“Lice shampoo.”
Carefully tilting her head back, he rinsed her hair while she kept trying to get her hands free. The blood-tinged soap slid down her body, going down the drain.
“Quit struggling or you’ll break both our necks.”
She stopped fighting him immediately at the order, standing passively as he finished rinsing her off.
The medicated smell of the shampoo turned his stomach. Looking to the side of the shower, he saw a bottle with flowers on it. It nearly killed him to squeeze a small amount onto her ravaged head, but he did so and gently rubbed it in her hair with the palm of his hand then rinsed it off.
As soon as he was finished, he jerked her from the shower to dry her off. Seeing a blue robe on the back of the door, he put it on her himself before tying it closed. Then, picking her up, he carried her into the bedroom to sit her down on the side of the bed. Going back to the bathroom, he grabbed a fresh towel before returning to Bliss. Dazed, she hadn’t moved from where he had left her.
“Why in the hell did you do that to yourself?” he asked as he gently dried what was left of her hair. When he pulled back the towel, spots of blood were on it.
“I can’t get them again.”
“What?”
“Lice.” Her body shuddered. “They’re terrible to get rid of.”
“What makes you think you have lice?”
“Jessie told me Devon’s mother found them on him. I’m around him all day.”
“Did you check before you tore out most of your hair?”
“No, I didn’t need to. I always catch them. When my mother and I lived on the streets, I kept them. I managed to get rid of them when she found a room for us to stay in for a while, but I caught them again when I lived with the Devil’s Rejects. Evie helped me finally get rid of them when The Last Riders took me in.”
“Jesus, is that why you keep your hair so short with all that gunk in it?”
“Yes. I don’t want to catch them again.” Bliss sobbed, her hands going to her head once more.
Drake jerked them back down. “Don’t you fucking dare touch your hair again. There’s barely any left.”
“A single strand can have—”
“Bliss, believe me, nothing’s alive on your head.”
Drake made sure nothing was still bleeding before going to the bathroom to hunt for something to help her with the pain she was going to feel when the shock wore off.
Opening a drawer, he found the three joints he had given her. Taking one to the bedroom, he pulled a lighter out of his pocket.
“You need to take a couple of hits. It will help with the pain.”
“It’ll make me barf. I hate the taste of pot. It reminds me of the Devil’s Rejects.”
“Shit.” Drake threw the pot into the trash can beside her bed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to stop doing it just because I didn’t like it.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I didn’t want you to stop liking me.” She stared up at him earnestly. Her hair was torn to fucking shreds, and she was worried over how he felt about her reaction to smoking pot? Shit.
He felt as if he had been kicked in his stomach.
“Jesus.” Drake sat down on the bed next to her, putting his arm around her to pull her close. “I rarely smoke one unless I want to bash someone’s face in. It mellows me out. I won’t touch it again.”
Bliss shook her head. “I don’t mind. You’ll resent me if you can’t—”
“Shut up. Please, shut up. You’re breaking my heart.” The more time he spent with her, the more he noticed she always followed his lead, waiting to see how he would react to certain situations. If he showed the least bit of displeasure, she would always put what he wanted first. It drove him insane and he had hoped he had been wrong, that it was only the newness of them dating. It wasn’t. It was a habit ingrained in her since she was fifteen.
She turned her face into his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for. You had a fucked-up childhood, you know that?”
“That’s what Viper told me. He promised me The Last Riders wouldn’t hurt me, that I could go anywhere I wanted and do anything I wanted. I begged him to join The Last Riders. It was the first home I ever had.”
“They became your family.” Drake had thought her connection with The Last Riders would eventually be severed as time went on, but he realized they would always remain in Bliss’s heart. The Last Riders were a family not related by blood, but by the experiences and loyalty they shared.