Judge (Shady Valley Henchmen 1)

“What kind of candy should I like then?”

“Thought chicks are supposed to like chocolate.”

“That’s a big generalization. And I like peanut butter cups sometimes.” Those ‘sometimes’ being when I was hormonal and miserable. “But I mostly like the gummier kind of stuff. Skittles, Twizzlers, Swedish Fish, even just plain old fruit snacks. What do you like?”

“Went so long without any of it, so most of it is good. Not a gummy fan, though. Everything else is good. So it looks like your stash is safe from me.”

“I wasn’t going to share anyway,” I told him, hearing that low chuckle again. “I might be nice most of the time, but I will fight you over some good candy.”

“I’d like to see that,” he said, and if it was possible to hear someone smiling, I was pretty sure he was.

“Hey, I can be scary.”

“Sure you can, baby.”

“You only doubt me because you didn’t see me have to chase a creeper out of the women’s bathroom at the bar with a bat because my brothers weren’t around and Nyx was out sick.”

“What was he doing in the bathroom?”

“Trying to set up cameras in the women’s stalls. So gross. I mean, I know you’re not supposed to yuck anyone else’s yum, but… yuck.”

“You can yuck their yum when their yum is not only illegal, but done without consent.”

“That’s true. He actually went to prison last year for it. And good riddance. Sorry,” I said when I realized what I just said.

“For what? He belongs in prison. And, for the record, baby, a lot of us do. We did what we did, we were dumb enough to get caught, so we had to serve our time.”

“Interesting. You don’t expect someone fresh out of prison to be pro-prison.”

“I’m not pro-prison. Our system is fucked. It was ridiculous how many people I was locked up with who were there for having drugs on them. Not enough to distribute, just enough to fuck their own lives up. But for people like me who had violent crimes? Eh, you know there’s a good chance you’re going to prison for it. It’s pointless to be mad at the consequences of rules you’d knowingly broken.”

“Did he have it coming?” I asked, knowing it was personal, but feeling like we were kind of at the point where we could discuss things that weren’t just abstract topics.

“Who?”

“The cop you’d beaten up,” I clarified.

“Yeah. Yeah, he really fucking deserved it. But that’s not how it works.”

“I think… oh, I think that is the doctor,” I said when I heard the bell ring.

“Alright. I will let you go. Don’t lock your window.”

With that, he ended the call.

I was so distracted by being able to have such close contact with Jass—not to mention the prospect of him coming over—that I barely even paid any attention to Dr. Price.

Even though Dr. Price was the kind of handsome that very much demanded attention.

“Oh, Dell,” he breathed out when he walked into my room like he’d stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine.

Dr. Price had the sort of aristocratic bone structure that made you know that he totally could have moved to L.A. And become a primetime heartthrob on a medical drama instead of becoming an actual doctor himself.

He was tall and fit with these velvety chocolate eyes and medium-brown hair.

This was the son of the man who’d delivered me in the backseat of my parents’ car when she realized they weren’t going to make it to the hospital.

He was also the guy who’d shown up at three in the morning when Conor had a bullet lodged in his thigh.

He somehow managed to run a normal, every day general practitioner practice, but also do emergency calls for the local organized crime.

“I would say it looks worse than it feels, but that would be a lie,” I told him.

“Don’t worry. We’ll take care of that. There is no reason for you to be in pain,” he told me, coming around the bed with his little medicine bag, going through the motions of checking my pupil, taking my temperature and vitals, then asking me about the injuries.

“You finally manage to do something fun, and this is how the universe repays you,” he said, tucking away all his supplies, then pulling out a prescription pad.

Apparently, everyone in town thought I was a goody-goody.

“Okay. I am going to prescribe two types of pain meds. They can be taken together if you really need it, but don’t overdo it. It’s easy to get addicted to this shit. I’m also going to suggest one of your brothers pick up some CBD cream to try on your ribs. And I want you to stay in this bed,” he said, giving me a hard look.

“That was my plan,” I agreed, even if I was secretly hoping not to be completely alone in said bed…