School and Rock (Raptors Book 5)

by RJ Scott

  Joe and Simon both coughed and sputtered.

  I sniggered. “Sorry, old woman, dank dope is not allowed on the premises anymore. Got to keep things clean for children’s services. They drop by all the damn time.”

  Alchemy huffed and puffed a bit then went off to explore the countryside after getting a kiss from me and a buss of Maddie’s cheek.

  “Uhm…” Joe said after Alchemy wandered to her van then up into the hills. “Should we allow an elderly woman to go into the foothills?” Just then a coyote howled. Joe got up and walked over to glower down at me and my ukulele. “She could be being eaten as we speak.”

  “She’s golden, really. She just wanted a little weed before bed. Helps the arthritis pain. Trust me, I’ve seen her take care of a rabid raccoon trying to get into the commune henhouse with a rusty garden rake and a turnip.”

  The glow of the fire from the brazier revealed his stunned expression. “You’ve had one hell of a unique upbringing, haven’t you?”

  That made me smile. Widely. “I’ll tell you about it sometime.” I patted the grass beside me. “Come sit with me. Let’s chill for a bit longer and maybe get another kiss?”

  “And that’s my cue to leave,” Simon grunted, heaving his massive self upward from the dewy grass. “I’ll go find Alchemy.” I made a circle with my thumb and index finger then pretended to take a toke. “Asshole,” he mumbled then went off to find my grandmother.

  I lay there on my back, Maddie within reach, plucking out a Fleetwood Mac song on my guitar. It, like Maddie Boo, was never far from my touch.

  “Do you do drugs?” Joe asked, rolling to his side, and resting his head on his hand.

  “No, not really. I used to smoke pretty hard, but then I realized that I was slipping into Liberty territory and then I quit. The Raptors test me weekly because I guess they think I’m heavy into horse or something, being a metal musician.”

  “What’s Liberty territory?”

  I strummed out a few new chords for the ballad that refused to go away. Maddie slept peacefully under the stars, a fine mosquito mesh draped over the top of her playpen. Joe really did think of everything.

  “Liberty Penn. You know.”

  When he didn’t reply I stopped playing and rolled my head in his direction. “Sorry, I don’t really do heavy metal music. Is that a band?”

  I laid the Gibson aside and turned on my side, mimicking his position. “You’re incredibly adorable. You really don’t know who Liberty Penn is?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “It’s cool. Well, he’s my father. He was this massive superstar in the country and western biz about thirty years ago. You must have heard some of his songs. They were everywhere. Themes for football games, commercials.” He shook his head. “Damn, you do spend a lot of time with your head in the stars.” I flicked the end of his nose playfully, which made him wrinkle it, which made him even more adorable. “Well, he kind of took this massive downward spiral after his last world tour. Got so drunk he thought he could fly. Jumped off a roof, broke like a bazillion bones. Healed from that, went into rehab, joined AA, cut another album, more critical acclaim, and tried to hang himself in Alchemy’s old sweat lodge a year later. I was three. We walked in to find him cinching the noose around his neck. It was… I remember bits. Like… I can see him on the chair and the rope, but I had no idea what he was doing. I think I thought it was a game, like a swing or something.”

  “Dear God,” Joe whispered. “I’m just… I don’t even have the words and I generally have lots of words.”

  “Meh, it’s okay. Really, I’ve dealt with it all. His lust for destruction, my mother’s overdose death when I was four months old, all that shit has been therapied and discussed for years. I’m even pretty much over the fact that he moved to Bolivia with some chick named Helen and has a second family. Six or seven kids that I’ve never met. He used to send pictures with birthday cards but they stopped when I was ten. Yeah, well. Anyway, so my grandmother kept me. She’s cool. Tends to light up a bit more than she should, but she’s got arthritis and some shit going on with the nerves in her hands so the weed eases the pain.”

  Joe lay there staring at me. “I’ve never done this before.”

  “Lay in the grass and listen to some sexy-ass rocker goalie drag out his familial skeletons?”

  “Well, that too.” He sniffled a bit, a funny sort of snicker that made me chuckle. “This. I’m not familiar with this. The feelings that I’m having when you talk. They’re…” He closed his eyes and exhaled. When he opened them I rolled in to press my lips to his.

  He melted into the touch of our lips yet I could feel his unease. The uncertainty kept me at bay. If he had been any other dude we’d be going at it by now but Joe was… well, he was Joe. He was becoming important to me. More than just as an employee. In a hundred, no, a thousand different ways.

  “I don’t do this,” Joseph murmured into the kiss. “You’re my boss, I have life goals. I work hard. I don’t even know how to process this…” He waved between us, and after a moment’s pause he sighed. What he saw in my answering expression I don’t know, but he scrambled up and strode into the house, taking the baby monitor with him and mumbling words I couldn’t hear.

  Ten

  Joseph

  Well, that went really well.

  I checked on Maddie, lost myself in the soft rise and fall of her chest for a while then spent time contemplating the creation of the rings of Saturn, which was my go-to story for when I was stressed. When even that didn’t help I sat on the edge of my bed and called Natalie.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked sleepily.

  It made me check the time to see it was past midnight. “I’m sorry to call so late.”

  “S’all right, hang on.” I heard rustling, and cursing and a bang, and then she was back. “I’m glad you called, I broke up with Mick, turns out he’s just your everyday asshole.”

  “Sorry, sis.” I didn’t want to add that I was glad it was over, because Mick wasn’t good enough for her. “Are you okay?”

  “Always. Anyway, what’s up, Flash?”

  The fact she used my childhood nickname was endearing and emotional and everything I told her came out in a rush.

  “Colorado kissed me, and I’m having feelings.”

  “He did what? And you’re what?”

  “Before you say I’m his manny, I know that. Also before you say feelings are healthy, I have them but I don’t know what to do with them, and even if I kissed him back I wouldn’t do it properly, because I’m me. And, let’s be honest I’m not built for sex, let alone random sex with a man whose baby I’m looking after.”

  “Wait, you’re thinking about sex, you’ve never ever… What is going on?”

  “Tell me what the hell to do because I’ve tried to work out a formula and none of them fit.”

  “Attraction isn’t a formula,” she finally said after a moment’s pause.

  “I know that,” I lied, “I didn’t mean an actual formula.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  Damn it, she was right. I did mean an actual formula. Like man plus man plus hormones equals sex plus mess plus awkward conversations. Add a healthy dose of deterministic chaos and I was objectively assessing that attraction wasn’t as random as it might seem and that it was all systems and patterns. However, I couldn’t see the pattern and I didn’t like it one little bit.

  “Okay,” I admitted, then sighed dramatically.

  “Back to these feelings you’re having. Is he pressuring you? He kissed you, right? I mean, what is all that about? He’s a rich man, I looked him up. Did you know they pay him three million a year? A year! If he’s pressuring you then I’m getting a cab now and heading over to pick you up.”

  “No, this isn’t about him, it’s me. I don’t know what to do. He actually asked me if it was okay to kiss me—”

  “And what were you going to say? No? He’s your boss. Okay, ask him if I can visit, I’ll bring Emma, get a bus, and we
can talk. If he says we can’t visit, and at the same time he’s pressuring you for sex, then I’ll get the cab instead, and break you out.”

  My sister got the creative genes, which she always joked left all the science parts for me, but this had grown out of control fast. She was the one who spun stories and had a healthy and vivid imagination unconstrained by facts, but she sounded genuinely concerned.

  “I’ll ask—”

  “Go and ask now, and call me back.”

  “Now?”

  “Now, otherwise I’ll call the police. I’m going now, phone me back, you have ten minutes.”

  She ended the call and I stared at my phone. What in hell’s name had happened there? I’d called to talk about feelings and suddenly she had this scenario where I was being kept against my will and having sexual advances thrust at me? She didn’t need to worry because the last thing I felt was threatened, but was I that bad at knowing my own mind that I wasn’t the one in control? I’d not researched Colorado, but he was a sexual being, and a jock, and my boss. I recall what I’d walked into that first day, and the way he’d padded around the house in soft silk and then later when he kissed me.

  He asked me. I could have said no.

  I knocked on the door to his bedroom and called his name but when he answered it was from behind me and not in his room at all. With an iPad under one arm and a hockey stick under the other, he took the remainder of the stairs to this floor at speed and slid to a halt next to me.

  “Is Maddie okay?”

  “Yes, she’s sleeping.”

  He stared at me and I shrank a little under the weight of his gaze. “Are you okay?”

  “I’d like to invite my sister to visit, with my niece.”

  “Here?”

  I pulled back my shoulders. “Yes.”

  “Sure,” he said with a smile, “we can send a car for them. Barbecue! I love barbecue, although I won’t eat it, y’know I need to carb up, but… yeah… we can do that. I’ll get the band over, or maybe not, they can sometimes be too much, but you know they’re good guys. I’d love to meet your sister, and maybe your niece can play with Maddie.”

  “She’s five—”

  “Cool,” he tapped the stick to my shin gently. “I’m working, then we have the game the day after, so let’s do it tomorrow, early evening. Exciting.”

  “Okay.”

  “Was that it?” he prompted after a pause and I nodded. “Night.”

  And with a wink he was gone in a swirl of silk and scent and I was left on the landing like an idiot, until it hit me that Natalie might be calling the cops, so I dashed back to my room to reassure her. She huffed a bit, commented on my tender heart, said she’d do some more research and then we organized a time, and she said goodnight. All I could think was that Colorado was going to be in for an interrogation tomorrow, and when she’d finished with him, she was going to start on me.

  Somehow, it was decided that Simon would get a van, then take me and Maddie to pick up my sister and Emma and then swing by the practice facility to collect Colorado before heading home. With military precision, we ended up at my sister’s place at three sharp, and Natalie appeared at the door, giving me a wave and then hoisting a bag of what I knew would be Emma’s things up on her shoulder.

  “That’s your sister?” Simon asked.

  “Yes.”

  “That woman there?”

  I couldn’t see any other woman in the vicinity, so that was an easy answer. “Yes. That’s Natalie, and Emma her daughter, my niece.”

  He wriggled a little more upright in his seat and pressed a hand to his already smoothed hair. “Okay then,” he murmured, and in a slick move he jumped out of the car, rounded it, and opened the door for Natalie. “Simon,” he introduced himself.

  “Natalie.”

  “Up here, ma’am.” He helped her up into the high back seat of three rows, assisting her with Emma’s booster seat, and only when he was sure everyone was in did he get back into the driver’s seat. I glanced at him when he fumbled the reverse out of the small drive, but he side-eyed me in his usual Simon way, so I didn’t ask. When we neared the arena Colorado was already outside, waving at us to stop, and clambering up to sit in the middle row with Maddie. He buckled up before twisting to talk to my sister, all of which I could see in the vanity mirror.

  “Joseph’s sister!” he announced, and reached for her hand.

  “Joseph’s boss,” she replied frostily, although she shook his hand.

  Clearly, that went right over his head as he launched into chatting with Emma about emus. He only stopped when Maddie fussed and then he leaned over her and let her play with his hair which was loose around his face. What, with his growing beard, which it seemed was his good luck charm or something weird like that, he looked like a castaway on an island.

  A sexy castaway.

  “You got the van okay then?” Colorado asked.

  “Clearly, as we’re sitting in it,” Simon replied, as dry as the Arizona desert.

  “Whatever,” he replied and then twisted again to face my sister. “You can have it, if you like.”

  Silence.

  “Colorado—” Simon began.

  “Hang on—” I said at the same time.

  “We don’t need a van,” Natalie remarked loudly and yep, there were icicles hanging off each syllable.

  “Okay then, no worries.” Colorado turned to face front in his seat, unfazed by the chaos he caused, and then went back to playing with Maddie.

  By the time we reached the mansion I was convinced world war three was about to start. But when Simon muscled me out of the way to help Natalie out of the car and my independent sister thanked him softly and blushed, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be war or flirting that would win. Colorado took Maddie and I helped Emma out then we all headed into the house. There was no sign of Alchemy, but that was probably good because she was intense and kept commenting on my aura as if it was a real thing.

  “My grandmother is staying here as well, but she’s taking a fasting and meditation day in the pool house so we might not see her until this evening,” Colorado explained as we entered the wide hallway, and Simon shut the door behind us. He crouched in front of Emma, pushing his hair back from his face, balancing Maddie, and I couldn’t look away from the bunching leg muscles, or the way his tracksuit bottoms molded his rear.

  Okay, that was new.

  I shook it off as Colorado chatted to Emma, who’d tucked herself behind my sister.

  “Want to go swimming, Emma? Did you bring a suit?”

  “Dunno,” Emma murmured, and my heart went out to her. I knew how I’d felt when I’d arrived in this huge place and met Colorado, overwhelmed, unsure, and—“Okay then,” she announced and unpeeled herself from Natalie, shocking the hell out of me. “But I gotta do sun stuff everywhere on my skin first. Mom, can you do that?”

  Colorado stood and spoke to Simon next. “Did the guy say he’d be here—?”

  “He’s here in ten—”

  “And the toys?”

  “Coming with him.”

  “Excellent.” He turned to Natalie, “I didn’t know what Emma liked so I just told them she was five, and that I have a daughter that would be five one day and they should send over whatever, you can tell me if I got any of it wrong. Anyway, there’s floaties for the pool.” He ruffled Emma’s hair. “Yay!”

  “Yay!” Emma agreed.

  “So come on, guys, I’ll show you where you can all change and we’ll get swimming.”

  “That baby can’t go in the pool,” she snapped and pointed an accusing finger at Colorado and then at Maddie.

  “Of course Maddie can’t, not yet.” Colorado held Maddie up and then nosed her T-shirt out of the way to blow raspberries on her belly, grinning as she wriggled in his hold. “But soon.” He bounced his daughter, and chatted on about this and that until we reached the kitchen with the views over the property and beyond, and all I could do was trail behind. “So this is the kitchen
, Fred and Anna are coming over to do the barbecue, and I want you all to have the best time.”

  “So Joseph tells me you asked him to kiss you.”

  “Nats, he didn’t—”

  “It’s okay, Joe,” Colorado said, and raised his hand to stop me talking before facing my sister head on.

  “His name is Joseph,” Natalie snapped.

  “Sorry.” Colorado looked contrite, which was an expression I hadn’t seen on him before. I wasn’t sure it worked with Natalie though, as she wasn’t softening. I could see my job, the money, and worst my affection for Maddie and her father, disappearing before my eyes. “I did ask Joseph about a kiss, but I asked if he wanted to. I’m all about consent.”

  Point to Colorado.

  But Natalie wasn’t backing down. “And what if my little brother had said no? Huh? Would you have fired him and thrown him out?”

  Natalie crossed her arms over her chest and I groaned. She was going to lose me a job, and the last thing I wanted was to lose the chance at earning money. And worse, be separated from Maddie or Colorado.

  “He’s the very best thing for my daughter right now, so no, if we had acted on our mutual attraction but he’d wanted to step back then I would have accepted his decision because I’m a man who respects my fellow man. He is a wonderful manny, and Maddie loves him, and why would I want to take someone so perfect out of her life, or indeed mine?”

  Wow, that was some speech, and I swiveled my gaze to Natalie. She wasn’t snapping at him immediately, so that was a good thing, and then she unfolded her arms.

  “Okay,” she said, then motioned with two fingers at her eyes then at him. “But I’m watching things.”

  “Of course, totally understandable,” Colorado said.

  Simon moved then, offering an arm to Natalie, all gentlemanly, and she took it, throwing a look back at Colorado that would have frozen lesser men.

  “I want to apologize,” I began.

  He put his hand on my shoulder. “Never apologize for family that love you. Now, let’s swim.”