Chapter Three – Angela
Chapter Three
Angela
“Rabbit! Vitamin time!” I shouted. I had gold heels in one hand and an eyedropper in the other. “Rabbit!”
“He’s not deaf, you know,” my mother said as she rolled in on her scooter—exhibit A in why I couldn’t have left town, besides.
I couldn’t go without my mother—and ever since her hip went bad, there was no where she could go without her scooter.
Taking an elderly woman on an interstate trip to avoid your ex-boyfriend’s motorcycle gang didn’t sound like a recipe for success.
And there was no way I could leave her behind. I knew the Pack. Who knew what they’d do to her to get to me?
“I know he’s not deaf, mother, but he still needs his vitamins.”
“Those aren’t vitamins though. I looked them up online. You keep taking that shit, and you’ll turn blue.”
“Keep your googling to yourself, all right?” I whispered, then shouted, “Rabbit! Get down here!”
My son tromped down the flight of steps from his bedroom to the landing in our apartment’s kitchen. “But Mom,” he complained.
“No. No buts. Not tonight. I’m in no mood,” I snapped—and regretted it, as I watched him wince and shut down. My Rabbit was a sensitive boy. “I’m sorry. Work was rough—and I’ve got to go soon. Can you just come here and take these for me?”
He came forward, shy as a kicked puppy. Which was…I didn’t want to think about it. He opened his mouth, just out of reach, and I squirted his ‘vitamins’ in—then got another eyedropper full from the bottle to take myself.
“That stuff—” my mother started.
“When’s the last time we ever got sick?—” I said, asking the both of them. “Never. See? They work.”
“They make my stomach hurt,” Rabbit said.
“Mine too. But it’s worth it, okay? C’mere,” I said, and ruffled his fine blonde hair with one hand while I pulled a heel on with the other.
“And just what time will you be coming home tonight, Missy?” my mother asked archly. I gave her a glare and caught her grinning. No one could torment you like family.
“Yeah, Missy, what time?” Rabbit caught on.
“That’s enough out of both of you,” I said, blushing. “The truth is—early, probably.”
“What? Why?” my mother cranked. “Rabbit—get,” she demanded, and my son thundered off again, back to whatever game I’d called him away from before. “Angela,” my mother began anew, in her woman-to-woman tone, “There’s no reason to come home early, if you catch my drift.”
“I do. It’s just that—” I’d thought about it the entire way home from Dark Ink. If Gray knew about Rabbit—then it was only a matter of time till he found out about Mark. And the Pack—the pack was territorial.
So tonight I needed to break up with Mark for his sake.
My mother didn’t have any idea about Gray or his letters, and I probably should tell her, but I didn’t want to lose the last few days of this—us teasing one another, acting like a normal family, warts and all.
Mark—he hadn’t signed on for this. I needed to cut him loose.
But before I could begin to attempt to explain any of that to my mother, the doorbell rang.
I walked over, able to beat my mother’s scootering handedly, and opened the door. “Hey handsome,” I said, unable not to grin.
“Hey yourself,” Mark said, giving me an appreciative once-over.
I was wearing a cream colored button down cashmere sweater, a gold skirt not much longer than the sweater was, gold heels, and gold everything else—hoop earrings and a series of bangles that began just under the sweater’s three-quarter length sleeves.
Whereas Mark? He could give Captain America a run for his money, if Captain America had a little Italian in him. He had a square jaw, piercing eyes that wanted to be amber, and a five-o-clock shadow, no matter the time of day.
“I’ll call if I’m late,” I called back.
“Don’t bother!” my mother shouted back. “Have fun!”
I flushed, grabbed my clutch off the coat rack and closed the door. Before I could take two steps toward him, Mark brought his big hands up. “Let me fix that for you,” he said, unbuttoning the top two buttons on my sweater so the dark rose tattoos over each of my breasts could peek out.
“Mark—it’s winter,” I protested.
“Don’t worry, I promise we’re going someplace warm.”
I slid my arm through his and let him guide us both down the apartment stairs.
I was clinging to him by the time we reached his BMW. The desert froze at night, and out here in the suburbs you didn’t have the buildings to cut down the breeze. I stared out the window as he drove, catching myself in reflection.
The real reason I wanted those buttons high—and that I was showing enough leg to almost be indecent as a trade-off—was that when I did break up with him—something I would manage any minute now, really—I wanted my tattoos covered.
Sometimes when you hurt someone, even for their own safety, they wanted to hurt you back.
And I’d been called enough things because of my tattoos, and had had enough assumptions made about the boundaries of my body—I’d learned in tough scrapes it was far better to show blank skin.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Mark said, reaching over and putting a hand on my knee.
“Sorry. Just feeling sentimental.”
He groaned playfully. “Did I miss an anniversary?”
“Not that I recall.”
He let go of my knee for precisely long enough to change gears, and then his hand came back. It felt like it belonged there. “What is it?”
One last night. One last time to be normal, with a normal man. Even Cinderella got till midnight, didn’t she?
“Nothing,” I said, and reached down to pull his hand a little higher up my thigh, giving it a squeeze.