Panic races through my body. Is she sick? Has something happened to someone in the family? “What won’t change anything?”
“Jeff proposed!”
Joy shines through her eyes. A huge smile turns up the corners of her mouth revealing perfect, straight white teeth that she never tires of thanking her braces for. Torn, I plaster a smile on my face as I lean over and hug her above the table.
“That’s great, Mom.”
What else do you say when your mother tells you she’s getting married? Stomp your feet and demand all of her attention? Remind her that Jeff is the first real relationship she’s had in years? It seems quick. Can she really be sure about him?
It will no longer be just me and my mom. Jeff will be her husband, not just a boyfriend. I liked it when he was a boyfriend. Boyfriends are temporary. Husbands seem so much more permanent.
“You really think so, sweetie?”
“Of course, I do. I guess I’m just a bit flustered because I’ve never met Jeff. I feel like I should know something about him, now that he’s going to be my stepfather?”
Another wave of panic settles in my stomach. Would he move in with mom, into my home? Would we have to move in with him? I try not to think about the details yet and concentrate on my mom. Her eyes light up as she talks about him.
“You’ll love him. He’s in law enforcement. A captain actually.”
So my new stepfather is a cop. Great. Not the best profession for a long term commitment. The worry, and the long hours. So many law enforcement marriages end in divorce. It’s one of the main themes in cop dramas on TV. I wonder if my mother has thought through all of these things. Don’t cops have baggage? Lots of baggage. I’m not thinking about trysts during stakeouts, though that crosses my mind too. But what about the other stuff? The drinking problems, abuse, deep-seated emotional baggage. Scary stuff that my mom doesn’t deserve, because she’s been through it all before.
I wonder how much my mom really knows about Jeff. Her words tumble out of her mouth like she’s a recording on high speed. She finally stops and takes a breath.
“I can’t wait for you to meet him. There’s a lot we have to talk about. Living arrangements and stuff, but don’t worry about that right now. It’ll be a few months before we get to that.”
She flicks her hand out to show me her ring. I was so engrossed in the events of the night before and worry that she was hiding something that I hadn’t even seen the ring on her finger. I take her hand and examine it. Not a bad cut, sparkly enough, not too big but not small either. Jeff has decent taste in rings.
I look up at my mom’s bright eyes and grin. Great taste in women too.
“Nice ring.”
She holds out her hand in front of herself to admire it. “It is, isn’t it?”
“Have you talked about a date yet?”
“No date yet. We wanted to talk it over with you and Cory first. It’s the second marriage for both of us so we don’t want to go too big.”
Of course. Me and Cory. Who the hell is Cory?
“Cory?” I ask.
“Did I forget to mention Jeff has a son!”
I take a deep breath and another hit of my coffee. A new stepfather and a stepbrother. It seems as though I’ll be going from being an only child, to part of a family of four. I can handle that, can’t I?
The idea of being a normal family grows on me the more I think about it. For so long it’s just been the two of us and while I love my mom to pieces, I always wanted more. I wanted what my friends had; two parents that were looking out for them, siblings to confide in. I’ve always thought those things were out of reach.
I wonder what Cory will be like. When I was younger I used to think about having a brother or sister. I thought if I had a sibling I would always have someone to play with. Not that I minded growing up an only child. Being the only kid in the house had its advantages.
“Tell me about my new stepbrother.”
“He’s following in his father’s footsteps. He’s also a police officer.”
Two police officers in the soon-to-be family.
“Interesting. Does he like being a cop?”
“They both love it. You can ask them all about it tomorrow at dinner.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes, if you can make it. Jeff wants to meet you and make it all official and I really want you meet his son too. Can you make it?”
Fresh panic sets in. I’ve got enough on my plate right now without having to play happy families. What if I don’t like them? What if they don’t like me? This could be a disaster.
I take another sip of my Americano, draining the rest of it. Suddenly I need more caffeine and maybe a little sugar now. All I want is for my mom to be happy. At least one of us should have that luxury. She’s been through a lot in her life and deserves something good for a change. Silently I vow to be on my best behavior tomorrow. If my mom loves him, he can’t be horrible.
She reaches over and pats my hand. “Relax, sweetie. It’s just dinner. A chance for us all to get to know each other better. Jeff will love you. And you’ll love him.”
I hope she’s right. At least his son will be there, someone closer to my own age who I can commiserate with while our parents make goo-goo eyes at each other. The more I think about the two-parents-two kids-dynamic, the more I like the idea. I’m looking forward to meeting Cory. Having a stepbrother might be fun. Having someone else to trust, someone to talk to might be good for me.
“Okay, sure. Dinner tomorrow sounds great.”
“Wonderful!”
She snatches the phone from the table and her fingers fly over the screen as she types a message. A few seconds later it buzzes with a response.
“Jeff can’t wait to meet you,” she says beaming.
“Tell him I can’t wait to meet him either.”
She types in the message and her posture relaxes. She’s no longer fidgeting. A glow takes over her face and I smile despite the nerves knotting my stomach.
I’m always looking for an excuse to go shopping and a new insta-family is a perfect reason. As soon as we’re done with coffee I’ll stop by those shops and get those shoes and that skirt. Anything to help make a good first impression.
Somehow it will all work out. And I get a stepbrother. What could be wrong with that?
5
CORY
I’m at Hudson’s bar on Fourth. I arranged to meet Simons, my partner in all things law enforcement, for a beer. It’s been a shitty week overall, and I need to blow off some steam. I order us both a drink and we take a seat at the bar, watching the sports news that’s playing on a flat-screen in the corner.
“Why the fuck did you pick this place?” Simons asks.
It’s a good question. The bar’s a dive, with sticky floors and a pervading smell of the toilets wafting from the back. The men in here are definitely not our usual crowd. I’m wearing a baseball cap pulled down low to avoid the risk of being recognized. I’m sure I’ve arrested at least one of the guys in here.
“Wanted a change of scene.”
Simons looks at me suspiciously. He knows I’m a creature of habit. In most towns, the cops have their haunts. Ours is across town. The thing is, it does get a bit tired when you constantly see the same people and hear the same shit, day in, day out. That’s not the reason we’re here, though.
Mr. Douchebag, Jackson’s fucking asshole father, is the reason we’re here. If I told Simons that, though, he’d flip out. We’re off duty and I’ve got no business trying to hunt down perps out of official time.
I glance over my shoulder, taking a swig of cold beer, scanning the crowd. There’s no one that I can see who looks like the idiot in the wedding picture.
“This place stinks like ass,” Simons says wrinkling his nose.
I snort. “Smells like the locker room at the station.”
“True.”
“Anyway, we’ve got beer, we’ve got sports and we’ve almost got conversation.”
/> “Fuck you, Carlisle.”
I punch Simons on the shoulder affectionately. We’ve been friends since I started the job and he’s a good guy. Honest to a fault, decent morals, straight as an arrow. He’d hate what I’m intending to do.
“I didn’t know you felt that way about me,” I joke and it’s his turn to snort.
“Trust me, you’re nothing like my type.”
“Tits too big for you?” I make my pecs jump up and down and he shakes his head in disgust.
“Dude, what the fuck?”
He’s fighting not to laugh which makes me smile. At the station, the other cops are always joking that we’re like brothers. I guess we take our work seriously in the same way. There’s a time for jokes but not when you’re dealing with the serious shit our job throws at us.
“I like big titties.” Simons delivers that line totally deadpan and I nearly snort beer through my nose.
“Fuck, man. Who doesn’t?”
I get a flash of the last amazing pair of tits I saw this week. That Allyson sure had a fine rack on her, and she knew it, sticking those things out like they were her armor against the world.
“I stopped this woman for speeding this week,” I tell Simons. “She was driving like she was being chased.”
“Yeah.” He puts his empty bottle down and waves down the barman, indicating two more of the same. “You book her?”
“Nah. She was sorry so I let her off with a very stern warning.”
“Oh yeah.” Simons narrows his eyes at me. I can almost hear the cogs of his suspicious police brain in motion. “How sorry was she?”
“What kind of fucking question is that?”
“Listen, Carlisle. Before you get all indignant and shit, you’re the one who took the conversation from big titties to a speeding woman, to letting her off with a warning. I’m the one sitting here wondering what the link is?”
I shake my head and laugh. “She had really amazing…eyes.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“So it was her eyes that caused you to let her off with a warning.”
This whole conversation is one big joke but there’s something about what he says that niggles me. We can joke about this shit. If he’d asked me straight out why I let her off, I’d have probably said because she was so sassy and her little walk along the line had made my dick hard. But now that I think about it, I knew I wasn’t going to give her a ticket from the moment I looked into that car. Her knuckles had been white she’d been gripping the steering wheel so tightly and she had real fear in her eyes. The way she’d been driving, it was as though she was trying to get away from something bad.
After a few years on the job I can smell real fear, and I can tell who’s bullshitting. Allyson might have been playing a little flirty game with me. She tried to use her best assets, and she had plenty, to get me to let her off. But it was what I saw before she turned on the bullshit that made me lenient.
“Yeah. You know I’m a sucker for a pretty pair of…eyes!”
“Aren’t we all.”
I grab my fresh beer and take a swallow. There’s a rowdy shout in the corner of the bar and I turn my head instinctively to see what’s going on. There’s a guy in the corner who’s obviously telling some bullshit story in a drunkenly loud voice, his arms flailing to emphasize. Even though all I can see is his back I get a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. My dad calls it cop instinct. Maybe he’s right. I turn on my stool, waiting to see if the obnoxious meathead will turn around. As his hands come into view again, I can see his knuckles are split.
Fucking piece of shit.
Simons seems to sense that something is going on with me because he stops talking about how unprofessional I am, letting titties affect my judgment. He follows my gaze to the guy I am convinced is Jackson’s punch-happy father.
“What you looking at, C?” he says quietly.
“That loud mouth fuck over there. I think he was the perp in a domestic I dealt with yesterday.
“Oh yeah.” I know Simons is putting two and two together and coming up with the perfect answer. “That’s why we’re drinking beer in this shithole?”
“Maybe,”
“C,” he says in a tone that warns me to stand down. “The wife, has she pressed charges?”
“No.”
“Do you think she will?”
I shake my head.
“So what? You’re planning to arrest him anyway. While you’re off duty?”
I shake my head again.
“You planning to warn him off then?”
“I don’t know,” I say, anger surging to my fists. I imagine them making contact with his ugly face, bone crunching against bone, flesh splitting under the force of my righteous anger. I want to show him how his wife felt when he decided to show her who was boss. I want to see him on his knees, begging for mercy like I’m sure she did.
“You got this under control?” Simons asks. I know he’s asking if I can rein in my temper.
“Yeah, man.” Douchebag is laughing at his own joke and a few of his buddies’ smile. He turns to grab his beer from a tall table behind him and I finally get a look at his ugly face.
It’s definitely him.
I slide off my stool and put my beer on the bar. “C…” Simons warns again.
“I’ve got this,” I tell him, striding across the bar.
When I get up behind Jackson’s dad I put my hand on the back of his neck. It’s a friendly move and he looks back at me in surprise.
“Hey,” I say, as though I’m greeting an old friend from high school. “Can I talk to you for a minute? It’s about your wife.”
I see his eyes flash at the mention of her. His shoulders go tense and I grip into his flesh, needing him to understand who is in control of this situation.
“What you talking about?” he slurs. He’s obviously well on his way to drunk and disorderly.
“I don’t think you want your friends to hear what I gotta say.”
His eyes register and I see him clench his fist at his side. Whether he’s remembering what he did or gearing up to punch me in the face, I have no idea. I’m ready for him, whatever his intentions.
I press the back of his neck and he reluctantly allows me to move him away from his group of friends. Wasting no time, I bend down to deliver my message directly into his ear.
“I know what you like to do to your wife, you fucking piece of shit. I’ve seen the inside of your house. I know what it looks like after one of your rampages. You fucking hurt your wife or your son again and God help me, you’ll never use your hands again. Do you understand me?”
He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds as he takes in what I’ve just said. I know he’s trying to work out who the fuck I am. For a moment, he looks like he might spit out some sort of snide retort but I’m looming over him, breathing menacingly, and he seems to find some sense in his bone-head.
“Nod if you understand what I’m telling you.” He nods. “Understand this. I know where you live. I know where you drink. If I need to track your ass down it won’t take me longer than five minutes. I’m gonna be driving past that nice little house you got every few days, and if I see a mark on your wife or your son, your feet won’t touch the ground. Now get on back to your moron friends and keep your hands to yourself.”
Jackson’s dad looks like he might explode at any second, shoulders high and tight, fists balled, but there’s no real courage in him. If I was smaller and meeker he might have tried to best me, but I’m not, and he doesn’t.
“Fuck you!” he mumbles as he walks away and I grab him by the arm.
“You got something to say, big man?”
He doesn’t look at me but pulls his arm away and retreats quietly this time.
I watch him go, then return to my stool, picking up my beer and downing it in one.
“Fuck it, let’s get out of this shithole,” I say to Simons.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
/> I leave, feeling like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. If there is one thing I can’t stand, it’s when the perps get the best of me.
6
ALLYSON
Angelo’s looms ahead of me on the right, for some reason looking foreboding instead of its usual welcoming sight. The scent of Italian cooking wafts through my open window making my stomach grumble. Nerves fight with extreme hunger as I pull into the parking lot, snagging a spot towards the back of the restaurant. All the worry about Drew, and meeting Jeff has stolen my appetite for most of the day. I hope once the initial introductions are over I’ll be able to eat a full portion of Chicken Parmesan and some dessert. The cheesecake here is supposed to be amazing.
I throw the car into park, press the button to put the window up and get out of the car, straightening my skirt and smoothing my blouse. I’ve tried hard to make the right impression tonight, for mom. My nerves are buzzing so I take a deep breath and hold it, so conscious of the deep and fast beating of my heart. I shouldn’t be this nervous but I can’t help it. I don’t want to let Mom down by opening my big mouth and saying something stupid. Drew’s criticisms loom large in my mind.
There’s no getting out of it, though.
I press the button on my key fob to lock the doors but before I can turn towards Angelo’s, a clean, woodsy aroma fills my senses and the air surrounding me seems to get warmer.
“I hope you weren’t speeding.”
Oh god, that voice. Low, deep and smooth as chocolate with that hint of husk that had me almost drooling. Though I can hear the grin in Officer Carlisle’s voice, I still panic. Was he following me on my journey from campus? I don’t think I was speeding excessively but I probably went over the limit a couple of times.
I spin around to see the man who’s invaded my fantasies these last few days and kept me going in an indirect way. The uniform is gone of course. Tonight Mr. Good Cop is wearing black dress pants matched with a crisp white shirt that is open at the collar. He’s still grinning at me; the grin I’d so desperately wanted to see the other night. There’s no girl with him and I think I see a spark of attraction lighting his eyes. I can’t believe that I’d run into him, tonight of all nights. There’s so much riding on this meal. First impressions count. It’s like my ghosts are following me.
HUGE X3: A MFMM Menage Stepbrother Romance Page 16