Chapter 15 – Tylee
Chapter Fifteen
Tylee
Iborrowed Scum’s bike this morning and told him that I was heading out for Dunkin’.
That was about an hour ago. Women’s intuition never lies and I suddenly got the sense that my husband wasn’t just close by, but he was investigating that big biker bar attack that happened last night.
It’s all over the news and all over my timeline with tons of conspiracy theories about who gassed the bar, what happened to the patrons, and the motives behind the entire thing.
The Boston Police Department is filled with compromised idiots, most of whom have a strong connection to the Murray family mobsters.
I watched the story closely all night while Scum got drunk off his ass and gambled all the money he made in St. Louis away on the Patriots game.
They won, which any idiot could have guessed considering their stats this season, but I don’t like Scum for his brain.
The longer I stalked the news about the bar attack, the more I sniffed out a possible connection to the Rebel Barbarians.
The police statement had a shifty energy to it, and they offered up almost no details for a city that has cameras on every street corner.
A distraction like this will make my family less likely to get involved in my personal issues – at least that’s what I would hope.
I drove myself all the way to the place where I know the Murray family conducts their real estate business, the spot where my instincts told me to wait, and I would see Ethan eventually.
He was the one I really wanted to see, because he’s more likely to take my side than Owen or Wyatt.
It’s not like Ethan doesn’t have a coarse temper, it’s just that men with a temper are the easiest to manipulate.
Anger is still an emotion, and it makes you just as vulnerable as anything else, something I am incredibly familiar with…
I almost get bored waiting and watching the building, but there’s a surprising amount of activity for a small office space on this side of town.
Around five cars enter or leave the parking lot every hour, so it’s not a normal office space where you sit there and work all day, I guess.
It’s cold enough that I wish I had brought some coffee or whiskey with me…
There’s a part of me that just wants to text my brother, but I don’t trust Ethan not to take screenshots and send them over to Wyatt.
After about an hour of waiting outside the building, I nearly give up on my stupid idea that I might run into Ethan.
I might be looking at mobsters walking in and out of the building, but there’s nobody I recognize so far.
I’m getting bored and Scum’s text messages are pissing me off.
I like keeping him nervous, so I would hang out here just to let him know that I’m only with him because I want to be with him – I could leave at any minute.
I also have a few texts from Selma getting on my nerves.
I reply to Selma’s text messages first, keeping an eye out at the office building door.
By my count, there are over thirty people inside, and more coming and going every fifteen or twenty minutes. No bikers yet.
Selma: Kids miss you. FaceTime tonight?
Tylee: Can’t.
Selma: …
Selma: …
Watching her type without knowing what she’s going to say next makes me nervous. I switch back over to my chat with Scum, which is a lot more exciting than Selma Sinclair’s little guilt trip. She’s starting to remind me of Isaac and I don’t mean that as a compliment.
Scum: Where are you?
Tylee: Busy
Scum: Ex husband????
That man is such a possessive douchebag. I told him that I was out getting Dunkin’ and he accuses me of seeing Isaac. I don’t like him questioning me like this.
Tylee: No. Dunkin.
Scum: You’ve been gone an hour
Tylee: Miss me????
If I get him talking about sex, he won’t notice that I’ve been gone for a couple hours.
A flicker of movement across the street distracts me from my transitional text message.
I would recognize the sound of that motorcycle anywhere.
I only heard him coming home with it for the past seventeen years.
And Sinclairs all drive Indian Scout bikes, which have a distinct sound that you get familiar with when you hang around the club the way I did.
My mom never wanted me to become a biker chick, but I couldn’t help the way I was born with a yearning for those loud ass engines just like my daddy.
And just like my children’s daddy – the man whose bike I just heard.
I hop off Scum’s bike and move behind a large metal trash can in the middle of the parking lot.
Or maybe it’s an old Dollar Tree donation bin, because it doesn’t smell like trash or shit.
I can barely see across the street, but I can see enough to know that my husband is not alone.
He’s the last person that I expected to see here and I especially didn’t expect him to be with someone much shorter than him.
A woman.
What the fuck?
Fury rises in my chest and then, Scum makes the situation worse by calling me since I didn’t answer his text messages.
I feel my phone vibrating against my ass cheeks and then watch my ex-husband take this woman’s hand and walk into the office with her.
I squeeze my phone so tightly that I almost break the glass and then look down at the still vibrating screen.
Scum can go fuck himself.
“What?” I snap when I answer.
“You aren’t at any goddamn Dunkin’ Tylee.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” The louder I raise my voice, the more likely he is to get the picture and shut the hell up.
“Yes.”
“I don’t have time for this, Scum.”
“Why? Are you with your husband?”
My husband. Isaac. The man who fathered all three of my children. The man who would never call me repeatedly like this just because I stepped out for coffee.
“Yes,” I hiss at Scum. “I’m bouncing on his cock right now, you fucking loser. Wait for the damn coffee or find some other bitch to put up with your controlling ass.”
I hang up before he can say anything. When you’re dealing with men like Scum, there’s no place for being soft and sweet.
Not the way I used to be with Isaac, a much gentler beast than most of the men I’ve met on the open road.
Not like he needs to know about the men I’ve met.
Selma sends me another annoying text message with a picture of the kids designed to guilt trip me.
Isaac already disappeared into the building with that woman, but I don’t feel comfortable leaving or waiting for Ethan anymore.
I have to know what he’s doing there – and why the hell he has this woman by his side.
That rubs me the wrong way, because I’ve been the one responsible for the kids while he runs all over the place getting to know various women.
There’s a slight lull in parking lot activity when I cross the street and hide behind a large GMC SUV twice the size of a regular truck.
Nobody will be worried about a woman in this part of town, or in a city like this.
Women in New England are a lot softer than women out west, especially women in those fancy mafia families.
I’m assuming that’s where Isaac met her since he doesn’t do anything when we’re at home except hang out with the kids next to the television set or in the garage.