Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 66652 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66652 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
I didn’t know whether to be offended or not.
“It feels bad,” I agreed. “Some biker hit me in the face.”
There was a long moment of silence while he processed that news and then, “Was it one of my guys?”
I thought about it for a long moment, mostly because I didn’t remember who his ‘guys’ were. They’d added quite a few people to their crew over the last few months. Even some of them not being family like they’d always done before. But I specifically remember the guy who did it. There wasn’t a Battle Crows MC vest on the guy.
“Good,” Tide said. “Do you remember what kind of vest he was wearing?”
“No.” I concentrated really hard about not thinking my voiced words. “He had a beard. And tattoos. And motorcycle boots, though.”
There was a long moment of silence before Tide said, “You just described, literally, every single biker that ever lived.”
I snickered.
That snicker caused my entire head to throb.
“So a biker hit you?” Tide asked as he laid me down on something hard and uncomfortable. A hospital bed. “What did you do to him?”
The asshole.
“I’m not an asshole,” Tide replied with amusement.
CHAPTER 8
I’m a multitasker. Listen, ignore and forget all at the same time.
-Tide to Coreline
TIDE
I was trying to control my anger, but I wasn’t doing really well.
In fact, on a scale from one to ten, I was controlling it at about an eleven.
“What happened to you exactly?” I asked, wondering if she was with it enough to explain, or if I’d have to give her some time.
She sighed and cracked open her eyes.
Those haunting gray eyes—goddamn, sometimes I felt like they could see straight into my soul—came to a rest on mine.
“I had a plan…” She licked her lips, causing the clot on her lip to break free, and a droplet of blood to form.
To keep my mind occupied, I immediately blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
“That’s too eloquent for you to come up with on your own… who said that?” she grumbled.
“Mike Tyson,” I answered. “He was right, too. Most people don’t ever expect to get punched in the face. They expect a lot of things, but a punch? No. You weren’t expecting anything, to be honest. That’s why you didn’t even duck out of the way of his fist.”
“So I was at the shop, working on a project that I needed to get done today,” she explained, blinking her eyes slowly at me. “This biker rolls up with his truck and trailer, with his bike on the trailer, and he pulls it off and rolls it up to the door where I was waiting for him. He wants his bike fixed tonight. I told him that I couldn’t. He forced me to agree, and then he punched me in the face when I did.” She tilted her head slightly to the side. “I closed up shop and ran here. I was in the ER when shit started to go squirrelly in my brain.”
“Where did he hit you?” I asked, leaning over her with a penlight in my hand.
When my hand went to her forehead so I could lift her eyelid up, she squinted at me. “You’re not going to poke me in the eye with that, are you?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ve only been doing it for a handful of years. I’ll try really hard not to.”
She scoffed. “You’ll do it on purpose.”
My lips quirked up at that.
She was right. There’d been plenty of times I’d done something despite saying I wouldn’t. Especially to her.
“What’s hurting on you right now?” I asked, trying to mask the anger in my voice with professionalism.
“My face,” she answered. “Do I still have all my teeth?”
I snorted. “Yes, you do.”
“Good, cool,” she muttered, her eyes drifting closed as she winced. “I have a headache. Like, a whole, all-encompassing one. It hurts all around. And my eyebrow hurts. And my entire left side of my face. Even my ear hurts.”
I snorted. “Guy’s fist was probably about the size of your face.”
“Whatever,” she grumbled. “Anyway, make it stop.”
I pulled some Tylenol out of my pocket—don’t judge, I sometimes needed my own headache meds to make it through the damn day—and said, “Hold your mouth open.”
“Do you have water?” she asked.
“I have spit,” I teased.
She made a gagging sound. “That’s disgusting.”
“Is it?” I asked, heading out of the room to bring my bottle of water back in with me.
When I got back, it was to hear her say, “… I mean I know that there are fetishes out there that deal with that kind of stuff. But I’m not the type of person who could drink someone’s spit to swallow down pills.”
When she put it like that, it did sound a whole lot more disgusting than I’d intended.