branded (phantoms mc #2)

twenty-one: in which she lives her worst nightmare

"Now I see the damage I've done" –Moderat, Damage Done

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"Are you even listening to me, Catalina?"

Camila's voice was filled with annoyance. I snapped to attention, trying to figure out what she'd been saying only a minute ago. She was standing in front of the stove, making breakfast for Leo, while I had been nursing the same cup of coffee for the past half hour. I could hear the sound of Dora in the lounge, asking Leo if he'd seen a bridge that was probably right next to her.

"Sorry, Cam," I said, taking a sip of my coffee. It was ice-cold. "Totally zoned out. What were you saying?"

"Seriously?" Cam's eyebrows were knitted together. "What is the point of me trying to talk to you if you won't even listen?"

"For fuck's sake, Cam, I apologized," I snapped at her, making her jump. "I am sorry."

"You don't have to yell," she said in a small voice, making me feel like shit.

"I've just... I've got a lot on my mind, is all."

Camila turned away to flip a pancake. "Your new boyfriend?"

Her back was to me, so she didn't see how tense I'd become. "What?"

"I can smell him on you when you come home," she said matter-of-factly, "and it's the same smell each night. So it's the same man."

Lincoln was anything but a boyfriend, and in the two weeks since he'd taken me to the Cursed MC's clubhouse, he'd gotten as far as one hand on a boob. Because Lincoln Masters was a master lightweight and chatterbox. All it took were a couple tequila shots here, a couple nice, cold beers there, and he could barely hold his head up, let alone keep his mouth shut. And the resentment he had for his brother, the monster who didn't deserve to be classed as human? I sure as hell was using that to my advantage, and he didn't even know it. Couldn't have guessed it.

But sure, to Camila, it must've looked like I'd unceremoniously dumped Ghost and monkey-climbed onto the first available man there was.

"I think I'm too old for that term," I said, pushing my coffee away.

Camila looked over her shoulder. "What term?"

"Boyfriend."

She let out a short laugh, and I realized that I'd missed her laugh. I hadn't heard it in forever. Camila used to laugh all the time. She'd been a practical joker, and had loved to prank me in front of her older friends. I'd taken the countless little humiliations like a champ, though, and I'd enjoyed getting her back each time.

I'd give anything for that Camila to come back.

"Then I missed your boyfriend stage," she was saying, and there was a hint of sadness in her voice.

A strange sense of nostalgia hit me – nostalgia for things that had never even happened. Things that had never gotten the chance to happen. I was hit by a montage of Camila and me staying up at night after I'd taken Ghost's virginity, analyzing what that had meant. Of Camila giving me advice because, aside from Eve, she had been the only other female I could trust. Of Camila hugging me tightly while I bawled my eyes out because Ghost was actually joining the army.

"You didn't miss much. I've never had one," I told her, hating how Ghost always seemed to play a starring role in my head movies.

"You're kidding."

"I'm not," I said. "For starters, guys were scared of Zeus. And then..." They weren't Ghost. "Well, I guess I preferred hooking up. Less stress, less collateral damage."