Ruckus

  “I mean it, Nina.” My voice relaxed, but my posture didn’t. “I don’t care. Tell him I don’t want to see him. Now get out. I’d hate to call security. We both know you can’t afford another arrest with your criminal record.”

  That should have been the end of her, but it wasn’t.

  Nina didn’t show up again in person—I think she knew I’d follow through with my threat—but started sending me things that belonged to him to gauge my reaction. To get me to cave in and answer her calls. A black Raiders cap, to show me that he, too, loved football. A plastic cup with Birmingham, Alabama plastered all over it. A pen. Whatever. Fuck. I didn’t want these things to taunt me, but they did. They did and I needed to get away from it all. I was reaching the breaking point that made you crumble.

  The decision to go to Todos Santos wasn’t only about getting away from Nina. It was time everyone knew what my intentions were about Rosie. I was going to marry the fuck out of that chick, soon. By the end of that month, we were moving in together, officially.

  I was diving headfirst into a messy reality, and I didn’t give two shits. I chained myself to her destiny, knowing how it was going to end. Rosie started every morning with gulping down a ton of pills and wearing that vest twice a day. Every other afternoon, she would go to physiotherapy. When we took strolls, she would stop and lean against a tree, out of breath, smiling apologetically as she clutched onto her side. My girlfriend was not well. She was never going to be well.

  And we were still going to make it work.

  People had to know, accept, and move on with it.

  The other reason I dragged her ass to Todos Santos was Trent. Jaime and I promised him we would get Vicious to agree to switch branches. The fucker was going to Chicago with Millie and the baby whether he liked it or not. I knew he wasn’t going to go down without a fight—hell, fighting was one of our favorite pastimes—and I was ready for battle.

  Rosie’s meeting with my parents was supposed to be low-key and intimate, but when my mom realized I was bringing a girl home for the first time since…well, ever, she got a little too excited. And by “a little too excited,” I mean goddamn crazy. She called my sisters, and what do you know? Keeley planned a visit from Maryland, anyway, and Payton was just around the corner in NorCal, and this was how a quiet brunch with my folks and girlfriend turned into the mother of all shit-shows, hosted by yours truly.

  “I’m so nervous I’m about to puke all over my cleavage.” Rosie clutched my hand when I parked one of Vicious’s cars in front of their house. “The bright side is, at least it will cover my tits. Looking gross is better than looking like a floozy, right?”

  “Did you just use the word floozy?” I chewed on my right cheek to contain my smile.

  “Weird, huh? I think it’s the nerves.”

  “Holy shit, Baby LeBlanc. I didn’t know things were that bad.”

  She’d never met any of her past boyfriends’ parents before. Never went this far with anyone else. It was almost like we waited for this moment so we could experience it together. We weren’t kids. I was kissing thirty. She was twenty-eight. We were emotional virgins, and it was like she just handed me her V-card.

  This time I asked for it.

  This time I took it.

  And I loved that we got to experience a few first-times together.

  “Just be you. I’m sure it’d be good enough. And, if not,” I shrugged, popping my minty gum, “I’ll replace you. You have a hot cousin, right?”

  I punched the doorbell as Rosie shot daggers at me with her lake blues. Any other time, I would breeze right in, but she needed those few seconds. Her palm was sweaty, and she had a coughing fit she tried to tame by gulping deep breaths. Rosie had no idea that she already impressed my parents simply by dealing with my crazy ass and accepting me for who I was. I wasn’t going to reassure her of that just yet, though. I loved watching her make an effort. She wore a formal blue dress under her huge coat—and no, the cleavage wasn’t half as generous as she thought it was—and had braided her hair. That whole good girl act was a complete fucking sham, and watching her lie for me in that goody-two-shoes dress was a turn-on.

  My mother opened the door, wearing her signature lime-green pastel cardigan and syrupy smile. She threw herself at Rosie and hugged her like they’d known each other forever, and Rosie melted in her arms, her stiff body shielding its armor. My dad shook Rosie’s hand and offered her a grin, the kind he saved only for his children. He then proceeded to pat my back and whispered something entirely inappropriate into my ear about my girlfriend. Payton and Keeley stood at the door like two stage-ten stalkers and complimented her dress. They then turned their attention to me.

  “You’re still working out.” Keeley’s tone was borderline accusing. She tossed her dirty blonde hair.

  “What, no gyms in Maryland?” I brushed my shoulder past her and squeezed her biceps playfully. Keeley had no time to work out, and even though she was a little on the fuller side, it suited her just fine.

  “Oh, look, our brother is still super funny.” Payton elbowed her. I rolled my eyes, and my sister gasped. “What, no sense of humor in New York?”

  Juvenile sparring aside, things started off on the right foot.

  Rosie and I were led into the dining room, where White Trash Hash, cowboy breakfast bowls, bagels, and brownie cupcakes were waiting on the rustic modern table. Orange juice, coffee, and milk were sprawled, ready to be demolished. Rosie’s mouth almost dropped to the floor, her tongue rolling like a red carpet, and I wasn’t sure if it was because she was starving or because of what she was seeing. I suppressed a chuckle when I thought about how she’d probably imagined my family. A bunch of snotty assholes who only ate French-named dishes and lived in a mansion like Vicious’s.

  Truth was, my parents came from a town on the outskirts of Birmingham, Alabama. My dad was a senator’s son, but my mom was the Rosie type. Her parents worked on a farm. They’d met when she cleaned his room to cover for her sick mama. His parents hated her, and she hated them, but neither of them gave a rat’s ass.

  My dad became one of the most powerful attorneys in California, making the rest of their past ancient history. But they were Southern people through and through, and I think the fat-laden food on our dining table was fucking proof of that.

  “Park your ass, Baby LB.” I pulled a chair, giving her my own version of being a gentleman. We sat next to each other. I poured her coffee. She liked it black. No sugar. No cream. No nothing. Actually, Rosie avoided dairy altogether, and I noticed those things because every little detail about her was observed, recorded, and filed in my brain. I kept my hands off of her, knowing full well that the minute my fingers found hers, they wouldn’t stop until they dove down between her legs. My parents had no idea what a fucking horny bastard they had raised. I was trying to keep it that way.

  “Rosie, I heard you volunteer at a children’s hospital.” Keeley grinned.

  “At the Mott’s Children Hospital in Manhattan,” Rosie confirmed, taking a long sip of her coffee. “ICN unit.”

  “You must really love kids. Does Dean know he is going to father at least three or four of them?” my sister joked, taking a bite of her greasy bacon. Rosie blinked, her easy smile unfaltering. My gut turned into a knot of hard wires. Because while Rosie still hadn’t told me about her situation—well, she did, but not consciously, and certainly not the details—it didn’t make her reality any less real. I shouldn’t be mad at Keeley. She was direct and playful. I shouldn’t, but I fucking was.

  “Thank you, Keeley, for freaking my girlfriend out five minutes into our brunch.” I smirked, casually asking my mom to pass me a bowl of who-the-fuck-knows just to keep things moving. “Two can play this game. I’ll be waiting for your future boyfriend with an arsenal of questions about his sperm quality and parenting methods when the time comes.”

  Rosie put a hand on my thigh.

  “Dude, it’s okay.” She smiled with her whole face. “Yeah. I have a passi
on for children. I would love to be a mother one day,” she added after a pause. “And I think your brother would make an amazing dad. There, baby. Just making sure the anxiety is distributed evenly between us.” She patted my cheek and winked.

  I laughed because she expected me to, but it never reached my eyes. Or any bone in my body, for that matter.

  “I’m rolling with whatever you want.” I clasped the back of her neck, planting a kiss on her temple. “Three kids. Ten kids. One. None. Don’t give a damn as long as it’s with you.”

  As I said it, I knew that my balls would never forgive me for the cheese I just poured all over my reputation, but my balls had no say in this. Besides, I didn’t hear them complain when Rosie licked them last night in-between sucking my cock. My dignity was a price I was willing to pay for her happiness, and I was hoping she’d read between the lines and understand that her infertility issues weren’t going to come between us.

  Less children = More Rosie for me. No complaints there.

  “Awww,” Payton cooed. “Someone grew a heart.”

  “What did you put in his drink, Rosie?” Keeley snort-laughed, pretending to fan herself with her hand. “This is not something my brother would say unless he’d lost a bet.”

  My mom smiled so big I thought her face was going to collapse into the back of her neck. Dad looked a tad uncomfortable, but it couldn’t have been the topic. He was the one drilling it into my head that I needed to settle down. Dad kept moving his gaze from his Bvlgari watch and back to me. Eli Cole wasn’t a man who was easily irked.

  “When are you guys leaving Todos Santos?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow morning. We’ll be spending Thanksgiving dinner at the Spencers.” I threw a strawberry into my mouth and chewed. Maybe he was pissed that I was staying with Rosie’s family, but he ought to know that winning her parents over was a priority this year. Rosie’s parents didn’t completely hate me—I helped them get their shit together back when they moved to L.A. and Vicious was in New York playing Romeo to Emilia—but I got where they came from. If I had two daughters and a bastard who boned both of them, I’d be suspicious of his intentions, too.

  I needed to rehab my image, make sure they knew chasing a LeBlanc ass wasn’t a hobby of mine.

  “Would you be able to drop by afterwards?” Dad smoothed his Polo shirt. “There are a few matters we need to discuss.”

  Mom’s face changed, her eyes were pleading with me now.

  “Are you guys getting a divorce?” My voice was dry, one eyebrow raised.

  “Oh, Lord!” My mom scoffed, clutching her pearls. “What are you talking about, Dean? Of course not.”

  “Someone dying?” I proceeded.

  “No,” Dad said.

  “And none of these girls are preggo?” I threw a thumb in Keeley and Payton’s direction. My bet was on Payton. Kid was trouble. But my parents shook their heads in unison, denying this, too.

  “In that case, I’ll take a rain check.” I took a sip of my water, leaning back in my chair. “We have a board meeting in our L.A. office after dinner that will take some time.”

  “Everything all right?” Dad furrowed his brows. I shrugged.

  “We’re twisting Vicious’s arm. He needs to switch branches with Trent. He wants to be close to his parents now that Val is gone.”

  As the words left my mouth, I’d realized that Rosie didn’t know shit about it. I forgot to tell her. Didn’t think she’d care. But, of course, she would. Her parents lived in Vicious’s house, and her sister was having his fucking baby. Though I knew Vicious would never sell the mansion—he loved it too much—I still felt like a dick, throwing it in her face out of nowhere.

  She leaned forward and my fingers were no longer touching her back, and her lips were no longer smiling, and fuck, I was an asshole. She had every right to give me grief about it.

  “You can still make it, even if late,” my dad insisted. Goddamn, what was with him today?

  “No can do, Dad. Told you. This could take a while. If you have something to tell me, do.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  I put my silverware down—slowly—taking the time to scan every curious face at the table before I spoke again. “We’re family. All of us.” My hand found Rosie’s neck, but she pulled away, gently yet firmly, making sure I knew I was in the doghouse.

  “Dean, honey.” Mom licked her lips, and Keeley and Payton offered each other puzzled looks from across the table. They didn’t know what the hell was going on either. Thank fuck. The last thing I needed was an intervention or some shit.

  Nothing about the situation made sense. Our family didn’t have secrets. Well, there was one, and it was mine, but it was buried six feet under, covered by the dirt of everyday life and the dust of years of denial. The rule was that when we were together, we talked about it freely. Never held back.

  Only it wasn’t just us in the room now. Rosie was there, too. It tipped me off, and my jaw locked, my eyes narrowed.

  What the fuck has Nina done now?

  “That old thing. I still haven’t told Rosie about it.” I rubbed my face tiredly. “Yeah…fine. I’ll throw her in the loop after we’re done here. She’s not gonna give a fuck. I promise you that,” I said, watching as all eyebrows in the room—Rosie’s included—rose in disbelief.

  “Please, if you need to say something, do. Don’t mind me. It’d make me feel right at home,” my girlfriend joked. None of us found it funny. My teeth ground together.

  “Any reason why you’d choose to bring it up now?” I played cool.

  Brunch was turning into the kind of Jerry Springer crap you made fun of when you were doped, slung on your couch drinking ice-cold beer.

  Say hi to your current life, asshole. It’s not a TV show; it’s your reality.

  “We heard Nina was in New York.” My dad jerked his chin up, and that was when I noticed he hadn’t touched anything on his plate. Eli Cole didn’t eat his fucking cowboy breakfast. That was weird. He would marry greasy food if it were legal. Mom only let him have it once a year.

  “I see she gave you an update on her whereabouts.” I reached for the orange juice, my hand a little shaky. “I’m taking care of it.”

  Sort of. Kind of. Okay, not really.

  “We all know what she wants.” Dad put his hand on mine and made the shaking stop. I raised my eyes to his. We both swallowed hard. “And I think it’s time you face what she has to say, son.”

  “You do?” I leaned back, breaking the contact, one of my elbows propped on the table and my other arm snaking around Rosie’s seat. “Who is going to pay for this little adventure? You or me?”

  “Me, if that’s what you care about. But it’s not. Your mother and I want to discuss this with you. It’s not a subject to be addressed on the phone.”

  Rosie’s hand came down on my knee. Payton and Keeley looked confused, but she was downright frightened. I needed to make it stop. I postponed this conversation long enough. It was time to tell her and face the consequences.

  My eyes were still locked in a battle with my dad. He was pissing me off. That almost never happened. I had a very good relationship with my father. We golfed together. Went to football games together. Talked until the very late hours of the night together every time I came home for a visit. Other than drinking together—I had a problem and didn’t want him to witness my ugly side for himself—we pretty much did everything together. He was a source of pride for me. Even my friends dropped by to ask him for advice.

  “Fine,” I bit out. “I’ll try to make it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. It could be three or four in the morning. These meetings can drag.” Boy, could they. We always took our sweet-ass time when we locked the door to the world outside. And convincing Vicious to do something he didn’t want to do? Yeah, we’d be lucky to leave there before January.

  “We’ll stay up all night if need be.” Dad took Mom’s hand in his, his cheekbones flexing.

  “Any way we can go back to eating and talki
ng about Dean’s future babies?” Keeley squirmed in her chair. “Rosie looks fifty shades of pale, and I’m kinda scared.”

  “Are you okay?” I twisted my head, checking my girlfriend out. She didn’t look okay. She looked like she was going to faint. Rosie nodded, just barely. I took her hand in mine, and this time she let me, which wasn’t a good sign if you knew Rosie.

  She was supposed to be pissed off with me.

  “Inhaler, please.” Her voice was barely a hiss.

  I rushed to her bag. I knew by then her inhalers were hooked into the front pockets and grabbed both of them before returning to the table.

  Everyone’s silence grated on my nerves as Rosie sipped water after she used her blue inhaler. I shook with rage. What the fuck did my parents think they were doing? They had all the time in the world to tackle the Nina subject, and they decided this brunch was the perfect opportunity?

  Fuck them.

  Fuck that.

  And fuck me, for forgetting to give her a heads-up. I forgot to tell her about us cornering Vicious, but even if I hadn’t, what good would it have done? Rosie was going to run to her sister and warn her off. It only would have made things messier.

  “Well…this was fun,” Rosie muttered, her smile weak when we stood by the door. I helped her into her coat, feeling like the biggest douchebag on planet Earth. Which was ironic, because that was what she called me. Earth. What she hadn’t realized was that I really was our goddamn planet. Because when I was going to explode, a lot of fucking people were going to get hurt in the process.

  My sisters and mom still waved at us when I opened the door and helped her into the Jeep. Her eyes were droopy, her body slack. I always brushed aside Rosie’s illness, but it was there, looming in the shadows, waiting for the perfect chance to grab at her throat.