20. Lucky

20

LUCKY

“ W hy, exactly, are you making me do this again?”

I glance down at Leo as we walk along the sidewalk through the part of town that’s a little busier than what she’s used to. “Because it’s good for you, and you are in serious need of some new clothes.”

“I hate shopping.”

“I know.”

“Do you really , though? It’s been a while, you might have forgotten.” She reaches out and takes my hand, lacing our fingers tightly. “I barely remember three minutes ago, let alone three years ago. PTSD memory loss is a real thing, Lucius.”

I shake my head as what is no doubt a ridiculous smile spreads across my face. “I’m aware, just like I’m aware that you hate shopping almost as much as you hate going to the doctor. I don’t forget anything when it comes to you, Leonor .” Then I lean toward her and whisper, “And three minutes ago you were bouncing on my cock in the back of the beast.”

Leo laughs, the sound contagious as always. “There is no better way to work out a wicked bout of social anxiety.”

“You have a point there, baby cakes.” I squeeze her hand in mine as we keep walking, and I can’t help but fucking love that she wants to hold my hand in public.

It may sound stupid but it means the world to me, it means everything to me that there are people out there who want to make it known that I’m theirs. Most days I don’t even think about the scars on my face, not after having them for so long but when I’m going out somewhere very public, I can’t help but get a little bit of my own social anxiety. So, having not only one but two people who want to hold my hand and openly show the world that I belong to them, that they’re with me, and that they’re proud to be seen with me despite my face? I had no fucking idea how much I needed that, or how it would give me the confidence I used to have and then some.

“So you’re just trying to torture me?” Leo looks up at me with a frown but I see that mischievous gleam in her eye. “I thought you liked me more than that.”

Laughing because she’s been more playful lately and I kind of love it, I raise our joined hands and kiss the back of hers. “I love you, and I’m not torturing you, baby cakes. I’m just sick of doing laundry five times a week to make sure you have clothes to wear.”

“Well, if you’d quit throwing my shit out you wouldn’t have to do that.”

“Leonor, I was forced to throw your shit out because it kept falling apart in your washing machine.” I nudge her with my elbow as she huffs. “I mean, hell. You still have the t-shirt you were wearing the first time we met. Who does that?”

Lifting her head in defiance Leo juts her chin out and purses her lips. “I do. I hate getting rid of things that are still usable. And since my nipples don’t show through, it’s still usable.”

“Sorry to break it to you, cakes, but you can definitely see your nipples through that shirt.”

“I wore that all day yesterday and you are just now telling me my nipples show?”

“I was distracted.” I say with a shrug. “It was just the five of us, and I happen to enjoy catching any glimpse of your nipples I can get.”

Pete and I have basically been staying with Leo for a couple weeks now, pretty much ever since we showed up at her loft after she called me.

Mark and Norm stayed a few nights in the beginning, and they still crash on occasion but once Leo went back to work they resumed doing whatever it is they do during the day. They usually come back over for dinner and hanging out, then generally split to go home. They don’t have to and they know it, but we all know Leo, and her space is her space no matter how much she may love us. Which is why Pete and I have had to pry ourselves away from her for a few hours here and there because crabby, smothered Leo isn’t very much fun.

My new experiment has been taking Leonor with me when I leave, though. Mainly because we’ve all gotten kind of paranoid about leaving her alone but it’s good for her too.

She needs it, needs to go more places than that damn historical property, and we’ve all noticed a slight uptick in her overall mood because of it.

I don’t mind that she’s a hermit by nature and if it wasn’t so good for her, I’d insist Leo quit her job at the plantation and just stay home with us but it is, so I won’t. None of us have to work after making it with the band but it’s important for her to get out on a regular basis, and the Bisonnette property was the first step.

It’s way too easy for her to fall back into old patterns, and it doesn’t matter what the why behind it is, Leo has always embraced her solitude—healthy or not. She’s making strides, though. She’s fighting us less, and we manage to stay sane since one of us drives her to and from work every day so we know she’s safe. Especially since Alexander Collinsworth has taken more of an interest in her, which all of us hate. Secretly because when I voice how much I want to punch that asshat in the nuts, Leonor gets anxious because of what happened the night of our intervention .

Not that any of us know exactly what that was, but her half assed explanation was detailed enough for us to figure it out.

Leo is apparently incapable of saying my stalker found where I work and left shit on my hood before chasing me through corn. Real tough shit.

This woman drives me batty.

I love her, so fucking much, but she’s going to make me crazy. And I guess I really wouldn’t have it any other way. Even with the ridiculous amount of bitching she does. I kind of missed it if I’m being honest.

Since staying with her, we’ve made Leo go grocery shopping when she needs to, or go to the pharmacy to get her own meds. I dragged her to the music store by her place several times, and we all went out to dinner once. I try to go when businesses are slow, when there isn’t as much traffic because Leo still gets anxious in crowds but she’s willingly participated in my version of social therapy so I’m pretty happy.

I’m fucking thrilled honestly.

Who wouldn’t be?

I get to wake up to naked Leonor and Pete almost every day, then hang out with my band, my family for hours like we used to. Leo is working on all kinds of things, mostly without even realizing it, but it seems having us around as much as she has is doing wonders for her mental health as well.

Mental and physical, actually.

Her appetite is up, way up, and she’s been cooking more than it sounds like she has in a long time. She’s been baking too, courtesy of the sugar free recipes Norm finds, and I for one am super grateful that it’s all relatively healthy while tasting like it shouldn’t be. Staying with her as much as I have been, I’m slacking on my workouts and if all the brownies and cookies weren’t sugar free, dairy free, and full of good fat , I’d be a hundred pounds heavier, easy.

Unless of course you count the copious amount of sex we’ve been having. I’m sure regular threesomes have to burn decent calories. Especially when one partner is a very dominant switch, the other is a surprisingly flexible submissive, and I’m just happy to be here. So fucking happy, but I won’t rest until my ultimate goal is achieved.

That goal being a blissed out Leonor Allan taking four cocks at once from the only people who have and will always love her to the point of murder. Literally.

“You’re thinking about sex again.” Leo tugs my hand and giggles when I blink down at her.

She has also returned to calling me out every time my mind wanders, whether it’s sex related or not, because Leo knows me better than anyone else so she can almost feel when my mind is elsewhere. Which is great for helping with my OCD and random panic attacks since it means she tries to accommodate before things get out of hand.

And it doesn’t bother her that I spend a decent chunk of time thinking about fucking her. Or Pete. Or that ultimate goal. As a matter of fact, Leo likes it when I tell her what I was thinking, and I like to do it because it usually leads to sex.

“How’d you know this time?”

“You’re flexing your fingers in time with the beat of The Bad Touch .”

I laugh as I stop and pull her into me. “God, I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She buries her face in my chest and breathes deep before mumbling into my pecs. “I’m sorry for complaining so much. I know you’re just trying to help and I’m resisting at every turn.”

“Not really. You’ve been far more compliant than I thought you would be but I also don’t want to push you into anything.” She snorts but doesn’t move and I’m sure she’s rolling her eyes. “Ok, I’m pushing. We’re all pushing, I just don’t want us to push too hard. I want everything to happen at the pace you’re comfortable with because we have been through a lot, you have been through even more, and I don’t want you to regret letting us back into your orbit.”

Leo tilts her head back and rests her chin on my chest. “The only regrets I have when it comes to you are waiting thirteen years to tell you I’m in love with you, and shutting you out completely for three of those. I will never regret any time spent with you, Lucky, and I can say the same about the rest of our boys.” Then she smirks and hugs me tighter. “Except for maybe when you make me go shopping for clothes.”

“Shut up.” I laugh and lean down to kiss her. God, I love kissing her. “And now that you’ve brought us back to the task at hand, we need to get moving.”

“ Ugh,” Leo dramatically groans. “Can’t you just pick out everything for me and do this by yourself?”

“Nope. You are going shopping, you’re going to try things on and we are not leaving until you have at least a week’s worth of clothing, including underwear.”

“But—“

“I know, you don’t like underwear.” With a shit eating grin, I turn and start leading her toward the shops she has bookmarked in her browser at home. “I don’t have a problem with that, hell, Pete and I benefit from it regularly but now that you’re our girlfriend, I refuse to allow you to leave your loft without any on. I know it’s your tits I’m most concerned about but you can’t wear a bra without panties, and that means you have to buy both.”

Leo stops in the middle of the sidewalk, jerking my arm back, making me turn toward her and I immediately start to panic.

Why did she stop so fast? Does she feel ok?

This could be anxiety related, or it could be a diabetic thing. She could be getting ready to black out or bolt back to her place.

Oh fuck, what if it’s a diabetic thing?

“What did you just say?”

I look up from digging through her backpack for her chewables because yes I’m wearing her backpack and it’s loaded with all the things she could possibly need while away from home. “What?”

“Just now. What did you say?”

“Uhm... you have to wear underwear?” Great, it’s a don’t be an asshole Lucky, I’m an independent woman bullshit thing. Bullshit because she knows better with us and it’s never that.

But Leo shakes her head “Not that. What did you call me?”

My brows fly up to my hairline. “Our girlfriend?”

“Yeah, that.”

“You don’t want me to call you that? I mean, I know it feels kind of stupid to say since we’re in our thirties, and in a polyamorous relationship. It feels weird referring to Pete as my boyfriend, too, but I love you, he loves you, and you love us. You’re ours, we’re yours, but I’m not really sure what else…”

Leo smiles as she walks over to me, sliding her hands up under my shirt as soon as she’s in range, putting us skin to skin and sending a shiver up my spine. “Stop babbling, Lucky. I just wanted to hear you say it again.”

There it is right there.

That is the kind of shit that made me fall in love with her so fucking hard over the course of a decade. This woman has crawled her way under my skin and burrowed a nest into my soul, and that kind of shit doesn’t go away.

Which is why we are never fucking letting her go again.

Wrapping my arms around her and grabbing a healthy handful of her ass in both hands, I grin as I dip my head and brush her lips with mine. “Is that what does it for you? Calling you our girlfriend ? I could have sworn it was our good girl .” Leo sucks in a breath when I nip at her lips. “Pretty sure that’s what made you come in the back of the van. I know it’s what made you come when we spit roasted you this morning. You remember, don’t you, cakes? Pete’s cock in your pussy, mine in your mouth. He pushed that dildo into your ass”—I squeeze her cheeks to emphasize what I’m saying—“and we both groaned about how much of a good girl you are. But if you’d rather we only call you our girlfriend…”

“You are horrible,” Leo says into our kiss. “You need to stop talking about sex because I already hate that we’re shopping, and knowing I have to suffer through it before we’re able to do any of that again makes it even worse.”

She is not wrong .

But we really do need to shop.

Redirecting our conversation as well as our route, I smile as Leo and I keep heading toward the stretch of eclectic shops she used to visit regularly. She still does, all online now, and part of that has been her mental health but I also know there’s more to it.

Leonor will never admit it again after accidentally saying it to Mark, not even to me, but she’s scared.

Dealing with past trauma is one thing. One extremely difficult thing, but it can be done. Dealing with past trauma and potentially new trauma that is replicating the past trauma? That is an entirely different demon, and our fearless badass is scared of it.

Rightfully so, the fact that she’s been functioning at all with this copycat shit going on is kind of amazing. But it’s got all of us on edge and it would be completely normal for Leonor to show fear or whatever, especially since she’s been dealing with this for quite a while solo. She won’t, though.

I actually think she’s in denial over this.

Not massively, not in a take things lightly and don’t worry kind of way, but I think Leo is trying to convince herself this is nothing. That it’ll pass. She thinks this is some kind of prank and it’ll blow over, and nothing will come from it.

Just like she did last time.

Shaking those thoughts from my head, I squeeze her hand a little tighter as we turn left toward Inked in Sin, one of the only two tattoo parlors we go to. Ash has been tattooing us for years, him and Tori and Vince from Morbid Ink, but I haven’t seen him in ages.

Maybe I can convince Leo to go.

We always did like getting ink together.

This could be a comfortable way to transition Leonor back out into the world. A walk through town, a little shopping since she won’t allow for much more than that, then we hit Inked in Sin before we go home. That should be…

I look down just in time to see the same crack in the sidewalk I always avoid, the one that looks like a wicked bolt of lightning. And when I lift my all black Chuck’s to walk around it, my stomach pitches and the worst case of deja vu smacks me right in the face.

“You and that damn crack.” Leo laughs as she makes a show of jumping over it. “See, I went over it, and nothing happened to me.”

Scowling, I walk around it then immediately take a knee to tie and untie my shoes twice. “Because I always do this. You don’t trip, I don’t trip, no one eats cement because I always have to do this right here. If I didn’t I’m sure more people would be missing their goddamn front teeth just because my fucking OCD has a hero complex. Fucking bullshit is what…”

“Hey.”

I aggressively tug at my laces before a small tattooed hand covers mine, my words trailing off as I take a deep breath. But I don’t look up. I don’t have to, I know what look Leo is giving me, and I know what words she’s going to say. I know she’s not making fun of me. If anything, Leonor is trying to make light of one of the most annoying rituals I have so I don’t feel like the world’s biggest asshole for taking up the entire sidewalk so I can do this. I know all of that, but it doesn’t make this any easier.

“Lucky, if you weren’t halfway through I’d tell you to stop and look at me, but I know better. I just wanted to make sure you know that you’re the only one who has a problem with this. Not me, not anyone else on the streets of NOLA at the moment.”

“Yeah,” I grunt while tying my right shoe tight then immediately unlacing the left. “I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah.”

“Really?”

I roll my eyes and can’t help the way my lips turn up at the corners. “Yeah, I really fucking do. I’m perfect the way I am yada yada, and shouldn’t give a fuck about anyone else blah blah. I know.”

“Good,” Leo chirps as she flicks my lip ring and takes off running down the sidewalk.

Getting to my feet, I can’t help but chuckle as I watch her climb the streetlight at the end of the sidewalk, dangling from it while she impatiently waits for me to join her so we can make our appointment with Ash. But the moment is short lived when I start walking away from the crack and my stomach flips.

I’m so fucking tense I could snap.

I don’t like keeping things from Leo, it’s why I never have before, and this is a pretty big thing. One I need to talk to Pete about handling because it’s going to make me sick if we don’t.

So far she hasn’t picked up on it, or maybe she has but hasn’t said anything like she normally would, but either way I can’t keep doing this. It’s killing me to not say anything when the guys already know, and it’s making my OCD go bonkers while I wait.

“Come on, slow poke! For someone with mile long legs you’re losing to the snails!”

I watch Leonor spin around the street light like it’s a stripper pole, my smile returning over the way she keeps talking shit, and the second I’m in range, I grab her.

“You’ve got such a mouth on you,” I say as I throw Leo over my shoulder and start jogging across the street. “Maybe Ash can run a barbell through your lips to shut you up.”

“Never!” Leo shouts as she goes upright so her tits are basically resting on my head. “You can’t stop me, Lucky. Not when you’ve always praised my pipes. There’s nothing you or anyone else can do to get me to shut up.”

But she’s wrong about that because as soon as the front door of Inked in Sin comes into view, I nearly drop her at what I see. And when Leonor wiggles out of my arms, she keeps talking shit until she sees it too.

I step closer to the door, trying to make sure my eyes aren’t playing tricks on me and when a light breeze kicks up enough to rustle what’s hanging there, Leo gags as she turns away.

It’s a cat.

A black cat.

A dead cat, cut into six pieces and nailed to the wooden sign hanging in front of the window. And through the right ear, safety-pinned in place, is a crumpled note written in charcoal.

You will see me…

My eyes linger on the front of the shop, half expecting to see what I saw years ago but instead, the heavy wood swings open to let out some real huge motherfucker and a little girl.

“Is she wearing a Bleak December t-shirt?”

I nod slowly before I glance around the street. “She is.”

“Huh. That’s pretty cool.”

It is, I mean the girl has to be three or four so it’s neat to see her sporting the gear from a band we toured with a long fucking time ago, it’d just be way cooler if I could focus on that instead of the weird acid flashback I had.

Minus the drugs of course, haven’t touched anything other than weed since the dark years .

“Lucky?”

I squint down the road, the weird feeling of being watched creeping up the back of my neck. “What’s up, baby cakes?”

Leo gently tugs my hand but I keep staring and don’t move. “Is everything ok?”

“Everything is fine, cakes.”

“What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.” Even though I can’t pry my eyes off the end of the street I’m not actually looking at anything. “I thought…”

Then I see it.

A pop of light followed quickly by two more and before I realize what’s happening, I’m running down the middle of the road trying to chase that same fucking Lambo that was sitting outside Leo’s place the first night we were back together.

Goddamn son of a bitch.

I bet it’s her stalker.

Fucker taking pictures and creeping around everywhere she goes.

The tires spin and squeal in place before the sports car tears out of its parallel parking spot in front of the hardware store.

“Fuck,” I grunt as I slow down, my heart beating wildly, my chest pumping hard after running like a lunatic through the Main Quarter. “Goddamnit.”

“Lucky,” Leonor pants as she finally catches up. “Was that?—“

“Yeah, it fucking was.” I quickly check to make sure my girl is ok, hooking my arm around her neck and bringing her close. “Let’s get out of here.”

I’m fucking rattled.

Between everything she’s had going on, that fucked up memory I definitely forgot until now, and this stupid car showing up again? Maybe rattled isn’t a strong enough word.

“I didn’t get any clothes.”

My brows lift as I slowly look down at Leo. “What?”

“We didn’t even make it into one of the shops.”

“No…”

“I don’t want to do this again, Lucius,” she says with a grin as she finally catches her breath. “We’re out now, so let’s go shopping now , that way I don’t have to go out again. And after trying to chase your ass down the street, I need to get clothes I can jog in because I am super out of shape.”

With an unexpected laugh, I press a kiss to the top of Leo’s head before walking us in the opposite direction.

I’m surprised she didn’t jump at the chance to go home right now but all it does is prove my point.

Leonor is scared.

And knowing our warrior feels that way has my own fear clawing at my chest.