Chapter 43: I Hate Myself for Loving You

Blayze

I woke up to someone knocking on my front door. The two sweet butts in my bed both groaned as I climbed over their naked bodies to get my boxers. Looking at my phone, I saw that it was about 7:00 AM. I went to sleep only three hours before.

“Better be f*cking important,” I mumbled. I nearly tripped over my underwear, pulling them on as I made my way for the front door. “What!” I demanded when I swung it open, which I immediately regretted when I saw my mother’s face.

“Good mornin’ to you, too, Sunshine,” my mom said as she waltzed past me and toward the kitchen. “Ugh, Blayze,” she said disapprovingly. “It smells like cigarettes and a** in here. I brought leftovers.”

I rolled my eyes as I closed the door. But the truth was, I appreciated my mom making sure my fridge was stocked with her home-cooked food. Unlike Cyrus, I’d never let her teach me how to cook. My dad had always said cooking was women’s work, and I’d, unfortunately, listened to him. Now I pretty much relied on my mother if I wanted any food in my house besides take-out from the diner, Ramen, or PB&J.

“I got a batch of lasagna here, extra cheese. And a bunch of ribs and potatoes and that corn casserole thing you like,” my mom said as she pulled plastic containers out of a canvas bag.

I had no idea where this seemingly bottomless supply of canvas bags came from. She always gave them to people full of leftovers, but as far as I knew, they never got returned. Yet my mother always seemed to have a dozen canvas f*cking bags on hand.

“Thanks, mom,” I said as I lit a cigarette.

“You look sad,” she said, taking a break from putting food in my fridge.

“I’m fine,” I insisted. “Just tired.”

“Uh-huh.” She was unconvinced. “How’s Bonnie doin’?”

“How would I know?”

“Blayze, you can pretend I didn’t walk in on you two all you want, but I know what I saw. Have you talked to her?”

It had been a month since I’d tried to talk to Bonnie about us after the meeting with the elders. We were just a day out from the heist, and the only interaction we’d had was strictly business. I pretended that what she’d said hadn’t hurt, but it was all an act. Bonnie broke my heart ten years before, and she still had the power to crush me.

“She decided it’s not a good idea to keep it up,” I said simply.

“So that’s why you’ve been all mopey,” my mom said, raising a brow.

“I’m not mopey!” I replied. “We were both under a lot of stress. It was never gonna be anything serious.”

“But you wanted it to be.” My mother was kinda psychic when it came to my feelings for Bonnie, though I never admitted it to her.

“I— First off,” I said, “I just wanted to get laid, and I got that. And second, I don’t care what Bonnie does. She was the one to say it first, but we weren’t gonna get back together. I knew that.” That was a lie.

Just then, another knock on the door got my attention.

“Ugh,” I stormed over to the door and swung it wide open. To my shock, standing on my front porch was Bonnie.

Instead of her usual full face of makeup complete with black winged eyeliner and red lips, she was bare-faced. I always thought she looked hot the way she did her makeup, but she was most beautiful first thing in the morning when she wasn’t wearing any. I hadn’t seen her without makeup in a decade. Her green eyes looked uncertain.

“Is this a bad time?” she asked.

“Of course not!” my mom replied from over my shoulder. “Come on in, honey. I’ve got leftovers.”

“That’s MY food!” I said with a sneer but immediately felt like a bratty child. “I mean, take some if you want. Whatever.”

I realized I was still blocking the door, so I moved over to let Bonnie in.

“Thanks, but I’m good, Arlene,” Bonnie said. Then she turned to me. “I…uh, just wanted to see if we could talk for a minute.”

Before I could respond, one of the sweet butts came out of my bedroom wearing only her lace panties.

“Ooh, are we having breakfast?” she asked.

She was soon followed by her counterpart, who wore one of my T-shirts.

Bonnie looked at me with hurt in her eyes, which was especially infuriating since she was the one who stomped all over my heart. Again.

“What?” I said defensively.

“Nothing.” Bonnie looked away. “It’s nothing important. Sorry for intruding on your sleepover. I’ll just see you around.” With that, she left.

The sweet butts realized their presence had made things awkward and quickly gathered their things to leave while my mother stood behind the kitchen counter with her arms crossed, glaring at me.

Eventually, I made my way over to the kitchen and started picking through the food my mom had brought. I realized she was still glaring as I bit into a spare rib and let out a sigh.

“Wanna say something to me?” I asked.

My mom responded by slapping me upside the head. “You’re a d*mn idiot!”

Harlow

“Ok,” I said, looking over a little model of the Mega Mart parking lot and loading dock Madoc had put together using board game pieces. “So while we’ve got Cyrus and Red unloading the trucks, I wait for the signal from Stella.”

We were ironing out the fine details of the heist; I was the getaway driver. Cyrus sat on the couch behind me in Madoc’s office. Whenever he could, Cyrus came down there with me to make sure Madoc didn’t try “anything funny,” as he put it.

There was a knock on the door. Madoc moved back to the farthest, darkest corner of the room while I opened the door, allowing sunlight to flood. In stepped Leon and Remy, and I closed the door quickly behind them.

“We’ve got some new intel that might affect some things,” Leon said to the vampire. “We just found out that Mega Mart is upping security during the transportation of the product. Each of the five trucks will be accompanied by a member of the Seventh Circle MC.”

Cyrus looked at me. I knew what he was going to say before he said it. “That’s it. Harlow’s not driving. We have plenty of werewolves who can do that.”

“Cyrus,” I responded. “I want to help. I can do this. If everything goes according to plan, I won’t even be noticed.”

“No,” Madoc interjected, “Cyrus is right.”

“What?” Cyrus and I both responded in shock.

“I mean, I still want Harlow to drive,” he said. “But if they’ve upped security, so should we. Whaddaya think, Cyrus? Would two extra werewolves onsite ease your mind?”

“Yeah,” Cyrus said with suspicion.

“Alrighty, you choose the players,” Madoc said.

“Seriously?”

“Well, I figure no one wants the car back more safely than you. You pick the rest of the wolves, and we’ll make it work.” Madoc added two more tiny soldier game pieces behind the little green car on the table in front of him. “See how easy it is when we use our big boy words instead of busting heads?”

I rolled my eyes and grabbed Cyrus by the cut before he started throwing punches. “You need to get to work soon,” I said. “And I need to clean the meeting room at the bar, so let’s get outta here.”

The meeting room had been cleared of most of the Howlers’ guns the day before due to a big shipment for Sunrise Corp. I needed to get it back in order for the Blood Dogs officers’ meetings, which were currently taking place in the cramped office.

We left the cellar, and I kissed Cyrus before heading across the highway.

When I got to the bar, I was surprised to find that the door was unlocked. I was supposed to be the first one in. The bar appeared to be empty, so I walked to the back to see if someone was in the office, but I stopped short when I heard something from inside the ladies’ room.

It sounded like someone was throwing up. A few moments later, the toilet flushed, the sink turned on and off, then out walked Bonnie.

“Are you ok?” I asked.

I realized then that Bonnie wasn’t wearing any makeup. She looked a lot younger. Vulnerable, even.

“Just a little nauseated,” she said.

“I thought werewolves couldn’t get sick.”

“We’re immune to disease,” she replied. “Some things can still make us sick.”

“Food poisoning or…”

Bonnie let out a sigh. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Of course,” I replied.

In a whisper, she said, “I’m pregnant.”