Hammer
everything looks at me … and smirks. It makes me want to beat him even more. Cocky bastard.
    “Dick work?”
    I have had enough. “Get. The. Fuck. Out.”
    He steps over to my hospital bed. “Or what?” he goads like when we were kids.
    “I’ll fuck you up so badly our own mother won’t even recognize you.”
    He laughs. The motherfucker laughs.
    I swing my legs to the edge of the bed. My hip burns from the inside out, reminding me I’m not healed.
    I am not okay.
    He leans in, face-to-face with me. “Let it out, man. You’ve gotta grieve.”
    How dare he act like he knows what I need to do!
    “I don’t gotta do one damn thing. You need to go.”
    He pushes back away from me and crosses his arms over his chest. “You don’t mean it.”
    “The fuck I do!”
    When he pulls a chair to my bed like he plans to stay a while, I want nothing more than to kick the legs out from under it.
    Well, if he is not going to listen, then I might as well not talk.
    An hour later, Evan is still sitting quietly by my bed.
    I glare at him.
    “Seriously, Ethan, tell me what I can do. I feel helpless over here.”
    I laugh sarcastically. “Well, baby bro, that makes two of us.” I sigh. “I need to get out of this place.”
    “That’s a start.” He smiles, and my anger calms down.
    “It’s not home. I’m not living here; I’m existing. I feel like I’m in prison. I’m a number on a chart with three hots and a cot.”
    Evan laughs freely, which makes me smile.
    “I doubt prison has female nurses with big titties to give you a sponge bath. Last I heard, you want to make sure your soap’s on a rope when you go to the big house.”
    “Name a nurse here with big titties and ass.”
    He pauses, thinking it over.
    “Exactly. I’m trapped in a bed with Bertha butch coming to wash me while my nose can’t smell a damn thing beyond antiseptic. The food is worse than fucking chow hall grub. I’d happily choke down an MRE over the shit they are serving.”
    He raises an eyebrow at me. “That bad?”
    I simply growl. Yeah it is that bad. I am a man who used to run eight miles a day and drink a twelve pack a night. I can disarm an enemy with one hand. I face fear head on, yet I am trapped in place by my own damn body.
    ~~~
    It takes some pull from the Regulators, but five months after the accident I manage to be discharged finally. There are stipulations, of course. Ice and Coal promised to take care of the details. As long as it doesn’t mean Big Jim giving me sponge baths, I will deal with whatever comes next.
    A personal physical therapist is up first to find. The boys have a contact, someone who is used to my lifestyle supposedly. Ice swears it’s someone who can handle an asshole like me.
    I’m not so sure about that, but if it means I can be back in my own condo, fine by me.
    When my brother pulls up in front of my building, I take one look at the line of bikes and vehicles the biker bunnies drove in and feel frustration wash over me. They aren’t quite hidden from view, but I can tell they positioned the machines in order to let me see them without drawing too much attention to their presence.
    Apparently, one of the dumb fucks decided it would be a good idea to throw me some kind of coming home party. I don’t want a fucking party.
    A party means people. People will see me in my wheelchair and think I’m not the same man I used to be. The women will want to give me a pity blowjob, and my brothers will be standing around, looking at me but trying not to show pity.
    But we all know that they will. Pity me, that is.
    To hell with that! I love each and every brother in my club, but they can take their good intentions and shove them right up their own asses. I would rather sit by myself in an empty condo and give myself a hand job than accept their stoic faces and the women’s fake celebration.
    I look over at my brother who sits tensely in the driver’s seat, totally aware of what I have been looking at and my

Similar Books

Sepulchre

James Herbert

The Awakening

Kat Quickly

Wishing for a Miracle

Alison Roberts

Mayflies

Sara Veglahn

The Crow Trap

Ann Cleeves

The List of My Desires

Grégoire Delacourt