Page 35 of Grumpy

Grumpy tried not to glare at his club brother, because in his defense, there had been a time when Grumpy’s memory had been finicky. “I’d prefer a printout.”

Keys’ expression fell even more. “Like, on paper?”

The way he said it made it sound like paper was made out of the flesh of skinned puppies. Grumpy still nodded.

Kelly shrugged while bobbing her head slightly, “I was just going to go to Triple-A to get a TripTik.”

Keys looked around his computer lab, as if a printer would magically appear if he looked hard enough. “Um, yeah. I guess I can do that. Just, uh, give me a bit.”

As Keys scurried from the room, Kelly leaned in to whisper. “I think you broke him.”

Grumpy grunted in agreement.

CHAPTER 7

Grumpy might not have been on the frontlines as many of his brothers had been, but he’d still been a soldier. There were some lessons drilled into him that his body would never forget—including knowing when he was no longer alone.

He opened his eye, but unfortunately his pillow blocked most of his view. For as long as he could remember, Grumpy was a back sleeper. He might shift slightly in his sleep, but for the most part, once he was down, he was out. Now, getting to sleep almost became a chore in and of itself, and his nighttime routine a large, arduous process. He had to sleep on his right side due to his skin grafts and the new hardware that adorned his body. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, though the giant body pillow given to him by the club’s ol’ ladies as a Welcome Home gift was certainly appreciated.

The biggest issue was that he couldn’t move fast. If the club was considering a new road name for him, “Sloth” would be more apropos. Even when his body told him to move, move, move! because his instincts said someone was in his bedroom with him, he could not get his muscles to listen. He hadn’t been joking when he’d told Kelly that sometimes waking up was harder than going to sleep.

A finger poked his shoulder. “Uncle Grumpy?”

Any fear and anxiety left him the second he heard that voice. Relaxing back into his pillow, he had to work his jaw a few times before he could speak. After several minutes of Scotty continuously poking his shoulder, Grumpy grumbled, “How did you get into my house?”

“With a key,” Scotty answered excitedly. “But not Uncle Keys. An actual key. One that went into your front door and turned and opened.”

Grumpy felt the bed dip as Scotty got on the mattress behind him. He grunted at his nephew. “Okay. Why are you in my house?”

“You said I was allowed any time. Remember? Remember when you said that?” Scotty hastily asked, like he was afraid he’d done something wrong. “You bought this house soooo far away from my house and I was afraid you were too far away. But you said that I could come over any time I wanted. Remember?”

It was far too early in the morning for this, but damn him, he had said those words. A decade ago. Grumpy groaned, his jaw involuntarily shaking.

Scotty must have taken that as a ruling that he was not in trouble. “Daddy said you were leaving on a trip, and I had to come see you! You weren’t going to leave without saying goodbye to me, right? Daddy said you wouldn’t, but I had to be sure.”

Honestly, Grumpy hadn’t thought about goodbyes or what the club did or did not know. Everything had happened so fast the day before, and Ghost had been out at the Vagina Doctor with Becks, who was in the eighth month of her pregnancy. It had seemed more important to get packing, go shopping, and to organize things with Kelly’s mom, his medications, and getting Kelly’s Yugo over to Grumpy’s shop for a tune up before a massive road trip. Plus, Kelly still had to talk to Sophia and Tally.

Despite how much Grumpy wanted to get to Texas now, he knew that it wasn’t possible to just drop everything and leave. Once, he might have been able to, but certainly not now.

Remembering the time that Scotty and Lila, Bulldog and Abby’s second oldest daughter, had gotten it into their heads to sneak into the trunk of Jumper’s cage with the intent to join their aunts and uncles on a pirate ship in San Francisco, Grumpy lifted his head slightly. “Does your father know you’re here?”

“Yes! And Uncle Bear, and Uncle Ghost, and Uncle Bulldog, and Uncle Scar, and Uncle Cage, and Aunt Angel, and Uncle Demo, and Uncle Jumper, and Uncle Pir⁠—”

Grumpy cut the kid off. “I got it.” Cursing, he swore every ache in his body magnified at the implications. “Everyone down there?”

“Yup.”

“They sent you up here to get me?”

“Yup.”

Grumpy was very temped to tell his nephew to tell his club to “fuck off”, but damn it, he couldn’t have Scotty deliver that message. Any other niece or nephew above the age of fifteen, sure, but not Scotty. And the fuckers below knew that.

But since he’d gone and gotten himself blown up, getting himself up and moving was no longer a simple task. Grumpy was a sadistic enough bastard that he took great joy in the fact that his club was going to have to wait a while before he would be able to join them.

* * *

Grumpy hated stairs, but it wasn’t like he could avoid them for the rest of his life. The biggest issue was his depth perception. Since being blinded in one eye, many things, not just stairs, appeared off. Things that he thought were closer were further out and things he thought were a ways away were right in front of him. It would take time to get used to it, and trusting his muscle memory over his sight. It was a difficult concept to wrap his mind around, but closing his eyes and trusting his feet to get him up and down steps that he traveled multiple times a day for a decade was safer for him than traversing them with his single eye open.