He was already halfway up the stairs before I could even get the words out from between my lips.
I popped a fry into my mouth and sigh. Dealing with Monk was just making me more exhausted. If he wanted to make a bath for me, I wasn’t going to argue. He was a big boy who was going to do whatever he wanted even if I told him that he didn’t have to.
The problem was I was going to have to really learn how to accept that.
Letting Monk draw me a bath was going to be the first test.
I finished my food while trying not to run up the stairs and tell him I didn’t need to be cared for. I wasn’t some fragile doll that needed to be treated with kid gloves. I had been treated that way before, and I fucking hated it.
“Mitzy,” Monk called. “Get your ass up here. Your bath is ready.”
So, maybe he wasn’t exactly treating me like a fragile doll.
I couldn’t help but smile when I popped my last fry in my mouth. He could wait a minute ‘til I cleaned up and grabbed a bottle of wine from the fridge.
If I was going to get in the bath he had drawn for me, it was going to be on my own terms.
I wanted to tell him to fuck off, and I’d be there when I was there, but I didn’t.
Baby steps.
*
Monk
“You can go.”
“I’ll be just down the hallway.”
Mitzy rolled her eyes. “I think I’ll be safe in the tub, Monk.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. Not when I could see how tired she was. Five minutes in that tub, and she was going to be passed out. Hell, she had brought a bottle of wine upstairs with her. I would give her half a glass and two seconds, and she would be knocked out. “I’ll check on you in a little bit.”
She shooed her hand at me. “I’ll leave the door cracked, but don’t come creeping in without me knowing,” she warned.
I nodded. “Sounds good.” I stepped out and left the door slightly open.
“Go to your room, Monk,” she called. “It’s creepy that you’re standing there waiting to hear my clothes hit the floor.”
“I’m just down the hallway,” I reminded her. I peeked my head back in the room.
She held up her middle finger in the air. “I’m fine, Monk.”
I was two words away from having Mitzy tell me to get the fuck out of her house.
It was best to pick my battles, so I moved down the hallway to the last door on the left and sat on the edge of the bed. She hadn’t shown me my room because I had picked it before she had even gotten home. I was pretty surprised when Jinx had called to tell me he was headed to Mitzy’s house. I thought for sure she was going to be stubborn as hell and stay ‘til close just to prove me wrong.
I had planned on eating whatever she had in the fridge for dinner, so it was a nice to have her actually think of me and bring something home.
While Mitzy had been at work, I had stopped back at the clubhouse to grab a few more things and had called the police to see if they had discovered anything with the pills that they had taken from the club. They had told me it would be at least another twenty-four hours before they would have the analysis back on the pills.
We needed to find out what type of pills Mitzy had taken, and from there, we might be able to figure out who had been able to get them.
Playboy and Mace were talking to the girls today, and tomorrow, we were going to have church to go over everything. We also needed to get back on track with finding Barracuda and all the bullshit with Menace. We were still waiting to hear back from Leo, but I was hopeful that would happen in the next few days.
Now we also had to figure out where the hell Tank had disappeared to.
None of these problems had existed when Barracuda had been in charge. As soon as he left, all hell broke loose, and I’m the one who was supposed to put it all back together.
After I got everything squared away, I was gonna hunt down Barracuda’s ass and drag him back to the head of the table.
I checked in with Six-Gun to make sure everything was good at the clubhouse and then laid back on the bed for a few minutes before I heard a crash in the bathroom.
“Mitzy?” I called. I jumped off the bed and hightailed it to the bathroom. I called her name again before I pushed open the door. “Mitzy?”
“Come on in,” she laughed.
I pushed open the door and saw Mitzy laid back in the tub with one leg hanging over the edge and the bottle of wine hanging from her fingertips. She was also covered up to her chin with bubbles. Bubbles that weren’t there fifteen minutes ago.
“Hey there,” she called.
I couldn’t help but smile. The Bitchy Mitzy I had known for the past five years was gone, and she was replaced with Tipsy Mitzy with a wonky smile on her lips.
“Everything okay in here?” I asked.
“Oh yeah. I just dropped my bottle for a second.” She held it up triumphantly. “I got it, though. Only had a little bit of a spill.”
There was a pretty big puddle of wine next to the tub and on the bath mat. “Sounds like alcohol abuse,” I chuckled. I open the cabinet under the sink and grabbed a towel. “How much of that bottle is left?”
She swished the wine around in the bottle. “Hmm, about a quarter of a cup.”
“A quarter of a cup?”
“I like to bake,” she stated.
“That so?” I didn’t know what that had to do with how much wine was left in the bottle.
“I tend to measure things like I’m baking.”
Mitzy was obviously a little tipsy, but she wasn’t all-out drunk. I guess her way of measuring the wine made sense. I dropped the towel next to the tub and soaked up the spilled wine. “Water, okay?”
Mitzy nodded and tipped back the bottle of wine. She took three big gulps and held the bottle out to me. “It’s perfect, and you need to take this. She’s gone.”
“She?” I laughed. I grabbed the bottle and tucked it under my arm.
“Wine is a she.”
Maybe she was a little more drunk than I had thought she was. I nodded and grabbed the towel off the floor. “Where did you get the bubbles from?”
Mitzy nodded to the tipped-over bottle on the floor. “I added a touch of bubble bath.”
The number of bubbles in the tub hinted that she added more than a touch. “You wanna soak a little bit longer?”
Mitzy shook her head. “I’m good to get out. I’m gonna turn into a prune.” She pointed to the door. “Hand me my towel. It’s on the back of the door.”
I grabbed the towel and looked back at her. “Uh, you want me to just hand it to you or what?”
“Come closer and hold it up. Shut your eyes.”
I stepped to the edge of the tub, held open the towel, but didn’t close my eyes. It wasn’t like I could see anything between the towel in front of my face and all of the bubbles covering her.
Mitzy stood, and I listened to the water stream down her body back into the tub.
Her head popped over the top of the towel. “Your eyes are open,” she scolded.
I shrugged and wrapped the towel around her. “You don’t like being told what to do, and neither do I.”
She rolled her eyes and snuggled into the towel. “It’s only acceptable when I do it, Monk.”