Page 30 of Nave
Lolly
A low woof, followed by a grumble, had me clawing my way toward consciousness. Sleep clung to me like molasses, making my thoughts deep and sticky.
It was Edith’sI’ve had just about enough of thissnort that had me snapping awake, remembering that she could only wait so long, and she’d had an accident in the house once that meant Ben screamed at me (and her) for hours while he forced me to clean with bleach until my fingertips were tender from layers of skin burning off.
“Okay!” I said, reaching to scoop her up before my eyes were even fully open.
My heartbeat punched against my ribs as my belly sloshed around ominously.
It took a long second before I realized I wasn’t in my bed. I wasn’t in the glass house. Or the woods.
I was in a windowless room, wearing a borrowed hoodie that came down to mid-thigh (and nothing else), and smelling like the man who had been my beacon of hope for years.
“Right,” I said, sucking in a greedy breath. “Alright. Okay. Let’s go potty,” I said, finding my slides that were grubby for thefirst time in their lives, grabbing Edith’s leash, and making my way toward the door.
I listened for the barest of seconds, but there was no noise like from the night before. Maybe it was too early for everyone to be up. With no sunlight or electronics to go by, it was impossible to know what time it was.
It wasn’t until I was at the end of the hallway that I realized that while the party was over, the club was not empty. Two men—twins, judging by the near-identical faces—were steadily cleaning up: one was pouring liquid from red cups into a five-gallon bucket, then piling up the cups themselves; the other was scrubbing the top of the bar.
“Oh, uhm, hi,” I said, shifting my feet when they both noticed me almost in unison.
“Hey,” one said, giving me a nod, then going back to scrubbing the bar.
Right.
This was a biker clubhouse.
They were probably used to a lot of women in their house in the mornings after parties.
“I just have to take my dog out,” I said, looking at the other one—the one who gave me a bit of a smile, one dimple pressing in.
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“Okay. Uh, sorry, but do you have little baggies?” I asked. “Just in case?”
“There’s a little lean-to shed on the side of the house. Inside, there’s a scooper that you can load bags into. The bags are in there too. Lotta dogs visit here,” he added, shrugging.
“Thank you.”
I quickly made my way outside because Edith was getting antsy.
As she sniffed around, I checked out the scooper thing that the guy had mentioned, decided it was ingenious, and figured I might need to spend some of my very precious money on getting one.
“Okay. Let’s go in and get you some breakfast. Oh, crap,” I said, realizing I didn’t have her food. It was still sitting in the backseat of my car. And I had no pants on. Or underwear, for that matter.
Oh, well. I had to get the food.
But as I made my way onto the street, my car was no longer parked where I’d left it.
“No, no, no, no, no!” I cried, my heart leaping up into my throat. “No.”
I couldn’t stop the tears that flooded.
Everything I owned was in that car. Sure, it wasn’t much. But I had absolutely nothing now.
“You good, baby?” a voice—smooth and deep—called.
Turning, I saw a man walking toward me. A towering guy with black hair and dark eyes. Black jeans, black tee. Gorgeous. In a vampire kind of way.
