“And that’s good, because you know what? It’s made me think about myself and what I want. Thanks, Cage, I finally understand what I need to do.”
I’m not sure what she means because she rises almost immediately after that statement and walks away, leaving the waiting room. I do know that the feeling of dread that consumes me is completely real.
I’ve lost Luci, my sandy-blond, green-eyed sprite.
I went and fucking broke rule two without even knowing it, and screwed it all up before it even began.
Chapter Four
A Jack by Any Other Name…
Luci
We’re all crammed into chairs, contorted like pretzels or stretched to the point of falling to the floor seven hours later when a harried Jack comes running into the room and just starts yelling at the top of his lungs like a madman.
“Oh my God. He’s, he’s a she. It’s a girl!”
My heart squeezes and I feel myself start tearing up as we all stand as one and try to converge on the poor man. His black hair is standing up all over the place and he looks like he’s been through a war with those clothes and the dark circles beneath his eyes, but I have never in my life seen anyone, man or woman, this radiantly beautiful with happiness.
Jack is, at this moment, one of the hottest men alive as far as I’m concerned. He continues to babble proudly and tell anyone who’ll listen what a fucking perfect angel his kid is, how she’s the best thing that’s happened to the world.
Woody starts laughing and slapping him in a man hug when Jack won’t quit crowing, and I look up in time to see Freddie grinning broadly and pulling Jack into a hug that’s all tears and emotion.
That makes me sad and happy and freaking painfully aware of what I can’t have. The ache in me is so deep in that second, I honestly don’t know how it’s possible that my heart keeps beating.
He’ll never run into a waiting room and crow over our little girl or brag about me the way Jack’s bragging about his little warrior, Callie, for doing this amazing, miraculous thing.
The sad truth is that he’s too fucked up to love and allow himself this joy. The more fucked-up thing is that I know that I will never have it because I swore to myself years ago I would never settle. If it won’t be him sharing that moment with me, it won’t be anyone.
“You should have seen it all. Callie was a Goddamn rock star. It was just…”
“Gross.”
“Disgusting.”
“Gruesome.”
“Gory?” Dot asks.
“A miracle,” I say, my throat closing and choking me as I smile at Jack and he smiles right back with so much gratitude and love that I feel humbled.
He walks over and pulls me in for a tight embrace.
“I’m so happy for you and Callie,” I whisper into his shirt, holding back a stream of tears as I try to reign myself in. “You two are so good together and you deserve all the happiness you can create together. Congratulations, Jack. May God bless you and the family you created.”
“Thanks, sweetheart. Don’t give up, Luce. Don’t give up on him and what can be,” he whispers softly as he gives me one last squeeze that I almost don’t hear it. “He needs love more than anyone I’ve ever met, and you’re so full of it that it spills out even when you’re being an asshole.”
That makes my hiccup turn into a giggle and I push him away with a huff.
“Classy, Levin. Real classy. Now where’s the little cutie pie? She got a big head like you or is she perfect like Mama?”
Everyone’s laughing as he blushes. I see Freddie glance at me from the corner of my eye.
“You shush, little gabber, or I’ll slap your pate right well and good. Everyone knows a Landry girl is perfection personified. Now, where’s my great grandbaby?” Gruffy yells like a battle cry, making even Indie and her unflappable attitude take a nosedive.
Jack, I notice, narrows his eyes at the Landry quip but chooses, wisely, to just shake his head and ignore the old fart as he waves us on behind him.
We all end up following Jack down the hall minutes later to see Callie and the baby. Woody laughs when Dot looks ready to faint at the thought of us getting kicked out.
“Sweetheart, Jack has enough money to do just about any damn thing he wants to. He donated a wing last year and helped them buy new equipment. At this point, the man could walk around with his dick in the breeze and no one would say a thing to him.”
It’s a laughing group that finally peeks into the room where Callie’s laying sweaty but radiant, cradling the tiniest little bundle I’ve ever seen.
“Congratulations!”
“Did it feel like you were being drawn and quartered?”
“I read that chicks crap when they push that hard. Did you crap, Cal?”
By the time I get around to seeing the baby, I’m just about ready to start bawling.
“Oh, Calliopeia girlie, you did a fine thing, you did, my wee lass,” Gruffy says tearfully, accepting the arm Gramps throws around her shoulders.
She’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. In my life. She’s so small I’m terrified to move when Callie places her in my arms and throws Gruffy a wink and a smile.
“She’s perfect, Cal,” I whisper as I gaze down at her scrunched, red little face.
Her hair is wispy and pitch black, just like Jack’s, and I swear to God when she opens her eyes and looks at me I see her smile as if she knows that I would never let a thing hurt her.
The love I feel is overwhelming and strong, bittersweet as I gaze at her and accept one startling, clapper of an epiphany. Is it okay to let this go, to accept that I will never have this just because the man I love will never give it to me?
I want to give a baby of my own everything I had and didn’t have, and as I look at the baby and feel my heart open I make the decision that I will indeed have this.
I will.
I want to plan a nursery and see the blob on a scan just like Callie and Jack did. I want to spend nine terrible months suffering the grossness that is pregnancy because I’ll know that at the end of that trial I’ll have the most precious reward for the struggle.
I want a baby before I lose the chance.
And I know how I’m going to achieve it.
***
Cage
I wonder if she knows that the sight of her cradling a baby makes me hard enough to pound nails. Or that as I see her face go soft and fill with a love that is breathtaking that I decide I want exactly that—her holding my child, loving it the way I always wanted to be loved.
Probably not. In fact she probably thinks I’m the world’s biggest asshole alive right now and that I’m incapable of love. That I could never look on at a scene this mushy and sappy and think anything good about it.
I never thought I was capable of it, either. Truthfully, if I’d been looking at any other woman gushing and making weird little faces and babbling at a newborn the way she is, I’d have felt nothing but slight amusement for the way females lose their faculties over the little darlings.
Seeing Luci go all melty with the kid, though? Instant boner. Not in a weird way but in a “I am so going to knock you up soon and enjoy doing it” way.
“So, you want to introduce us to the little angel?” I hear Woody say when Luci gives her one last kiss and hands her over before Percy starts having a full-on tantrum.
Jack and Callie both share a look and smile and I find my own mouth curving as I hold out my hand and make a “give me” gesture at Woody. The dunce just rolls his eyes at me and shakes his head till Callie drops her bomb.
“Everyone, we’d like you all to meet Jack Athena Iona Levin,” Callie crows, her smile so bright it lights her entire face.
Jack’s mother looks ready to faint. His father starts laughing and Gruffy and her love slave both gape while I laugh my ass off.
“Jack as in little Jacqueline?” Dot asks softly, patiently waiting her turn as Luci steps to her and giggles quietly.
I can’t
stop my mirth when Jack shakes his head at a scowling Woody, who is indeed rifling through his wallet as we speak.
“Dude, I told you it’s Jack and that’s final, didn’t I?”
“But she’s a girl!”
“Yeah. We got that when she came out without a wiener, genius.” Callie laughs, her face starting to scowl the longer people hog her baby.
“But, but she’s a girl,” he says again, refusing to let go of the money as I yank hard.
“We know. Isn’t it great? Daddy’s little angel is gonna be a chip off the old block, huh? I’m gonna teach you how to spot a good investment a mile away, and to negotiate the hell out of the little dicks who’ll think you’re just a girl and can’t string a good deal together. Daddy’s little boardroom shark!” he croons when Percy relents and places Jack back in Callie’s arms.
The man is so close to his wife and daughter, you’d think he was on the bed with them at this point.
“Son of a bitch. How did you know? Did he tell you? It’s not a fair bet if you had insider information, you idiot,” Woody grumbles, making me laugh harder.
“I didn’t. He hardly spoke two words to me the last month and a half and you know it.”
“That is completely true. I guess asshole Cage over here just knows me better than most. Even Callie didn’t want to believe it when I told her a few minutes ago.”
They start arguing and throwing insults while the old people give Callie and little Jack another kiss and hug and bid all farewell. I take the time to watch Luci where she’s standing in the corner quietly, eyeing the baby and Callie the same way I saw her eyeing me not too long ago.
That look makes my balls draw up tight and I get a chill of foreboding. She’s up to something, I can see it and smell it. If I’m going to win her the way I resolved I would just moments ago, I’m going to have to plot.
“What the fuck are you up to now?”
My attention is pulled away when Woody comes up beside me and glares the skin off my bones, his own gaze darting toward Luci before coming back to land on me with a narrow-eyed focus that would have most other men shrinking in fear.
“Leave her alone. She’s had enough pain and humiliation where you’re concerned, she doesn’t need you hurting her more than you already have.”
“Stay out of it, Woody. I have no intention of hurting Luci again.”
“Then what do you intend, because I’ve seen that predatory look on your face before. If I remember correctly, this very same woman was your prey. That did not end well for her, and fuck, man! She just started talking to people again. Leave her the fuck alone,” Woody snarls, his face a picture of anger and disgust.
I’ve known this man for a long time, and not once in all that time has he ever looked at me in quite this way, with equal parts anger, violence, and disappointment.
The anger and violence I can handle, I’ve seen it on faces before, but the disappointment is such that I feel compelled to explain before I wake up to find a horse’s head in my bed.
“I need her, Wood. Jesus. I fucking love her and I need her,” I grit out, my chest doing crazy things as I say the words for the first time in so long, they feel foreign.
The last time I said these exact words my mom looked down her nose at me and told me to stop nattering like a baby and grow some steel.
The words bring Woody up short, though, and I see his head rear back in shock before a bright smile lights his face. When the ass starts rubbing his hands together and crowing I just know my life’s about to become a misery.
“Oh hell yeah! Levin, get your ass over here, man. We have a situation.”
And that is how I end up wishing I’d kept my big mouth shut.
Chapter Five
Let’s Get Ready to Rumble
Luci
“No. Absolutely not,” Percy yells for like the hundredth time as I continue to scan the lease the realtor couriered to me just moments ago.
I ignore her scowling, stomping fit and keep reading, my eyes catching and taking in every word the way a shark scents blood in the water. You don’t know this about me, and heck, my own friends would be flabbergasted, but I’m something of a genius when it comes to contractual law and fine print.
Like I said before, my daddy, before he met Mum, was a financial shark and a boardroom king in his day. He wheeled and dealed with the best and worst of them, whoever the hell “they” are, and cut his teeth at the tender age of nineteen on a deal my grandfather threw at him to get him started.
So yeah, I know my shit since my dopey, oftentimes scatty-brained parent took it upon himself to educate all his kids in the fine art of spotting what he calls a bad deal, and taking those asses down.
So far I’ve noted three unacceptable clauses, such as the uncontrolled rent situation and the nonsense the board have just added on as if they have the right to restrict who and what I bring into my own home.
Another thing you don’t know is that I am basically rich. I’m a trust-fund baby and have been since I hit the age of twenty-one and reached majority.
My family is loaded after Daddy sold all of his interests and invested rather well when he married Mum. See, Mummy is what you would call a force of nature, and Daddy once confessed that he couldn’t be the high-powered businessman he was born to be and have his great love. Mummy wouldn’t have allowed him to work himself to death.
So he gave it all up and moved here where Mummy could have her sunshine, ocean, and happy life.
That meant that my father was obscenely rich and continues to be so, because even though he’s left the boardroom, the boardroom has never left him.
The old man enjoys the stock market. A lot.
And the money from my trust fund? It keeps growing at a terrible rate because as Daddy says, “Why just leave good money lying around when you can make more?”
That’s what I am using now to buy myself an apartment instead of moving in with Dot. Not because I want to live alone and leave poor Dotty to her own devices, but because I have this plan and I can’t be sharing a two-bedroom place with Dotty if I achieve my goals.
“Stop that infernal yelling and calm down, Percy. I need to do this. I want to! It’s long past due that I stop living like I’m still in a sorority and grow up.”
“Sorority?” she snorts, rolling her eyes. “Girl, those stuck-up rich bitches would never have let you in, even if you’d wanted to try and get in.”
That’s the reason that none of my friends know that I could buy and sell half the city with my own money.
“My point exactly. I don’t want to live that way anymore, and I don’t have to now that the business has taken off, Percy. I can afford a good place in a good neighborhood and I’m going to do just that.”
“Is this because that ball bag asshole broke your heart?” she hisses, pacing the kitchen at Delights as if she’s training for the freaking Olympics.
It’s actually our one day off this week, but we’re both kind of pedantic about keeping things just so and we never let a day go by and not take the opportunity to come in and double-check that things are exactly as they should be.
“No, you gobblehead. Stop sucking so much meat, Percy. It’s seriously addling your brain. I want to do this because…”
I trail off because I do not want a soul knowing what I’m up to just yet, but I also don’t want to lie to my friends.
“Because?” Percy pushes, watching me closely.
Half-truths and some distractions, Luci, you know how to do this. You’ve been at it for years to keep them in the dark about your personal brand of crazy.
“Well because I just want more out of life. I’m thirty years old, I’ve never even been out of the city unless you count visiting the grandpoops over the pond, and I just…I want more. I want to do things I haven’t done before and see things, and I want to do them knowing that I can do them without you or one of the girls holding my hand, protecting me from the big bad world.”
“So move in with Dot!” she i
nsists, taking a stool across from me and sliding a cup of cocoa my way.
I accept and do not point out that it’s getting hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk. Percy loves the stuff and she makes it so good, you’d drink her concoction in the desert even.
“No, I do not want to move in with Dot. I want to live by myself, in my own place where I am responsible for things, Percy.”
Namely my baby.
I have planned this out to a bloody tee and I’ve done all the research. I’m going for IVF and I’ll use a donor to get what I want.
It’s pretty cool, too. I get to research the men and choose from the best. One guy I’ve been eyeing is a physicist who also enjoys outdoorsy activities and has sandy-blond hair and blue eyes.
Yes, yes, I know. Freddie has those features too, and blah, blah, blah…
“But you’ll be all alone.”
I won’t be. Not for long anyway, I muse, biting my lips to restrain a smile.
“Percy, my darling, get over your mama bear feelings and move on already. I am doing this with or without your consent. Now then, tell me about that hunk of hotness I saw creeping out at four this morning. Was all that yelling for a reason, or did the two of you open a portal to the afterlife last night?” I tease, enjoying her blush and bawdy giggle.
“He knew what to do with what God gave him.”
My giggle and eye roll have her cackling and I enjoy the mirth till she gets serious again and looks at me in a soft and altogether motherly way. It’s always been like this with us.
Dot and Callie gelled and formed their clique within the group. Indie and Percy with their abrasive personalities and adventurous spirits formed their own, and I was just sort of the floater in that pot.
Percy, love her to death, saw that as her in to molly coddle me to death because though I was more with her and Indie, I wasn’t quite with them all the way.
Somehow she interpreted that as her chance to baby me and try to always include me. It’s great at times, but sometimes it makes me feel like I’m sitting in the bloody principal’s office for an infraction.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you lately since you won’t talk to anyone and I don’t know if what you’re doing is a good or bad thing, but I do know that I’ll be behind you one hundred percent. Just promise me, Luci, swear to me that you’re not still messed up about that idiot and that you’re doing this for you and not to shut yourself away like you usually do when things get hard.”
THE NAUGHTY ONES: The Complete 5-Books Series Page 15
