yellow tape, gaping when I saw the huge gold star at his hip.

  The massive gun at his side.

  The cowboy hat on his head.

  Let me repeat: the cowboy hat on his head.

  Sweet Mary, mother of God!

  “H-hey,” I whispered.

  He didn’t move, nor did he say anything.

  Then moved past me without another word, making my stomach plummet into my feet.

  Snap.

  Well if that didn’t say it all right there, I didn’t know what did!

  Should’ve known…should’ve fucking known!

  Lenore Lane Drew didn’t get men as hot as Griffin.

  Well, let me re-phrase that. I didn’t get more than one night with men as hot as Griffin.

  I turned on my heel and stomped in the direction of my car, thankful that the cop I’d been speaking to earlier had moved the cruiser.

  I passed Griffin on my way, and stopped directly in front of him.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. “I would’ve missed my doctor’s appointment had you not moved it.”

  His eyes softened and he raised his hand to rest on my shoulder.

  “I’m sorry. Just been a long fuc-freakin’ night. Have a good rest of your day,” he said seriously.

  I smiled and patted his hand.

  “You too,” I said. “Hope yours gets better.”

  I drove out of the neighborhood without looking back at anyone, thinking it’d be better on me in the long run if I got rid of him now.

  ‘Cause if I did it later, it might be too cruel.

  For him at least, not me.

  The drive to Longview was a long one.

  It always was.

  The drive home was even longer, though.

  Something I had to do twice a week for at least another month, according to my doctor.

  As I drove, I tried not to think about the man with the blonde hair and haunting eyes.

  Tried not to think about how big he was…or how well he fit inside me.

  Tried not to think about what his voice did to my body, whether I wanted it to or not.

  I walked into the cancer center, smiling at the first woman I saw upon entrance.

  “Did you have a bad night, Lenore?” Jaylen asked, frowning slightly at me.

  I shrugged. “It wasn’t bad, why?”

  I knew why.

  I had dark circles underneath my eyes from being woken up in the middle of the night by a man who I still wasn’t completely sure was real, despite evidence to the contrary.

  “You know, those sleeping pills the doctor prescribed you really aren’t going to hurt you,” Jaylen admonished.

  I nodded. “I know. I just don’t want to take them unless I absolutely have to.”

  And I didn’t.

  I was already taking all these other medications. I didn’t want to pump more into my body if I didn’t have to.

  “You took your stomach meds at least, didn’t you?” She looked at me sternly.

  I nodded and held up my hand in the universal ‘Spock Sign.’

  “Vulcan’s honor.”

  She laughed. “You know where to go.”

  I did.

  Unfortunately.

  Not many twenty-five-year old’s grace these doors, and I hated that I was one of them.

  I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, not even my worst enemy, Jenna Wickes.

  Not that Jenna Wickes was that bad…okay, I was lying.

  She was that bad.

  She hated me.

  She loved to call me the ‘fat little ginger’ with ‘ugly amounts of freckles.’

  She never missed a chance to comment on my ‘fire crotch.’

  Which, I guess in all technicality, it was the color of fire…but that didn’t mean she needed to call me that in public.

  Nor had she seen my crotch.

  She also loved to make me look stupid.

  For instance, in high school, I’d finally gathered enough courage to ask my best friend, Remy, to prom.

  I wasn’t in love with Remy.

  I was more in love with the idea of Remy.

  He had a great home life.

  He would be a great provider and father figure.

  He would be able to give me everything I’d need out of life…but neither one of us were in love with each other.

  We’d made a pact when we were thirteen that if either one of us didn’t have prom dates, we’d go together. And we’d also made another pact that if either one of us weren’t married by the age of thirty-two, we’d get married.

  Remy was my best friend.

  And Jenna Wickes knew he was…and hated me for it.

  Which was what it all boiled down to.

  She hated how I had Remy’s devoted attention, and had hated it for over twenty years now.

  When I’d finally gotten up the courage to ask Remy to go to prom with me, he’d smiled at me funny.

  I’m sorry, Lennie Lou. I’m already going with Jenna Wickes, he’d said.

  That’d been the beginning of hell for us.

  He’d gone to prom with Jenna, and then had later married her.

  I’d had to attend my best friend’s wedding as he married the one woman I hated more than life, and he hadn’t even realized it.

  I’d been made the godmother of his kids.

  I’d been to every Christmas party, birthday party, Easter party, Fourth of July celebration.

  You name it, I went to it.

  And Jenna made sure to torment me the entire time.

  She hated that her husband refused to give me up.

  Hated that her kids loved me more than her.

  Hated that Remy took me out duck hunting with him instead of her. Fishing when it wasn’t duck hunting season.

  But Remy didn’t know that I had something wrong with me and I was scared as hell to tell him.

  Because it’d been Remy and me since kindergarten.

  He was my very best friend in the whole entire world…and I didn’t want to leave him here by himself.

  So I was trying to fight this by myself.

  Which sometimes turned out to be way harder than it would be if I’d just told him.

  Because I knew he’d be here with me if I did.

  I just didn’t want him to see me like this.

  Didn’t want him to know that there was a possibility I’d be leaving this place.

  “You ready, Lenore?” Misty asked.

  I smiled at her as I continued walking to the door where I would be getting that rotten shit poured into my veins.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said in false cheer.

  She smiled at me.

  “So what do you have to read today?” She asked.

  I pulled out my Kindle and showed her the hunky guy on the front cover of my next read titled: Highlanders Gone Wild.

  She laughed.

  “Is it complete porn, or does it have a story to it this time?” She asked.

  I grinned. “My porn always has a story to it. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

  She snorted and pointed to a seat that was in the very back corner.

  She’d purposefully saved that one for me, and I was grateful.

  I hated to be the middle of attention.

  Which meant I didn’t sit in the middle of the room whether it was during chemo, in a restaurant, or at a movie theater. Regardless of whether they were the best seats or not.

  I’d sacrifice comfort for privacy any day
of the week.

  Misty started to get all the bells and whistles going on my treatment, and I sat down to let it happen.

  She poked, prodded, positioned and prayed with me before we started.

  It was something she did with all of her patients, and I found myself appreciative.

  I couldn’t find it in me to pray for myself.

  I prayed for all the others in the room, but it seemed kind of selfish to pray for myself when the other women and men in the room were more deserving of life than I was.

  I didn’t have kids at home.

  I didn’t have a family that depended on my income.

  I wouldn’t leave anyone behind that would be as affected as the others in chemo treatment with me.

  Sure, my parents and siblings would be devastated.

  So would Remy. And Remy’s kids, Macynn and Madison.

  Jacklyn Corrie, a woman also getting chemo at the same time as me, would leave behind two kids, her husband, her parents, and the students she taught.

  Hundreds of lives would be affected if she died.

  I had maybe eight.

  Sure, my friends would probably miss me, too.

  But they’d move on.

  “Your phone’s ringing in your bag. Do you want me to get it for you?” Misty asked.

  I nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

  It was easier to stay still while this was going on.

  Chemo, I’d learned, was extremely toxic.

  If the line from my port were to disconnect, it’d be bad, and I didn’t want to have to put Misty in the position of having to clean the mess up that would happen if I did.

  Misty handed me the phone and patted me on the shoulder.

  “I’ll be right over here if you need me, okay?” She asked.

  I nodded and answered the phone, putting false cheer into my voice.

  “Hey, Remy!” I sang into the receiver.

  “Where are you?” Remy asked with annoyance.

  “I’m doing a little shopping,” I lied. “Why?”

  He snorted in disgust.

  Remy hated shopping.

  That was because his wife was a super shopper.

  Something that he hated since he couldn’t afford her shopping habits on the best of days.

  “I’m at your house, but you’re not here. There’s eight million police cars outside your neighbor’s house, too. They tell me there were guns found on the premises that were used in a drive by shooting of a kid. Did you hear about that?” He asked.

  “No, I haven’t.” I said honestly.

  Had that been why Griffin had been there the night before? Was he trying to catch the man who had killed a child?

  For some reason, it’d never occurred to me that he’d been there to plant the guns.

  I couldn’t say that I knew Griffin, other than in the biblical sense, but I just knew he wouldn’t harm an innocent child.

  “I’d suggest not coming home any time soon,” he said. “They’re blocking the street all the way up to the first house.”

  Little did he know that I had another couple of hours of this left.

  “Okay,” I said. “What were you wanting?”

  “Nothing, just to shoot the shit. Got off early,” he muttered.

  I could sense he was distracted, and I knew he’d be all up in the middle of the cop’s business if they let him.

  Curious Remy always getting himself in trouble.

  “How was work?” I asked.

  Remy worked in the oil field, one week on, one week off.

  He’d been gone since last week, and I expected my place was the first place he’d gone once his tires had crossed into Uncertain territory.

  “Long and hot as hell,” he answered. “You busy later tonight?”

  I nodded. “No, come see me.”

  Dr. Parsons cleared his throat, and I looked up.

  “Oh, gotta go,” I said before he could reply. “Bye.”

  I hung up before he could say anything else, and I turned to smile at Dr. Parsons.

  “Hey!” I said.

  He smiled.

  “You doing okay, Ms. Lenore?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. So what’d the scans show?”

  He shook his head.

  “Nothing. It hasn’t grown, but it hasn’t shrunk either. So my best plan of action, as of now, is for us to monitor it. No more chemo, but I would suggest a CAT scan at least every three months. Or if there’s any changes in your headaches or eye sight. Anything at all, okay?”

  I frowned.

  That hadn’t been what I wanted to hear.

  I’d hoped to hear that the little ‘pea sized blip’ had shrunk to nothing.

  When I’d come into the ER for extreme headaches two months ago. I had a CAT scan done, which was how they’d found the mass.

  Since it was in a location that made it inoperable, they’d decided to do a few rounds of chemo to see if they could shrink it.

  And apparently it wasn’t shrinking.

  “So what do you think it is?” I asked disappointedly.

  Dr. Parsons shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it in all my years of practice. It’s not hindering anything at all. And since we don’t know when it appeared, we can’t correlate it with any of your other symptoms.”

  I had migraines.

  Then again, so did a lot of the US population.

  “Just don’t worry about it? If my migraines come more frequently, I should contact you?” I asked.

  He nodded. “That’s my suggestion.”

  I scrunched my nose at him.

  “That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.”

  He smiled.

  “The good thing is, is that it hasn’t gotten bigger. Which it would have if it was cancerous, in my honest opinion. Now all we can do is watch it, and go from there,” he said softly.

  I sighed.

  “Well, I guess that’s something,” I said tiredly.

  He smiled.

  “Let me know if you have any questions. Call my office, and they’ll get you to me, day or night.” He extended his hand.

  I took it.

  But I couldn’t help but think that this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.

  He was supposed to tell me that everything was fixed.

  That I could live my life like it was supposed to be lived.

  I guess I was destined to be disappointed.

  First Griffin, and now this.

  Awesome shit.

  ***

  The day after my final chemo treatment, I wasn’t awakened nicely.

  I peeled my eyes open with the utmost reluctance.

  But with the way somebody was shaking the shit out of me, on top of the glaring light in front of my eyelids, I finally opened them.

  Griffin was staring down at me worriedly.

  His face a mask of…fear?

  “What the fuck did you take?” He asked sharply.

  I blinked.

  Once. Twice. Three times.

  “Snap out of it,” he said, snapping his overly large fingers in front of my face.

  “A sleeping pill,” I said tiredly. “What’s it to you?”

  He blinked.

  “Why the fuck are you taking sleeping pills?” He growled.

  “Because it was either I take them or I feel nauseated,” I said slowly.

  I couldn’t get my brain to function.

  Man, these pills were no joke!

  Then my eyes widened.

  It’s kind of like when you’re not thinking about it, it’s not real. But the moment you give attention to the monster, this one being my upset belly, it comes roaring back to life with a vengeance. Pissed off as fuck that you’d been denying it attention.

  I bolted out of bed, my legs tangling in the sheet that was underneath Griffin’s ass.

  I fell to my knees, making a mad dash to the bathr
oom.

  Griffin was up and hauling me to my feet, and I was silently thankful as I ran to the bathroom and purged my stomach into the toilet.

  Well…what was left in it, anyway.

  Which inevitably wasn’t much.

  Only Gatorade, this time.

  At least it tasted good coming back up.

  Kind of.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Griffin asked.

  I pointed to the papers on the counter.

  The same papers that I left with after every treatment.

  It detailed the treatment I’d had, what I should do in case of extreme vomiting, dizziness, or dehydration.

  It seemed easier than explaining to him what was going on while I was still dry heaving.

  I collapsed onto my ass and let my head rest on the lip of the toilet seat.

  I knew it was gross…but right then I couldn’t find it in me to give a crap.

  Griffin, however, did.

  He picked me up, cradling me like a small child instead of a one hundred and thirty-pound woman, and carried me back to my bed.

  “You okay?” He asked. “Shit, I feel like an ass for waking you up.”

  “Fine,” I mumbled, curling into my pillow.

  “You need anything?” He asked.

  “Nuh uh,” I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  I thought he’d left, he’d been silent so long, but his next question startled me.

  “Who was the man that was here today?” Griffin asked as he ran his fingers through my hair.

  “Best friend. He’s married,” I thought to add.

  Griffin hummed. “He looked concerned when he didn’t find you at home. Came over and talked to one of the officers to ask what was going on.”

  “Remy’s nosy. He’s a born and bred busy body. He gets it from his mother.”

  Griffin snorted. “More like he’s protective of you.”

  “Remy’s got a wife that means the world to him. He doesn’t worry for me like you think he does,” I admitted.

  “Well, that’s not the way he came off when I spoke to him earlier,” Griffin said, settling down on the bed beside me.

  I rolled over and buried my nose into his side.

  I could smell his deodorant, and it smelled good.

  Was that weird of me to think?

  I couldn’t tell.

  “So you have cancer,” Griffin said.

  I shook my head. “No. Yes….no.”

  I couldn’t make up my mind.

  “I do and I don’t. Well, I don’t,” I said, making myself confused.