He shrugged, feeling a little itchy, a little angry, for reasons he didn’t understand. “I’m not good for her, though. So she shouldn’t stay.”
Aidan and Mercy looked at each other, and then looked at him again. “No,” Aidan said. “We’re not going down that bullshit soap opera road.”
“It’s not bullshit.”
“Yeah, it is,” Aidan continued. “You are not bad for people. That’s totally untrue that you’re bad for her. So pushing her away hurts her, and it hurts you, and it’s fucking stupid.”
“Thanks, doc,” Tango shot back. “Whit is twenty–”
“She bought wine,” Aidan reminded.
“Twenty-one, then,” Tango huffed. “Whatever. She’s a kid. She’s a kid who doesn’t need to be saddled with a recovering drug addict ex-hooker who tried to kill himself.”
He threw the words across the room at them, low, but heavy as stones. He swore he heard them hit the floor.
Neither of his friends looked shocked, and Tango realized, with a hot flush of shame, that he’d wanted to shock them. Say something dark and violent that had them backpedaling.
Mercy said, “If it was about being with someone we were good for, I’d still be alone.”
Tango looked down at his lap.
“Sometimes,” Mercy continued. “It’s okay to be a little bit selfish, if it’s for the right reason.”
~*~
The girls made fried chicken – double batter, from Mags’ recipe – with roasted veggies and rice dripping with butter. Tango put too much food on his plate, wanting to look like he was making an effort, and settled in with the idea that he would mostly just pick, and mostly just listen.
But he’d forgotten what family dinner was like. And God, he hated that, that he’d been so stuck inside himself he’d actually forgotten what it was like to be a part of this crazy bunch of brothers and sisters he had.
And tonight there was Whitney. And he felt guilty for bringing her, because she was sweet, and she was the sort of person who got attached to things, to other people, and she couldn’t stay, not long term. He didn’t want her heart to break when the split happened.
Such morose thoughts were interrupted by Ava saying, “Tango, none of my baked goods gave you food poisoning, did they?” She grinned at him across the table.
He knew what she was doing, and was actually grateful for it.
“None of them,” he confirmed.
“I don’t believe you,” Aidan said.
“You’re eating my food right now,” Ava said.
“Yeah, but Sam and Whitney helped you. So…”
“So you think Sam didn’t let me slip that laxative into your rice?”
“You didn’t.”
“Guess you’ll find out in about fifteen minutes.”
Aidan made a horrified face.
Tango snorted a laugh…and then another. And then he was laughing freely with everyone else at the table.
~*~
Aidan had not been dosed with laxative, a conclusion he reached a solid half-hour after dinner when the kids were asleep – Lainie tucked in with her cousins – and they were parked in front of the TV and a cable showing of Inception.
“This movie’s fucked up,” Aidan said.
“Yeah,” Mercy agreed.
Tango sat on the end of the sofa, elbow braced on the arm, and Whitney had decided to sit on the floor in front of him, leaning back against his knees. The movie could have been fucked up, could have been wonderful, could have been hardcore porn for all that it registered on him, nothing but flashing colors and sounds. He was consumed by the physical connection of her back touching his shins. In a very, very unhealthy way.
Dinner had gone so well, and Whitney had seemed to be having a great time. It was still early, and a movie had sounded like a good way to have another beer, unwind a little more. But now he was in knots, without a prayer of unwinding.
He kept thinking of Jasmine. Not that he wanted her here, or wished it was her instead of Whitney. God no. But he kept imagining what Jasmine would do in this situation, if they were in the clubhouse.
She would twist around slowly, sliding a hand up the inside of his thigh, looking up at him from beneath her lashes. She would give him that smile that was an invitation. Would tease at his inseam with her nails until she finally reached the bulge of his cock behind his fly. Then she would laugh, a deep throaty chuckle, and tug down his zipper, take him in her hand…
He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his head back against the sofa. Don’t get hard, he begged his traitorous cock, that organ that had claimed his life. Please, not here, not in front of everyone, not with Whitney.
“Hey,” Mercy said quietly, touching his shoulder. “You alright?”
That got Whitney’s attention. She turned around, and between his legs, he saw her huge pale eyes, her perfect little mouth, and…
Yeah. He couldn’t do this.
“Yeah,” he gasped. “Yeah, just…ju…excuse me.” He lurched to his feet, nearly kicking Whitney over in the process, and bolted for the guest bathroom. He locked himself in with shaking hands and slumped back against the door.
Fuck.
The walk to the bathroom hadn’t helped. If anything, the friction from his jeans had only furthered the problem. Here he was at a friend’s house, on a goddamn dinner and movie night, with a perfectly sweet girl for company, and he had a hard-on emergency.
Because he was nothing but a pleasure object, and always would be, no matter what he said to Mercy in his living room. Shit, like that was even real therapy? It was a joke, is what it was.
He took a deep breath and let his eyes track across the room, searching for a grounding point. It was the guest bathroom, after all, so there was a moss green shower curtain, matching towels, a few boxy candles and bars of decorative soap on the counter. But there was also a stool for Remy, and he knew there would be toys and bath sponges if he looked behind the shower curtain. Doubtless blue little boy toothbrushes and bubble gum toothpaste in the drawers. Name brand bubble gum toothpaste, probably, and not that gritty, awful stuff he’d scrubbed and scrubbed his tongue with when he was living in Miss Carla’s basement, when his mouth tasted like…
He gagged before he could catch himself.
It was just a dry, useless heave, but he leaned forward and tucked his head between his knees. “God,” he whispered. Or maybe he prayed. He didn’t know; he was pretty sure God wouldn’t want to talk to the likes of him, after all the things he’d done.
A knock sounded on the door, the vibrations moving through him. Mercy’s voice: “Hey, tiny dancer, listen. The last thing I want is to be standing outside when somebody’s in the bathroom, you know? But I think I need to make sure you’re alright. You hurdled Whitney back there.”
“Shit.” He let his head fall back against the door. “Is she okay?”
“Fine. Just worried about you.”
“I’m…I don’t think I’m okay.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. Can you open up?”
Tango managed to get to his feet, holding himself upright against the wall, and unlocked the door. When Mercy opened it, he shuffled over to sit on the closed toilet lid, elbows resting on his knees.
Mercy propped a hip against the counter, and looked about as nonthreatening as a six-five Cajun pro-torturer could look. Which wasn’t much. “What set you off?”
He bit his lip, face hot with shame. “Whitney.”
Mercy’s brows lifted. “Whitney?”
He nodded, miserable. “I…I started out just liking her there. Leaning against me. But then…shit, then I started thinking – and it wasn’t that I wanted to, but it just happened – about what Jazz would do, if she were sitting like that.”
“Oh,” Mercy said.
“And then I started thinking that I wished Whitney would do that. And that’s so…it’s so…terrible of me to think. And I shouldn’t. And she’s not that type of girl,” he started to rush, chest tight with p
anic. “So I came in here, and then…toothpaste,” he said like an idiot. “And Carla, and…” He let out a defeated, trembling sigh and dropped his face into his hands. “It doesn’t make any sense, I know. I’m sorry.”
It was silent a long beat, long enough that Tango became convinced he’d just freaked the poor man out. He gapped his fingers and peeked through them.
Mercy looked thoughtful, though, and not freaked out. His dark eyes flicked across Tango’s face. “Can I say something as your ghetto therapist and not as myself?”
“Okay…”
“Ask something, actually. And it’s not gonna be comfortable.”
He swallowed. “Okay.”
“In our last session, you told me about…what you told me about.”
Blowing someone for the first time when he was eight. He swallowed again, the imagined taste of salt on his tongue. “Yeah.”
“Maybe that’s what’s causing this little panic attack,” Mercy suggested. “Bringing the old shit back up. Maybe it had nothing to do with Jazz, or wanting Whitney to do what Jazz would do. Maybe it was just about the memories, and them getting you all turned around.”
“Maybe,” he said, unconvinced. “This isn’t a panic attack, though.”
“No?”
“No, I know what those feel like.”
Mercy’s expression became a little helpless, and it was almost sweet. “I’ve been reading up on therapy. On the types of things that therapists say to help victims of…”
He didn’t say sexual abuse, and Tango was grateful for it.
“There’s so much I don’t know,” Mercy continued. “If you wanted to see a professional–”
“No,” Tango said, vehemently. “I don’t. I can’t.”
“There’s no shame in–”
“I’m a Lean Dog,” Tango said, bristling. “I’m a member of one of the largest, most notorious, most well-respected MCs in the entire world. Members of that club don’t cry on therapists’ couches. They shove their shit down where it belongs, and they sure as shit don’t freak out about it in people’s bathrooms. Jesus Christ, why haven’t you guys taken my patches yet? What’s wrong with you that you’d let me stay?” He was stupidly, unreasonably, spitting mad all of a sudden.
Mercy scowled at him. “You’re a member of this club. It isn’t about us ‘letting’ you stay. You belong here.”
A low, angry laugh bubbled in his throat. “Belong here? In what way, exactly? I’m an ex-junkie, ex-stripper, ex-hooker bisexual freak of nature who’s tried to kill himself twice. I’m not even a man. I’m not even sure I’m human. In what alternate fucking universe do I belong in this club?”
He expected a number of responses. He didn’t expect Mercy to hit him. Which he did. And he realized, the moment the loose fist connected with the side of his face, that he’d never been hit by Mercy before, and definitely, definitely didn’t want it to happen again. Ever.
He flew off the toilet and landed with his torso in the tub, his feet sticking out of it, the shower curtain threatening to pull loose of its rod up top.
Before he could register shock, or the fact that his face was now on fire, Mercy hooked a hand in the crook of his elbow and hauled him upright, sitting him back on the toilet as if Tango were no more than a doll.
When he was steady, or mostly so, Mercy braced a hand on the top of his head, bending down to peer into his eyes. “Didn’t rattle your brain, did I?”
It hurt to open his mouth, his jaw numb from the blow. “No.”
“Shame. I wanted to.” He straightened, sighed, propped his giant face-hitting hands on his hips. “Here’s the thing. Since I’m trying to act like a real therapist, I’m not going to validate you – yeah, validate, that’s a therapy word – when you say stupid shit like you’re not a man, or not a human, or whatever other idiot things you’re thinking. Because what happened to you – bro, it happened to you. Someone did awful, awful, illegal things to a kid, to a lot of kids, it sounds like, and that wasn’t something you could control. And it doesn’t make you not a man, or not a human. Do you understand me? Or do you need to meet Leftie too?” He held up his other fist for demonstration.
“I wasn’t just a kid when I was sixteen,” Tango whispered, and to his shame realized he was close to crying. “At The Nest…I could have left, then. Tried to.”
“Except they had you hooked on heroin, and they still had a lock on the door, and you’d been conditioned for years and years by that bitch, and you weren’t able to leave. You honest to God couldn’t get up and walk away, Tango. That’s the point. You were still imprisoned, your age had nothing to do with it.”
“Or is that just the lie people tell themselves so they don’t feel so guilty?”
“It’s the truth,” Mercy said, and Tango had no idea if this was research talking, or a bluff, or a desperate lie. Maybe all three at once. “What’s happening now? This is a setback. I figured you’d have one. But it’s just that, a setback, and it doesn’t mean you’re stuck, or that we shouldn’t keep going, ‘cause I think we should. It’s helping at least a little, right?”
Tango nodded, and Mercy grew nervous.
“I’m really starting to wish you’d go to a pro, though. I’m fucked up, but I’m not exactly versed in becoming un-fucked up.”
“No. No pro.”
Mercy sighed and dragged a hand through his long hair. “Look. Maybe you ought to get a good night’s sleep and you’ll feel better in the morning.”
Yeah right. But he nodded. Then a thought struck him, froze him cold on the spot. “Whitney.”
“What about her?”
“I’m not sure I should be alone with her tonight.”
“Um, what?”
“What if I…what if…” He took a ragged breath and wet his lips; flexing his tongue hurt; he could already feel the bruising coloring his jaw. “What if I hurt her…or something?”
Mercy gave him a withering look. “Hurt her how? Kick her in the head when you go leaping out of the room?”
The answer was so unexpected, a grin touched his mouth before he could help it.
Mercy touched the top of his head again, gentle and paternal this time. His expression softened. “I won’t say you aren’t a lot of things, because I know you are. We all are. We’re screwed up, all of us. But you have the capacity to love, too. And you would never hurt anyone you love. I trust you. Trust yourself a little too.”
~*~
“God, what happened to your face?” Whitney asked, gasping, when they were home and standing under the living room lights. She started to reach for him, then winced sympathetically and thought better of it. “Kev?”
“Um…” He felt a blush adding layers of pink to the red blossoming on the left side of his jaw. “Little accident.”
“When?”
“Right before we left. I kinda…fell into the bathtub.”
Her brows plucked upward. “Fell into the bathtub?”
“I tripped.”
“You only had two beers.”
“A regular trip, not a drunk one.”
“Okay.” She took a step back, sliding her coat off her shoulders, suspicious. “You okay?”
“Fine.” He gave her a sad attempt at a smile to demonstrate.
She didn’t believe him, he could tell. Even her back seemed doubtful, when she turned to hang up her coat.
The problem was, though, that his gaze didn’t stop with her back, that little knot of tension between the fragile wings of her shoulder blades. No, his traitorous, perverted eyes traveled downward, tracing the delicate inward curve of her waist – he could put both his hands there and his fingertips would almost touch on either side – and then farther, to the full round curve of her ass, the swell of her hips, slender legs.
Every single experience he’d ever had with a woman had involved some shoulder rolling, and ass shaking, and come-hither looks, Cheshire cat smiles. One of the groupies? Jazz? They would have wanted him to push them up against the wall and take the
m right there.
What would Whitney do if he tried that?
The thought, the pure speculation of it, got him half-hard.
Because he was a sick freak.
When Whitney turned back around, he took a step back, and her face fell.
“What?” she asked.
He edged another step back. “I…”
Her gaze dropped to the front of his jeans. Shit.
“Oh,” she whispered.
“I’m gonna take a shower.” When he started to move away, she plucked at his sleeve.
“No, wait a second. Please.”
“So you can stare at the tent in my jeans some more?” he asked, rude and too embarrassed to care. This must be why people wore skinny jeans; you didn’t have enough circulation to properly get it up, so you never had this kind of situation.
Her eyes bored into his, small chin lifted at a brave angle. “Is this what happened during the movie? When you ran to the bathroom?”
He rubbed the back of his neck and didn’t answer.
“Kev, it’s okay.”
“It is definitely not okay.”
“Says who?”
“Says the sick creep who got hard watching you take your jacket off and wondering…” God, was he actually saying these things out loud? He clamped his mouth shut, teeth grinding together.
Her eyes widened a little. “Wondering what?”
“You really don’t want to know.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
“Whit…”
“You used to let me help you,” she said. “Calling me when you woke from a nightmare? That was asking for help. And sure, I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, but we at least talked. And I hope it helped. I…” She sighed. “So talk to me now. Tell me what you’re wondering. Why you think this is wrong.”
“I will not put my shit on you,” he said, and started to shake. “I just won’t.”
“Kev.” She was so steady, so certain, so poised. How could she be? Didn’t she know she was in the room with a monster?
Loverboy (Dartmoor Book 5) Page 14