"I have." You sanctimonious bitch, I tagged on.
"Then you’ll know I’m right."
"We’ve been attending couple’s therapy for over a month, and you’ve just decided that we can’t be a couple now?" I sniped.
"You were attending as Cyan’s parents. There’s a difference."
"I don’t think there is," I argued, turning to stare at Storm, waiting for him to leap into the argument.
Were we really being rebuked by our daughter’s shrink? Seriously?
I didn’t do well with therapy. In my family, we kept things tightly held up in a ball, repressing the hell out of them until they gave us an ulcer when we were fifty. I was more than okay with that. I thought Storm was too. The only reason we were so proactive now was because of Cyan.
I’d deal with a lot to make things better for my kid, but it pissed me off to be reprimanded by this bland bitch with her holier-than-thou attitude, who thought she had the right to split us up.
But my temper merely surged when he stayed quiet.
When he didn’t say a goddamn thing as she rebuked us for making the massive step of coming back together again.
And because he didn’t defend us, and because, apparently, Kendra was back in fucking town and he didn’t think I should be told, I stayed quiet as well.
But I got madder, and madder, and madder.
My temper boiling and bubbling away until I thought I was going to burst all while, over the remaining twenty minutes, both of us gave her one-word answers, barely elucidating on any of our responses as we sat there like naughty children.
I was well aware that romantic partnerships weren’t a part of the twelve steps. The whole section about the houseplants was tied up in that. You had the plants for a year, then you got a dog once those were flourishing, and then after a year with the dog, that was when you were ready for a relationship.
But Storm and I were different.
Most guys didn’t tie up their dicks for their wife, did they? I had a feeling he hadn’t shared that salient part with her during the time they’d spent alone while I was running late.
Nor did most men have a biker tailing their woman and child at all times.
Storm had massive trust issues, but we never talked about any of that during our sessions. We didn’t talk about a lot of things.
Conclusion: therapy was bullshit when you didn’t tell your therapist the full truth.
As we rounded off the hour, her chiding us once more for diving into the deep end when we had many issues up in the air, my temper blossomed as I stared more and more out of the window where nasty storm clouds were brewing. It was too perfect. Like watching my own anger take shape.
The clouds were big and dark and loomed over the town, casting visible shadows everywhere. The power was intense, and I felt it simmering away inside me, just waiting to break open.
After the intense heat, I guessed I shouldn’t have been surprised there was a rainstorm heading toward us—it even explained my tension headache—and once the session was over and Storm settled up, I headed over to the door, watching big, fat raindrops land on the fender of my SUV.
Storm moved over to me; I knew it without having to turn my head. His scent hit me square in the chest. Normally, I’d have sucked it and him in, absorbing him as much as I could in a public place. But after we’d just been reprimanded like we were horny teens who’d been caught making out behind the bleachers, and after he’d allowed that, I was in no mood to suck anything in.
"Keira, I—"
I didn’t wait for him to finish, just shoved the door open and darted toward the SUV. Not bothering to wait for him, I leaped behind the wheel then took off, too fast for him to join me, too quickly for Jump to follow.
The journey back to the subdivision wasn’t overly long but the rain begun teeming down in a way that broke my mad with him. The downpour was so strong it made me cringe because Storm would be soaked through by the time he made it home. He wasn’t following me, because there was no single ray of light beaming through the shadows from the overcast sky in my rearview mirror, which added to the concern hitting me in the gut.
Goddammit, I’d acted like a child again.
Instead of speaking out in the session, I’d bottled it up. Instead of telling him how I felt, I’d run off.
Seriously, about now, Cyan was showing more maturity than I was.
Though visibility was low, I found a place on the road where I could do a U-turn and decided that I’d find him in the rain. Praying to God that he hadn’t crashed because I was a bitch and hadn’t let him ride with me, I was about to turn around when the tire popped.
I rarely swore, not this bad, but I growled, "Motherfucker!"
Of all the times to get a flat tire, it had to be now?
"Really, universe?" I snarled to myself, unsure of what to do.
I didn’t want to get wet and, I was ashamed to admit, I didn’t know how to change a tire anyway.
Wanting to ram my forehead into the steering wheel for my stupidity, I determined that Cyan and I would be taking a class on how to do basic shit for ourselves. Storm would have to teach us, of course, and he might bitch about it because the man liked it far too much when I depended on him, but in a crisis, I really needed not to be this goddamn useless.
Growling again, I grabbed my phone and looked through the glove compartment for the papers Storm had put in there. I knew there’d be the number for a mechanic he’d want me to use, so I started hunting one down.
That was when I heard it.
The rumble of a bike.
I peered up, saw that single beam of light I’d come to rely on when we were riding together, and saw him dash over to the SUV’s passenger side. He slammed on the door for me to unlock it, which I did the second I saw his face, then he hopped in.
Thanking God that he was okay, I took him in, accepting that I’d seen dryer people come out of the shower.
Rather than fuss over him when it was my fault, I slammed on the heat as he slicked his hair back. A part of me expected his anger, but of course, he wasn’t angry.
This man.
"You okay?" he demanded, making me aware that his primary concern was me.
Always me.
I was so selfish sometimes.
Guilt hit me like a two by four to the temple as I turned to him, reaching over to cup his cheek. "I’m sorry I let you get wet."
He tilted his head to the side. "Is that why you stopped?"
"No. One of the tires blew.” I huffed. "I was turning around to come and find you."
He swiped water off his face. "Why?"
"Because I wanted to give you a ride. Like I should have done at the doctor’s office." I cringed, prepared for his annoyance, but I didn’t get it.
"I didn’t need a ride." He sniffed. "This ain’t the first time I rode in the rain. I’m just pissed I couldn’t catch up to you, not when Jump wasn’t tailing you."
I bit my lip. "I’m so sorry, Storm. I need to stop being a baby."
"You’re not a baby," he scoffed. "I wasn’t gonna leave my bike at the edge of town. I wouldn’t have taken a ride anyway. I’m not a pussy like Jump." He grumbled, "Fucker texted me to let me know he was on his way home when the storm came in."
Though his admission that he’d have ridden his bike home anyway appeased my guilt some, the malice behind my move made me realize I had to step up my game. I also had to be honest with him about why that malice was there in the first place.