Tank, page 12
“Except for the last two Sundays that you spent trying to dry me out.” I run a hand through my hair in an effort to eradicate any kinks. I know without having to look that it’s a wasted effort. The only thing that gets rid of helmet hair is a GHD. “You didn’t think to tell me?”
“Why?”
“Because I would have chosen to wear something a little less … revealing.” I tug at my top again, and then I decide to just zip my leather jacket all the way up so the girls aren’t on show. Oh God, do I have panties on? It seems really, really wrong to meet the mother of your … well, you should just always wear panties around old people.
“Babe, do you even own anything less revealing?”
“No, but I would have made you take me shopping for something,” I say, and pull the waistband of my jeans aside to check on the panty situation. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see the black lace staring back at me.
“And you’d have been miserable the entire time because it wouldn’t have been you.” He pulls me in against him and I push him away.
“What are you doing?”
“Jesus, Ivy. Would you calm the fuck down, please? My mum isn’t going to shun you; she’ll love you.”
“Yeah, what’s not to love about a strung-out junkie who dresses like a whore?” I say impatiently, attempting to work the zip on my jacket higher.
Tank grabs hold of the zipper and yanks it down until my tits are practically falling out. I shove his hands away. He pouts when I zip it up so that my cleavage is covered but it doesn’t look like I’m attempting to be a naughty nun.
He slides off the bike and takes my hand, then leads me up a cute cobble-stoned path. It’s flanked either side with bright yellow daisies. From the front porch steps I can just see the edge of the ocean peeking through the thick underbrush and tall gum trees.
Holy shit. This house must have cost a fortune.
Tank opens the door and shouts, “Ma?”
“In the kitchen.”
I’m assaulted by the delicious smell of roasting meat and baked vegetables as Tank leads us through the house. The rooms we walk past are tastefully decorated, not at all modern, but with antique furniture that looks expensive, yet lived in. We walk into a huge open kitchen with stained-glass windows and pristine granite benches.
I hover close behind Tank and peer out from around his side, as if I’m a little kid hiding behind her mother’s legs. A woman bends over in front of the stove. Her face is turned away from me, but even from here I can see she has perfectly coifed hair, nice clothing and an actual apron strung around her waist. She straightens, rubbing at the small of her back and letting out a cry of protest.
“You okay, Ma?”
“I’m fine, honey. Blasted back is playing …” She trails off when she sees me. She’s gorgeous, with soft blue eyes and very delicate features. She might have looked like an adorable little pixie woman when she was younger. “And who is this?” she asks. Her eyes are brimming with curiosity. “You didn’t tell me you were bringing a guest.”
“Hi,” I say, cringing, because even my voice sounds crass compared to hers. Why would he bring me here? We’re not even together. His mother’s house? Really? I’ve never met anyone’s parents before. Not to mention a parent who … I don’t know, isn’t involved in club-life. He might have been right about me being uncomfortable in clothes that I wouldn’t ordinarily wear, but at least I wouldn’t look like a cheap biker whore.
What the hell was he thinking?
“Ma, this is Ivy,” Tank says, and it’s as if he’s proud of himself, or me, or something. Which just makes this so much worse. I’m not the girl you take home to your parents’ house. I’m the one you take home to fuck over the back of your parents’ couch and throw out before dawn. “Ivy, this is my ma.”
“Well, don’t just stand there, sweetheart. Let’s get a good look at you,” Tank’s mother says. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ivy. I’m Adeline.”
“Sorry to just show up unannounced,” I say, stepping out around her son. A man I’m going to take great delight in murdering when we leave here. “I promise if I’d known I would have made him call you.”
“Nonsense. There’s plenty to go around,” she says, bracing her hands on my shoulders and holding me at arm’s length in order to see me better. Her eyes rake over me from head to toe and she smiles. “Well, you don’t look like you eat a lot—”
“Ma,” Tank says.
“What? She’s skinny; she’ll need some meat on her bones before she can bear me a couple of fat grandchildren.”
“Ma.” Tank squeezes the bridge of his nose, as though he feels a tension headache coming on.
“Oh relax, Jonah, I’m just messing with you,” she says. “Now, go and set another place at the table please. I need Ivy’s help here.”
Jonah? I mouth and he rolls his eyes.
“If you tell anyone you heard that, I may be forced to suffocate you in your sleep.”
Adeline makes a shooing motion and ushers him into the dining room. “Away with you. Ivy and I need a moment to chat.”
He gives his mother a stern look and the same wry grin I usually see on his lips is eerily echoed on his mother’s. Tank leaves the room and I turn hesitantly back to Adeline.
“You eat meat, Ivy?”
“Er, yeah,” I say, and then my eyes widen a fraction and I attempt to be not so … me. “I mean, yes. Thank you.”
She smiles and pulls two glasses from the cupboard above her head. Taking a bottle of Moscato from the fridge, she pours a glass. I glance nervously between Adeline and the wall separating the dining room. I’ve never been a big drinker; my vices are much more potent than alcohol. Even so, I want that drink bad. Blindly, I take a step forward, but Tank’s voice booms from the other room, “No wine, Ma.”
She frowns and looks at me. “Shouldn’t Ivy be the judge of that, Son?”
He storms back into the kitchen like a hurricane, hell bent on ripping up every last vestige of my ease. “No. Wine,” he says, though he isn’t looking at her when he says it. I glare at him and swallow hard, crossing my arms over my chest and turning to look at the fridge—which I find really appealing all of a sudden.
I want to crawl inside my own skin. The shame of what I am slams into me and I need to get out, to be as far from here, from him as possible. “Do you have a bathroom, Mrs Whitecross?” I say.
“Of course, honey,” she says, giving her son a long, reproachful look before turning back to me. “Down the hall, second door on the right.”
I nod and stalk down the hall, finding the bathroom and shutting myself inside. I lock the door and lean my forehead against it, blinking back tears. I hate this emotional crap. It feels like every five minutes there’s a new reason for my eyes to start leaking all over the place. My head hurts, my body, too, and Tank’s humiliation leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It’s not like one drink is going to make me slip up and turn Adeline’s house upside-down looking for coke. He’s no doubt out there right now telling her all about how pathetic I am, how lost and alone and worthless I am. I’m furious that he brought me here. Why would he bother? He couldn’t just tie me to a chair like before?
I stand in front of the sink and run the tap. I don’t splash water on my face because I’m wearing enough eyeliner to be an emo poster child, but I do place my shaking hands beneath the stream and get lost in the feel of the cool water over my fingertips. Then I dry them on an embroidered hand towel and stare at my reflection. Unhappy girl. The same girl I’ve seen for the last twenty-one years. The same worthless, fucked up junkie I’ve stared at in the mirror every day since I was a teen. I close my eyes and swallow back tears so they won’t ruin my makeup.
A thought occurs to me then. I’m in a bathroom alone. Adeline doesn’t know I’m a junkie, and she had no idea I was coming, meaning she also had no time to put away any medication she may have lying around. Spurred on by the promise of escape, I yank open the cabinet as if my life depends on it. There isn’t much to choose from: lotions, a pre-packaged spare toothbrush, some tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner, and little hand soaps in the shapes of flowers. And then on the top shelf right at the very back I find what I’m looking for: Nurofen, Panadol, Panadeine Forte and OxyContin.
Blessed be the rich with back problems.
I pull the oxy out and open the box. There are three tablets within. It’s not coke, but it’s enough to take the edge off. Maybe if I took the Panadeine Forte with an OxyContin, or maybe I could just pop a couple of the Panadeine now and hide the oxy in my bra until later. I stare down at the boxes before me, and then I do the unthinkable—I place them back in the cabinet, neatly stacked the way I found them, or as close to it as I can get. My hands are shaking as I quietly close the cabinet and hurry to the door before I can change my mind. I yank the handle and barrel into Tank. I give a startled cry and jump back as though he just hit me.
“Find everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I mutter. “Thanks.”
I know that guilt is written all over my face. He glances behind me at the bathroom, the unused toilet, and then finally his eyes roll over the cabinet and back to me. I’m waiting for him to say something, anything. To accuse me of taking his mother’s drugs. And even though it would be a totally valid argument, I hate that this is the first thing he thinks. I hate that I’ve given a reason for him to think this way. I hate that he knows me well enough to know that I’m not above stealing drugs from an old lady who needs them.
“Anything you wanna tell me?” He crosses his arms over his massive chest. I mimic the gesture.
“No, Tank. I don’t have anything to say to you at all.” I attempt to push past him but he grabs my arm and yanks me back, and while the sudden jolt to my already wired system comes as a shock, the tenderness with which his thumb smooths over my arm is just as surprising. “You’re hurting me.”
He grins and tilts his head to the side, searching my expression. “By doing this?” he asks and his thumb moves in smoother, more purposeful strokes over my flesh.
“Let’s just get this shit over with,” I say, and then regret it as I’m turned and shoved up against the wall.
“This is my mother’s house. This ‘shit’ is a meal she prepared for us, and you are her guest. Show some fuckin’ respect, or I’ll put you over my knee and spank you until your arse is red raw and can no longer sit at a table to enjoy a meal.”
I suck in a deep breath and close my eyes, ignoring the way my pussy aches to have him do all of those dirty, wicked things he just promised. “I didn’t … I didn’t mean it like that.”
I glance up, wanting him to believe me. I wish he hadn’t brought me here, but I’ve got nothing against Adeline. I feel raw and vulnerable, exposed, and for once oddly chastened by his disappointment, rather than angered by it.
Tank surprises me by reaching out and tracing his calloused fingers over my cheek. “You make me crazy, you know that?”
No. I don’t know that. I didn’t know that was possible, to drive Tank crazy. He’s always so calm, and so … stoic. Nothing fazes him … ever. So to hear him confess this makes my stomach twist all up in knots.
For a few weeks when I was very small, I’d had a babysitter come take care of me when my dad was out on a job. Josie would let me stay up to watch TV. One night she’d put on a scary movie and when I’d told her I was frightened, Josie confessed that she was too. That had frightened me even more because if the responsible adult was afraid, then there was something to be worried about.
Tank’s expression gives me that same feeling. He looms over me and very slowly, leans in. We’ve kissed thousands of times before. Sometimes when we were hidden away in his room at the clubhouse all we’d do was kiss—much to my disappointment at the time. I never understood that. Until now. And now, things are infinitely different.
“What are you doing?” I ask. Tank’s warm breath washes over my face and I stare up at him, waiting for an answer. Searching his eyes for something, anything. But they’re no longer fiery and intense—they’re cold as stone.
Adeline clears her throat. “Dinner is ready.”
Tank straightens, but for a long time he doesn’t take his eyes off of me, and then he shakes his head and says, “Coming.”
He turns and walks out to the dining room, and I lag behind.
What the hell just happened?
When I enter the adjoined lounge and dining room, I have a perfect view of the beach. The day may be cool, but the water is a crystalline cerulean.
“Your house is beautiful,” I mutter, though truth be told it is more to myself than to Adeline.
“Thank you, but its Jonah’s house. I just take care of it for him.”
“Do we have to go over this again, Ma?” he says, and for the first time I notice he’s sitting at the head of the table, sipping … is that sparkling water? “The deed is in your name. It’s your house.”
She rolls her eyes and gestures to the leg of lamb before him. “Be a dear and carve that, Puddin’. Poor Ivy will starve to death listening to us bicker.”
“Ma.”
“Sorry,” she says, picking up her own wine glass with sparkling water and sipping it.
“Puddin’?” I ask, warily, afraid he’ll shut down the conversation because he so rarely tells me anything about his past. All this time I’ve known him I had no idea his mother was even alive, much less that he came to visit her every Sunday. “Why puddin’?”
Adeline laughs. “From birth to puberty Jonah was … on the larger side. Not solid like he is now, you understand, but chubby. Bless his little heart. The kids at school gave him such a hard time. They used to call him all sorts of things: Tubs, Cake, Doughboy, Jonah the Whale.”
I risk a glance at Tank. His jaw is clamped shut, and the little muscle in his cheek twitches the way it does when he wants to hit something. He’s hating every second of this, but he doesn’t warn her to stop.
“He wasn’t overfed, of course,” Adeline continues. “We were poor. Jonah’s father liked to gamble, and we scraped together what meals we could. We had a game we used to play when Wayne was out drinking with his buddies; we’d tear the room apart looking for change. He always got so happy when he found our buried treasure—that’s what we called it. His little face would light up and we’d add it to the collection of coins we kept hidden away from his father.
“When Jonah was at school I’d gather those coins together and use them to buy whatever offcuts I could find at the butcher for our next meal. So despite being horribly poor, Jonah was fat. And not just a little fat; he was huge for such a young thing. When he’d smile, you could barely see his eyes. They’d get lost in the creases around them.”
“Jesus, do we have to take a trip down memory lane?” Tank says, that little muscle in his jaw popping out. She looks at her son, and though he might be fully-grown and could bench-press her easily, she still has her “Mum look” down pat. “Ma, Ivy doesn’t need to hear every emasculating detail of my childhood.”
“Actually, it’s kind of nice seeing a different side of you,” I say. Tank’s brow furrows, and he balls his fist on the table beside his plate as his angry blue eyes settle on me. I avert my gaze.
“Jonah. The roast,” Adeline prompts, with a smile that has him shooting her a “don’t start” face. Seeing that connection between them, a trust based on love and loyalty with no desire to gain something more, has a lump forming in my throat. I was too young to have that with my mother. She laughed and played with me, but she never got the chance to do that with me as her adult daughter. If she’d survived, I’m certain we would have had that, and maybe it would be me bringing home Tank to meet my mother instead of the other way around. Then again if she’d lived, I doubt very much that I’d have met Tank at all.
I stare down at my plate as I contemplate this, and Tank interrupts my thoughts by slapping several huge slices of roast meat on it. I open my mouth to protest, but he shoots me a warning glare and I promptly shut up. I glance at Adeline, who’s watching the two of us like a hawk. For the first time since I arrived, she doesn’t look happy.
“At the risk of sounding like my son, eat. Please? I don’t want to be left with all this food when the two of you leave.” She passes me the dish for the baked potatoes, and I take one and set it on my plate.
“You need to eat more than that, Ivy,” Tank says.
“I’m fine,” I say, scowling at him. “Thank you.”
“Bullshit,” Tank says and snatches up the serving spoons, throwing vegetables on my plate. He slops a huge amount of gravy from the gravy boat onto the meal and slams it down on the table.
“I can feed myself,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Then fucking do it,” he snaps. “I can’t be the only one invested in your health here.”
“Excuse me,” I say, standing and stepping away from the table.
“Sit your arse down and eat,” he says, and I bristle all over. I don’t want to make a scene in front of his mother, but if we were alone I would have picked up my plate and thrown it at him by now. Christ, he drives me fucking crazy. I can’t keep up. One minute he’s hot, the next I’m reaching for a fucking thermal blanket to ward away the chill.
“I need a minute,” I say to Adeline. She just gives me a small understanding smile.
“Ivy!” Tank shouts.
“Jonah,” his mother snaps, and he turns to look at her while I stalk out of the room and slip into the bathroom. I lock the door behind me and lean my weight against it. Outside, I can hear them arguing in hushed whispers.
“What the fuck else am I supposed to do, Ma?”
“Well, you’re not supposed to embarrass her in front of your mother, dumbarse.”
He gives a pained sigh. “I just … I don’t know what the fuck I’m fighting for if she won’t fight to save herself.”
“You’re a good man, Jonah.” He hisses and she goes on. “It’s true. I know you don’t save lives at the club, but I know you save the ones that matter. And I can see that she matters. You need to find a way to tread more carefully with her though, or she will run, and this will all be for nothing.”
