“I’m not having sex with him.”
He chuckled and then shot me a bug-eyed look. “You’d be the little dog.”
I waved him off and then looked at my watch. “I’ve got to get up in an hour.”
“An hour’s sleep is like taking a handful of Ambien. Don’t do it.”
“I won’t. I feel so much worse after a one-hour nap. It’s awful.”
“I think you two would look cute together. If he shaved.”
“What is wrong with you?” I shook my head convincingly. “We’re not going to end up together.”
I was enjoying riding with him, talking to him, and not wondering what it would feel like when the day came that he’d disappear. I realized that eventually he’d stop with the rides and long discussions, especially if I didn’t have sex with him.
At least when it happened, I wouldn’t be heartbroken.
Just slightly disappointed.
“We’ll talk about it later,” he said. “I need to get some sleep. I don’t work until 1:00, and if I don’t sleep, I’ll look like a raccoon.”
I stood and gave him a hug.
He kissed me on the cheek. “Bye T-girl.”
“I’m going to take a bath.”
He opened the door and glanced over his shoulder. “I’m going to remind Brian what a dick he was. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Pee Bee
He took a drink of his water, set the cup on his swing-out tray, and then reached for his Kindle. After reading for a few minutes, he peered over the top of it. I acted like I didn’t see him.
“Ahem,” he coughed.
I looked at him. “What?”
“Don’t what me,” he growled. “It’s my house, remember?”
I brushed my hair from my face and rolled my eyes.
So, your big dumb ass just happened by?”
“Yep.”
“In the neighborhood, huh?”
“Just stopped by to say hi.”
“You did that. We exchanged niceties. It’s over with,” he complained. “And, yet you’re still here, stinking up the place.”
“I don’t stink.”
“You smell different.”
“Well, it ain’t a stink. I showered this morning. More than I can probably say for you.”
“Are you wearing perfume?”
“God damn it, Pop. Get off me.”
“You smell like a turd that’s been rolled in tulips.”
Tegan came out of the bathroom with a towel, and stepped between us. “Excuse me. This will just take a few minutes. They’re getting long.”
He shifted his eyes from me to her.
She placed the towel in his lap, then pulled a pair of fingernail clippers from her pocket. As she carefully steadied each of his fingers in one hand, she methodically clipped the nails with her other. I watched as she performed the task, making note of how gentle she was during the process.
I recalled my mother clipping my fingernails as a child, and how much I hated it.
In a few moments, she had finished. As she gathered up the towel, she met my gaze and grinned.
I smiled in return, then looked ahead.
As she walked away, I stared at her ass out of the corner of my eye.
My father raised his right hand, looked at his nails, and nodded a few times. “She does good work.”
Tegan walked past. Preoccupied with watching her walk to the kitchen, I didn’t comment. The sound of water running in the kitchen let me know it’d be a minute before she returned. I shifted my eyes to my father.
He cleared his throat. “Your mother will be home soon, so I’ll say this now. Save you a little embarrassment.”
“What now?”
He glanced over his left shoulder, and upon satisfying himself that we were alone, looked at me. “You do one thing, and I mean only one, to hurt that girl emotionally, physically, or spiritually, I’ll get up out of this chair and kick your ass up between your shoulder blades. You’ll have to take off your shirt to take a god damned shit. Is that understood?”
“God damn, Pop. I was just--”
His lips went thin, and he inhaled a long breath through his nose. With his eyes still locked on mine, he exhaled without opening his mouth.
“Is that understood?” he growled.
The tone of his voice was one that I was familiar with, and although I hadn’t heard it since college, I knew all too well what it meant. Anything contrary to his wishes would lead to him being seriously disappointed in me.
I couldn’t believe I was 32 years old, and he could still put the fear of God in me without touching me.
“Say it.” He glared at me and waited.
I looked away. “I won’t.”
“Don’t talk to me in the same tone you take with your little biker buddies, Son. I don’t like it, and you know it. Now, look at me when you answer me, and tell me you won’t do those things before she comes back in here. I’ll embarrass the absolute shit out of you, and don’t think for one fucking instant that I won’t.”
I took a deep breath and looked at him. “I won’t hurt her.”
“Ever,” he said. “I see the way you’re looking at her. And I see the way she’s looking at you. I don’t know what’s going on, but when you come in here smelling like a French whore on a Thursday afternoon, and then you’re staring at her ass, it leaves me to wonder.”
“I just stopped by--”
“To say hi.” He coughed out a laugh and shook his head. “You can tell your mother that shit when she gets here. She’s gullible enough to believe it.”
Tegan walked in. “Okay. That’s it. I’m going now. Anything else?”
He shook his head and raised his cast. She took his hand in hers, leaned over, and kissed him on the cheek. “Until tomorrow.”
“See ya, kid.”
She glanced in my direction, smiled, and then headed for the door. I looked away as she walked across the living room, and it wasn’t easy, by any means. She opened the door. I faked a cough and shifted my eyes in her direction. As she pulled the door closed behind her, I lowered my eyes to the floor.
“See? That’s what I’m talking about. That was the sorriest excuse for a fake cough I’ve ever heard. You and that fuckin Navarro think you’re slick, and you can’t even pull the wool over my old eyes. Sorriest excuse for hooligans I’ve ever seen.”
“What exactly is a hooligan?”
“Look in the mirror,” he said. “It’s the opposite of what you see. You wouldn’t make a good pimple for a hooligan’s ass. Sometimes I wonder if they might have switched kids around in the hospital and we ended up with some dip-shit’s kid.”
I didn’t care one bit for his last remark. I narrowed my eyes and turned to face him.
He grabbed for his chest and closed his eyes. “God fucking damn it!”
I jumped up. “You alright, Pop?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said
“Pop…”
He waved his hand between us and opened his eyes. “It’s just indigestion.”
I searched his face for tells, but only saw how the skin beneath his eyes had become thin and translucent. “Don’t look like it.”
“And how the fuck would you know?”
“You look tired, Pop.”
“And you look like grizzly fucking Adams. Clean up your act and shave, why don’t you.”
The door opened and my mother walked in.
“How as your day, dear?” he asked.
“Just fine. How was yours?”
“It was like all the others. Dreadful.”
They kissed.
My mother worked at a safe house for battered women, and I couldn’t decide if she worked because she felt like she was offering a service to the community of women who needed her help, or if she did so to help pay for my father’s extensive medical bills.
They lived in a modest home – the same home I grew up in – but my guess was that in the absenc
e of his bills, they could live in a much better neighborhood.
There wasn’t anything wrong with where they lived, but I always felt like they deserved more.
“Did you see who stopped in to say hi?”
“Well don’t just stand there, Brad. Give your mother a hug,” she said.
I hugged her. She looked me over. “You look thin.”
“Pop said I was fat.”
She glared at my father. “Bradley!”
“I didn’t call him fat. I said that little minibike he was riding would get exhausted hauling his fat ass around. There’s a difference.”
She set her purse down and turned toward the kitchen. “It’s almost time for dinner. Are you going to stay?”
“I should get,” I said.
“I think he’s sweet on my nurse,” Pop said. “Truth be told, he came by here to get a look at her. Trying to get up the guts to ask her on a date, but he doesn’t have the guts.”
God damn it.
She stopped and turned around. “Tegan? She’s so sweet. You should shave that thing off your face and have Rita cut your hair. Then you could ask her on a date. Nice girls don’t want to go out with heathens, Brad. If you want her to even consider it, you should cut that mess off.”
“Told him the same thing, Deann.”
“She’s a very, very nice girl.” She looked at my father. “How old is she?”
“Twenty-five.”
She looked at me and grinned a hopeful grin. “She’d be perfect for you.”
“I’m not looking to get in a relationship,” I said apologetically.
“Well,” she said. “You need to do something. And, you’re staying for dinner. We’re going to talk about this. You’re too old to be single.”
Sunday night dinner at my parent’s home used to be something I did with regularity, but in recent years, it had become very irregular.
Every opportunity my mother had to force me to eat at home, she took advantage of. Each time I complied with her wishes, the conversations ended up being my single status, and when I was going to bless them with grandchildren.
I looked at my mother. She was 66, and had married my father a few days before she turned 17. She was a petite woman, roughly Tegan’s size, and was as close to a saint as any woman could ever be.
Talking shit to my father was easy, saying no to my mother was not.
“I’ll stay for dinner, but we don’t need to talk about--”
“Go shave your face, Brad. Your father’s little clippers are in the bathroom, in the cabinet. I’ll have dinner ready when you’re done.”
“What are we having?”
“Fried chicken,” she said. “And maybe a potato. Your father still likes potatoes with his fried chicken.”
“Sit down, shit head,” my father said. “She’ll never get anything done with you standing there with your gob flopped open.”
“Bradley!”
“I’m hungry, Deann. Let’s get this show on the road.”
I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I hadn’t cut my hair in years. I hadn’t trimmed my beard in six months, and I hadn’t cut it in longer than I could remember.
I tried to remember what I looked like before I had the hair. I pulled it tight to my head with one hand, and pressed my beard back with the other.
I wondered if my mother was right, and if Tegan’s opinion on matters would change if I looked differently.
“Dinner’s ready!”
The bathroom door muffled my mother’s voice, but hearing her brought me back to my senses.
I’d been daydreaming about fucking Tegan again.
I looked in the mirror.
Only time would tell if my mother was right, or if she was wrong.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Tegan
I stared at the reflection in the rearview mirror and wondered if it was a bad choice or not. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t going to hurt anything, but I made the decision for selfish reasons.
I ran through the list of things in my head that could be affected if things went awry.
Toilet paper.
I had plenty.
Feminine products.
I was safe for the time being.
Food.
I had enough food to last me for 3 weeks.
Gas.
My car had a full tank, and got 27 m.p.g. The gas would last me a month.
I did my own nails and Marcus cut my hair, so that wouldn’t be an issue. I counted the money in my wallet again, and began to second guess myself.
It was rare that I did anything special. For whatever reason, I felt like I should treat myself to something nice. Maybe it was because I finally told someone what had happened on that awful day in June.
I wouldn’t have guessed it, but talking about it made me feel far less responsible.
To heck with it, I deserve this.
I stepped out of the side of my car and walked to the door. Through the glass wall I could see the people gathered inside, talking. They all looked so jovial and high-spirited.
I felt like a heroin junkie going in for my fix at the methadone clinic.
I pushed the door open. With my eyes fixed on the selections that were displayed on the wall-mounted menu, I walked up to the register.
“Welcome to Starbucks,” she said. “What can I get for you?”
I scanned the menu, but none of the names of the drinks rang a bell.
“Uhhm.” I looked at her. She had fire-engine red hair, porcelain-colored skin, and a tattoo of a dove on the side of her neck. “I’m sorry. I was in here the other day with a guy, and he got me a drink. I was wanting to get it again, but I’m not seeing it up there.”
“The biker?” she asked.
Initially it didn’t register. “The biker?” I asked with a laugh. “I don’t think that’s what it was called.”
“No.” She chuckled. “You were in with the biker, right?”
I felt stupid.
“Oh, yeah.” I tossed my head toward the table where we had been sitting. “We were outside. You recognized me?”
“Yeah, it’s the car. We were all talking about it when you pulled up. What happened?”
“Just a dose of stupidity.”
Her long face gave indication that she wanted more. After a few seconds of silence, she shook it off and grinned. “Was it a hot drink or a cold one?”
“Cold.”
She glanced over her shoulder, toward the drive-thru window. “Anyone know what Pee Bee got the other day for the girl in the car without the door?”
“Iced caramel macchiato,” someone shouted.
“Oh wow. You remembered his name?”
“Pee Bee?” She laughed. “He’s in here about ten times a week.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Him and Crip. And Peyton. She comes in quite a bit, too. Cholo every now and again. And a few of the others.”
I was surprised. I didn’t expect him to be such a coffee connoisseur. I wondered who Peyton was, and found myself feeling oddly jealous.
“Huh. That’s neat. But yeah, it was an iced caramel macchiato. That’s what I need.”
“What size?”
I returned a confused stare.
“Tall. Grande. Or Venti?”
“The big one,” I said.
“Venti iced caramel macchiato,” she hollered. “Name?”
“Uhhm. Actually, I need two. One for Tegan. And one for Marcus.”
“Okay.” She poked her fingers against the keys on the register, and then looked up. “That’ll be $10.32.”
It could have been worse.
I paid for the drinks, put the change in her tip jar, and then looked at the things on display as I waited. Within a few minutes, I was on my way to the apartment, complete with a cute little cardboard carrier.
As difficult as it was, I made it all the way home without taking so much as a drink. With the cups in the carrier, and the straws neatly placed between the
m, I shouldered my purse and picked up the drinks.
Carefully, I walked across the street, through the parking lot, and along the sidewalk between the buildings. By the time I reached our unit, my mouth was salivating at the thought of having a drink of the macchiato.
It was Marcus’s day off, and he had no idea I was coming. It was a surprise of epic proportion. Finally, I reached his door and knocked on it with the side of my foot.
“Open up.”
I heard him moving around.
“Open up. I’ve got a surprise.”
He unlocked the door, and then slid the chain from the secondary lock, which seemed weird. I never knew him to use it.
The door opened a few inches.
I pushed it against it with my foot and stepped inside.
My jaw – and the drinks – hit the floor at the same time.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Pee Bee
“Do you have any idea what happened?” he asked.
I did, but I couldn’t say. I guess I could have, but I wasn’t going to. I didn’t want him – or Tegan for that matter – to know what I was going to do. I laid my helmet on the floor beside the couch and sat down.
“I don’t know, Pop. She had an emergency. Probably girl stuff.”
He looked worried. “She’ll be back though, right?”
“As far as I know.”
“Do you know where she lives?”
I hesitated, but decided to tell him the truth. “Yeah. I’ve been there.”
His face contorted. “You’ve been to her house?”
“She rode on the bike, Pop. I took her home.”
“Remember your promise, Son. I meant what I said.”
I cocked an eyebrow.
He did his best to flip me off, but his cast prevented it from being noteworthy. “I was just reminding you.”
“I told you I wouldn’t, and I won’t. You ought to know me well enough to know I’m not going to break a fuckin’ promise.”
“Hell, I thought I knew you, but then you went and cut off your hair and shaved that mess of shit off your face. You look like a God damned human, now. What’d your buddy Navarro say? He going to kick you out of the gang?”
“It ain’t a fucking gang. And, he hasn’t seen it yet.”
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