by L.J. Shen
The only person in the house to treat doors like they have somehow wronged him and the universe. Crass movements, gentle heart.
“N-n-no! Never again!” Theo bellows, kicking his muddy shoes in the hallway. “I’m d-d-done playing football. I’m no g-g-good at it.”
“What the hell are you talking about? You can tackle a fucking elephant to the floor if need be.”
“Trent,” I sing-song from the kitchen, smiling to keep myself from scowling. No matter how much time passes, no matter that we live with thirteen-year-old Theo and five-year-old Luna, my boyfriend still can’t seem to let go of the word (and act) fuck. In fact, he drops enough F-bombs to wipe away our whole continent. “Language.”
“Yes, M-m-mom,” Theo mocks me from the hallway, wearing his new confidence like a cape. I stand in the kitchen, looking over my shoulder at my mother, who is cutting vegetables on a board with an unsolicited grin. I’m glad she doesn’t mind that Theo calls me that sometimes. Glad she knows it’s just a joke.
“Your child is out of control,” I note, dumping the diced steak into the hot frying pan.
“In my defense, you were the one to raise him for the majority of his life,” she says with melancholic acceptance. She comes to our house every weekend to spend time with him and Luna. And every Thursday, Trent and I go out, and Camila watches over the kids.
Every Thursday, we act our ages. Well, my age, anyway.
Every Thursday, we make out in cars, let abandoned city halls swallow us in darkness, go to the movies, and restaurants, and clubs where I don’t have to worry about a fake ID, because my boyfriend is influential enough to own this city.
We live in a house with tides and lows. Where the ocean is always stormy, but that’s okay, because we’re great swimmers. We live in a house of seahorses, of survivors, of people who have tasted the other side of life. People who stood on the sidelines, begging to go unnoticed.
But we notice. We notice each other in this chaos called life.
We go down to Tobago Beach every weekend to surf, and eat, and laugh, and not give a damn. Not about the world and not about the money.
Luna and Theo love each other. They bathe each other in mutual respect and attention, and it is heartbreaking and wonderful to watch. He finally gets to be the responsible adult, and she gets to have a fierce big brother. She has a room that is blue, with an aquarium with seahorses, and he’s got a room that’s green, with posters of Tom Brady Trent manages not to rip off the walls—but just barely.
And then there’s us. Me. Trent. Our love.
Our love draws attention like a wildfire. We’re a biracial couple with a huge age gap. We carry baggage in the form of two kids. It looks bad. Tragic, even. Not half as photogenic as Vicious’ perfect little family, or Jaime’s gorgeous fair-haired nest, or Dean’s sweet, no age-gap, no-nonsense household.
We’re different, and we wouldn’t change it for the world.
Trent, Theo, and Luna saunter into the kitchen with huge grins on their faces. Luna is the first to jump on me with a hug. She still doesn’t talk, but she does communicate using sign language. And it’s a huge step forward.
“The boys kept you busy?” I ask, feeling her long, thin limbs enveloping me as I return a hug. She nods into my shoulder. When we disconnect, she signs me the words, Theo almost killed a swan throwing the ball.
“That’s…” I wrinkle my forehead, “very bad.”
“He was just eager.” Trent ambles toward me, planting a kiss on my forehead, a bottle of water already in his hand. My mother gets the same treatment—only a kiss on the cheek—and Theo is trying to help Mom now.
“Not before you wash your hands, bud,” I warn. He scoffs, but walks over to the sink. The steak is sizzling in the pan, and the kitchen is warm with food and company and love. With family. With everything I didn’t have at my parents’ house.
Trent comes behind me and whispers into my neck, “A word.”
“I’m cooking,” I protest, but not really. Living with two kids with special needs, we’ve mastered the art of sneaking out for quickies. Though this is too much, even by our standards. I mean, they’re all right here. I can’t be that quiet. Not with him.
“I don’t care,” he growls like the HotHole he is. Ruthless. Cold. But always full of heart.
I cut my gaze from the food I am cooking to my mother and kids. Yes. My kids.
Trent does the same, frowning. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Edie. If it was a quick fuck I was after, these people behind us would have been eating McJunk down the road, safely locked outside this house.”
I laugh, because I can’t help it. I’ve already come to terms with the fact my boyfriend is a Grade-A jerk. Most of the time, I’m not even mad about it. It is actually pretty charming, in a screwed-up way.
“I can’t leave Mom with both kids,” I say under my breath, a trickle of panic seeping into my heart. Not that I don’t trust my mother, but she’s come a long way in a very short period of time, and I don’t want her to feel overwhelmed by taking care of two kids.
“Yeah, you’re right.” His hand brushes my ass so deliberately it is almost comical, as he moves to the stove and picks a piece of juicy meat, crushing it between his white teeth and chewing.
Just as he says it, Emilia and Rosie walk into my kitchen, holding brown bags with fresh food peeking from their edges.
“Hey, everyone!” Emilia greets, while Rosie opts for a “You guys, turn on the air-con before I melt on your floor. Aren’t these new tiles? Yeah, turn that thing on. There are too many people in this room.”
“What are you doing here?” My eyes are wide. In the past year, Emilia, Melody, and Rosie have become great friends of mine. And although Melody is the older wolf in the pack—the one I turn to when Luna drives me mad and Theo is acting crazy—the two LeBlanc sisters are the two female BFFs I never thought I would have.
“We’re giving you a day off. You deserve it.” Emilia nudges me away with her butt, winking playfully. I don’t argue with that, even though I don’t feel like I should take a break. I love my life. Every morning, I take Theo and Luna to school and go to the beach and teach people how to surf. In the afternoons, before I pick them up, I have lunch with my hot boyfriend, then we have sex before we pick up the kids. Then he cooks and rubs my feet in front of Netflix after dinner. I don’t deserve a vacation. I’m living it.
“But I…”
“Don’t argue, Tide.” Trent grabs my wrist, tugging me into his hard body. Even now, after a year of living together, I melt a little at that gesture. Like that morning in the alleyway never changed us. Like I am still a love-struck puppy with a bad case of unreciprocated love.
He leads me outside, the pan still sizzling behind me, but I can already hear Rosie lowering the fire on the stove and Emilia cracking open a bottle of wine.
“What’s happening?” I ask Trent when we go out to the porch—ocean view—on the promenade.
“I’m not sure, but I think I’m losing my balls in the process.” He grimaces.
I laugh. “What? Why?”
“Because”—he opens the door and red light pours in, and I am standing in front of nature in its rarest beauty—“the sunset has never looked so fucking amazing, and if we could have one perfect moment, I want it to be this one.”
“That’s why you asked Rosie and Emilia to come here?” I quirk an eyebrow.
“Nope.” He turns to face me, brushing his thumb over my cheek. His eyes are light, his soul is dark, and everything else about what he gives me is full of colors. “I called them here in case you say yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes to my crazy-ass idea.” He kneels down on one knee, in front of the sunset, with cyclists and joggers and couples passing by us, and produces something from his pocket. He is still wearing his workout gear from taking Luna and Theo to the park, and that just makes him look even sexier. What’s insane about this—other than the fact we’ve never talked about it, not even once—is th
at I’m not nervous in any way. Just excited. We already feel like a married couple, and I say that in the best, non-boring way possible. He is stability and love. Security and confidence.
I’m his tide, and he’s my anchor. Or maybe the sand itself.
“Edie Van Der Zee, I want to dip my toes in the waves you make every single day for the rest of my miserable life. I want to fuck you—just you, only you, no one else—and a lot. Every. Single. Day. I want to live with you. I want to parade that fucked-up thing we have that keeps people raising eyebrows and thinking I’m a cradle-snatching douchebag, because fuck ’em, they’ll never have what we have. Will you marry me? I don’t ask for a lot. Not for kids, not for dinner, not for anything to be done in the house. I don’t ask you for anything other than what you’re willing to give me.”
Luna peeks from the door, smiling. I turn my body to her, smiling. I expect her to sign me something. Something like “aw, gross,” or “Daddy is being silly again”. But she doesn’t.
Instead, she arches one eyebrow, opens her lips, and lets the words fall out, awarding her father with the best present he could ever have.
“Say yes.”
Up until Edie, December was my favorite month of the year.
Not because of Christmas. Fuck Christmas. Because of the cold. It was the only month when it felt for a second that SoCal wasn’t going to burst into flames next time someone lit a match. Years ago, when Fiscal Heights Holdings opened a branch in Chicago, I was on that shit like a rash in a community college party. I loved the winter. Loved. Past tense.
I hate the winter nowadays.
I still enjoy feeling like the sun is not trying to fucking kill me, but I don’t like seeing Edie running barefoot across the promenade, a surfboard tucked under her arm, laughing like a crazy kid between the fat pearls of raindrops. Sometimes I run after her and tackle her to the sand for breathless kisses, trying to convince her to calm the fuck down and pass on her morning surf session. Most times I know it’s futile.
The ocean is her drug.
She is mine.
To accommodate this shit, I move things around. And it’s funny, how I always thought I’d die alone, and suddenly, I have all these people around me. Theo and his weird love for Tom Brady, Luna and her noisy, mostly-content silence, and my soon-to-be-wife.
First thing I did after throwing Jordan Van Der Zee into jail—he’s a white collar bastard who gets lots of visitation rights and perks, but no one wants to see him. Not his ex-wife, not his kids, and certainly not Val, God knows where she is—was to buy the surf club on Tobago Beach. I wanted Edie to have flexible working hours, and now she’s her own boss. The second thing was to summon my three friends and partners and tell them I was going to cut back on the hours, majorly.
“I have a family now. A big-ass, in-your-face family with a crap-ton of needs and a tight schedule,” I explained. Dean smiled.
Vicious said, “Another one bites the dust.”
Jaime nodded. “We’ve got your back.”
And they do. They have my back all the time. So much so that they weren’t even horrified when I told them I was asking my nineteen-year-old girlfriend to marry me. It’s absurd. You think I don’t fucking know that? Think again. We should wait until she hits her twenties.
We should keep it on the down-low.
We shouldn’t display this. We shouldn’t draw attention. We shouldn’t make declarations.
And we don’t. Fucking. Care.
“Mr. Rexroth, your…a…Edie, is here to see you,” Rina informs me through the intercom. I toy with the idea of correcting her—fiancée, that’s who Edie is. Shortly after she said yes in front of the most beautiful sunset to ever be seen in SoCal, a cab took us to the airport for a Hawaiian weekend. She surfed a lot. We fucked a lot. The engagement ring was too heavy for her to give me a hand job. You live, you learn. It’s now in the safe in our bedroom, collecting dust.
I push the red button on the switchboard while smoothing my tie. “Send her in.”
She walks in, unapologetically young. Her body covered in baby blue short overalls and yellow tank top. Dr. Martens and a smartass smirk. She doesn’t have an engagement ring on her finger, and it doesn’t make her any less mine. She is too natural for this stone, anyway. She’s got a seashell on her neck, a new one—identical to the two she made for Luna and Theo.
“I dropped in to say hi.” She wiggles her brows, holding a Panda Express bag.
I lean back in my chair and cross my legs over my desk. “I think you came here to fuck because I couldn’t come home this afternoon.”
“Oh, and that, too.” She shrugs, laughing. She dumps the oily food onto my table. I ignore it completely.
“Are you trying to bribe me with food?”
“Actually,” she says, walking over across my desk and parking her ass on my erection—because I always have an erection when she is around—knotting her arms around my neck. “I was thinking you could look at this wedding catalog with me. It’s so weird to plan a wedding. I don’t know where to start. Other than Millie and Rosie, all my friends are male and teenagers.”
“Don’t remind me,” I groan. I made peace with Bane, but that doesn’t mean I don’t keep an eye on the bastard. I place my hands on her waist and pull her for a dirty, messy kiss that will soon turn into office sex, and we both know it. “I’ll help, but when I asked you to marry me, I didn’t mean this month. Or this year. I just want to put it out there for the world to know and to see—we’re getting fucking married. End of story.”
“Yes, but I want to marry you soon.” She brushes her nose against mine.
“Why? Thirty-four is not actually that old, Tide. I’m not gonna die on you in a year or two.”
She swats my chest and laughs. “I just mean, I want to be Mrs. Rexroth. I want Theodore to be a Rexroth. I’m ready to change our last name to something we’ll both be proud of.”
I used to love December, but now I love September.
Because it is in September when a seahorse is kissing a tide, creating a gorgeous fucking wave, and my fiancée places my hand against her stomach. “I think I’m ready for a dynasty.”
“I think you’re crazy,” I reply, but not really. She can have it all. And she knows it.
“Why not both?” She smiles.
This is where it’s at. The thing I’ve been looking for. In those eyes. In those lips. Our story is not perfect. My daughter is still not speaking. I am still The Mute. Theo isn’t cured, and Edie is still the product of a fucking asshole.
But imperfection is where we thrive. In the dark alleyways of society where we first met. I take her face in my hands and kiss her again, our teeth clashing together. Imperfect.
“Bend over and bite your forearm for me, Edie.”
And she does. “I love it when you hurt me.”
“I love you when I do, and when I don’t,” I reply, caressing her ass cheek through the fabric of her overalls.
“Strong words, Mr. Rexroth.”
“Well, Mrs. Soon-to-Be Rexroth, if you want to be strong—be.”
Writing is a lonely job, which is why it is always important to have your tribe. I feel like I’m a part of something, a group that is always there to hold my hand (and I need a lot of hand-holding when I write, trust me). I would like to personally thank the following people:
To my editing team, who is there for me every step of the way. Tamara Mataya, you’re a fantastically intelligent and witty human being. Bex Harper, you know how to bring the emotion out of everything. Paige Smith, you have such an eye for detail. You would probably make a great detective if the editing gig gets too boring for you at some point.
Special thanks to my beta readers, Ella Fox, Ava Harrison, Amy Halter, Danielle McGregor, Charleigh Rose and Paige Jennifer. You are so, so good at what you do. Never leave me, okay? Ever.
To my agent, Kimberly Brower, for all the hard work you put so my books are everywhere. To Letitia Hasser of RBA Design, you’re one talented chi
ck. Thank you for always getting it right. To Stacey Blake of Champagne Formatting, you make my books so pretty from the inside.
To my street team, Avivit, Lin, Kristina, Vane, Sabrina, Summer, Jennifer, Tijuana, Sher, Betty, Oriana, Sheena, Ilor, Jennifer, Becca, Julia, Josephine, Jacquie, Amanda, Erika, Sonal, Ofa, and Vanessa, God, you’re so amazing. You put a smile on my face every single day.
To the Sassy Sparrows group, thank you so much for everything. You’re the best reading group an author could ever have. You got me addicted, hooked, and completely obsessed with this group!
To the bloggers who push my books so, SO hard! You make my job worthwhile. I want you to know I see you. You’re appreciated. You’re loved. You’re respected. Always.
To my family and friends for putting up with the long hours I spend in my office. Seriously, you guys are the best.
Finally, to my readers, thank you for taking the time and reading this book. You make my dream come true every time you decide to take a chance on me, and for that, I am forever grateful. Please consider leaving an honest review before you move on to the next book adventure.
Love (so, so much),
L.J. Shen xoxo
Sinners of Saint
Defy (#0.5)
Vicious (#1)
Ruckus (#2)
Scandalous (#3)
Tyed
Sparrow
Blood to Dust
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