Muse shook with him. “Muse.”
“Just Muse?”
“That’s enough, yeah.”
A hint of a sneer lifted a corner of Davis’s mouth. Sid had hoped that he, at least, would be moderately civil. He was a decent guy, pretty down-to-earth, considering how loaded he was. But then, she was standing there with a broken face next to a big guy with ink on his neck and rings on his fingers, wearing a kutte. They’d ridden to Newport Beach on his Knuckle. That had been her idea, because she’d wanted to start the visit with the sense of peace she got from riding with him, but it might not have been one of her best ideas ever.
Looking at the two men side by side, Sid wondered whether bringing Muse here at all had been such a great idea. When she’d called her mother and told her that she was bringing a guest and that, yes, it was a man she was involved with, she’d left out key details about who Muse was. It was just easier to fight with Claude in person, so Sid had told her that she’d met him through work—which was true—and let her think they worked together. Considering Davis’s open shock, maybe she’d misplayed that one.
“Can we come in, Davis?”
His eyes shifted back to hers, and he winced a little again at the sight of her. “Yes, of course. Come on in. The kids are in the media room. Why don’t you see your mother in the kitchen, and I’ll go talk to them, prepare them for…” He gestured at her face.
“Sure. Sounds like a plan.” Still holding Muse’s hand—or, more accurately, being held in Muse’s iron grip—they went in. Davis headed to the left, and Sid started off to the right.
But she stopped when Muse wasn’t budging. He was frozen in the foyer, staring around.
“Fuck, hon.”
‘The foyer’ was too modest a name for the space they’d walked into: a vast expanse of marble that fed into the even more vast entertaining space of this floor. Not really a living room or a family room. Closer to a hotel lobby. From the street, the house looked like a comfortable Tudor home. Inside, it was the Ritz. She hadn’t really prepared Muse any better for this meeting than she had her parents.
Well, she’d had a rough few days.
“I know. Don’t worry about it. It’s just a house.”
He turned to her with a rueful laugh. “No, it’s not.”
She dropped his backpack on the floor at the foot of the sweeping center staircase. “Yeah, it is. C’mon. Let’s get this over with.” With that, she pulled again, making him move, and led him to the kitchen.
Her mother was in there with Anita, the housekeeper, and two young women Sid didn’t know. Probably help she’d hired for the day. It looked like these women didn’t get the day with their families. Claude paid her help well, and for that she expected to get her way in all things. Sid wasn’t sure she herself would think it was such a great trade-off, but maybe it was.
Her mother had her back to them, delivering a complicated instruction about one of the dishes, so Sid took the moment they had to check in with Muse. The kitchen wasn’t any less ostentatious that the rest of the house. It had two long islands, three sinks, four ovens, and a refrigerator bigger than Sid’s closet. The pantry was its own room. Muse was taking it all in, looking a little pale.
“I didn’t grow up like this,” she muttered. “My parents did fine, but all this happened after she married Davis.”
He nodded, staring at the ten-foot-long built-in cabinet where they kept the barware and spirits. “I don’t guess I could get a drink?”
Just then, Sid’s mother turned around. Her expression went from stunned at seeing Sid’s face to pinched when she took in Muse, the change happening so quickly it seemed painful.
“Sidonie! What on earth!” She stormed over and grabbed Sid’s chin, yanking her head to the side to get a close look at the damage. “Darling, what happened?”
Sid yanked her head free. “I’m okay, Mother. I want to tell you and Baa at the same time, though.”
Giving Muse a contemptuous once-over, her mother said, “He’s sitting on the terrace with a cup of tea and the Times. And who is this?”
“This is the man I told you about. Muse, this is my mother, Claudine. Mother, this is my…” She didn’t know what to call him. “My…”
Muse held out his hand. “I’m her old man. Good to meet you.”
Claude stared at Muse’s offered hand, and even before she spoke, Sid knew that this day was going to be even worse than she’d expected.
Still staring at Muse’s hand, her mother called out, “Anita, call in Mr. Tuladhar, please.”
Muse dropped his hand just as she turned icy blue eyes on him. “What kind of a name is ‘Muse’?” She gave him a sneering, condescending smile, the kind she turned on the help when they’d stepped out of line in some way. “Welsh, perhaps?”
Shit. This was a terrible idea. They should have stayed at Hoosier and Bibi’s, where the crowd was happy and rowdy, the television was loud, the food had been simple and delicious, and there had been a weird, affectionately violent game of football going on in the backyard when they’d left.
“Mother, please be nice.”
But Muse smiled, and it was his charming, gorgeous, panty-dropper smile. “It’s a road name, ma’am. I ride with the Night Horde MC. My given name is Darren Musinski—but everybody calls me Muse.”
“Well, I think I’ll call you Darren, if you don’t mind.”
“I do mind, ma’am. I don’t answer to Darren.” He was still smiling, but his voice was firm.
Claude blinked at that. Before she could answer, Sid’s father came in through the French doors and neatly kicked his sandals off. Her mother and Davis didn’t keep a shoeless house, but her father always took his off. “Ah, nanu! You are here! Namaste!”
“Namaste, Baa.”
She turned and smiled at her father, who froze at the sight of her, his arms outstretched. “But your face! What happened to your lovely face? Who is this man? Did he hurt you?”
“No! Everybody back the fuck off Muse! He didn’t do this! He saved me!” She took a breath, as surprised by her outburst as everybody else in the room was, and tried again. She waved at the breakfast table. “Can we sit down, and I’ll tell you what happened?”
~oOo~
Dinner was a formal, quiet, stilted affair. The scene at breakfast table had been insane, with Sid’s father practically keening, rocking in his chair with his hands flailing; her mother’s lawyer mode in full activation, demanding every fucking detail of that horrible event, cross-examining Muse, looking for breaks in his story; Davis trying and failing to keep everybody calm; and Muse sitting there stock-still and rigid, answering every challenge with his teeth clenched and his hand locked on Sid’s knee, and Sid just trying not to lose it in front of everybody.
She’d looked up in the midst of it all and had seen Helena and Harrison, her stepsiblings, standing in the entryway, their eyes wide and avid.
This day was wrong on every level, and she and Muse were supposed to spend the night. Her birthday was tomorrow, and they were supposed to spend the day out with these people to celebrate. Maybe now that they’d seen her face, that plan would be off, and they could just get back to Madrone.
Muse was now sitting at her side, trying to eat with the kind of manners that came with fancy china and sterling tableware. He was the kind of man who wiped up his plate with a hunk of bread and brushed his hands on his jeans when he was done. She could see him trying not to stir up more trouble by being an ape among swans, and she loved him for it, but she wished he’d just be himself.
This was wrong, and all her fault.
With the children at the table, the dinner conversation stayed mainly civil, with Claude making small talk she knew would be outside of Muse’s experience. She talked about the arts events they’d been to—the opera, a gallery showing—and asked him what he thought of this composer or that artist, knowing full well that he’d have no answer. Sid kept trying to divert the talk to the kids and their activities. To his credit, Muse see
med to take it all in stride. The other men at the table stayed quiet, letting Claude misbehave. Pussies.
As the meal was nearing its end, Claude picked up her crystal wine glass and took a long sip. “Of course you’ll come home. I’ll email Edward tonight. I’ll have a realtor at that house on Monday morning.”
“No, Mother. Madrone is my home. I’m not leaving.”
“Why on earth not? How can it be home? It’s the Inland Empire, for heaven’s sake. Nobody lives there on purpose. You moved there for a terrible job, from which you have now resigned. Come home, and you can go back to school and get the degree you should have gotten in the first place. You are too smart for social work, Sidonie, and you know it. You have no business”—she looked pointedly at Muse—“spending your life with riffraff.”
Before Sid could express her outrage, Muse laughed. “You are a real bitch, lady.” He turned to Helena and Harrison. “Sorry, kids. Don’t say words like that.” He winked, and they grinned.
Claude had been rendered speechless. Davis dropped his fork to his plate with a clatter. “Watch your mouth, buddy. This is my home, and you’ll speak to my wife with respect.”
He nodded to Davis. “I got no quarrel with you. But we’re not friends, so don’t call me buddy. And due respect, your old lady needs to learn some manners.” Turning back to Claude, Muse smiled—not the charmer this time. The you’re-on-an-edge-you-don’t-want-to-be-on smile. “Maybe you think I’m an idiot who’s missing all these darts you’re throwing my way, but I’m not. I love Sid, and I’m sittin’ here because she loves you, but I won’t take your shit. You want respect, you give it.”
Blanching, Claude turned away from Muse and looked at Sid’s father, who was staring at his plate. “Rajesh? Have you nothing at all to say here?”
“Maapha ganus, Claudine-ji.” His voice was low and hesitant. “I’m sorry. I have nothing.” He looked at Sid. “You are happy? With this man?”
Sid smiled. Her father was difficult, but he was open-hearted, and she loved him fiercely, especially right then. “Hō, Baa. Yes. Very. I love him.”
“And he didn’t hurt you?”
Muse made a fist on her thigh, and Sid put her hand over it, trying to send him some more calm. “No, Baa. This had nothing to do with him.”
Her father turned to her mother. “Our daughter is a woman, not a girl. I have trust in her. So should you. And you should show respect. Is there pie?”
~oOo~
Somehow, despite that painful meal, they had been convinced to stay the night after all, and their plans for her birthday were still set. After Sid’s father had come to her aid, Davis had stepped in and agreed that pie was a good idea. And Claude had been quiet and hostess-pleasant the rest of the evening. Sid didn’t think anyone had ever called her out quite so plainly before, and at her own table. She doubted it had earned Muse the respect he’d demanded, but at least it had taken Claude off her stride.
Claude had claimed fatigue and gone up to the master suite about an hour after dessert. Then, things had gotten nearly friendly among the rest. Davis and Muse had even played a few rounds of pool in the games room while Sid and her father played backgammon, and Helena and Harrison played video games. With her mother’s derision put to rest, the night turned out okay.
Now, Sid was sitting in bed with her laptop on her lap, going through job openings. She had to figure out what else she could do. Her savings would give her a few months to look, but after that, she’d be tapped out, and there was no way on any plane of existence that she would be hitting up her mother for financial help. She and Davis had provided the down payment on her house. That was the last help Sid intended to take. Ever.
Muse had said he would take care of her, but she didn’t want that, either. She wanted them to take care of each other.
He came into the room now, fresh from a shower, dressed in his jeans, the plaid button-down shirt he’d worn for the day open and showing his fantastic chest. He dropped the backpack on an armchair near the balcony doors.
“That bathroom is as big as my whole fuckin’ house.” He sat on the bed, facing her, and reached out to rub his thumb lightly over her furrowed brow. “How you doin’, hon?”
She closed her laptop. There was enough going on this week; she didn’t need to add her stupid worries about jobs to the list. “I’m okay. I’m really sorry about all this.”
“You said it would suck. You weren’t wrong. But it turned out okay. Davis is alright. And your dad seems like a decent guy. Quiet, though.”
“He’s different when he’s more comfortable. He has trouble connecting with people, and he doesn’t really try anymore. And he doesn’t deal well when things aren’t done in the way he thinks is right. But he’s sweet.”
“He stood up for you. I like him.”
“Sorry about my mother.”
He grinned and turned to sit at her side, pulling her under his arm. “I don’t know what you mean. I think I won her right over.”
Sid laughed and hugged him. “I love you. I’ve never known anybody like you.”
“Likewise, hon. Likewise.”
They rested together like that, Muse sitting against the headboard in his jeans and open shirt, and Sid snuggled against his bare chest, for a few quiet minutes. His hand was on her arm, caressing her with long, light strokes from her shoulder to her wrist. She was wearing a camisole and flannel pajama bottoms. No bra.
The touch was soothing, but then, something changed in it. She wasn’t sure what. Maybe it was the way he was touching her; maybe it was his heartbeat or the tension in his muscles. Maybe it was the way his mouth moved in her hair as he kissed her head again and again.
Whatever it was, she knew without looking or touching that he was hard inside his jeans, and that his touch, whether it had intention or not, had desire.
She sat up.
“I can’t, Muse.”
“I know, hon. I’m not pushing. Can’t help the way I want you, though.” He reached out and picked up her hand. “Is there anything I can do?”
“No. I just need time to get my head clear about it. I’m thinking about it too much right now.”
Muse looked confused. “But he didn’t…did he?” A flash of pain went through his eyes.
“No. It was close, but no. It didn’t get that far.” And then she made a decision. She wasn’t sure if it was a right thing to do or not, and she wasn’t sure why it suddenly seemed important, but she said, “I want to show you something.”
She lifted her camisole.
He hadn’t seen her undressed since the morning of the attack. She had been careful to keep that away from him. But now, she wanted him to have some kind of sense about the intimate violation she’d endured, even if she’d held Green off from penetrating her, and she thought seeing her chest might give him an idea. Sexual assault was outside his experience, his context. He was thinking of her as if she’d been beaten, and she had. But it was more than that. Maybe he needed something to make that more clear.
Her whole left breast was purple and black, her nipple the angry red of a blood blister. Maybe that would be real enough.
She was right. He leapt off the bed. “Christ, Sid!” He began to pace. “Motherfucker!” He turned back to her, looking frantic. She’d put her top down, but he stared at her as if he could still see it. Then he came and knelt at the side of the bed, picking up her hands and holding them to his face. “I’m so goddamn sorry.”
She pulled a hand free and combed her fingers through his hair. “Muse. It’s not your fault, and I’m as okay as I was before I showed you that. I’ll be okay.” She knew she would. She could feel herself overcoming the experience already. It was different from what had happened to her in college, and not just because Green hadn’t finished. In college, there had been shame and guilt, too. For a long time, she’d held herself responsible. She’d been alone with the memory, the knowledge. And, eventually, that sense of aloneness had forced her to surmount the trauma on her own.
He believed that was what family meant. And now, sitting in the lush room that her mother had assigned to her in this opulent house, she understood that he was right. She wasn’t alone. She was strong. And she would be fine. This trauma wouldn’t linger even as long as the first had. She felt her mind kicking it to the curb already.
Strength & Courage (The Night Horde SoCal Book 1) Page 30
