Benelli looks transformed. Her hair is piled on top of her head in all these little coils, she’s wearing a white and blue striped dress with this wide neck that makes me think of garden parties, and her face is made up, the makeup covering the dark circles and the sweet, pink blush of her true skin tone.
I recognize Winch sitting next to a beautiful, somber-looking girl with black hair and a grimly held mouth. Abony puffs on her cigarette with a dreary, bored expression, and Benelli is staring at the table, waiting. It’s a relief to know some people at this table.
Though I wish the three people I do know weren’t made up of someone who’d carried me home after a night of debauchery, someone who added further debauchery to said night in the form of sexual amazingness, and someone who seems to want to dabble in some illicit cougarish sexual craziness with me.
They don’t form any trinity of very positive possible first impressions, and I’m desperate to make a good impression with Benelli’s frightening parents.
I muster all my courage and step into the room, armed with a handful of wildflowers that I hold out to Benelli.
She stands up and comes to me, and when she takes the flowers, I focus on her face, because otherwise, I think I might pass out.
“Thank you,” she whispers and her lips curl into an encouraging smile. “Breathe.”
“Cormac, what lovely flowers,” Abony purrs throatily, looking very much like she’d rather skip the spread on the table and take a colossal bite out of me. “Someone should get a vase. Ithaca?”
Abony takes a drag of her cigarette and throws a curt nod to the dour-looking teenager perched at the end of the table. I recognize the willowy blonde as Benelli’s little sister, one half of the twin set, and, though their coloring is completely different, feature-wise Ithaca could be Benelli’s sour younger double.
I give the girl a wave, but she only growls as she swipes the bouquet out of Benelli’s hands with a rough yank.
Benelli’s mother, gorgeous and poised, grits her teeth through a practiced smile as her eyes follow her daughter’s receding stomp. “Cormac, how nice to meet you. Please excuse Ithaca. She’s…jet lagged.”
“You can just say she’s an asshole,” a guy who looks like a younger, leaner version of Winchester speaks up.
“Watch your mouth,” the patriarch barks from his throne in the center.
“Sorry,” the young guy quips, clearly not all that sorry.
“Welcome, Cormack,” the headman says. “Excuse my children. They’re at that age.” He rubs a hand over his thinning, silvering hair.
I shake first Benelli’s mother’s hand, then her father’s, and am invited to sit between Benelli and her aunt and directly across from her father, an imposing overlord of a man.
Abony and Benelli and her mother shovel ridiculous amounts of food onto my plate, pour me coffee, and generally fuss over me. I have to admit, it’s a nice change. My mother was a surgeon who took positions at various naval hospitals during my father’s deployments. I was adequately fed in my youth, but a nice bowl of cold cereal or an unmushy banana was feast-like for me on my average morning. And I’d been serving myself meals since I was a young boy. This is pure decadence.
“So, Benelli tells me you’re real smart,” Mr. Youngblood says bluntly. His wife looks at him and then me with interest, and Evan tries to hide the smile that’s probably the requirement of a young, most likely brash, woman coming in contact with any foreign family’s particularly domineering head.
But I’m very used to military life and the eradication of social lubricants in order to get to the root of any problem.
“I am currently working on completing my thesis work,” I explain after I swallow the most glorious piece of raspberry bun known to man. “I will most likely defend my thesis in the winter, and then, yes, I’ll be very smart. On paper. And only in the realm of things that have to do with antiquities and the classics. Other than that, I’m afraid you’re mistaken. I’m mostly an idiot.”
The entire table stares at me, and I feel the general prickle that comes just before I assimilate with new people. I’m, by and large, a friendly and easy-to-get-along-with guy, but I realize full well that I have my own eccentricities, and this is a family who seems to appreciate brevity. And manliness. And pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps work ethic. Not that I don’t work, of course.
But side jobs filling in baptism certificates with looping calligraphy probably don’t rank very high in the Youngblood stratosphere.
“And what about after that?” Mr. Youngblood looks at Benelli with clear fondness. “My daughter tells me you don’t necessarily have any plans as far as a job goes but might be…open.”
“Oh.” A second bite of raspberry bun is mid-way to my mouth and Benelli is staring into her coffee cup and I’m a little confused about where this is going even though I’ve had so much warning. I expected this to be, at very best, a nice introduction and judgment day and, at worst, an uncomfortable brush off. But this feels like…like I’m on to the interview stage. This is too far along in the process. “Well, uh, after my thesis, I would most likely try to find employment in a college.”
Mr. Youngblood nods and runs his fingers along his freshly shaved chin, the gold and emerald ring on his pinky finger glinting in the light. “I hear in the news that the colleges are cutting more and more courses every year. No offense intended, but I’d assume that the area you’re in isn’t exactly what any college would consider, you know…crucial?”
I notice Evan roll her eyes and sigh. Benelli is tapping her foot in a furious panic under the table.
“Well, if I didn’t land a position at a university, there’s always being a waiter. Or a bartender.” Mr. Youngblood looks at me with humorless, unblinking eyes. “Of course. Not funny at all. Really not funny when you consider I’ve never waited a table or made a drink. So, um, yes, I would say I’m very open to jobs. To job recommendations. Do you have? Any? Recommendations?”
I half expect Benelli’s hand to fly out and swat me in the back of the head, but it stays twisted deep in the linen folds of her napkin.
His smile is wide, so wide I spot what might be the glint of a gold tooth nestled somewhere among his back molars. It’s like he’s been laying a little trail of cheese, and I’ve finally followed it through the maze and to the end. Good mouse that I am!
I nibble the cheese and hope it isn’t poisoned.
“Benelli has been here looking for a husband. I know you know this. And, let’s lay the cards on the table here.” Mr. Yougblood leans back in his chair and looks at me through slitted eyes. “You aren’t the husband I had in mind for my little girl.”
Husband.
Marriage.
Every sweat gland I have in my entire body is wide open and fully operational.
“Right.” I blink away the spots that are forming in front of my eyes and nod. “Right. I can see that. If we’re laying our cards out, as it is, then I can say that I agree with your opinion. I am underemployed. Overeducated. And, you know, even if I had sound employment and hedge funds or whatever successful guys my age have, I would never be good enough for your daughter. Never. She’s…” I look at her, and the urge to vomit or pass out flies through the window. I look at this girl, this perfect, amazing girl, and I say what’s the truth. “She’s too good for me. She’s brilliant and gorgeous and kind. She’s going to do amazing thing, I know that. And I’d be proud to just bumble along next to her while she does.”
Benelli slides her hand into mine and squeezes.
Evan sighs and Ithaca says, “Well, he talks super weird, but he’s sweet.”
“Ithaca,” her mother snaps. “Is there ever a single thought you think that maybe, just maybe, you might want to keep in your own head?”
“No,” Ithaca mutters, slumping down in her chair. I offer her a grateful smile, but she only glares my way.
Benelli’s father is laughing, though, and pointing to me with a smile on his face. “I like this guy. I like
him. He’s like some kind of poet. We can use that. And any guy my little princess picks is a guy who’s solid. Benelli has a real knack for judging people. Well, we’ll make announcements soon if that’s that.”
Benelli’s mother smiles, her aunt rubs a hand on my knee, her brothers nod at me, her sister rolls her eyes, and Winch’s girlfriends gives me a tiny smile of understanding, like she’s saying, “Yep. You’re fucked, buddy. Join the club.”
And I wonder what exactly we’re announcing and how her father could have made this decision this quickly and…if I want this.
Do I want this?
But Benelli’s face is shining with such total, absolute joy, I can’t say a word. I don’t have any that leap to mind, anyway, so I just smile like the fool that I am.
While breakfast gets cleared by the women, with the exception of Evan, the men head out back to smoke cigars. Winchester’s father hands me one and claps me on the back, telling me we’ll set up a time to talk later. Then Colt brings out a rifle, a real loaded gun, and the three guys examine it, talking excitedly about shooting cans and targets.
I back up very slowly and find myself next to Evan. Her icy eyes cut down to the smoldering cigar in my hand, and she smiles, a real, kind smile that lights her entire face up. “Ever smoke one before?”
“Can’t say so,” I admit, holding it out to her.
She holds it between her thumb and index finger, puts it to her lips and winks. “Don’t pull the smoke in too hard. Smoking a cigar isn’t like smoking a cigarette. It’s for the taste, basically, so you sort of draw the smoke in and hold it mostly in your mouth.”
She demonstrates, then shows off, blowing thick, smoky rings, before she hands it back.
I take it clumsily and attempt to knock the ash off.
“Not yet.” She puts a delicate hand on my arm and shakes her head. “You want to let it get, I don’t know, maybe an inch long? Maybe a little more. And stop looking so worried. You’re supposed to be enjoying it. It’s just a cigar.”
“‘Sometime a cigar is just a cigar,’” I quote.
“This family would have taken over Freud’s life if he’d gotten the chance to study them.” She tilts her head and grins. “I’m Evan Lennox.”
I switch the cigar to my left hand and extend my right. “Cormac Halstrom. A pleasure.”
We sit and watch the three Youngblood men. “It’s nice not being the only outsider,” Evan says, her eyes locked on Winch. “I never for one second regret meeting Winch. He’s the best thing in my life, seriously. But sometimes I wish he was an orphan.”
I squirm a little at this information. It’s like a grenade got dropped into my lap, and now I’m just waiting for it to blow.
“Benelli seems to have a very firm attachment.” I’m treading carefully.
Evan sweeps her black hair back from her face. “Yeah, she does. She’s kind of Comandante Youngblood’s little pet. But, then again, he never asked her to serve time for anyone else’s crimes or let her participate in illegal fighting rings, so…I guess I’m not the best person to talk to on this auspicious day.” Her words ride a fine line between acidically bitter and devastating.
“Winch had a hard time of it, then?” I ask.
Benelli painted it as her brother running away from the family and his responsibilities. I have no siblings, so I don’t know what it’s like to have differing opinions of parents and situations. My childhood, my family, my present situation is mine all mine, with no people my own age to disassemble it with.
Evan’s very pretty face blotches for a minute, fury manipulating her features. “I know this is kind of spilling the beans, since we’ve known eachother for one crazy breakfast and half a decent cigar, but getting involved with the Youngbloods isn’t something you should do without information. Lots of it. I wish I’d had someone to tell me.”
“That bad then?” I gasp out. The cigar smoke and the quick way my future is remapping itself are conspiring to choke me.
“Worse.” The frigidity of that single word is underlined by the way she wraps her arm around herself, like she’s warding off some kind of chill only she can feel. “I don’t always know what to do about it. The Youngbloods are master manipulators. When things got so bad — and by ‘so bad’ I mean that they actually expected Winch to do time for his brother and falsely confess to kidnaping — we got away. Winch is doing really well. He’s training to be a stone mason. And we love each other. My family really likes him. But his family? They have this pull. This really weird…” She shakes her head. “I can’t explain it. It’s like a force of nature. I want to respect it, you know, because I get how you can’t just tell your family to pack salt. No matter how much you should want to,” she mutters.
“Any advice?” I’m having a hard time swallowing. Or breathing. Or seeing clearly, through the dim visions of my future living under Mr. Youngblood’s enormous, all-encompassing thumb.
Evan pats my hand as the click and slide of the gun being loaded makes my head whip towards the three men in the yard. The harsh explosion of a stump makes me jump, and leaves shards of splintered wood over the entire yard.
“Don’t fall under their spell. Nothing’s what it seems in this family,” Evan warns before she gets up, smoothes the skirt of her dress, and heads to Winch. “Good luck, Cormac,” she calls over her shoulder.
She makes it all the way across the long yard, says something so the guys that makes them laugh, then points to the distance. I squint and follow the direction her finger is pointing in. There’s a small pinecone hanging from a high branch in a far off tree. Colt hands her the rifle, which she shoulders and fires. When the pinecone explodes, the men cheer and she beams.
I wonder about Evan’s warning as she glows under their enthusiastic shouts. It’s got to be hard to resist the glamor of a family when they command such a natural charisma.
“Ooh, is that the new Remington?” Benelli is next to me suddenly, her face shiny and so filled with happiness, I can’t help but smile at her.
“Pardon?”
She laughs. “The rifle. The one Evan just showed off with.” Her voice loses some of its charmed happiness.
“Oh, right. The rifle is a Remington.” I put an arm around her and she smiles up at me.
“Do you want to shoot it?” she asks.
She obviously admires it, as does her family, but I have a little bit of a complicated relationship with guns. My father knew how to shoot one, because of his profession, and he taught me, but he and my mother didn’t like keeping them in or around the house. I guess that’s why it never occurred to me that Benelli was named after one. I didn’t put the two together, and honestly assumed that her parents just had an affinity for Italian-sounding names.
“That’s okay. It’s not really my, um, my kind of thing.” She continues to look at me as her father strokes the rifle and holds it out for his sons and Evan to admire.
“Did you have a nice chat with Evan?” Now all the happiness has siphoned out of her voice and even the civility is draining fast.
“I have a feeling there’s more to your question that what you’re actually asking.” I say the words slowly, and add a little steely edge to them. “Don’t mince words with me, Benelli. It isn’t necessary. If you think I flirted with Evan—”
Her laugh is hard and a little bitter. “Flirted? Not at all. She’s just…not my family’s biggest fan, I guess. That’s all.”
“Does she have reason not to be?” I cross my arms and stare at the cluster of Youngbloods and Evan.
“They’re good people,” Benelli insists. “They’re not perfect, but they’re good.”
The way her voice coasts out, drawn and upset, helps me change my tune quickly. “They could be total monsters, and I’d still love them because of how they love you, Benelli. And I actually think your father didn’t hate me completely.” It’s a first for me, and I’m proud of it.
Benelli slides her hand against mine. “Of course he didn’t. He told me that he wa
s happy I picked someone who would support me. He said he liked that you have brains. And he told me that my mother thinks you’re cute.”
“So, apparently I’m your perfect match?” I kiss her softly, glad that she didn’t reapply lipstick after breakfast was done, so I can taste her lips when my mouth is on her. “And to think I was never remotely good enough for your little book.”
“Are you okay with everything?” She puts one hand on my cheek and strokes it with her thumb.
I open my mouth to say the only word that’s true. But ‘no’ isn’t, on reflection, the only word that’s true after all.
Because I’m okay with anything that makes things between Benelli and I go more smoothly. I’m okay with having her in my life however she needs me.
“I’m more than okay,” I both lie and answer honestly, and in the shroud of happiness that insulates everything we’re doing here together, she accepts my answer without delving too deeply.
Benelli 7
There’s not enough time to get everything done that needs to be done if Cormac and I want to get married in the autumn.
I always have. Wanted to get married in the autumn. But there’s another pressing reason that has nothing to do with burnished leaves and crisp air that has me ready to say ‘I do’ before we carve pumpkins.
My father will look the other way when Winch and Evan sleep together in their own room at the family compound, but I am his little girl, and he’s made it clear that Cormac will only be allowed to share a room with me when we’re husband and wife. It’s only been a few weeks since my dad took Cormac under his wing and started watching his and my every move, and I miss being able to see Cormac unchaperoned. I miss our freedom. I want to be able to go to him in private, whenever I need him, without having to sneak time with each other.
I want our life together to begin as soon as possible.
He has to propose, of course, but I know my mother has already showed him rings I might like, and my father has local jewelry guys he can get to help with the whole thing. I know it’s an important detail, but it’s one that’s gotten lost in this whole surge of action and movement that’s dragging me along faster than I can handle.
Perfectly Unmatched (A Youngblood Book) Page 19