Play for Keeps

by L. P. Maxa

  Jacks grabbed Landry and Bryan into his arms. “Family hug.” He squeezed them tight. “Landry, be good for B, okay?” He pointed at Crash, who was in the dining room wrestling with Louie. “You two please don’t break anything.” Then he looked over at Dagger. “Dags, I’m sorry, buddy, but you’re going to have to keep those puppies in line while we’re gone.”

  Landry giggled when Crash came bounding into the living room, clearly understanding that Jacks was talking about him. “He’s always good. Right, Momma?”

  Bryan’s face lit up. “Of course, sweet girl.” He certainly wasn’t. Crash was a menace. But Bryan would agree to anything Landry said when she added Momma onto the end.

  Smith put his hands on Dylan’s belly, bending down to place a reverent kiss there. “I love you both.” He stood up and kissed her lips. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? I don’t have to go, cher.”

  Her smile was genuine. “Yes, you do. And we will both be just fine. I promise.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Jacks

  “Are we going to stop soon?” I grabbed the back of Smith’s seat, pulling myself forward.

  He turned to look at me. “Are you serious? We’ve been on the road for twenty minutes.”

  “I know but we need to get snacks. We can’t go on a true road trip without snacks. And do we have a route mapped out? Any cool places we get to stop on the way? Can we go to an alligator farm? Bourbon Street? Casino? Are there any giant balls of yarn or the world’s largest—”

  Smith held his hand up. “If you will stop talking, I’ll google the route and see what I can find.”

  I sat back. “Okay, cool, man.” Mission accomplished. Luke held his fist out, and I bumped it without saying anything. We’d both been able to see the desperation in Smith’s eyes. He’d been staring out the damn window like a lost puppy since we pulled out of the driveway. I could understand his concern, leaving Dill like that. But the girls were all there and she had doctors and nurses coming by. We had top-of-the-line security and Chase was minutes away. Not to mention there were three pit bulls guarding the place right now. Everyone would be fine. They’d be more than fine, those girls were tough as nails. Way tougher than us.

  “We can stop in Lake Charles for the night since we got such a late start. You can gamble there.” Smith closed his phone and tossed it in the cup holder beside him.

  “And snacks?”

  Dash rolled his eyes. “We’ll be in Bastrop soon, we can grab some stuff there.”

  I grabbed my phone and texted Luke.

  Me: We need to stop next to a liquor store.

  Luke: Dash is gonna be pissed if he’s the only sober one in this car, bro.

  Me: Smith looks like he’s ready to turn back around and go hide under Dill’s hospital bed. He’ll never make it all the way to Meraux.

  Luke: What’s Meraux?

  I shot him a what-the-hell look.

  Me: It’s where Smith is from, where he and Jared grew up.

  Luke: Well, he won’t drink alone. So one of us is going to have to stay sober with Dash and one of us is going to have to get lit with Smith.

  Me: Rock, paper, scissors?

  He nodded and we quietly did best two out of three. I lost.

  Luke: You’re drinking.

  Me: What? I lost. You’re drinking.

  He looked at me and let out a deep sigh.

  Luke: I won. I chose my prize. And my prize is staying sober.

  I shrugged. Whatever. Apparently, we had different opinions of what winning was. It would be easy for me to get Smith to start drinking anyway. I’d been partying with the guy for over ten years now. I could get him in the right frame of mind. This road trip was about to turn into the party train.

  All aboard!

  Chapter Twelve

  Bryan

  “I think Jacks is drunk.” I looked down at my phone. Picture after picture was of blurry landscape and then he wrote a long text telling me how much he missed me and how he wished I was there with him. Then he got into some explicit sexual stuff.

  Dylan held her phone up in the air. “Smith too.” She studied her screen with her eyes narrowed. “Everything he types is like autocorrected. It doesn’t really make much sense.”

  Harlow mixed herself a gin and tonic at the kitchen bar. “Luke said that he and Jacks rock, paper, scissored to see who would get wasted with Smith. Apparently he was super stressed and looked close to breaking. So their brilliant idea was to get him drunk.” She took a sip of her drink and smiled to herself. “Why talk about what’s bothering you when you can just drink your worries away?”

  She was being sarcastic, but Lexi held her wineglass up in a toast. “Word.”

  I looked across the living room to the pallet I’d made for Landry so she could watch a movie on the iPad. Halen was lying next to her and they were both fast asleep. We’d already done moisturizing facials and watched Footloose. Girls’ week was well under way.

  The medication my sister was on was making her sleepy. She napped on and off. I’d called our parents and assured them we were fine and they didn’t need to come down here. I hadn’t been able to get ahold of Mikah. Which wasn’t surprising. Our youngest sister was a bit of a wild card. A free spirit. My dad liked to joke that with each child, his sensible genes had been diluted.

  “Do y’all think it’s selfish of me to not want another baby right now?” Lexi looked down into her wineglass.

  Oh. So we weren’t going to drink away our issues? I glanced across the room at Dylan. Lexi was her bestie; she should be the one handling this one. But she was asleep again. I looked over at Lo and she made a panicked face. So it was on me then. Okay.

  “I’ve never been pregnant, but I do know what it’s like to have a daughter. I know that your time isn’t your own. I know that Landry is on my mind, always.” I smiled when I looked at our girls sleeping side by side. “I feel like if you aren’t ready, then you aren’t ready. If you don’t feel like you can handle it, like you can give it your all, then don’t do it. Halen is so young, there is no harm waiting another year or two before you give her a sibling. I mean, two kids in diapers? That seems really hard.”

  “I don’t want to disappoint Dash. I want to give him the family he’s asking for. I just, uh, I just want to be me for a little bit first. I wouldn’t trade Halen for anything in this world. But I went from being Lexi who did whatever she wanted to do when she wanted to do it to being a fiancée and a mom. It all happened so fast. I feel like I need time to settle into this life. To find my rhythm, before adding another baby to the mix.”

  She shook her head, tears filling her eyes. I glanced over at Lo; we were both in shock. Lex rarely let her emotions show like this.

  “I hate feeling like I’m letting Dash down. But I’m not ready. And as much as I try to convince myself that everything will be fine, I know my heart’s not in it. I don’t want another baby right now.”

  Harlow reached across the couch and took Lexi’s hand in hers. “All Dash was thinking about was how in love with Halen he is. How much he loved you being pregnant with his child. He wasn’t taking into account how hard it was on your body. How hard it is emotionally.” She smiled. “He’s a man. He has no idea how much being a mom takes out of you.” She laughed. “Not that I have any idea about it either. But I watch you and Bryan, I see.”

  Life tended to move fast when you were in the Devil’s Share family. Seemed like we added new members every few months or so. I knew eventually Jacks and I would have more kids, but I was in no rush to be pregnant either. I was just getting the hang of parenting a ten-year-old. An infant would knock me on my ass for sure.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Luke

  “To be fair, when Jacks and I decided that getting Smith wasted was a good idea, we’d only been in the car less than an hour. We weren’t really thinking about the long-term effects.” I winced when Jacks fell to the ground for the second time in the parking lot of the Isle Capri Casino.

&nbs
p; Dash shot me yet another fuck-you-man look as he basically carried Smith through the large glass doors. “You think?”

  I grabbed Jacks by the arm and dragged him along behind me, with both our duffle bags in my other hand. How Jacks got Smith to down a bottle of whiskey with him, I’ll never know. But they’d turned it into a game. A game only they knew the rules to, but they’d both laughed a lot. And Smith had let loose and had some fun. So it was hard to be too irritated.

  “Come on, bro. You’re making Dash put that stick he likes to carry around back up his ass. Can you at least try to walk like a grown adult?”

  Jacks straightened and tried to walk upright. But he ended up looking like Johnny Depp playing Jack Sparrow. “I want to go play the slot machines. Let’s gamble.” He tried to veer off in the direction of the lights and sounds of the casino floor.

  I grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pulled him toward the check-in desk where Dash was standing and Smith was dancing some kind of jig. “No way, man. You’re going to get us kicked out of here before we can even make it to our room. Stay right by my side. You hear me?”

  He saluted me and then snickered. “Talk about a stick up the ass.”

  I let out a deep sigh and joined Dash. I was going to need to call room service for some ibuprofen. Stat. These two were giving me a headache. They were equal parts hilarious and annoying. “Smith. What are you doing?”

  He stopped moving and looked at me, a concerned look on his face. “I’m dancing.”

  “There isn’t any music.” I reached out and grabbed Jacks when he tried to wander off again.

  Smith’s face turned from confused to appalled as he pointed toward the ceiling. I assumed to the speakers. “No music? Are you deaf? This is zydeco, man. This is the music of my people. Of my soul.” He started to dance again. This time Jacks joined him.

  “I got us in the biggest suite they had. Let’s get these two upstairs before we draw a crowd.” Dash took Smith by the back of his shirt, and Smith reached out for Jacks’ hand. They were like a kindergarten train walking toward the elevators.

  We had all gotten so used to either being at the compound or at the Riffraff offices. It was rare that we were in a position to be recognized lately, let alone in a place like this where word could spread and we’d be prisoners in our room until checkout.

  Dash and I rode the elevator in silence, watching Smith and Jacks continue to dance and laugh. When we got into our suite, Smith went to the bathroom and Jacks opened the mini bar. He grabbed every bottle in there and then dumped them all on the nearest bed. “Who’s ready for another drink?”

  I looked across the room at Dash, and then we both looked down at the booze covering the bedspread. I kind of assumed that Jacks and Smith would just pass out when we got to our suite, but Jacks was smiling like a madman, looking between Dash and me, clearly waiting for us to pick our poison. And Smith was in the bathroom singing “Jambalaya” by Hank Williams at the top of his lungs. “I figure we have two options here, bro.”

  Jambalaya, crawfish pie and fillet gumbo

  He put his hands on hips. “Oh yeah.”

  ’Cause tonight I’m gonna see my ma-chere-amie-oh

  I nodded. “We can either spend the rest of the night irritated as fuck with our two bandmates and their drunken shenanigans.”

  Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay-oh

  “Or?”

  I picked up a tiny bottle of scotch and twisted the cap. “Or. We join them and get into some trouble.”

  Son-of-a-gun, we’ll have big fun on the bayou

  Smith stopped singing and flushed the toilet. Dash pursed his lips and sighed. Then reached down and grabbed a bottle of tequila. “It’s been a long time since we’ve gotten in any real trouble.”

  “I think we’re due.”

  He held his bottle up for me to toast him. “Bottoms up.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Harlow

  “Have you guys talked about names yet?” I made myself a second gin and tonic. We’d been camped out in Dylan’s living room for about eight hours now, and I was starting to go stir-crazy already. I was getting the urge to run laps outside.

  “No, not really. Smith just now found out that we are having a girl.” Dylan put her hands on her belly. “His mom’s name was Evangeline. I thought it would be cool to name her after her grandmother. But I haven’t mentioned it to him yet.”

  Bryan smiled. “I think that’s sweet, it’s a really pretty name.”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of a mouthful for a kid. I was thinking we could call her Evie for short.” Dylan adjusted on her bed. “Isn’t it midnight snack time?”

  Lexi threw her head back laughing. “Is it? I thought midnight snack time was a no-no.” She wagged her finger at Dylan. “Now that the shoe is on the other foot, I guess eating at the ‘worst time’ is more than okay?”

  Dill waved her hand in the air. “Yeah, yeah. I’m a hypocrite. Just make me some chocolate chip cookies. There is some cookie dough hidden in the veggie drawer.”

  I got up. “I’ll do it.” I literally couldn’t sit on that couch any longer. I tended to get antsy really easily. I set my phone and my drink on the counter and pre-heated the oven then took the dough out of the vegetable drawer and wrinkled my nose. “This looks like a rat has been gnawing on it. Dill, have you been eating cookie dough every night?”

  She pushed herself up and peered into the kitchen. “No. Raw eggs aren’t good for you, especially when you’re pregnant. I hadn’t even opened that one yet.”

  All eyes turned to Lexi. “Really?” She rolled hers. “I may have found the cookie dough earlier when I was making grilled cheeses for everyone.”

  I cut off the end that Lexi had been picking off of and tossed it to her. She ate it. “What else can’t you do when you’re pregnant?” No raw cookie dough? Seemed brutal.

  Lexi started ticking things off on her fingers. “You can’t drink, or take hot baths, you can’t get tattoos, you can’t have sex in the hot tub, you aren’t really supposed to have sushi or lunch meat. I’ve heard some odd rumors about cheap mac and cheese. Oh, and skydiving, bungee jumping. Meth.”

  I nodded my head. “Good thing you mentioned meth, that would have been a terrible mistake.”

  Bryan got up and came to help me. “Why do you ask? You and Luke trying for a baby?”

  “Trying? No.” I rolled the dough in my hands into a ball and set it on the cookie sheet. “But we aren’t being careful and I think he’d be pretty pumped if it happened. Luke loves babies.”

  Lexi picked a sleeping Halen up off the floor and placed her in the Pack ‘N Play. “Lukey is great with kids, he’s a natural. He’ll make an incredible father.”

  “I know. And if it happens then it happens and of course I’d be happy. But the label is taking a lot of my time right now.” Lex was right, Luke was born to be a dad. I bumped my shoulder into Bryan’s. “What about you and Jacks? Ready to give Landry a younger sibling?”

  Bryan took the cookie sheet and placed it in the oven. “Nope.” Then she poured herself another glass of wine. We all just kind of went silent. We looked around the room, confused. “What?”

  I laughed. “That’s it? Just, nope. We’ve been pretty much pouring our hearts out here about motherhood and you’re just ending the baby discussion at nope?”

  She took a sip. “The thought of starting over with an infant just seems really daunting. I mean, Landry can bathe herself and she sleeps through the night. I get tired just watching Lexi chase Halen around. And I really enjoy sex in the hot tub.”

  Dylan held her phone up. “Hey, Smith is FaceTiming me.” She swiped to accept the call and all we heard was laughter. “Babe?”

  “Hey, cher. How are my girls?”

  My eyes went wide. His accent sounded thick as hell, and his words were slurred. More than anything else though, he sounded relaxed and happy. Which was pretty unlike him, especially when he was away from Dill.

  “We’re good. W
hat are you guys up to? Are you, what, are you in a tattoo parlor?” Dylan was squinting, apparently trying to guess their location from the background of the phone call.

  “Yeah. Luke won a bunch of money on the slot machines. So we decided to spend it on new tattoos. Hey, don’t, I’m still talking, wait—”

  “Hellllloooooooooo, ladies. Y’all missing us yet?” Jacks’ voice filled the room. “Where’s my girl?”

  Dylan tapped the screen, making the camera turn around so he could see Bryan.

  “Hey, love. You getting tatted up?”

  I snorted at how at ease B was. Jacks was crazy drunk, and she didn’t seem to care one bit.

  “Yes, ma’am. Don’t you worry though, I didn’t get anything weird.”

  She frowned. “Too bad. That would have been hilarious.” She walked around the counter, getting closer to the phone. “What’d you get?”

  He threw open his shirt and on his chest were the words Baby Doll and then right under it Buttercup. “I got my girls over my heart.”

  “That’s very sweet.” She blew a kiss at the screen. “I love it.”

  Smith must have taken the phone back. “Guess what I got, cher? Guess. Guess.”

  She shook her head, smiling. “Just show me.” The screen was facing her, so all we saw was Dill start to cry. “It’s perfect, babe. Thank you.” She looked up at us while wiping her face. “He put the words, ‘my girls, my whole world’ on his ribs.”

  Dylan jumped when Dash shouted, “Let me see, Lexi.” She tossed the phone over. “I got a tattoo, Kitten.”

  “I heard.” She bit her lip, trying to keep from laughing at how drunk he sounded. Dash rarely let loose. He was always too busy taking care of everyone else, too busy making sure we were all safe and where we were supposed to be. We all leaned over her shoulder, trying to see what he got.

  I narrowed my eyes, reading the words inked down his spine. “What does that say?”

  “Magnificently we will float into the mystic.” Lexi read aloud, her smile evident in her voice. “I love it, thank you.”