Page 7 of Grumpy

Though she smiled, and it reached her eyes, Kelly felt the knot in her chest tighten just slightly. Not exactly the way she planned on meeting Grumpy’s mother, but she also knew this was coming. And Grumpy was her son. Unfortunately, that gave her more of a place in Grumpy’s care than Kelly had. But Ghost was still the primary.

That bothered Kelly. Not that she thought she had a right over Grumpy’s club president or his own mother, but she still wanted a place. She wanted to know where she belonged in Grumpy’s life. If she even had a place at all. Maybe being here was this stupid fantasy, and she was just being silly and childish.

Not wanting to just stand there like a fool, Kelly dropped the soda can into her purse and held out her hand to Grumpy’s mother. “It’s good to meet you.”

Margery took Kelly’s hand, squeezing it once before taking her other hand to close over the back of Kelly’s. “Thank you for taking such good care of Jesse until I could get here.”

Due to high-winds and flooding at the airport where Margery lived in Maine, she’d been unable to leave until this morning. Even over the phone, Kelly could hear the distress the woman had been under at the helplessness of not being able to reach her son. From what little Kelly knew of Grumpy’s home life, it was just him and his mom. She didn’t know where his dad was, but she’d never heard him mention a father or siblings.

“Of course,” Kelly said, though she didn’t like the implication that she was only here because Margery couldn’t be. “He’s still in surgery.” Though Ghost hadn’t been physically by the hospital since that first night, he was in regular contact with both the hospital staff and Kelly. It hadn’t been until Kelly had been asked to sign paperwork in Ghost’s stead that she learned he’d named her his proxy in his absence. Kelly did not like having to sign the DNR order pre-surgery, but did so because Ghost told her it was Grumpy’s wish.

“Thank you.” Margery patted her hand again. “Now, I need to go speak with a doctor. This young man,” she gestured off-handedly towards Marcus behind her, “will take you home and bring my bags to Jesse’s house. Why don’t you get some rest and come back tomorrow?”

Kelly blinked. “I’m fine. I’d like to stay⁠—”

“Nonsense. Really, dear, if my Jesse woke up and saw you now, he’d never let me hear the end of it for allowing you to look like that.” Again, Margery waved almost flippantly towards Marcus. “Take her home, young man. I insist that you get a good night’s rest and some food in you. Not sweets, though,” she added, eyeing Kelly’s belly pooch. “Don’t worry, my dear. I have your number. I’ll call if he needs you.”

And with that, both Kelly and Marcus were dismissed as Mrs. Bell headed towards the nurse’s station.

CHAPTER 2

One Week Later

Kelly did not consider herself a sadist before this week, but the utter satisfaction she got at seeing Margery’s eye twitch every time she showed up to the hospital gave her such glee that Kelly fought to keep the maniacal smile from her lips as she greeted Grumpy’s mother. Not to mention the utter satisfaction she felt when the ol’ ladies coerced Margery to go back to Grumpy’s house to sleep, eat, and shower, much like Margery had done to Kelly that first day.

A lot had happened in the ten days since the explosion. The main thing was that the club was around now. All of them. Kelly didn’t ask questions, but she could make certain assumptions. She didn’t know why Ranger and Becks were also in the hospital. Ranger was the club’s enforcer; Becks was his little sister as well as Ghost’s wife. Whatever had happened to them had to involve the club’s absence, but Kelly was keeping her mouth shut. As curious as she was, she did not want to risk her presence at Grumpy’s side for those answers.

Grumpy had been awake very little over the past week. They’d reduced his sedation, but warned Kelly, Margery, and Ghost that he likely wasn’t cognizant of anything around him. Given the amount of surgeries he’d endured over the past ten days, Kelly honestly was grateful that he wouldn’t be able to remember or comprehend what was happening. His left eye enucleation was done, along with the facial reconstruction. He’d endured multiple skin grafts, and still had more scheduled. The initial debridement was done, though he had ongoing daily wound care.

If Kelly hadn’t known who was lying in the bed, she’d never have guessed it was Grumpy. The doctors and nurses kept saying that his wounds and injuries looked worse than they were, but that didn’t really help Kelly at all. His jaw was wired closed, he had multiple IVs and the Foley catheter, some of his skin graft sites had a wound VAC on them, his cardiac monitor was a constant rhythm in the still room, and he had compression devices on his legs to prevent blood clots. Thankfully the ventilator was now gone, allowing him to breathe on his own. His airway was stable enough for that, at least.

Margery was his mom, and that unfortunately gave her more of a right to be at Grumpy’s bedside than a botched date gave Kelly. However, the woman was a nightmare. Everything she said had double meaning, like a hidden backhanded slap. She questioned everything the doctors said, ordered, or did. The nurses were fed up with her, to the point where Kelly noticed they would switch out the uncomfortable chair for an even worse chair whenever they saw Margery coming back. Unlike Kelly, who was allowed to remain overnight if she wished, the hospital staff did not make that same exception for Margery.

Which royally pissed the older woman off.

Kelly always made sure to wish her a good night before she left.

Margery threw a fit that first day when she realized that Grumpy had signed paperwork making Ghost the authority over his medical decisions, taking away that power from Grumpy’s next of kin. Kelly didn’t know if that decision was made because his mother lived in Maine, because all club members were required to, or because he did not want his mother making his life-or-death decisions for him. Regardless of the reason, unless Margery took the decision to court, any choice about her son’s medical decisions was out of her hands.

Ghost must have known something that Kelly didn’t, because he did not transfer his proxy from Kelly to Margery once the woman had arrived.

In all honesty, Kelly understood Margery’s frustration. She felt the same way. She didn’t know what Grumpy and she were, but she hoped they’d been on their way to becoming more than friends. And no, it wasn’t her son lying in that hospital bed. Kelly couldn’t imagine that pain, and made no attempts to. But she did not condone Margery’s behavior to the hospital staff and Kelly herself. The woman’s attitude was completely uncalled for.

From what the ol’ ladies had said, Margery went out of her way to dote on the club. She’d even made them hockey pucks that were meant to pass as cookies. Sophia had barely been able to keep a straight face when she told Kelly that one.

Kelly was a hundred-and-fifty percent sure that she was Margery’s problem, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. It wasn’t like she’d introduced herself as Grumpy’s girlfriend. Just a friend. And yet, those pleasant conversations they’d had on the phone were nowhere to be seen or heard since the moment Margery walked through those hospital doors.

One thing Kelly noted after reading yet another article from the Mount Grove Gazette was that it claimed Grumpy was in the Johnstown Burn Ward, when he was still at Mount Grove Memorial. She hadn’t picked up on that at first. Was the news just wrong, or had they purposefully been misled? If so, why? Did the club think Grumpy was the target of the bomb? She didn’t think so, because while they were in the hospital, they weren’t there in protection mode.

Louisa, Bulldog’s mother, took Margery out to the car where a prospect was going to take her back to Grumpy’s house. Ghost might be distracted with Becks’ and Ranger’s injuries, but the ol’ ladies had certainly picked up on the tension between Kelly and Margery, as well as Margery and the hospital staff. Kelly loved that they were refereeing without being asked to.

The club had practically taken over the ICU waiting room. They had flown in a specialist who was helping with Grumpy’s reconstructive surgery. Kelly did not even want to think about how much that cost or where they got that sort of money from. All she cared about was the fact that Dr. Buckner was here and able to help Grumpy.

Kelly didn’t have a big family. Her dad was killed in a drunk driving accident when she was two and her mom had never remarried. For years, it had been Kelly, her mom Ruth, and her bubbe, her grandma. Though Bubbe was the one in her nineties and living in a nursing home, it was Kelly’s mom, only in her mid-sixties, whose health was declining.

She loved the mixed-matched feeling of the motorcycle club. How they were all together, all family, regardless of blood, race, or religion. Kelly had always wanted a big family, assuming she’d meet her man right out of high school. She had it all planned out, the wedding, the house, the kids…even the dog and the cat and maybe a few chickens to make life interesting. Yet, somehow, she’d become a thirty-eight year old waitress still living with her mother. No kids, no husband, no chickens. How had that happened?

She envied Grumpy for his family. Not his mother. She silently hoped that woman would win a free cruise to Alaska and get stranded on an iceberg. But the rest of his family, the club… She wanted that badly.