Page 111 of Apex of the Curve

Chapter Twenty-Six

Fenris…

Her sister-in-law was a bitch, had fucked around, and the bitch was about to find out.

Time had gone by in a bit of a blur over the last couple of weeks and Halloween was right around the fuckin’ corner. Aspen and I had been busting our asses around her mother’s old place clearing out old furniture and a lifetime of her mom’s shit only for this bitch right here to spit on her fuckin’ efforts in one of the rudest, most self-entitled ways I had ever seen in my fuckin’ life.

“You’re selling the house, you’re giving me half, and that’s final. It’s not my problem what you do after that.” Christen was a literal fucking ice princess. She fucking radiated cold, from her glittering flat blue eyes, to her pale, overdone makeup, to her blond hair that was more than likely out of a bottle.

We were at some coffee place near Aspen’s shop. Her brother’s widow – I now knew why Aspen had phrased it that way since there was definitely nothing sisterly about her, was glaring daggers at her across the table. Her arms crossed over her chest.

“Christen, I’m trying to help you,” Aspen said. “I’m trying to help us both!”

Christen scoffed and looked at Aspen with utter disdain. “You’re trying to cheat me and Silver out of what’s rightfully ours!” she cried.

“Hold up, let me stop you right there, princess,” I said, holding up a hand.

Aspen was ashen, quiet, and swallowed hard, but didn’t say shit about me addressing her brother’s widow that way. She’d warned me it might go down like this and I’d warned her, I wouldn’t be anything other than myself about it.

“Did you actually sit down and read the wills?”

“My lawyer did,” she snapped imperiously.

“Might wanna have a talk with him about that,” I said.

Mav had found grounds for Aspen to keep everything from her mother, even though her brother had died after her. It was stipulated in her mother’s will that should either Copper or Aspen die, the whole of her house and belongings would go to the surviving sibling. Even though Copper had died after her mother, he’d died before her mother’s will could be officially discharged making everything Aspen’s. She didn’t have to give this gold-digging whore one red cent and with the way Christen was acting right now? I didn’t care how nice my girl was. I wouldn’t let her be a doormat.

“What do you know about it?” Christen demanded, raking me with her gaze and leaning back in her seat slightly, clearly reviled that the big, dirty biker would deign to even open his mouth in her direction.

“I know that the provision in my mother’s will dictates that if either I or Copper are deceased before the will is discharged, then the remaining sibling gets it all.” Aspen sounded somber but there was some steel in her voice.

“You’re lying,” Christen said, voice low and savage.

“Talk to your lawyer,” Aspen said calmly, shaking her head. “I honestly don’t know what else to do. I’ve bent over backwards to get you to like me, and I’m over it. I’m done.” Aspen stood, and I stood with her.

“I’m tearing a page out of your playbook, love,” she said, putting her hand in mine and looking up at me.

“The not-so-subtle art of not giving a fuck?” I asked.

“That would be the one,” she said, and she looked tired and not at all happy about it, but you know what? That was okay. Slow progress was better than no progress. I knew she was likely to knuckle under when Christen came crawling back for help – which she would. She would have to, and that was going to be okay too.

Aspen was right. It was about her but in this case and more importantly, it was about what was best for her nephew, who was an innocent child in all of this.

We left the coffee shop; Christen looking so pissed she was about to cry and honestly, fuck her. Again, she wanted to fuck around and now she was finding out. Hopefully when she did come crawling back, it would be with some fuckin’ humility but I doubted it.

I put my arm around Aspen as we made the walk back to her shop. She was in the middle of pricing things to sell and making more to come up with the money to break her lease so she could close down.

Her landlord had been good to her all this time, she said, so she wanted to at least do this right and I was all for it.

Turned out, she was a go for selling all her equipment and shit to me for a stupid low price. It wasn’t going to be a dollar, there was a minimum threshold that would be acceptable according to the courts, but her hubby wasn’t going to get near what he hoped out of it and that was going to be one hell of a shock and surprise.

We went in the back door and she called out to Amber that she was back before hanging her coat in the office and lifting down her apron, green eyes sightless and far away as she lost herself in thought.

I took a seat on one of the metal folding chairs and watched her as she moved around her shop, unwrapping a wad of clay, taking it over to the slab roller against the wall between two shelves. That thing was, by far, the biggest piece of equipment aside from her kilns.

I let her find some peace and solace in her work. I didn’t need to be front and center in her attention all the time. It was just enough that I was here in her presence.

“I don’t understand why I’m just so unlikable,” she murmured.

---