Silver Bastard

“Now, about your mom. You say she needs two grand?”

“That’s what she told me.”

“She’s full of shit. She can go to a women’s shelter, hide out for a week or two, and then get a bus ticket up here. That’s reasonable.”

“Still costs money,” I told her. “And I’m not sure she’ll go to a shelter. She’s stubborn.”

Danielle sighed. “If she won’t go to a shelter, then she doesn’t really want to leave him and two grand won’t change anything. You need enough money to get her up here, but she has to take the first step. You can’t do it for her.”

I nodded slowly, because she was right.

“You’re going to be okay, Becca,” Danielle said, leaning forward to catch my shoulders. Her eyes met mine, full of love and support. God, I’m lucky to have a friend like this. “We all love you. This shit with Puck will blow over—he’ll find someone else and it’ll all be history. Don’t worry, okay?”

I nodded again, refusing to acknowledge the tiny twinge of pain I felt. Just another symptom of how fucked up I’d gotten, because the thought of Puck with another woman didn’t exactly make me feel better.

Nope.

If anything, I felt like barfing.

Hopefully that was just the Fireball.

—

My day got better after my visit with Danielle.

Usually I don’t buy into the whole talking-things-through school of thought but this time it worked for me. My best friend was just so matter-of-fact and full of common sense that by the time we’d finished our nails, I felt almost human again because she was right.

I didn’t have to do this.

Mom made her own bed a long time ago—nobody expected me to rescue or save her. Whatever I decided to do, it was entirely my choice.

Rejecting Puck was my choice, too. If I couldn’t handle a relationship, I couldn’t handle a relationship and it wasn’t against the law to stay single. I definitely owed him an apology, though. Would talking to him be hard? Yes. But I’d survived worse.

Ultimately, the Mom Situation was the tough one to figure out. In some ways it would’ve been so much easier if she hadn’t called back. Our talk that morning threw me off in a big way—my mom didn’t apologize. Ever. This was way different from any of her normal tricks, and that scared me.

What if I didn’t send her the money and he actually killed her? But how could I send it even if I wanted to? It wasn’t like two grand would just fall out of the sky.

The thought haunted me as I drove home with my clean clothes. I stopped by Puck’s apartment again, hoping he’d be there so I could get it over with. Sometimes you just have to rip the Band-Aid off, you know? Naturally he was nowhere to be found. Instead of letting myself fester and worry, I decided to follow my original plan for the day and went huckleberry picking.

Three hours later I had enough of the tiny purple berries to make a pie for Earl. With luck I’d get a bonus batch of muffins out of it, too. Just accomplishing something so simple made me feel better, and I even found myself singing along to my music when I showered before my shift. So what if I owed a scary biker an apology and my mom might get murdered any minute?

I’d have muffins for breakfast.

By nine that night, not even the thought of muffins helped, because the dickwads (and dickwaddettes) from the Northwoods Academy had plopped their asses down in my section at the Moose. So far as I could tell, the school was one big asshole factory.

“I thought they weren’t allowed off campus,” I hissed at Danielle, slamming my tray down on the bar next to her. She wasn’t on tonight, but she’d come in to give me moral support. Probably planned to give Blake more than that during his break, lucky boy. “Why the hell are they here again?”

“Hell if I know,” she replied, shrugging. “Just watch out for that blonde bitch with the diamonds. I busted ass keeping up with all their fucking orders the other night. One of the guys left a damned good tip, a fifty. She swapped it out for a twenty, pocketed the difference.”

I raised my brows. The “blonde bitch” looked like she was maybe eighteen years old, and the clothing she wore probably cost more than my car.

“You think she needs money?” I asked, intrigued.

“I could give a fuck—I earned that tip. If you get a chance, spit in her drink, will you?”

Laughing, I shrugged off her suggestion. I couldn’t afford to lose another job. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t spit in the bitch’s drink, of course. I would, first chance I got. Nobody fucks with my friends. I just didn’t want to risk anyone overhearing me agreeing with the suggestion. Good to know about the tip, too—I’d keep an eye on blondie.

Thirty bucks was half a tank of gas.

An hour later I’d decided spitting in the drinks wasn’t bad enough. I’d never met more entitled, wretched excuses for human beings. All of them. Well, almost all of them . . . Of the ten or so taking up two tables along the back wall, there was one who seemed aloof from the bullshit. He was the clear leader of the group, the obvious alpha. They were all trying to catch his attention, but he ignored them.

The guy was about my age, with darkish, floppy hair. I didn’t quite know just what made him different, aside from the aura of untouchability. He laughed and talked just like the others. He wore the same uniform of overpriced, designer clothes that looked like a movie star’s version of going country for the night, and he obviously took his wealth for granted.