Hands All Over

Ch. 52 Swing, Swing

Mel stopped his car outside of the simple one story house he'd followed Happy to. It was a quaint little beige house with green shutters on the windows, not at all where he'd envisioned an outlaw living. Sighing, he followed Happy to the front door shifting nervously when he pulled out a key ring and let himself in rather than knock. Mel sort of wished they'd at least given the couple a warning of some sort. Maybe if they had, he wouldn't be looking at the scene in front of him.

Juice was stretched out on the couch, his head against the arm rest with Angela on her stomach top of him, her head pillowed on his chest. She was wearing an oversized sweatshirt that just barely covered the curve of her ass. Juice had one arm draped across her back, his other hand was entwined with hers resting on his chest close to the intricate tattoo of her name. Their clothes littered the room around them. Mel spotted her bra, a black, lacy one, draped over a lamp, Juice's jeans were gathered in a heap on the floor nearby. He glanced over at Happy, waiting for the man to explode.

Happy should've been pissed, should've wanted to beat the shit out of Juice, but he couldn't find it in him. Maybe it was because, despite the lack of clothes, there wasn't anything remotely vulgar about the way they were situated. It was the way Juice's fingers were laced with hers and pressed close to his heart, almost as he'd wanted to keep her as close as possible. Happy had no doubt Juice had done his best to comfort Angela, and for that he was thankful. There was only so much he could do to make his little cousin feel better. He was more than content to pass that torch on to someone else. "'ey, idiot," he said, lightly nudging Juice's thigh with the toe of his boot. As Juice started to stir, he quickly put in. "Don't move."

Juice blinked his eyes open, glancing down to find Angela still asleep against him. "Shit," he groaned, lifting his arm from her back to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He looked up at Happy and panic flowed through him. He was just in his boxers and he knew for a fact Angela wasn't wearing anything underneath his sweatshirt. "Hap...I..."

"Shut up," Happy cut him off. He didn't need to hear any apologies, didn't want to have any verbal confirmation of what the two had done the night before. "She all right?"

He sighed in response, his hand smoothing over her hair as he shook his head. "Spent most of the night cryin'. Stopped a few hours ago," he said with a frown. He left out how she'd come onto him after. The way her hands had slipped under his shirt, that needy, almost desperate look in her eyes. And he'd done his best to make her feel good as they made love right there on the couch.

"She eat anythin'?"

Juice nodded slowly. "Got her to eat a slice of pizza. Well...half."

"Pizza," Happy said wrinkling his nose in distaste.

"I didn't have time to make much else," he justified. He'd shoved the pizza into the oven as Angela watched Kozik's video for the tenth time and had to force her to eat more than the four bites she thought she could get away with.

"Surprised she didn't down a handle of tequila," Mel said with a smirk. He'd picked up a bottle of Jose on the way home the night before and had made a reasonable dent in it. Luckily, he'd woken up with a headache and not many other symptoms. In the past, he and Angela had shared many handles, passing them back and forth during the wee hours of the morning as they drank away their troubles. It wasn't a good fix, but it'd served them just fine in the past.

Happy grimaced at that. He knew Angela turned to alcohol when she was feeling wounded; it was her way of running. He blamed that habit on her mother who'd emptied out many a bottle of wine after a hard day. "She even try?"

"No. Of course not," Juice said, looking almost angry that Happy even dared to ask. Sure, Angela was hurting, but she wouldn't hurt the baby intentionally like that. "She wouldn't do that."