Page 13 of Grumpy

The club was handling his auto garage, which slightly irked him. He’d built that garage from the ruined shambles left behind by a money-hungry fucker who’d been the only game in town for years. That garage was Grumpy’s safe place. Not that the club or clubhouse wasn’t, but that garage was his.

And his mom had nearly run it into the ground in two weeks.

In a desperate attempt to put some space between them after he’d come home from the inpatient burn rehab center, he’d sent his mom to the garage to see if she could help out there. While it had gotten him the peace and quiet he’d needed at home, it had caused such chaos at the garage that Ghost had had to intervene and kick Grumpy’s mom out of the facility.

The lecture on disrespect that Grumpy had received that evening from his mother had been worse than the daily burn dressing changes he’d endured without complaint.

It had been six months since the explosion, but the disconnect Grumpy felt from the club felt as real as his new metal jaw. Grumpy might not have been the most vocal of members, but he’d been present. He’d been there.

He knew this feeling had nothing to do with the club and everything to do with him. They were probably more present in his life now than they had been before the explosion, always checking in on him and keeping him up to date on events. The differences were how useless he was just sitting here on his ass and how physically separated Grumpy was in his house.

After Lucky’s house had been set on fire by Harper’s gambling addict of a brother, Lucky had moved his family onto the club’s property. That single move had basically started an epidemic. When Bear knocked up Tessa, he too had built a home on club property. Then Angel had adopted Bree, and Bulldog had found Abby. Add in Steel and Jenna’s house, which was now Becks and Ghost’s house, and the Pentagon had been formed. Five houses with a communal backyard that sat to the right of the clubhouse. Bree was paraplegic, and due to her wheelchair use, Steel had commissioned sidewalks and paved drives to be added to the club.

Demo had needed a house next, and based on Cage’s assessment of the land, a plot of four houses could go up behind the Pentagon, aptly dubbed the Square. Pumpkin and Starbucks took up houses next, leaving one plot empty and still up for grabs.

Jumper and Pirate lived in a duplex on the other side of the property with Jasmine, Sophia, baby Charlie, and Jasmine’s growing menagerie of animals. Scar and Tally also ended up building on property but their secluded house was built far away from the others’.

When Boots had patched in, he wanted to bring his horses from his family’s California ranch to Mount Grove. Since the property had technically been a farm before it had been a distillery (pre-club), it hadn’t been that hard to rezone a patch for his horses. While he technically still had a room in the clubhouse, he mostly slept in the loft in the barn now.

After Steel and Jenna left Mount Grove, their house became Ghost’s as the club’s new president. Ranger moved in with him, then moved out when Ghost married Becks, Ranger’s little sister. It had taken a while for Grumpy to get caught up on all the events that had happened beyond the bar exploding that night. While the bomb had been meant for Ranger and Ghost, it had killed neither. Ranger and Becks had then been kidnapped by Ranger’s then girlfriend, Cameron, and Becks’ ex-fiancé, Ritchie. So while Grumpy was undergoing countless surgeries to save his life, Ranger had been forced on heroin and tortured to make Becks compliant. Unfortunately, a heroin addiction wasn’t something that could just be shaken off. So while Ranger was doing better, and now shacked up with the club’s criminal attorney, Toni Anderson, they were still living in Ghost and Becks’ house.

Keys and Rose lived in a high-tech apartment Keys had built in his building across the street from the club’s property for his security business. While the club did not own that business as it did many others, many still included it in the umbrella of “the club property” because it was as open to club members as the clubhouse was.

Papaw and Louisa had a small cottage outside of Mount Grove, but between Carlos and Zoe’s house in town and Bulldog and Abby’s house on property, they split their time between the residences.

Grumpy was the only other member who lived off property, and had since he’d arrived in Mount Grove. All other members lived in the apartments in the clubhouse. As the club’s first prospect, certain regulations had not been in place when he’d prospected—like the rule that all prospects had to live in the clubhouse. Strictly speaking, there was no ruling that said members had to live on club property. It was just what the members seemed to do once they met their lady and started breeding like rabbits.

But Grumpy was a surly old bastard. He loved his nieces and nephews, but damn, they were fucking loud. Sometimes it was even too much for him to work in the garage on club property. Maybe he was too set in his ways.

Getting blown up had a way of rocking one’s world on its axis, though. Suddenly, Grumpy’s perfectly choreographed world wasn’t so put together. What did it say about him that he was missing the chaos of the club life that used to drive him nuts? Or maybe he’d rather be overrun by rug rats and glitter bombs than suffer through another soap opera.

Seriously, it was the same fucking story over and over and over again. How was that entertainment? To Grumpy’s knowledge, that was the literal definition of insanity. And he was sorry, but after your fiancé sleeps with your mother, stepmother, and twin sisters, maybe it was time to find a new fiancé.

But today was the day. He was going to head into the kitchen, pick the shells out of his scrambled eggs she was making for him, and tell her that it was time for her to go home. Grumpy needed to get his life back, and there was a reason he hadn’t returned to Maine when he’d gotten out of the Army and the ink was still drying on his divorce papers.

Talking was…hard. And not just because of Grumpy’s personality. Due to the plates, screws, and wires holding his jaw together, he still didn’t have full range of motion. He was stiff, especially first thing in the morning. It took a while to get himself moving again in the mornings. Showering was different, though probably one of the few things he did that was as normal as his life before the explosion. At least he was finally able to convince his mom he didn’t need help in that department.

There were some things a man should not do in front of his mother.

Things that used to take him five minutes now took him twenty—but the point was that he was the one doing them.

Grumpy exercised his jaw each morning like he used to do with his barbells. He’d never get used to the way his jaw randomly shook, either. Not quite a twitch. More like a mini earthquake. So fucking weird. “Morning, Mom.”

The secretary of a lobster factory for forty-plus years, Margery Bell had perfected what Grumpy called “the customer service smile”. It was an expression that made her lips tilt up in a pleasant way while sweet words came out of her mouth, but her eyes screamed “I just want to hit you over your stupid head with a hot frying pan”. It worked great on disgruntled customers. Not so much on her bullheaded son.

“Good morning, baby. How did you sleep last night? Any nightmares?”

For some reason, his mom thought that he experienced nightmares from his ordeal. He didn’t know if something had happened in the hospital that made her think this or if it was something she just assumed would happen after surviving a bombing, but the opposite was true for Grumpy. Sleep, for him, was his escape. Maybe it was his lack of memory of the explosion and those first weeks in the hospital, but he slept fairly normally. Sometimes he moved, causing himself pain, but his dreams were rather pleasant.

Dreams of a beautiful waitress and motorcycle rides through the mountains.

It was during his waking hours that he had feelings of panic, almost like claustrophobia, and a sense of restlessness. Like he was supposed to be doing something but couldn’t remember what or how.

Grumpy headed to the coffee pot, but his movements were so slow that his mom beat him to it.

“No, no, I got it. Go sit.”

Grumpy bit back a noise of frustration. “Mom, this is what the therapists were talking about. I need to be doing things on my own.”