by Zahra Girard
“Seriously?” he says.
I look down at the floor. The pizza’s mostly gone and the beer’s entirely gone. It was a twelve-pack. No wonder he’s slow this morning.
“Yes, seriously. How late were you up?”
He shrugs. “A while.”
“Why?”
“You had your head on my shoulder when you feel asleep. I didn’t want to wake you. Though you missed most of the movie.”
“It was Tango & Cash,” I say, handing him a cup of terrible hotel coffee and one of the pastries I’d snagged from the continental breakfast. “I wasn’t missing much.”
I take a bite of my own. Whatever continent this pastry came from, they don’t understand what food taste likes.
“It was a masterpiece. One of the best films of the 80’s, by a long shot,” he says, sipping his coffee.
“Are you insane? Kurt Russel had a gun built into his boot and he and Stallone escape from prison by sliding on power lines,” I say.
Which is all that needs to be said, really.
“Exactly — it’s bad ass,” he says, taking a bite out of his pastry and frowning. “What flavor is this?”
I shrug. “I’m still trying to figure that out. My best guess is ‘red’. I’ve got a blue one, if you want it, though it tastes more like green. And I can’t believe I’m marrying you, by the way.”
He smirks at me, pastry crumbs in his stubble. “Well, you’ll hopefully very soon have the pleasure of dumping my philistine ass and finding someone to watch Citizen Kane and Masterpiece Theater with you.”
“It’s not my fault I care about things with actual intellectual value, or that I paid attention in college even when I was in electives that had no bearing on my major,” I say, throwing the last few bites of my pastry in the garbage and then checking the clock. “Come on, we have ten minutes to get on your death machine and get out of here.”
We pack and get out of there in record time. Probably because I’ve been up for hours and have literally no possessions with me and most of Julian’s stuff is still locked in the saddlebags on his bike.
I settle in behind him, wrap my hands around his muscular body, and hold on. I feel a little less nervous this time.
Then, the bike roars to life and it’s like an earthquake is rumbling between my legs. My grip goes knuckle-white and I realize I’m probably never going to get used to this.
But I remind myself to trust in Julian not to get us killed. Oh, and that there’s a ton of money waiting for me at the end of this.
It works out.
The ride is even kind of pretty, seeing the ocean to our right and the mountainous forests to our left. The sun kisses every wave, turning their frothy crests golden and I watch the vast, undulating blue stretch out forever.
Then we hit the Golden Gate bridge and I forget to breathe for a while.
It’s transcendentally gorgeous.
City stretching in front of me as far as I can see, buildings mounting hills, concrete and steel, a million people I’ll have to convince I feel love for this man I’m clinging to.
We weave through traffic, Julian taking every opening and opportunity to cut past cars. We zip up hills, winding through neighborhoods that feel more and more exclusive and make me feel even more out of place being on a motorcycle and dressed like this, and then we come to a stop in front of an Edwardian-style mansion.
It’s set on top of the hill, with an unobstructed view of the entire bay and lords itself over the rest of the neighborhood.
Julian parks us inside the gates and I get off on wobbly legs that are only partly the result of the bike ride.
There’s columns in the entryway, there’s a Lamborghini just parked in the driveway like it’s no big deal — it even looks like it hasn’t been washed for a while, like it’s just a daily commuter car — and the yard is expansive and everything is perfectly manicured by what must be a team of gardeners, and the house itself three stories and huge.
There’s a college-age guy who looks like a less-built, longer-haired version of Julian watching us from the front door.
“Wait here,” Julian says to me.
He walks up to the front door, arms open wide and wraps the younger guy in a hug.
It isn’t long before they’re play fighting in the way only brothers can, and, for the first time in years I see a noogie in action. Twice.
Beaming, looking every bit the newly-engaged man ready to show off his fiance, Julian practically drags his brother over to where I’m waiting. If I didn’t know it was fake, I’d be flattered at how happy he looks.
“Michael, I’d like you to meet my fiance — “
“Melody,” I say, cutting in and holding out my hand, which Michael completely ignores to wrap me in a hug.
“Stone brothers don’t shake hands unless it’s for business. We hug,” he says, with the relentless enthusiasm only college kids can have. “Call me Mike.”
“Nice to meet you, Mike,” I say when I get my breath back. It was a tight hug.
“You did good, bro,” Mike says to Julian.
“Don’t I always?” he says, grinning.
“No. Not always… Not often, even.”
“What do you mean?”
“Seriously? I think the only person who gets into the gutter more frequently is our maintenance guy, Raul,” Mike says. Then, to me, he says: “no offense. You’re perfectly nice and way better than my brother deserves.”
“Thank you,” I say, unable to keep myself from smiling. Mike is so genuine, it’s refreshing.
“Does mom know you’re coming, Jude?” Mike asks.
“Jude?” I say, shooting a glance at Julian, who’s got a dark look on his face.
“Short for Julian,” Mike says. “Can’t really call him ‘Jules’, unless you’re bigger than him or you feel like getting smacked.”
“Mike, do you feel like getting smacked right now?” he says.
“See what I mean? Say ‘Jules’ just once, and there he goes,” Mike says to me.
“I’m not threatening to smack you because you called me Jules, I’m threatening to smack you because you’re being an ass.”
“You don’t need to gaslight me, bro. I know the truth,” Mike says, holding up his hands in a pacifying gesture.
“It’s sad that my fiance’s introduction to you involves witnessing you getting assaulted,” he says.
“Will you two stop? This isn’t a dick measuring contest,” I say, using my Alpha Dog voice.
They freeze and Mike at least looks suitably chastised. Julian mutters something about there not being any yardsticks around to get an accurate measurement.
I roll my eyes at him. But I blush a little, too, thinking about that night I first met him, when Alice and I stripped his pants off to stitch him up. His yard stick comment isn’t that much of an exaggeration.
“No, Mike, you’re the only one who knows I’m coming. You and a few of the investors that I’m sure we can trust. What are you doing here, anyway?”
Mike shrugs, grins, and looks back towards the open front door of the house. Two young women, college-age, both barely dressed — and that’s being generous — are standing there watching us. “Stanford’s on break and I didn’t feel like crashing at the dorms. Needed some more space, if you know what I mean.”
Julian whistles softly. “Nice work. Tell you what, I’ll overlook whatever the hell you did in my house — and don’t even think about telling me — as long as you clean it up, now, and keep quiet about me being here, alright?”
Mike nods. “Deal.”
“Julian, Mike, pardon the interruption, by why are we being so secretive?” I say.
The two share a look. “You’re engaged to her and you haven’t told her about mom, yet?” Mike says.
“Didn’t want her to run away,” Julian replies.
“Good call.”
Julian turns to me. “There’s a lot that I’ve got to explain, and we’ll get to that, but, for now, the easiest way to
explain my mother, the lovely Victoria Stone, is that your gut reaction to meeting her is going to be accurate and, probably, exactly the same as if you were in the room with a pissed-off cobra.”
“Can she really be that bad?” I ask.
“She hatched us, that dastardly Medusa, but she didn’t raise us — dad did. Especially if your name was Alex Stone and you were in line to inherit the company. Julian and I raised ourselves, with a little help from Alex,” Mike says, then points at himself. “And one of us turned out right. The other one’s kind of feral.”
“Alex is the one in prison, right?”
“Sure is. Hope he keeps a tight grip on the soap,” Mike says.
Julian frowns at him. “Watch it. You know he’s innocent.”
“What’d he do?” I ask.
“Nothing,” Julian says. “He was framed.”
“Right, bro,” Mike says. “I might not be in the family business — and thank God, because Stanford is way more fun — but his name was on all those documents and everyone’s named him as the one involved in all that shady business shit. Plus, you know, he admitted it.”
“Have you even talked to him? He’s innocent. There’s no way he would’ve done those things.”
“Everyone says they’re innocent. OJ said he was innocent. Then he wrote that book telling everyone how he’d do it if he was the criminal, which basically a confession. Maybe Alex just wanted to become an author and he thought this was the best way to get some publicity..”
“But, really, what did he do?” I say.
Julian sighs. “Defrauding investors, taking loans for the company from some sketchy sources that might’ve been used as a front to launder money for the mob. There was a point during the recession when the Stone Capital wasn’t doing so great.”
“What my brother isn’t saying is that our older brother, Alex, also plead guilty to those charges,” Mike says.
“Which he only did to spare the company, and us, the extra scrutiny and the problems that would come with a long trial.”
My head is spinning and I look away because I feel this isn’t the first time Mike and Julian have gone round and round about their older brother. Neither of them seems angry — they’re both talking about him from a place of love — but neither seems likely to budge, either.
“Let’s go inside. I’ve had enough of going in circles,” Julian says.
We enter the house and I gasp and both Mike and Julian grin knowingly.
I know I’m not the first person to react to Julian’s house this way.
This place is incredible. I knew, just looking from the driveway, that it’d be impressive, but impressive as a word doesn’t do justice to this place.
It’s elegant, it’s tasteful — which is surprising, and not a word I thought I’d use in describing anything associated with Julian — and it is opulent.
The door leads into an entry room, a lounge that is wide and airy, with high ceilings and two-story windows that open out onto an unobstructed view of the city and the bay.
“Is that the Golden Gate Bridge?” I say.
It is. I know it is. But I need someone to tell me it, because holy shit.
“Yeah, that’s the bridge,” Julian says, somehow making it sound passe, even though it’s the most gorgeous view I’ve ever seen.
I cross the room, ignoring the six other people lounging about in various states of undress — what the hell happened here? — and I plant myself in front of the windows.
Traffic — ant-sized and minuscule and insignificant — moves across the bridge. I can see the bay, glittering and beautiful. I can even see Alcatraz.
Off to my left, the sun’s starting to drop towards the horizon. In a few hours, I’ll be able to watch the sun set from one of the most amazing vantage points in the city.
I turn around. Julian’s got that smirk on his face again.
“You like the view?”
“I love it. How did you get a place like this?”
Julian chuckles and Mike rolls his eyes. “Here we go,” he says.
“The owner didn’t want to sell when I first asked him,” Julian says. “I must have called him once a week, every week, for more than a month straight, each time making a better offer. But he wouldn’t budge and I got tired of his bullshit. So, on my final call, I told him I’d made prospective offers to all of his neighbors and I was going to knock down all the houses and build something new. Designed by my brother, who draws his art inspiration from Smash Mouth and Guy Fieri.”
“I don’t really like Guy Fieri,” Mike chimes in. “But I’d learn to like him for you, bro.”
“Oh, thank God you don’t like Guy Fieri,” one of the Mike’s dates blurts out. I couldn’t live with myself if I’d had sex with a Guy Fieri fan.”
“What about Smash Mouth?” the other woman asks, with some trepidation.
“Smash Mouth is art. You can accept that, or you can get the hell out of my house,” Julian says, completely deadpan.
“Are you serious?” she says.
Mike points to the door. “Bye, Felicia.”
The young girl doesn’t move.
Julian points to the door as well, and the brothers both make ‘L’ shapes with their fingers and put them to their foreheads. “Go.”
Both girls leave. Julian looks at the six other college kids the room — one guy and five girls — and, completely serious, asks “what about the rest of you?”
The five girls, practically in unison, blurt out how much they love the band. The guy doesn’t say anything.
“Kevin?” Mike prompts. “Come on, man.”
The guy, Kevin, rolls up the left sleeve of his shirt.
“Is that —?” I say. I’m staring.
“For real, Kevin?” Mike says.
“Fuck man, that’s a big tattoo,” Julian marvels.
Kevin just nods.
Astro Lounge in huge letters, along with the rest of the album cover art, adorns his arm. Then, in an eerily calm way that makes every hair on the back of my neck stand on end, Kevin starts rolling up his other sleeve.
“Bruh,” is all Mike says once the full scope of what Kevin did to himself is revealed.
Julian and I just stare at each other like ‘Are you seeing this?’
Spiky hair. Goatee. A nose ring. It’s the spitting image of their lead singer. And Kevin looks so proud.
“You need to go. That is just fucked up,” Julian says.
We all watch as Kevin leaves, and I don’t think any of us let out a breath until we’re sure he’s gone.
“I didn’t really know the guy, bro. He was a friend of Genevieve’s,” Mike says, apologetically. “If I had any idea…”
“It’s ok, we all make mistakes. Thankfully, this one wasn’t fatal. But, no more house parties for a while, ok? And screen your guests better, because that guy was probably a serial killer,” he says. “And the rest of you, it’s time for you to go, too.”
Everyone files out after waiting a moment in the doorway to make sure Kevin is truly gone, leaving just Mike, Julian, and me in the lounge.
“So, when’s the wedding?” Mike says to me. “And, sorry Melody, for being so abrupt, but my asshole brother didn’t even tell me he’d gotten engaged until a few days ago.”
I shrug. “We’re playing it casual and really trying to keep any expectations out of it. Right now, I’m just so thrilled to be engaged to Jude,” I say, holding back a smirk of my own. I’m so going to keep using that nickname, just seeing the look on his face is delicious.
“It was a sudden thing. This whole relationship’s been a whirlwind. Sometimes it feels like it just happened overnight. But, with dad dying and then Alex getting in trouble, I wanted things to calm down a little bit before we made any announcements,” Julian adds.
Mike nods. “Makes sense. So, where’s you’re ring?”
I blink. Oh my god.
“Good question. Julian, where is my ring?”
Chapter Eight
Julian
Well, shit.
I clear my throat. “Remember, we talked about that back in Portland, after I proposed to you in front of the club you used to dance at. I told you that none of the jewelers in Portland had anything close to beautiful enough to go on your finger, so we were going to shop for something once we got here.”
Her eyes are on fire.
“Is she a…” Mike says.
Melody stands up, shooting me a burning look. “Zumba instructor. Well, former.”
Well played.
She glares at me when Mike isn’t looking.
“So, darling, where are you taking me ring shopping? You promised me it was going to be extravagant. What were your words? Oh, yes, ‘breathtaking and jealousy-inducing’ and I distinctly remember you saying that there was no budget at all for this.”
I grit my teeth. She’s going to make me pay.
“There’s a ton of jewelers down near Union Square,” Mike says. “That’s where I’d start. I think they even have a Tiffany’s there, if you want something basic. But, honestly, I’d suggest one of the more artisan jewelers.”
“Thanks for the tip, bro,” I say.
“Yes, thank you,” Melody says. “Jude, I think we should start there. In fact, let’s go now.”
She’s going to get a ton of mileage out of my nickname, and I don’t know if I hate it or love it.
“Sounds great.”
I just know I’ll be dropping five figures on this ring. But, whatever, it’ll be worth it to make sure everything I’ve been working towards happens.
Melody and I head to my garage and I decide, if I’m going to have her dragging me around town until she finds a ring expensive enough I might as well feel good doing it. I grab a set of keys from my key rack and direct her to the car we’ll be taking.
“What is that?” she says, coming to a full stop.
I grin.
“That is a Jaguar E-type convertible, built in 1962. I restored most of it myself as a side project a few years ago, and it’s been my favorite ever since I laid eyes on it. When it first came out in 1961, Enzo Ferrari called it the most beautiful car ever made. I think he’s still right.”
