Page 5 of Broken Warrior
“I don’t need to do nothing!” she screams as she reaches for the remote next and launches that next. “First you tell me I can’t smoke in my own damn house, then you say I need to take a shower! But I’m onto you, boy. You’re just trying to have your way with me while my old man is working.”
I grit my teeth and continue toward her slowly. “No, Ma. You can’t smoke because of the emphysema and the fact that you almost burned the house down twice in the last six months. And I’m not trying to have my way with you; I’m your son and you haven’t showered in four days. You need to get cleaned up, Ma, please— “
“Quit calling me that!” My mother yanks the lamp from the bedside table and throws that at me, barely missing me as I dodge it. “Mac and I don’t have any kids and I don’t want none! You are not my son, you’re just some pervert trying to see me naked while my husband is at the garage.”
With a defeated sigh, I tip my head back and glare at the ceiling.
I deserve this, I know I do, but it doesn’t make things any less infuriating when we’re having a bad fucking day.
When I woke up this morning to the smoke detectors going off and a loud crashing sound from the bedroom in the back of the house, I knew I was in for a real shit show, but it’s worse than I’d thought.
There are a lot of days where my mother either thinks I’m my dad or a member of the Wulven Kings from way back when. Days when she doesn’t recognize me at all but assumes I’m afriendlybecause if I’m in her house she must have let me in. But days like today, where my mother has no idea who I am, doesn’t even think I’m part of the club or a distant family member, and is convinced I’m the enemy trying to attack while my dad is at work, these are definitely the worst.
If she’s convinced she’s still years out from giving birth to me there is absolutely no way I’m going to be able to get through to her.
Especially when she reminds me that I was never wanted.
I snatch the pack of stale cigarettes from the dresser—where the fuck she was hiding them I don’t know—then turn to the door. “I’ll leave you alone for now, but I’ll be back, and when I am you’re getting a shower.”
“Go to hell, pervert!”
I close the door just as she whips her current dime store romance at it then drop my forehead to the wood with a thud.
Today is going to suck donkey balls because my mother is trapped in some year prior to the 1980’s. She thinks my dad is still alive and doesn’t know who the fuck I am. And my fucking nurse is on vacation with her family for an entire fucking month.
I shove the key in the lock, make sure my mother can’t get out and gain access to something that she can hurt herself with, then thump my head against the door again and listen.
I can hear her climb off the bed, hear her cursing under her breath. Then I hear the TV go on and the theme song for The Price is Right at full volume, which means she’ll calm down for now.
My mother is only fifty-eight years old and she suffers from early onset and rapidly consuming Alzheimer’s or dementia. We don’t know which because she refuses to go to the doctor and has for almost three years now, which is partially why I hired a nurse to begin with. At least that way when shit comes up I have someone around that can diagnose and prescribe shit for her, but mostly I needed the in-home help because I’m hellbent on punishing myself with my mother’s presence, and while I let it affect a lot of things in my life, I don’t let it affect everything.
“Spider? Is everything ok?”
I close my eyes tight as another of the many ways I’m being punished for breathing steps into the hall, the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard full of concern that should be directed anywhere but at me.
“Bad morning,” I grunt, still refusing to look up from the door. “It’ll be fine.”
Tate clears her throat and I can practically see her wringing her hands. “I... I made breakfast. Coffee. There’s plenty if you...”
When her soft words turn into a whisper, when the floor creaks under her feet from the nervous shifting on her hips, goddamnit, I turn my head and look directly at beauty personified.
Long, thick hair the color of ripe blackberries, loose spirals cascading over her shoulders and down her back.
Dark as night eyes encased in long lashes, a galaxy of stars I could get lost in, a black hole of depth I’d never want to pull myself out of.
A pert little nose, full Cupid’s bow lips, a dimple in her porcelain cheek that rounds out a heart shaped face.
Tate is fucking gorgeous and if her face wasn’t enough to have me hard as steel most of the time—which it is—everything else about her gives my dick the ability to cut fucking glass.
Slender throat.
Slim, muscular frame.
Tits I could bury my face in for hours at a time, solid D’s, maybe double, long as fuck legs and an ass that doesn’t fucking quit.
Every fucking thing about Tate Covington’s physical appearance does it for me, checks off every single one of my boxes and more, but what really gets me is who she is as a person.
What she’s let me see of that person, anyway.
