Page 11 of Cole (Dirty Misfits MC 4)
Opie whimpered as I brushed tears away from my eyes. “Such bullshit.”
I closed my eyes as the sun streamed hotly through the windows. That meant I needed to get moving, unless I wanted to spend my entire day grieving over a guy that died well over a decade ago. No one blamed me for his death, of course. The barrage of bullets that peppered that man’s torso was enough for anyone to declare time of death before the man died because we all knew it was coming.
And yet, I couldn’t get him out of my mind no matter what I did.
“Come on,” I groaned as I sat up. “Daddy needs a shower.”
Opie barked before he leapt off the bed, then he went over and nuzzled the bathroom door open. I chuckled as I stood to my feet, watching yet again as Opie grabbed my shower curtain with his teeth and pulled it back. He sat on my bathmat with his tongue hanging out of his face, watching as I made my way for him.
I stripped my clothes and bent down to give him kisses before I hopped into the hottest shower I could stand.
“Oh, yeah. That’s the spot,” I growled.
Opie stayed on that bath mat until I got out, and he never left my side as I dried off and got ready for the day. He always did that after I had an attack or some sort of nightmare that woke me up. And as I put my clothes on, I looked over at my leather jacket before making the decision to have a day to myself where I took no phone calls unless they were from Brooks himself.
Because after everything going on with the club, I needed a little sense of normalcy.
“You wanna go to the park, Opie?”
“Woof!”
I grabbed his leash. “You wanna go run around before we go get snackies?”
“Woof, woof!”
I slipped into my boots. “Maybe after the park and snackies, we could come back and have a movie marathon. How’s that sound?”
He walked up and nuzzled my cheek with his nose before he barked right in my damn ear. And even though it was ringing, I still smiled.
“I thought you’d like that idea. Come on, boy. Come!”
Out the door we went, and I got a chance to ride around in my fixer-upper convertible I had bought off someone a few years back. It was an old 1974 Chevrolet Corvette I bought off some poor, snotty bastard that had bought it behind his wife’s back. So, I got it at a rock-bottom price along with some useful tools and parts he had already gathered that he’d never get a chance to switch out on it.
It was my little pet project that kept my mind occupied on the nights I couldn't sleep.
We pulled into the parking lot of the dog park and I put Opie on a leash. We got out of the car and the wind picked up, and it made me thankful that I grabbed my leather jacket at the last second to slip it on. I whistled for Opie to come stand by my side and he quickly pressed himself against my knee, panting and barking and ready to walk through that gate so he could run around and get some playtime in.
But just as I opened the gate, I watched a small scene unfold.
Right there, in the middle of the dog park, there was a bench. And that bench housed a border collie that chewed and wiggled around on a leash that had been attached to the leg of the bench. I furrowed my brow, wondering if the dog had been left behind, or if the owner really was that lazy of a sack of shit.
And it didn’t shock me one bit when the dog got free and booked it toward me.
“Oh, no you don’t,” I murmured.
I stayed there in the middle of the small door frame, fencing in the border collie from the outside world that would crush it the second the dog made it to the highway. Opie started barking, almost as if yelling at the dog to stop, but I had to step on its leash to keep it from scrambling away.
“Whoa-ho-ho there, buddy! Where do you think you’re going?” I asked.
Someone clapped and yelled in the distance, but I wasn’t sure what they were saying. I bent down and became eye-level with the beautiful dog that had a shimmering, trimmed coat of fur and scratched the top of his head. The border collie seemed to almost smile as his ears went down. And the longer I scratched, the more the dog settled onto the ground before me.
Which made me smile. “Oh, I know, that feels good doesn’t it? Yes, it does. My Opie likes to have that spot scratched, too. Yes, he does. Yes, yes, yes he does.”
