by P. Dangelico
“You know my second rounder?” His gaze slides to the handle of the sledgehammer.
“The running back from Alabama?”
Ethan nods. “He went to a house party last night. Somebody in his group was carrying. They got into it with another group––haven’t gotten the full story yet...bottom line, somebody’s dead.” At my silence, he continues, “The team cut him an hour ago.”
“How bad is it?”
Ethan takes another long pull of his water. “Bad. There’s video. Two guys were gang affiliated. Old friends from home.” Shaking his head, he places the bottle down and takes the hammer in both hands. “Everything was riding on that draft money. That kid has at least twenty-five people to carry on his back.”
“I’m sorry. I know how much time and effort you put into cultivating their careers.” At this, he nods, his brow doctored with worry. “Is it over? His career.”
“If they don’t charge him, which looks like they won’t right now, he’ll get a suspension and a fine from the league. I may be able to get a team to pick him up afterward…depends how bad injuries are during the season…but after Ray Rice and Hernandez––” Ethan shakes his head. In frustration, I gather. “It’s zero tolerance. He’ll have to work ten times as hard to prove himself.” For a moment, I lose him to his thoughts, his absent gaze fixed on the torn up wall.
“You’re a good man, Ethan Vaughn.”
Surprise, wonder, something akin to longing. It’s all there when his attention returns to me. He smiles then. It’s small and sad, weighed down by all the responsibility he wears. Bending closer, his lips meet mine. They brush back and forth until I kiss him back. Until I stand and wrap my hand around his neck and feel him shudder, his frustration tangible under my fingertips.
All I want to do is hold him and pet him and make him feel better, take all his concerns away and that terrifies me. I didn’t sign up for this. I signed up for mind blowing sweaty monkey sex. Not tenderness. Not affection. Not heartache and understanding.
He’s holding back. I can feel him trying to remain stoic in the face of adversity, to keep me at a distance. My fingers knead his neck, working the tension out. A harsh exhales later and I know he’s given up resisting me. Seeking comfort, he places his forehead on the curve of my shoulder and I almost stop breathing, a familiar ache under my sternum.
“I got an email from Parker. He wants to talk.” Raising his head, Ethan’s eyes connect with mine while his expression remains unreadable. “Why is this case taking so long?”
“David is negotiating. What she’s asking for is extortion.”
“I’m ready to borrow against my inheritance to be done with this. It won’t be much but––”
“The hell you are,” says the ruthless lawyer, cutting in. “Did you write him back?”
“No. Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it.” That part of my life is dead and buried––for good once the case is closed. “He must take me for an idiot if he thinks I have any intention of hearing him out. Last time we spoke––” Embarrassed, I glance up and find Ethan watching me. “Well, you know…he called me abrasive. Said it would be career suicide to work together.”
A lot of mental handwringing ensues while I wait for his reaction. Maybe I said too much. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. A slow smile takes over Ethan’s face.
“What are you smiling at? You think I’m abrasive? Great,” I mutter.
His smile fades. “I don’t think you’re abrasive.”
“You don’t?” I’m not entirely convinced.
A silent moment passes, two, his eyes fall on the handle of the sledgehammer. I watch his hand grip and release it over and over. “You’re like this sledgehammer.”
Aaand the bud of hope I was nurturing a moment ago shrivels. “Loud and destructive. And here I was thinking you liked me.”
He shakes his head, his eyes search mine. Serious. So serious. The silence lasts for an amount of time that tells me this moment is important, that I should pay attention to what comes next.
“A force to reckon with.”
Gravity ceases to exist and all the hair on my body stands on end as we stare at each other. His gaze pulls away from me, returning to the sledgehammer he’s holding. “The type of woman a man holds onto with both hands and never lets go.”
This is it. This is the moment when everything changes. The moment when that restless feeling in the farthest reaches of my soul quiets. The moment I fall off Cloud Nine and land on a rainbow made of cotton candy. The moment I fall irrevocably in love with the man standing before me.
We’re at family Shaw’s house for a barbecue. Last night, after the revelation landed on my head as gently as a piano, I pleaded a headache and hid in my room. Around midnight as I was staring at the ceiling in total darkness, I heard him enter, get into my bed and wrap himself around me. It took everything I had not to cry like a little bitch. Somebody revoke my badass card.
I didn’t speak a single word on the car ride over. Every time I glanced over at Ethan, I found a soft smile on his face. Why he was smiling is anybody’s guess. I’m chalking it up to him being blissfully ignorant to the shit floating around in my head––and more importantly, my heart.
“Would you look at the gorgeous man holding that baby,” Camilla says wearing a stupid grin. I lift my sunglasses and squint at the men standing under the shade of the patio awning. They’re far enough away from the pool chairs we’re occupying that we can have a conversation without masculine ears eavesdropping––by design of course.
Ethan gently bounces on his feet with the baby safely tucked in the cradle of his arms.
“Yeah, he loves babies, miniature horses, and glitter,” I mutter sourly and drop my wayfarers back down.
I’m pissed. Actually, I’m beyond pissed. Love was not part of the plan. As a matter of fact, it was the opposite of the plan. And yet here I am, staring at the gorgeous man with the baby in his arms––with my heart tripping over itself every time our eyes meet. I’m ready to poke them out of my head just to get some relief.
“You need to have one soon so our kids can grow up together.”
If this doesn’t deserve an eye roll, I don’t know what does. “I’ll get right on that for you. Speaking of kids, when do you think yours is going to grow out of this ugly stage?”
Her loud bark of laughter gets everyone’s attention. Cal and Ethan glance our way. Finding us uninteresting, their attention returns to the baby.
“Reginald,” she shouts. “Ethan has the baby. Are you going to check the hamburgers, or do I have to do it?”
Calvin’s black brows lower in a squinty scowl that could be seen across a football field. “I’m handling it,” he informs his wife.
With a fake grin, she mutters to me under her breath, “He’s driving me caaraazy. The worst mother hen.” After which she shouts, “Thanks, Boobear.” Then she pokes my arm. “Look at Ethan. The man’s a frigging fertility treatment. He would seriously cause a stampede if the women of Manhattan could see this.” Then she snickers.
Yes, hilarious. I can’t even muster a smile.
“Calvin’s dying to take the baby back,” she adds.
Calvin’s eyes dart between the grill he should be manning and his son, eyeballing the situation as if he expects Ethan to drop the kid any minute.
Denying it is pointless. In hindsight, it’s clear I’ve been stumbling towards love since I sat outside that courtroom with everything at stake, and him by my side telling me I could count on him. How could I have let this happen? Every time I think about moving to L.A. I get a chill up my spine and a cramp in the gut. Cassandra’s words keep haunting me.
“Hand me the potato chips,” I say, the need to drown my sorrows in food is strong.
“No. I’m still mad at you for ditching me at that shitty draft party,” says my so-called best friend. Her stare down has Sicilian vendetta written all over it. She tucks her bare feet up, her normal size feet that is, on the oversized lounge
chair and raises a well groomed brow.
“I’ve already apologized a million times. I had jizz in my hair. There was no good choice.”
Camilla grabs a handful of potato chips and makes a big show of popping one after another in her mouth. “Being a hoochie is no excuse.”
Night has fallen by the time we finish eating and I clean up while Camilla feeds the baby. Ethan and I are about to leave when he gets a call, the Titans logo flashing on the screen of his cell phone.
Glancing at the screen he says, “I have to take this.”
I smile, knowing full well what this could mean. “Go,” I say running a hand up his arm. He walks into Calvin’s office and shuts the door.
In the kitchen Camilla finishes feeding the baby while I watch. “He’s the perfect man,” I say as I stare at Connor. “Naked and defenseless.”
Camilla smiles down at her son, then eyeballs the container of gelato I retrieved out of the freezer. “Do you want to hold him?”
“Too soon,” I reply with a telling face-scrunch. “I’m loving him too much right now. I could squeeze him to death, or eat a couple of toes in my excitement. Those have got to be the cutest big toes in the whole wide world.”
“They are, aren’t they?” his mother says, beaming. “He gets them from his father.”
I vomited a little in my mouth. “You had to ruin the moment.”
While I take a bite of the hazelnut gelato Ethan and I brought over, Camilla watches me with undisguised longing. “Is there something you want to tell me before male ears return?”
“Nope.” In response I get an arched brow and a knowing look. She gently places the baby in the basinet. After which, without warning mind you, she snatches the container out of my hand, then the spoon.
“Fine. I’m in love with him, okay?” I whisper and close my eyes, bracing for the impact of her opinion. One minute passes silently, two. By the third, I crack open one eye, then the other. And find Camilla digging into the ice-cream. She stuffs a big spoonful in her mouth, and smiles drunkenly. “I launch a hand grenade at you and you’re eating?”
“Am I thupposed to be thurprised?”
“Aren’t you?”
She swallows. “I’ve been waiting for you to figure it out. Aaand waiting. Zzzzzzz. This hazelnut gelato is some powerful sorcery, by the way.”
“Whatever.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“A big fat nothing. I’m leaving for L.A. as soon as the case is closed, depending on whether I’ll be spending any time in a New York State gulag––and he’ll get the job with the Titans.”
“I can’t talk about you leaving, or I’ll start to cry.”
“I know. But you know I have to give it a shot.”
“I know you do. Still, sucks for me.”
“For both of us.”
Her large, dark eyes hold mine. “He’s in love with you, too.”
Head shaking, I say, “He’s never mentioned the L word. Not once.”
Except to promise that he’d make me fall in love with him and dang but he was right. Score one for team McButterpants.
“Puhleeze. I’ve seen the way he looks at you when you’re not paying attention.”
My ears immediately perk up, my curiosity piqued. I really shouldn’t care. I really shouldn’t. But I kind of do. “Like what?”
Her face twists into a smirk. “Like a toddler that’s been handed a cell phone.” The confused look I return prompts her to continue. “He doesn’t have a clue what to do with you, but he’s willing to spend the rest of his life trying to figure you out.”
Huh.
“What are you girls up to?” a deep baritone calls out, interrupting what was sure to be a serious episode of me dissecting this information ad nauseam. Calvin leans against the massive kitchen island. Seeing the baby in the basinet, he swoops him up in his arms.
“We’re about to shoot a low budge, girl on girl porno. It’s either naughty Catholic school girls, or naughty Girl Scouts,” I say with my filthiest smirk.
Cal arches a reproachful brow. He’s good at that, the reproachful brow thing. “There’s a child present.”
“Bravo, naughty babysitter is an excellent idea.”
“Boo, maybe you should go put him in the basinet.”
“He sleeps better in my arms,” her pigheaded husband retorts.
“Calvin––” Cam’s voice is a lot less saccharine this time. “You need to put him down.”
“I have something I’ve been meaning to say to you,” I interrupt, directing this at the handsome giant who’s smiling at the baby sleeping in his arms. The wary expression this elicits almost makes me laugh. “Relax, Cal. It’s PG rated. Safe for little and big ears.” His expression clears and I take that as my cue to continue. “I know we’ve had our differences and I’ve said this to you before but…again, I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I can’t even express how grateful I am. Paying the bail and Ethan and David for their time was––”
“Whoa,” the bearded man says, interrupting. I notice the frown on his face and return a frown of my own. Why on Earth would he be frowning? Did I use profanity? No. No, I did not.
“I want to pay you back, Cal, I really do, but I don’t have that kind of money right now.”
Sharing a look I can’t decipher, Camilla takes the sleeping baby out of his arms while Calvin stalls the rest of my speech with a raised hand.
“Why do you think I posted bail?”
Is this a trick question? I glance at Cam, and find her wearing a carefully neutral expression. A prickle of unease slides up my neck and over my scalp.
“Because you love your wife and she would’ve had your nuts if you didn’t?” Obviously.
Head shaking, he says, “No. I mean, who told you I posted bail?”
“Ethan did.” Calvin’s black brows quirk. He glances at Camilla again. “Enough with the googley eyes at each other. What the heck is going on?”
“I called Ethan that night to get a referral, but he insisted on going to get you. He posted bail. I’m not paying him anything, Amber. It was all him. ”
The door to Calvin’s office swings open and the man in question steps out. One by one, his eyes scan the three faces staring back at him. His smile drops. “What’d I miss?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I’m innately suspicious of anything good. A priori it smells like bullshit until I deem otherwise. While I’ve been having the best sex of my life and happier than a pig in slop, I’ve also had one ear to the ground waiting for something to inevitably come along and screw it up. A phone ringing in the middle of the night is never a good thing.
The second the fog of sleep clears and I conclude that I’m not dreaming, my stomach clenches. I fumble around the nightstand for a while before my hand lands on the hard square that is my iPhone. My heart rate jumping, I turn away from Ethan so the cold light of the screen doesn’t wake him. It reads Sunnyvale Assisted Living and I’m hit with the knowledge that something terrible is about to happen.
With my heart thundering under my sternum, I press the number while the dread pooling in my gut tells me to prepare for the worst.
“I’m so sorry,” the doctor on-call murmurs. One I’ve never met because before this day my grandmother never had any health issues––aside from the Alzheimer’s that had stolen her away from me a small piece at a time.
The doctor is still speaking in what sounds like a foreign language, though rationally I know it isn’t. I catch the two most important words––massive stroke. He says a lot more but I’ve already tuned him out.
Next to me, Ethan stirs awake. His warm hand on my shoulder both grounds me and makes me weak.
“My grandmother’s dead.”
Moments later he picks me up off the bed and helps me dress. I’m catatonic, my mind incapable of processing anything. He asks me things––where my phone is so he can call my mother, what I want to wear. I can’t answer, can’t recall anythin
g.
Twenty minutes later we’re in the car headed to the assisted living facility. I have no recollection as to how I even got in the car. The doctor on call greets us at the entrance wearing an appropriately solemn expression. He talks to me and Ethan responds. We’re led to a small room where they keep the bodies before the funeral home or morgue comes to retrieve them. I have yet to utter a word.
Ethan’s arm has been around my shoulders, securing me to him, since we got out of the car. He holds me tighter as the doctor lifts the sheet off my grandmother. It’s not the first dead body I’ve seen. Not by far. Growing up in a funeral home goes a long way to dispelling any fear of death one may have. It’s her––but it isn’t. She looks small. Smaller than I remember. How can an entire life be contained by so little? It doesn’t seem possible.
I don’t cry. I don’t scream. I don’t really feel much except detachment. I’m a spectator, reading a story in the third person. I nod at the doctor and he lowers the sheet. He says something about arrangements, asks which funeral home the body should be sent to. Ethan responds. I’m not sure what he answered; I find myself not caring.
My grandmother made arrangements to be buried on top of my grandfather. A double decker I remember her calling it. It’s all in the will. The person who bought her business is to handle the funeral––a funeral that will only be attended by myself, Eileen, Audrey and Dan.
Camilla and her parents will want to attend but I don’t want them there. I don’t want the joy of the birth of their first grandchild tainted by death.
Eileen and Dan rush in. Immediately I notice that she took the time to put on makeup and real clothes. I’m in my pajama pants and a sweatshirt. It’s three am for fuck’s sake and she’s wearing lipgloss. A spike of anger is the first emotion I register since I got the phone call.
“Did you see her?” Eileen asks, her bright blue eyes shifting quickly between me and Ethan a couple of times until she finally chooses to keep them on Ethan. Typical.
“Yes, I’m sorry. My condolences,” Ethan replies.
