Page 47 of The Biker and the Loner
No music is playing, which is suspect, as music isalwayson in here. Dirty dishes in the sink and pots on the stove tells me that she at least hasn’t been starving herself to punish me.
Usually, to keep track of her, I’d regularly check the live security feed system that’s hooked up to my phone, but last night Scratch had my undivided attention and I don’t feel bad about it.
I wash the dirty dishes, pots, and pans, toss all the garbage, and clean the counters that are teeming with ants from crumbs and gravy stains.
Once I’m done, I grab an Arizona beverage from the fridge and amble upstairs to my room. I’ve no idea which part of the house Kathy is in or what she's doing at the moment, but I’m glad I don’t have to deal with her right now. Maybe she’s too baked to give a damn.
Feeling relieved, I take a few sips of the beverage before setting it down on the nightstand, then flop into bed and close my eyes.
When I open them again, it’s dark outside. Yawning, I roll over and almost jump out of my skin when I see Kathy sitting in my violet armchair, swirling a glass of wine.
“Jesus,” I mumble, pushing up on my elbows. “What are you doing?”
“I contacted the lawyers this morning,” she says. “Your trust is being revoked.”
No surprise there. I stopped expecting that trust a long time ago, ever since I realized she used it as leverage to get her way. “Okay.”
The sudden chill in her eyes tells me that’s not the answer or reaction she was expecting. “You lied to me,” she hisses.
“About?”
“Where did you sleep last night?”
“Not here, obviously.”
“Where?”
I sit up and swing my legs off the bed. “That’s none of your business, Mom.”
“Itismy business!” She gets up and crosses the room, and before I can guess her intentions, my face is soaked and dripping with red wine. “Youpromisedme.”
As I wipe the wine from my eyes, I do my best to stay calm by counting down from ten. “Actually, I made a promise to Papà, not you. And I’ve recently decided to ‘revoke’ that promise.”
“What?” She’s bewildered. “What promise? What are you talking about?”
“On the day he died, Papà made me promise to take care of you, look out for you, no matter what, and to make sure you find happiness again,” I tell her. “But he failed me by not makingyoupromise to do the same for me.”
She looks dazed, as is usual whenever Papà is mentioned. “He did?”
Ignoring her, I get up and grab a handful of tissues from the dispenser on the nightstand. “You really want to know where I slept last night?” I ask as I dry my face. “At my man’s house. And we fucked.Hard. All night. And it feltsogood.Right.”
Throwing the wine-soaked tissues in the bin, I turn around just in time to see her wine glass sailing through the air and straight for my head. I duck, and the glass shatters against the wall.
“You ungrateful little bitch!” she shrieks at me. “My sweet Juan must be rolling in his grave right now!”
“Really? You think he’s rolling in his grave because I had sex with aman, as anadult, but not at the fact that you were sitting on my face when I was barely an adolescent?”
She winces. But then her eyes fill with spite and blood-red rage. “Go on then. Get out of my house. Let your ‘man’ put you up. Let him feed you and provide for you then. Let us see how much he likes you when you do not have mommy’s money anymore.”
“Gladly,” I say, stomping off to my closet.
“And do not think you can come back to me when you are all used up, knocked up, and he is nowhere to be found.”
“Trust me, I won’t.”
It would take me an entire day or two to pack all the things I own, so I choose a large duffel and pack only my most worn habiliments, and a second duffel for my essential accouterments.
Kathy watches me pack, as if waiting for me to break down and beg her to stay. At some point, she seems to get the hint that I’m not bluffing because she turns and storms out of the room.
