Rush (Carolina Bad Boys, #5)(41)

“How do.” Boomer dipped his head with a smile, trying to play the friendly, but only serving to highlight the scars near his mouth and on his dark eyebrow.

The couple shrank back, the woman clutching her purse to her chest.

Tail bent forward. “Hey, we ain’t gonna rob you. This dude’s girlfriend”—he thumbed a finger back at me—“has cancer. Just here to visit her.”

“Oh!” The lady’s mouth popped open. “Our daughter has cancer too.”

As soon as her fingers flitted to her throat to tangle in the double strand of pearls I recognized her.

Fuck me.

Great first—not really the first—impression to make on Shy’s folks—Thomas and Justine.

I slid forward. “Mrs. Lockhart? Mr. Lockhart? It’s me. Maxwell Rush.”

Looking big and badass and road-weary. Wearing my MC cut, leather pants, and the twin gauges in my ears.

“Maxwell?” Mr. Lockhart held out his hand hesitantly. “It’s been a long time.”

I met his palm. “Sure has.”

“You grew up.” His eyes narrowed into hard beads targeted on me.

The last they’d probably known about me was the jail time I’d gotten before I’d dropped all the way off the Charleston high society grid.

“Your girlfriend, is she doing okay? Because Shiloh has—” The doors dinged open on the oncology ward before Mrs. Lockhart completed her sentence.

Christ. They have no idea about their daughter and me.

We all tromped in the same direction, toward Shy’s room.

Mr. Lockhart opened the door.

My heart leaped into my throat.

Mrs. Lockhart turned to frown at me with an ahem expression on her face.

Sending a last look at the black-dressed dudes lingering in the corridor, I stepped inside.

“Max!” Shy called to me from the bed.

Relief washed right over me when I saw her. She was a little pale and hooked up to an IV, but she was alert and smiling as she held her hand out to me.

Unfortunately her folks weren’t all too happy to find out my girlfriend with cancer was none other than their daughter.

“What’s the meaning of this, Shiloh?” Daddy Lockhart’s jaw tensed into a locked-tight position.

“Oh!” She kept staring at me, and I realized she’d never seen me in full biker gear before.

I guess me dressed in the leathers and a tight T-shirt and the big boots flipped her switch big time.

I’d remember that . . . for some time in the future, because right now her continued staring/almost drooling at the sight of me wasn’t making her ’rents any happier.

Can you say awkward much?

“Why is Maxwell Rush”—Mr. Lockhart’s inflection somehow replaced my name with the words total fucking loser—“here to see you?”

Might as well just brand me as the black sheep of The Battery, forget about the Rush family’s scapegoat.

“Mrs. Lockhart, Mr. Lockhart. We’ve been seeing each other.” I finally moved from my frozen stance by the door. “Shy’s pretty special to me.”

When I reached her side, I leaned down to kiss her forehead then I dropped into the nearby chair and wrapped my hand around hers.

“And you’re doing what exactly now?” Unveiled scorn dripped from Mrs. Lockhart’s voice. “Since you wasted your top-class education and got cut off from your family?”

“I work at Chrome and Steele Auto Parts. You want my resume? And by the way, I own my home.” I tried to maintain the respect for Shy’s folks, but it was hard when faced with this line of inquisition.

Like I wasn’t worthy, which was exactly my biggest battle with myself concerning being part of Shy’s life.

“Where? North Charleston?” Justine Lockhart’s icy veneer reached bitter cold levels as she sneered down her patrician nose at me.

Snob didn’t stand for just Slightly North of Broad; it stood for all the elitist bullshit I’d bucked against growing up.

The atmosphere in the private room remained glacial.

“Shiloh.” Her father stepped in, taking her other hand. “As soon as Doctor Haines says it’s okay we’ll take you home.”

Removing her hand from her dad’s, she glared at him, her delicate jaw set. “I’m not going home with you, Daddy. I have my own place now. And you can’t just shut Max out because he doesn’t fit your idea of the perfect downtown bachelor anymore.”

“Should you even be dating right now?” Her mom sat at the end of the bed.

“Would you rather I died never having done all the things I wanted to?” Shy’s furious words struck my heart, made me clench her hand harder.

Her folks finally had the decency to look a little repentant.

“Relax. I’m not on death’s door. I’m just making a point. I’ve gone through enough tests and surgeries and chemo and goddamned pain to have earned the right to live my life as I see fit!” Her cheeks pink, those gorgeous eyes flashed. “I’m going home to my own bed. And I’m damn well doing a lot more than dating Max. So stop treating me like I’m a child!”

Okay then. Way to out us as lovers.

I shifted in my seat, practically fucking squirming after Shy so righteously dropped that particular bomb.