“What are you doing?” I ask. Tank’s warm breath washes over my face and I stare up at him, waiting for an answer. Searching his eyes for something, anything. But they’re no longer fiery and intense—they’re cold as stone.
Adeline clears her throat. “Dinner is ready.”
Tank straightens, but for a long time he doesn’t take his eyes off of me, and then he shakes his head and says, “Coming.”
He turns and walks out to the dining room, and I lag behind.
What the hell just happened?
When I enter the adjoined lounge and dining room, I have a perfect view of the beach. The day may be cool, but the water is a crystalline cerulean.
“Your house is beautiful,” I mutter, though truth be told it is more to myself than to Adeline.
“Thank you, but its Jonah’s house. I just take care of it for him.”
“Do we have to go over this again, Ma?” he says, and for the first time I notice he’s sitting at the head of the table, sipping … is that sparkling water? “The deed is in your name. It’s your house.”
She rolls her eyes and gestures to the leg of lamb before him. “Be a dear and carve that, Puddin’. Poor Ivy will starve to death listening to us bicker.”
“Ma.”
“Sorry,” she says, picking up her own wine glass with sparkling water and sipping it.
“Puddin’?” I ask, warily, afraid he’ll shut down the conversation because he so rarely tells me anything about his past. All this time I’ve known him I had no idea his mother was even alive, much less that he came to visit her every Sunday. “Why puddin’?”
Adeline laughs. “From birth to puberty Jonah was … on the larger side. Not solid like he is now, you understand, but chubby. Bless his little heart. The kids at school gave him such a hard time. They used to call him all sorts of things: Tubs, Cake, Doughboy, Jonah the Whale.”
I risk a glance at Tank. His jaw is clamped shut, and the little muscle in his cheek twitches the way it does when he wants to hit something. He’s hating every second of this, but he doesn’t warn her to stop.
“He wasn’t overfed, of course,” Adeline continues. “We were poor. Jonah’s father liked to gamble, and we scraped together what meals we could. We had a game we used to play when Wayne was out drinking with his buddies; we’d tear the room apart looking for change. He always got so happy when he found our buried treasure—that’s what we called it. His little face would light up and we’d add it to the collection of coins we kept hidden away from his father.
“When Jonah was at school I’d gather those coins together and use them to buy whatever offcuts I could find at the butcher for our next meal. So despite being horribly poor, Jonah was fat. And not just a little fat; he was huge for such a young thing. When he’d smile, you could barely see his eyes. They’d get lost in the creases around them.”
“Jesus, do we have to take a trip down memory lane?” Tank says, that little muscle in his jaw popping out. She looks at her son, and though he might be fully-grown and could bench-press her easily, she still has her “Mum look” down pat. “Ma, Ivy doesn’t need to hear every emasculating detail of my childhood.”
“Actually, it’s kind of nice seeing a different side of you,” I say. Tank’s brow furrows, and he balls his fist on the table beside his plate as his angry blue eyes settle on me. I avert my gaze.
“Jonah. The roast,” Adeline prompts, with a smile that has him shooting her a “don’t start” face. Seeing that connection between them, a trust based on love and loyalty with no desire to gain something more, has a lump forming in my throat. I was too young to have that with my mother. She laughed and played with me, but she never got the chance to do that with me as her adult daughter. If she’d survived, I’m certain we would have had that, and maybe it would be me bringing home Tank to meet my mother instead of the other way around. Then again if she’d lived, I doubt very much that I’d have met Tank at all.
I stare down at my plate as I contemplate this, and Tank interrupts my thoughts by slapping several huge slices of roast meat on it. I open my mouth to protest, but he shoots me a warning glare and I promptly shut up. I glance at Adeline, who’s watching the two of us like a hawk. For the first time since I arrived, she doesn’t look happy.
“At the risk of sounding like my son, eat. Please? I don’t want to be left with all this food when the two of you leave.” She passes me the dish for the baked potatoes, and I take one and set it on my plate.
“You need to eat more than that, Ivy,” Tank says.
“I’m fine,” I say, scowling at him. “Thank you.”
“Bullshit,” Tank says and snatches up the serving spoons, throwing vegetables on my plate. He slops a huge amount of gravy from the gravy boat onto the meal and slams it down on the table.
“I can feed myself,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Then fucking do it,” he snaps. “I can’t be the only one invested in your health here.”
“Excuse me,” I say, standing and stepping away from the table.
“Sit your arse down and eat,” he says, and I bristle all over. I don’t want to make a scene in front of his mother, but if we were alone I would have picked up my plate and thrown it at him by now. Christ, he drives me fucking crazy. I can’t keep up. One minute he’s hot, the next I’m reaching for a fucking thermal blanket to ward away the chill.
“I need a minute,” I say to Adeline. She just gives me a small understanding smile.
“Ivy!” Tank shouts.
“Jonah,” his mother snaps, and he turns to look at her while I stalk out of the room and slip into the bathroom. I lock the door behind me and lean my weight against it. Outside, I can hear them arguing in hushed whispers.
“What the fuck else am I supposed to do, Ma?”
“Well, you’re not supposed to embarrass her in front of your mother, dumbarse.”
He gives a pained sigh. “I just … I don’t know what the fuck I’m fighting for if she won’t fight to save herself.”
“You’re a good man, Jonah.” He hisses and she goes on. “It’s true. I know you don’t save lives at the club, but I know you save the ones that matter. And I can see that she matters. You need to find a way to tread more carefully with her though, or she will run, and this will all be for nothing.”
This is all for nothing. Doesn’t he see that? I can’t be fixed, glued or taped back together, because I’ve never been whole. I’m not worth mending. The sooner he comes to understand this, the better.
I can’t hear anymore. I move away from the door and stand in front of the sink, resting my arms on the porcelain basin. I stare long and hard at my reflection, and then I carefully open the cabinet again, and take out the little cardboard boxes of pills. I take one of each and put them in my bra, because if I pop an oxy now I’ll be falling off the damn bike the whole way home.
I place the boxes back in the cabinet and quietly close the door. Tank’s voice rises again. “I don’t care, just as long as she’s alive to still be a fuckin’ pain in my arse.”
My chest warms, and I glance down at the pills in my bra and shake my head. It doesn’t matter how he feels about me. I’m a lost cause. I steal pain medication from old ladies with back problems. I lie and I cheat and steal to get what I want. I don’t deserve someone like Tank; I don’t even deserve Kick. I deserve someone as evil and as fucked up as my father, because I’m exactly what he made me: a thieving, drug-addicted whore.
“You need to trust that she knows what’s right for her, Jonah.”
“I need to save her from herself.”
“No, you need to stand by her while she saves herself. Not all women are strong enough. I wasn’t, and I regret every day that I hadn’t taken a stand against your father. I regret every day that it had to be you. Let her save herself, and she’ll save you in return.”
I can’t listen to any more of this. I can’t have Adeline give him hope for a future with me because there is none. I have no future, I have no prospects, and I certainly have no intention of falling in love with a man I don’t deserve. I yank open the door and join them at the table. Adeline releases her son’s hand and straightens.