“Fucking hell,” I cursed, upset I hadn’t checked before.
I racked out as soon as my head hit the pillow but was up bright and early the next morning. It didn’t take long to get home from the clubhouse. After parking in the driveway, I hung my old helmet on my handlebar and checked my mail—nothing but junk.
Most of it I dropped in my trash can before trudging up the front porch. The door swung open after I unlocked it, and I paused. My mistake hit me the second I stepped inside. I should’ve supervised Yvette’s removal of her crap.
The ladder I’d been changing light fixtures with was knocked over. There were holes in the sheetrock that had obviously been made with the bat that was still sticking out of one of them. A paint can was a victim of the bat, leaving gray paint all over the wood floors in the dining room. Thankfully there wasn’t much left in the can because most of it had been used to repaint the kitchen cupboards.
“Motherfucker,” I muttered as I took in the mess.
My bedroom hadn’t fared much better. The mattress had been stabbed and sliced repeatedly—on my side, of course. A framed picture of me and Yvette was shattered with a knife sticking out of my face and through to the nightstand underneath it.
Unsure of what I’d find, I slowly opened my dresser drawer. They had been rifled through, and a lot seemed missing. That’s when I realized there were raw eggs broken over everything in there. A quick glance in the other drawers showed the same situation.
I stripped out of my dirty clothes from last night, gathered them and the jeans from one drawer, and went into the hall bathroom that doubled as my laundry room.
“Fucking hell,” I groaned as I saw my clothes in the bathtub. All of my white or light-colored T-shirts were soaking in reddish-pink water, which I assumed was dye.
After starting the load of jeans and my clothes from the night before, I grabbed a trash bag and scooped the clothes from the tub into one. I wasn’t gonna bother trying to clean them.
In the kitchen, I set my phone on the counter and plugged it in to charge.
Irritated as fuck, I stepped out onto my back porch in my boxer briefs, dropping the wet bag of clothes over the rail. I ignored the cold air that bit at my skin and picked up the half-empty pack of cigarettes sitting there.
Fuck quitting.
Fuming, I shook one out and gripped it with my lips, then tossed the pack back to the little white plastic table and rubbed my thumb and index finger together. The small flame flickered and danced in a mesmerizing fashion before I held it to the end of the cigarette and inhaled.
Making a fist, I extinguished the flame in my palm as I drew the smoke in deep. Exhaling slowly, I leaned over the railing and stared out into my backyard. The grass was brown and dormant in the patches I could see through the snow. I’d bought the small house on a whim. Until Yvette, I rarely stayed there, preferring to crash in my room at the clubhouse. After she and I had gotten together, I started fixing it up. Dumb move, it would seem.
Inside, my cell phone rang. Taking another drag, I held the cigarette between my lips, opened the screen door, reached around the corner to unplug my phone, then took it outside. I exhaled once I was clear of the house.
“Speak to me, oh great one,” I said before taking another drag.
“Really?” Venom asked.
“What? You don’t have anything to say? Then why did you call?” I questioned with a smirk.
“Fucking hell, you’ve been hanging out with Ghost too much. He’s rubbing off on you.”
Despite the shitshow in my house and life, I laughed. “Well, I consider that a good thing.”
He snorted, then got to why he called. “Loralei wanted me to find out what you and Yvette are bringing to family day.”
Loralei was his ol’ lady. One of the things she decided to implement and convinced Venom to “inspire” us to attend was a regular family day one Sunday a month. Before that, we had one occasionally, but there hadn’t been a ton of ol’ ladies so it was sporadic.
“Wearen’t bringing a motherfuckin’ thing, butI’llbring a dessert.”
He was silent for a moment. “Um, is she working or something?”
“Don’t know, don’t care,” I said with a shrug as I took a final drag, then stubbed the cigarette out. I blew the smoke out into the yard and watched as it slowly faded away.
“You shitcan her? She was just here Friday night for the party,” he said, sounding confused, and I wanted to laugh. Before his ol’ lady, he wouldn’t have said a thing. Now he had his moments where he was like a mother hen. Granted, they were few and far between.
“Yeah, well when she left early with her friend, she decided to fuck someone’s dick that wasn’t mine. Homey don’t play that.” Thanks to the nicotine surging through my system, I was calmer about what had transpired. Don’t get me wrong, I was still pissed, but I was beginning to think it was more because I didn’t see it coming. Not to mention, no dude liked to be cuckolded. Hell, I wanted to kick myself for thinking I could try at the relationship shit just because so many of my brothers were finding ol’ ladies.
“Fuck. Okay then. Moving on. I’ll see you shortly,” he mumbled.
“See you,” I replied before ending the call. Guess he didn’t want to play Dear Abby with me. I snickered to myself.