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“I’m dating Michael,” I told Lennox by way of explanation, completely ignoring Melissa’s pissed off mutterings.
Then a fountain of understanding welled in Lennox’s eyes.
“Well, that’s going to be interesting for you,” she managed to say.
“You can say that again. That woman needs the stick that’s lodged up her ass removed,” Melissa grumbled. “She just told Bryan that I was flirting with a patient, and that I needed to learn to be more professional. Motherfucker, but I was just telling him he had cute kids! I didn’t say he had a cute cock or anything!”
We both looked at her in surprise at her outburst.
“That woman needs to go,” I muttered. “Surely there are enough people around that can complain about her to someone she hasn’t fucked.”
The three of us fell into a fit of giggles at the thought.
There probably wasn’t a single man…or married man for that matter…in the entire hospital that she hadn’t had some of. Which was the entire problem. For all of us.Chapter 8You touch my tats, I touch your tits.
-T-shirt
Michael
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
The sound of my Glock echoing off the cavernous walls of the gun range made me feel at peace.
Almost as good as I felt when I had Nikki wrapped in my arms, in fact.
Shooting was a peaceful feeling.
One that let me shut my mind down and just have fun.
I had to log so many hours in the gun range a month anyway, so it worked out well that I loved doing it.
What I didn’t love was the man at my back whining about the dirt he was getting on his clothes.
“I didn’t tell you to come,” I grumbled to my brother.
“No, but you didn’t react like I thought you would at dinner when we told you. I expected anger and you gave us nothing. Then left. I just wanted to make sure you were okay with this,” Dean said stubbornly.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Placing the gun on the table in front of me, I took the magazine I’d just ejected from the gun and started to reload it.
“Michael, are you even listening to me?” Dean asked in frustration.
I ignored him.
I didn’t really know what he wanted me to say.
I’d already told him exactly what I thought about the matter: mostly that I didn’t care.
Not one single bit.
And he refused to think that I didn’t.
So we were at an impasse.
I didn’t care.
He cared too much that I didn’t care.
“Michael! Focus!” Dean roared.
I slammed the magazine into the gun, cocked it, and let off eight more shots, trying hard as fuck to ignore him.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Michael! Get out of your fucking head and talk to me!” Dean snarled, yanking my arm with the gun in it around so I faced him.
I holstered the empty gun and exploded.
“I am out of my fucking head, you moron! I’m not that fucked up mess I was when I was fifteen. I’m not ever ‘in my head’! Now keep your fucking hands off me, and for God’s sake, don’t yank a man’s arm when he has a gun in his hand!” I yelled back, getting into his face.
Dean stood his ground.
We were both the same height.
I was bigger, but only because I lifted weights.
Dean was in shape. Excellent shape. But he wasn’t me.
So when he raised both arms, reared back, and pushed me, I only went back inches.
Whereas when I did the same, he fell flat on his ass.
“What the fuck do you want from me?” I snarled, looking down at Dean.
Dean glared and stood up, brushing off his ass and his ‘brand new suit’ he just got.
“What I want is permission. I want to make sure this won’t cause any contention when she marries me,” he insisted.
I sighed and raised my hands up to my face, letting my fingers curl into what little hair I had.
“It’s not a bone of contention, Dean. I don’t love her and I haven’t for some time. When she cheated on me, that was it. Any and all love I felt for her was wiped off the face of the earth,” I said tiredly.
I never should’ve let Torres have my shift.
I should’ve taken the overtime and stayed at work.
This was bullshit.
I’d rather be doing anything but this right now.
He’d ruined a perfectly good day with his insistence that I wasn’t ‘okay.’
Dean looked stunned. “You’re lying. She told me you wouldn’t have a kid with her, that’s why y’all got divorced.”
I laughed humorlessly.
“I wouldn’t have a kid with her, that’s true. But what made me divorce her wasn’t that she wanted kids. It was because she slept with about fifteen men while we were married, and I only found out because she was sloppy and let some new doctor call her at home. He left a voicemail telling his ‘girl’ that he couldn’t make dinner, and that they needed a raincheck. Which got me curious since she was supposed to be at work at the time,” I told him honestly.
And damn but it felt good to get that shit off my chest!
I’d been holding that inside for a long time now.
It was hard to let my family think I was the bad guy for not wanting kids.
My mom resented me for that, I could tell. But I didn’t know how else to not tell anybody what had happened without Joslin being shunned from the family, so I kept my mouth shut.
“You’re lying,” Dean said without venom.
I could tell he believed me.
“Want the private dick’s files? I’ve got about two hundred photos of it happening in real time, too,” I offered.
He narrowed his eyes. “Why would you not tell us this? Why let us think badly of you?”
I smiled without humor.
“Mom loves Joslin. And Joslin has nobody else. I was just being nice,” I told him.
He sighed. “Goddammit. That’s not what I wanted to hear.”
I shrugged. “Sorry man.”
He looked at me for a few long moments before he said, “I love her, man.”
I nodded. “If you want to be with her, that’s good with me. I don’t care. Just be aware of her faults. And I won’t tell you I told you so.”
