“Future Pole Dancers of America unite,” I mutter.
“Easy, girl.” Knox tousles my hair as if I were his favorite puppy. He nods over to the back. “There’s Dad. Now be nice. I know this is a shock to hear, but both of our parents love us.”
“You know what’s really a shock to hear? The fact I haven’t knocked you into tomorrow for dragging me around like a ragdoll tonight. You do realize there will be hell to pay.”
Knox swivels around and lands an arm over my shoulder, his eyes pinned directly to mine. “Grow up, Trix. Let the words your mother said tonight sink in. She loves you. This was a shit ride. She never abandoned us the way we thought. I know you love Dad. I do, too, but sometimes people do things they’re not proud of and pitting their children against their mother is something I’m betting he regrets.”
My eyes spring wide at the accusation. My father is a saint. My heart breaks as we make our way to him because I’m terrified I’m about to find out Knox is right. Knox is always right, but that annoying as hell track record can’t go on forever.
Dad stands at the sight of us, and we engage in a hearty three-way embrace. We keep busy with small talk as Serena takes our order. The three of us each indulge in a single serving turkey pot pie in honor of the special day we’re going to miss as a family.
Dad looks up with a smile. We have his eyes, his lips. When we were little, it was my mother who told me I was a daddy’s girl through and through. I always did believe what she told me. Did being the operative word.
He grins over at us. “You two spending the big day up at the cabin with your mother?” For the first time in so long I don’t see the hurt in his eyes when he references her. My mother was a source of agonizing pain to my father for so long—he wanted her back in the worst way—but tonight he looks and sounds very much past that heart-wrenching level of wanting. “I talked to Bradley this morning, and he says Lake Avalanche already had six inches of powder. Be careful on the drive up. You got chains?” He nods to my brother.
“You talked to Bradley?” I hold up a hand, backtracking us right to the beginning of this conversation. “I thought you hated Bradley.”
Dad winces as if I just let an entire string of expletives fly. “I don’t hate the guy. He’s married to your mother now whether I like it or not. I may have strongly disliked him to begin with, but we get along great now. He’s helping get my contact list going again.” Dad lost Toberman Global at the same time he lost his wife. One apparently brought on the other. But he’s starting a new endeavor now, same concept, different name. And it’s been like starting from scratch for him.
“Dad”—Knox takes a breath as he looks to me—“there’s something I think we need to discuss. Mom’s been attending these meetings.” He pauses to curtail his words. “They’re called—”
“The Excised Parent.” He nods knowingly. Any trace of a smile melts right off his face. “Yes.” He looks directly at me. “I know all about it.”
Knox and I sit stunned just waiting for him to say something, anything.
“Is it true?” I pull my water forward just to feel the icy condensation numbing my fingertips. It’s suddenly far too hot in here with far too many people.
Dad looks to the exit as if he wishes he could hit it. “I don’t know what’s true and not true.” He bows his head a moment and takes a deep breath. “But yes, when she said she was leaving, I panicked. I couldn’t control Rex, so I thought I’d do my best to ensure I wouldn’t lose all three of you once she got out. I wanted us to last,” he pleads with tears in his eyes as he looks my way. “God, I wanted nothing more than that, but we were like oil and water. And then after the screw up that led to her incarceration—I knew my days were numbered. And she was angry.” He shakes his head, staring at the table as if talking to himself. “She threatened family court, restraining orders, the whole nine yards. I was running scared. And sadly enough, I vented—to you.” He looks from Knox to me. “Look, I never claimed to be perfect. And in no way was I trying to isolate you from your mother—not really. What I did want was to get my side of things out there so that when the time came for you to choose where you wanted to live, you might choose me.”
A single tear sears its way down my cheek. “Why didn’t we visit?”
He grows quiet, looking past my shoulder as if the answer were swimming around the Black Bear. “We did at first. Until I started butting heads and the guards asked me to wait outside. I wasn’t having it. Rex offered to take the two of you, but by then your loyalty to me won out.”
“I was afraid,” I offer, unsure of what’s true and not anymore. “And I grew to hate her for you.” That was the truth, and right now I hate it.
The three of us sit together in a strangled silence, despite the fact the band rages on, the coeds keep screaming as if the roof were on fire.
I pull my phone out like the autonomic response it is and check my social media sites on a loop. When I get to Briggs’ official page, I freeze.
“Oh my God,” I whisper so low no one at the table seems to notice. But I sure as hell notice something. The words I, Rush Knight, am madly in love with Trixie Toberman are written across the official school banner. My chest bucks as a breath hitches in my throat. Is this real? My God, does Rush love me? Then, just as quick as the elation sets in, the wind gets knocked right back out of me. Things like this don’t usually pan out for me. But who would do this? And why? Wait, doesn’t Rush have the final say in who posts what? My entire body flares with heat. As much as I want to believe it, I’m afraid the only logical explanation is that the school was hacked. Probably a cruel joke by Miranda herself. I bury my phone back into my purse, take in a breath, and steel my resolve. I won’t let this get to me. I can’t. At least not at the table with my brother and my father.
The bill comes, and my father antes up. The three of us stand and engage in one long, wordless embrace.
We exchange our I’m sorrys, our I love yous as easy as spilling water, and then we wish him a happy Thanksgiving and watch as he heads out into the chilly night.
Knox gives my shoe a light kick. “Harper’s waiting for me back at the house. Let me walk you home.” I look past him at the bar, and my eyes round out, my stomach bisects with heat just like the first time I laid eyes on Rushford Knight. He nods over to me with his hands stuffed in the front pockets of his jeans, that silly lopsided grin gliding up one side of his face. All I can think of is the image of what I just saw. Impossible. He’s probably just gloating at the ridiculousness of it all.
“If I leave now, he’ll think I’m running,” I say mostly to myself. “Maybe it’s time I have another important conversation.” One that involves a slow death by way of a butter knife.
Knox follows my gaze and takes in a quick breath, his chest expanding like a gorilla with his back on fire. “On second thought, I think I’ll stick around. Grant and Eli are in the poolroom. I’ll be here in case you need backup.” He glares at Rush as he treks on past him.
It takes all of my strength to take a step forward, and before I know it, we’re meeting in the middle, his cologne already wrapping its warm spiced arms around me.
Just as I’m about to abandon any good sense I might have and toss my arms around him, another pair of slender arms beat me to the punch.
“Hey!” Miranda blinks over at me as if it were just a casual hello, resting her head on his chest as if it belongs there. She’s dressed in her typical tart attire, giving off those naughty cast-off-from-Catholic-school vibes. Knew it. She set me up. That whole Rush loves me thing was just for kicks.
Every cell in my body hits its boiling point, and I’d like nothing more than to claw her eyes out and stuff them down her throat.
“Hay is for horses,” I bark. “Now, go out back and get lost in the first pasture you see.” It comes out like the threat it is—lame threat, but I was just warming up.
She blinks back. “My God, you’re so immature.” She hikes up on her tiptoes and lands a kiss to his
cheek, but Rush’s sober eyes are still pinned on me.
“I’m not interested,” he says while looking right at me. Carefully, he peels her arms off his body. “In you, Miranda. I’m sorry. My heart, every last part of me, belongs to this girl right here.”
“What?” she squawks so loud the bar falls silent for a microsecond. “Trixie Toberman? Please—she’s a little girl at best. She’s someone you drop off at the mall with friends, not someone you wine and dine”—she runs her finger over his lips—“and take home to meet the bed sheets.”
“I’m a little girl?” I practically gag on the words. “I’m not the one wearing knee socks with a schoolgirl’s uniform as if I belonged in a Britney video.”
“Nice,” she snips. “Take a pot shot at my clothes. That’s real mature. You always did exemplify the lowest common denominator of existence even way back when. All the kids were afraid of you. They all thought you would steal from them because that’s what your family did. They stole from people to make a living!”
My mouth falls open, stunned. Honestly, I didn’t think Miranda even realized we went to the same high school. And now I find out the truth—my reputation precedes me.
“Trashing my family?” I give an incredulous huff at her audacity. “My God, now that was immature. Even Bart Simpson agrees with me on that one.”
“You’re offensive,” she barks.
“Oh, cry me a river. The world is full of infants like you just waiting to be offended.”
She holds up a hand. “Okay, fine.” She smarts up at Rush with attitude. “If this is what you want for the night, then I won’t put up a fight.” She blows him a dry kiss. “Find me when you need a real woman.”
“I hear there’s a special on crabs tonight!” I shout after her. “You know, like those things you have living between your legs!”
Rush rumbles out a dark laugh deep within his chest, and I miss the sound. More than that, I miss the way it felt to have my body against his while he did it.
“She’s allergic to shellfish.”
“Please.” I scoff. “I have no sympathy. I hope she dies in the street.”
Rush picks up my hand and reels me into him. “That’s what I like about you—you don’t mix words.”
I blink up at him as I struggle to keep my breathing even-keeled. “You have something you want to say to me?”
“Yes.” Rush drops that grin and trades it in for a look of longing. “You up for taking a little walk?”
* * *
The night air just before a storm is filled with the earthy scent of ozone. It’s something my father taught us as children, and Knox and I would go out just to inhale the heady scent by the vat.
Rush holds my hand as we walk across the street toward campus and end up just shy of Hallowed Grounds by the maples already bald for winter.
He blows out a hard breath. “I had a long talk with Nolan the other day.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s a text from Sunday, but I choose to ignore it.
“Go on.”
He bites down on his lip as if he had a delicious secret he couldn’t wait to unleash. “I discovered something about myself. That instead of dying along with my mom—on the inside, of course—I should probably be living for the both of us.”
“So does that mean you’re doubling down on the girls you bed?” I shrug at my weak attempt at levity.
“No.” He closes his eyes a moment. “It means I’m living the way she would want me to—the way I want to. I’m not afraid anymore.” He swallows hard, and the muscles in his jaw flex. Rush is gearing up to say something that he’s probably never said before, and I’m all ears to hear it. “I’m in love with you, Trix.” Tears gloss his eyes as he shakes his head, and my entire body swells with relief. “I’m so fucking in love it hurts like hell not to have you. I miss you.” He pulls me in. “I miss us. I miss the taste of your mouth, the feel of my body in yours”—his eyes linger hard over mine—“but mostly, I just miss this.” He gives my hand a squeeze. “Being near the only girl who ever stole my heart.” His chin vibrates as if he’s struggling to hold it together, and that familiar heat spears my stomach once again. Rush Knight feels this level of emotion for me? Is this real? “There has never been another like you, and there won’t be another after you.”
“Who says I’m leaving?” I can hardly believe the words as they escape my lips. I had solemnly vowed to myself that should Rush Knight cross paths with me, I’d kick his balls in with a smile. No remorse. No sappy make up to our horrible breakup.
“Are you still up for something with me?” His chest pumps in and out with his every breath, and I’m right there with him.
“Hell yes. Are you up for something with me? I’m not talking about a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am session in the bathroom of Kappa Kappa Gamma or the Black Bear. I’m talking long-term. My bed or yours—okay, so my bed is out of the question because my RA is a total bitch, but that’s beside the point. I want everything with you.” Those last words come out with tears, with a voice no bigger than that of a mouse, and Rush scoops me up in his arms and spins me.
“I love you. I love you so much.” He peppers my face with kisses. “I’m never letting you go. I’m not letting you down either.”
My phone keeps buzzing to the extent it’s starting to worry me, and I hate that it’s pulling me out of the moment—this very moment I’ve secretly begged the universe to give me.
“God, who is this?” I pluck the phone out to see about a dozen messages burping up at once and more pinging every other second. “What’s happening? They all say something to the effect of did you see it?” Then it hits me. I look up at Rush, my eyes set wide. “Did you do that?”
He bumps a kiss to my lips. “Did you check out the WB home page?”
“I may have,” I say it slow as I look at him from under my lashes. I take us to the school’s homepage, and instead of the traditional orange and blue WB Mustang banner with a picture of a—you guessed it—a mustang—the words I, Rush Knight, am madly in love with Trixie Toberman. A single pink rose slices through the X in my name. I get a good look at it this time with new eyes and really let it sink in.
“I thought maybe it was a joke.” My words come out garbled. “What in the world have you done?” A laugh bubbles up my throat as I smack him. “Oh my God, the entire world is going to know! This is insane!” I tip my head back and fill the entire campus with my laughter. “You really love me?”
“Yes, I really do. I love you, Trixie, and it’s never going to get old saying those words.”
And then, just as easy as they came, the smile, the laughter both leave me. “Rush, my heart was cracked in two long before you ever came along. I’m damaged. I’m scarred.”
“You’re not damaged. I promise you that. We’ve both had a rough time, but it’s nothing we can’t overcome together. Those cracks—the damage life inflicted on you through hard ass lessons—you earned those scars. But you’re done looking at the past. We both are. They say the rearview mirror is small for a reason, Trix. It’s time to look forward—straight ahead with me.”
I give a weak nod. “With you.” Rush and I lock eyes, and I can feel the intensity of his love for me—here we are communicating without words. I guess my mother was right. It happens when you’re in love. My fingers bump over his lips just before I pull him down to me, his mouth over mine just the way it should be. Rush and I have found our way to each other, back where we belong, falling in one another’s world by way of our mouths, the way it should be. The way it was since the very beginning.
The snow begins to fall, pricking us with a series of soft, wet kisses of its own, and we pull back, holding our hands to the air, tongues out like a couple of little kids.
Rush slings me over his shoulder, my face swinging down by the back of his jeans as he takes off in the opposite direction of Cutler Tower.
“Where are you taking me?” I shriek, laughing while putting in a weak attempt to pound my fists over
his back.
“To my place,” he shouts, picking up his pace. “I think we should offer this next phase of our relationship a proper introduction.”
My laughter reaches to the sky as we bob up and down while racing down the street.
“If my brother finds me there, he’s going to kill you!”
“That’s okay. You’re worth dying for.”
“Aw!” I melt over him like a wet napkin. “I do love you, Rushford Knight.”
He takes a healthy bite out of my thigh. “And I do love you, Beatrix Toberman.”
The best part is that I can tell deep down in my bones that he means it.
Rush loves me.
It’s too good to believe, but it’s true.
Rush
Thanksgiving Day has always been a bit bittersweet at the Knight home. My mother would wake up far before the crack of dawn for her date with “Tom”. She used to love telling us all about the exhausting kitchen adventures she’s had once we woke up in time to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. But since she’s passed, my cousin Lex took over. Lex alone has been the glue that’s held this family together. My father was too busy courting New York real estate right along with all the socialites in Manhattan. In fact, he’s there today doing the very same thing. A testament to the fact some things don’t change.
And this Thanksgiving is no different, except that it technically is. Instead of cramming ourselves into Lex’s small home, not too far from my own rental, she’s decided we should dine at The Sloppy Pelican, the fine establishment her fiancé owns and runs. But tonight, I’m showing up with a plus one for the very first time.