Max looked at Ham and there was a light in his eye and his lips were twitching before he informed him, “You heard it. Now watch as she gets fuckin’ smashed and I stop at beer two.”
I was beginning to feel a hysterical giggle forming inside me.
“I’m not going to get smashed,” Nina snapped.
“We been here fifteen times. Each time, except when you were pregnant, you had two martinis, half a bottle of wine, and an amaretto and passed out in the Cherokee on the way home,” Max returned. She opened her mouth to speak but Max beat her to it, his lips now fully curved up. “And the passing-out part includes when you were pregnant and not smashed.”
Definitely feeling a hysterical giggle forming.
Nina’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll remind you, Holden Maxwell, father of my children, love of my life, that we just met Reece and perhaps he doesn’t wish to listen to us squabbling.”
Max looked at Ham. “Kiss that good-bye. We’ll be fightin’ on and off through dinner. Prepare. She gets riled, we’re all fucked.”
The words sounded like Max was complaining but his tone sounded downright proud.
Nina swung her gaze to Ham. “Don’t listen to him. Ask Zara. I’m very sweet.”
“She’s a goddamn hellion,” Max muttered, now sounding proud and amused.
The hysterical giggle was choking me at exactly the same time Ham burst out laughing.
Still laughing, Ham cut his eyes to Max and asked, “You mind we switch sides? Since we got company, I’d like to sit by my woman.”
“Not a problem. I’m closer to my wife, I have a better shot at controlling her,” Max replied, sliding out of his side of the booth.
“Max!” Nina hissed as she slid out of hers.
“Not a good chance,” Max told Ham as they switched sides, “but a better one.”
Everyone settled. Max with his arm resting on the back of their side of the booth, Nina fuming, Max grinning at her. Ham with his arm on the back of our booth, fingers absently brushing my shoulder, both of us sipping beer and smiling.
When their drinks arrived, I took the chance to put my lips to Ham’s ear.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered there.
“I take it they’re your friends,” he whispered in mine.
“Yeah.”
“Then don’t be, baby. We’ll finish later.”
“Okay.”
I pulled away but he caught me with his arm around my shoulders, pulled me back, and touched his mouth to mine.
When he let me go, we settled back and my eyes went to Nina.
She was sipping her martini.
When she placed the drink back on the table, her eyes were dancing on me and she said, “Told you.”
It hit me then. She knew why Ham was pissed about the vibrator usage.
I smiled at her and replied, “You so totally did.”
Nina was halfway through her martini and we were all the way through our bread basket when she leaned toward Ham and me.
“I know you think we’re rude—” she started.
“That’s because we are rude,” Max murmured. Nina sent him a killing glance, to which Max grinned at her. She rolled her eyes and then looked back at us.
“But, I’m sure you know this, Greg is here,” she finished.
“I noticed,” I told her.
“And Kami,” she told me.
“I know,” I told her.
“When I saw that, we had to come over and interrupt. You needed reinforcements. Trust me, things can go bad at The Rooster,” she stated gravely.
I found this intriguing, but before I could ask, Nina’s eyes darted to the side and up and she inquired, “Can I help you?”
“No,” my aunt snapped from where she stood beside our table.
I tensed. Ham went solid. I even sensed Nina and Max tensing.
“Walk away,” Ham growled.
I looked to the side to see Ham’s head tipped back to scowl at Dahlia Cinders, my maiden aunt, who had a black soul, a nasty mouth, a heart of stone, and a flair for drama.
She looked like she always looked, except older. Perfectly creased trousers. Flouncy blouse. Appropriate jewelry, all of it quality, none of it ostentatious. Now-fully-gray hair swept back in a not unattractive bun but, knowing her, nothing was attractive. Brown eyes that didn’t hide she was mean as a snake.
She ignored his words but not him.
“Heard you were back in town. Heard you installed her back under your roof,” she noted.
“Walk away,” Ham repeated.
She again ignored him and went on. “Clearly she didn’t learn the first time, good riddance to bad rubbish.”
Nina gasped.
Max grunted.
My breath caught.
“Walk… the fuck… away,” Ham snarled.
“Excuse me, I don’t know you or why you’re suddenly here, but we’re trying to enjoy a nice night out,” Nina butted in. “Please, make a choice and do it swiftly. You can do as Mr. Reece says or I’m calling the manager.”
My aunt turned her venomous eyes to Nina. “I have a few words to say to my niece.”
Nina didn’t even blink but her back went straight.
She’d never met them but I’d told her. She knew all about my family.
“So write them down on nice notepaper and use our trusty postal service to deliver them,” Nina retorted.
“Oh fuck,” Max muttered, getting close and curling an arm around his wife’s waist.
“Nice language,” Aunt Dahlia snapped.
Max looked at her a moment, then, weirdly, grinned.
“Excuse me!” Nina hissed. “That’s my husband you’re talking to.”
“He has a foul mouth,” Aunt Dahlia returned.
“Better that than foul manners,” Nina shot back.
This was semiamusing but mostly scary and it got scarier when Ham slid out of the booth, got close to Aunt Dahlia, looked down at her, his scary-scarier-scariest face unamused and entirely pissed-off, and he rumbled menacingly, “I said, walk… the fuck…away.”
“Is there a problem here?”
Oh hell.
That was Greg.
“You,” Aunt Dahlia sneered at my ex-husband. “I know who you are. Her one shot at respectability and you scrape her off? What, did she cheat on you?”
Greg ignored her, looked to me, and asked, “Are you all right?”
“This is my Aunt Dahlia,” I stated as answer.
“I know. You pointed her out at the festival three years ago,” Greg replied.
“So, obviously, no. I’m not all right, seeing as I’m choking on Cinders-infected air,” I returned.
Greg looked at Aunt Dahlia. “You need to leave.”
“I already told her that,” Ham growled.
Greg ignored Ham like he didn’t exist and said to Aunt Dahlia, “I’ll ask the manager to have you removed.”
“Since I dine here once a month, I doubt he’ll choose removing me over removing the lot of you.” She twirled her finger in the air to indicate us all.
“Do you think,” Nina started and I looked at her to see her looking at Max, “that this is normal? I mean, does this kind of thing happen to other people in the world? I really want to know.”
Max smiled at his wife.
I looked back at Aunt Dahlia to see, scarily, she was looking at me. “You need to phone your father.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
This was said by Kami Maxwell.
I leaned forward and plonked my forehead on the table.
“Kami,” Max said in a warning tone. “Stay out of it.”
“The staff is excellent when they’re serving food,” Nina remarked irritably. “They disappear during drama. Where are they? I really want to know.”
“Don’t you call your father, Zara,” Kami ordered.
I lifted my forehead off the table and aimed my eyes at Max’s sister, a pleasantly plump, female rendition of her brother, which was to say she had great e
yes, fantastic dark, wavy hair, and very attractive features.
“That’s not a worry, honey. I’ve conditioned my body to spontaneously combust if I get six digits in,” I told her.
“I don’t find you amusing,” Aunt Dahlia snapped.
“I don’t give a shit,” I shot back.
“Excuse me.” Greg had hold of the arm of one of the waiters. “Can you please send the manager over here?”
“Of course,” she muttered before she quickly scurried away.
“You’re a mean old bitch,” Kami said to my aunt, “and I’ve been bein’ nice for a real long time.”
Nina’s eyes cut to me and got huge, eloquent indication that I agreed with that Kami’s brand of “bein’ nice” was not agreed on by all.
Kami kept talking.
“And these boys here won’t want to get in a smackdown with a nasty old woman. But not me. I got no problem doin’ that. So if you don’t walk away, I’ve got enough bitch stored up, I’m aimin’ it all at you, startin’ with throwin’ Nina’s drink in your face.”
At this, Nina slid her drink out of reach.
“Then,” Kami went on, “if you, that snake of a brother of yours, or his sniveling wife get anywhere near Zara, phone her, or attempt to get in touch with her in any way, I’m unleashing all holy hell on all your asses until you beg for forgiveness or move to another state.”
“Is there a problem here?” A mild-mannered-looking suited man I suspected was the manager entered the situation.
“No, I’m simply having a word with my niece,” my aunt replied.
“Yes, this woman interrupted my wife’s dinner in an extremely unpleasant way,” Greg contradicted.
“She’s not your wife,” Ham grunted.
Uh-oh.
Shocking the crap out of me, Greg, with narrowed eyes and anger contorting his face, instantly fired back at Ham, “She’ll always be my wife.”
I went still. The table went still. I fancied the restaurant went still as I was pretty certain I watched ice form in a thick layer, crackling and groaning all around Ham.
“Well shit.” His words were sarcastic but that didn’t mean they weren’t dripping icicles. “See I’m in a position to apologize since I fucked your wife against the wall before we left to come here.”
This was when I plonked my head on the table again.
“Oh my,” Nina breathed as she glanced at Max. “We haven’t done that in a while, darling. We should do that again.”
“Gross,” Kami said.
“Foul,” Aunt Dahlia snapped.
“I’m never comin’ to The Rooster again,” Max declared.
“Maybe we should take this outside,” Greg suggested, and at the thought of Greg, five-nine and not having worked out since high school football, going up against Bruiser Ham, my head shot up.
“Stop it,” I whispered and I felt all eyes come to me but I was looking at Greg. “This was gonna happen, either for you or for me. It was always gonna be unpleasant. I cannot fathom why you’d make it more so,” I told him.
He knew what I meant. His face blanched, his eyes went contrite, but I looked at Aunt Dahlia.
“I’m never calling my father. I have nothing to say to him and he has nothing to say that I want to hear. You also don’t have anything to say that I want to hear. I can’t imagine after all that went down nearly a decade ago how you’d have the gall to walk up to my table, badmouth my man, and be all-around nasty but you did it. You did it well. Congratulations. Now, please, go away.”
She sniffed, opened her mouth to say something, but I quickly looked to Ham.
“Please, darlin’, sit down. They don’t exist. This is our night. We’re enjoyin’ it with friends. Let’s get back to doin’ that.”
Ham hesitated a beat before he slid in beside me.
I looked at Kami.
“Thanks for comin’ to my rescue but it’s all good now.”
Kami didn’t move, crossed her arms on her chest, and glared at Aunt Dahlia.
Aunt Dahlia shot her a look that only a shield of orneriness as world-class as Kami’s could save her from bursting into flames and then Aunt Dahlia flounced off.
“Zara—” Greg started. Ham tensed beside me and I quickly looked to Greg.
“Please, don’t. I’ll call you later,” I said quietly.
He looked to me, avoided all other eyes, and took off.
“Nina, Max, always a blast,” Kami said to her brother and sister-in-law. “Guy I don’t know, you treat her like shit, I slash your tires,” she said to Ham. “Zara, later,” she said to me, and then she sauntered away.
“All right now?” the suited manager asked.
“Yes, no thanks to you,” Nina answered on a snap.
“I’ll have complimentary drinks sent to your table,” he muttered, backing away.
“That will be good… to start,” Nina returned.
He disappeared.
I took in a deep breath.
Ham curled an arm around me and pulled me into his side.
“You okay, cookie?” he asked.
I tipped my head back to look at him.
“How are you with grilling steak?” I asked.
“You know the answer to that,” he answered.
I did. He was the master. Outside grill. Fried in butter in a skillet. Broiled. You name it, he did it, and well.
“Next time, we eat in,” I told him.
He grinned.
“Cookie. I like that,” Nina murmured.
I looked to her and she smiled.
I relaxed into Ham’s side.
His arm around me got tighter.
The rest of the restaurant melted away.
Only then did I smile back at Nina.
* * *
We were in Ham’s bed, Ham on his back, me pressed to his side, my cheek to his shoulder, my hand resting on his chest.
I was exhausted. A day of a lot of great sex, good food, good drink, and, in the end, good company made me that way.
Nothing else happened after the incident with my aunt, Greg, and Kami, thank God, although I noticed that Max seemed a little standoffish with Ham but hid it behind his friendly Max ways. This melted after the appetizers and by the end of the night, luckily, everyone was getting on great and we had a good time.
But right then, as exhausted as I was, I knew sleep wouldn’t find me. There was too much on my mind. What Ham told me. How sad it was. How angry it made me feel that those women treated him that way, most especially his bitch of a wife. The fact that we’d been interrupted and I was worried there was more. Greg on the whole and what I was going to do about him.
But mostly, my aunt.
I would know that Ham also had things on his mind when he rumbled into the dark, “Somethin’s gotta be done about that ex of yours, cookie.”
I pressed closer and promised, “I’ll talk to him.”
“That is not gonna happen.”
His words surprised me so much I lifted my head and looked down at him in the dark.
“What?”
“I’ll have words with that fuckwit.”
I felt my body get tight. “Babe, he’s not a fuckwit.”
“Called you his wife. Got in my face,” Ham laid out the evidence.
“See it from his perspective,” I urged.
“Got in your face while you were at work.”
He did do that, though I wouldn’t call it “getting in my face.”
However, it must be said. The evidence was pretty damning.
“He didn’t wanna let me go,” I whispered.
“Well, he did. Papers signed. Months passed. It’s done. He needs to get the fuck over it and I’m gonna communicate that to him. You are not.”
“I think it’s best if I—”
I shut my mouth when he declared, “I stepped aside for him.”
Yes, actually, he did.
Ham kept talking.
And, in doing so, melting my heart.
“Didn’t
want to do it, hated fuckin’ doin’ it, hated losin’ you for three years, but I did it. For you. For you to have him. So that means for him to have you. I wasn’t in the place to give you what you needed then but if I was, you made it plain, I coulda made things not so fuckin’ easy for him. I didn’t. Now you’re mine. He needs to back the fuck off.”
I loved that. All of it.
I still felt the need to protect Greg from Bruiser Ham.
“But you don’t know him, Ham. I do. And seein’ me with you had to hurt him tonight.”
“Zara, you bein’ you, actin’ like you, lookin’ like you, he’s fuckin’ lucky he hasn’t seen you with someone else long before this. And I’m not happy your life was fucked but that doesn’t change the fact I’m lucky your life was fucked so you didn’t even think about findin’ another guy or I would be fucked.”
I loved that, too. A whole lot.
That didn’t mean I didn’t keep trying.
“Let me try talkin’ to him first,” I suggested.
He weirdly cut me off with, “Babe, your clothes in my closet?”
“Yes, but—”
“They are. You’re mine. Two strikes, he doesn’t get a third. Now I’m dealin’ with him.”
“That makes me uncomfortable, Ham,” I shared.
“I get that. I get why. I get you got guilt. I get you got feelings for him. I also don’t give a fuck about him. You’re my woman out to dinner with me and he stands there in front of me and calls you his wife? No fuckin’ way. No one stakes their claim to what’s mine, not behind my back, not across a room, and especially not to my face without a conversation.”
That was when I knew I was right about Ham.
When it was no promises, no expectations, he was fair enough to give the same in return.
When there were, what was his was his and he marked his territory.
I was also right about something else.
Possessiveness was hot.
“Go easy,” I said quietly, giving in.
“We’ll start with that and see how it goes,” he replied.
I decided to leave it at that and settle in.
We were silent for a long while but I couldn’t fall asleep and I knew Ham couldn’t either, so I laid something else on my mind on him.
“I’m worried about my aunt comin’ to the table and what Dad might have to say.”
I was worried even though I suspected I knew.