Opposites Attract (The Locklaine Boys Book 2)

by Jessica Prince

  Devon looked at Pepper in awe. “Which ones yours?” Pepper pointed to Griffin who waved happily. “You Tazed that guy?” she asked in shock. Pepper just nodded. “Babe,” Devon said to me, “can they be our new best friends?”

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” I heard Richard mutter to someone behind me. “I’m actually a little scared right now.”

  “Join the club,” the guy who sounded like Rowan just answered. “My balls just sucked back up into my stomach to protect themselves.”

  “Awesome!” Navie shouted, throwing her hands in the air. “Let’s do this! Wait… so why are we guy bashing tonight? Not that I’m not all for it, ‘cause I totally am.”

  “Because they all suck,” she answered, then said, “No offense,” to the members of the opposite sex crowding around.

  “None taken,” Griffin waved her off. “We’re pretty terrible.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Collin scoffed. “I’m a fucking peach.”

  I looked at the girls, still waiting for a definitive answer as to why we were hosting an impromptu dance party. “Her boyfriend broke up with her today.”

  “Ah, gotcha,” Pepper nodded in understanding. “Well, let’s go then. That tequila isn’t going to drink itself!”

  “Baby,” Griffin called out to her. “At least try not to get arrested again?”

  “Wait… again?” I asked.

  Navie just brushed it off. “Total misunderstanding. Both times.”

  My jaw dropped open. “You’ve been arrested more than once?”

  “It’s not like any charges were ever pressed.”

  “Oh, I can’t wait to hear this,” Devon laughed as she led the girls from Richard’s apartment to ours. I moved to follow after them, only to be halted by Richard’s hand on my arm.

  “So I take it you won’t be staying here tonight?”

  I gave my head a shake. “No, sorry. She’s going to need me. She acts tough, but she’s really sad. I don’t want to leave her alone.”

  “I get it, cutie.” He smiled and leaned in to kiss me. “I’ll see you tomorrow, though. What time are we leaving?”

  My eyebrows dipped into a deep V. “Leaving?”

  “Yeah. For your parents’ dinner.”

  I snort-laughed at his joke before dread kicked in and I realized he wasn’t laughing with me. “Wait… you’re serious?”

  “Yep,” he grinned. “I’m really looking forward to a home-cooked meal.” He rubbed his flat, toned stomach.

  I rolled my eyes with a groan and turned to walk out of his apartment. “I’m going to need a lot more than just one bottle of tequila tonight.”

  I shut the door on his laughter, and headed for my apartment with sudden determination to get completely obliterated. Maybe that would stop me from overanalyzing the strange turn my life had taken in the past few days.

  One could only hope.

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE making me do this,” Delilah groaned from beside me in the back of the cab, her head shoved between her knees as she worked to breathe evenly.

  “Ah, pumpkin,” I cooed as I rubbed her back, trying not to laugh at her self-inflicted misery. “It’ll be fun!”

  Another groan. “I hate you. I hate life. I hate the animal that died in my mouth and the band currently banging drums in my skull. Oh God, the cabbie’s air freshener is going to make me hurl. Why do they make air fresheners with new car smell? It never smells like a new car! It smells like dirty feet and nachos mixed with Febreeze.”

  I looked up at the rearview mirror to see the cabbie in question glaring into the backseat. I would have apologized if she hadn’t been spot on in her assessment. The car reeked, and I wasn’t even the one with the raging hangover. I could only imagine how much pain she was in at that very moment.

  Not that it stopped me from twisting the knife just a bit more.

  “What do you think your mom cooked? I bet the house smells amazing right now, all that meat and stuff, just simmering and baking. Ooh, by any chance do you think she made cabbage? I love cabbage!” I didn’t. I honestly hated the shit, but the question got the desired effect when she groaned again, followed quickly by a painful sounding dry heave.

  “No puking in the cab!” the cabbie yelled through the Plexiglas partition.

  “False alarm,” I told him when Delilah finally sat back against the seat with her eyes closed.

  “Oh merciful Buddha,” she moaned. “I think I’m dying.”

  “You’re not dying.”

  “I’m totally dying. All the blood has drained from my body, replaced with tequila, Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia, and bad choices.”

  I tried my hardest not to grin. “Yeah, hanging with Pepper and Navie’ll do that do a person.”

  “Add Devon to the mix and it’s like a trifecta of pure evil. I don’t like them anymore. I don’t want to be friends with them.”

  There was no holding back the laughter on that one. “Pretty sure you don’t have a choice with that one, cutie. I could have sworn I heard Pepper telling Griff they had to clean out his office and make it a bedroom for you because they were adopting you. You’re officially part of the clan, baby. Congrats.”

  The sound that emitted from her with that was positively dreadful, and it only got worse when the cab came to a stop and the cabbie announced we were there. “Do we have to do this?” she whined, looking out the car window up to a quaint-looking brownstone.

  “Oh, yeah. We’re doing this. It’s going to be fun.”

  The look she gave me plainly stated just how badly she wanted to murder me. The cabbie must have seen it too, because he felt the need to announce, “No blood in the cab!”

  With a chuckle, I pushed the door open and held out my hand to help Delilah from the back, refusing to let go once she climbed from the car. I didn’t know what it was about her, but whenever she was around, I found myself unable to suppress the urge to touch her. I didn’t want to. I craved feeling her skin against mine as often as possible. She was quickly becoming an addiction, something that mildly terrified me, seeing as I told myself I wasn’t looking for anything long term after what happened with Bree. As we made our way up the front walk, the door flew open with two identical looking girls standing in the doorway.

  “Twins?”

  “Yep,” she muttered under her breath. “And I’m pretty sure they were sent by Satan to torment their parents.”

  Just then, one of the little girls turned her head and hollered over her shoulder, “DADDY! AUNT LILAH BROUGHT A BOY TO DINNER!”

  “Oh yeah,” I chuckled. “This is going to be fun.”

  “You say that now,” she whispered, a sinister smile hooking at her lips. “Just wait.”

  A ball of dread formed in my stomach. She looked like she knew something I didn’t, like she was in on some big secret that didn’t bode well for me. Suddenly, I wasn’t feeling all that confident. And when a man about my height and body weight, wearing a scowl that did not speak well for me, appeared behind the little girls, I knew why.

  “Who the hell are you?” he demanded to know in a menacing voice. “And why are you holding hands with my little sister, asshole?”

  “MOMMY!” the other little girl yelled back into the house. “DADDY SAID A POTTY WORD!”

  Delilah actually had the audacity to laugh as she continued toward the front porch, pulling me along with her.

  “Jace!” a female voice yelled, chastising. Then an older woman who had features similar to Delilah’s shoved him out of the way. “Didn’t I tell you to go set the table?”

  The man — Jace — frowned down at the woman. “But he’s still touching her,” he grumbled as we climbed the steps. Not that he was wrong, even with the threat of bodily harm, I couldn’t bring myself to release her hand. I hadn’t been all that worried about winning her family over on the way over here. I’d always been pretty good with parents, but older brothers? Well, that was a whole new ballgame. I was most definitely going to have my work cut out fo
r me. And judging by the protective flash in his eyes, I would be lucky if I made it out of this dinner with all my limbs still intact.

  Delilah’s mom ushered the little girls back into the house before propping her hands on her hips and glaring up at her son. “And our Lilah Bug is a grown woman who doesn’t need her big brother threatening every man she brings to dinner.”

  I grinned. Yeah, I wasn’t going to have a problem winning over her mother.

  “Hi, Mom,” Delilah said once we stood at the threshold of the door. Releasing my hand, she leaned in to give her mother a hug before pulling back to make introductions. “Richard, this is my mom Doris and my brother Jace. Guys, this is Richard. He’s my…” she trailed off, as if she wasn’t quite sure how to introduce me, and looked up at me questioningly.

  I wasn’t sure what came over me in that instant, but something primal reared its head at the thought of being introduced to Delilah’s family as a friend. I knew we hadn’t discussed what we were to each other, and really, I hadn’t given it much thought beyond the day by day, but just then, I felt the intense desire to stake my claim, just like I had yesterday in my apartment when I held her against me in front of everyone. It was a feeling I’d never experienced before.

  “Boyfriend,” I answered for her, ignoring her wide-eyed look as I extended my hand out to her mother, finally letting go of Delilah’s. “It’s lovely to meet you, Mrs. Northcutt. Thank you so much for inviting me into your home. I’ve been looking forward to a home-cooked meal all week.”

  She blushed the same as her daughter, even letting out the same nervous giggle I’d heard so many times from Delilah. “Well, aren’t you just the sweetest, and please, call me Doris. We’re so glad to have you.”

  Delilah snorted from behind me, and I imagined she was in the process of rolling her eyes as Jace coughed, “Kiss ass” into his palm. I stifled my own laughter with a more believable cough when Doris reached up and smacked him in the back of his head.

  An ear-piercing shriek, followed by the sound of something shattering emitted from inside. Then I heard another woman shout, “Annabelle! Get off your sister, right now! What have I told you about wrestling inside of the house?”

  “It’s called a suplex, Mommy!”

  Jace rolled his eyes and grumbled, “Oh, sweet mother of fuck,” before disappearing inside.

  “Well,” Doris grinned, seemingly unaffected by the wrestling match taking place in her home. “Shall we go inside?” Then she disappeared down the front hall.

  We hung back for a few seconds as Delilah looked up at me, one brow quirked behind her glasses. “Boyfriend?”

  I shrugged unable to explain what possessed me to say I was her boyfriend when as far as I thought, we’d just been having fun. “Well, it wasn’t like you were offering up anything. You froze up so I had to jump in and save the day.”

  She gave me a funny look, one I didn’t fully understand before speaking softly, “Because I don’t know what this is.”

  That made two of us. But I didn’t like the expression on her face, like she was disappointed in my answer, or even… a little sad. I opened my mouth to say something — anything, when another crash echoed from inside. Then a little girl voice screaming, “SLEEPER HOLD!”

  Delilah let out a sigh and waved me inside, offering a foreboding, “Welcome to the seventh circle of Hell.”

  I got the distinct impression that dinner was going to be extremely entertaining.

  HE CALLED HIMSELF MY boyfriend.

  Then claimed to have said it for the simple reason that I froze up.

  To say I was even more confused about what the heck was going on between us would have been the understatement of the freaking century.

  “Hey, snap out of it.”

  I blinked with a start when Claudia’s hand suddenly appeared in front of my face, her fingers snapping to get my attention. I guess I’d zoned out while Mom, Claudia, and I stood in the kitchen, finishing dinner while Dad took Richard and Jace to the garage to show off his latest guy toy. That had been fifteen minutes ago. I hoped Jace hadn’t “accidentally” hurt him in that time. The only thing that made me a little more comfortable with the situation was that Dad still seemed to like him. Fingers crossed he’d keep him safe against Jace. But it really was a crapshoot.

  I shook my head clear and gave my sister-in-law an apologetic smile. “Sorry. Didn’t get much sleep last night. What were you saying?”

  She waggled her eyebrows as she bounced a sleeping Carter in her arms. All three girls were watching a movie in the living room without killing each other, for once, so it was surprisingly quiet in my parents’ house. Which wasn’t a good thing with the way both Mom and Claudia were looking at me just then. I was under the microscope without any hope of a distraction.

  “I bet you didn’t.” Claudia grinned lasciviously.

  “Oh, God, stop,” I groaned, rolling my eyes. “Not that, you freak. I was up all night with Devon and a couple other friends. She got dumped yesterday so we had a girls’ night in.”

  “Poor Devon, such a sweet girl.” Mom tsked as she mashed the potatoes in a pot on the stove. “That Matt boy wasn’t a good fit for her. She’s better off.”

  “I’ll tell her you said so, Mom.”

  Claudia shook her finger at me. “I see what you’re doing. You’re trying to deflect by bringing up Devon when you’re the one that brought that mouthwatering piece of man-candy home for dinner. Now spill it, sister.”

  I could feel my cheeks burning bright pink as I moved to chop an onion sitting on the cutting board. I didn’t actually know if my mom needed it for what she was cooking, but I desperately needed something to do with my hands. “There’s nothing to spill. We’re…” I sucked in a deep breath, not quite sure how to explain what was going on between Richard and me. “We’re dating, I guess?”

  “Seems more than dating when he introduces himself as your boyfriend,” Mom spoke thoughtfully.

  “And I saw the way he was staring at you before Jace and Dad dragged him off,” Claudia added, very unhelpfully. “He couldn’t stop staring.”

  I snort-scoffed and began chopping the onion with more fervor, matching each whack of the knife with the erratic beat of my heart. I didn’t want to think too much into what she was saying, but I was a girl, damn it! It was impossible. “He was not.”

  “He kind of was, darling.” Mom looked over her shoulder and winked at me. “I’d say the boy’s smitten. Even your father said it seemed a little more than “friendly” when he met him at the shop last week.”

  “God!” I cried out, not wanting to talk about what my father thought of my romantic life. “Can we not? Look, I brought him to dinner despite the risk of Jace’s wrath. Can you maybe stop with the third degree? It hasn’t even been a week with this guy. I can’t really tell you what we are, or what’s going on, because I don’t know myself. And if I’m being honest, I’m a little freaked out. So if you’d please, just… be normal for one Sunday I’d be super appreciative.” After I finished my little mini freak out, I sucked in a much-needed breath. Who knew spewing so many words in a handful of seconds could use so much oxygen?

  The kitchen grew suspiciously quiet for several seconds. “So…” Claudia finally said, “…is he good in bed?”

  The knife dropped to the counter with a clatter as I threw my hands in the air. “I can’t even!” I shouted as I stomped from the room, my mom and sister-in-law’s laughter trailing me from behind.

  TEN MINUTES LATER, I’D escaped into the living room with the girls, only to get sucked into whatever movie it was they were watching.

  I sniffled and batted a tear from my eye. “Auntie Lilah, it’s okay,” Madison soothed, rubbing the back of my hand with her tiny palm.

  “But… Arlo loved Spot. And now he’s leaving to go off with that other cave family and leaving him all alone,” I said in a watery voice.

  “Hey baby. What are you guys doing?”

  At the sound of Richard’s voice be
hind me, I quickly brushed away the remaining tears that had fallen from my eyes. “Nothing,” I said with another sniffle as he walked around the back of the couch where we could all see him.

  “Aunt Lilah’s crying over The Good Dinosaur. I tried telling her it was just a cartoon, but she wouldn’t listen.” Sarah piped up, the Judas. Ever since Richard walked through the door she’d had stars in her eyes. Needless to say, my seven-year-old niece had a mad crush and just threw me under the bus to make herself look better in his eyes.

  “I wasn’t crying,” I glowered at Sarah. “I just had something in my eye.”

  “You were crying like a baby.”

  “Was not!”

  “Were too!”

  We were in an epic stare-off when I announced, “Madison is officially my favorite niece.”

  “YAY!” Madison cheered from beside me before Richard took my hand and pulled me from the couch, wrapping his arms around my waist and nuzzling my neck in that way that made me all melty inside.

  “Aw, was the movie making you sad, baby?”

  “No,” I pouted, trying to look unaffected by the way he was holding me, even though I wanted nothing more than to wrap myself around him like bubble wrap just then. “It’s just… it’s a super cute movie. And now I want a Spot of my own.”

  He looked back at the TV just as Spot disappeared with his new family. “Is Spot the kid or the dinosaur?”

  “The kid.”

  He grinned down at me. “Well, first of all, I think keeping a kid as a pet is illegal in every state in the country. And second, Shady would probably get jealous.”

  I frowned and gave his shoulder a light punch. “Buzz kill.”

  His chest shook against me with his laughter and I had to pull away before I did something stupid, like mount him in the middle of my parents’ house with children present. I was pretty sure there wasn’t enough therapy in the world that would help them get over something like that. “How was guy time?” I asked, looking him over for any visible bruises or abrasions. “You look like you came out of it unscathed. Jace actually managed to behave?”