Ultimate mc romance coll.., p.45
Ultimate MC (Romance Collection), page 45
And it wasn’t like I could tell the therapist that I was part of a biker gang, either. I was doing my job. What the hell was I supposed to say to this person? Why was I so angry, why had I beat someone up? They couldn’t know the answers to those questions.
Not only that, but I wasn’t going out of my way to go to therapy. I wasn’t going to drive to, like, Boston or somewhere twice a week for it. That meant I was going to be seeing someone right there in Greenboro. And sure, client/therapist privilege to privacy or whatever. Anyone licensed as a therapist wasn’t going to go blabbing my issues around town if they knew what was best for them. But again, how did I explain things to them without blowing their stupid small-town mind?
Whatever therapists there were in Greenboro were probably better equipped to deal with broken marriages and bored housewives, that sort of thing. It would be a total waste of my time and theirs.
On the other hand, it didn’t sound like they were giving me much of a choice. If my options were either therapy or jail time, wouldn’t I rather just go to the stupid therapy sessions? Hell, I could make shit up, pretend I was a changed man if that was what it took. I hated the idea of it, but I supposed there were worse things in the world.
I’d see what Otis said, anyway. Maybe he could come up with a better deal. Although, it sounded like this wasn’t the first time Xander had cut a deal with the sheriff, and it made me wonder about his relationship with him. It made sense that there was someone in the club who dealt with the sheriff, and it also made a certain amount of sense that it wasn’t Otis. After all, Otis was busy coordinating everyone else’s activities, and it was obvious whenever we saw the sheriff and Otis together that there was no love between the two of them. The sheriff would happily put Otis behind bars in a heartbeat.
Xander was the diplomat with our clients as well. He was the face of the club—calm, cool, and collected. So maybe there wasn’t anything Otis could do to help me. But I’d see what he had to say. Maybe he wouldn’t want me to go to these therapy sessions even more than I didn’t want to.
We walked into the clubhouse and found Otis in his office. “Good to see you,” he said, gesturing to a seat. He eyed me critically. “I’m guessing the black eye didn’t come from the cops?”
“Nah, they didn’t go that far,” I told him. “Almost wish they would have. But I cooperated with them.”
“Good,” Otis said, nodding approvingly. “Jeremy’s in the hospital. My sources tell me you did quite a number on him.”
“Serves the bastard right,” I muttered.
Otis gave me a look but didn’t comment. I could tell he wasn’t angry with the way I had handled things, which was a relief. Not that I expected him to be; this was just the way we did business. I’d been handling things that way for years. Getting arrested like that had never happened before, though. And it wasn’t like I had killed the guy or anything. It wasn’t my fault Jeremy had gone to the police, and no amount of backup could have saved me, anyway. In fact, that would only have made things worse.
All the same, sitting in jail the night before, I’d been worried that maybe Otis would be pissed at me, that he would demand I be kicked out of the club for carelessness or something. Maybe he would lecture me about how I wasn’t meant to hurt our clients like that, about how I was damned lucky the guy hadn’t died.
But that wasn’t like Otis. He looked out for us, but he also trusted us to handle missions in our own way. Sure, sometimes he might have feedback about how things had gone. But he wasn’t going to kick me out of the club for something I couldn’t control.
Still, it was a relief to hear him accept that this was the way things had turned out.
Otis turned to Xander. “And things have been resolved?” he asked.
Xander nodded. “The sheriff is going to make all of this go away on the condition that Logan gets anger management therapy twice a week for a month.”
Otis nodded. “Glad you were able to work that out,” he said.
We hadn’t always been on great terms with the sheriff, but things had been better ever since Kane had saved Brea, the sheriff’s daughter, from potential death at the hands of our rival club, the Savages. I was sure that had something to do with why Xander had been able to cut a deal to get me out of jail. I was still fuming over it, however.
“I don’t need anger management,” I seethed. “I was just doing my job.”
Otis shrugged at me. “And now your job is to keep the sheriff happy so I can keep you on our team,” he said. “If that means giving up two hours of your life every week to go to therapy, then that’s what you’re going to do.”
I frowned at the casual way he said it. Of course it didn’t really affect him, and I didn’t know what I expected him to say. But it seemed like he was set on the idea of me going to therapy as mandated. I grimaced but knew that I would have no choice.
Chapter 4
Olivia
I gathered up my things and got ready to head out of the office on Wednesday evening, glad to have hump day over and out of the way. Two more days and it would be the weekend, and then this whole thing would start all over again. I thought back to the conversation I’d had at lunch with Hazel. I knew that part of my stress was to do with the fact that I was starting a new job, really getting started in my career finally.
But it wasn’t so much the stress that was getting to me. It was the fact that I worked in very tight quarters with the preceptor, and he didn’t seem to like me at all. No, David seemed sure that I shouldn’t be there, and it was making me feel even more sure that this was the wrong career choice for me.
I just didn’t know what the hell else to do with my life. Like Hazel had said, this was the only career I had ever really considered. I’d wanted this for a long time. Strange that it wasn’t anything like what I had imagined it would be.
We had two more boring patients in there that day, both whining about their lives in suburbia and how they were bored and lonely and unloved. I wanted to shake them and point out that unless they quit whining, there was an obvious reason for why they were so unloved.
But I knew that that wouldn’t go over well. Instead, I listened, trying to find it in myself to care and to make suggestions I thought would be helpful to them. I could tell that David wasn’t digging some of my suggestions, though. I couldn’t help it; none of my schooling had prepared me for what to say when a person’s main problem was just that they were bored.
“Olivia?” David asked, as my hand reached for the doorknob. “I was wondering if I could have a word with you.”
I followed him meekly into his office, wondering if he was going to fire me. Jeez, fired before I’d even finished my trial run there. But I guess that was why they had a trial run in the first place: to figure out if you were cut out for the job.
Couldn’t he wait until the end of the week, though? Fire me on Friday? I didn’t think I was doing that badly.
I took a seat across from David, folding my hands in my lap when what I wanted was to cross my arms defensively across my chest. I couldn’t help but feel like a child who had been called into the principal’s office at school. What kind of a workplace was this? I shouldn’t feel like the power balance was so out of whack. Part of it was just that David was always there watching me, like he didn’t trust me. I knew it was so that he could make sure I was using my schooling properly and treating the clients the right way. But it just felt strange.
“Olivia, I know this job is tough,” David began, frowning at me, “but it’s not our responsibility to call a person out for being dramatic. You and I both know that some of the patients that come to see us here aren’t necessarily in need of pills or lifestyle changes but instead just need a change of attitude. It’s still our job to treat every one of those people as though they are sick. Because that’s what they think that they are, and the only way we can make them better is to acknowledge their perceived problems.”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “I promise I’ll try harder tomorrow,” I managed. Because when it really came down to it, I wasn’t ready to be fired from this job. Hell, I never wanted to be fired; if I left, I wanted it to be because I quit. Because I had decided to do something else with my life.
I wanted the decision to be mine.
David nodded at me, and there was no talk of firing me. “I hope you will do better tomorrow,” he said. “I know there’s a certain amount of adjustment that comes with accepting a position like this, and I’m willing to be flexible. But I also want you to let me know if you’re finding this too difficult.”
I nodded back at him, and he finally smiled. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.
“See you tomorrow,” I agreed. I got out of there quickly, trying to pretend like I wasn’t practically fleeing from him.
I wasn’t fired. But I didn’t feel very good about the workday, either.
Fortunately, Hazel had invited me over for dinner that night. She was picking up someone else’s shift the coming weekend, which meant she had been able to trade away some of her hours for the day. Since she was home early, she had decided that she and I and the girls would all cook dinner together. I was excited to get over there and forget all about my work.
“Auntie Liv, Auntie Liv!” Jane called as I walked in the front door. She flung herself at me, a ball of energy, and I barely managed to catch her before I was bowled backward into the door. Hillary came running up as well, throwing her arms around my legs.
Hazel laughed from the doorway to the kitchen. “Girls, make sure you give Auntie Liv some space to breathe,” she said.
I stumbled into the kitchen with Jane still in my arms and Hillary clinging to one of my legs, laughing every step of the way. A little time with these little monsters was just what I needed. “So what are we making?” I asked Hazel when we made it to the kitchen. I set Jane down, and Hillary climbed off my leg.
“If you and Jane can handle the salad, Hillary and I will work on some shake-and-bake chicken,” Hazel told me. “And then I was thinking we could all bake some cookies for dessert.”
“Yeah!” the girls cheered in unison.
We got to work with dinner and then the cookies. The latter quickly devolved into a flour fight right in the middle of the kitchen. I would have felt bad about messing up Hazel’s place, but believe it or not, she was the one to start it, throwing a handful of flour right in my face. I sputtered and reached out to swipe a white streak into her hair. Soon, we were all giggling and covered with a thin layer of white powder.
“I’ll take the girls upstairs and get them bathed and in pajamas,” I suggested as things were winding down.
“Sounds like a plan,” Hazel said, laughing.
I grabbed one girl in each arm and carried them upstairs, smiling to myself. The girls giggled all through bath time and dinner. After they were put to bed, Hazel and I headed into the living room with a bottle of wine. “You can kick me out at any time,” I told her, even though I knew she already knew that. “I know you probably have an early start tomorrow.”
“Yeah, but let’s chat for a while,” Hazel said, kicking her feet up on the coffee table and sipping at her wine. “I know we just had lunch the other day, but that feels like ages ago.”
“That’s because you don’t get enough sleep, so every day feels like an eternity,” I joked.
She laughed. “You’re probably right,” she said. “What about you, how’s work going? Any better?”
I grimaced and shook my head. “Worse, actually,” I admitted. “The preceptor, David, called me into his office this evening right as I was on my way out the door. He basically told me to either start giving better advice to our clients or else realize that this wasn’t the right career choice for me.”
Hazel gaped at me. “What?” she asked in shock. “Did he say that, or are you putting words into his mouth?”
“He pretty much said that.” I sighed and shook my head. “And I don’t know; I guess I’m starting to think that maybe he’s right. This isn’t really what I was expecting this job to be like, and I don’t know that I like it all that much.”
Hazel frowned at me, waving a hand to stop me. “Wait, back up,” she said. “I know you said that this David guy doesn’t like you, but what’s this about you not liking the job? You haven’t told me anything about that.”
I shrugged, looking down into my glass of wine as though the deep ruby liquid might somehow hold the answers and tell me what to do with my life. I couldn’t help frowning unhappily. “I just really thought I would change people’s lives,” I finally said.
“You haven’t been working at it long enough to change anyone’s life just yet,” Hazel said immediately. “If that’s what you’re worrying about, you know you have to give it time. Your patients need to trust you before they can really start taking your advice on how they should live their lives.”
I shook my head. “It’s not that,” I told her. “It’s just that most of the people we have coming in to see us aren’t even people who need therapy to begin with. They’re just, like, bored or lonely or sad or whatever. Not clinically anything. Just…dramatic, I guess. That’s not what I thought I’d be doing with my life—being a friend for a bunch of silly housewives. I just want to tell them to all get together and start a fucking book club or something.”
Hazel winced. “Ouch,” she said. “Maybe they have deeper problems that you just haven’t gotten down to yet? Most people don’t start babbling their deepest secrets right away to someone they don’t even know.”
“Trust me,” I said. “These women don’t have any deeper secrets. They’re open books. Blank books, nothing inside of them. No substance.” I rubbed a hand over my face and took a long sip of my wine. “I shouldn’t talk about them like that. I’m sure that they’re nice people in real life. Just, it’s not the kind of work I imagined I would be doing, and I can’t help but feel like I’m wasting my time. That I could be helping people so much more, but instead, I’m stuck with these women who really should learn how to help themselves.”
Hazel was silent for a second, and I could see that she was struggling to think of something to say. Finally, she shook her head and gave me a half shrug. “Maybe if you stick with it, you’ll get more of the interesting patients when you have more experience?” she suggested. “You and David aren’t the only ones working there; maybe everyone else is hogging the interesting cases.”
“Probably,” I acknowledged. “But I’m just not even sure that I want to stick with it long enough to start getting the interesting cases. You don’t know how boring it is, trying to pretend that I’m interested in all the stupid things they say.”
“Wow,” Hazel said. She paused. “Look, I don’t want to be mean, and you know that I’ll support you whatever you decide to do, but you’re not a quitter, and you never have been.”
“I know,” I sighed. “And I don’t like the idea of giving up at this. Especially since I have no idea what I would do instead. But at the same time, I just don’t know if sticking with it is even going to be an option. It seems like David thinks I probably don’t have what it takes.”
“So prove to him that he’s wrong,” Hazel said, as though it were that simple. I wasn’t angry at her for saying that, though. I knew that at the end of the day, she just wanted what was best for me, and I knew that she didn’t want me to feel disappointed or like I had any regrets. Which was likely how I would feel if I quit the career I had always dreamed about, before I even really got started.
“You’ve come too far to let this all slip away now,” Hazel continued.
I had to admit that she was right there too. “It has been a lot of school,” I said. It would be a lot just to let all of that slip away. “And I have no idea what else I could possibly want to do.”
“If you’re not supposed to be a therapist, I’m sure something else will come to you,” Hazel said. “But until then, I don’t know. Personally, I think you should try and give this everything you’ve got. Stick it out and see where it gets you. And if you’re still unhappy, then maybe it’ll be time eventually to start thinking of a change.”
“You’re right,” I said, even though I still didn’t know how I felt about all of this. The very idea of going back into the clinic tomorrow and listening to more of the same had me feeling tired already. I couldn’t get to the weekend fast enough. That wasn’t how work was supposed to feel, I was sure.
Of course, it was work, not playtime. But if you were following your passion and doing what you wanted to do with your life, then surely it shouldn’t feel like this. Whatever my continued reservations, though, I kept them to myself. I knew that Hazel was tired enough without having to listen to me whine about my problems every time we had a chance to chat.
I quickly turned the conversation around to something else.
Chapter 5
Logan
It felt weird to hang out around the clubhouse when I didn’t feel like a member of the club. Not that Otis had kicked me out, but he had told me I was going to have to lie low for a while until the sheriff was fully ready to brush aside those charges against me.
I wondered what Jeremy thought about all of it. Maybe he was going to try to find some way to get back at me if the sheriff wasn’t going to send me off to jail like maybe he should have. But I couldn’t ask the sheriff that, and when I asked Xander, he told me he didn’t know what the sheriff had said to the other man. I wasn’t the kind of person to worry too much about things like that, anyway. If Jeremy came after me, I would deal with it then.
Victor came into the clubhouse and dropped down on one of the couches. “What’s up, man? How are you doing?” he asked, looking concerned. I was sure that news of my night in jail had spread to the other members of the club already and that was why he was worried.
I shrugged. “Things are good,” I told him. “Just have to go to therapy now, I guess.” I rolled my eyes, and Victor laughed incredulously.
