One Chance, Fancy (Bear Bottom Guardians MC 5)

Brielle, however, still didn’t like her. And I realized only later that it had more to do with the fact that Pru had taken Hoax’s full attention away from her and she was no longer the woman to come first in his life anymore.

And to show her anger at the situation, she’d practically been stalking Pru.

I’d had to have a long talk with Brielle about the situation. Brielle’s argument of wanting to prove to us that Pru was bad wasn’t holding water any longer. Why? Because Hoax and Pru were in love, and even for me, it was plain as day to see.

If Brielle acted that way toward Pru, how would she act toward Fancy when I took that first step?

That thought brought me to a complete halt.

I blinked in surprise at the direction my mind had taken.

Took that first step.

I wasn’t taking any step in Fancy’s direction…was I?

Nope, I wasn’t.

But, as I found myself in Brielle’s house, retrieving a pen that belonged to Fancy, in the dead of night, I realized that maybe I was.Chapter 3Apparently, it’s immoral to trip a kid who’s running around a restaurant unattended. Who knew?

-Why Phoebe questions whether she should be a parent

Phoebe

The first days at a new job were never awesome.

There were the nerves that wouldn’t quite stop, causing you to freak out even when you knew that it’d be okay.

There was the fact that you questioned whether this was a good idea or not—and your father questioned you, too.

Because I’d spent the last hour of my life explaining to my father why I wanted to work at a prison, and he’d finally relented.

Not because he agreed with me, but because he knew arguing with me was futile.

I’d proven at a very young age that I was just as stubborn and mule-headed as he was, and that wasn’t going to change.

When I got my claws sunk into something, I never relented.

That was why my father called me Birdie.

I didn’t really know an exact date of when he’d started calling me that, but he liked to compare me to a hawk he’d encountered once upon a time.

He said I reminded him of a hawk he’d once seen in our backyard when I was a young child. A hawk that’d been learning how to fly. The hawk had fallen early from the nest, and the other babies had remained in the nest with their mom for another two weeks. The mother had abandoned the fallen baby, writing her off. Instead of dying like my dad thought she would, the fledgling had persevered—living on the ground by herself for weeks—before she’d learned to fly.

But, like the hawk, I would not be written off.

I would persevere.

I’d always loved that story, and I’d never resented being compared to that hawk.

“Take care of yourself, Birdie,” Dad said. “And swear to Christ, if you get hurt, I’ll never forgive you.”

I rolled my eyes. “I had it explained to me yesterday that I’ll never be alone. There will always be a guard with me.”

Dad grunted. “There better be, or I’m going to lose my shit.”

I grinned. “It’ll be okay, Dad. Promise.”

We’d met at a restaurant—one we went to eat at for breakfast every week religiously, just the two of us—before I had to go to work.

I’d also dripped maple syrup down my pants and couldn’t decide whether I should try to clean it off or just leave it since the stain was mostly hidden by my scrub top.

Honestly, I’d clean it off if I wasn’t convinced that it’d leave a large wet stain on the front of my pants, making me look like I’d peed myself.

“Are you sure that you want to do this?” Dad asked one more time.

I stuffed one more bite of pancakes into my mouth, washed it down with a swallow of milk, and then nodded my head. “Sure,” I said.

He sighed. “I don’t understand why you can’t go work at a hospital like your mother and sister. Or go into the Army like Piper.”

I looked over at my father. “A couple of weeks ago, a knife-wielding bad guy killed the security officer at the hospital.”

Dad grimaced.

“And Piper told me that where she’s at in Germany, they get drunk so often that it’s a crapshoot whether anyone will show up to work sober,” I pushed.

Dad’s lips twitched. “I’m fairly sure that they don’t show up drunk…but I see your point.”

“Anyway.” I shrugged. “They’ll have a doctor on-site full-time with me. They’ll also have a guard there as well. I’ll literally never be alone with them. It’ll be okay. I promise.”

He groaned and leaned over to pull his wallet out of his back pocket, then extracted a twenty-dollar bill and tossed it on the table.

“Swear to me that you will not enter into anything you don’t think you’re prepared to handle,” he ordered as he stood.