by Bijou Hunter
Suddenly, the world revolves around getting the kid to shut up. Poet tries talking to his son. The mini-twins try singing to him. When all else fails, Cricket sticks her boob in his mouth.
The silence has a sedative effect on the group, and we eat our breakfast without speaking. I consider my sister’s inspiring words. Sure, she’s fucking with me, but there’s truth to her bullshit. If I want Audrey Johansson, she shall be mine.
And I’ve never wanted anything more.
AUDREY
My skin is ice cold when I return to the hotel room. Inside, I boil with lust. Pop says nothing when I return. He only nods at me as I shiver just inside the door. Soon, a warm shower washes off the chill left behind from leaving Cap’s arms.
Later, I curl up under the covers, forever craving the heat I felt earlier. Cap awoke something in me that refuses to fall dormant again.
I fall asleep while Pop watches an old movie. When I wake at sunrise, I find him in nearly the same position except with his eyes now closed. I bet my mom didn’t sleep any better than pop. They belong together in a way I couldn’t truly understand until I met Cap. Now I know the longing of being away from your other half.
I sneak downstairs to the breakfast area and grab as much food as possible for when Pop wakes up. I know he won’t rise until at least noon, and I want him to have something to eat when he finally wakes.
After I return to the room, I curl up in bed and check my messages. Cap sent me a smiling selfie earlier. When I return from breakfast, I find a second picture. This one is of his hands and a caption reminding me how they miss the feel of my skin.
Thank goodness Pop is sound asleep or else I’d feel awkward having to she-bop with him in the next room. Hell, if Cap doesn’t whip up all kinds of heat inside me that shoots directly to the spot between my legs. How people can deal with this kind of lust on a regular basis is a fucking mystery, though I guess I’ll soon find out the answer.
Pop wakes just after noon, desperate for coffee. I make him a small pot while he eats the reheated stuff from breakfast.
“What’s the meeting today about?”
“The details aren’t important. I just need to lay out a few things with Hayes. You can wait here if you want.”
“I’ll go with you to make it easier for us all to have dinner.”
“Us?”
“You, me, Hayes, and Cap.”
“Is that what the boy told you?”
“Was he wrong?”
“Let me ask you something, Audrey,” he says, sitting on the bed across from me. “What’s your interest in him? Is it his power? Or because he’s cute?”
Pop grimaces when he says the final word, and I immediately laugh.
“Well?”
“He’s handsome, and he doesn’t put up with my bullshit, but he also doesn’t cry or freak out about my bullshit either. He’s chill but also demanding.”
“I feel like I need a decoder ring to figure out your girl-speak.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“I want to make sure this boy isn’t conning you.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Men are liars and cheats.”
“Yes, but men rarely mess with me.”
“Because they’re afraid of me,” Pop says and runs both hands through his still thick blond hair. “I don’t think this boy is.”
“I don’t think he is either.”
“Thanks a lot, Audrey,” he says, standing up and looking genuinely hurt. “I was looking for reassurance.”
“About what? Are you nervous about the meeting today?”
Pop gives me a weird look and then exhales slowly. “It’s fine. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you’re interested in Hayes’s son. He’s not much older than you, and I know you like strong men like your pop. No, I shouldn’t be surprised at all.”
“Then why are you?”
“Leave me alone,” he says and walks into the bathroom where he nearly slams the door.
Rolling my eyes, I can’t believe how grumpy he is this morning. I write off his behavior as a reaction to missing Mom. The older they get, the less they can stand being apart.
Pop stops for a quick lunch, but I’m not hungry. All I want is to see Cap again. I need reassurance that he’s as sexy as I remember. Okay, more importantly, does he still think I’m hot. I’m forever certain of Cap’s worth, but I worry with enough time that he’ll figure out he can find someone better.
Stop it! I tell myself to remember how great we were the night before. We make sense. I knew that fact in the pool. I can’t let my old insecurities eat away the fun I’m having now. Stay focused on the prize!
Pop doesn’t talk about much at lunch. Mostly, he worries Lily will end up with a rebound guy he doesn’t approve of, and he asks if I have anyone I can set her up with. When I say no, he babbles a bit more about how Lily needs to meet someone appropriate. I think to ask what his definition of “appropriate” is but decide to let him keep rambling on. Being away from home has turned him into a doddering grandpa who doesn’t know where a story ought to end.
Finally, after what feels like a year of waiting to see him again, I come face-to-face with Cap. His casual smile would look dismissive on anyone else, but I know him now. He plays his cards close to the vest, just like his father and my pop.
“You two behave,” Hayes says to us before he and Pop walk inside to have their meeting.
Cap watches them go and then frowns at me. “I have no idea what they’re plotting. Did your father give you any ideas?”
For a second, that nagging voice in my head—that sounds a lot like Josi—suggests Cap only romanced me to get info about Pop.
I slap that idea away immediately. No way am I letting old hurts ruin the little time I have with Cap this weekend.
“No,” I say and wrap my arms around him. “I’m cold. Do we have to stand outside?”
“There’s a back office we can hang out in while they talk.”
Cap gently takes my hand, guiding me into the ugly building. Inside the office is much nicer than the stucco nightmare outside. The floors are a smooth, dark wood and extend into the meeting room where Cap leads me.
“Settle your sweet ass here,” he says, pulling back a comfy leather chair. “We can get to know each other better while our fathers discuss old-man problems.”
“What would you like to know?”
“Let’s do show and tell,” Cap says, sitting next to me and immediately covering my lips with his.
The kiss is so good that I’m halfway in his lap before it ends.
“I thought I’d hate kissing a man with a beard,” I mumble, still leaning against him and nearly falling out of my seat. “I was very wrong.”
Cap strokes my cheek and I notice for the first time how his knuckles are scarred. I take his hand, kissing the battered flesh.
“Show me pictures from home,” he whispers in my ear after sliding my hair aside, so he has free rein for my throat. “I want to see your family, friends, pets, whatever you want to share. Let’s considers this a dating crash course.”
“And you’ll show me yours?”
“Always.”
Grinning at his double meaning, I reach for my phone. I find surprisingly few recent pictures of my family. Most are from our last RV trip with the club families. I have several of Rando and Colton fighting on the ground. One of Lily looking bored next to Jay. I stop at the photo of the twins roasting marshmallows.
“They look like horrible people,” Cap says in between kissing my throat.
“Huh?”
“I don’t know.”
My lips search for his until we’re no longer looking at pictures. I think I set my phone on the table or maybe Cap does. Somehow, things happen. I can only focus on his lips on mine, and his fingers caressing my back. More than once, I hope he’ll slide those large hands up my shirt and take this fun to the next level.
I completely forget how Pop could walk into the room without warn
ing. Cap’s kisses are just that damn intoxicating. I’m actually so drunk on his affection that I don’t react to my pop’s voice until he literally yells my name.
Freeing my lips, I look over Cap’s broad shoulder to find Pop standing with his arms crossed and a pissed expression on his face. I wish I could care about upsetting him, but I’m too buzzed on Cap’s affection to give a shit about something as minor as my pop’s rage.
“We’re leaving. Get off his lap,” Pop says and reaches for my arm.
“Leaving?”
“To dinner.”
I’m shocked to learn an hour passed from when I entered this room to when Pop drags me out of it. Smiling back at Cap, I can’t wait to return to his arms, and no amount of anger from my pop will change my mind.
5 – CAP
My father’s first successful restaurant—and his favorite to this day—is The Glenn. The family enjoys a large, loud meal here weekly at the back table. One of the mini-twins’ first words were “The Genn.” The kids grew up loving steak and potatoes just like their peepaw.
The Glenn is where we take Cooper and Audrey Johansson for dinner. Despite people waiting in line to get inside, our large table in the back is empty when we arrive. The staff hurries over to take our orders. Our guests choose steaks after Dad insists The Glenn’s are the best in the state.
Audrey looks mir-fucking-raculous in a simple gray shirt and blue jeans. Her thick hair is pulled back in one of those half-ponytail things. Having her face uncovered, allows her fantastic features to shine. Dark brows and lashes framing golden-brown eyes, and those damn pouty lips leave me wanting to crawl across the table to kiss her.
“This is good steak,” Cooper says after dinner arrives. “Don’t know about the best, though.”
Dad licks sauce from his lips and smirks. “No accounting for taste, Kentucky Cunt.”
“Reading between the fucking lines tells me you’re a jealous man wishing he came from a better fucking state.”
“Don’t start the state debate stuff, Pop,” Audrey mumbles. “They’ll never admit they come from a forsaken land of manure and puss. Why waste your breath on the subject?”
“Glutton for punishment, I guess.”
With the fathers pulling their bullshit and Audrey too far away for me to fondle, I decide to start shit. It’s my family’s way to make a tense situation worse.
“So tell me, sage elders, when did you two come up with the plan to play matchmakers?”
“Wait, what?” Audrey asks.
Cooper shakes his head. “The giant’s talking out of his ass.”
“I’m known to do that, but not this time. I can prove it too.”
“Then do it or fuck off,” Cooper growls.
“Let’s start with your private meeting yesterday when you arrived at the office. What would you two need to speak about without me involved?”
“Grownup talk,” Cooper mutters, flashing a frown at my father who never stops eating.
“Then there was the pool. That’s when I knew you hags were playing matchmaker. After all, what kind of man doesn’t show up to make threats when his baby girl is swimming half naked with a good-looking bastard like me?”
“I trust Audrey,” Cooper says while she rolls her eyes next to him.
“Dude, everyone knows you don’t trust the half-naked man. That’s why you make the threat. Unless I’m supposed to believe you’re unconcerned about the virginity of your princess.”
“Hey, don’t tell him about my virginity,” Audrey grumbles, stabbing her meat mercilessly.
I snort. “As if he doesn’t know.”
“How would he?”
Cooper gives his daughter a shocked frown. “I know everywhere you go and everything you do.”
“And apparently everyone you do too,” I say, taking a bite of steak.
“Shut up,” Cooper and Audrey growl in unison.
I grin at their matching anger. Audrey turns in her seat to glare at her father. “What do you mean you know everything?”
“People watch out for you.”
“But that doesn’t mean you know everything.”
“Fine, not everything,” Cooper says and shrugs. “Just nearly everything.”
“I feel violated.”
Cooper sizes up his daughter as if she’s nuts. “How could you not know?”
“You don’t have Rando watched.”
“Of course, I do. How else would I know she’s a virgin too? In fact, in her case, I’m why she’s still a virgin. A lot of Ellsberg assholes suffered blue balls because of my interference.”
“How dare you?” she cries, but Cooper just waves off her indignation.
“I do what any father would do.”
“No, I don’t know any other father who acts like that.”
“I do,” Dad says. “I once had a woman removed from town because I worried she’d stink up my other boy, Chipper. Men with power need to use that power for good.”
Audrey isn’t any more intimidated by my father than she is by hers. She glares at Dad and spits out, “Meddling is what you do.”
Dad shrugs with the same smug indifference as Cooper. “You’ll understand one day, kid.”
Audrey turns her irate gaze back to her father. “So you only brought me here to offer me as a tribute to your buddy?”
“Do you see what I mean about the drama?” Cooper asks Dad.
“The women in my world can’t survive without drama,” Dad replies. “I’ve seen them lose their shit over a lack of croutons in a salad. Your kid is mild in comparison.”
“I pity you.”
Dad stops eating long enough to unleash a hellish glare on Cooper. “My hot blonde wife makes it worth it.”
“My hot brunette wife makes your wife look like shit.”
Dad and Cooper scowl at each other, and I imagine them growling their way through many future holidays.
“How did you know Audrey and I would click?” I ask Dad.
“We didn’t. Johansson has three single daughters. We started with the best option. If she didn’t work, we planned to try with the other two.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Audrey cries. “You thought Cap might hook up with Rando or even Lily the Princess?”
“Your sister isn’t prissy like that,” Cooper says on cue, and I sense this is an argument they often have. “She just wants a good man to create a family with. You should be nicer to her.”
“Suck it, Pop. You lied to me.”
“Everyone lies to everyone.”
“Then can I lie to you?”
“I would assume you already do,” Cooper says without missing a beat.
Audrey realizes her father isn’t crumbling under the heat of her anger. Crossing her arms, she mumbles, “It’s still not right.”
“Is Mom in on the plan?” I ask Dad.
“Of course. It was her idea. One night during a commercial break, she mentioned how you needed to expand your dating options. That’s when we remembered how Johansson had a lot of single daughters. I figured one of them might not suck.”
Cooper glares at Dad who only smiles and chews on his steak. My gaze finds Audrey. Why’s she so outraged? She wants her parents’ attention, and they cared enough to manipulate her into meeting a hot guy like me.
“So what are your other daughters like?” I ask Cooper, and Dad nearly chokes on his steak.
Audrey’s raging glare leaves Cooper and locks onto me. Cooper might sense where I’m going or maybe he wants to fuck with Audrey. For whatever reason, he’s game for describing his daughters.
“Lily is a lot like her mom. Well behaved, hard-working.”
“Won’t fit in with our family,” Dad says instantly. “She sounds like a dud.”
Cooper frowns at the insult. “Lily is too good for your shit family.”
“And I’m not?” Audrey cries.
Cooper sighs, acts as if he might comfort her, and then shrugs. “You’re a handful.”
“What does
that mean?”
“Look, baby, it’s not an insult to say you need a special kind of man to put up with your shit.”
“And Rando?”
“She’s unique.”
“If she can snark,” Dad says before I can speak up, “this Rando might be an option. Is she a hard worker? I already have a daughter-in-law like that, and I’d prefer not to have another. Tatum makes me feel guilty for sitting on my ass.”
“Rando works hard on particular things.”
“Stupid things,” Audrey mumbles, and I smile at her sullen mood.
“Unique things,” Cooper clarifies.
“This girl,” Dad says and leans forward to ask Cooper, “she’s an oddball weirdo, right?”
“Fuck off, Hayes.”
“Don’t be so sensitive, Johansson. Not everyone can have three solid kids like me. Most end up with a few duds like you did.”
Cooper and Dad glare at each other, although my father also manages to juggle a smirk during the scowl. I ignore them and focus on Audrey. She finally acknowledges my gaze on her.
“I’ll give you Rando’s number,” she mutters, glowering at me.
“I don’t like geese.”
Audrey blinks a few times before realizing I remember her story from last night. Smiling slightly, she loosens up. “You got lucky with me.”
“I don’t disagree with you there.”
Her smile grows, and all the tension in her little shoulders fades away. Digging into her steak, she keeps grinning because she knows what I do. Her pop’s meddling handed her a fucking romantic goldmine that her older sisters never could have won.
AUDREY
Cap’s willingness to mess with me might be one of his best qualities. Seriously? Pretending to be open to dating my sisters was a cruel, killer move. I was so ready to assume the worst about him. Cap knew I would be thinking negative shit too. As usual, he had my number.
I wish I could sit next to him rather than across the table. We could whisper to each other rather than having every word obsessed over by our fathers.
