by Regina Kyle
“It’s your brother. He says your future sister-in-law is trying to get in touch with you. She wants to you to go wedding dress shopping with her.”
She scrunches up her nose. It’s fucking adorable. “I left my cell in my bedroom. Can you tell him I’ll call her back tomorrow?”
I type out a quick response and put my phone back on the table. “Now, about that movie—”
“I was kind of hoping we could watch Captain America.”
“Which one? There’s three, you know.”
“The first one.”
“Let me guess,” I say, half teasing, half serious. “You’ve got a thing for Chris Evans.”
“Who doesn’t? Objectively, he’s one damn fine-looking specimen. But that’s not why I picked that movie.”
She twists sideways and puts her legs in my lap. As sexy as her yoga pants are, I almost resent them now. Without them, I’d be able to run my hand down her bare skin, feel the goosebumps rise wherever I touch.
“Then why?”
“We’ve finished shooting my origin story and we’re moving into the superhero scenes. I have a stunt double for the tough stuff, but I figure a little kick-butt inspiration couldn’t hurt.”
“If you really want to be inspired, you need an education in kick-ass female superheroes. Like Wonder Woman. Or Captain Marvel.”
“You’re the one who had a stash of comic books under your bed as a kid. You choose.”
“You knew about that?” I saved my allowance to buy them then hid them from my father, who hated anything related to nerd culture.
“My brother has a big mouth.” Brie hops off my lap. “I’ll get us some snacks while you decide.”
She goes to the kitchen to pop some microwave popcorn, and I queue up Captain Marvel. Yes, she’s not as well known as Wonder Woman. But unlike mythical Amazon warrior Diana Prince—aka Wonder Woman—Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel’s alter ego, is an actual human being, with human flaws and strengths in addition to her superpowers. For Brie, it makes her character more well-rounded and relatable. Ergo, inspirational.
The opening credits are starting to roll when my phone chimes with another text. I pause the movie and curse Jake out under my breath for interrupting us again. But when I check my phone, it’s not Jake who’s texting this time. It’s my father.
I’ll be in town on Friday to meet with my publisher. I’d like to see you. Dinner at the Polo Bar. 8:00.
It’s a demand, not a request. Typical Vincent Dow.
Brie plops back down next to me, a huge bowl of popcorn in her arms. She tosses a piece in the air and catches it in her mouth. “If that’s my brother again, tell him to focus on his future wife and leave me alone.”
“It’s my father.”
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them. I don’t like talking about my father or our joke of a relationship. To anyone.
But something about Brie makes me feel like I can confide in her. Like she’ll listen without judgment. Offer sympathy—and maybe even some sound advice—without platitudes. Besides, unlike most people, she already knows some of my dysfunctional family history. She was there. She saw it first-hand.
“What does he want?” she snaps, her body stiffening beside me. I love how she’s immediately defensive on my behalf. It gives me the courage to keep going instead of doing what I usually do when it comes to my father—shut down.
“He invited me to dinner on Friday. No, invited is the wrong word. More like ordered.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“I’m going to tell him to fuck off.”
She holds the bowl of popcorn out to me, and I reach in and grab a handful. “While I understand and fully support the sentiment, you might want to soften it a little. Be the better man.”
See what I mean about the sound advice? “No four-letter words. But don’t expect me to be polite. I don’t have the energy to pretend to be civil.”
I shove the popcorn into my mouth and type out my response. It doesn’t take long. Two words. Nine letters. I don’t even bother to use punctuation.
Can’t sorry.
I go to turn the phone off, but before my finger can find the button those three familiar dots start dancing, and my father’s answer flashes on the screen a couple of seconds later.
Sunday then. I have a box of your mother’s things for you. Fiona found them in the attic.
Fiona. His latest conquest. Bleached blonde hair, big boobs, and not a day over thirty. Just like her predecessor. And the one before her. And the one before her. My father’s nothing if not consistent. And predictable.
“What did he say?” Brie asks.
I hand her the phone. She studies it thoughtfully for a minute then hands it back. “Well, you have to go now.”
“Do I?”
“Don’t you want to know what’s in the box?”
“If there even is a box.” I wouldn’t put it past my father to lie just to get me there so he can spend the entire meal telling me what a disappointment I am.
“Are you willing to take that chance?”
Leave it to Brie to get right to the heart of the matter. It’s a good question. And the short answer is no. I don’t have anything of my mom’s. I was only seventeen when she died, and then a few months later I was off at college. If there really is a box, it may have some photos. Or letters. Something I can take out and look at every once and a while.
“Fine. I’ll go. But I’m doing this on my terms, not his.” Lunch, not dinner. Easier to make some excuse and cut things short when they invariably go south. And no stuffy Polo Club.
“I can come with you if you want,” Brie offers, setting the popcorn bowl on the coffee table and pressing her palm on my thigh. “If you think it would help.”
“Don’t you have to work?”
“We never shoot on Sundays. And I haven’t had a catering gig in weeks, so—”
I grimace. “Don’t remind me.”
“It’s okay. Tiffany said has Lloyd a short memory, and she can probably get me back on the roster by the time we wrap this season.” She moves her hand from my thigh and links our fingers together. “So, what do you say? Do you want some company for your dinner with Dad?”
Suddenly, the prospect of seeing my father is a lot less stomach-turning.
“Lunch.” I lift her legs into my lap and lean in to kiss her. “And it’s a date.”
CHAPTER TEN
Brie
“ARE YOU SURE you’re ready for this?”
Connor runs his hands through his hair, smooths it down, then shoves them in the pockets of his khakis. It’s like he doesn’t know what to do with them. With his whole body, really. His eyes are darting all over the place and one foot taps restlessly on the sidewalk.
I put a hand on his forearm, feeling the tension in his tight muscles, and squeeze. “Are you?”
We’re standing outside Boqueria, the tapas bar in midtown Connor and his father finally agreed on for lunch after much negotiation. We’re a few minutes early for our reservation, but Connor’s been this way since he got out of bed this morning. I’ve never seen him so keyed up.
“No,” he admits with a heavy sigh. “But the sooner we go in, the sooner we get this over with.”
I hate that he views lunch with his father as some sort of a chore. An obligation to be endured until he can come up with some reason to escape. As annoying as they can be sometimes, my family is practically the Brady Bunch, and it breaks my heart that Connor doesn’t have that kind of support system.
I guess that’s why I offered to come with him today. He deserves someone in his corner.
He opens the door and ushers me into the restaurant. The hostess sits us in a booth at the back of the room, out of the flow of traffic and away from most of the other diners. Smart move. It’s almost like she knows th
ings might get uncomfortable.
Connor’s dad isn’t there yet, so we order drinks to get us started—sangria for me, a house Bloody Mary for Connor with guindilla pepper and gin instead of vodka. Alcohol and family reunions can be a dangerous combination. But Connor’s not one to overindulge. And I’m hoping some liquid courage will loosen him up a little before his father shows up.
“Sláinte.” I raise my glass to clink with his.
He touches his glass to mine. “I didn’t know you spoke Gaelic.”
“That’s the extent of my comprehension.”
That coaxes a smile from him. I’m momentarily reassured, but then there’s some sort of commotion in the bar, and his smile fades as quickly as it appeared.
I twist around, craning my neck. From my vantage point, I can’t see what all the fuss is about, no matter how much I twist and crane. But I can hear the collective cheer that rises up, and the applause that follows.
I turn back to Connor. He’s sitting across from me, looking like he wants to crawl under the table and die. “What do you suppose that is?”
“That would be my father,” he says, his voice flat and resigned. “The reigning master of American crime fiction. If you don’t believe me, ask the New York Times Book Review.”
He takes a huge hit of his Bloody Mary. “He likes to make an entrance. Brace yourself.”
I follow his example—to a degree—and sip my sangria. “How bad could it be?”
“You’re about to find out.”
He gestures behind me. I swivel around and see a man approaching us from the bar area. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out he’s Connor’s dad. He’s the spitting image of his son, albeit about thirty years older with a distinguished touch of gray in the dark hair at his temples and the beginnings of crow’s feet around his eyes.
He’s dressed in dark brown dress pants, a crisp white button down, and a tweed jacket, complete with patches on the elbows. If he threw on a bow tie, he could pass for Indiana Jones. Or Matt Smith’s Dr. Who. Which I only know because Jake forced me to watch all forty of his episodes when we were snowed in one weekend last year.
“Sorry I’m late.” Vincent Dow’s words say one thing, but his flippant, I-don’t-give-a-shit-about-anyone-but-myself attitude says something completely different. He slides into the seat opposite Connor, not even bothering to shake his son’s hand or, God forbid, hug him. “You know how it is. Everyone wants an autograph. Can’t disappoint the fans.”
Connor sets his glass down on the table with a hollow thunk. “But disappointing your family is okay.”
Vincent ignores his son’s dig and snaps his fingers to signal for a waitress, like King Tut summoning one of his servants. Then his gaze shifts to me, like he’s noticing for the first time that he and Connor aren’t alone at the table. “You didn’t tell me you were bringing a friend.”
“You remember Brie Lawson.” Connor puts a protective—or is it possessive?—arm around my shoulder. “Jake’s little sister.”
Vincent’s eyes drift down to my breasts, lingering long enough there make me feel a little icky before going back to my face. “Not so little anymore.”
I’m pretty sure the waitress’s timely arrival is the only thing that stops Connor from leaping across the table and strangling his father. She takes Vincent’s drink order—bourbon, neat—and goes off giggling with his autograph on a napkin in her pocket.
“Still like them young, I see.” Connor mutters.
I dig my nails into his thigh and give him a warning glare. We talked about this on the way over.
“Be the bigger man,” I grind out through gritted teeth, reminding him of our conversation.
“How’s Fiona?” he asks, prying my hand off his thigh. Oops. Guess I dug in deeper than I thought.
“She’s fine. Sends her regards from the Hamptons.” Vincent’s drink arrives, and he takes it from the still giddy waitress with a flirtatious wink that makes her blush and me squirm.
Connor runs a finger around the rim of his glass. “She didn’t come with you? I’m surprised she didn’t jump at the chance to spend some of your money on Fifth Avenue.”
“Bigger man,” I grumble again.
But Vincent only shrugs. He’s either completely clueless or so self-absorbed that insults bounce off him like rubber bullets.
“She stayed at the cottage. She had a tennis tournament or a garden club meeting or some other event she couldn’t bear to miss.”
Cottage, my ass. I’ll bet my entire life savings—meager as it is, it’s a lot to me—that what he calls a cottage is bigger than the White House.
“So, what should we order?” I ask, opening my menu. “I hear the huevos con chorizo is out of this world.”
It’s a cheap diversionary tactic, but it’s the best I can come up with on the spot. Anything to cut down on the obvious father-son tension. Well, obvious to me. And Connor. Like I said, I think Vincent is oblivious.
It works for a while. We settle on an array of brunch and lunch dishes to share. The waitress comes back to take our order—cue another round of uncomfortable flirting—and then she’s gone and the tension creeps back in.
“How often do you get into the city, Mr. Dow?”
“Why the hell did you ask to meet me today, Dad?”
Connor and I speak at the same time, but his father ignores both of our questions, opting for one of his own.
“I didn’t know Connor was seeing anyone. How long have you two been dating?”
“We’re not—”
“A few months,” Connor blurts, cutting me off. “Which you’d know if you cared enough to be a real part of my life.”
His arm tightens around my shoulders. If it wasn’t possessive before, it is now. He gives me a side-eyed look that silently begs me to go along with him.
I squeeze his leg under the table to let him know that whatever he needs, I’m game. I came here to support him, and that’s what I’m going to do. Even if I don’t fully understand how pretending we’re more than friends with benefits is going to improve his relationship with his father.
I move my hand from his thigh to his forearm, resting on the table. An open and obvious display of affection. “We’re not really advertising it. But yes, we’re together.”
Connor punctuates my statement by leaning in and kissing me. It starts firm and forceful, like an exclamation point, but morphs into more of a semi-colon, softer and sweeter, hinting of something yet to come.
As the kiss shifts, so does the world around me. Suddenly, the pretending feels all too real. Like there’s actually a chance this undefined thing we’re doing can evolve and grow into an actual, honest-to-goodness relationship.
A discrete cough forces Connor to lift his head. At first, I assume it came from his father, but the waitress is there with the first of our tapas plates, so it could have been her. Either way, whatever spell I’m under is broken. She sets the dishes down, promising to return with the rest of our order and a fresh round of drinks.
Goodie. More alcohol. I can’t decide if that’s going to help or hurt.
Connor spoons some pan con tomato con jamón onto his plate—bread rubbed with tomato, garlic and olive oil, topped with Serrano ham, Manchego cheese and olives—then passes it to me so I can do the same. “Now that we’ve nailed down my relationship status, maybe you can tell me what we’re doing here. I believe you mentioned something about finding a box of Mom’s stuff.”
“It’s right here.”
Vincent picks up a plastic container about the size of a shoebox from the seat next to him and hands it across the table to Connor. Did he have that when he came in? Obviously, he must have. But I swear, I didn’t see it. Probably because I was too focused on how much he looks like his son.
Connor runs a hand over the top of the box, like he’s thinking about cracking it ope
n, then sets it down on the bench seat between us. “I’ve got to admit, I’m surprised. I assumed the whole box-from-mom thing was a bullshit excuse you used to lure me here.”
Vincent pushes his glasses up his nose. Something else he has in common with his son, although Vincent wears thin, gold wire rims where Connor’s frames are dark and heavy. “Well, there is something I wanted to tell you in person.”
“Called it.” The waitress drops off our drinks, and Connor immediately knocks back a good third of his Bloody Mary. “Let me guess. You and Fiona are getting divorced and you’re moving on to wife number—what is it? Four? Five?”
A group of eager autograph seekers chooses that inopportune moment to approach our table. Vincent spends the next ten minutes soaking up their adulation and signing anything and everything put in front of him—napkins, take-out menus, even one woman’s breast. Connor and I are left to sit in stunned silence watching the spectacle unfold, our presence—hell, our existence—seemingly forgotten.
“I’m sorry,” Vincent says when his fan club finally leaves, even though it’s clear from the way he’s basking in the afterglow of their attention that he’s not. “It’s been this way ever since the studio announced that they’re making a Dax Russell movie. All the publicity. I can’t go anywhere without being recognized.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you hate that,” Connor mutters.
I frown over a forkful of daitles con beicon—dates stuffed with blue cheese and almonds and wrapped in bacon. They’re proof that whoever coined the phrase “everything’s better with bacon” is a freaking genius. “Dax Russell?”
“His alter ego,” Connor explains. “The hero of all his novels.”
“You haven’t read any of my books?” Vincent asks. “Try Dying? Grab And Smash? Drop Dead Fed?”
From his tone, you’d think he was asking whether I’d ever heard of the Beatles. Or indoor plumbing. I shake my head. “Most of my reading is plays or scripts, with an occasional romance novel thrown in for pure pleasure.”
“There’s a bookstore on the next block. I could sign one for you when where done here.”