Mad Gold (Providence Gold 2)

“Ready?” he asked the doctor, getting a nod in return. “Here goes!”

There was a dull thud and then all three of us were swaying and gulping while we frantically searched for something to throw up into. I already had the location of the bucket, so I headed in that direction. Cole just managed to reach the sink in time and was holding on for dear life as he tossed his cookies. Poor Levi could only grab the little kidney dish which had been holding some of the shit the doctors hadn’t needed. Dumping it out, he aimed as best he could, but I’d later find out he missed it completely.

“What a bunch of pussies,” Dahlia mumbled from the bed. “My kneecap was in my butt cheek and they’re the ones throwing up? You should try being shot.”

“In the fat,” Parker added helpfully, doing his best not to laugh.

“I will gut you like a fish,” Dahlia hissed at him. “The only thing holding me back at this moment is the fact I don’t want to rip your beautiful embroidery holding my body together and risk my kneecap bursting through my body and taking up residence in my left tit.”

Apparently she was a terrible patient.

And I gave not one fuck. I was only too happy to play doctor for her.EpilogueDahliaF our months later…

I was nervously pacing around the room waiting for Madix to get home. In the last four months so many things had happened.

I’d recovered from being shot. Aside from a few moments where I’d freaked out either during the night or when I heard a loud bang, I was doing okay. Well, aside from my knee which was kind of messed up still.

My dad had come home the day after I’d been shot and had turned up at the hospital with my grandma who looked better than I’d ever seen her. She’d decided while they were on the plane that she was moving here, so that had happened too and now my dad spent all of his spare time at the garage, trying to get away from her. He’d done the dad thing where he glared at Madix with his arms crossed over his chest for all of ten minutes, and then he’d sighed and said, “And don’t forget it.” After that, they became good friends and Dad knows that if he ever needs anything, all he has to do is as Mad and it’s done. My grandma had an odd obsession with him, though, and took every opportunity she could to rub his arm or fall against him. He found it hilarious, but both Dad and I were still mortified whenever she did it – which was daily.

Madix had moved his stuff from his house into mine and was now my official roomie, except it was more like sex slave. I loved having him around (yes, he could reach high and get the cobwebs before I even noticed their existence) and spending time with him. The dogs all adjusted well, and it was like having one big happy family.

The inquest into Nick’s death had been and gone too. It had been discovered that after Levi had put sugar and water in the engine of his car in high school, his dad had been pissed. What tipped his scales was the delivery of an anonymous note informing him of what his son had done to me. When Nick’s mom wouldn’t discipline him by kicking him out, his dad had literally said fuck this and off he went. Nick’s mom became an alcoholic and left in the middle of the night, leaving a note that said she was going to join the circus. Left with a property he couldn’t afford to pay the mortgage and taxes on, he’d up and left and had started over – still as an asshole though. His wife was a lovely lady who attended the inquest and gave evidence weirdly enough. It was like they merged a court case into the inquest into his death all at once. I wasn’t a lawyer, nor was I a judge, but that part had thrown me.

After she divorced him, he’d decided that the Townsends were to blame for all the bad shit that had happened in his life because he’d known it was Levi who’d written the note that had started it all. To give him credit, Levi was devastated when he’d found out about it all, but we all got him to see that Nick had made his own path in life. Shit happens, but you have to find the right path to travel down, which he hadn’t.

My mother, or my incubator as she will be known from now on, had also turned up in town. She’d come in, glared at me on my first day back to work, and had then walked out again. It turns out she’s been living thirty minutes away the whole time and hadn’t even graced me with her presence once. The bitch!