Crazy Eights (Stacked Deck Book 8)

by Emilia Finn

  Jamie

  Home Sweet Home

  Quinn turns more fidgety the closer we come to the town limits. She sits in the passenger seat with her knees up and her right hand pressed between her thighs, as though to keep still. She bites her bottom lip so much that it begins to swell a little, and when she can’t keep her hand between her legs, she plays with her hair, her phone, her nails, dust in the air…

  “Why are you nervous?”

  “Hm?” She whips her gaze around to me. “What? I’m not nervous.”

  I snort as we cross the railroad tracks on the outside of town, and head toward Main. “So you normally fuss, do you? The bouncing knees, nail biting, humming ‘oh no’ under your breath… that’s a typical day for you?”

  “No. Shut up.”

  The sun is still up after making good time all day, so she folds forward and searches the glove compartment for the fiftieth time in the last few hours. But this time, she snatches a pair of sunglasses – they’re not hers, and they’re not mine either.

  Without questioning who they belong to, or why the fuck they look so good on her face, she settles them in place and goes back to the nail biting. “I’m not nervous or anything.”

  “No? Because your jitters are exhausting me.” I continue past my family’s estate without stopping.

  “Wait.” Quinn surges forward in her seat and peeks back at the estate. “We’re not going there?”

  I sit back and spread my legs wide open. We’re so close to home, I can taste it. “I’m a grown man now, Q. Did you assume I was still living at home with my mommy?”

  “Well…” And just like that, her fidgeting stops. “Yeah, I kinda did. You don’t live there anymore?”

  “No. Apparently I needed an ‘attitude adjustment’. They said I was annoying,” I add with a laugh.

  “Who did?” She turns back to me, and resumes nibbling on her pinky finger. “Who said that about you?”

  “My mom, my dad. My sister.”

  “So they kicked you out?” she explodes. “Your family kicked you out of your home because you were sad after a breakup? God.” She presses her hand to her heart. “They must hate me so much.”

  “No.” Chuckling, I indicate at the next corner, and continue on in the almost non-existent traffic. “They didn’t kick me out. I left a few years ago so I could have some space to myself.”

  “Because you were sad after a breakup?”

  I shrug. “I love my family, but I really like my own company, too. It’s not like I never see them – I work in the same building as both of my parents and all of my uncles, aunts, and cousins.”

  “And your sister?” she asks quietly. “What happened after that recital?”

  I smile. “She was offered a position with a really prestigious dance company. It was amazing, actually, that she could achieve all of her goals. And she did it thinking she was on her own, without her family’s support.”

  “She didn’t leave, did she?” Quinn’s voice turns sorrowful. “No, she couldn’t have. I’ve seen her in Soph’s videos.”

  “No, she didn’t go anywhere. She was offered the position, but she didn’t take it.”

  Quinn throws herself back with an almost physical ‘are you fucking kidding me?’ that makes me laugh.

  “She wanted to be acknowledged,” I explain. “To be told she was a talented dancer. That, in her mind, was the real trophy. But her heart is here, so she accepted a position teaching with Soph. She trains with us at the gym most days of the week, but she doesn’t kill herself over it anymore, since she teaches full-time at the Ellie Solomon Academy. In fact, they’re working on a recital right now. Something about swans and princes. Fucked if I know.”

  “You’re being facetious,” she grumbles. “Your ass knows about the swans, Jamie Kincaid.”

  Laughing, I take a right turn, and head toward the complete opposite side of town to where I grew up. It’s not about a rebellion, or wanting to be away from my family. The ‘complete opposite side of town’ is still literally only ten minutes from them.

  “So they’re doing their own Swan Lake, with the baby ballerinas making up most of the cast,” I continue. “But Soph and Bean are dancing too.”

  “It’s going to be beautiful,” Quinn sighs, from dramatic to swooning. “Sophia and Lucy are just…” She melts back into the seat. “Wow. Separately, they’re amazing. But together, they have this powerful chemistry onstage. They’re suited to dance side by side, neither of them hogging the spotlight, but sharing it equally, and being lit up by stage lights. It’s just… wow.”

  “Um… should I be worried if you and Bean ask for girls’ night sleepovers, or…?”

  She scoffs. “I’m not ashamed of my crush. I can appreciate a sexy lady body just as much as the next person, and when that body can dance the way Lucy does…” She turns to me and grins. “You like the chin thing, I like the dance thing. In reality, we’re both disposable.”

  I snort and finally turn into my driveway. I live on the outer edge of town, not so far from the hospital. The houses over here are old, but there was once money in the area, which means they were built to last.

  “This house was built more than eighty years ago,” I tell her, “but despite its age, it’s still in really good shape. When I began shopping around for somewhere to live, and happened across this place practically buried behind overgrown trees and shrubs, it took only a weekend for me and my cousins to clear it out.”

  “Only a weekend?” She sits forward and studies my home as it spreads out ahead of us at the top of a type of meadow. “Seriously, is that all?”

  I kill the engine, and sit forward to study it the way she does. I try to see it through new eyes, and not the eyes of the guy who has lived here for three years already. “A weekend to clear out the mess, but Bry whined for weeks about the prickles and the poison ivy.”

  She sits in her seat with her arm propped up much the same as mine, and smiles. “I can see it. I can see you all out here working hard to clear a path as quickly as possible.” After a moment, she turns to me. “Did you love growing up with so many cousins?”

  “Yeah.” I pull the key from the ignition and push my door open. I’m done sitting, I’m done with the SUV completely. It’s a rental, and at some point, I’ll figure out how to return it, but in the meantime, I stand at my door, and take Quinn’s hand when she’d prefer to climb across the seats rather than slide out her side. “It was loud,” I add once she’s out and slams the door. “There was a lot of shoving, a lot of noise. We never got to be alone, and we always had to share our things. In that estate where I grew up, each of us were allowed one special thing.”

  “Special?” Instead of holding my hand, Q steps in and slides her arm around mine. “How do you mean?”

  “Like, you remember Evie, right?”

  She snorts. “Of course. She’s the reason we ever came to this town.”

  “Right, well, she had this stuffed puppy dog. That was hers, and she did not have to share it with anyone else. My sister had her special thing, I had mine. We all were allowed to claim this one thing that no one else was allowed to touch.”

  “Okay…?”

  “Well, everything that wasn’t that special thing was free game. We had to share clothes, backpacks, shoes, bikes, skateboards. All of our toys – except for that one special thing – were communal, and god help us if we fought over one.”

  “What would happen?”

  “Before or after Aunt Tink went ghetto-mom and belted us with the thing?”

  Laughing, Quinn follows me up the rickety wooden steps at the front of my house, and cuddles into my side.

  It’s a bit like a dream. My fantasy and my reality are meeting, because this is my home, and the Quinn is willingly walking toward it.

  “I bet you guys stopped fighting over the skateboards real fast. And the baseball bats.”

  “Don’t even ask about when Bry and I were learning to drive at the same time, and we both wanted the s
ame car that day.”

  We stop at the front door, so I dig my keys out of my pocket, and slide one into the lock. “I don’t intend to tell my family we’re back until tomorrow, by the way. I want a shower, a beer, and time to chill the fuck out in my own space.”

  “I could leave,” Quinn turns fidgety all over again. “You want your alone time, and I’m not exactly—”

  “Just shut up.” I roll my eyes and open the door, only to drop to my knees when my massive Great Dane squeezes through the gap, and butts her head against my stomach. “Giselle.” I hug her tight and press my cheek to hers. “What are you doing here, huh? Why aren’t you with Uncle Bry?”

  “Um…” Quinn stands beside us while Giselle bounces and hugs me back. “You have a dog.”

  “Not just any dog.” I scratch Giselle’s ears, and fight against the emotion that stops in my throat. “She’s my baby. Why are you here, huh? You’re not supposed to be by yourself. That prick better not have left you here this morning and locked you inside. I’m gonna beat him to shit if I find out he left you all alone.”

  “I’m here, weirdo.”

  I glance up when Bry and Maddi open the front door the rest of the way and stand over me. Home. That’s what they represent. Family. Happiness.

  “I heard you say you weren’t gonna tell us you were here, ass.” Releasing Maddi, Bry steps forward and offers me a hand.

  I take it, and pop up to my feet when he pulls me in for a hug.

  “You were gone a long time.”

  “I’m back.” I slap his back, and hiss when he does the same in return.

  Pulling away with wariness in his eyes, Bry presses a hand to my shoulder, and looks me up and down. “You look like shit. Two black eyes, bruised cheekbone, bruised jaw.” He lets his gaze lower. “The shoulder ain’t new, but the busted knuckles are.”

  Then he grabs me, and spins me so fast that Quinn jumps back with a squeak. Bry lifts my shirt, and growls in the back of his throat when he sees what I have hidden beneath.

  He spins me back around and lifts a brow. “Spill, asshole.”

  I grin. “I got in a fight?”

  “Ha.” He rolls his eyes. “We do that every single day. Try again.”

  “I got into a bar fight. With twenty other men.”

  Behind Bryan, Maddi snickers and looks me up and down. “Did you get a shot in, or did you just lay down and let them kick you?”

  “I didn’t lose that fight, Turdsky. I kicked ass.”

  “You dropped your guard, too.” Bry grabs my face and turns it so he can study my jaw. “The fuck kinda fighter got you? Because maybe I wanna buy him and put him in Stacked Deck.”

  “Well, actually—”

  “Oh god.” Quinn takes a step back.

  “The face was from her.”

  Bry and Maddi’s gazes shoot from me to Quinn, fast as a whip, and they narrow their eyes.

  “You hit him?” Bry asks. “Seventy times?”

  “Well…”

  “She kicked me,” I correct. “With heavy boots on, with both feet at the same fucking time.”

  “So you laid on the ground and let her stomp you?” Maddi cackles. “Geez Louise. Bry said you were gaga for this chick, but really? You’re just gonna lie down like that?” She pushes me out of the way, and extends a hand for Quinn. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Um…”

  “I’m Maddi, and I’m an outsider too. Different family, different world. I didn’t grow up ‘on the estate’,” she makes the finger quotes, “like the rest of them, so it took me a minute to acclimatize. If you need help, or a safe space away from the crazy—”

  “We are not crazy,” Bry grumbles. “Dammit, Turdsky. Why do you have to default to the Turd way of thinking?”

  “Because Stomper is starting to look a little pale. New place, new people, and word on the street is she doesn’t wanna be here.” Maddi stops and peeks a little closer at Quinn. “What happened to your hand?”

  “Um… brawl in a bar?”

  Bry dissolves into piggy snorts. “Sounds about right. Did you win?”

  Quinn stands taller. Prouder. “I didn’t lose.”

  “And your shoulder?” Maddi prompts. “Brawl?”

  “Work. It’s really not a big deal.” She reaches up to start untying the knot I made eight or so hours ago. “It doesn’t hurt or anything.”

  “Leave it on,” I growl. Then I turn to Bry. “Where’s Bean? Maybe she can take a look.”

  “I’m in here!” my sister shouts from somewhere inside my house.

  My eyes shoot wide with surprise, my heart gallops for just a moment, then I bowl past Bry and knock him aside as I race inside to find my living room filled with people. So many fucking people.

  My sister sits on her dog. On. Because he’s mentally… challenged, and clearly wanted to follow Giselle outside. Bean’s fiancé sits on my couch. Evie, my exceptionally pregnant cousin, sits beside her, and on a recliner across from her, Ben watches her stomach like it’s a ticking time bomb. Brooke – Bry’s sister – sits on another couch, right beside her daughter and her man, and around them, my aunts and uncles.

  “Mom and Dad?” My eyes shoot to them, to home.

  Mom moves forward and lets some of her bravado slip. She’s the non-emotional chick in her group, the fighter, the poor kid from the streets, but she rushes forward now and plasters her body against mine.

  She releases a huge breath, as though she’s been holding it since I left town, and though she cinches her arms around my body and makes the injuries on my back sting like a bitch, I say nothing, I don’t react. I merely hold on tight and let her take what she needs to feel better.

  “I missed you.” She squeezes tighter still, and sniffles. “Dammit, Jamie, I missed you.”

  “I missed you too, Mom. You okay?”

  “Yeah.” Another sniffle. A discreet wipe of her nose. “We were getting updates from Soph while you were gone.” She pulls back to study my face. “Would it kill you to call your mother sometime?”

  I choke out a laugh, but then I remember Quinn. Her fear of going to the estate because of the crowd. The fact she’s not in here, but still standing on the porch with Bry. “Shit, hold on.”

  I release my mom, and dash back into the hall. Bry and Maddi have stepped inside, but I burst onto the porch to find Quinn standing exactly where I left her, with her pinky nail being mutilated between her teeth, and her hands shaking.

  Literally quivering.

  “Come inside.”

  “Jamie, I…” She takes a step back. “I can’t.”

  “You can. And you will.” I reach out again. “Come inside and say hey to everyone. I want Bean to take a look at your shoulder, then I’ll get them all to leave.”

  “Jamie.” She takes another step back, until I worry about her proximity to the edge of the porch. “I can’t go in there. The last time I saw these people, I was running away with a wanted felon. I left you without a word. I broke your heart, and I lied. Oh god,” she whimpers. “To them, my name is Cam. I’m a liar, Jamie. I’m a horrible person. And not one thing I told them was truth.”

  “Your soul was truth.” I step forward and snag her hand when she goes to take another step back. If I didn’t, she’d have stepped straight off the wooden porch and slammed to her back. “Your heart was truth. Your kindness, your wit, your butt chin.”

  “Shut up!” She tries to smack me, but between her sore hand and her busted arm, she doesn’t have much to work with. “Jamie, just let me go. I’ll get a hotel in town or something.”

  “No, you’re staying with me. Come on.” I pull her along and wink for Maddi when she watches us with a sad mixture of happiness and pity.

  Maddi wasn’t around for the drama four years ago, but she’s gotten the highlights over the years. She’s gotten the pertinent details, but none of the emotion. None of the love and longing.

  Quinn shakes beneath my hand, terrified of what she might find when we step back into m
y living room, but I lead her in anyway. Past my cousins, past a watchful Ben, even past my dad.

  I place her by the recliner chair, and look around from one set of eyes to the next. “Everyone. You remember Quinn, right? My mom.” I point to my mom. “My dad.” Then I point to my sister. “You danced with Bean, and you met Mac.”

  “Miles?”

  In all this time of knowing Quinn, I’m not sure I’ve heard her cry. Tantrums, sure; screaming, yup. But the heartbreaking sobs that tear from her chest now are new.

  She escapes my arm and stumbles across the room to my cousin’s fiancé. He stands immediately, ever the gentleman, and opens his arms for her to step into, but she stops and lowers to one knee in front of his daughter. “Lyss? Are you Lyss?”

  My cousin’s daughter – my second cousin, I guess that makes her, though she calls me ‘Uncle’ – stands from her place on the couch and meets Quinn with a magnificent smile. “You look beautiful, like in my dreams, Miss Cam.”

  “Oh god.” Tears stream along Quinn’s cheek that she hastily tries to swipe away with her shoulder. “Cam isn’t… Cam wasn’t… Oh man.”

  “You can call her Miss Quinn.” Miles lowers to the edge of the couch so he’s on their level. “She likes to use that name now.”

  “You can call me Cam if you wanna,” Quinn tearfully whispers. “Do you remember me, Lyss? Gosh. How old are you now? You’re so big.”

  “I’m almost nine,” she says with a proud smile. “Did you meet Giselle? Isn’t she just regal and perfect?”

  “Giselle?” Quinn looks around in a daze, to me, to the mutt wriggling under Bean’s weight, then to Twain, another dog from the same litter. She looks to my Giselle, who sits patiently by the wall with her head held high, and a sense of royalty that only an actual tiara could usurp. “Yeah, I met her. She lives here?”

  My niece eagerly nods and pats Twain’s head when he sits close by her. “She’s been living at the estate while Uncle Jamie was out of town, but she likes it here best. Some of the other kids are too noisy for her, so when I’m working, she likes to sit with me in the quiet.”