I scramble backward, keeping a protective hold on my daughter. “Stay away from us, Ray. I mean it. Come any closer and I swear I’ll rip your eyes out.”
“Why don’t you give me a taste? I’ve been thinking about what a juicy piece you must be. And I’ve had your mama and your grandma. Why not the youngest? It’ll be my Ray Donaghy hat trick.”
I reach behind me in search of a weapon, but the need never materializes. Instead, there’s a roar at the door, and then a six-foot, three-inch torpedo launches itself at Ray and spins him around.
Tucker drives a fist into Ray’s face before the bastard even realizes there’s another person in the room with us.
I huddle in the corner, drawing a blanket up over my chest as if to cover Jamie’s eyes from the scene in front of her. Tucker throws Ray against the wall, lifting my stepfather’s skinny ass up with one strong hand against his throat.
“You sick fuck. You’re lucky my kid and woman are in this room right now or I would fucking end you.”
His grip tightens, and as much as I think Ray deserves to have the snot choked out of him, I don’t want Jamie visiting her daddy in a Massachusetts state prison for the next twenty years.
“You should really wait until after I’m done with law school to kill Ray,” I tell Tucker, weak with relief.
He squeezes Ray’s throat once more before letting the creep drop to the floor.
“Come on,” Tucker barks, turning to me. His pupils are dilated and his nostrils flare as he struggles to gather his composure. “We’re out of here.”
I don’t argue.
*
“How long has that been going on?” Tucker demands as he pulls out of the driveway. I turn away from Jamie’s gurgling, happy face and meet his grim expression.
“Ray being an asshole? Since the beginning of time. Him trying to feel me up while I was feeding Jamie? That’s the first.”
Although his creepiness must have always been in the back of my mind or else I wouldn’t have felt compelled to hide in my bedroom all the time.
“You can’t stay there,” Tucker says flatly.
I drag a shaky hand over my face. “I don’t have another option at this point. Babies are expensive and my bank account is bleeding out. Hope gave me this diaper cake and it had like two hundred and fifty diapers—I laughed when I counted them. Well, I used that up in the first three weeks. And you’re living with Brody, who pretends his bedroom is a Cirque de Soleil tryout, complete with the accompanying soundtrack.”
“I know.” Tucker bites his lip. “I wasn’t ready to do this because I wanted to wait for the right time, but I’m going to have to.”
I gnaw nervously on the inside of my cheek. “The right time for what?”
Is he breaking up with me?
Oh God.
I fight the urge to vomit all over the inside of Tucker’s clean truck.
“For this.” He stops the pickup in front of a corner bar. It’s classic Boston with its redbrick exterior, green awning and a postage-stamp sized patio toward the rear.
“I can’t drink while I’m breastfeeding,” I remind him.
“Yeah, hold that thought,” he says, and then slides out of the truck.
As he’s pulling Jamie out of her carrier, I climb down and meet him on the sidewalk. “We can’t bring a baby into the bar.”
“We’re not.” He places his hand on my lower back and steers me toward the side of the small building. There’s a set of stairs leading up to the second floor. “Go on,” he says when I hesitate.
“Did you rent an apartment?” I try to keep the worry out of my voice. It’s his money and he should do what he wants with it, but renting a place by himself because I’m having problems at home seems like a waste of his money. “Because Ray’s all talk and no action.”
“Right. Like him attacking you in your bedroom was all a bunch of words.”
“He was drunk.” Jeez. Why am I even making excuses for that psycho?
Tucker gives me another shove. “Are you going to drag your ass upstairs or do I have to carry the both of you?”
“I’m going.” I cave. The doorknob turns under my hand and I notice a freshly installed electronic keypad.
“It works via near-field communications,” Tucker informs me.
“English, please.”
“It unlocks when a paired device is close to it. That way if you have your hands full, you can still get in.”
“Cool,” I say faintly. And that’s only the first of many surprises.
Upstairs, I find a huge two-bedroom apartment. The kitchen is small and the appliances are old, but there are windows everywhere. The living room is filled with dust and exposed brick.
“I’ve been tearing down the drywall.” Tucker gestures at the walls. “I haven’t touched the bedroom because I figured you’d want a say, but the stuff in here was rotting. Come on.”
This time he takes the lead. Down the hall are two bedrooms. He pushes open the first one, drops the carrier inside the door, and then kneels down to pull sleepy Jamie out. The little pill always falls asleep in the car.