by Emilia Finn
“Don’t mind me, then.” Mom crosses the living room with pursed lips and a shake of her head.
Maybe she married him, and maybe he’s her husband, but I get to remind everyone that he was the first man I ever fell in love with. My first male protector besides my brother. The first man I would trust besides my brother.
“What’s going on at work, huh?” I pull back and look into his shadowed eyes. “You look exhausted.”
“I am exhausted.” He reaches up and cups my cheek. Then, once he’s had his fill, he pulls out of my embrace and goes in search of the hug he really, truly wanted when he left the station.
I follow him into the kitchen, and rest against the doorjamb when he pulls Mom into a hug so pure, so tight and healing that I know where the bar is set when I find the man I’ll marry.
To me, it’s not about who can provide the most; it’s not about money, status, houses, jobs, or how good he looks in a suit. It’s not about a guy’s ability to stack a dishwasher, or the way he treats his love inside and outside of the bedroom.
It’s about that end-of-a-hard-day hug.
Because when you’ve had a terrible day, when everything seems too hard, too exhausting, a man could choose to bring home a bad mood, a bad attitude, and he could take it out on his wife. Or hell, he could pretend to be the martyr and take that bad mood someplace else; he could spend his time with a bottle, another woman, and claim he was protecting the family.
But that’s not Oz, and it’s not the man I’ll marry either.
That man will search for me, he’ll leave his troubles at the door, for a minute at least, and he’ll come inside. With a mere touch, a hug, a syncing of breaths, everything will seem just a little more bearable. Because together, we’re a team, we’re stronger. Just like the couple who stand in front of me, my man will draw strength from my hug, and in return, despite his exhaustion, he’ll give strength back.
And then, once that’s done and everyone is back on even ground, we’ll sit and discuss what’s troubling us.
“It’s that Dale case, isn’t it?” Mom pulls out of Oz’s hug, but she keeps hold of his hand, and leads him to a stool at the island counter.
Pushing him down to sit, she presses a kiss to his forehead, then goes to the fridge and takes out a pitcher of homemade lemonade. She pours a glass for him, and then a second for me, then she puts the pitcher away, but grabs the carton of eggs before closing the fridge door.
On autopilot, she summons me over so we can go to work mixing ingredients together.
“Oscar?” She cracks eggs into a bowl, then measures flour. “Dale?”
“Yeah.” He sits slumped in, tired and defeated, and clutches to his drink as he works on breathing out the troubles of today. “Well, no. Not only Dale. I had this other thing fall in today, which was bad enough. But then this Dale kid is running around selling bad shit. He’s slick, it’s mostly small crime; he’s selling weed, not coke. He’s stealing wallets, not ATM machines. He’s fast, and he’s slippery as an eel. He has money – or, well…” He sighs and takes a swallow of his lemonade. “His family has money, so they think they’re untouchable. Every time I try to get near, they throw up roadblocks, and when we turn away to try to figure out our next step, the guy sells another bag to another kid.” Oz looks up and meets my eyes. “He isn’t afraid of the law, and that pisses me off.”
“What about Jules?” Mom asks. “She can’t give you any advice?”
I listen in, the third wheel, the add-on, as my mom and stepfather talk it through, so making myself busy, I grab a whole pineapple and begin slicing off the rough outer skin.
“Jules can’t deal with Dale right now because she’s busy with other stuff, but she suggested I call Bishop.” Oz glances up and looks into Mom’s eyes. “She said a kid who isn’t afraid of the law could probably benefit from a visit with guys who don’t exactly follow the law themselves.”
“Feels a little extreme, no?” I stand on the opposite side of the counter and slice the juicy pineapple. “Dale’s just a kid, right?”
“Seventeen.”
“Selling pot on street corners? A visit from Checkmate is a big deal.”
“It’s not about the pot, Beauty, and it’s not about the lifted wallets. It’s about his attitude, and how he thinks he’s immune. For today, he’s just a kid selling petty drugs on a street corner. But if he stays on this road, it won’t be weed he’ll be selling in a few years, but something else. Something much more dangerous. My job is to keep this town safe for the kids.”
“Speaking of, where’s Lachlan?” I look around the kitchen in search of my little brother. A Franks baby, instead of a Conner. He’s just a kid, still in elementary school. “He with Ma?”
“Yeah, I’ll head back out in a sec and pick him up,” Oz sighs. “I came home first. I needed my girls.”
“Well, you found us.” I go to the sink and wash the sticky pineapple juice off my hands, then drying them on a towel, I circle the counter and step between Oz’s legs until he accepts my hug. “You need to not stress so much. It’s not good for your health.”
“It’s literally my job, Beauty.” But then he pulls back and smiles. “How was your day? And why are you guys baking?”
“Day was fine, and Ben, of course.”
He snorts. “Of course. You’re too soft on that fucker.”
“That fucker being my brother?” I laugh. “Oh, and he told me to pass on a message.”
“Yeah?” Oz’s brows shoot up high, and his lips twitch with a smile. “What’d that asshole have to say to me?”
“He said to tell you that Mom doesn’t love you, and to meet him in the octagon tomorrow at seven sharp. He has something he wants to show you.”
“Is it a knuckle sandwich?” he questions with a snicker. “Because that guy has got to get better threats. He’s too damn soft now that he has a kid.”
“Can you two shut up?” Mom turns at the sink and shakes her head. “Ben’s not even here, and you’re still somehow arguing with him.”
“It’s a gift, Angel.” Oz pulls me in for one last crushing hug, only to release me and truly breathe out that sigh of relief. “Okay, I’m done. Work is over for today. I’m on call, but Alex is going out before I am, and now I’m going to pick up my son from Ma’s house. Stay for dinner, Beauty?”
“Can’t. I’m going to Ben’s, but I’ll head to the gym in the morning to watch you and him slam each other around the octagon. That sounds like bunches of fun.”
“For you.” He rolls his eyes. “I know I act badass, Beauty, but can we all acknowledge that Ben is a trained current contender?” He looks to Mom. “It hurts when he hits me, Angel.”
“So stop picking fights with him,” she exclaims. “He’s not fifteen anymore, and you’re much too mature to bicker with our son, aren’t you?”
“No, I don’t think I am.” Oz jumps up from his stool and digs into his pockets in search of keys. “When God made me, I think he forgot to toss maturity into the mold.”
“Gee.” Mom turns back to her bowl of cake mix. “Shocking. Go get Lachlan, then come back and we can chill out. Ben and Liv aren’t coming back here tonight, so once Lachlan’s in bed…”
Oz looks to me and grins. “Do me a favor, Beauty? Tonight, while you’re sitting across from Sasquatch at the card table, around…” He looks around the kitchen. “I dunno, nine o’clock, look into Ben’s eyes and tell him Oz said hey.”
“You’re disgusting.” I smack his shoulder and circle back around to Mom’s side of the counter. “Absolutely not. I will not be your messenger just to get Ben riled up. But then again,” I add on when my phone vibrates. I pick the device up, and read the screen. “Having Ben focused on you and not on me has its merits. Hello?” I move around the counter and head toward the living room. “I got caught up, but I’ll call Ben now and ask.”
“Oh…” Brenten’s voice is hesitant. Cautious. “Okay. Call me back.”
“Give me five. I’ll call him now.”
I hit the end call button, then dial my brother.
“Liv? You okay?”
Of course Ben zooms straight past kind greetings and into panic mode. Its who he is, it’s a way of life for him. “Yeah, listen, Sasquatch, are the Devil Twins gonna be there tonight?”
“Er…” He considers for a moment. “Nope. I don’t think so. Why?”
“Just asking. Thanks. Mom and I are baking right now, then I’ll head on over.” I hang up again, redial Brenten’s number, and wait just a second for the call to connect. “Ben said nope, they’re not going to be there.”
“Okay. I, uh… um… okay.”
“Do you want to meet me out there? You know where Ben’s place is, right?”
“How about I come to yours first?” he counters with a smooth voice, like I don’t know what that means. “I’ll pick you up the way a gentleman is supposed to. Bring flowers to your door, tell you that you look beautiful.”
I roll my eyes to the ceiling and shake my head. “I’d rather a genuine compliment than something expected and rehearsed.”
“Not expected or rehearsed,” he purrs. “Just a constant state for you. Olivia Conner, town’s most beautiful woman, and lucky me, she’s all mine.”
“Mm.” I smile when Oz pokes his head through the doorway and watches me with a lifted brow. “I have to go, but dinner is at seven, so…”
“So I’ll pick you up at six thirty?”
I check my watch and consider. “Can you make it six-forty-five? I’m not going to get away from Mom’s for a little while yet, then I need time to shower and dress. I’d hate for you to have to wait in the hall while I was finishing up.”
“That would be a tragedy,” he jokes. “Six-forty-five. See you in a little while, Liv.”
“See you soon.” I hang up and slide the phone into my pocket, then I prepare myself and turn back to Ben’s proxy. “Not a word.”
“Brenten Pierce? Beauty! What the hell is wrong with you? Brenten fucking Pierce?”
“Oscar,” Mom growls once.
“He’s a pussy! You have a thousand men trying to catch your attention in this town, I hate them all, but Brenten Pierce! You’d be better off dating a mailbox, it’d have more personality.”
“Stop it.” I laugh and pass him on my way back into the kitchen. “Mom?”
“Oscar,” she repeats. “Leave her alone.”
“It’s Brenten Pierce, Angel!” Oz follows me into the kitchen and throws a hand out in exasperation. “Do you know what I saw him do today? Do you, Beauty?”
“I don’t want to know.”
“He picked his nose!”
I try to school the way my lips instantly screw up. The way my nose tries to turn away. “Everybody picks their nose.”
“Then he wiped it on his shirt!”
“It’s better than eating it. Mom, what do you need me to do?”
“Grease the pan, please—”
“But it was a sticky one,” Oz continues. “So he couldn’t get it off his finger. It was like watching a blind bird fly into glass over and over again. It was stuck to his finger, so he’d wipe it on his shirt. But then it was stuck to his shirt, so he’d try to flick it off, but oops, now it’s stuck on his finger again. Around and around and around it went until eventually, eventually!” he adds for dramatic effect. “He ate it!”
“Stop gossiping.” I swear I try to sound stern, but I’m forced to turn away, or risk him seeing my smile. “Leave him alone and stay out of my business. I’m not twelve anymore, Deputy.”
“I wish you were! When you were twelve, I was the only guy you were interested in. Now you’re twenty-five, and all these motherfuckers think they get to step up and try their luck at the roulette table.”
“I’m not a table, Oscar. I’m not a game. And I’m not without brains, so thanks for your interest in locking me away in a tower, but no thanks.”
“Brenten Pierce!” he cries out again. But then he changes his tune. “Actually, you know what? I like him for you. Good choice.”
“What?” Mom spins away from her mixing bowl.
“He has less personality than a fucking mailbox, Angel. I doubt he’s lost his virginity yet. His mother still breastfeeds him to sleep. So yup.” He turns to me. “Get a meal with that wet rag, Beauty. Let him pay, laugh at his shitty jokes. Then you come back home with your fifty bucks from Mrs. Pierce for babysitting her boy all evening. You want a second job to get a little spending money? Go for it. You babysit that nice boy. Make sure you cut the grapes in half so he doesn’t choke.”
“You’re so dramatic.” I roll my eyes.
“Or don’t. I wouldn’t be sad if his obituary said something about choking to death.”
“You’re supposed to be a cop! A protector of all men.”
“Yes, but see, Pierce is no man. He’s a fucking tampon.”
“He’s a…” I swear, something explodes in my brain. “What? What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know!” he cries out and spins away. “I’m going to pick up your little brother. When I get back in twenty, I expect all boy talk to be over.”
“You won’t be only twenty minutes.” I hound the man and follow him all the way to the front door. “You’re going to see your mommy, so we all know you’ll be six hours and a smooshy hug away.”
“Ma is an angel,” he shouts with drama coating every word. “It’s okay to be a momma’s boy if the mom is as awesome as mine!”
“Don’t forget to collect my mom’s fifty dollars!” I shout after him as he crosses to his truck. “She’s been babysitting your ass for a decade. Ma owes her!”
“You’re grounded for a week for sassing me!” He stops at his door and turns back to point a finger. “Grounded!”
“I’m going out tonight. And I’m probably going to drink!”
“Two weeks, young lady. Wanna make it three?”
“Tell Ma I said hey and that I’ll visit tomorrow.”
“Will do.” He smiles and slides onto the bench seat. “Love you, Beauty.”
“Love you too.” Smiling, I turn back into the house and wander back to the kitchen. “He’s so silly.”
“You’re such a brat,” Mom laughs. “He has never ever grounded you before. But now you’re twenty-five, and he’s gonna try to lay some shit down? I think he missed that train.”
“He’s scared a man is gonna come along and take his place.”
“And a man will,” Mom slowly pours prepared batter into the pan I neglected to grease. “That’s just the way it is. Our daddies are our first loves, but eventually, a new man comes along and nudges the first aside. A good father will always struggle to scoot aside. But he’ll know when the right one arrives… they know when it’s real. And eventually, they move and make room.”
“Do you think he’ll scoot for Brenten?”
She snorts. “Not a snowball’s chance in hell. I have no clue what you see in that guy. But honestly, who am I to judge? I married the world’s most horrible guy.”
“Oz isn’t that bad, Mom.”
She sets down the empty mixing bowl and shakes her head. “I meant my first husband, silly. The second time, I got it right, which means I have a fifty-fifty chance of good instincts when it comes to men. Plus, you and I have a deal. I keep my nose out of it unless, of course, there are massive red flags. In which case, I know where the guns are.”
I go to work assembling slices of pineapple right beside my mom. Shoulder to shoulder, matching smiles. “I’m taking him to dinner tonight. And I’m going to tell Ben to mind his manners or else.”
“He won’t shut his mouth, honey. We both know that.”
“Yeah, I know. But I still have to lay the rules down. It’s what a good girlfriend would do. It’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
“So… girlfriend, huh?” Mom pauses and looks to me. “You’re his girlfriend? That seems so…” She wrinkles her nose. “Official.”
“I’m at that point in my life where I should live, right?
Try new things, date men, fall in love, take risks.”
“Okay… but is Brenten the fall in love, or the risk?”
I smile and study my work in front of us. “Both, I guess. All of the above. But don’t worry about me, okay? Worry about Oz, because he’s way too stressed. This stuff at work is going to make him gray, and it’s been going on for months.”
“I know, honey.”
Gone is our silly laughter and smiles after Oz’s show about Brenten, and in its place is the stress we hide from him. We worry for him, because he works so hard and takes things a little too personally when he can’t close a case in record time.
“Trust me,” she continues. “I know. Let’s finish this, and while it’s in the oven, you can shower and dress here. Saves you doing it when you get to your apartment.”
“Solid point.” I step back when we place the last of the pineapple slices down, then I watch as Mom opens the oven and slides the tray in. “I left clothes in my closet anyway. Can I use all your hair stuff?”
“It’s a deal.” She closes the oven and grabs the hand towel to flick it in my direction. “Go. I’ll keep an eye on the cake.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Instead of walking away, I head in her direction and press a kiss to her cheek.
“Did I ever thank you for showing me how strong a woman can be?” I step back, and smile when her eyes turn misty. “Maybe you picked wrong the first time, and maybe you learned some really harsh lessons because of it, but your strength and grit and tenacity…” I smile. “They’re all directly responsible for how I turned out. “I’m a grown woman, Mom, older than you were when you married that asshole. I’m smart, and confident, and because of your fifty-fifty instincts, I know now what a relationship is supposed to look like. You showed me that asking for what I deserve isn’t being high maintenance or rude. It’s simply refusing to settle. You showed me how to become me, without apology, without shame, and you allow me to make my choices, because you know what it’s like to not have those freedoms.”
“I pray every single day that I did right by you, honey.” Mom dives back in and pulls me into a hug. “I couldn’t stand up for myself back when you and Ben were babies. I wasn’t strong enough to stand up to that man when he hurt me. But then he wanted to hurt you guys—”