Page 9 of Tanner (Dirty Misfits MC 5)
I took another step back. “Oh, no you don’t. How did you figure out where I lived? What the hell are you doing here with your crew or whatever?”
He sighed. “We really don’t have time.”
“Well, I’m not leaving until you talk to me. So, there’s that.”
“You’re in danger, Summer. Serious danger. And you have to come with me.”
I backed myself into the open doorway. “Nice to see some things never change.”
His stare grew softer. “Summer, we can talk about that when we—”
I held up my hand. “Let me get one thing straight: I’m never talking about high school with you. Ever. Because for all the good that you are, the one thing you struggle with is talking. Communicating. Informing people that love you of things they should know.”
He hopped over the railing while his friends slowly rode around the complex. “Look, I know this isn’t ideal, and I know you hate me—”
I snickered. “I don’t hate you, Tanner. I never hated you.”
He held out his hand for me. “Then, come with me. Let me at least protect you from the storm you don’t even see coming.”
As my gaze fell to the palm of his hand, I saw rugged calluses that boasted of the life he had lived since then. I wanted to run some lotion over them. I wanted to massage his hands like I used to always do whenever they got too sore during note-taking in classes.
But all I felt was anger. “You haven’t changed one bit, have you?”
His hand twitched. “Come again?”
My eyes slowly slid up to meet his. “You haven’t changed at all. You’re still the pompous, arrogant football star with a God complex, aren’t you?”
“Whatever you think I did, it was always to keep you safe, Summer. Always.”
I smacked his hand away. “I don’t need you protecting me, Tanner!”
My voice echoed off the corners of the balcony before I took a step back, heading inside.
“I can take care of myself. I took care of myself, damn it! All I needed was for you to treat me the way I deserved to be treated. And instead, you locked me out and used protection as an excuse in order to do so.”
His jaw clenched. “We can argue somewhere where you’re safe. But right now—”
I pointed at him. “No, I’ve had six months of silence. Six months since I saw you in the strip club, and I’m only just now seeing you again? After you knew I was in town, and worked in the area, and I’m only seeing you now when you feel there’s something to protect me from? Are you kidding me right now?”
He lowered his voice. “Summer, please. I’ll beg you if necessary.”
I threw my hands into the air. “I don’t want you to beg, you fucking idiot! I want you to flap those lips and talk to me!”
His face grew hard. “I wasn’t expecting to find you at a strip club, Summer. I wasn’t expecting you to ever cross my path again, much less in a place like that. And then to go and find out—”
My eyes widened because I knew exactly what he was about to say. “You’ve been tracking me, haven’t you?”
He shook his head. “No, but you are being tracked, and that’s why you have to come with me. You aren’t safe by yourself, no matter how much you think you are.”
I folded my arms over my chest and murmured to myself. “Showing up on my doorstep after six fucking months. No-talkin-half-assin-thick-headed-as-fuck, pompous litttle windbag.”
He chuckled. “You know I can hear you, right?”
I spat the word at him. “Good.”
Then, his hand finally lowered itself. “I had no idea what to say to you at that club. Especially after seeing you in those skimpy little outfits. I was so worried, and yet I hadn’t seen you in so long, and there were so many things raging through my system and it just… didn’t see it fair to you to approach you until I was ready. Until I had sorted through things.”
“And that took six months?”
Someone whistled piercingly off in the distance. “Wrap it up, Tanner!”
I nodded. “Who the fuck’s that?”
He sighed. “The crew’s president, Brooks.”
“Ah.”
He took a small step toward me. “I’m not expecting you to forgive me, and I’m not expecting some sort of heated reunion.”
“At least, not the heated reunion you’d want.”
He winked at me, but I didn’t budge. However, when his eyes gravitated over my shoulder I turned around.
And gasped when I saw the picture of me and Cheyenne hanging up for him to see.
“What I would like to know, though, is if you ever had any plans to introduce me to our daughter,” he murmured.
I slowly turned back around to face him. “How do you know that’s your daughter?”
Then, he closed the distance between the two of us and cupped my cheeks. “The answer to that question is the reason why you have to come with me. There are bad people out there that we’ve been fighting for a very long time that know who you two are to me. That’s how I found out about it. About you and her. And I know that’s going to piss you off, but right now you need to be pissed and on the back of someone’s bike instead of happy and alone. Got it?”
