Authors: Jay Crownover
“I’ll be back later.”
“Where are you going? To church?”
Nash looked a little worse for wear and Rome was just watching me knowingly.
“I need to talk to Shaw.”
“So call her.”
“She isn’t answering her phone.”
“You think her mom’s just gonna let
you roll up to the house and let you in?”
“I don’t care; I need to talk to
her so I’m going to talk to her.”
Rome winked at me and saluted me
with his coffee cup. “Atta boy. Call me if they have you arrested I will
totally come get you out.”
“Later.”
I had to stop and put gas in the
truck and for whatever reason there was a ton of traffic going out of town. I
was impatient and ready to have a fit of serious road rage by the time I
finally got to Brookside. I tried to call her one more time and was sent right
to voicemail, I almost crushed the phone in my hand when her recorded greeting
cheerily told me to just leave a message. I knew where her mom lived because I
had been forced to pick her up more than once and bring her to our house when I
still shared a car with Remy. I followed the car in front of me through the
gates and found the house with no problem. There was a menagerie of all kinds
of expensive and fancy cars that seriously had no place being in Colorado
parked out front the chalet style mansion. I jogged up the front steps and
rang the doorbell. I was expecting a maid or maybe some fancy ass butler to
open the door, what I wasn’t expecting was an older, harder version of Shaw.
There was no doubt this woman was Shaw’s mother, they had the same white blond
hair, the same piercing green eyes, but where Shaw was delicate and lovely,
this woman looked like she had been carved out of a solid block of ice. I saw
her eyes narrow and sharpen when she saw me but I was on a mission and I didn’t
care who this chick was she wasn’t going to stand in my way, even if I had to
run her over.
“I need to talk to Shaw.”
Her mouth pulled tight and she put
her small body solidly in the doorway. “You’re Margot and Dale’s boy aren’t
you?”
“One of them.” We weren’t friends,
were never going to be and she was making that clear.
“What do you want with my
daughter?”
“That’s personal. I just need to
speak with her for a minute then I’ll be on my way.”
“You’re interrupting a private
gathering; Shaw is here with her boyfriend I don’t think she wants to see you.”
I fought back an eye roll. The
lady was manipulative and delivered it like it was fact, but I wasn’t stupid so
I just stared back at her.
“Davenport is a stalker not her
boyfriend. Just get her for me would ya?” I could see that my lack of respect
was starting to get under her too tight skin.
“How do you presume to know what’s
going on in my daughter’s private life? You’ve always just been a crush, we
all know you two aren’t right for each other and it’s time to stop playing
childish games.”
“Look lady what’s going on between
me and Shaw has nothing to do with you and I assure you it isn’t a game. I
don’t mind making a scene if it gets me what I want but something tells me that
you wouldn’t all your guests to wonder what the commotion was about.” I
lifted my pierced brow. “Am I right?” I think she was about to tell me she
was going to call the police or holler for her husband but she didn’t get the
chance because the heavy door was yanked out of her death grip and suddenly
Shaw’s pale face appeared around the doorjamb. “Rule? What are you doing
here?”
Her hair was braided up in some
fancy design that looked like it hurt. She had on a pearl necklace that looked
like it was from the 1800’s and a pink sweater that looked fuzzy and soft. She
was also in a pair of loose cream colored pants and had on a pair of pink heels
that looked like they cost as much as my truck. She was so far removed from
the Shaw that I was used to rolling around naked with I almost turned around
and left without saying another word, but her green eyes were wide and sad and
that slippery feeling in the center of my chest started to throb. I didn’t
care that her mother was watching me with an eagle eye I grabbed her arm and
pulled her onto the stoop with me. I held her face in my hands and peered straight
into her eyes.
“I’m sorry.” She put her hands
over mine and blinked up at me.
“What?”
“I sent you a text last night, I
tried to call you back all night and you didn’t answer me. I’m sorry. Sorry I
pushed you away, sorry I acted like an idiot, sorry I don’t know how to do this
thing between us right, I’m just sorry.”
“My phone is broken.”
“What?” I asked it on a laugh. I
wanted to kiss her, wanted to scoop her up in my arms and take her somewhere so
far away from here.
“I threw it against the wall
because Ayden told me you went home with some girl Friday night; I shattered
the screen on it.”
“Shit, I’ll buy you a new one.”
She closed her eyes and squeezed my hands.
“Did you do it, go home with her?”
“No, I kissed her which sucks on my
part and makes me an asshole, but I knew it was wrong so I stopped it and I
swear if we get this straight between us I will never let it happen again. I’m
trying to figure out how all this works Shaw, I hate that you’re the one that
has to get hurt because of my learning curve.”
“You shut me out, you left me alone
in the dark Rule. I don’t think I’ve ever had anything hurt that bad.”
“I know Casper; I know, but don’t
give up on me now, okay?”
“You drove all the way here just to
apologize?”
I nodded. “We have to fix this.”
She gave me a lopsided grin. “We need
to learn how not to break it in the first place.” I gulped down the sudden
surge of emotion in my throat and pulled her into a tight hug. It felt like
coming home, a feeling I don’t think I had ever actually experienced before. I
kissed her softly behind her ear and whispered, “By the way your mom hates me,
like HATES me.”
She put her hands in the back
pockets of my pants and stood on her tip toes to kiss the underside of my jaw.
“That’s okay she hates me too. Why did you cut your hair all off? It looks
good, you look good but I liked the mohawk.”
I self-consciously ran a hand over
my naked skull. “I don’t know. I just needed to change it.”
She looked at me with serious eyes
and folded her hand in mine. “It makes you look more like Remy than all your
other hairstyles.”
“Shaw tell your friend goodbye and
come back inside, we have guests and you’re being very rude.”
She peeked over my shoulder at her
mother and I felt her grip on my hand tighten.
“I’m not coming in without Rule.”
Oh shit she was doing it again, putting herself between me and another
disapproving parent.
“Hey it’s cool as long as we’re
good I’ll just catch up with you when you get back to D-town. I can wait to
see you later.”
“No.”
“Shaw,” her mother’s voice was all
whiplash warning. “this ends now. Send him on his way and come inside, you’ve
made enough of a scene.”
“No. I’m with him, if you want me
to sit through another meal where you’re going to blatantly ignore Gabe trying
to grope me and purposely make me uncomfortable then I’m doing it with Rule
there to keep him in check.”
“Shaw he does not belong in there
with this group of people.”
There it was, the judgment, the
censure the idea that because I lived on my own terms and in my own way I wasn’t
good enough for this girl. I pulled her to my side and met her mother’s glare
with one of my own. Remy might have protected her by giving her a safe haven
but I was a fighter by nature and this lady had pushed enough of my buttons to
last for years.
“Right but I’m the one she spent
her birthday with, I’m the one that makes her happy and I’m the one that is
ready to protect her from the creep you keep shoving at her. I’m more than
willing to take her with me and get out of your hair but I doubt you want to
try and explain her hasty exit to the Davenports so why don’t you just suck it
up for once in your life and let your kid have something, just one thing that
makes her happy?”
“Shaw?” There was confusion in the
woman’s tone now.
“I go where he goes, so if you
don’t want him to come in then I’m outta here, I never should have come in the
first place.. I’m tired of being manipulated and used as a pawn and accessory.
I told you about Gabe and you refused to listen.”
“But you’re perfect together.”
“Right, only I want to be with
him.” She hooked her thumb in my direction.
“He openly admitted to cheating on
you only a day ago, what kind of relationship do you honestly think you can
have with him? Do you think your father will continue to pay for school when
he hears about this?”
She shrugged against me and I put a
hand on her hip to pull her back against me. “I’m sick to death of worrying
about it, it gives me migraines and my relationship is mine to work out. He’s
not perfect and neither am I, if I choose to forgive him you don’t get a say in
it or not.”
I felt like a heel. I shouldn’t
have assumed the redhead was just going to be forgotten, but she was still
letting me hold her so I wasn’t too worried about it.
“Fine. Come in, eat brunch and try
not to embarrass yourselves while you’re at it. Shaw I want you gone as soon
as brunch is done and don’t think for one single second that this is over.
Just wait until I speak with your father about this circus.”
She spun around and disappeared inside
the massive house. I looked down at Shaw and ran a finger across her furrowed
brow. “We okay?”
“Mostly. Let’s just get through
this then worry about the rest later. “She started to pull away from me but I
caught her around the waist and pulled her back to me.
“Shaw.”
“Yeah?”
I kissed her. I kissed her so that
she could feel my regret, my desire to do right, the way that she had a piece
of me now and I wasn’t letting go. I kissed her because I had to and kissing
her made me feel better. When I lifted my head her mouth looked puffy and damp
and her eyes were glassy with banked passion.
“I missed you too.”
She giggled a little and hooked her
elbow around my arm. “These are a bunch of country club people and mom’s
political associates. You clean up nice but don’t expect them to welcome you
with open arms. I don’t think any of them have ever even seen a tattoo up
close and personal so be prepared to be treated like half pariah and half zoo
exhibit.”
“It’ll be fine. I can’t promise to
play nice if that douchebag tries to put his hands on you in front of me
though.”
She shivered against my side. “He
was awful last night. I kept trying to move farther and farther away and he
just followed. My mother is insane if she thinks I’m spending one more minute
with him.”
“Don’t you have to drive him back
to school today?”
“I was planning on faking a
headache and just letting him drive while I lay down in the back seat.”
I didn’t like that idea at all; she
didn’t need to be vulnerable and subjected to that nonsense.
“Just give him the keys to the BMW
and you can ride back with me. Have him text you when he’s home and Nash and I
can go get your car later tonight.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, look I know I messed up but
I’m here for real now. We’re going to do this and I promise I’ll take care of
you as best as I can. You’re going to have to be patient with me because I’m
flying blind but this is the kind of thing I should be doing for you, plus I
don’t want you anywhere near that guy. He has something going on under all
that polo and khaki and I don’t trust him one bit.”
“Alright I’ll set it up and if he
refuses I’ll just tell him he has to find his own way home then.”
She led me into a dining room that
was packed with every real house wife of Brookside and every single person in
the top earning percentile of the state. There was a lot of money and power in
this dining room and Shaw was right, they were all looking at me like I was a
wild animal let out of a cage. She tightened her grip on my arm and led me
over to a table with all kinds of food spread out on it. Everyone gave us a
wide berth for about three minutes but as soon as Shaw tried to lead us to the
table we were waylaid by polo shirt and the rest of the junior league. He
looked me up and down then skimmed over Shaw in a way that made want to hang
him from a tree by his own intestines.
“This is a private function, I
doubt you were invited.”
I lifted an eyebrow and settled a
hand on Shaw’s lower back.
“He’s with me.” Her tone was cold
and left no room for argument.
“For now.”
“Leave it alone, polo-shirt. This
isn’t the time or the place.”
“You don’t belong here. You’re a
thug and a loser, Shaw is going to get tired of living on the wild side and see
reason.”
“Here,” she shoved her keys at him
and dragged me behind her into the room where everyone was seated at a massive
table. All eyes were on us as she stormed to the table calling over her
shoulder. “I’m not spending one second more with you; you can take the Beamer
home by yourself or find your own ride. I heard him sputter but I was too busy
pulling out Shaw’s seat and settling in next to her to enjoy it. I could feel
most of the eyes in the room on us and her mother’s smug look from the head of
the table, I was about to tell Shaw this was silly and just making everyone
uncomfortable when I heard a surprised voice say my name.
“Rule? Rule Archer is that you?
What are you doing all the way out here for brunch?” The seat next to mine was
pulled out and Alexander Carsten a long time client of mine settled into the
seat next to me. I gave him a grin and shook the hand he offered.