For me, it meant I was again, for some unfathomable reason, his target, and he’d ratcheted up the nastiness pretty significantly.

At first, I shared the misadventures of Tabby and Dr. Dickhead with Shy. Now, I did not. He was pissed, and the more I talked, the more pissed he got. Considering that my landlord simply pressed to have a twelve-month lease and Shy got up in his face, I wasn’t fired up to drive him to intervene with Dr. Dickhead, something he already promised he’d do.

So I quit talking about it.

Suffice it to say, the all good parts of Shy and I building a friendship on which we fell in love and began to build a relationship had ended. This was not to say things still weren’t amazing. It was just to say that life was life and not everything was perfect all the time.

For instance, Shy threw his clothes all over the floor, and this drove me nuts. I decided to put up with it but then, after I gathered them and put them in the hamper, Shy disappeared anytime I was going to the Laundromat.

This, I decided not to put up with.

“Did I get a biker badass who’s great at serving up orgasms and has a natural talent with sweet, or did I get that and an unpaid laundress’s job?” I’d asked irately the last time I came back from the Laundromat to see Shy in front of the TV with a beer.

“Don’t do laundry, babe,” he told the TV.

Not me, the TV. He didn’t look at me, and he certainly didn’t look at the hamper I was lugging in.

“Did you have a magic spell before me that you could cast over your clothes to get them clean?” I sniped, dumping the clean, folded hamper of clothes in my armchair.

His eyes finally shifted to me. “No.”

“So someone did your laundry, because your clothes are worn but they weren’t filthy before me.”

His eyes went carefully blank before he advised quietly, “Don’t go there.”

Oh God.

I went there and did so by planting my hands on my hips and stating, “Your bitches did them for you.”

“Told you not to go there,” he muttered, eyes going back to the TV screen.

“Shy,” I called. He sighed and looked at me. “Seeing as you’re here, your clothes are here, you sleep in my bed every night, come home to my place every evening, we’re essentially living together. So we have to figure out how to do that without me getting pissed.”

“All right, sugar, but like I said, I don’t do laundry.”

“Okay, boss, what do you do?” I shot back.

“Nothin’,” he stated and I blinked before my eyes narrowed, something Shy didn’t miss. I knew this when he warned, “Do not go off on one. I’ve pretty much crashed at the Compound for the last nine years, so I didn’t even take care of my own place. That bitch who raised me after my mom died didn’t do shit for us. We didn’t only keep our room clean and did our own laundry, we did their laundry and cleaned their house while her kids sat on their asses and watched TV. So I’ve had my fill of laundry and cleaning, and I don’t intend to do any fuckin’ more of it. I’ll take out the trash. I’ll get the groceries, since you seem allergic to the grocery store. I’m in the mood, I’ll clean up the kitchen. You got somethin’ you want me to do that doesn’t include washin’ clothes or pushin’ a vacuum, we’ll talk. But, babe, you can get pissed, you can rant, you can try sweet, I am not washin’ clothes and I’m not pushin’ a vacuum. Do you understand me?”

Pulling the bitch aunt to Shy’s future biker Cinderella card unfortunately worked, so I retorted, “Fine. I don’t like pumpin’ gas, therefore it’d be cool, when you use my car, if you would top her up.”

“I can do that,” he replied, lips twitching.

“And,” I went on, not liking the lip twitch, “put your clothes in the hamper, not on the floor.”

“Can do that too.”

“And—”

“Tab, quit while you’re ahead,” he warned me.

“Not feelin’ ahead of anything yet, darlin’,” I shared.

“I’ll pump gas, change your oil, get groceries, take care of the garbage, and dump my clothes in the hamper. Mind, I also do most of the cookin’,” he reminded me. “That’s what you got. You nag or bust my balls, I can dump my clothes wherever the fuck I want at my place or the Compound, and I won’t have a woman gettin’ up in my face about it.”

Was he serious?

“Are you threatening me with leaving?” I asked.

“I’m sayin’, quit while you’re ahead,” he returned.

“So you’re threatening me with leaving,” I surmised.

“I’m sayin’, you want me here, you are in the know about the kind of man you picked. I laid it out. It’s the way it is. If you don’t like the way it is, I can make alternate arrangements.”

“Therefore threatening to leave,” I finished for him.

“You either want me like I am, babe, or yeah, I can find a place where I don’t have hassle.”

“Which, just for your information, Shy, would mean me having a home without the additional hassle of cleaning up after two people and doing two people’s laundry.”

“Yeah, sugar, you’d also go to bed alone with no one to eat your pussy,” he retorted.

Since that nearly made my head explode, I decided, because he wouldn’t clean it up if brain and skull fragments were splattered all over the living room, I should extricate myself from the conversation pronto.

This I did, grabbing the handles of the hamper, storming off, slamming the bedroom door behind me, making a lot of noise when I put away the clothes then locking myself in the bathroom with my phone.

Of course, I hefted my behind up on the vanity, called Ty-Ty and shared with her, at length, about Shy and my fight.

This conversation didn’t go much better.

“Tabby, honey,” she started, using a cautious tone that made me brace, “your father has not vacuumed a floor in the years we’ve been together. To be honest, I haven’t even asked. Kane Allen is not a man who vacuums floors.”

“Well, I’m not you and Shy’s not Dad and I didn’t ask him to vacuum floors. We were negotiating and he cut me off before things were balanced and that’s uncool,” I fired back.

“No, you are not me, but Shy is Tack but younger, and I know this isn’t what you want to hear but he’s also not wrong. You’ve lived your whole life with your dad and his brothers, honey, so you also know it.”

This sucked but it was true.

“Love you, Tabby,” she went on quietly. “And I’ll listen to anything you want to share with me. I’ll also have a mind to not oversharing with you. What I will say is, there are a variety of ways your father makes putting up with all his extreme, uh… man-ness worth it. You need to hang in there and see if Shy makes it worth it.”

I got her though I kinda blocked out some of the parts I got.

She was right, of course. Shy already made it worth it, of course. But I was too stubborn to admit defeat (yet), of course.

I rang off with Ty-Ty, called Natalie (again), got no answer (again), and avoided Shy by hanging out in the bedroom until bedtime.

Or, I should say, I avoided Shy until Shy was done with me avoiding him.

I knew he was done, because he made this clear by walking in the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth. His hands at my hips, he turned me, lifted me, planted my behind on the vanity, pulled the toothbrush out of my hand, and tossed it into the sink.

Then he leaned into me, hands on the counter on either side of me, and ordered, “Stop bein’ pissed. You know you don’t give a fuck if I vacuum the fuckin’ floors.”

Truthfully, I didn’t. Rush used to vacuum until I made him stop because he sucked at it. It wasn’t like I didn’t know this was his ploy. It was just that it wasn’t worth the headache of calling him on it when I could just vacuum and be done with it. And I discovered it wasn’t worth the headache because I’d spent years getting a headache calling him on it before I got smart, gave up, and just did it myself.

At that moment, however, I had a mouth full of toothpaste foam and face to save.

Priorities, I twisted, spit the foam in the sink, reached and grabbed the hand towel, wiped my mouth and tossed the towel on the counter.

Then I glared at him and shared, “Just so you know, there’s really only one kind of biker. He might share his feelings, he might not. He might fuck around on his woman, he might not. He might carouse a wee bit more than is healthy, he might not. But down deep, a biker is a biker and I know you’re a biker.”

“All right, and…?” he prompted when I shut up and didn’t keep going so I kept going.

“There’s only one kind of biker, Shy, but there are three kinds of old ladies. One lets her man walk all over her. One turns into a bitch like Mom or Mitzi. And one is like Tyra, who gives but also expects to get her take. I’m like Tyra. I’m not Tyra, but you should know, I’ve considered the options and chosen that biker-babe life plan. You don’t wanna vacuum, I’m not gonna make you. But don’t cut me off by making asshole remarks because you’ve decided the conversation is over. Respect me or, truthfully, I love you, you know it, you mean the world to me, but that will dig deep, fester, and there will come a time when I don’t mind your clothes are on the floor at the Compound.”

His face changed, I held my breath at the change as he growled, “There will never come a time when you don’t mind my clothes are on the floor at the Compound.”

A vow.

Absolutely.

Not an apology but I got him and I’d take it.

I was smart enough not to gloat.

“Right, so, I’ve brushed my teeth, you haven’t, so you’re free to eat something before you go to sleep,” I declared. That intense look left his face, his eyes flashed with heat, then I was off the vanity, in the bedroom, tossed on the bed, my panties were gone, and Shy ate something before he went to sleep.

Truth was, I used my mouth before finally falling asleep too, but fortunately what I used it for wouldn’t give me any cavities.

Also, before falling asleep, Shy proved he intended to make it worth it, and it wasn’t by giving me two orgasms (or it wasn’t only that).

It was by muttering right before I fell asleep, “Just so you know, babe, the kind of biker I am does not fuck around on his woman.”

Other women might not think it was worth knowing she was the one who would be cleaning the toilets without a break for the rest of her life, but it worked for me.

That was the worst run-in we’d had. Although we’d butted heads a couple of times, it was nothing that sent me to fuming alone in my bedroom.

And in an effort to continue that run, I was not sharing with Shy about Dr. Dickhead.

Shy, like all the members of the Club, got a monthly cut of the profits from Ride Custom Car and Bikes as well as the three auto supply stores they ran, one in Denver, one in Colorado Springs, and one in Fort Collins. The boys moseyed their badasses into the store to work the counter, stock the shelves, keep the inventory, and those, like Shy, who had the skills worked in the garage on the cars and bikes. No one scheduled it but such was the loyalty to the brotherhood, not to mention their livelihood, no one sluffed off either.

The cut of profits was only graduated as to whether you were a full member or a recruit.

Every member had to pledge the Club and put up with however much crap the brothers made him do for however long they decided it lasted. Chaos wasn’t into rules, so it wasn’t like if they pledged, they’d be facing six months or a year and the boys knew when the torture would end, they’d get their cut, ink their tat on their back, and they could sally forth as full-fledged badasses. It was never six months or less, but it could be over a year before the boys sat down and voted a new man in.

And by crap they had to take from the members, I meant anything.

Anything.

And anything was really anything when you lived in a biker world.

So recruits got paid because they also worked in the store or the garage but they got paid less.

The Club made no distinction on pay according to terms of membership for full brothers. Although the cut went up and down with the profits, according to Shy, the checks tripled between recruit and member. The amounts, even in leaner months, were also not shabby.

This meant, with Shy keeping a low-profile apartment and not buying clothes for about six years, he was sitting on a mountain of money.

So Shy, like all the brothers, did his bit at the store and he also worked in the garage. As far as I could see, he pretty much did both in equal measure. Therefore, he didn’t keep a schedule, he went when he went, came home when he was done working, but he was at Ride often.