The constant focus of his douche-ness escalated that day when he laid into me in front of a patient. It wasn’t cool normally, but in front of a patient meant I couldn’t stick up for myself. I had to take it.
So I did and it was bad.
So bad, I wanted to turn my head to the patient, say, “If you’ll excuse me,” round her bed and knee him in the ’nads. I did not do this. Instead, he finished up, stormed off, and I knew it was as bad as it seemed when the patient asked, “Are you all right?”
I assured her I was, but it stuck in my craw that I was assuring a patient that I was all right when it was my job to make sure she was all right.
I was tired of his crap. I was just plain tired, and what made matters worse was that I didn’t even have Shy to talk to about it.
Work sucked. Not having Shy sucked more.
Everything sucked.
I had been avoiding him for two weeks, not taking his calls, not returning his messages, not hitting Ride and finding ways to stay away from my apartment just in case he popped by.
I didn’t know why I was avoiding him, but I told myself I was doing it because I needed to get my head together.
No, strike that, I did know why I was doing it. I just let that fester in that deep place inside me that I was never, ever visiting.
So I had no one to talk with about my work crap, and I had no one to talk to about how I was feeling about Shy, because I wouldn’t even admit to myself how I was feeling about Shy.
I was screwed.
I was also beginning to think I was an idiot.
These were my thoughts when I let myself into my dark apartment, locked the door behind me, dropped my purse and keys on the table by the door, and moved through the dark living room to the lamp by the side of the couch.
I turned it on then let out a small scream.
Shy was sitting on the couch, long, lean legs straight out, booted feet on my coffee table, arms stretched out and resting on the back of the couch, eyes on me.
“What are you doin’, sitting in the dark?” I asked, my hand at my throat.
“Are you avoiding me?”
I knew what he was asking. I couldn’t not know, but I didn’t know how to explain it to him so I stalled.
“Pardon?”
Slowly, oh so slowly, he lifted his booted feet from the table, set them on the floor, and pulled himself off the couch. Equally slowly, he turned and locked eyes with me.
All of this was pretty scary.
It got scarier when his voice, low and menacing, came at me just as slowly as he had moved.
“Are. You. Avoiding. Me?” he enunciated each word with precision, and that was even scarier.
“I’ve been busy,” I told him, and my heart jumped as I saw the muscle jump in his jaw.
“You’ve sung that song before, Tabby,” he reminded me. “Didn’t like it the last time. Really don’t fuckin’ like it now.”
“I’m on double shifts. A nurse is sick and another one is on vacation.” This was true but it only explained the last two days, not the last two weeks.
Shy was far from dumb. He’d see through that and call me on it.
He didn’t delay in seeing through that and calling me on it. “Your phone broke?” he asked.
“What?” I asked back.
He leaned slightly toward me and it took a lot not to lean back. “Is your phone broke?” he repeated, his voice back to low and menacing.
“No,” I admitted.
“So, explain, if you’re not avoiding me, you got a call from me, why you don’t take it? And, Tab, I’ll throw this out there now so you have plenty of time to come up with another excuse, when I leave a message, I wanna know why it isn’t returned.”
I stared at him and he stared at me.
I licked my upper lip, his eyes dropped to my mouth, his face got hard, and suddenly the room felt like a silent thunderclap rolled through it.
It was then I knew I couldn’t take it anymore.
“I know about her,” I whispered, and yes, that came right out, and yes, it sounded like an accusation.
“Say again?” he asked.
“I know about her. Your woman.”
His brows went up. “So?”
So?
So?
“So, you didn’t tell me about her,” I pointed out.
“Sorry, Tab, didn’t know I needed to report to you about who I fuck,” he fired back.
Ouch.
That hurt but with no choice, I worked through it and rallied.
“We’re tight,” I said quietly.
“Not that tight,” he returned.
Ouch again.
But I got it, I totally got it, and I had no choice but to power through it so, with difficulty, I did. “Okay, Shy, I get it and its cool. All of it’s cool. You were there for me and I appreciate that. You helped out a lot. Now you’re off the hook.”
His eyes narrowed, that thunderclap feeling came back, and he crossed his arms on his chest. “I’m off the hook?”
I nodded again. “Yeah. I… it’s… I get it. It’s cool. We’re cool. I understand and I want you to know I appreciate all you’ve done but you can… well, you’re off-duty now. You can do, uh… whatever it is you do.”
“I can do whatever it is I do,” he repeated, and I wished he wouldn’t do that, repeat stuff I said. It was freaking me out.
“Yeah.”
“Let me see if I got this right, babe. You find out I got a woman and you freeze me out, and, I’ll point out, you’re doin’ that shit a-fuckin’-gain. You don’t talk to me about it. You don’t call me. You don’t take my calls. You don’t answer my messages. You’re not even fuckin’ home half the time so I can see you. And now you give me my marching orders?”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” I replied.
“You didn’t have the time to print out the papers but, sugar, you did that shit all the same.”
“You didn’t tell me about her,” I reminded him.
“And?” he returned and at his sharp word, I threw out a hand, beginning to get pissed.
“Shy, you spent time with me while you were spending time with her, for months, and you didn’t tell me?”
“Seems like it,” he retorted and I shook my head.
“That isn’t cool.”
“What isn’t cool is this bullshit, Tab. You got an issue—” he leaned toward me “—you talk to me. You got somethin’ to say—” he leaned closer “—you say it to me. What you do not fuckin’ do is freeze my ass out.”
Okay, crap, he had a point.
“Right, okay, Shy. You’re right,” I gave in. “I should have talked to you.”
“I fuckin’ know I’m right, Tabby,” he clipped out, still seriously angry.
“I’m givin’ in, Shy,” I pointed out.
“No, you’re not. You’re goin’ docile thinkin’ I’ll back off when you haven’t answered my fuckin’ question,” he shot back, and now I was scared and slightly pissed but also confused.
“What question?” I asked.
“I got a woman, you find out, why the fuck are you freezing me out?”
Uh-oh.
This was not good mainly because I didn’t have an answer.
No, that wasn’t true, but that answer was lying deep inside. So deep I wasn’t even admitting to myself what it was so I certainly couldn’t admit it to Shy.
Therefore, I winged it. “I’m just hurt you didn’t tell me. You kept it from me and I didn’t get that.”
“Okay then,” he returned instantly. “You want it out, we’ll put it out there. Tomorrow night, you meet me and Rosalie for dinner and you’ll see for yourself.”
It came as a surprise, instantaneous, overwhelming, so huge my middle rocked back with it like I’d been socked in the gut.
I stared at him, unable to breathe, pain saturating my system, and I saw some of the anger slide out of his face as concern washed in.
He didn’t miss my reaction.
&nb
sp; Then again, Shy never missed anything. Not when it had to do with me.
“You okay?” he asked.
“No,” I whispered.
He dropped his arms and took a step toward me.
I took a step back.
He stopped and his head tilted to the side. “You got a cramp?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Tabby, baby, what the fuck?”
“I can’t do this,” I announced, not knowing where those four words were coming from, just knowing they were coming from somewhere deep, and I meant each and every one like I had never meant anything else in my life.
His brows drew together. “You can’t do this?”
I shook my head.
“Do what?” he sought clarification.
I lifted my hand and waved it between him and me. “This.”
His eyes went to my hand, then moved to my face, and he asked, “This? You and me?”
You and me.
You and me.
There was never going to be a him and me.
My belly, twisted in knots, screwed up tighter and the pain was excruciating.
He stared at me, his eyes moving over my features, and I watched in horrified fascination through the pain as his face grew terrifyingly dark.
Then he whispered, “You have got to be fuckin’ shitting me.”
I didn’t know if I was shitting him. I didn’t know what the heck I was doing.
“Tell me, Tab, that you’re shittin’ me,” he demanded.
“Honestly, Shy, I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admitted.
“I do,” he ground out. “You’re standin’ there tellin’ me, years, fuckin’ years ago you were into me, I fucked that up, you held a grudge, also for fuckin’ years, you lost everything, and only then did you let me back in. Now, you find I got a life without you in it, a woman, and you can’t deal. For fuckin’ months I listened to you talk about him. I held you while you cried about him. Now you’re handin’ me this shit?”
He had a point about that too.
God! What was I doing?
“Shy—” I tried to instigate damage control.
I failed.
Spectacularly.
The damage was done, no way to control it.
“No,” he bit off. “You need to disappear to get your head straight, Tabby? You fuckin’ do it. That works for me. I don’t take rides I don’t like, and I just found out I was on a ride I didn’t know I was takin’, and I don’t like it. So you go into your head and get it straight, Tab, but you don’t come back to me until you got your head straight. No sooner, babe. I do not need that shit in my life. I am not gonna see you through that shit your way, tied to your strings. I’m cuttin’ myself loose. You come to me and you don’t got your shit sorted, you wanna get your head straight draggin’ me along with you, you can go fuck yourself.”
With that, he pulled his keys out of his jeans, twisted my key off the ring, and my heart twisted when he dropped it on the coffee table. Then he prowled to the door and slammed it behind him.
Woodenly, I walked to the door and locked it.
Just as woodenly, I walked to my couch and sat on the edge.
I heard his Harley pipes roar, and I stared at my wall unseeing, listening as they growled until I couldn’t hear them anymore.
Only then did I collapse, my face in my hands as I burst into tears.
Chapter Seven
You Are Not Leaving
One month later…
Shy walked out of his apartment, locked the door, and headed to the stairs.
These days, he stayed there, seeing as Rosalie cleaned it and also seeing as, since he didn’t have Tabby’s cupboards to fill anymore, he hauled his ass out and bought groceries for his own damned house. He also stayed there because Rosalie was not the kind of woman you banged in a bed in a biker Compound while men were raising hell in the common room or tapping ass in rooms down the hall. She was the kind of woman you banged in an apartment that was two steps up from shithole that she kept clean.
He jogged down the stairs, moved into the sun, and saw Roscoe sitting astride his bike. His brother was there because they had some Chaos business to see to.
Shy tipped his chin up, Roscoe tipped his back, and Shy moved to his bike.
He threw a leg over and was starting the ignition when Roscoe spoke.
“Sucks, man.”
Shy turned his head to Roscoe. “What sucks?”
“Tab takin’ off to Cape Cod.”
That burn hit his chest encroaching dangerously close to his heart. A burn he hadn’t felt for four months. A burn that, over the last month, smoldered deep. Now it fanned to life and singed his lungs.
“Say again?” he asked and Roscoe’s eyebrows knitted.
“You didn’t know?” he asked back.
“No, I didn’t fuckin’ know,” Shy bit out. “Tabby’s goin’ to Cape Cod?”
“How can you not know? You two are tight. You’re not bangin’ Rosalie, you’re up in Tab’s space.”
“I didn’t know, Roscoe,” he clipped. “She’s goin’ to Cape Cod?”
Roscoe nodded. “Yeah, brother. Some doctor at work was up in her shit, she couldn’t take it anymore, so she quit her job. She’s packin’ up her shit, storin’ it up at Tack and Cherry’s, and headin’ out. Some traveling nurse’s program, six-month contract.”
Shy’s vision went hazy.
He could not believe this shit.
That bitch.
That fucking bitch.
She was leaving.
Leaving her family, leaving him, leaving people who had taken her back for a fucking year.
Leaving.
Leaving him.
“Not doin’ this,” he growled right before his bike roared to life.
“Doin’ what?” Roscoe shouted over the pipes and Shy looked to him.
“This. Our gig. You need someone at your back, call Tug or Snapper. I got shit to do.”
Before Roscoe could say anything, Shy backed out and roared out of the parking lot.
On his way to Tab’s, he did not make one single effort to calm his ass down. He’d need everything he had not to wring her pretty neck when he got there and lit into her.
Leaving.
Leaving him.
Fuck!
Ten minutes later, he pulled up outside her apartment, parked, switched off the bike, and scanned for rides he knew.
Tack’s bike wasn’t there, neither was his Expedition. Cherry’s Mustang wasn’t there. Tab’s girl Natalie’s ride wasn’t there either.
But Tabby’s electric blue ride that she took care of like it was her baby was gleaming in the sun.
The way clear, Shy swung off his bike, jogged to the steps, took them two at a time, and didn’t hesitate to pound his fist on her door the instant he hit it. He also didn’t stop pounding until he heard the locks turn and the door was thrown open.
“Jeez, Shy, what’s the deal?” Tabby snapped, staring up at him.
He hadn’t seen her in a month.
This meant that was the wrong greeting.
The way wrong greeting.
Making matters even worse, behind her everything but the furniture was boxed up.
Fighting back his need to explode, he prowled in and Tabby had to jump out of his way. Once in, he turned on her.
“Shut the door, Tabby,” he ordered.
“Shy, what—?”
“Shut the fuckin’ door, Tabby!” he roared and watched her face pale as she shut the door and turned to him.
“Okay, Shy, calm down. We’ll talk,” she said gently.
“You leavin’?” he asked.
“I…” she hesitated, licked her fucking lip and, Christ, that hit him straight in his dick like that always hit him straight in his dick. “Yes, Shy,” she admitted. “I was gonna call you next week. Talk to you. Tell you what’s—”
He cut her off, “You’re not leavin’.”
Her head jerked then she told him, ??
?I am, Shy. I need space to get my head together. The contracts are signed—”
“You,” he interrupted her again, “Are. Not. Leaving.”
She shut her mouth and stared at him.
He kept talking.
“You gotta get your head together, you do it here where I can get to you, not somewhere where I gotta haul my ass on a plane to get to you. Are you comprehending me?”
“But, Shy—” she started.
She was not comprehending him.
“You’re not leaving,” he repeated.
“I have to, the—”
He leaned toward her and growled, “You are not leaving.”
Suddenly, she lost it, throwing her hands out to the sides, she asked, “Why?”
“This is why,” he clipped, stalked the three steps that separated them, snaked an arm around her waist, drove a hand into the back of her hair, and hauled her into his arms.
He slammed his mouth down on hers.
Then he thrust his tongue between her lips and there it was.
Christ, there it fucking was.
That taste he’d had on his tongue for fucking years.
Sweet, God, so fuckin’ sweet.
Beautiful.
He took more and she gave it, her body melting into his, her feet coming up on her toes, her arms circling his shoulders, holding on to him, one hand sliding up into his hair, holding his mouth to hers.
She kept giving it so he took even more and Jesus, the taste of her, the feel of her pressed close, the world melted away. It was more intoxicating than any liquor, a high better than any fucking drug.
Phenomenal.
Better than he would have guessed. Better than years of wondering how good it could be.
The best he ever had.
With just a fucking kiss.
He broke his mouth from hers but felt her short, excited pants against his lips when he said yet again, “You are not leaving.”
“Okay,” she breathed, and he closed his eyes, dropped his forehead to hers and sucked in a breath to gain control over the burn in his chest.
When he had it, he opened his eyes and looked down at her.
Her eyes were unfocused, hazy. She was pressed up against him, still holding him, hand in his hair.
He’d made the world melt away for her too.
That burn came back but it was different, and the change was fucking brilliant.