It Happens (Bear Bottom Guardians MC 6)

He must’ve been paying more attention than I was because I couldn’t keep track of my distance once I got past a certain point. Usually it was about ten to fifteen laps that I started forgetting.

At some point he must’ve turned the lights to the stadium off, because it was on the last lap that the lights slowly started to dim out of existence, leaving me running the last four hundred meters in the early dawn light.

I came to a stop at the table where I kept my things, then felt that deep burn of my muscles finally realizing that I wasn’t going to force them to go any farther.

“You good?” I heard rumbled.

Panting, I looked up and nodded. “Yes.”

“Good,” he grunted. “Next time you run this early, let me know and I’ll come turn on the lights.”

Then he turned on his heels and walked away.

It was as he was reaching the fence that the words came out of my mouth unwillingly.

“Thank you,” I muttered.

Thanking him was like pulling fingernails.

Sure, he’d come to my rescue this morning. Sure, I’m going to be on time to work for a very important client because of him. Sure, I should’ve probably said more than just ‘thank you.’

Yet, nothing more would come out.

Mostly because I could remember all those times that he wasn’t so nice to me.

Like just last week when he saw me running down the side of the road and it’d just rained.

I’m fairly sure he went out of his way to cross traffic, get into the closest lane, and hit that water puddle that not only drenched me from head to foot but also made me smell like a stinky, stagnant pond.

Then there was four weeks ago when he’d walked into Shubert’s, the ice cream shop, in front of me.

Shubert’s made bomb ass ice cream that tasted divine—especially the cookie dough one that I’d gone in there specifically for.

Except, Zee had gotten there before me, ordered what I knew he didn’t like as well as a cone for himself and walked out the door. When I’d gotten up to the counter and tried to order the cookie dough, it was to find out that Zee had literally just ordered the biggest cone he could just so he could get the last of it.

When I turned with a glare on my face, it was to find Zee grinning his ass off, waiting for me to turn around. Once I did, he deliberately threw the ice cream cone straight to a pack of crows that liked to frequent the back patio waiting for little kids to make a mess.

They’d descended on it in seconds, and had it devoured before the thought of ‘I’m still going to eat it’ could cross my mind.

Needless to say, uttering the words ‘thank you’ to the man took a lot of inner strength on my part because if there was one person in this world that was an asshole supreme, it was Ezekiel McGrew. At least when it came to me.

Zee turned at hearing my words and gave me a level look.

“It was only self-preservation on my part,” he admitted. “I know damn well and good that you’d have still gone to work, and I have to be there myself…unfortunately.”

I wondered if he’d tacked on that ‘unfortunately’ for my benefit or the governor’s kid’s benefit.

Either one would’ve worked when it came to Ezekiel.

“Whatever,” I muttered, knowing he could hear me. “Thanks anyway.”

He shrugged. “Go get your shower. You stink.”

Then he was gone, going to his still-running diesel.

It was only when I was halfway across the field, heading to where I parked my car on the opposite side of the track, that I heard the high-pitched squeal come from something inhuman, and a roar of outrage comes from Ezekiel.

I didn’t even make it back to the car before the smell hit me.Chapter 5Why do we get dressed up for Thanksgiving when we never go anywhere? We get dressed just to walk around our kitchen.

-Zee’s secret thoughts

Zee

“I can’t breathe,” Liner, one of the Bear Bottom Guardians MC members, whined.

I looked over at Liner, who looked off somehow, though his offness didn’t stem from the stench that even I could smell radiating off of me.

“Just fuckin’ pour the goddamn tomato sauce,” I grumbled. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

Liner had been the only man on hand at the time of the skunking—though I should’ve fucking forced Jubilee to take care of it—and he’d gone to the bulk supply store and had bought every single fucking can they’d had. There’d been fifty on a pallet, and he’d bought the whole damn pallet—just in case.

“Sorry, but it’s killing me,” he said. “I can no longer feel my face.”

I grunted out a reply.

“You should be on the receiving end of it,” I muttered darkly. “I’ve been nauseous for the last hour.”