One Chance, Fancy (Bear Bottom Guardians MC 5)

I wasn’t kidding earlier.

There was no woman’s touch at all in Bayou’s room.

Swinging my legs up over the side of the mattress, I stood up and immediately groaned, this time because of the soreness.

Holy shit, was I supposed to be this sore?

We’d only had sex once.

Last night I vaguely remembered being carried into Bayou’s place and put into his bed. I also remembered him taking my clothes off, leaving me in only my panties, and tucking me under the covers.

I also remembered waking up once in the middle of the night needing to use the bathroom.

After he’d told me in a husky voice where it was at, I’d gone, come back, and immediately fallen asleep next to his heater-like body for a second time.

It was like he was a drug, because I hadn’t slept like that since I was a kid.

I was an insomniac. A huge, fat, never sleeping insomniac that constantly struggled to catch sleep. Hell, that was why I’d volunteered to take the night shift at the prison…which reminded me.

I had to work this evening.

Which meant I needed to get a move on if I was going to make it on time. I was a habitual latecomer to everything. My mother said that I’d started that trend at birth, and continued it on throughout my teens, and into my adult life.

I’d even been late to my own graduation—from both nursing school and high school.

More laughter had me stiffening, and I gritted my teeth.

Being Bayou’s girlfriend meant that I also had to deal with Brielle, and I wasn’t looking forward to that aspect of our relationship.

Busying myself getting my clothes on from the night before, I quickly washed up in his bathroom, using a manly smelling facewash that said it was for the ‘beard and face’ and went through all of his drawers until I found an unused toothbrush.

From there I brushed my teeth, combed through my hair with my fingers trying to disentangle the rat’s nest, and then decided ‘fuck it’ and swirled it all back up into a bun.

I’d have to do that for work anyway, but for some reason I wanted to have my hair down and some armor on when I dealt with Brielle today.

I had a feeling this was about to go bad, and I’d need every defense I could get.

Which was likely why I stopped and grabbed the old, worn flannel shirt that Bayou had been wearing under his leather cut yesterday when we’d been setting up the landing zone.

Slinging it on over my shoulders, I pushed the sleeves up over my hands and looked around for my phone.

Finding it next to my set of keys that Bayou could’ve easily used to put me into my own house, I shoved everything into my pockets and walked out of his bedroom door, head held high.

The closer I got to the kitchen, the more nervous I got.

Not because of Brielle, but because of Bayou.

Would he be the same today that he’d been yesterday? Would he feel the same? Act the same?

I had that answered the moment I walked into the kitchen and saw him leaning his hip against the counter, cup of coffee in hand, staring directly at me.

He had a small smile on his face and his eyes were dancing as they met mine.

He must’ve heard me moving around, because when I arrived in the kitchen he picked up a cup of coffee and brought it to me in the doorway where I was standing.

“I think I made it correctly,” he paused. “But if not, I have more coffee in the pot.”

I grinned and looked down at the mug. Not only was it the correct color—so light that it resembled more milk than coffee—but it also tasted perfect, too.

“It’s excellent,” I told him. “You’ve become great at it.”

So, now was the time to say that over the last few months that I’d been working at the prison, Bayou and I had done a lot of coffee making for each other. Granted, Diane and a few of the guards had also been added into the coffee making—such as I knew that Rome took his black and Diane took hers with only a splash of milk—but that was neither here nor there.

I was fairly sure that Rome had no clue how I took my coffee, and neither did Diane.

But Bayou knew, and that was important.

And that was how I learned that Brielle was none too happy to have me there. Surprise.

Brielle was standing with her hands on her hips staring at me with a narrowed glare.

“You’ve never made me coffee before,” Brielle said. “And what are you doing here so early?”

I took another sip of the coffee before turning to study Brielle.

She really wasn’t my favorite person, and I sure as fuck wasn’t hers. I could tell just by the disgusted look on her face that she really hated the fact that I was here when I shouldn’t be.