by Mj Fields
“The more, the merrier,” Momma Joe says from … somewhere. At the same time, I see this “friend” of Tris’s, because he’s certainly not mine. Fucker. But God, he looks amazing, as per his damn norm.
Yep, I’m going to punch him or Tris, or both.
“Thanks, Momma Joe. Always nice of you to share your family with me.”
I glare at Tris, who grins back as she hurries to me and hugs me tightly.
“Remember, one, you love me. Two, I’m your best friend slash sister slash boss. Three, he started drinking as soon as we got on the plane, messaged Zack, and asked that he meet us, had about three more, and then passed out. So, he’s totally off. Four, he asked to come, and he was avoiding me like the plague—I couldn’t say no. Oh, and five, he’s definitely in love with you.”
“One, I forgive you because I miss the hell out of you. Two, he can fuck right off. And three, he doesn’t know how to do love.”
I can’t turn around. I don’t want to see him, because if he’s giving off drunken fuck-me vibes, I’ll want to tell him to go find a club whore or get an old lady, because I’m not interested, not anymore. Not since he broke the one rule. Hell, it wasn’t even a hard one, like no anal. It was: don’t fall in love with me.
“Everything good?” Dad grabs Tris and bear hugs her.
“Yep,” she croaks out. “Just can’t breathe.”
“Then you know how I feel when you’re not here.”
She groans and pushes him back. “You have Mom; baby her.”
“I do.”
“Yeah?” she asks genuinely.
“Of course I do. She’s my number one. We’re as solid as they come. And you and your old man?” Dad quirks an eyebrow.
She shakes her head. “He’s eight years older, Dad. That’s not a big number, not even double digits, like ten or eleven.”
She turns around and gives me a shit-ass grin. I want to thump her. “Where’s my mother, I totally bypassed the best hugger here?”
“Never far, Tris.” Mom steps in front of me and hugs her.
“Brisa, go say hello to your favorite brother-in-law while I snuggle our momma.”
I take a deep breath then exhale slowly before turning around, putting on a smile, and walking toward him, my eyes laser-focused on my favorite, and also only, brother-in-law. “Happy Thanksgiving, Matteo.” I hug him.
“To you, as well.” He steps back and grabs my shoulders. “How is school?”
“It’s good. Finals in a couple weeks, and then break.”
“Are we working you too hard?” he asks with true concern.
“No, not at all. I feel like I’m getting paid to play on the internet.”
“We’ve not had any”—he pauses, and I can tell he’s searching for the right word—“haters? Is that what Tris calls them?”
“No haters. And yes, that’s what all the cool kids are saying.”
“Matteo,” Tris calls, “come here.”
He nods at her then releases my shoulders. “We appreciate everything,” he tells me.
“No need to appreciate. I’m an employee.”
“They treat their employees well, for the most part,” Ranger jokes, but I pretend not to hear him and attempt to walk away.
He steps to the side, blocking me. “Can’t say hello?”
“Hello.”
I start to walk around him, and he again moves.
“Can’t look at me?”
“Oh, I can, but I’d rather not.”
“Why’s that? You afraid you’ll catch feels again?”
Oh, no, he didn’t.
I turn and glare at him. “You caught them, too, and now we’re past it.”
“Thought I was, but then I got these postcards and—”
“Tris already told me you’re drunk,” I whisper. “Drunk men say stupid shit. Don’t be that guy, Wyatt Dalton. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
When I attempt to walk by this time, he grabs my elbow.
“Sassy as ever. Sexy as ever, too. And, Brisa, I’m not drunk. Slept it off. Regardless, either way, what I say, I mean.”
“I’m not fucking you again,” I hiss.
“I did not want to hear that shit,” someone grumbles from behind me.
Male. Someone male. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
“Probably best if you pretend you didn’t.” Wyatt snickers then lifts his chin. “How are you doing, man?”
“Would say can’t complain, but now I got something to complain about.”
Then I hear Bella say, “And what’s that? You’re not the one throwing up all day and night—”
“Sweets, I wasn’t talking to you,” Tags whispers.
Face that I’m sure is beet red, I turn and look at Bella as she emerges from the other side of the open door.
“Thanks for warning me.” She rolls her eyes at him.
“I wouldn’t worry about these two exposing our secret.” Tags nods toward us.
“Oh … Oh, shit.” Bella looks at me and shakes her head then looks at Ranger. “I don’t wish what you’re about to go through on anyone.”
“Not all that concerned about it,” he says casually.
“Um, hello? I’m not really understanding what’s going on here. I haven’t seen him in months.” I throw my thumb over my shoulder in his general direction. “And I’m dating someone.”
“That how love works for you?” he asks.
“Are you high?” I retort, in all seriousness.
He smirks. “Not even one gummy edible.”
“Oh my God, what a trip that night was.” Bella snorts out a laugh.
“A trip for real. You two had the time of your lives. I got a black eye from Jase. And, from what I remember, Zandor wanted your ass on a platter because you flirted with his wife.”
“Flirted with everyone back then,” Ranger says, giving zero fucks that he just legit admitted to flirting with a lot of women, including my mom, in front of me.
He looks down at me. “Let’s get back to this boyfriend bullshit. When has a boy satisfied you?”
“Okay, you … you … you … Fuck off!” I stutter.
I look at Bella and mouth. “Help.”
She winks and grabs my hand. “Let’s go say hi to Tris before Dad and Momma Carly get here with our kids.”
Ranger calls to me, “You and I can converse now or around the table; that’s up to you.”
“I choose around the table.” Bella laughs. “Always good times during those conversations. I remember four years ago—”
“So do I. Brisa, ten minutes of your time. Please.”
Standing in the game room, I look at my watch, because I’m alone with him and need to focus on something other than his eyes, his face … him. Nausea has turned into a swarm of butterflies, and he’s talking love stuff at the most inopportune time.
“Nine minutes.”
“Been months; I’d be lucky if I last five.”
To that, I look up, and he narrows his eyes.
“But not for you, huh?” he continues. “Is that how your love works? You tell someone who you know has sworn off having a relationship that you love them in a note then leave? Then you start dating someone else—”
“Love goes both ways, Ranger. If I’m not feeling it in return, I’m not going to give it. And you can’t just show up here, at your convenience, and start saying things like this. Especially not on a holiday when the entire family is either here or coming in the door.”
Crossing his arms, he leans against the pool table. “So, let me get this straight. The kind of love you believe in is left in a note, followed up with a big fuck you in a postcard? It can’t be said or shown in front of your family, and it can be turned off like this?” He snaps his fingers. “At which time, you start dating someone who what? You can feel that he’s caught feels and fall in love with him completely, voiding out feelings that you had for the last sucker who took a few months to figure out how he could possibly give you the kind of love he thought you deserved, bec
ause never in his almost thirty years did he even consider doing this love thing?”
“It’s not an STD; you don’t catch it! And I did what I had to do to get over the fairy tale I’ve imagined in my head for four years when my hero becomes your tormentor.”
He steps forward, cups my cheeks, and starts wiping away the tears that fell, even though I forbade them to.
“You left before I did. You checked out at the falls. You told me—”
“Do you love this guy? Do you love him in the way you loved me?”
“You can’t love two people at the same time.” I push his hands away and step back.
“What else can’t you do?”
“You can’t give second chances to someone who already broke your heart. And you’ve broken mine twice.”
“If the first time was when you were fifteen, I get a pass on that. I did not only the right thing, but the moral and legal thing. I get a draw this last go, because you left me, asleep in your bed, and that’s fucked me up for a couple months.”
“Oh my God, why are you doing this now?”
He holds up his hands. “I’m not keeping you here, Brisa. You’re here because you know I’m making sense this time. You can feel it, just like I can. And I’m making sense because I’ve thought long and hard about this and, as terrifying as it is to let someone into a place I’ve basically put in a deep freezer for years, here I am, willing to get my ass kicked by every man in the Steel family and to let go of my fear that someone’s going to fuck me up … again.”
“What do you want from me?” I cry.
“I want you to break up with whoever this douchebag is, and for you and I to give it a shot. I want you. And by the way you’re looking at me, I know damn well you want me, too. I want to feel your eyes on me like they were for nearly two months on nearly every continent. I want you under me and over me. And I want to try really fucking hard to sleep next to you and wake up with you still there, like we did in Africa. I want to push past my fears, and I want you to let go of some control that I need, at least in the beginning, so it doesn’t scare the fuck out of me, so I push you away then wake up to a never again note next to me, where you should have been, so that next time I wake up, smelling you all around me I know you’re actually gonna be there.”
He steps forward, grabs my hands, and pulls me against him. “I wanna love you, Brisa, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna be a dirty little secret or waiting for you to decide if you want him or if you want me.” He takes my hands and wraps my arms around him. Then he shoves one hand and then the other in the pockets of his jeans. “And I want you to be like this, all wrapped up in me, every damn chance we get, because nothing and no one has ever put their hands on me like you do and didn’t make me want to push them away.
“If I were a different man, a man without a past or scars, I would have known the first time you touched me without permission that I belonged with you.
“Tell me you don’t still feel it, and I’ll leave. Tell me you do, and you have thirty seconds to send a text to the sorry fuck who believed he could fall for a girl who has known she was mine for longer than she should have gone without feeling it in return.”
“Tell me you love me.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t get those words when you’re dating—”
“I’m not, okay? I went for coffee after class with a guy who had a man bun a few times and knew as soon as he opened his mouth that he wasn’t even going to get a chance to be a rebound fuck.”
He takes my face between his rough hands and searches my eyes. “Tell me why they all think you are then. And, Brisa, my kind of love doesn’t lie. Not ever. Hell, it doesn’t even throw a surprise party if it requires even a little bit of a lie. I need real, one hundred and ten percent of the time. As a matter of fact, I fucking demand it.”
“I didn’t want them to know I was pining after you again. I didn’t want them to think I was that fifteen-year-old girl spewing delusions of happily ever afters with a guy who blocked her on social media, the guy she lied to in order for him to pay attention. Because I knew—”
He wipes away more tears then smears them across my lips before gently pressing his to mine. “I love you, Brisa Steel, and I’m warning you, it’s gonna be the forever kind.”
Dad walks into the room. “Everything good?” He stops when he sees me pressed up against Ranger, his hands still on my face.
“Dad”—I sniff—“I’ve been in love with Ranger since I was fifteen.”
“Jesus, Brisa,” Ranger scolds me, but with a smile.
“You remember when I confronted you after the Thanksgiving dinner where I saw my princess look at you the way she did?” Dad asks him.
“Yeah.” He presses his fingers into my flesh a bit, stopping me when I attempt to step back. “I do.”
“Wait—what?” I about die inside.
“You told me about the keys being lost, her being at a fight, and then she kissed you? You told me you blocked her and shut it down as soon as you found out that she, one, was fifteen years old, and two, she was mine. You told me I needed to keep my eye on her so she didn’t end up in someone’s basement. This, Wyatt, for all intents and purposes, is my basement.”
Ranger shrugs, his hands and eyes still on me, a smirk playing on his lips. “Warned you.”
Dad, at the head of the table on my left; Ranger, at my right, holding my hand, stroking his thumb across my hand; Mom, across from me, smiling.
Dad stands. “I’m glad everyone who could make it today did. We’re missing four, but have gained one.”
“Wait—what am I missing?” Uncle Jase asks as Archer and Cooper climb all over him like little monkeys.
Cyrus sits back and smirks. “Ranger holding Brisa’s hand under the table.”
Jase laughs. “Well, fu—”
“Jase,” Carly scolds.
“Sorry, baby.” He laughs as the boys slide off his lap and under the table. Then he pops a kiss to her cheek and looks at Dad. “This something new? Because I don’t see a black eye or a bruised lip.”
“That’s because Zandor is the lover of my boys.” Momma Joe raises her glass. “Welcome to the family, Wyatt. No longer borrowing, I see?”
“Thank you.” Ranger smiles as he pushes his chair out and both boys’ heads pop up from under the table.
“You love our Brisa?” Cooper asks.
“He better. He’s got hands on her. You don’t put hands on a girl unless you love them and they say it’s okay,” Archer, the little badass of the two, says.
“Dad!” Bella scolds Jase. “One night, and he’s acting like you.”
“Pops didn’t teach me that, Mommy.” Archer points an accusing finger at Bella. “You did.”
The whole table erupts in laughter.
“It’s not funny. It’s how we roll.” He scowls at everyone.
Archer is the more intense of the two youngest “gen three.” He’s also the one who professed he was going to marry me at age two.
“Get over here, you.” I push my chair back, and he climbs on my lap, his eyes never leaving Ranger.
“You’re right, little man.” Ranger holds a fist out to him. “No one should ever, not even on you.”
“Hey,” Cooper says as he climbs on Ranger’s lap, looking him dead in the eye. “You gotta arm wrestle me for her, like I did for Archer. That’s the only way you get to hold her hand. ’Cause Tris was mine, and then she married the guy who talks funny.” He tosses his thumb in Matteo’s general direction.
“You win?” Ranger asks him.
“Yeah, but love wins biggest, so I gave her back.” He looks at his father, Brand. “There are other fillies in the field, right, Daddy?”
“Yeah.” Brand laughs. “But you missed the bigger lesson in that. You can’t marry family, or you end up like Poppa G’s barn cat who runs into walls and has eight claws on each paw.”
Everyone laughs again, including Cooper. “He’s funny, though.”
“Bu
t you don’t stop watching out for them ever.” Ranger holds a fist out, and Cooper gives him a tap. “Forever Steel, right?”
Both boys repeat the phrase, “Forever Steel.”
“All right, the food’s going to get cold if we don’t eat soon. So, I’ll start. I’m thankful for everyone here and grateful for the new additions to this table.” Dad looks at Matteo and Ranger. “If you don’t treat them as I do their mother, you won’t sit here long.”
“Oh my God, Dad,” I hiss at him.
Jase claps his hands together. “And there we go, finally.”
“Take it down about twenty, Dad.” Kiki shakes her head.
Mom goes next. “I’m thankful that we’ve raised our kids to see love truly does conquer all, and because of those around this table, nothing else is acceptable. No matter how rough the road, we push through.”
“This year, I owe thanks for the same reason. I wish Patrick was here to hear that.” Tris says nervously.
“Right here.” Patrick’s voice comes from somewhere.
“TV monitor.” Dad winks at her. “A little thing called Zoom.”
We all look toward the TV over the fireplace where Patrick, Uncle Z, Aunt Taelyn, and Sutton are sitting in front of a fireplace.
Tris pushes back from the table and stands up. “Kind of wanted to do this face-to-face and wouldn’t have done it today if you, Patrick, weren’t here. But—”
“You pregnant already?” Uncle Xavier laughs, and so does everyone else around the table.
I look at Bella and she shakes her head no. I nod once, telling her that her secret is safe.
“Boys, you wanna show me the bathroom?” Ranger says as he helps Cooper off his lap and stands.
He looks at me and winks as he bends down and kisses the top of my head. “Me and these two are going to find the best bathroom in the place. Be back soon.”
“I love you,” I tell him, because I do, and because this … this gesture—him taking the littles away so they don’t ask a million questions—solidifies that he’s more than everything I ever wanted.
“Luna, you wanna come, too?” he asks.
“The one in Aunt Bekah’s room is the best.” She pushes back from the table and hurries toward the stairs.