The good news is, I’m totally over the fact that the ex is prettier and smarter than me. I couldn’t care less. She talked shit like that in front of my kid. She’s trash. Pure and simple. And she’s not coming near either me or Jimmy ever again.
Which shouldn’t be a problem since we’re never going near that clubhouse again. And Charge…
My heart hurts. My stomach hurts.
Charge.
I blink real hard to keep tears back.
I can hardly look at him. He’s obviously pissed. His face is…stormy. His whole body is bunched up, the kind of hard and tight that men get before they rage. My dad mostly bullies and steamrolls you, but he’s lost his temper on occasion. I know what it looks like.
I’m more scared now than when he came bounding up the steps that first day.
Then, I didn’t know what he was capable of. Now, I thought I knew, but it turns out I had no idea. He’s never raised his voice to me. Never did or said anything that made me think he’s the kind of man who’d raise his hand to me. But what do I know?
You don’t go to jail for being upstanding and even-tempered.
I want to trust myself—Charge would never hurt me or Jimmy—but how can I?
My judgment landed me in the dirt behind that pool. In a dead-end job, living in a place with a busted fridge and a slum lord. It lost me Jimmy.
I need to think. I need some time, snuggled up with my boy, watching Robo Rangers. Peace and quiet. Space. I have to sort it out.
But that’s not going to happen.
When we pull up at the apartment, there’s a silver Buick in the drive. Dad and Victoria.
It takes me a second to see where they’re standing. In front of Pops’ house, talking to Pops and Shirlene.
My dad’s doing his boss thing where he stands wide and leans back, hands in his pockets. Victoria has her arms folded, and she darts disapproving glances down at the gravel she’s standing on, the river, Pops, Shirlene’s ratty old Appetite for Destruction T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, all while keeping a fake smile plastered on her face.
This isn’t good.
“Mama?” Jimmy calls softly from the back seat. He’s caught sight of them. There’s worry in his voice.
I hate that there’s also worry flooding my gut.
“It’s okay, buddy. I’m sure they just dropped by for a visit.”
“Your folks?” Charge asks, turning off the truck. I nod. This day is the worst.
He squeezes the steering wheel hard once more before he gets out to open my door. While I’m waiting, Jimmy leaps from the back, skirts Victoria, and hops up the steps to stand next to Pops.
“Saw your leg,” I hear Jimmy say as I hurry to join them.
Victoria drops the smile and looks fit to be tied. I don’t know if it’s what Jimmy said, the fact he ignored her to go to Pops, or the general not-Gracy’s-Corner quality of my new digs.
“Hi!” I interject before this can get even more awkward. “What are you guys doing here?” I hear, don’t see, Charge coming up behind me. He stands close. Real close.
I can’t help but stiffen. I’m still mad, hurt. Freaked out. And this is not how I imagined meeting the folks would go.
I hadn’t imagined that at all. In fact, it gave me heartburn to think about it. There’s no way a guy like my dad was going to approve of a guy who looks like Charge.
“And who is this?” Victoria’s fake smile is back.
“Um. Charge. This is Charge.” I step to the side so they can see him. He walks forward, offering his hand. Even now, more uptight than I’ve ever seen him, he moves with total confidence. I’m too chicken to look at his face, but I can tell he meets my dad’s eye. His shake is firm.
“Vern Tunstall,” my dad says. Oh, guess I forgot that part. “This is my wife, Victoria.”
Victoria jumps in, her voice high and giggly. “Did you all have a nice time at the picnic? Miss Shirlene and Mr. Boots here were telling us that you were on an outing.”
I guess they’re going to be the ones asking the questions here.
Also, I highly doubt either Miss Shirlene or Mr. Boots have said the word outing once in their entire lives.
“We played on tires!” Jimmy answers. “And there was watermelon and snowballs!”
“Tires!” Victoria repeats, fake-impressed, widening her eyes and raising her eyebrows at me. I guess playing on tires isn’t appropriate. I wonder if she knows I had a tire swing growing up.
“And I saw Pops’ leg! It was hanging in the clubhouse, just like he said!”
“Pops?” Victoria cocks her head at me. “You mean Mr. Boots?”
“Yeah. Pops’ leg is a conversation piece.”
“As are some of my other appendages,” Pops tacks on, grinning from ear to ear. I can’t be mad; the man can’t help himself.
Shirlene forces down a smile.
Jimmy looks confused.
Everyone else looks like they’re smelling something nasty and trying to be polite about it.
“What’s an appendage?” Jimmy asks.
“Somethin’ that’s attached to your body,” Pops answers.
“Like your ears?”
“Nope.”
“How come?”
“Good question, my friend,” Pops says, and Jimmy leans on the arm of his wheelchair and rests his head on Pops’ shoulder, satisfied.
Through all my icky feelings, I can’t help but notice the difference. Jimmy sees my dad, and he worries. Steers clear. He sees Pops, and he’s bursting to tell him about his day. And inside me, there’s not just a ball of sad because of how things are with my dad. There’s also a little ray of grateful Jimmy has this with Pops, even if it maybe can’t last.
And it can’t. Can it?
I can’t have an ex-con around my kid, can I? A guy with enough arrests that it’s not a one-time mistake but the basis of a nickname?
My eyes are drawn to my dad’s face. Despite this new side of Charge I’m learning about, Dad’s still the biggest threat. He’s the one who’s stolen from me.
His eyes are narrow. Determined. The kind of determined that I’m smart enough to be terrified of now.
Victoria’s eyes promise a reckoning, too.
And worse, there’s excitement there. She thinks I’ve fucked up. She’s been waiting for me to fuck up again for years now.
Have I fucked up?
Obviously, yes. But how bad? Enough for them to try and take Jimmy again?
The blood rushes from my head, my body goes sweaty and shaky, and I can’t follow the conversation. My dad is talking to Charge about the river, I think. Small talk.
Charge must sense something. Even though his mood is as dark as mine, he rests his hand on my back, reassuring like, and even though I want to lean into it, take the comfort he’s offering, I can’t. Not with Dad staring at me like a dare. I step off so quick my ankle turns a bit. Charge gets real still, but I can’t worry about that.
I need to get Dad and Victoria out of here. My mind’s casting for words, a way to distract them, make them leave. But my panic has caught my tongue.
“So you live here, too, Charge?” Victoria asks.
Charge shakes his head. “Between places at the moment.”
“Oh,” Victoria says. “Well, it’s nice to have family that’ll help out in a pinch.” She flashes a fake smile at Pops and Shirlene.
Shirlene’s face doesn’t crack.
“Where’s the Corolla?” my dad asks suddenly. “Figured you were out in it. But I see you were…” He trails off, as if in a man’s truck is too unseemly to say.
“In the shop,” I say. It’s been awhile now. Every time I ask Charge about it, he says the garage is really busy, and since I like my loaner, would I mind them putting my work off? I don’t mind. At all. I love my SUV, and it’s gonna kill me when I have to give it back.
My dad’s jaw tightens like I just told him I totaled it. If we were alone, he’d ask what I did to it. Nothing ever breaks, after all.
I break things. Like things are never fucked up. I must have fucked them up.
“That’s going to cost,” he says instead. “Any repair isn’t going to be cheap. And once a car that old starts to break down, it can’t be considered reliable anymore.”
I don’t know how my dad can manage to make your car’s unreliable into a personal criticism, but by his tone, he does. It’s one of his talents.
“Don’t worry,” Jimmy pipes up. “Charge and I bought Mama a new car.”
I shake my head, ready to correct him.
“You did?” my dad asks, screwing Charge with a look, half disgust, half disbelief.
I expect Charge to deny it.
Instead he says, “Yeah.”
That’s it. Yeah.
“You’re ‘between homes,’ and you bought my daughter a car?” There’s even more contempt in my dad’s voice now.
“Ayup.” It’s one word, but somehow, Charge makes it hold as much contempt. Maybe more.
“Kayla has a family that is fully capable of taking care of her.” My dad eyes Charge up. If he were the sort to spit, he would, but he’s too civilized for that.
“She does now.” Charge’s voice is low, lower than I’ve ever heard, and there’s a challenge in it, a core of rage there I’ve only seen hints of before. That night on the porch. A few other times we talked about my past.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
I’ve never been the center of attention like this. Not since that day in ninth grade when I was taken to the hospital. Surrounded by the nurse and my pediatrician and a lady police officer and Dad and Victoria. And just like then, I’m at sea, unsure of who to trust. What I should say. How to fix it and make it go away. So I stand there, my throat dry and my tongue thick in my mouth.
“How old are you, son?” My dad’s not scared. He’s not the type. The world does what he wants. I’ve never seen him back down.
“Ain’t your son.”
My dad raises an eyebrow. “Right. That you aren’t. You do know, my daughter’s twenty-one. And my grandson’s six.”
“Dad.” I know it’s useless, but I beg him to leave off with my eyes anyway.
“So how does a—what—thirty? Thirty-five-year-old man ‘between homes’ buy my daughter a car? You got a job, son?”
“Vern,” Victoria murmurs, pinching his sleeve. “This is not the time nor place.” She glances meaningfully at Jimmy. He’s stone-faced, shoulder-to-shoulder with Pops.
Oh my goodness, he’s holding Pops’ hand.
Tears threaten, and I speak up. “Dad. Please.”
He ignores me. Turns to Victoria. “See? Her judgment has always been like this. It was only a matter of time until someone took advantage again.”
Charge makes a sound, a choked off snarl, and he steps forward.
I put a hand out. Stop him.
Keep my eyes on Jimmy.
And like earlier at the picnic, Jimmy has a way of making my way forward really simple. I might be frozen on the inside, but I can’t afford to be. My boy doesn’t need to hear this.
I take a deep breath. “Dad. Stop. Okay? Victoria…I’m sorry we weren’t here when you got here. We’ve been out all day, though, and Jimmy’s tired. He needs a bath and dinner.”
I stare at Jimmy, willing my little dude not to bust me. He’s eaten hot dogs, hamburgers, cold salads, deviled eggs, brownies, chips, and snowballs all day. No way he’s hungry for dinner.
After a second, he gives the biggest, fakest yawn. Then he says, “I’m real hungry, Ma.”
I love my guy.
My dad’s face is bright red. Shirlene and Pops are silent, taking some kind of cue from Charge. Victoria, as always, steps up to pretend everything’s not totally jacked up.
“Of course. We just dropped by to see how the fridge was working out for you. We were on our way to Harrisburg for dinner with Angela and Bob, so we thought we’d pop in. We should have called first. Lesson learned.” She trills a hollow laugh.
My dad sniffs, nods bluntly at everyone, and after Victoria demands a hug and kiss from Jimmy, they leave.
I feel fifty pounds lighter.
“That where you get your elastic pants from, girlie?” Pops asks me as they drive off up the cul-de-sac.
My…oh yeah. My hand-me-downs. “Yeah.”
“Good thing you don’t get much else from ’em,” Pops mutters, and then he waves at Jimmy. “Come over tomorrow, boy, and we’ll cast a line or two. If your Mama says okay.”
A smile cracks Jimmy’s somber expression, and my heart cracks open wider. How am I going to take this away from him?
But I know that Victoria’s on the internet right now. If not, she will be later tonight. Or Dad’ll be on the phone with his buddy Hank Armitage, the deputy sheriff. They won’t let this lie. If they wouldn’t allow their own daughter to be around Jimmy, there’s no way they’ll see a biker with him and let it go.
A biker with a record.
Dread seizes my chest.
And then Charge grabs my arm. I send Jimmy up to the apartment, and after a long look—a touch confused, a touch worried—he goes. Pops and Shirlene go back inside, so there’s no one to see me yank my arm away.
“Wait a minute, Peaches.”
And finally, we’re alone. At the foot of my stairs. The sun is resting on the horizon like a ping-pong ball on a table, small but bright. There’s enough light left to see by, but the crickets are getting louder and a few fireflies are out.
I don’t know where to start.
“What did you do?” I ask, finally bringing my eyes up.
Charge’s face, still dark with rage, jaw tight, eyes stormy, goes hard. “What do you mean?”
“Your arrests. What were they for?”
He runs a hand through his hair, leaving pieces pulled loose to get whipped around in the evening breeze. “That’s what you want to talk about?”
He glances up, like he’s praying for patience, and paces off a few steps. He shakes his head like he’s remembering something messed up, and he says, “That was just shit talk. About statutory. I ain’t never gone down for nothin’ like that.”
“What have you gone down for?” If he doesn’t tell me, I know Dad and Victoria will. Soon. Maybe with their close, personal friend Denise Edgerton from the Department of Child Services.
I feel sick. If my stomach weren’t empty, I’d really be afraid I’d puke.
I can’t do this again. I can’t be this terrified of losing my child. Never, ever again.
Charge is shaking his head. “I don’t know, babe. A lot of resisting. Simple assault. Drunk and disorderly.”
“Simple assault?”
“Yeah. Third degree.”
“What does that mean?” I put up a hand. “No. Wait. I don’t need to know.”
“I’ll tell you anything, baby.”
“Like about Harper?”
“I didn’t know she would—”
“I don’t need to know.” I raise my voice. Somewhere in all the fear, anger’s swirling up. “I’m so stupid. You warned me, didn’t you? About people like you?”
“You judgin’ me, Kayla?”
“Yeah, I’m judging you. You think you get a free pass for some reason?” I think a second. “But you kind of do, don’t you? People judge you, they think you’re some badass. You get a badass nickname and a hundred girls hanging on you. People judge me, you know what I get?”
Charge is looking at me blank. Like I’ve lost my mind.
“I get sent away. I get my kid taken. Cause I’m a bad mother. Unfit. I can’t have that, Charge. I won’t.”
“What are you talking about? Can you just—just slow the fuck down for a second?”
I can’t. My mind’s going like a blender.
“I can’t do this,” I say. Not now. I need to calm down. Call Sue. Talk it through.
“You can’t do this?” Charge’s face freezes. “You can’t do this? After—after—” It’s like he’s stuck on a skip.
Turning to the wall, he pulls a fist back, a small movement, almost the jerk of instinct, and then he stops, throwing his head back. His Adam’s apple juts from his corded neck. He forces his fingers apart. Dragging in breath. Shakes his shoulders out.
“Yeah. Fuck. Whatever,” he says.
And then he stalks off to his bike, revs the engine, and races up the cul-de-sac, skittering gravel, sending it flying.
My heart goes flying into pieces, too.
I sink to sit on the stair, and I fold in half, tears flooding, my whole body shaking.
I give myself to the count of ten. Then twenty.
At fifty, I pull myself together. Wipe the tears on the shoulder of my shirt. Ignore the knot in my stomach. The cold that’s settled in my chest. I need to make Jimmy dinner and give him a bath.
I don’t get to drive off.
I don’t get to say yeah, fuck, whatever.
CHAPTER 16
CHARGE
I’m an asshole.
I pull off my ride at the overlook on the bluffs, walk the boulders at the edge, try to calm my ass down to the point where I can go back and talk sense to my woman, but I can’t shake the ugly.
Kayla’s face when Harper rubbed her face in my record.
Her jerkin’ away from me in front of her father. Vern. Exactly the puffed-up asshole I thought he’d be.
I can’t do this.
Same words Harper said when she put me out. Because I wasn’t the man she needed. I was a bitch. A leech. A stooge.
Doesn’t escape me that Vern pretty much thinks the same thing. How does a grown man “between homes” buy my daughter a car? Like that shit’s gonna get repossessed. Like I don’t know how to take care of a family.
And shit…I don’t know. All I know about family is what I know from Pops and the club. Loyalty. Bustin’ your ass for your brothers. Bein’ there. The logistics? Nothin’. Nada.
How am I gonna keep a woman? And a kid? What have I got, really? A patch, a bike. Stuff I didn’t buy, in a house I didn’t pick, that I don’t live in no more anyway.
Charge: A Steel Bones Motorcycle Club Romance Page 16
