Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
He didn’t have much to say to her, considering she’d offered to blow and shove something up his boyfriend’s ass yesterday. He’d finally gotten that little tidbit out of Liam as they sipped their coffee in bed that morning. Tate never would have imagined himself a possessive lover, but the thought of anyone touching Liam had him seeing red. The fact that it was his mother?
Yeah, he walked past her without so much as a good morning. Packing his stuff took less than five minutes. Once satisfied he wouldn’t have to come back for a while, he slung his backpack over his shoulder, grabbed his duffle, and made his way back to the kitchen. His mother hadn’t moved.
At some point between being rescued off the street by Liam and now, she’d showered and done her hair. The dirty blonde locks hung past her shoulders and needed a trim, but her eyes were clear, her clothes covered all her assets, and she looked the healthiest he’d seen in a while. Amazing what skipping the whiskey in her morning coffee could do.
“I had a feeling, you know,” she said as he reached the door.
He turned with a sigh. “What?” Back in the day, before the years of drugs and booze, she’d been a beautiful woman. Years ago, he found a photo album from her early days with his father. She’d been young, happy, and free back before he left her in the lurch with two children and no job skills, education, or money. That was when she started her downward spiral and never stopped.
“I had a feeling you liked dick. Saw the way you looked at our mailman back when you were a teenager.”
“Good for you.” Well, shit. She sure as hell wasn’t known for being attentive, but her observation was spot on. Back when he was eighteen, he’d crushed hard on their very hot mail carrier. Hell, that guy had been the first dick he’d sucked in the very club where he’d met Liam, thanks to a fake ID and raging hormones.
“I don’t give a shit, you know,” she said, staring into her chipped coffee mug.
“What?”
She shrugged. “Lotta people in the world. All kinds. Some good, some shit. Most fall somewhere in the middle. Who you like to fuck don’t matter.”
“Yeah?” He turned until he fully faced her and set the duffle down.
His mom nodded. “Don’t bother me none. Love is love and all that.”
“Wow.” He snorted, folding his arms across his chest. “How fucking enlightened of you. You know what mighta been helpful, though? Maybe if you’d taught that to your sons when they were growing up. Maybe if you’d mentioned it, even once, your oldest son wouldn’t be a fucking bigot, and your youngest wouldn’t have suffered for fucking years, living in the closet because he was terrified to come out.”
“Maybe,” she said with a shrug, but her voice was devoid of any of the guilt or regret he’d have loved to hear. Something, just a morsel to show him she gave a shit about him. But instead, she plowed on. “Sorry, I offered to peg your boyfriend. Had I known—”
“What?” he asked with a harsh laugh. “Had you known, you’d have stopped at the offer to blow him?”
She shrugged again.
“Un-fucking-believable,” he muttered as he gathered his duffle. “I’m staying away for a while. Until Randy simmers the fuck down. If you ever decide you wanna do something maternal, maybe you could help with that.”
She didn’t respond, so he rolled his eyes and turned to the door. Just as he had it open and stepped through, she called out, “Tate?”
A large part of him wanted to ignore her, but he stilled. “What?”
“Be careful.”
It was the first time in his entire backlog of memory that she’d issued a warning like that. The first time, she’d said something to give him a flicker of hope that she maybe, deep down, cared a little bit. “Get yourself some help, Mom,” he said before pulling the door shut behind him and jogging to his car.
Now that he had his shit, he could get moving on the long list of stuff he had to take care of.
First, he planned to return a call to the housing developer who left him a message yesterday asking for an in-person meeting to discuss him doing some custom tile work. After one night of living away from the trailer park, things were already looking up.
Maybe I should have left years ago.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“YOU MADE IT!” Jonah waved Liam over from a table with three other guys in the trendy Culpepper coffee shop. “Come meet everybody.”
They all had coffees and welcoming grins. One of the guys dragged an empty chair over from a neighboring table.
“Hey, all, I’m Liam,” he said, lifting a hand as he reached the table.
“Sit, sit,” Jonah said. “Liam, this is Trevor to my right.”