Page 34 of Finding Hope

Why must I meet jerks like Jack, when there are gentlemen around? Oh, I know. Because the good guys are already married.

Done here, humiliated, rejected, reduced to nothing more than a common whore, I turn on my heel and bite off a curse when I find there is, in fact, a cab waiting on the other side of the gates.

“Fuck off, Bambie. Go home. Have a nice life.”

This isn’t Jack’s first rodeo. “Yeah, don’t worry. I’m leaving. See ya never.”

“Annie!” he snaps. I work to hide my jump at his shout. “Get inside. Leave Bambie alone!”

Spinning, anger rages anew. “Britt! My name is Brittany, not Bambie! Not that you’d know, since you’re a selfish asshole.” I turn away. “I’m out of here.”

“Hold on, Miss T,” Tina says. “I’ll drive you home.”

“Please, God, no. I’m fine.”

“Me, too!” Jack’s tiny wife excitedly shouts.

I get the feeling maybe sheisn’this wife at all, considering her smile. Or maybe she is, and she’s readying to kill me.

“Me, too! Wait for me.” The beautiful brunette next to the shaggy haired guy sprints off her porch. “I wanna come.”

Of course, Kit, the chick with the giant hot husband and the long ash blonde hair follows suit. “No way in hell am I missing this.”

Annie jumps into the sexy car, and Jack’s maybe-wife slides back into the driver’s seat and restarts the purring engine. “Hop in, Brittany. I’m Tink, by the way.”

“Kit.” Introducing herself by way of shoving me into the sexy Mustang, she turns back and grins. “My name’s Kit. But you already got that bit.”

“And I’m Izzy,” the last girl – the one with the long brunette hair and rockin’ body – announces as she climbs in beside us. “Actually, fun fact, if you’re Miss T, then that means we already spoke today. I’m Lucy’s mom. We have an appointment to talk to you on Monday.”

“Fuck. Me.”

“Small world, huh?”

Five women squish into Jack’s Mustang, then a half-horse-half-Hagrid squeezes her giant body across our laps and licks my face.

My life officially couldn’t be any worse.

Izzy’s excited eyes turn toward me. “So, you hooked up with Jack, huh?”

“You should know, his brothersdon’tfuck him,” Kit adds sweetly as we roll past the gates. “His brothers are our husbands, and we don’t condone sharing like that. Shoes? Sure. Hair products? Uh-huh. Husbands… it all gets a little icky there. Plus, we’re possessive bitches with entitlement issues.”

Yeah. My life definitely could get worse.

9

JACK

IT HURTS

Shaking my head at my traitorous dog –andsisters – as soon as the gates close behind the Mustang, I turn into my house and slam the door shut.

Fuck my life.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

We were having a nice time. Hell, I was smiling! And not because her pussy felt good, but because she’s kind of funny and sweet. She made it so I could forget my reality for a few hours, like my house could be a quiet sanctuary away from the world and we could just hang out.

I fell asleep with a smile on my face for the first time in, well, since Steph died.

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