by Lynn Shurr
The only way to make up for his behavior and show he’d come away from Stacy unscathed was to play well and win big. He put his mind to it, no drinking, hard workouts. Still, Ilsa kept appearing at his place, and he took what she had to offer because it dulled what he’d felt for Stacy better than booze or drugs. Tom disappeared from his life, pretty hard to do when you shared a place, but he succeeded in leaving his rooms on the far side of the condo early and coming home late long after Dean closed his bedroom door to frolic with Ilsa. He guessed Tom took his meals out or ate with the enemy across Canal Street. The night before the game, he broke his own rule of no sex right before playing, but put Ilsa in a cab well before midnight.
Dean was centered and prepared on Sunday, doing great until he noticed Ilsa mincing in her high heeled boots down the steps of the Dome toward the box where his family sat. Huge Reverend Revelation Bullock took up the two seats his twin sisters sometimes occupied beside an empty space where Stacy usually sat by Xochi, both of them missing. Ilsa leaned over the Rev’s big belly to introduce herself all around. He watched his adolescent brothers eye her high, full breasts excellently showcased in a snug red top with a scooped neckline that exposed more cleavage than the Rev seemed comfortable with as he tried to suck in his gut to avoid any contact. His green-eyed wife, Dr. Arminta Green Bullock, stood up to shake Ilsa’s hand and evidently made a suggestion that had the Rev moving over to the end of the aisle and Ilsa taking the seat in the middle next to her. The youngest, T-Rex, oblivious to her sexuality, said something funny and made everyone laugh, even his parents who had slipped behind masks of polite cordiality.
Dean abandoned his stretches and moved over to where Tom warmed up his leg for the kickoff by booting balls into the net. “What’s Ilsa doing here? I didn’t give her a ticket.”
“No, but I did last week when we were still dating. Guess she made use of it, but her seat was definitely not in the family box. Way too soon for that I thought. But maybe not for you. Stacy’s out. Ilsa’s in.” Tom plucked another ball from the pile and kicked it way too hard for practice.
“She’s not in. She’s just there all the time. Why does Arturo keep letting her come up?”
“Because when I thought we were seeing each other I told him she could visit whenever she wanted. You tell him any different?”
“No.”
“Well, then. You going to bobble your first play like you did when Stacy turned up with Angel?”
“Not this time.”
“Because you really don’t care about Ilsa, do you?” Tom paused long enough to drill a hard glance into his eyes, Billodeaux brown against Billodeaux brown.
“It’s just great sex. You said so yourself.”
“Maybe I wasn’t done having great sex when you stepped in.”
“I apologize. I’ll give her back.”
Tom shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way with women, passing them back and forth like you’re practicing pitch and catch. You got her. You keep her. I think you’re wanted on the field.”
Before the coin toss, the announcer asked for a moment of silence for the full recovery of Prince Dobbs who remained in stable condition and had opened his eyes for the first time that morning. A few cheered. Most bowed their heads respectfully. Some crossed themselves, Dean among them, as thoughts of that night came crowding back. He lost the coin toss.
Naturally, his opponents elected to receive. It did them no good. The final score came down at 42-17. Really by halftime, the game was over. Fans eager to avoid the usual traffic jam on Poydras to the entrance ramp of the interstate left early in the fourth quarter. Although Dean scored four touchdowns, the other two came gratis on interceptions run back for the TDs. The opponents defeated themselves. Still, he wondered if Stacy watched and noticed she hadn’t destroyed his game, maybe her intention all along, to take something he held dear and trample it into the turf. Now for the real challenge—to get through dinner and the evening with his parents.
****
Dean arrived at the restaurant late after doing the usual press interviews and dawdling in the locker room. He accepted the ribbing about the new tattoo and the suggestions he get something more manly next time. Adam Malala, heavily inked with traditional Samoan designs from the waist to the knee, simply shook his head. “You call that a tattoo?” Dean planned not to get another in any form.
The family gathered around their usual long table in a private dining area with Teddy on one end in his wheelchair. Some had started in on their salads and the basket usually containing warm hush puppies sat empty. They’d saved him a space near his parents and directly across from—God, no, Ilsa. The absence of Stacy, Xochi, and Tom seemed less obvious with the Rev and his wife filling some of the empty chairs. They, too, must have come late as the Rev was in the process of ordering the large seafood platter. “Make that the broiled version,” his wife intervened, always conscious of her husband’s health. Feeling a need for red meat, Dean asked for a steak, medium rare, with the usual salad and loaded baked potato.
Ilsa very charmingly regaled him with the story of her meeting the family. “Your little brother, he says to me, ‘You talk funny.’ I say that is because I am German and my name is Ilsa. He says my name is funny, too. When I ask what he is called, he says, ‘T-Rex’. Now it is my turn to laugh, and he makes the claws and growls at me.” She reached across the table and gripped his arm with her fingernails painted Sinners red to demonstrate.
The waitress brought the iced tea he’d ordered. He asked for red wine, merlot, a whole bottle. Mama Nell requested glasses for all the adults. “We’ll help you drink that.”
“Oh, yes! I do like the red wine. So thoughtful of you to order, Dean.” Ilsa smiled as if he’d done this just for her instead of for himself to get through the meal.
The Rev asked for a refill on the hush puppies. Seated in front of a Mardi Gras costume that made him look as if he wore a crown of ostrich feathers, more black witch doctor than AME minister, he hoisted a toast. Out of his official clerical garb, he felt free to drink a little. “To the health and full recovery of Prince Dobbs. I prayed over him mightily this morning, and he opened his eyes to the light. Praise be to Gawd!”
Most of them said, “Amen” before drinking. Ilsa shouted, “Prosit!” and clinked her glass against Dean’s as well as his parents’. The younger children stared at her amazed. “What? It means To Your Health,” she explained. “Also to the health of this prince.”
Officially declaring himself tired and hungry, Dean let the conversation flow over and around him as he dug into his sizable steak and mammoth baked potato. The scant glass of wine he’d gotten from the bottle hardly helped at all. Ilsa ate with great appetite and talked merrily until the check arrived. His father said little even though Ilsa flirted with him lightly, calling him a so handsome older man. Bet Daddy Joe loved that. Of course, his dad paid for all after a little friendly give and take with the Rev.
Mama Nell stood. She barely came up to Ilsa’s sharp collarbone, but no one intimidated her when it came to her children. “So nice to meet you, Ilsa, but now we must say goodbye. We want some family time with Dean, you understand. Our son will get you a cab.” Smooth, Mom, smooth.
“I understand I am not family yet,” Ilsa answered casually.
Dean’s stomach clenched. He escorted her to the curb. She made a scene of hugging and kissing him before getting into the taxi. Somewhere a paparazzo probably got a shot of it. He simply didn’t care. The Rev and his wife also departed for the long drive home to Chapelle. His mom suggested they walk off the meal. Raised to help and be considerate, the younger children assisted Teddy with his wheelchair at the crossings. They entered the privacy of the brownstone building in very little time.
“Now,” Mama Nell said. “Kids go into the game room and amuse yourselves while we talk to Dean,” which really meant the noise of the foosball game and the X-Box would drown out the grown-up conversation.
“I’m an adult. I’d like to sta
y,” Teddy said, his large blue eyes serious but his fine blond hair, darker than in childhood, still flopping across his forehead as always.
A bad sign, Dean thought. Teddy and Stacy had entered the Billodeaux family on the same day and remained close. Two blondes in a bunch of brunettes they liked to joke. They had to stick together and often still talked on the phone. Teddy would know the whole story, at least Stacy’s version of it.
Delaying, Dean asked if anyone wanted a drink and got a universal no except for his father who asked for coffee. “I’ve got one of these pod machines. What kind do you want?”
“Dark roast with caffeine, nothing flavored. That’s no way to make real coffee, boy.”
“I know.” But fiddling with the coffeemaker gave him a chance to turn his back and gather his thoughts. “It’s quick and easy though.”
“Some things in life shouldn’t be quick and easy. Do you think it was easy to get your mother to marry me with my reputation?”
Dean delivered the steaming mug to his father. “You eloped to Vegas!”
“Because that lawyer wanted to take you away from me. You needed a mother in a hurry. We asked you to take it slow with Stacy, and now we have this big family rift on our hands. Our team no longer plays together. Three of them wouldn’t come to the game or dinner. We have no idea how your twin sisters feel but suspect they’ll come down on Stacy’s side as usual.”
“Her side! What about my side? She and Xochi set me up, making me run around to protect her from imaginary danger like a complete idiot. The princess got in over her head with Prince and Kent Gonsoulin, and I’m to blame?”
“We were very proud of how you handled the situation with Prince. Not so much afterwards. Believe you me, I know how it feels to be taken advantage of by a woman, your birth mother for example. I manned up and made something good come from dat—that.”
His dad’s Cajun accent came to the fore, not good. Mama Nell quieted his father’s hands before he sloshed the coffee since he always gestured when excited. She took up the gauntlet, small but mighty. “Enough. Stacy called us to say the situation is all her fault. She said she’s only our ward, not our daughter. She’ll stay away from the ranch, the games, and you for the good of the family. She wants you to forgive Xochi for her small part in the plan to get your attention.”
“Get my attention! She’s had my attention for years.”
“How was she supposed to know this?”
“Because girls just do.”
“Not really. Stacy cared very deeply for you and took action to show you she needed you. Now, both of you are hurt.”
Dean paced, so much like his father when agitated. This way, he escaped his mother’s big brown eyes, the ones that always knew when her children lied. “Who says I’m hurt? I’m fine. I have a new girlfriend.”
Teddy had been sitting there quietly in his wheelchair like a piece of the furniture. Now, he spoke. “The one you stole from Tom. He says Ilsa is easier than your coffeemaker.”
“She’s European. That’s just the way they are like the Russian models from the Amberello Agency.”
“Did you sleep with any Russian models?”
“No. Not my type.” Because his type was Stacy. They’d never pry that out of him, not even if they cut him out of the family, exiled him from Lorena Ranch, never came to his games again.
“Ilsa is smart, attractive and very—vibrant. I hope you aren’t using her as your rebound girl, Dean. She seems very attached to you already.”
His mother, always concerned about female feelings. Didn’t guys have feelings, too, not that he planned to admit that, either.
“Me, I’d be worried about more than that when it comes to Ilsa. She reminds me of… Never mind. I hope you are being careful,” his dad said, finally getting another word into the conversation.
“She’s on the pill, okay?”
Joe Billodeaux raised his dark eyebrows as skeptical as a Cajun could be. “Suit up.”
“Can’t women take responsibility for anything? Why are you all on my case?”
His mother changed the subject back to her major concern. “We spoke to Stacy earlier trying to persuade her to come with us. She said it wasn’t in your best interest. You know, Kent’s lawyers have been to see her. They want her to drop the assault charge, saying it’s a he said/she said. No one will believe her. He claims he tried to defend her, not shoot her.”
“She shouldn’t do that. Not again. Maybe he didn’t intend to gun her down, but knowing what a douche bag Kent is, he did attack her.”
“Not again?” His mother caught that of course.
“She had some trouble with Prince, but didn’t make it public for the good of the team.”
“For your good, I’ll bet,” Teddy weighed in. “Xo says she isn’t eating or sleeping well because of all this. She’s thinking of closing down the business at the end of the year when their contracts are up for renewal and going abroad.”
“No. That’s not Stacy. She doesn’t fold. She fights.”
“You should think about forgiving her, Dean,” his mother prompted. “She is part of our family no matter what she says.”
“Maybe when I feel like less of a fool.”
“Maybe when you are less of an asshole. You’re breaking her heart, Dean. To think I used to admire you. I’m going to wait in the lobby.” Teddy swung his wheelchair wide and ran over Dean’s toes on the way out.
“Hey, you could have broken my foot!” Dean wiggled his digits checking for damage.
“Maybe you know how Stacy feels now. Mom, get the door for me. I’ll be good after that.”
Nell did this small service for her adopted son. “We should all leave. We’ve said what we have to say. Think about it. Joe, pry the rest of them out of the game room.”
Her husband clapped his hands as he moved in that direction. “Come on, hut hut, allons a Chapelle.”
“You’re driving home tonight, Mom?”
“Yes. School tomorrow.”
“Be careful on the road. I love you, all of you.”
Nell reached way up to cup her eldest son’s cheek. “I know. You love Stacy, too, whether you are willing to admit it or not. We care about both of you.”
Then her remaining five children filled the living room and flowed out the door with his father herding the smallest of them. Joe paused for a manly shake of the hands, but gave in to a strong hug. “We’ll get through this. I know you’ll do the right thing.”
The second they were gone he missed his family more acutely than he had since moving to New Orleans and getting caught up in being a Sinner. He went to his window and watched them walk toward the parking lot where they’d stowed the van, a small cavalcade with a red wheelchair in the middle, until they went out of sight.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a small ball of frenetic white action. Stacy walked her dog along Canal Street in the coolness of the evening. He noticed something different about her stance, not her usual fierce clip that dared lowlifes to ask for the time and try to grab her watch. Did she look thinner? Hard to tell from this distance. Anyhow, she shouldn’t be out there alone. Mati was no real protection. He should… Dean spotted her escorts a few yards behind, Tom and Xochi who urged her to take a seat at an outdoor café. He continued to watch as a waiter brought coffee and two large wedges of cheesecake. Xo shoved a piece at Stacy and insisted she share by placing a fork in her hand. Good, people looked after her. She didn’t need Dean Billodeaux to walk her home.
His phone buzzed in his hip pocket. Ilsa’s voice flooded into his ear. “Your family is gone? I come over, Ja?
“Sure, I can use some company.” Odd how alone he felt tonight.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Dean put two more grueling road games behind him, Pittsburgh and Baltimore, neither of them pushovers. The Sinners won both by a slim margin with the very last score depending on Tom’s toe for a fifty-yard field goal. He came through for the team as always. The Sinners winning streak
remained unbroken. This was Dean’s year in so many ways, but not in others.
Ilsa convinced him that sex the day before the game took nothing away from his playing. She turned out to be right. When he returned home, Isla always waited for him, taking his mind off the other big problem in his life with mind-numbing sex. Having her around all the time didn’t sit well with Tom, and he did live in half the condo. It only seemed natural to help Ilsa get a better place to live where they weren’t in his brother’s face all the time. She’d begin picking up the rent when Stacy paid her more, she said. Dean threw in a wall-mounted TV since Xo and Stace no longer invited her to view the away games at their place, and for her own good he wanted to keep her out the sports bars.
Dean didn’t take her to Mariah’s Place. Some of the team and his honorary grandmother still disapproved of how he’d snatched Ilsa from Tom. But, he put in an appearance at victory parties, minded his drinking, and took her out afterwards to her favorite German restaurant or another place with good music. A brief but welcome Thanksgiving break came up fast. Since no invitations had been issued to their employee by Xo and Stacy, he felt bad for Ilsa. She hinted broadly that she would be so all alone on her first Thanksgiving in America unless he stayed with her.
His mom would have none of that. He did the kindest thing and got the Mustang out of the garage to transport them both to Lorena Ranch. Mama Nell always said they had room for one more at their table and an abundance of food to share. Breaking all the speed laws and taking the back way, they arrived before Tom who’d been stuck running a family delivery service for his sisters in the SUV. Xo to board in New Orleans, then the twins in Baton Rouge, followed by loading Teddy and his wheelchair in Lafayette after crossing the long causeway over the Atchafalaya Basin. Ilsa remarked she bet Tom was not having so much fun as they did flying along with the top down on an overcast and humid day past fruit stands boarded up for the winter and miles of marsh between towns.
