“It's okay, love, I got this,” I tell him, putting a hand on his chest and cutting off a rush of hormones that floods my brain and makes me feel a little loopy. “We've had enough violence on this tour.” I look back at Cohen with a stern expression. “Cohen Rose was on his way out.” I pat Ronnie and take a step back, watching as Turner looks between my ex and Ronnie with one raised brow, wondering if he's going to go for it anyway, Brayden's men be damned.
I move away from the new man in my life and turn back towards Cohen, getting as close to him as the guards will allow before I put a smile on my face and look between them.
“One hug for the road, one last hurrah for the relationship we used to have, the one that wasn't so bad before you turned rogue.” I shrug and hold out my arms. Cohen looks confused as fuck, but that's normal. He's definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer. “No wucking furries,” I tell him and he wrinkles his face up like I'm retarded. Too much Aussie slang for the stupid little Yank, I guess. “No fucking worries,” I clarify, keeping my arms wide and wiggling my fingers, “I don't bite.”
“You know what, screw you, Lola,” Cohen says, backing up and proving that sometimes a little nicety goes a long way to pissing somebody off. Only I'm not just trying to scare Cohen away or prove some new world bullshit about how violence never solves anything. I'm trying to clobber the scummy little creep in the face. Just a little closer … I take a step towards Cohen, arms still open and then sigh, dropping them to my side like I'm done here. “Why don't you go back to the Outback where you belong? Go fuck a koala or some shit. I'm done here.” Cohen starts to turn away and I wrap my fingers around his arm. He pauses a moment to look back at me. Big mistake on his part.
A smile steals across my lips, but neither of Brayden's bitches moves in to separate us. I guess with my big eyes and my fun sized little body, nobody thinks of me as much of a threat.
“Deal. I mean, I'd rather fuck a koala than touch your short fat little dick again. Never in my life have I had to ask is it in before. Cohen, you should be ashamed of yourself.” Before he can tear his arm from my grip, I curl the fingers of my right hand into a fist and let it fly, smashing my knuckles right into Cohen Rose's ugly ass face. The wheedling scream that tears from his throat and the accompanying droplets of blood that splatter the floor are more than worth the rough grasp of Brayden's men as they pull me back and my belly grumbles in pain, the tender skin stretching as they shove me back and I fall into Ronnie's hard body.
Gentle fingers curl around my arms and I can feel a smile beaming against my back as Cohen screams something incoherent at me and then storms off, boots squeaking across the floor. If I never see that man again, it'll be too soon. I pray that I never will, but knowing my luck, he'll probably be waiting on my bed for me when I get home.
Life's always fucked like that, isn't it?
When somebody says get tested, the thoughts that come to mind aren't so bad. I mean, I figured maybe I'd piss in a cup, get some blood drawn or whatever, but I had no clue. No fucking clue. Some dude in rubber gloves stuck a freaking swab in my pee hole. Yeah. You heard me. I got a Goddamn Q-tip shoved in my dick. The only positive part of the experience was hearing Turner's roar of rage from the next room. It took me ten minutes to calm him down after that and convince him to go through with the whole thing. But at least now we'll both know. Too bad I couldn't get Jesse to come with us. He just miraculously disappeared about the time we had to go. Fucking asshole.
“I think we should go somewhere,” Sydney says as we stand outside in a circle and smoke cigarettes. The area around the hospital is some sort of stupid fucking 'smoke free zone', so we had to cross the street with all of our fucking bodyguards in tow and sequester ourselves near the faculty apartments. We huddle next to the back wall of one of the buildings like junior high school students trying to find a spot to grab a smoke, terrified one of our teachers is going to come around the corner at any second and bust us all.
The thought makes me chuckle.
“Go somewhere?” Dax coughs and then shakes his head. Looking at him right now makes me sick to my stomach. He's not in a good place. I don't know the guy, but I'm actually pretty fucking worried about him. I tried to bum a cigarette from him, but he gave me a sharp smile and told me he didn't have anything I'd want. Dax isn't just smoking with us; he's getting wet. That little stick in his hand, the one that looks like a motherfucking cigarette? That's actually a dippy. A smoke dipped in angel dust. I always stayed away from that fucking crap, even when I was at my worst. Angel dust will fuck you so hard that you won't remember which end is up. Emptiness, isolation, loneliness. The first and only time I ever tried a dippy, I came this close to killing myself. Yes, drugs can numb the pain but having them numb my entire soul to the point of oblivion? No thanks.