Own the Wind(71)

My grandmother dying sucked but, it had to be said, gaining Shy’s grandmother was awesome.

“Good to hear you laughin’, Tab. You been quiet,” Landon observed. I gave Shy a smile and then looked up at his brother.

“I’m good.”

His head tipped to the side and his eyes held mine. “Sure?”

I shrugged but his arm didn’t leave me. “Just shit at work,” I admitted.

“Dr. Dickhead,” he stated knowingly.

As an FYI, bikers were not taciturn. I’d known this my whole life. They were in the life to be who they were and do what they wanted and that included, for those of that bent, saying whatever the heck they wanted to say whenever the heck they wanted to say it to whoever they wanted to say it to. Although some could be quiet, introspective, or mysterious, most of them let it all hang out.

And I knew from him telling me and listening to them talk that Shy let it all hang out with Lan.

Therefore, it wasn’t a surprise Lan knew about Dr. Dickhead, because Dr. Dickhead had not calmed down. Gossip, proved accurate by his mood, stated his supply-room piece had called Dr. Dickhead’s wife and broke the news that her husband was a cheater. This did not go over very well and included him sleeping on the couch in his office for a week while he found a new apartment.

For me, it meant I was again, for some unfathomable reason, his target, and he’d ratcheted up the nastiness pretty significantly.

At first, I shared the misadventures of Tabby and Dr. Dickhead with Shy. Now, I did not. He was pissed, and the more I talked, the more pissed he got. Considering that my landlord simply pressed to have a twelve-month lease and Shy got up in his face, I wasn’t fired up to drive him to intervene with Dr. Dickhead, something he already promised he’d do.

So I quit talking about it.

Suffice it to say, the all good parts of Shy and I building a friendship on which we fell in love and began to build a relationship had ended. This was not to say things still weren’t amazing. It was just to say that life was life and not everything was perfect all the time.

For instance, Shy threw his clothes all over the floor, and this drove me nuts. I decided to put up with it but then, after I gathered them and put them in the hamper, Shy disappeared anytime I was going to the Laundromat.

This, I decided not to put up with.

“Did I get a biker badass who’s great at serving up orgasms and has a natural talent with sweet, or did I get that and an unpaid laundress’s job?” I’d asked irately the last time I came back from the Laundromat to see Shy in front of the TV with a beer.

“Don’t do laundry, babe,” he told the TV.

Not me, the TV. He didn’t look at me, and he certainly didn’t look at the hamper I was lugging in.

“Did you have a magic spell before me that you could cast over your clothes to get them clean?” I sniped, dumping the clean, folded hamper of clothes in my armchair.

His eyes finally shifted to me. “No.”

“So someone did your laundry, because your clothes are worn but they weren’t filthy before me.”

His eyes went carefully blank before he advised quietly, “Don’t go there.”

Oh God.

I went there and did so by planting my hands on my hips and stating, “Your bitches did them for you.”

“Told you not to go there,” he muttered, eyes going back to the TV screen.

“Shy,” I called. He sighed and looked at me. “Seeing as you’re here, your clothes are here, you sleep in my bed every night, come home to my place every evening, we’re essentially living together. So we have to figure out how to do that without me getting pissed.”

“All right, sugar, but like I said, I don’t do laundry.”

“Okay, boss, what do you do?” I shot back.

“Nothin’,” he stated and I blinked before my eyes narrowed, something Shy didn’t miss. I knew this when he warned, “Do not go off on one. I’ve pretty much crashed at the Compound for the last nine years, so I didn’t even take care of my own place. That bitch who raised me after my mom died didn’t do shit for us. We didn’t only keep our room clean and did our own laundry, we did their laundry and cleaned their house while her kids sat on their asses and watched TV. So I’ve had my fill of laundry and cleaning, and I don’t intend to do any f*ckin’ more of it. I’ll take out the trash. I’ll get the groceries, since you seem allergic to the grocery store. I’m in the mood, I’ll clean up the kitchen. You got somethin’ you want me to do that doesn’t include washin’ clothes or pushin’ a vacuum, we’ll talk. But, babe, you can get pissed, you can rant, you can try sweet, I am not washin’ clothes and I’m not pushin’ a vacuum. Do you understand me?”

Pulling the bitch aunt to Shy’s future biker Cinderella card unfortunately worked, so I retorted, “Fine. I don’t like pumpin’ gas, therefore it’d be cool, when you use my car, if you would top her up.”

“I can do that,” he replied, lips twitching.

“And,” I went on, not liking the lip twitch, “put your clothes in the hamper, not on the floor.”

“Can do that too.”

“And—”

“Tab, quit while you’re ahead,” he warned me.

“Not feelin’ ahead of anything yet, darlin’,” I shared.