“Uhhm. You hit me,” I said unconvincingly.
His hands shot into the air. The abrupt motion caused his long hair to fall, partially hiding his contorted face. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” he howled. “This state allows lane-splitting when done in a safe and prudent fuckin’ manner. It’s your fuckin’ responsibility to watch what the fuck you’re doing. Slinging your fuckin’ door open ain’t on the list.”
List?
“What list?”
He brushed his hair away from his eyes. “The responsible fuckin’ behavior list.”
Despite the countless f-bombs, he sounded sure of himself.
Suddenly, I felt small.
Microscopic, really.
“Uhhm. I’ve...” I stammered.
He continued his evil-eyed stare.
I forced a smile. “Sure, I’ve got you covered.”
He glanced at his knuckles, looked at his battered motorcycle, and then reached for the row of switches mounted on the handlebars. After a few attempts, the engine started. He then straddled the seat and turned on the stereo.
And old-school rap song began to play over the speakers.
The small gathering of people stared with open mouths as he revved the engine. Appearing to be mere seconds from his departure, he cocked his head to the side and shouted over the rumbling exhaust.
“I’m gonna be late for a fuckin’ meeting. Give me your number, we’ll settle this up later.”
I took a few steps toward him.
He pulled his helmet over his long hair and glanced at his knuckles again. Undoubtedly expecting my telephone number, he looked up and shook his head. He was disgusted with me, and I felt terrible.
I didn’t respond. At least for that moment in time, I couldn’t.
Somehow his eyes commanded every ounce of my attention, and I wasn’t a person who typically cared about someone’s eyes. Muscles had always been my weakness, and although he was built like a professional football player, it seemed his mysterious gaze had me not caring in the least. After spending a moment trying to decide if his eyes were green or brown, I gave up and offered him all I could afford to give.
“I’m a nurse,” I explained. “At least let me take a look at your--”
He barked out a laugh. “I don’t need you to take a look at any fuckin’ thing.” He reached into the pocket of his jeans, mumbled something, and pulled out his phone. “What’s your fuckin’ number?”
With my eyes still locked on his, I recited my phone number. “6-1-9-4-4-7-1-0-2-0.”
He broke my gaze, tapped his finger against the screen, and then looked up. “Name?”
Hazel. His eyes were hazel. My mouth curled into a smile. “Tegan.”
“What?”
“Tegan,” I shouted. “T-E-G-A-N.”
“Tegan.” He nodded and then put on his sunglasses. “What’s your last name?”
“Rassini. R-A-S-S-I-N-I.”
He pulled his motorcycle forward a few feet, positioned it between the vehicles, and then glanced over his shoulder. “You better answer the fuckin’ phone when I call.”
“I will,” I said, although at that particular moment, I couldn’t receive a call if I wanted to.
As he rode away, I made note of the patch embroidered on the back of his vest.
Filthy Fuckers MC.
It didn’t sound like the name of a motorcycle club I wanted to piss off.
But it was far too late to prevent that from happening. I was sure of it.
I stared beyond the two-dozen onlookers who had gathered, and, as he sped off, hoped I got my phone bill paid before he tried to call me.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Pee Bee
“That’s not an answer, it’s an excuse,” I fumed. “He said he was on the floor for almost a fuckin’ hour.”
“That’s an exaggeration.” She sighed and then looked at me. “I stepped out here for no more than a minute to answer a phone call, just like I said. That’s it. When I went back inside, he was out of his wheelchair.”
My father’s nurse and I were on the front porch in a heated argument. He said she had left him unattended for an hour, and she was denying it. I knew better than to question him about his claim; he was a lot of things, but a liar wasn’t one of them.
“So, my Pop’s a liar?”
She flipped her hair over her shoulder and shot me a look. “I didn’t say that.”
“You sure as fuck did. He said an hour, you said a minute. One of you is full of shit.”
I’d hired her because she was supposed to be caring and capable. Now, however, she was the woman who had abused my father, and that was all.
She lowered her head for a few seconds, and then looked up. “Listen, I’m not going to stand here and let you talk to me like I’m some--”
“Like you’re some what?” I folded my arms in front of my chest and let out a breath. “An incompetent bitch?”
Her face contorted. “I can’t believe you just called me a bitch.”
“I can’t believe you let him lay on the floor for a fuckin’ hour,” I snapped back. “You’re fired.”
She’d been my father’s caregiver for two weeks, and I had nothing but complaints from him since day one. Her failure to tend to his needs had been a topic of discussion since she’d arrived, and leaving him on the floor beside his wheelchair for an hour was the final straw.
“Good luck getting someone to watch that old prick,” she snarled as she turned away. “He’s a fucking asshole. All he does is cuss and bitch.”
“If you weren’t a woman, I’d beat--”
She spun around. “And if you didn’t owe me a week’s wages, I’d kick your big dumb ass in the nuts.”
I grabbed my wallet, pulled out $1,500, and tossed it into the air. “Beat feet, bitch.”
As the bills fluttered over the edge of the porch, she scrambled to pick them up before they blew away.
I turned toward the door, yanked it open, and stomped inside.
My father lowered his Kindle and looked up. With one arm in a sling, the other in a cast, and one of his legs fixed straight with a knee brace, he looked like sheer hell.
“You send her ass down the highway?” he asked.
I sat down on the couch beside him. “Sure did.”
He shook his head and then started reading again. “She couldn’t cook a piece of bacon to save her fuckin’ soul. And, all she did was yack on her phone. Facebook, Twitter. Boyfriends.”
His lack of mobility hadn’t affected his attentive nature, that was for sure. I looked him over. On the surface, he seemed as healthy as he’d always been, but I realized he wasn’t. The fact that I had no one to watch him began to sink in. Although I knew I’d made the right decision in firing his nurse, I began to fill with worry.
“She said it was nothing but a minute while she answered a phone call. I got sick of listening to her lying ass.”
He didn’t bother looking up.
“You sure you’re alright?” I asked.
He reached for his 32-ounce tumbler of water, lifted it to his mouth with a shaking hand, and took a long drink.
“Alright? I’ve got a broken wrist, blown-out knee, broken ankle, and a dislocated shoulder. I can’t stand, I can’t fuckin’ walk, I can barely sit, and I’ve got to have someone else wipe my fuckin’ ass. Hell, I can barely hold up this fuckin’ Kindle without collapsing from the pain, but I’m doing it because this book is too god damned good to stop reading.” He let out a light laugh. “I’ve been better, Son.”
He may have been in bad physical shape, but his attitude hadn’t been damaged one bit.
“I meant from laying on the floor for an hour,” I said. “Nothing else is bothering you, is it?”
“Now that she’s gone?” He set the water aside and reached for his Kindle. “Nope.”
“I’ll stay here ‘till mom gets off, but I’m gonna have to find someone else to take over.”
“Well, I didn’t think you were goin
g to be my new nurse.” He cleared his throat, but kept his eyes fixed on his Kindle. “Instead of getting another off that fuckin’ Craigslist, why don’t you call one of those placement services? They send out a nurse, and if I don’t like her, you can just send her back and get another.”
I’d investigated a few such professional services, but the cost was twice what I’d been paying. The only other choice was to send him to a nursing home, and that wasn’t an option.
“I’ll look into it.”
He laid the Kindle in his lap and looked up. “While she’s here, maybe you can have her take a look at that arm of yours. You look like you got shot at and missed and shit on and hit.”
“It’s fine.”
It wasn’t. I looked like I’d been in a fight with a Grizzly bear and lost.
“Looks like a four-foot long chunk of hamburger. One of these days you’re gonna get killed.”
“I wasn’t doing anything wrong, Pop. Dumb bitch opened her door while me and the fellas were flying up the 5.”
“That’s been my point since you started riding, dipshit. This traffic isn’t safe for anything short of a fuckin’ tank, let alone a bunch of half-drunken bikers on motorcycles. Whole world’s full of idiots, and most of ‘em live in this state. You need to park that son-of-a-bitch before you go and get your dumb self killed.”
“I ain’t parking it.”
“Alright, then.” His eyes fell to his e-reader. “I’ll get my nurse to push me to your funeral.”
I stood. “I’m gonna make a sandwich. You need anything?”
He nodded. “If you’ve got a minute.”
“Whatever you need, Pop.”
He exhaled, and then looked up. His slight smile slowly diminished, leaving him with a face filled with nothing but need. “I hate to be a burden.”
I met his gaze. “Just tell me what you need.”
“I need my nuts scratched,” he said stone-faced.
I let out a sigh and flipped him the bird as I turned toward the kitchen. “Asshole.”
He chuckled. “I wear it like a badge of honor.”
He was brash and had an abrasive personality, but being exposed to it since childhood allowed me to dismiss damned near everything that spilled from his lips as being nothing more than him masking his true feelings.
He had a great heart, but wasn’t one to allow his emotions to come to the surface. His attitude, however, was impossible to conceal. In recent years we’d become as close as any father and son could be, and although he wasn’t one to ever discuss how he felt, I knew he loved me as much as anyone could.
When I was almost finished making the perfect sandwich, I heard a dull thud. I scrambled to the living room and found him on the floor, halfway between his recliner and the wheelchair.
I bent down and slipped my arm under his shoulder. “God damn it, Pop. What were you doing?”
“A man’s gotta piss from time to time,” he growled. “And having someone get my cock out is pretty fucking demeaning.”
“I just asked you if you needed anything.” I carefully lifted him into his wheelchair. “Not five fuckin’ minutes ago.”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” he said. “Dig in that pocket of yours and pull me out a handful of dignity, would you?”
For the first time since he’d slipped and fell, I realized he’d lost much more than his ability to walk.
And now, knowing it hurt like hell.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Tegan
I had never considered myself to be religious, but I was convinced God was no longer looking down on me with a merciless heart.
I held the phone firmly in my hand while I paced my living room floor. “Oh my God. That’s amazing. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “There’s only one catch.”
“What is it. Not that I care, but--”
“You’ve got to start tomorrow at 7:00 a.m.”
“That’s the catch? It’s more like a gift.”
“It’s refreshing to think you look at it that way.”
“And it’s full time, right?”
“Seven days a week, at a fixed daily rate of $200 a day. If you want five days instead of seven, we can get someone to relieve you two days a week.”
“I’ll take the seven.”
“Sounds great. We’ll need you to stop in this afternoon and fill out the paperwork, though.”
El Cajon was only ten minutes away. I fought against my urge to let out a celebratory scream. “I can be there in fifteen minutes.”
“I’m looking forward having you aboard, Tegan. Thank you.”
“Goodbye, Mrs. French.”
She hung up.
I tossed my phone onto the couch and ran to my bedroom. After rifling through the clothes in my closet, I chose an outfit, ironed it, and then ran all the way to my car. Within minutes, I was on highway 67 speeding toward El Cajon.
A handsome thirty-something year old passed me in a Mercedes, slowed down, and then took another long look. After an unobstructed eyeful of me, he shook his head.
Completely comfortable with my strikingly odd vehicle situation, I waved. He returned a smile, obviously amused not by me, but by my doorless ride.
Most women my age would find driving a 1985 Toyota Corolla belittling. The few who didn’t would certainly find driving the same car with one missing door to be so, and probably to a very high degree.
I looked at it as a blessing.
I got a lot of funny looks, but the summer’s heat was now bearable.
Half a dozen odd stares later, and I’d reached my destination. After parking at the curb and walking through the empty parking lot, I stepped through the door and up to the receptionist’s desk.
The bubblegum chewing blonde met me with a smile.
“Tegan Rassini to see Mrs. French,” I said.
“Oh. She left this up here for you to sign,” she said, producing a quarter-inch-thick stack of paperwork. “And, I’ll need a copy of your driver’s license and your social security card or a passport.”
I handed her the two forms of I.D. “Here.”
“I’ve marked where you need to sign, and there’s a blank copy for you to keep,” she said. “And, for what it’s worth, this guy’s big. He weighs like 220 pounds.”
“That’s not a problem.” I lowered my tone of voice to a more masculine one and flexed my right bicep. “I work out.”
She looked at my arm, and then at me. She seemed unamused. “We’ll see what you say after a few days. If we need to get a hoist in there, we will.”
“I should be okay.” I reached for the stack of paperwork. “Can you tell me what happened? So I don’t have to ask him?”
“He was in good health a month ago, I guess. He slipped on a banana peel, fell on the floor, and broke his shoulder, wrist, ankle, and knee. The shoulder’s on one side, and the knee’s on the other. It sounds like he should be in a body cast, but he’s not.”
“Oh. Wow.”
“I know, right?”
“I’m supposed to start in the morning,” I said, trying my best to hide my excitement. I tilted my head toward a magazine-filled table surrounded by three chairs. “Can I fill this out over there?”
She smiled. “Sure.”
“Be right back.”
A seven day a week job that paid $200 a day would allow me to not only pay for the repairs to the man’s motorcycle, but fixing my car was certainly on the future’s horizon. This was exactly the break I had been waiting for.
Five years of college was finally going to pay off. In no time I would be able to call the big bad biker back and make some sort of believable excuse for not responding to his repeated messages.
I filled out the paperwork, signed everything, and then handed her the forms.
“All done,” I said with a smile.
“Here’s your stuff.” She slid my driver’s license and social security card across her desk. “And, for what it’s worth, this guy’s so
n is hot as fuck.”
“Oh really?”
“Uh huh. He came in here this morning.” She glanced over each shoulder and then leaned forward. “His feet were huge,” she whispered. She raised her hand and spread her fingers apart. “Hands, too.”
It was more information than I really needed. “Oooookay.”
Having a man in my life meant spending money unnecessarily. It was a luxury I couldn’t afford. To be honest, I wasn’t interested in men even if they were free. Men did one thing with regularity, and one thing only.
They left.
Her smile faded. “Uhhm. It was nice to meet you.”
I shot her a fake grin. “Same. Thank you.”
On my way to the car, I called the biker, fully intending to leave a message. My experience with bikers led me to believe that he spent all day on his motorcycle, and I seriously doubted he’d answer the phone. Much to my surprise, he did on the second ring.
“About fucking time,” he howled. “Why the fuck haven’t you answered?”
I took a deep breath. He made me nervous. Not a little bit, a lot. The teenage kind of nervous.
“My phone was shut off, and then I got it back on, but they cancelled my insurance--”
“You don’t have any fuckin’ insurance?” he screamed.
“I’m getting it resolved,” I said. “All I’ve got to do is--”
“You fucking better. It’s $3,500 worth of damage, and I sure as fuck ain’t paying for it.”
I fell through the opening in the side of my car and landed in the seat. “I promise you, I’ll get it taken care of. I’m dependable like that. I set my sights on something, and the next thing you know--”
“My bike’s bashed all to fuck. It better be quick.”
“It will,” I responded. “I’ve got a new job, and if I have to, I’ll pay for it out of my own pocket.”
Although I had every intention of getting my insurance up-to-date, paying for his damage out of my pocket was exactly what I was going to have to do, regardless.
“I don’t give a fuck if you’ve got to turn tricks, you better get me some fuckin’ money.”
HOT as F*CK Page 19