His mouth got tight. Gear came in with a glass of ice water. Then Buck stormed out of the bathroom, I hoped to clean up the mess because I sure didn’t want to.
Gear gave me a curious glance I couldn’t quite decipher before he followed his father as Tatiana spit into the toilet bowl.
“Can you sit up, honey?” I asked, and she surprisingly did.
I took the cloth from her head and reached out to flush the toilet again. With her latest offering swirling away, I wiped her face and mouth. I tossed the cloth into the sink and reached up to get the glass from the counter and handed it to her.
“Drink slow. Sips, yes?”
She nodded, her mascara running down her face, her eyes going anywhere but me. She sipped then again gagged. I grabbed the glass and her face was back over the toilet bowl.
Tatiana and I did this routine for a while with me wringing out the cloth repeatedly and finally leaving her to run to Buck’s bathroom to grab my facewash. When she settled enough, she moved with me to the sink and I helped her wash off her makeup. We accomplished this feat, but seconds after, she was on her knees again at the toilet.
Though now it was only dry heaves.
Not fun for Tatiana, but the worst had passed.
I stayed with her until she finally curled up beside the toilet and closed her eyes, apparently happy to sleep on the bathroom floor.
“You want me to help you to bed?”
“No,” she whispered and started to shiver.
“You want me to get you a blanket?” I asked.
“No,” she whispered again, still shivering.
She didn’t want me to get a blanket, so I didn’t. I went to the closet and got a clean bath towel and threw it over her. She didn’t shrug it off, but instead clutched at the edge with her fingertips and pulled it up under her chin.
“When you think you might be able to hold it down, I’ll get you some ibuprofen,” I offered.
Tatiana moaned.
“Okay,” I said quickly. “Not now.”
I sat on the floor beside her and rested my back against the tub.
We were both silent until she whispered, “Go away.”
“I’m happy to stay.”
“Go away,” she repeated.
“You can’t sleep on the floor in the bathroom, honey.”
“Go…away.”
I sighed.
I also decided, if she didn’t want me around, I wasn’t making her feel better. Therefore, there was no reason to hang around.
She was over the worst of it. Now she had to count on her youth and time to get her to the other side.
I stood, got another towel and threw it over her lower body.
“Water’s by the sink,” I told her. “Try to get it down.”
“Go away,” she replied.
I went away, heading to my next chore of cleaning up sick.
I hit the kitchen area to see Gear sitting on the counter, Buck standing by him, arms crossed on his chest. I saw the sick was gone, and I bit my lip, grateful.
“She feels like sleeping in the bathroom,” I announced when I hit their semi-huddle.
“Bet she does,” Gear muttered.
Buck didn’t speak.
Both Hardy men were unhappy.
“Maybe I’ll go to bed,” I suggested, not knowing what else to do.
“’Night,” Gear replied.
Buck just stared at me.
Hmm.
I didn’t think that was good.
“Goodnight,” I whispered and moved from the kitchen.
I went to Buck’s room, changed into a nightie and got into his bed.
He didn’t join me for a while, though I heard Gear go upstairs, and I didn’t find sleep.
Finally, I heard Buck moving around the house, and what I heard was him carrying his daughter to bed.
After that, he was in his room. Rustling noises commenced as he took off his clothes and then the bed moved when he joined me. But once there, he settled and didn’t curl into me or curl me into him.
Oh dear.
“You’re mad at me,” I whispered into the dark.
“Nope, mad at Tatie. Knew she’d make a play for my attention, thinkin’ she had to battle you for it, even though, during our conversation before she went out, I took pains to share with her that was not the case. Didn’t think my girl would make such a stupid play. Thought I taught her better.”
“She’s only sixteen, Buck.”
“No age is too early to get smart, Clara.”
He was right about that.
I stared into the dark.
Eventually I sucked in a breath.
And using it, I said, “You know, earlier, I saw you two through the window. She said something to make you laugh and leaned into you. Most girls who have that, what she has with you, they don’t know it’s precious. Gear told me she doesn’t get on with her mom or that Knuckles guy, so I figure, she has it rough at home, she knows what she has with you is precious. I never had that.”
I paused when I felt something strange that was coming from him fill the room, then I continued.
“So, I know, like Tatiana knows, that’s precious. She’s sixteen. She sees me as a threat. You might not get it, but I do. If I had something like that, I’d do anything to keep it. Anything to hold my dad’s attention, even if I had to make him mad at me to do it. She’s not old enough to know how to play it smart, West. But if things are bad at home, she’s desperate enough to do whatever she has to do. I get that too.”
I stopped talking and Buck didn’t move.
I closed my eyes tight.
And he moved, curling his big body into mine, his arm around my waist, pulling me into his heat.
I felt his face in the back of my hair, and finally, I relaxed.
When I did, I heard him whisper, “Thanks for takin’ care of my girl, baby.”
I pressed my lips together and swallowed the lump in my throat.
“You’re welcome,” I whispered back.
He gave me a squeeze. “Go to sleep, darlin’.”
“Okay, Buck.”
He pulled me deeper into him and then his body settled into mine.
Faster than I would have expected after the day I’d had—getting into it with Minnie, Biker Babe Rituals, seeing Buck with Nails, meeting the kids, Tatiana hating me—I fell asleep.
If I wasn’t unconscious, and could think on it, this would not have come as a surprise.
And as such, thinking on it later, it was no surprise when it came to me why that happened.
It was because I was in Buck’s bed, in the curve of his arm, against the warmth of his body.
I was beginning to suspect (and fear) that the world could be ending, and I’d fall asleep against Buck like that.
And that was entirely the problem.
Because with West “Buck” Hardy, as good as I could get was beginning to feel like the best I ever had.
And whenever something like that happened, you held on for dear life.
The thing I didn’t think about or I’d never sleep again, was one of the many things I’d learned.
That in my life…
The best I ever had never lasted.
14
Moody
The next morning, I woke up pressed against Buck’s side, my cheek to his shoulder.
The sun was shining, unmuted, through the windows.
The house was quiet, and I knew by Buck’s steady breathing that he was still asleep.
I always woke before him and this was likely because he stayed up late, and I didn’t.
I carefully slid away so as not to disturb him and walked to the hall bathroom.
The towels were on the floor, so I folded them and put them on the counter. Then I grabbed my facewash and went back to Buck’s bathroom. I did my morning bathroom thing and grabbed my robe off the hook on the back of the door.
My robe was short, lilac and a light, soft, knit cotton-flannel. It had once been not-so-light
, but I’d owned it for so long and worn and washed it so much (at one point, post-Rogan-debacle, I’d worn it for days), it was now thinner, but more comfortable and soft as a baby’s skin.
I shrugged this on over my little pink nightie and tied the belt. Then I went to the kitchen, made coffee, toasted Pop-Tarts, and once the coffee was done, I took it and my breakfast out to the deck.
I set my mug on the railing and sat down, eating my tarts, leaning forward to grab my mug and take a sip when I needed it, my gaze to the view and the calming sound of a not very rapidly flowing creek serenading me.
All you could see, left, right and center, was tranquility.
It was just trees, and a creek, and the gravel lane that led up to Buck’s house.
But there were also hummingbirds. And squirrels dashing about.
I wondered one day if I’d see deer.
Yesterday, I’d discovered that the roads leading up to his place had houses like Buck’s, tucked in the trees.
Still, whoever planned the lots and built the homes did it for maximum solitude. They were there but you had to search to find them, a hint of roof, the sun gleaming off a window, a chimney.
If you didn’t make that effort, you could feel comfortably alone.
Once done with my tarts, I took the plate inside, put it in the dishwasher, refreshed my mug, went back out and settled again in my chair.
The minute I rested my feet on the railing, Minnie’s words hit my brain.
And he chooses you, Clara. If he decides to make you his old lady and do that official, he’ll always come back to you. And that’s something. I promise you, babe. Not blowing sunshine up your ass. Especially with a man like Buck, that’s definitely something.
She would know. She knew him better than me.
Then I thought of how Ink was with Lorie, how Cruise greeted Pinky and held her close, and all the many ways that Buck could be gentle, sweet, funny and protective.
From what they said, Lorie and Pinky put up with what they had to put up with to get what they got from their men.
And what they got, I noticed, was good.
Other men, I knew, were not so good.
Like my adoptive father, who left my clearly mentally ill mother to try it alone…and fail. And he never came back, not even when the child he’d assumed responsibility for had no one else to turn to.
Then there was Rogan.
Also Esposito.
I stared at a view I knew, down deep in my heart, I would never fail to find beauty in, to gain peace from.
I did this knowing I was right to go the way of the biker babe.
This was not what Rogan did. This was not hiding it and breaking trust.
First, Buck and I hadn’t been together a week. We hadn’t had the exclusive conversation.
Though I knew what we had was something.
I also knew it was something for him.
It wasn’t that I was living with him, all moved in and everything.
That was necessity.
It was that I’d met his kids, and according to Gear, they’d never had another of Buck’s women in their lives.
Not even Nails.
So this was most assuredly something, for both of us.
But he’d done what he’d done practically under my nose, and although this did not seem de rigueur in the biker world with the way the girls had reacted to it, it was still part of the life they led. And maybe Buck thought I understood that.
I knew, though, bottom-lining this, that in the end, if Buck chose me, I’d have something.
Something was always better than nothing.
That said, the important part was that the something I’d have with Buck, I knew from what he’d given me already, would be better than other men had to offer.
A lot better.
On that thought, I heard the door open and I twisted to see Buck walking out wearing nothing but jeans, displaying skin, muscle and tattoos. His hair was a mess and his eyes could only be described as “bedroom” since he looked like he’d woken up only a second before.
It was a very good look.
And there it was.
Proof that with Buck, something was a whole lot better than nothing.
“Hi,” I said softly.
His good morning was to walk up to me, cup the back of my head, bend at the waist and kiss me hard and with lots of tongue.
It was the best good morning I’d ever had.
Oh yes, with Buck, that something would be a whole lot better.
His mouth released mine, but when I opened my eyes, I was surprised to see his were displeased.
“You wake up early, babe, when the kids are sleepin’ or whenever, you fuckin’ wake me, yeah?”
I felt my brows hitch up.
They did this because, yes.
He was angry.
“Okay,” I agreed quietly.
“And you do it with your mouth and I don’t mean talkin’.”
“Okay,” I repeated, my mind struggling with surprise, my body fighting a happy shiver.
He kept issuing orders.
“And you can do it by suckin’ my tongue in that mouth or you can suck somethin’ else into it.”
“Oh…” I breathed, feeling my nipples getting hard, “’kay.”
Once done issuing orders, he took my coffee cup right out of my hand, straightened and raised it to his lips, taking a sip.
After that intimate gesture, he sat in the chair Gear had set beside mine the night before and lifted his legs high, setting the heels of his bare feet on the top railing and crossing his ankles.
And he didn’t give me back my coffee.
“Do you, um…want me to get you some coffee?” I offered.
He lifted my mug slightly, scowling at the landscape.
“Already got some.”
Okeydokey.
“Do you want me to make you some Pop-Tarts?” I asked, and his head turned to me.
Oh dear.
I’d done something else to make him unhappy.
“Saturday and Sunday, babe, I make breakfast.”
This sounded like the twelfth commandment, therefore I made a note of it.
“I already had Pop-Tarts,” I admitted.
His eyes narrowed.
Then he looked back at the scenery and took another sip of my coffee.
Hmm.
He wasn’t normally a bear in the mornings.
Apparently, someone woke up moody.
“I’m going to go get myself a cup and let you have your mood,” I muttered.
I felt his eyes on me, the feeling of them was venomous, and I froze before I took my feet from the railing and looked at him.
“Not in a mood, Toots.”
“You seem like it to me.”
“Woman,” he started, and I braced. He’d never called me “woman” before and I didn’t think that was a good sign. “Been sleepin’ next to you for days, finally got my hand on your ass and your tongue in my mouth and my daughter comes home and pukes on the floor. Commence fuckin’ teenage-kid, drunk drama, and I reckon you’re in no mood after dealin’ with that shit. Then I wake up to an empty bed. So I’m not in a fuckin’ mood,” he leaned into me, “I’m fuckin’ frustrated.”
This was interesting.
Although I knew he could go all night with the energy of a teenager, and he was definitely all man as in all man, thus I knew he had a very healthy sex drive, still, he’d had Nails just the day before.
But he was acting like he hadn’t had sex since the dawn of time.
Maybe he and Nails just made out and didn’t do the deed.
This would be a relief.
A fleeting one, considering I didn’t spend every hour of every day with him, and he’d not only had, but would continue to have ample opportunity to carry on in that manner.
But perhaps he didn’t do that yesterday, then kiss me and later start something with me.
And yes.
That was a relief.
I didn’t question this verbally, for obvious reasons, the primary one being my own peace of mind.
Instead, I thought the prudent way to play it was to whisper, “Point taken.”
He twisted his neck, and I did too, to see Gear wandering out onto the deck wearing a pair of drawstring gray sweats cut off at the knees and nothing else.
Good golly, I hoped he kept his clothes on around girls. With his hair a mess like his dad’s, sleep in his eyes like his dad’s, and a six-pack that was as defined as his dad’s, except leaner, if they got one look at him, they’d tear him limb from limb.
He dragged a chair to my other side, sat in it, lifted his heels to the railing just as his father’s were and sipped from his own coffee.
“Mornin’,” he muttered to the view.
“You sleep okay, Gear?” I asked.
“Yep,” he answered.
“Good,” I whispered.
Then, for some reason, Gear said on a question, “Eggs, pancakes, waffles or French toast?”
“Your choice today, Gear,” Buck replied.
“Totally French toast,” Gear stated then took another sip of coffee.
I looked at Buck and saw him sip at mine.
“I’m getting coffee,” I mumbled, taking my feet from the railing and putting my hands to the arms of the chair, pushing myself up.
I was attempting to squeeze through the small space between Buck’s and my chairs when Buck’s fingers wrapped around my wrist.
I looked down at him to see he was looking up at me.
“Get it and get your ass back out here.”
Still moody.
And domineering.
I nodded.
He let me go, and I only braved my muttered, “Moody,” when I was at the door to the house.
I got my coffee and then took my ass back out there.
After I settled in my chair and put my feet on the railing, Buck did an ab curl, wrapped his arm around my thighs and pulled my bent legs to rest against his elevated ones. Then he left his arm wrapped around my thighs, though in sitting back, it slid so it was wrapped at my upper thighs at the same time my chair with me in it scooted the scant inches that were present to close the distance that separated it from Buck’s.
Still Standing Page 18