“Did something happen?”
“No, and that’s the fu—weird part. Things were cool between us, and then, she just stopped responding to me.”
“Do you like her?”
Propping his elbows on his knees, he rested his chin in his hands. “Yeah.”
“Then find her and ask what the problem is. Why do you young people make things so complicated?”
“I think she got spooked. Her parents were killed in a plane crash when—”
His mother gasped. “That’s horrible.”
“It is. I think she’s afraid to get close to anyone for fear of losing them too.”
“So you’re both coming to the table with some big issues—you’re letting your divorce determine your future, and she’s letting the grief of loss keep her from living.”
“I guess.”
His mother grabbed for his hand and squeezed it with a surprisingly firm grip. “Go talk to her. You owe it to her and yourself. And, if I’m being honest, I want to see you settled down with a good woman before I die.”
“Mom—”
“I know you don’t like it when I say those things, but death is a part of life. Any mother would want to know her children will be okay once she’s gone. Promise me you’ll talk to her.”
“I don’t know…”
“Make your mother happy.”
“And here comes the guilt trip.”
“If it works, then yes.”
“Hello, Tank,” Myra said as she walked into the room.
“Hey,” he replied, smiling at her.
She bent down and adjusted his mother’s shawl. “Are you two having a pleasant visit?”
“She was ready to guilt trip me before you walked in.”
“I always had good timing.” She laughed, checking the oxygen tank. “Time for me to get you a new one. Are you ready to take your nap?”
“Not until I get a promise from him.”
With an exasperated sigh, he stood and kissed her head. “Okay, Mom, I promise,” he conceded grudgingly.
A grin spread across her worn face. “Good.” She looked to Myra and said, “I’m ready to lie down for a bit.”
“I’ll give you a call later.”
“You better. I want to hear what Lena had to say to you.”
Groaning, he made his way to the door and called out, “Love you.”
“I love you too.”
Once outside, he got on his bike and checked his phone to find a ton of missed calls and text messages, but none of them were from Lena. Putting his phone away, he started the ignition and sped off in the direction of the pier.
After parking his Harley in front of The Fish Shop, Tank walked into the small eatery and went up to the counter to place an order of fish and chips, and a glass of local craft brew. With his tray in hand, he ambled to the back patio, plopped down at a table, and gazed out over the bay while taking a pull from his beer.
An hour later, he ate the last of the hand-cut fries the restaurant was known for and pushed the empty food basket aside. Leaning back in the chair, he stretched out his legs, crossed his ankles, and watched the waves crash through his half-closed lids. He was glad to be alone. Between the drama in the club, his mother’s declining health, Lena dissing him, and Quinn breathing down his neck, everything seemed to be circling down the drain at breakneck speed.
As he sipped his beer, his thoughts drifted to Lena, just as they always did the second he had some free time. Despite the fact that she was clearly over them, he couldn’t deny the feelings he’d caught for her within mere seconds of meeting her.
“Fuckin’ pussy,” he berated himself.
None of the women who frequented the club did a damn thing to dim the candle that still burned bright for Lena. He’d found himself waking up in the middle of the night, rock hard, and cursing it all. Everything was a mess. To say he was pissed as hell for letting her into his life was an understatement. Fuck. No random pussy was going to make his day any better.
He banged his fist onto the metal table, feeling white-hot anger burning deep inside of him. That was something he could handle. Something malleable that made sense in the grand scheme of things. He had plenty of things to be mad at that went far deeper than some girl ghosting his ass.
His phone rang beside him.
Fuckin’ Quinn again. It was the fourth call he’d ignored from her since that morning. Quinn had always been like a bad rash that didn’t know when to go the fuck away, but lately she’d taken to stalking him, and he wasn’t quite sure why. He guessed having loads of Daddy’s cash had made her believe she could get whatever, and whomever, she wanted in life with a snap of her fingers, which made total sense, given that her father acted the same way.
A majority of people in town knew how Quinn’s father got his wealth—that he was hardly on the up-and-up. As if Fitzgerald’s hiring of the club for shady business wasn’t one big fucking bullseye, he had been swindling people in shady backdoor real estate deals for years. Now he had his sights set on Main Street and was stopping at nothing to take their quaint little town and throwing it to the dogs.
The dumbass was as corrupt as they came. And while Quinn had been sweet and pure in high school when they’d first dated, she had proven lately that her gnarled, infested apple didn’t fall far from her rich daddy’s fucking tree.
When his phone rang again and he saw her name, he flipped his ringer to silent and stuffed it into his pocket. It seemed that getting a little bit of peace and quiet in his life was becoming harder. Whether it was an emergency at the store, Quinn, a Jagged Outlaw member, or his younger brother, everyone was out to bother his ass. Too bad the one person he wanted to get hold of him wasn’t pulling the trigger.
“Hi, Drew. Do you have a second?”
Jerking his head in the direction of the bar, Tank saw John Bourne walking toward him. The guy was a little on the wobbly side and red in the face. Tank hadn’t seen John in quite a while. The guy was one of the most pleasant men in town, and Tank would never forget how John had helped his family out when he and Christopher were in grade school. Their mother had cleaned offices for one of John’s buildings, and he paid her three times the minimum wage. The man had always helped her with anything extra she needed to make ends meet, such as groceries and utilities. He would even drop them off at their house a few times a month. Yeah, John Bourne was one of the nicest men Tank had ever met.
Tank smiled as he made his way over. “John, how are ya?”
The older man came over to the table, and his usual bright smile didn’t decorate his face. “You have a lot of nerve asking me that.”
Tank frowned. “What’re you talking about?”
“I can’t believe you’re trying to destroy me. I always thought you were a decent guy, even when you joined that hoodlum club, but now I see you’re just like them.”
Shit, it’s John’s building Hammer’s targeting. Fucking Fitzgerald. Tank swallowed back the tight rage in his chest and took a long sip of his beer. What the hell am I gonna say? He couldn’t discuss what was going on with the club, or any club business.
“John, you know I can’t say anything.”
“If things keep up the way they are, you’ll destroy everything I’ve built for me and my family. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”