Sugar (The Henchmen MC 12)

If I knew him at all - and I did - he was likely asleep right in my spot on the bed where he knew he wasn't supposed to be.

"And I work a lot. It would be cruel to keep a dog locked up in my apartment. Or a bird."

"Right... but that still leaves rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, rats, fish, and cats."

"Shut up with your logic," she said, narrowing her eyes at me. "I clean cages all day at work. I would prefer not to have to come home and clean more. I want a dog. But since I can't have my own yet, I will settle for a man who has a dog that I can love on. Besides, the way a man takes care of his pets says a lot about him."

Since none of us could argue with that, we stayed silent.

"Maybe you should make Savvs your next project," Jamie suggested as I drained the tub and took the towel she offered me. "If you could get Sad Ronny laid, you can get Savvs laid. I mean look at her," she added, moving to stand to grab Savea's face and turn it to me. "Looking like this, she should be beating off guys with sticks. She just needs some of that Peyton magic."

"If her hermit ass would come out at night, I could get her laid."

"I get up at five a.m.," she told as though we already didn't know she had to get to the shop early to get the cages all spiffy before potential customers would come by. "I can't be out drinking until two."

"Sure you can. You just need to commit to it," I objected, reaching for my brush, whacking her on the upper arm with it so she would hop down so I could look in the mirror myself.

"Your roots are coming in," she said, trying to change the topic. I had a feeling - which was why I didn't push like I did with Ronny - that she didn't want just to get laid, that she was celibate because she wanted more than just a fuck. And while that was not an issue I myself suffered from, I guess I could understand that most people wanted more than to scratch an itch.

"I have an appointment with Benny tomorrow," I told her, making a face at my blonde roots.

I was perhaps a bit old for a rebellious stage, but parts of me still rebelled from the things from my childhood. Like the rules my parents set about not being able to dye my hair or wear makeup or pierce anything. Seeing my blonde roots sneaking in still somehow reminded me of them, even if I literally didn't remember the last time I had set eyes on them. To say we weren't exactly friendly would be putting it nicely.

Autumn didn't ever see them either. And while they loathed the fact that she owned a sex toy store, the blood between them wasn't quite as rancid as the blood between them and me.

I guess because Autumn only ever rebelled in quiet, secretive ways that she shared with me but kept from them.

I, on the other hand, had been the type to rub their noses in it whenever I did something I knew they wouldn't approve of. And it would be putting it mildly to say shit hit the fan about it after Autumn moved out.

Clearly, I was still bitter about it.

"Benny is the best," Savvs agreed while Jamie made a face, the two of them having a small amount of distaste for each other since Benny dated her friend Kyle years back and dropped him to start dating someone new within a few days, something that had crushed Kyle, and pissed off Jamie. "At hair!" Savea added, rolling her eyes. "Do you even have time to get some sleep?" she went on as I scrubbed off my makeup, then shooed them out of the bathroom, following them in just my towel.

"Um, a few hours I guess. I'll be fine. I keep a closet full of Red Bull and Visine for this very reason," I told them, adding a bit of enthusiasm even though - just this once - I wasn't feeling it.

It wasn't like me to feel blah. But I was most definitely feeling quite blah.

Maybe - like Savvs - I needed a good pickle tickle. It had been a few months since I had had the cobwebs cleared out by anything other than my own fingers and maybe some of the toys that I had taken home to do product testing on from Phallus-opy. It wasn't like me to hit a dry spell. Almost as a rule, if I wanted sex, I had sex. But the last time I hit a bar, the options hadn't inspired anything close to the kind of stimulation I would need to get to an orgasm. And a quick scroll through my usual backup ugly-bumping buddies had left me uninspired as well.