Motorcycle Man(106)

Her eyes slid to me and she hissed, “You’re not my Mom.”

“No, but I’m your friend.”

Her eyes slid away while she stated, “You’re not that either.”

Ouch.

That hurt but I kept trying.

Putting my hand on her, I whispered, “Honey –”

Her shoulder twitched to shake my hand off but I felt something new in the room, it wasn’t a good new and I turned to the door just as Tack ordered, “Sit your ass up, now.”

Oh boy.

Seeing as his eyes were on his daughter I knew he wasn’t talking to me but I still got to my feet beside the bed.

“Can everyone just go away?” Tabby asked in a teenage whine.

“Ass. Up. Now,” Tack demanded, coming to stand at the foot of the bed where he crossed his arms on his chest just like his son was still doing.

I assessed him.

Nope.

The dragon had awoken and he wasn’t feeling tired just yet.

This wasn’t good.

“Tack –” I started and his eyes cut to me.

“Shut your mouth.”

Ouch.

I shut my mouth and took a step away from the bed.

Tack’s eyes sliced back to his daughter and he growled, “Tabby, won’t tell you again.”

I prayed she’d sit up and my prayer was answered. She did and leveled one narrowed eye on her father. The other one was covered up by ice. This was not a good stance to take for a variety of reasons.

“What’d we talk about?” Tack barked at her the instant she got in position.

“Dad –”

“What. Did we…” he leaned in and clipped harshly, “talk about?”

“No lies,” she whispered.

“Yeah. No lies. I trusted you. And you lied.”

Instantly, her bravado melted, her face collapsed and I started to go to her as tears filled her eyes.

“Do not fuckin’ move, Red,” Tack bit at me and I stilled.

Then, carefully, I said, “Kane, maybe now’s not –”

“You got a voice in this?” Tack asked, cutting me off and before I could answer he did. “No. You fuckin’ do not. So keep your mouth shut.”

I shut my mouth as I felt pressure build in my head again.

Tack looked back at Tabby.

“Got yourself hurt,” he pointed out the obvious.

“Dad –” she whispered.

“Coulda got Tyra hurt,” he went on.

“She –” Tab started but got no further.

“She went chargin’ in there, he had a bat,” Tack informed her, her one visible eye shot to me and got wide. “Eyes to me,” Tack growled and she quickly looked back at her father. “Your ass does not leave this house for the rest of the summer,” he declared.

“Dad!” she cried, straightening up further and taking the ice away.

This was a bad idea. The swelling was up and the bruising had started to come out.

“Ice on your eye,” Tack clipped. “Keep it on. We’ll finish this tomorrow when I’m not in the mood to rip you a new asshole.”

I pulled in breath.

Uncle Marsh was right. Definitely not father of the year.

But it was none of my business. Tack made that perfectly clear.

“You, bed,” he grunted at Rush and then he looked at me. “You, my room.”

I pressed my lips together to stop from telling him to go fuck himself. Tab and Rush didn’t need to hear that. No, when I said that, it would be for him and him alone.

Then I pulled in a calming breath that didn’t calm me in the slightest, looked at Tabby and said softly, “Try to sleep, honey.”

She was chewing on her lips and just nodded.

I left the room without looking at Rush or Tack.

I didn’t know what he was doing to delay him getting to the room. I just knew when he finally got there I had commandeered my bag from the corner and put it on the bed. My toiletries from the bathroom were already in it and I was pawing through the mess on the floor to locate my stuff.

I heard the door close.

Then I heard, “What the fuck are you doing?”

“I would like,” I began, not looking up and continuing to paw through the clothes on the floor, “when this blows over, for you to allow me some time to visit with Rush and Tabby so I can say good-bye.”

This was met with silence.

I located a pair of shorts, grabbed them, moved to my bag and shoved them in.

As I was doing this, the bag was swept clean out from under my hands and I watched it go sailing across the room where Tack sent it. Then I watched it land.

Then I looked up at him.

“And when I do that,” I went on like he hadn’t acted like the badass, biker jerk he was, “I’ll be doing it just them and me.”

Suddenly, with his hand wrapped around my throat, I was moving backwards across the room. My breath had stopped because my lungs had seized but my heart knew what it was doing, it liked it, so it went into overdrive.