As the days went by, with Shy in them, I was also realizing, in a way I couldn’t bury in my pit of denial, that it had been a long time since I’d been me, truly me, even before Jason died.
I was also remembering things. Like when I’d catch Jason staring a hair too long at my Harley tees in my drawer, his face expressionless, but the length of time he did it speaking volumes that now I was coming to understand but before I refused to acknowledge. I also recalled times like when we were sitting outside a restaurant and a bike would go by, I’d watch, listen to the pipes and when they died away, I’d find his eyes on me. I knew my face was wistful and his gaze was contemplative.
Having these memories, I wondered if Jason wondered if there was some piece of me I was burying that would eventually surface and, without Jason living, breathing, walking, talking, putting his hands and mouth on me, making it all good, I was wondering the same thing too.
He had never judged, never acted like I was anything or anyone but someone he wanted. He was cool and comfortable around Dad and Tyra, Rider and Cut, Rush, Dog, Big Petey, anyone associated with my family, or Chaos.
Jason didn’t make me be not me. It was me who was denying my world, my life, in order to live in Jason’s and I wondered if somewhere inside him he knew it.
Dad knew it and was concerned about it. Before Jason died, he’d talked with me about it, shared that it wasn’t an easy choice to step out of the world you knew and live in another one.
But then, I’d had Jason and he was the one for me. I knew it. I had no questions, no doubts, not a single one. So I didn’t rethink my decision because I knew it was the right one.
Now I was wondering and it bugged me, these questions, these doubts surfacing when he was gone.
On the drive home, as my mind sifted through the last two months, it didn’t settle on happy thoughts about Shy or me coming back to me, but I wasn’t thinking gloomy thoughts of doubts about Jason either.
I was thinking pissed-off thoughts about work.
Life was life and kept going even when you were struggling to deal with the crap it hit you with, and sometimes it hit you with more crap before you were ready for it.
And currently, my life was hitting me with more crap.
Namely, Dr. Dickhead.
We had one doctor at the hospital that was more douchebag than your average douchebag. So much so, he’d win Douchebag of the Year if there was a competition, and I’d had a run-in with him that day.
When Shy showed at my house I was still pissed, banging around in my kitchen, rock music blaring loud from my stereo.
He’d used his key. I didn’t give him a key—he’d confiscated one in order to lock up the first night he carried me to bed post–crying jag.
I also didn’t ask for it back.
His eyes came to me. I glared at him, and then I wisely ignored his lips curving up even as his eyes went to the floor, unsuccessfully hiding his smile from me.
He thought it was amusing when I got in a snit.
I didn’t find anything funny about it.
His long legs took his lanky, loose-limbed frame to my stereo and he ratcheted it down from the ten it was at to about a three, a move that was so anti-badass biker, if his brothers knew he did it they would likely have thrown him out of the Club.
Once he did this, he moved to my fridge where he pulled out two cold ones, popped the caps, and set one beside me. Then he sauntered around the bar, sat his behind on a stool, and leveled his beautiful green eyes with their rims of dark, thick lashes at me.
Before he could say a word, I announced, “We’re having hamburgers because no one can ruin hamburgers, even me.” I grabbed the beer he got me and took a hefty pull.
When I dropped it and looked at his face, I knew he disagreed. His eyes flashed with humor, and he pressed his lips together. He’d eaten my food. He knew I could ruin anything. It was his turn to act wisely, because even though his eyes disagreed, his mouth stayed closed.
Then he opened it to invite: “Talk to me.”
I grabbed the salt, started shaking it on the mound of ground beef in the bowl, took him up on his invitation, and cried, “Get this! Dr. Dickhead wrote the wrong order in the chart, which meant I administered a higher dose of medication than was warranted or even healthy. Then, when it all went down, I overheard him telling the hospital administrator that even though the dose was written down wrong in the chart, he’d verbally given me an order with the right dosage and I’d administered the wrong one, which, Shy, he… did… not.” I slammed the salt down.
The muscle in Shy’s jaw jumped, as it had a tendency to do when he was pissed, which happened often during the times I was ranting about Dr. Dickhead.
I grabbed the pepper and started shaking, ranting on, “Luckily, the error wasn’t so bad it ended in trauma, tears, lawsuits, and loss of employment, just uncomfortable explanations and me tamping down my desire to commit physicianicide, but still!”
I ended my last word on a high-pitched note, slammed the pepper down, grabbed the minced, dried garlic and resumed shaking and blathering.
“The hospital administrator knows he’s a douche. She talked to me for all of, like, five seconds before she nodded and took off. Still, it was a pain in my ass.”
“Tab—” Shy started, but I chattered on right over him.
“Don’t worry. It’s all good. Not only does the administrator know he’s a douche, everyone knows he’s a douche. Even the other doctors think he’s a douche, though they wouldn’t say it out loud. That’s how big a douche he is. And it doesn’t matter what he says, if it comes down to it, it matters what the chart says. Still, I don’t like the idea of how this could have gone bad. Okay, sure, if the dose was crazy wrong, I’d notice it and question it before I administered it so the bad would never be that bad. Still, even not that bad, like today, was no good.”
“Sugar—” Shy tried again, his eyes to the bowl but I kept babbling.
“It’s just him lying about me. That bugs me. Okay, everything about him bugs me but, today, that’s the top of the list of all the one hundred and seven thousand things about him that bug me.”
His gaze came up to mine and he said, “Baby, I want you to rant, get that shit out, process it so you can move on and have a good night, but you’re processing it while ruining our dinner. Gotta say, I prefer it when you ruin our dinner while laughin’ and smilin’, not rantin’ and ravin’.”
My eyes shot down to the bowl and I noticed a not-small mound of garlic on the beef.
Crap.
I felt the garlic taken out of my hand and tipped my head way back to find Shy close.
“Get. Sit on a stool, drink beer, and rant it out. I’ll deal with this,” he ordered gently.
I shook my head and gave him a small smile. “It’s cool, Shy, I’ll fix it.”
He got closer and his voice got gentler when he repeated, “Get.”
I buried the gentleness of his voice in my pit of denial along with how it made me feel. Grabbing my beer, I “got” and moved around him and the bar to haul my bottom up on a stool. I sucked back beer while Shy did his best to shake garlic into the sink.
“What are you gonna do about this motherfucker?” he asked.
“Suck it up,” I answered, and his head jerked around so he could look over his shoulder at me with narrowed eyes.
I understood this reaction. We were both Chaos. It wasn’t lost on me that any member of Chaos would put up with Dr. Dickhead for about three seconds.
I smiled at him before I told him, “I can’t exactly plant a bomb in his car.”
Shy looked down at the meat, that muscle moving in his jaw, and I knew he was calling up his memory banks to ascertain precisely how to plant a bomb in Dr. Dickhead’s car.
I buried that in my pit of denial too.
“Shy,” I said quietly, and he turned from the sink. He came back to the counter in front of me as I explained, “I knew this was the gig when I took it. It isn’t a secret doctors
can be dickheads. They don’t warn you in the textbooks in nursing school, but word gets around. I’m lucky, all the other doctors I work with are great, always have been, even in nursing school. It’s just him. There’s always one.”
“You don’t eat shit, baby,” he told me.
I licked my lip, his eyes dropped to my mouth, that muscle ticked in his jaw again, and I buried that instantly in my pit of denial.
“Life can be shit, Shy, so unfortunately sometimes you have to eat it,” I told him.
“Right, correction,” he returned. “You eat shit until you’re done eatin’ shit and then you find a way so you don’t eat shit anymore.”
I grinned at him. “Okay, how’s this?” I began. “I eat shit until I’m done eating shit then I go to the hospital administrator, share my concerns in an official way, and hope.”
Shy’s hands were forming patties while his eyes remained on me and, again, I knew he didn’t agree with my solution.
When he didn’t say anything, I continued, “Then, if a miracle occurs and he’s prompted to move on, life will be breezy and I’ll smile and laugh while ruining dinner rather than ranting and raving. Work for you?”
“Yeah, sugar, works for me,” he muttered, and I didn’t bury in my pit of denial how much I liked it when he called me “sugar.” This was mostly because it was too big to fit in my pit. And that pit was dug deep, not because I was burying stuff deep, but because Shy gave me so much to bury.
He jerked his chin in the direction of the hall and ordered, “Go, change out of your scrubs. I’ll deal with this.”
“Righty ho, biker boss,” I mumbled, grinning at him, grabbing my beer and jumping off my stool.
I was nearly to the mouth of the hall when he called, “What are we havin’ with this?”
I stopped and looked at him. “Store-bought potato salad and chips.”
“Chips?” he asked.
“Chips,” I confirmed.
“You got potatoes?” he asked, and my grin became a smile.
“Only because you bought them for me the other day,” I answered.
“You got oil?” he went on, and my smile got bigger.
“Only because you bought it for me the other day.”
“Then we’ll have fries,” he muttered to the patties.
“Fries?” I asked, and his eyes came back to me.
“Fries,” he answered.
“Homemade fries?” I sought added information.
“You got potatoes, oil, and a knife. All you gotta do is cut ’em up, fry ’em up, and, if you’re feelin’ feisty, season them.”
“FYI, biker boss, I’m feelin’ feisty,” I threw out my thinly veiled order.
Shy grinned as he put the patty on the broiler pan and turned toward the sink, murmuring, “My girl’s feelin’ feisty, she’ll get seasoning.”
I buried how that made me feel too. Even so, I still strolled to my bedroom smiling.
I was changed into an old Mötley Crüe tee and cutoff jeans, and still smiling when I moved back toward the kitchen.
Shy was giving me back me. He was guiding me to healing. He was keeping me company in a way I liked. He treated me like me when I needed it, and he treated me as fragile when I needed that. He listened to me moan about work. He stocked my cupboards. And he made me homemade fries.
Seriously, I could love this guy.
I hit the kitchen, and Shy had the oil going and a small mountain of sliced potatoes on a cutting board. I walked to the fridge, got us two fresh cold ones, and put one on the counter beside him, then I moved around the bar and hefted myself up on a stool.
“Thank you for bringing me back to me.”
Yes, that was what came out of my mouth, and I knew my words weren’t a figment of my imagination (unfortunately) when his eyes came to me.
“Say again, honey?” he asked.
It was out there, I had to go for it. And anyway, this was Shy. He’d proven over the last two months he could take it, take anything from me and handle it with care.
“I’m coming back to me,” I told him. “And you’re helping me. It’s been a long time since I’ve been me, just me. I’ve been thinking and I’ve come to realize that even before Jason died, I was burying parts of me.”
Shy held my eyes, something working in his I didn’t quite get, but he didn’t speak, so I hurried on in case he got the wrong idea.
“Jason didn’t want me to bury it, just so you know. He wasn’t that kind of guy. It was me who buried it. All me. Now, looking back, I’m wondering if it would have surfaced. I’m wondering if he worried about it. I’m wondering if we might have—”
“Stop that, babe,” Shy commanded quietly and I blinked.
“Pardon?”
“Way you say it, you were into that guy and he was into you. Don’t ask questions that will never have answers. You’ll drive yourself crazy with that shit. Just remember you were into him, he was into you, it was all good, and don’t fuck up good memories with questions that have no answers and never will.”
He was right. Totally.
My head tipped to the side and I felt my eyes go soft when I asked, “How’d you get so wise?”
“Had a good teacher,” he answered.
“Your dad before he died?”
“My dad before he died and your dad when I found him.”
I sucked in a sharp breath.
It was not lost on me that Shy liked my dad, he respected him, and I loved that because that was how I felt about my dad. Obviously more, since he was my dad, but I still loved it that Shy felt the same.
Yes, I totally could love this guy.
“You’re done rantin’ and got nothin’ to do but sit there and stare at me,” Shy began, “haul your ass off that stool, come around and help me with the fries.”
I was done ranting and it would probably burn out my retinas if I stared at him too long, so I grinned at him, hauled my ass off the stool, rounded the bar, and helped him with the fries.
* * *
“Sugar, you awake?”
I opened my eyes and blinked at the blank TV.
I didn’t know what time it was but it felt late. What I did know was that I’d fallen asleep with my head on Shy’s chest, my legs curled behind me on the couch, my arm resting over his abs, his arm around me.
The last thing I remembered was being sucked into a marathon of American Chopper.
I tipped my head back and looked up at him.
“Hey, is it late?” I asked.
“Yeah, you gotta work tomorrow?” he asked back.
“Yeah,” I answered.
He nodded, gave me a squeeze and shifted to move but my arm around him tightened and he stilled.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why what?” he returned.
“Why did you ask if I have to work tomorrow?”
“Goin’ for a ride, thought, you didn’t have to work, you might want to come with me.”
He was going for a ride.
I wanted to go with him.
I wanted to go with him because I liked to ride. I wanted to go with him because he was Shy and I was me and that was what we did. It wasn’t rare, it wasn’t frequent, but he liked to be on his bike and he didn’t hesitate to offer to take me with him. I didn’t hesitate to say yes.
This, too, I was denying. How much I liked it that he asked. How much I liked to be behind him on the back of his bike.
I shifted, saying, “I’ll get some shoes.”
He gave me a squeeze and his fist came under my chin, gently tipping my head up to look at him again. “Tabby, baby, you gotta work. It’s cool. Another time.”
I held his eyes and replied quietly, “I’m alive. You’re alive. I gotta work to live so I do that and I’ll have to do that for a long time. But when I’m not workin’, I’m livin’. So let’s ride.”
His eyes moved over my face and then a slow, lazy, sexy as all hell, beautiful smile spread on his face about a millisecond before he pulled himself off t
he couch, taking me with him and setting me on my feet.
Then, looking down at me still smiling that unbelievable smile, he whispered, “Let’s ride.”
I smiled back, took off, grabbed my shoes. Shy held my hand all the way to his bike and we rode.
For a long time.
It.
Was.
Paradise.
Chapter Five
Apocalyptic
Two and a half months later…
“Are you insane?”
That came from my best friend Natalie, who not only asked the question but was also staring at me like I was insane.
I was back. Totally back.
I was me.
What I was not was insane.
Life had settled, grown into a pattern I liked with work and family, friends, and Shy.
I was going out again with Tyra, shopping, meeting friends for lunch, hanging with the boys, acting crazy, just like I used to.
I’d even found the time to reach out to Jason’s family, see if there were relationships there to salvage.
I couldn’t say I was tight with his mom and sisters, but I liked them in a way that I knew if we had the future we were supposed to have, I would have gotten tight with them. Though I didn’t like his dad too much. He was too straightlaced for me, and I didn’t like the way he sometimes barked at Jason, making Jason’s mouth go tight, and then later Jason would take that crap out on me. But his mom and sisters were cool.
We’d clung together after we lost Jason then naturally drifted apart, shrouded in our individual fogs of grief. But when we sat down, it was clear they didn’t want the tie to Jason that was me to be cut and I felt the same.
It was all good.
My life with Shy hadn’t changed. We saw each other all the time, I ruined dinner, he took me out on his bike, we called each other frequently, and I laughed and smiled even more.
And it had been weeks since I’d had a time where he needed to treat me as fragile and I no longer felt empty inside.
That didn’t mean the sucker punches didn’t keep coming. I’d drive by a restaurant where Jason and I went, I’d remember, and my breath would leave me. Or I’d be blow-drying my hair, looking in the mirror and remembering how Jason used to come in, dip down, and kiss my shoulder. And going to bed and waking up alone day in and day out, I still wasn’t used to that.