Another flicker flashed through my mind – the redhead from Times Square.
The nervous glint in her eyes, how she wouldn’t look straight at me for the first few seconds.
“Maybe I could even come with you,” Calie was saying. “I’ve never even met your family. You hardly ever talk about them.”
“No.” I held up a hand, cutting off anything else she might say. “I don’t talk about my family for the same reason I don’t spend the night, Calie. I’m private. My bed is mine, my home is mine, my family is mine.”
Her face tightened, the chill coming back to her eyes. She turned on her heel and took a few steps to where her clothes lay in a pile. “Well, fine. Be an asshole, Kane!”
I rolled my eyes as she continued to shout and mutter at me, and once I’d shut the door behind her ten minutes later, I wondered if maybe it was time to just stop seeing her altogether. The sex was fine, but it wasn’t good enough to merit the headache that was starting to accompany it.
5
Raye
Warm hands cupped my breasts.
Big warm hands.
A warm mouth covered mine.
I had my hands buried in a head of thick hair, and without even looking, I knew it would be shaggy and dark. Black? Brown? I had no idea, and I didn’t care. I cared about the fact that he’d kissed me again, and this time, I’d had the courage to kiss him back.
Where were we?
Music flowed around us, and a familiar voice echoed in my ear.
Pulling back from the stranger, I looked over my shoulder and saw my manager from my job.
Okay.
This had to be a dream.
She smiled at me, then nodded at him. “Now that is what I call a keeper. But I bet he can’t pick out lingerie worth a damn.”
In the next moment, she was gone, swept up in a dance by some guy in a mask. I looked back at the stranger, and then we were dancing. “Is this a dance?” I asked, confused.
“It’s whatever you want it to be. Do you want it to be a dance?”
I shook my head, but my feet were moving along with his, moving in time to the music floating in the air like a dream. We floated in the air, weaving our way through tables and mannequins dressed in elegant lingerie and masks – and the mannequins were dancing, too.
“I don’t think this dream is what I want it to be,” I said faintly, staring at the mannequin I’d decked out in a lace bra and thong set, along with a sash that read SALE in glitter. She had a mask made of glitter and was dancing with one of the guys who worked at the Asian place just down the street. He always made my drinks good and strong and winked at me.
“What do you want this dream to be then?”
Whipping my head around, I looked up at the stranger who’d kissed me.
“I want to be back on the street where we met.”
In a blink, we were.
And the street was empty. There wasn’t a soul around us.
“What now?” He studied me with intense, dark eyes as he stroked his hands down my arms.
“Would you kiss me again?”
“The last time I kissed you, I got slapped,” he pointed out.
“This is my dream. It won’t hurt you if I slap you,” I told him.
“Do you want to get slapped? Even if it’s in somebody else’s dream?”
That was some logic I didn’t want to ponder. So, I didn’t. It was my dream. It could be whatever I wanted it to be. I rose up onto my toes and pushed my fingers into his hair. Right now, this could be a dream about kissing him. This could be a dream where I was brave enough to do all the things I wanted.
It could be a dream where I was whole instead of broken inside.
I was still trapped in that place between dreams and wakefulness when my phone started to ring. Reaching out, I smacked around on the nightstand for it. I didn’t know if I planned to answer it or silence it. The dream still lived large in my mind, and the thought of talking to anybody would shatter the pleasant haze.
But before I knew it, my mother’s voice was filling the room.
Okay, I wasn’t dreaming that. “Mom?”
“Hi, baby!” she chirped, her voice overly bright and cheerful, and not just because it was…
I blinked and looked around. What time was it? Way too early for the chore it could be talking to my mother, that was for certain.
“Honey?”
I frowned in the direction of her voice. She had to be up to something. The honeys and the babys never came this early otherwise. Dragging myself upright, I tried to force my brain to work, but it was a difficult task. A quick look at the clock told me why. It was barely after ten.
It had been somewhere between three and four before I fell asleep, so that put me at about six hours of sleep. That normally wouldn’t be a big issue, but I’d been up since nine the previous day.
“It’s awful early, Mom.” Rubbing at my eyes, I wondered if I could put whatever this was off until my brain was more equipped to handle a call from her, but it wasn’t very likely.
“It’s not that early in New York…why, I’m wide awake, and I’m three hours behind you!” She laughed brightly, and the sound of it made my head hurt even more.
“I was up late, Mom. I didn’t get off work until close to midnight.”
“Then I bet you were out partying.” She giggled next, and that sound wasn’t any better. “I know how you are.”
My belly churned. She sure as hell didn’t know how I was.
“I’m juggling a heavy class load and a job, Mom. I don’t have time to party. I barely have time to sleep,” I pointed out.
“Oh, I know…you’re such a busy thing. You never have time to call me.” The syrup in her voice thickened as she added, “But I’m so proud of you.”
Uh-huh. I didn’t say that out loud.
“What did you need, Mama?” I asked, keeping my tone free of the skepticism I felt.
“Oh, I just wanted to call and wish you Happy New Year’s, Raye. That’s all.” She paused a moment, then added, “You know, I’ve been going through some stuff up in the attic. Some of your old school things and the like.”
“That’s nice, Mom.”
“You could sound more enthusiastic…you’re never going to believe what I found.”
Knowing my mother, it could be anything from the medal I got in the third-grade spelling bee to an article clipping from the time I’d like to forget. There was just no telling.
“What did you find?” I asked dutifully as I dragged myself upright and crossed my legs.
“It was the craziest thing, baby…I saw it lying there in the box and I just…well, I couldn’t believe it. I know I’ve seen it before, but it never really connected. Staring at it, I was thinking, how could this be here all this time and me never really notice? It was just one of those things, ya know?” She huffed out a breath as she finally came to a pause.
“What was it you found, Mama?”
“A picture!” she replied brightly. “Raye, I found a picture of your daddy.”
My heart squeezed.
I didn’t know my dad. Not his name or even what he looked like. I was the product of an affair between my mother and some married guy. Mom told me he didn’t want anything to do with me, so if that was what he wanted, I didn’t want anything to do with him either. What little I did know was that he and Mom hooked up while he was married. She got pregnant, but he was out of the picture by the time Mom knew. She kept me and raised me all without ever saying much of anything about him.
Oh, it wasn’t like I didn’t ask. When you’re five years old, and all the other kids talk about their dads, it’s only natural to ask about your own. But when I did, she always brushed me off, and when that didn’t work…she yelled. Or she cried.
It wasn’t until I was a teenager that she finally admitted to the affair and told me a few scant details about him, including the fact that he didn’t want a relationship with me.
“Why are you telling me this n
ow?” I asked slowly. “I’m twenty-one, Mama. Well past the age when I need a daddy in my life. He’s married and didn’t want anything to do with me, remember?”
Maybe he changed his mind, a soft voice whispered.
It didn’t matter, though. Even if I was maybe a little curious, I didn’t want to be the reason some guy and his wife had some trouble. That just rubbed me wrong, even if I was the innocent party in all of this. Well, me and the wife.
“Honey…I didn’t tell you who else was in the picture. There’s a little boy. I think you’ve got a brother!”
It was a good thing I was sitting down because those words would have put me back on my ass.
“What?”
“Listen, I’ll text you a shot of the picture…just hold on…” Her voice got fainter, and I sat there, my heart pounding in my ears. A moment later, she came back on the phone. “You should have it any second.”
Another few seconds passed, and a faint ping sounded in my ear to let me know I had a text.
I lowered the phone and let my thumb hover over the button.
“Do you see, honey? Your eyes…look at how similar your eyes are…oh, you’re both so beautiful!”
Mom’s voice came to me distantly, and I finally hit the button and swiped the screen. As the image downloaded, I closed my eyes.
Mom said something, but the words made no sense, and I finally lifted the phone again, forced my eyes to open so I could look at the picture.
It was of a man who probably had been in his early thirties, give or take, when the picture was taken. There was a boy standing next to him. Maybe there was a resemblance. Mom had loved to go through my old picture albums, so I had a good idea of what I’d looked like as a kid. There could be a resemblance. His hair stood up in spikes on the back of his head, a pale blond compared to the reddish-gold mine had been. My mom was a natural redhead.
Rubbing my eyes, I studied the picture once more.
It didn’t go away.
“I think his name is MJ.”
I frowned at the picture on the screen. “I thought you told me that my father’s name was Leland.”
“That’s your father’s name. The back of the picture has the words Leland and MJ,” Mom said with a loud, inappropriate laugh. “It sounds like you’re stunned.”
“That might be because I am.”
She started to talk again, and I closed my eyes, bringing up the image on my phone in my mind.
It wasn’t until a few more moments had passed that I realized Mom had said something.
Then the reason for her call became clear.
“I’m kind of tight on money, honey. And I know you’re working at the fancy boutique there. Is there any way you can float me a loan?”
I closed my eyes.
Of course, she couldn’t have just been calling to tell me Happy New Year’s or with this news about my supposed brother.
Not my mother.
6
Kane
“Uncay!”
Uncay, as far as I could tell in my limited understanding of two-year-olds, meant Uncle Kane. Small hands patted my knee, and I bent over to sweep one of two twin girls up in my arms. As she was over here wanting to be loved on and not trying to climb the walls, I knew I had to be holding Zoe. Rose would find a way to fly off the roof by the time she was five. At least that was what I’d told her father, my younger brother Nathaniel.
It had turned him an all-new shade of white, probably because he realized I just might be right.
Zoe, on the other hand, was content to cuddle up against me, with her head tucked under my chin as I made my way through my mom’s now-crowded living room.
I had too many siblings for us to keep crowding in like this, but somehow, we managed, week after week. All major holidays. Anytime somebody close was getting married or died.
We managed.
Zoe wiggled up closer and pressed her lips to my cheek, and my heart squeezed a little. She was the sweetest thing.
Her brothers, Connor and Grant, spied me and came shrieking my way. I held up a hand, and they both stopped the shrieking. “Remember to keep the volume level to a dull roar, dudes,” I said.
“Yes, sir.” Connor, the older one, hugged my hip while Grant grabbed my left thigh and hugged it, then they were both gone again.
“Hey, man.”
I looked up as one of my brothers stepped into the room. Eddie grinned at me and Zoe. “Looks like a pretty lady caught your eye,” he teased.
“The prettiest.” I nuzzled her curls and caught sight of Rose peeking around the corner at me. “Well, one of the two prettiest. I don’t think you can figure out which one’s prettier. It’s too hard to tell.”
Rose grinned and came running at me. I shifted her sister and knelt just in time to catch her, then I had both arms full of sweet-smelling, little girl warmth.
Eddie laughed. “Man, if some of the guys from your old life could see you now, they’d just die.”
I scowled at him. If I was sure Mom wouldn’t see me, I might have flipped him off, armload of twins or not. “Where’s Ricky?” I asked, deciding to distract him instead. Rick was his boyfriend, and the two of them rarely went to an event, even something as simple as a family dinner, without the other.
“He got stuck working a double.” Eddie rolled his eyes. “Staffing cuts and now half the employees at his place are pulling doubles to make up for it. How does that save the city money, you tell me?”
“Find a politician and ask him,” I advised. Rick was an EMT – they’d met on the job and had been together for a while.
“Dinner’s almost done,” he told me, coming over and liberating Zoe. “I’m taking this little doll.”
Zoe went to him with a beatific smile, and I was left with Rose who immediately turned inscrutable, big dark eyes on me. “Unca Kane,” she said in a serious, little adult voice.
She’d managed to get most of the syllables in there. She’d be reading by the time she was three. And if they weren’t careful, out for world domination by age six. “Come on, let’s go see what Grandma is doing.”
“Out kichen,” Rose announced, almost getting kitchen perfect – and she knew the rule. Nobody was allowed in Grandma’s kitchen when she was cooking. The rule had been the same when I was little. Mom would make all of us clean up, but she didn’t like stepping on toes when she was busy whipping up a feast. Not that I minded. All I did was get in the way.
“Okay. We’ll go find your mom and dad,” I told her.
That seemed to content her, and we found her parents, Madison and my brother Nathaniel on the fire escape that my mom used for her small container garden. “No making out until after dinner,” I said, snaking a hand through the window and smacking Nathaniel on the back of the head.
He glanced at me through the glass and mouthed, Fuck off.
I grinned at him.
Dinah, one of my two sisters, was in the kitchen with my mother, the only other person allowed in the sacred space. According to my mom, Dinah was the only person who ‘got her rhythm.’ Which I understood. The two of them moved like they were a matched set when they were cooking. It made sense. Ever since Dad had died and I’d had to step up and help Mom out more and more, Dinah had done the same, in her own way. She’d been the one who took over the cooking and the cleaning when the multiple jobs Mom had held had her working late into the night. In retrospect, I should have been more like Dinah, instead of taking the path I’d taken. But hindsight was twenty-twenty and all that bullshit.
My sister caught sight of me and nodded, a faint grin on her face at the sight of Rose nestled up against me. “I see the rottens have found you already. Which one you got?”
“The soon to be ruler of the universe,” I answered.
Rose tapped her chest. “Rosie,” she said indignantly. She didn’t like it when people didn’t recognize her for her genius alone.
Mom heard me and paused in the middle of whipping mashed potatoes to come over and kiss me. ??
?How are you, baby?”
“I’m good.”
Rose lifted her rosebud mouth for a kiss. “Kiss me!” she demanded.
Mom laughed and obliged.
Rose added as Mom walked away, “Unca Kane not baby.”
“I’m not even going to bother explaining,” Mom said, waving a distracted hand. Her voice sounded a little strained, and I shot Dinah a look.
She mouthed later.
I bit back a sigh because chances were I’d already figured out what the problem was. The same reason Mom’s voice often sounded distracted or grim these days.
There was one brother I hadn’t seen yet. I could have asked, but instead, I put Rose down and patted her diapered backside. “Why don’t you go find your sister?”
Austen, my youngest sibling, was locked inside his room. He didn’t answer the first knock, so I tried again – harder.
He all but ripped it off the hinges then, a belligerent look on his face that faded when he saw me. “Hey, man! How ya doing?” he asked, reaching out to pull me into the room.
It was the expected disaster a seventeen-year-old boy’s room was likely to be, maybe even worse.
I sidestepped an empty bag of chips – at least I hoped it was empty – and a pile of clothes. “Mom asked you to clean this up anytime recently?”
“She’s always after me to clean it up,” he said with an unconcerned shrug. “I figure if it bothers her that bad, she can do it. I don’t care.”
“Mom works forty hours a week to make sure you get decent clothes and food in your belly,” I told him, biting back an angry retort. “You can do a bit to help out.”
“Hey, I can buy my own clothes. I got money.” He went on the defensive, jabbing a thumb at his chest.
“And are you going to be able to buy the uniforms you need for school? New shoes? A coat for winter?” I swept a hand around, spied the shoes Mom had busted her ass to buy him for Christmas, and that just made me angrier. “Come on, Austen. She wears herself out trying to take care of you.”
“I don’t ask her to!” he half-shouted. “Shit, if you’re going to be on my case too, why the hell you in here?”