Selma: Kids miss you.FaceTime tonight?
Tylee: Can’t.
Selma: …
Selma: …
Watching her type without knowing what she’s going to say next makes me nervous. I switch back over to my chat with Scum, which is a lot more exciting than Selma Sinclair’s little guilt trip. She’s starting to remind me of Isaac and I don’t mean that as a compliment.
Scum: Where are you?
Tylee: Busy
Scum: Ex husband????
That man is such a possessive douchebag. I told him that I was out getting Dunkin’ and he accuses me of seeing Isaac. I don’t like him questioning me like this.
Tylee: No. Dunkin.
Scum: You’ve been gone an hour
Tylee: Miss me????
If I get him talking about sex, he won’t notice that I’ve been gone for a couple hours. A flicker of movement across the street distracts me from my transitional text message. I would recognize the sound of that motorcycle anywhere. I only heard him coming home with it for the past seventeen years. And Sinclairs all drive Indian Scout bikes, which have a distinct sound that you get familiar with when you hang around the club the way I did.
My mom never wanted me to become a biker chick, but Icouldn’t help the way I was born with a yearning for those loud ass engines just like my daddy. And just like my children’s daddy – the man whose bike I just heard. I hop off Scum’s bike and move behind a large metal trash can in the middle of the parking lot.
Or maybe it’s an old Dollar Tree donation bin, because it doesn’t smell like trash or shit. I can barely see across the street, but I can see enough to know that my husband is not alone. He’s the last person that I expected to see here and I especially didn’t expect him to be with someone much shorter than him.
A woman.
What the fuck?
Fury rises in my chest and then, Scum makes the situation worse by calling me since I didn’t answer his text messages. I feel my phone vibrating against my ass cheeks and then watch my ex-husband take this woman’s hand and walk into the office with her. I squeeze my phone so tightly that I almost break the glass and then look down at the still vibrating screen.
Scum can go fuck himself.
“What?” I snap when I answer.
“You aren’t at any goddamn Dunkin’ Tylee.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” The louder I raise my voice, the more likely he is to get the picture and shut the hell up.
“Yes.”
“I don’t have time for this, Scum.”
“Why? Are you with your husband?”
My husband. Isaac. The man who fathered all three of mychildren. The man who would never call me repeatedly like this just because I stepped out for coffee.
“Yes,” I hiss at Scum. “I’m bouncing on his cock right now, you fucking loser. Wait for the damn coffee or find some other bitch to put up with your controlling ass.”
I hang up before he can say anything. When you’re dealing with men like Scum, there’s no place for being soft and sweet. Not the way I used to be with Isaac, a much gentler beast than most of the men I’ve met on the open road. Not like he needs to know about the men I’ve met. Selma sends me another annoying text message with a picture of the kids designed to guilt trip me.
Isaac already disappeared into the building with that woman, but I don’t feel comfortable leaving or waiting for Ethan anymore. I have to know what he’s doing there – and why the hell he has this woman by his side. That rubs me the wrong way, because I’ve been the one responsible for the kids while he runs all over the place getting to know various women.
There’s a slight lull in parking lot activity when I cross the street and hide behind a large GMC SUV twice the size of a regular truck. Nobody will be worried about a woman in this part of town, or in a city like this. Women in New England are a lot softer than women out west, especially women in those fancy mafia families.