Chaos series by Kristen Ashley

His eyes narrowed, that thunderclap feeling came back, and he crossed his arms on his chest. “I’m off the hook?”

I nodded again. “Yeah. I… it’s… I get it. It’s cool. We’re cool. I understand and I want you to know I appreciate all you’ve done but you can… well, you’re off-duty now. You can do, uh… whatever it is you do.”

“I can do whatever it is I do,” he repeated, and I wished he wouldn’t do that, repeat stuff I said. It was freaking me out.

“Yeah.”

“Let me see if I got this right, babe. You find out I got a woman and you freeze me out, and, I’ll point out, you’re doin’ that shit a-fuckin’-gain. You don’t talk to me about it. You don’t call me. You don’t take my calls. You don’t answer my messages. You’re not even f**kin’ home half the time so I can see you. And now you give me my marching orders?”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” I replied.

“You didn’t have the time to print out the papers but, sugar, you did that shit all the same.”

“You didn’t tell me about her,” I reminded him.

“And?” he returned and at his sharp word, I threw out a hand, beginning to get pissed.

“Shy, you spent time with me while you were spending time with her, for months, and you didn’t tell me?”

“Seems like it,” he retorted and I shook my head.

“That isn’t cool.”

“What isn’t cool is this bullshit, Tab. You got an issue—” he leaned toward me “—you talk to me. You got somethin’ to say—” he leaned closer “—you say it to me. What you do not f**kin’ do is freeze my ass out.”

Okay, crap, he had a point.

“Right, okay, Shy. You’re right,” I gave in. “I should have talked to you.”

“I f**kin’ know I’m right, Tabby,” he clipped out, still seriously angry.

“I’m givin’ in, Shy,” I pointed out.

“No, you’re not. You’re goin’ docile thinkin’ I’ll back off when you haven’t answered my f**kin’ question,” he shot back, and now I was scared and slightly pissed but also confused.

“What question?” I asked.

“I got a woman, you find out, why the f**k are you freezing me out?”

Uh-oh.

This was not good mainly because I didn’t have an answer.

No, that wasn’t true, but that answer was lying deep inside. So deep I wasn’t even admitting to myself what it was so I certainly couldn’t admit it to Shy.

Therefore, I winged it. “I’m just hurt you didn’t tell me. You kept it from me and I didn’t get that.”

“Okay then,” he returned instantly. “You want it out, we’ll put it out there. Tomorrow night, you meet me and Rosalie for dinner and you’ll see for yourself.”

It came as a surprise, instantaneous, overwhelming, so huge my middle rocked back with it like I’d been socked in the gut.

I stared at him, unable to breathe, pain saturating my system, and I saw some of the anger slide out of his face as concern washed in.

He didn’t miss my reaction.

Then again, Shy never missed anything. Not when it had to do with me.

“You okay?” he asked.

“No,” I whispered.

He dropped his arms and took a step toward me.

I took a step back.

He stopped and his head tilted to the side. “You got a cramp?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Tabby, baby, what the f**k?”

“I can’t do this,” I announced, not knowing where those four words were coming from, just knowing they were coming from somewhere deep, and I meant each and every one like I had never meant anything else in my life.

His brows drew together. “You can’t do this?”

I shook my head.

“Do what?” he sought clarification.

I lifted my hand and waved it between him and me. “This.”

His eyes went to my hand, then moved to my face, and he asked, “This? You and me?”

You and me.

You and me.

There was never going to be a him and me.

My belly, twisted in knots, screwed up tighter and the pain was excruciating.

He stared at me, his eyes moving over my features, and I watched in horrified fascination through the pain as his face grew terrifyingly dark.

Then he whispered, “You have got to be f**kin’ shitting me.”

I didn’t know if I was shitting him. I didn’t know what the heck I was doing.

“Tell me, Tab, that you’re shittin’ me,” he demanded.

“Honestly, Shy, I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admitted.

“I do,” he ground out. “You’re standin’ there tellin’ me, years, f**kin’ years ago you were into me, I f**ked that up, you held a grudge, also for f**kin’ years, you lost everything, and only then did you let me back in. Now, you find I got a life without you in it, a woman, and you can’t deal. For f**kin’ months I listened to you talk about him. I held you while you cried about him. Now you’re handin’ me this shit?”

He had a point about that too.

God! What was I doing?

“Shy—” I tried to instigate damage control.

I failed.

Spectacularly.

The damage was done, no way to control it.

“No,” he bit off. “You need to disappear to get your head straight, Tabby? You f**kin’ do it. That works for me. I don’t take rides I don’t like, and I just found out I was on a ride I didn’t know I was takin’, and I don’t like it. So you go into your head and get it straight, Tab, but you don’t come back to me until you got your head straight. No sooner, babe. I do not need that shit in my life. I am not gonna see you through that shit your way, tied to your strings. I’m cuttin’ myself loose. You come to me and you don’t got your shit sorted, you wanna get your head straight draggin’ me along with you, you can go f**k yourself.”

With that, he pulled his keys out of his jeans, twisted my key off the ring, and my heart twisted when he dropped it on the coffee table. Then he prowled to the door and slammed it behind him.

Woodenly, I walked to the door and locked it.

Just as woodenly, I walked to my couch and sat on the edge.

I heard his Harley pipes roar, and I stared at my wall unseeing, listening as they growled until I couldn’t hear them anymore.