“How long have you known?” Jenna asked, her tone hard.
I hesitated before answering. “A week,” I lied, but when she cocked her head and narrowed her eyes I came clean. “Three weeks, almost four.”
“Jesus, Belle,” she mumbled. “You know she’s using you, right?” I wondered how much she knew those words would hurt me as she said them.
“I’m not stupid,” I said, and she raised an eyebrow at me. But I guess I deserved that one after the bombshells I’d just dropped.
I had messed everything up without even trying; surely I should get an award or something for that.
“If Doctor Collins finds out about you and Beast, then you could lose your job, Belle.” She dragged a hand through her hair. “I probably could too. I’d be guilty by association, almost. He’s an asshole, but he’s still the one in charge.”
Jenna paced the kitchen dragging her hands through her hair. She shook her head every time she glanced in my direction, like she couldn’t believe what I had just told her. I waited, not sure what to say; there was no way to make any of it better, for her or me. I had well and truly messed everything up and there seemed only one way out of at least some of it.
“I’m going to quit the hospital,” I said, my voice a whisper, like I couldn’t quite believe that I was saying it myself. But I knew as soon as the words left my lips that it was the right thing to do. A weight lifted from my chest. “If I leave, then he can’t fire me and my record will stay intact and your job will be safe too.”
“Have you lost your damn mind?” she gasped. “And how will you pay for things? How will you pay your bills? For food? For gas?” She threw her hands up in the air.
“I’ve been saving the money the MC paid me. I was going to give it all to you since it was your job to start with. But I can live on that for a month or so while I find a new job.” I nodded at myself as I spoke, a plan coming together.
“Belle, you can’t just quit your job like that. It’s irresponsible.” She raised an eyebrow and tutted. “But then so was sleeping with a patient too, but that didn’t stop you.”
I looked into my lap, knowing I deserved that. But also knowing that now that I had said it out loud, I had a hundred percent made my mind up. This job had been taking over my life more and more, and if I was at least honest with myself I had to admit that I didn’t really enjoy it. I did it for Jenna—to make her proud, because she’d always wanted me to work there. It had been her dream and not mine, but now, since I’d messed everything up, maybe it was time to find out what I wanted.
“I’ll speak to Doctor Collins. I’ll find out what he knows.”
“Jenna…”
She shook her head at me. “We worked so damn hard to get you to where you are. Sacrificed so much. You are not going to throw it all away.”
“Jenna,” I said hesitantly. “I want to quit”—I looked back up at her—“this job.” I shook my head. “It was always you and not me. I think it’s time I find out what I want from my life.”
“What?” Jenna stopped pacing the room and stared at me, her expression full of shock and anger and sadness, and I felt the crushing weight of each and every one of those feelings, the burden heavy on my heart.
We stared at one another in silence, the room swimming with heavy emotions.
“I think you should leave,” she finally said. She took the glasses off the counter and took them to the sink to wash. She rinsed them under the hot water and placed them on the draining board before turning around and putting the wine away.
“Jenna,” I began, but she was right. What was left for me to say? I’d told her about sleeping with a patient—a dangerous criminal, no less. About my mom getting in touch and her coming to stay with me, and now I was quitting my job—something I hadn’t foreseen me saying, but knew was what I really wanted.
“I need you to leave, Belle. I need to think.”
I nodded and slid off the stool before leaving. I wondered briefly if she would try to stop me. If she would call to me or get angry and then we could argue it out, but she never did. Jenna let me leave and I didn’t blame her one bit. I’d tried so hard to please everyone and not hurt those I loved, but in the end I’d ended up hurting everyone.
Chapter Three
~ BEAST ~
The party was in full swing, the club heaving with brothers from all over the country. Everyone had come out to welcome me back home. Brothers and families from all over had taken the time out to come and see me. People I hadn’t seen in years and people I’d ridden with every day before the attack…they were all there for me, yet I was sitting completely alone.
How did that work?
Being in a room full of people—friends and family—all of them celebrating me being alive and being home, yet I was completely alone. I’d been back a week and it had felt like this every single day and night. The sense of belonging I usually had there was gone, shattered into oblivion, and I didn’t know why.
I looked around at all the familiar faces—people I’d grown up with, ridden with, killed with. And yet all I could think was I wished I was back in the hospital, waiting for Belle to come in and spoon-feed me pudding. It was the pathetic truth of the matter that I would never admit to anyone. I missed the familiarity of her scent as she washed my body, and the sounds from the machines next to my bed. I missed the rituals Belle and I had gotten into and the fights that usually accompanied our meetings. I didn’t miss her though; prim little bitch that thought she was too good for me. No, fuck that; I just missed the familiarity of everything. This place, the clubhouse, felt foreign to me now.
It was a second home to me, and I’d always felt comfortable there, surrounded by those men and women, but right then all I could think about was going home—to my actual home. Because yeah, of course I fucking had more than just a room in a dilapidated clubhouse. I had a house with a white picket fence and three bedrooms, a bathroom, and even an overgrown garden with colorful flowers and shit in it. I just didn’t go there very often.
A group of sweetbutts had been slowly making their way around the room, servicing brothers and being the eye candy for the party. I’d seen Lola with them all, and every once in a while she’d look over at me and whisper to the little skanks she was with and then they’d all laugh between themselves. I wanted to shoot every fucking one of them, but decided to make a point of showing her that what had happened at the hospital was a one-time thing. I’d fuck her till she was bowlegged and then kick her skinny ass out of the club for good.
The more I watched her, the angrier I became. Her face mocking me from across the room. Laughing at me. My dick shriveled up in my jeans, refusing to come out no matter how many dirty thoughts I tried to think of to get it hard.
Lola had killed my dick—she was a dick killer. Fuck.
“You doin’ okay, brother?” asked Battle, one of the nomads, sitting down next to me.
He and Fighter, another nomad, had traveled across the country to come visit me at the hospital and were surprised that I was actually out. We’d ridden together a few years back, did a couple of hits on some fucks who had sticky fingers and thought they could make a mockery of the club name. We’d put them to ground and pissed on their graves afterwards before going out and getting so drunk we’d woken up naked in a different state. Loved those guys. They were as sick and as dark as I was.