So, this started off as a funny little blurb to explain a comment in a future Heart of the Lioness chapter. (such a tease, I know). And then, well…. What can I say, it got a little angsty. I apologize.
Quick reminder that Gabby is deathly allergic to shellfish. Don't want you distracted trying to figure out the meaning of an important line ;)
Set between Lion Heart one shot 15 and Reluctant Lion Heart chapter 9. (After Opie's funeral and before Gabby and Bull have their horrible 'date' at the clubhouse)
Big thanks to EmeraldJewelSparkle my beta. i bounced this entire thing off of her over the last few days. And thanks to the freak circle, I've been...dangling...this one shot in front of them for a few days.
Also and i KNOW I've said this before, but follow me on twitter! kiara8921 if you are you already know just how good this one shot gets, if not please come joint the fun!
Disclaimer: Not mine, not for profit
2012
Age 20
Happy walked up the rickety stair case leading to Gabby's apartment. He really should rent a house here in Charming, he could split the bill with her, she'd end up paying less than now, and he'd have a room and a bed of his own. His options now were her couch or a dorm, and after 12 hours of riding neither sounded appealing. He let himself in with his newly received key and leaned against the door as it closed.
Gabby would be at work for another hour. He dropped his duffel on the floor, toed off his boots, and took off his cut on his way to the fridge for a beer. He should shower and change and get ready to take Gabby out to eat. He'd just spent 6 weeks in Texas. He hadn't seen Gabby since Opie's funeral, he'd had to leave right after. He still hadn't had a chance to explain to Gabby why he had whisked her off to Fresno. That would be an uneasy conversation.
He was about to twist off the cap to the beer and stopped dead. His eye caught something shiny and metal on the bed. No, not on the bed, on the headboard. Hanging off the headboard. Handcuffs hanging off the headboard.
Gabby, his Gabby. Boys, sex. No. No. Not…not this kind of sex. Fine, sex, but certainly, certainly not this kind of sex.
He backed up slowly, placing his beer back in the fridge, shrugging his cut back on and grabbing his boots and duffle bag before slowly, carefully opening the door, still staring at the handcuffs, and let himself back out of Gabby's apartment.
He sat on the top step and put his boots back on. He should be wondering who the hell the guy was. He should be preparing a sex talk for Gabby. Well no, he'd obviously blown way by that opportunity.
Gabby. Handcuffs. Bed. Sex.
No.
No, this was Tig. Motherfucker didn't even raise her and she still turned out as fucked up as he did. Fucking Tig! He hated that mother fucker!
Gabby jogged across the street and pulled her keys out as she bounded up the stairs, she fully expected Happy to be asleep even though he had promised to take her out to eat. She saw him on the stairs and stopped with a frown.
"I gave you the key so you could go IN side." She said sarcastically.
Happy choked a bit trying to find his voice. "Yeah, I just thought you might want to clean up a bit." He managed to get out.
Gabby furrowed her brow. She had made sure her kitchen and bathroom were clean just this morning, and she didn't own enough stuff to make a mess otherwise.
"It's clean. Come on." She nodded her head to the door as she opened it.
"You might have clutter." He added not standing.
"I have no clutter. I'm hungry, come on." She urged and grabbed his elbow dragging him up.
"Maybe dishes in the sink." He cringed but didn't fight her as to not accidently pull her down the stairs.
"No dishes. I haven't eaten yet today." She yanked him inside and took off her shoes. "Two minutes to change and we can go." She yelled walking toward her closet.
"Dirty clothes…." Happy said, staring at the closed front door instead of the apartment.
"DAD. The place is CLEAN. What the fuck is wrong with you?" She turned around in her tank top, holding the shirt she wanted to change into.
He finally gave in, turned around and yelled. "The BED GABBY the HANDCUFFS on the BED!"
Gabby turned to the bed, saw them, and smirked. She looked back at Hap and shrugged. "On the headboard." She corrected him and pulled the shirt on over her head. "Don't be such a prude!"
She walked past him back out the door. "Food!" She yelled when he didn't follow her.
"Oh I am going to pound his face in." Happy muttered as he closed and locked the door.
"You don't even know who he is." Gabby turned around, assuming Happy meant the guy she had been with.
"I know…I know who this was." Happy ground his teeth as he mounted the bike.
Gabby smirked at Happy, who was glaring back at her, as the two sat down in the dimly lit restaurant. It was a hole in the wall Thai place she had fallen in love with. She'd never convinced him to come before, but he had offered 'anywhere' and she had readily taken the opportunity to bring him here.
He hadn't said a word to her since they left the apartment. He hadn't said a word as she gave him directions to the restaurant. And he was horribly stiff on the bike on the trip over.
"You trust me to order for you?"
Happy looked down at the menu placed in front of him. He picked up the water goblet in front of him and took a sip setting it back down with a clank that echoed in the otherwise empty restaurant.
"You want Thai beer?" Gabby asked as the waitress stood politely at their table.
Happy glared back.
"A regular coke for him, diet for me. And we will start with Toong Tong." The waitress nodded and bowed slightly before leaving the table.
"Sooo, how was your trip?" Gabby tried to break the ice.
"Uneventful." Happy said evenly as the waitress came back and set down their drinks. He didn't expand and the two sat in silence once again.
Gabby looked around and settled on a topic. "I went to my first group therapy session." She spoke casually and watched his head snap up to look at her.
He pleaded with her silently to go on but she just looked at him and took a sip of her drink.
"Gabby…"
"Are you ready to order?" The waitress came back and asked in a very practiced English with a heavy accent as she set down their drinks.
"Yes, Pad Keemal and Yum Nua." Gabby smiled as the waitress bowed and left the table.
"Gabby…" Happy reached out to her and grabbed her hand.
"Don't go all old fashioned on me. You've had both those dishes, inhaled the leftovers right out of my fridge." Gabby assured him.
"No, Gabby, I don't care about the food." He gave her hand a squeeze. "You started therapy?"
"Your Toong Tong." The waitress came back and set a platter down on the table. They both nodded at her as she bowed and walked away.
"I didn't know you were going to start therapy."
"Plates." The waitress came back. "Silverware and extra napkins." She continued to set items down and Hap started a low annoyed growl. Gabby grabbed his hand when he pulled it away and held it down on the table.
"Thank you." Gabby smiled again at the waitress and let go of Hap's hand only when the girl was completely out of the dining room.
She reached for the first wonton and picked it up, tearing it in half to let the steam out. "They're stuffed with crab meat and cream cheese." She blew on it to cool it down.
Happy looked at her in horror as she licked a bit of filling off her finger.
"Imitation Crab, dad. I'm not suicidal." Gabby rolled her eyes.
Happy tensed up at the word suicidal. Happy aged an extra year for every day Gabby had been suicidal. Or on the verge of it, and months after when he still worried she was hiding things from him.
"Gabby." Happy took the wonton out of her hand and set it back on the plate. "Therapy?"
She pulled her hands out of his and brushed the crumbs off before settling them in her lap. A grabby Happy was an annoying Happy.
"Group therapy, and not exactly as a patient." Happy relaxed a fraction of an inch. Honestly he wouldn't mind her going to therapy; she could probably use it. But she hadn't mentioned it before this, and it didn't seem like a spur of the moment thing.
"Then as what?" Happy asked.
Gabby shrugged. "Observing for now, I have to put hours in for my program. So I can lead groups one day. Not as a therapist, but as a counselor, there's a difference…."
Happy nodded and relaxed more. Gabby took a nervous sip of her pop waiting for an onslaught of questions.
The questions didn't come. Happy studied his daughter as she sat there, uncomfortable in his gaze. She wasn't usually uncomfortable around him. Most people were, not her. Never. She had been shy, maybe hesitant as a small child, but not uncomfortable. She had been angry at him as a teen, but not uncomfortable, and certainly not uncomfortable as the responsible young adult she was growing into.
"What aren't you telling me?" Happy sat back and crossed his arms across his chest.
Gabby open and closed her mouth a few times trying to decide the best way to explain it. "It's just…"
"You're food." The waitress came over with a tray setting down two large plates and additional smaller ones so they could share. "Do you need refills?"
"No." Happy put his hand up. The waitress nodded and bowed and walked away and Gabby scowled at her father. "Please Gabby." He looked at her, begging her to keep going.
"The group…this group now, is all addicts. Basically NA but in a rehab center. Hearing all that shit from the other side, it doesn't help….it just makes me more angry. Dad, I'm not sure I can do this."
Happy hadn't been thrilled at the idea of his daughter spending the rest of her life working with drug addicts. More so, spending every day of the rest of her life surrounded by her demons instead of working through them and on from them.
"If you don't want to then don't. Do something else."
"I want to. I don't know if I can. I can't help my patients if I hate them." She not so subtly wiped a tear away and picked up her chopsticks, serving herself a variety of food.
"I should challenge myself, right? Work through it?"
Happy picked up a fork, shoving the chopsticks to the side and stabbed at the slippery noodles of god knows what the hell the dish had been called. He took a deep breath. Gabby was right, she should work through her own issues and do what she was passionate about, but it would be painful, and Happy didn't do well seeing his daughter in any kind of pain, physical or emotional. She had been through enough.
"You should do something that challenges you. But it doesn't have to be drug counseling." He settled on as a response and scooped food onto his plate. She had been right, it smelled delicious and looked like the left overs he regularly stole out of her fridge. He was suddenly starving and realized he too hadn't eaten all day, riding on nothing but gas station coffee.
"But I don't want to do anything else. I never…" She stopped talking and Happy suddenly lost his appetite. He knew what she was going to say.
"You never thought you'd live long enough to need to pick out a career." He set his fork down.
"Every year on career day I would pick something different. I never cared…. I never thought I'd make it out of high school. And then when I saw that light at the end of the tunnel, I didn't think about a career, I thought about getting away from…my mother. I was running away from her, never running towards something."
"You don't have to plan the rest of your life right now Gabby."
Gabby nodded and started eating. Happy watched her manipulate the chopsticks and shook his head. His daughter was truly an aberration. The way she grew up no one would have been shocked to see her using drugs, as a whore, or dropped out of school and knocked up. But here she was, in college, indulging herself in worldly culture.
"Where the hell did you learn how to use those things?" He finally asked, welcoming the smile that crossed her lips.
"Aaron taught me."
"Aaron?" He asked, the name being new.
"The guy that had me handcuffed to my bed last night." She looked up at him and smirked before popping noodles in her mouth.
Happy dropped his fork. "Aaron is a stupid man." Gabby smiled. Aaron wasn't his real name, SHE wasn't THAT stupid.
"Gabby…" Happy took a deep breath and paused. He seemed to change his mind and took another breath before continuing. "Did your mother ever talk to you about…."
"I learned about sex by watching my mother, and listening to her I guess…" Happy cringed and Gabby smiled wider.
"Heard you fucking her." Happy went pale and Gabby set down her chopsticks, sitting back in her chair. "As I recall you favored her bent over the couch."
"How is everything?" The waitress came back and Happy choked and coughed. "Do you need refills?"
"Yes, refills, and sauces and do you have a dessert menu?" He rattled off anything he could think of to keep the waitress at the table and avoid any further conversation.
Okay, now that you've read it I can say one of these topics (the sex or the therapy conversation) will be directly mentioned in an upcoming chapter of heart of the lioness, and one of these topics (the sex or the therapy session) will be an undercurrent of a future chapter of heart of the lioness. Either way you get to look forward to both. :D
Leave your Kudos, it makes my day!