Gunnar A Motorcycle Club Romance - Nina Levine Page 0,76
morning?” Nash asks, joining us.
“Pussy,” J says.
Nash frowns. “I can’t, for the fuckin’ life of me, think of one time I had pussy when I shouldn’t have.”
J takes a swig of his beer. “Me either, brother.”
“Gunnar!” Griff calls from the doorway. “Need you for a minute.”
Thank fuck for Griff.
I eye J. “Thanks for the pep talk. It was real fucking enlightening.”
“What the fuck is wrong with him?” Nash says as I walk away.
I tune them out as I head towards Griff. “What’s up?” I say when I reach him.
“Got a stack of jobs I need you to pick up tomorrow. We’ll need to start early so I’ll need you to be here at six in the morning. You good with that?”
I nod. “Yeah.” I’m more than good with that. Anything to take my mind off shit.
He checks his watch. “Okay, good. I’ll see you then.”
He heads down the hall towards the office and I make my way out to my bike. Scott okayed me to take the afternoon off to spend with Mum.
She’s in bed when I arrive. My father lets me in and tells me to take my boots off before coming in. I tell him I fucking know his house rules before leaving my boots at the front door and stalking to their bedroom. With the mood I’m in today, we’ll be lucky not to go a fucking round.
“Mason,” Mum says, turning her head on her pillow to meet my gaze as I enter the room.
I walk around the bed and sit on the edge next to her. “How are you feeling?” My chest tightens as I trace my eyes over her face, noting how weak and exhausted she looks. I can’t fucking lose her to this shit, and as much as I don’t believe in imagining the worst when someone’s sick like she is, I’m fucking worried.
She smiles, but it’s not a full-throttle smile. Not even fucking close. Reaching for my hand, she says, “Don’t worry about me, darling. Let me do the worrying. That’s a mother’s job, not a child’s.”
“Fuck, Mum, you don’t need to waste your energy worrying about me. You need to keep all your energy for getting better.”
“Please don’t use that language. You know I don’t like it.”
She’s been telling me this for a good fifteen years, and still I fuck up. I always was the son who couldn’t get shit right.
“Tell me what the doctor said.” Alexa told me she was seeing him this morning.
A look passes in her eyes, the kind of look that I know means she’s hiding something from me. “He didn’t say much, just that he wants to keep an eye on me still.”
“Don’t lie to me, Mum. What is it?”
She watches me silently for longer than I know is good. Finally, she says, “I have nerve damage from the chemo. It’s just started, but the doctor says it can last for a long time and that it can get worse. He’s started me on new medication to try and help with it.”
If I thought my chest was tight before, I had no fucking clue. Now it’s fucking tight. “What does that mean? Nerve damage? How does it affect you?” It doesn’t sound fucking good, that’s for damn sure.
“I’m having trouble gripping things and am dropping things. My feet go numb and sometimes I have trouble walking too.” She squeezes my hand. “Please don’t worry about this. It’s common from what the doctor has said.”
“Fuck, it doesn’t matter if it’s common or not, the fact is you have it, and I don’t fucking want you to have it.”
She doesn’t bother to mention my language. Not this time. She’s my mother, after all, and she knows every piece of my soul, so she knows I’m fucking struggling here. “I know, darling, but I have faith in my doctors. I trust they know what they’re doing and will get me through this.”
I want to punch something. Someone. Any-fucking-thing. And I sure as fuck want that doctor to take back this diagnosis. It’s bad enough that she has cancer; she doesn’t need to be dealing with this shit as well.
I stand and pace beside her bed. My entire body is crowded with the kind of wild energy I need to get out, and since punching her walls is out of the question I’m left with pacing.
“Mason.” She sits up. “Please come and sit with me. I want to hear about what you’ve been up to.”