Jim's doubled over in front of me, gasping for breath. It's only a minute or so before he slowly rises to his full height. His face is red with a mix of anger and loss of breath, but his face looks better off than his poor dick. Not that he didn't deserve it, but maybe I didn't need to knee him that hard.
As I stare down this large, imposing man I see the guy I thought was becoming my friend. Jim Stone, despite being King of the Assholes, is the man who forced me to take a job that pays me well above what I should be making. He's the reason I have my apartment, even if I pretend he's not. My landlord let it slip that Jim bribed the man to give me the place for cheap without a security deposit. I suspect it was also Jim's doing that the apartment's appliances were upgraded right before we moved in. In hindsight, I probably should have weighed all this against his being an asshole before I decided to bruise his family jewels.
He takes a large step toward me and, instinctively, I step back. I want to believe he won't physically hurt me. I want to believe he won't fire me. But the reality is that it doesn't matter how nice he is or what he's done for me. He's Forsaken--an outlaw--and he makes his own laws and only follows the rules set forth by his club. He doesn't value kindness or forgive almost anything--his words not mine--and even if I want to think of us as friends, we're still virtual strangers. We don't talk much unless it has to do with work or the kids, and even then it's short and stilted. He almost always looks like he wants to say more but rarely ever does. And the times he does give himself more freedom to speak, it's to say something out of left field that I don't expect.
Like the time he told me he's never seen an ass fill out jeans the way mine does.
Or when he told me watching me clean makes his dick hard.
Or the time he wrapped his arms around me and rested his chin on my head and thanked me for being good to his boy. That almost killed me. It was quick and a small gesture, but it was so gentle and out of character from the man I'm used to seeing that I've carried it with me as a sign that Jim Stone is worth trusting my heart with.
But he's not, and this whole situation is proof of that fact.
So when he takes another step forward, I take another one back. We repeat this again and again until I'm moving so fast that I'm almost running backward as he stomps forward.
"What is your fucking problem?"
"Don't touch me like that!"
"Before that!" Now he's the one snapping and ill-tempered. Not that I can blame him. If I were him, I'd be pissed, too.
"What?" Now I'm confused and upset and afraid. I'm a whole mix of emotions that I can't really place or explain. None of what I'm feeling makes much sense aside from the gnawing disappointment that's suffocating me.
"You banged on the door. You were pissed. Why?"
And in an instant, I'm back to being pissed about the whole thing at the school. Jim has this uncanny way of bringing me back to the present.
"You told the school I'd deal with Ryan."
"Yeah."
He cannot be fucking serious right now. That's his entire response? Yeah? No. No, that's not good enough.
Asshole.
"You put me in a really shitty position. Do you even know what the boys got in trouble for?"
"No, but I bet you're going to tell me."
My brain is about to implode from his lack of concern over his own kid. What is wrong with this man? The signs have been there for months, but I've been brushing them aside and trying to explain them away. Of all Jim's faults, this is the one I can't forgive.
"You put me in a bad position today, Jim! Ryan bullied Ian. Tell me how in the hell I'm supposed to handle that? I'm not Ryan's parent. You want me punishing him? Because that's not fucking fair. I should have been there to comfort my own kid, but instead I spent most of my time sitting in front of that goddamn principal defending both you and your son."
Jim's jaw ticks. His eyes darken. Every inch of him tenses. If I thought he was pissed about being kneed, I was wrong. No, now he's pissed.
"He did what?"
"You heard me," I say, throwing my hands up in the air and walking away. He doesn't seem to be up for parenting today, not that he ever seems up for the job, but I'm fucking done trying to force him to deal with this shit. I'll just take Ian home and find out from him what happened. We'll work out a way to deal with this on our own. I can't do anything about Ryan if his own father won't step up.