* * *
Everyone was staring at him again, as we had a tendency to do when he started spouting poetry.
He shrugged. "What? It's a poem by Sara Teasdale."
Brock chuckled. "And Sara Teasdale is...?"
"An American poet, born August eighth, 1884 and died January twenty-ninth, 1933. The poem is called 'Soul's Birth'."
"That's a very beautiful poem, Xavier," Mara said. "Thank you."
He didn't look up. "I didn't write it, I just quoted it. It seemed apropos for this momentous occasion."
I laughed. "Holy shit, Xavier. You are one of a kind, brother."
He blinked at me. "What? Why?"
I shook my head. "Never mind, kiddo."
The baby went to Brock next, who seemed fairly comfortable holding the baby, and spent a few minutes doing the bounce and rock thing, and making the stupid cooing noises everyone seemed unable to resist.
When it was my turn and Brock turned to me and moved to hand the bundle into my arms, I panicked. "Wait, wait, wait. What if I fuck it up somehow?" I backed away. "You probably shouldn't trust me with a baby, I might...I dunno, do something wrong."
Zane took Jax from Brock and moved to stand in front of me. "Bax, brother, you are an idiot. I love you, seriously, but you're an idiot."
I gaped at him. "I know, but...why are you reminding me of this?"
"Because you're not the fuck-up you seem to think you are." He pressed the child into my arms, and somehow my body seemed to take over on autopilot, immediately cradling the tiny, fragile, warm bundle. "You're a good person, a good brother, and you'll be a great uncle."
I stared down at the baby. He was...well, he looked kind of ugly to me. Squishy and wrinkled, and unhappy. His bright eyes were indeed green, staring back up at me like a freaky little alien. Cute, though. Irresistible.
I couldn't help the grin that stole over me. "Yo, Jax, buddy, what up?" I intentionally used a normal voice, even a little deeper and gruffer than usual, just to make a point. "I'm your favorite uncle, okay? Let's just get that squared away now, so there's no confusion later."
"Nah, man," Brock cut in. "I'm his favorite uncle."
Mara laughed. "I think he's bound to have seven favorite uncles." She let out an exhausted sigh. "Let's get the others in here so I can sleep."
Brock, Xavier, Claire, and Dru all filed out, and I finally handed Jax back to his mom.
"He's an ugly little shit right now," I quipped, "but I think he'll grow into his looks eventually."
Mara shook her head at me, laughing softly. "Asshole." Her eyes met mine. "Real quick, finish your story. What happened with Lauren?"
I groaned and rubbed my face with both hands. "Eh. We...dated, I guess you could call it, for four months. Then one day she came over after a date and sat me down and said she wanted to see other people. Which was really great timing because I was literally moments from telling her I liked her a lot and wanted to be clear about the fact that we were dating each other exclusively. I wasn't, like, about to profess love or some shit, but it was a big fuckin' deal to me to say even that much, and she beat me to the punch by dumping me."
"That sucks," Zane said.
I snorted. "Yeah. What was worse was when I asked her why."
"What was her answer?"
"That I didn't challenge her intellectually. She had fun with me and I was really great at sex, she said, but she wanted to date someone who provided more academic and creative stimuli--her words, there, not mine." I sighed, remembering how that had felt.
"Damn, dude, that's fucking harsh," Zane said.
"For real," Mara added. "What a bitch."
"I know, right?" I tried a grin, and mostly managed. "She got one more jab in before she left. She said, and I quote, 'We're just from different worlds, you and I, and you just don't fit into mine. I know it's not your fault, but it's just not something I can move past.'"
Zane and Mara exchanged meaningful glances.
"Thus the reason you let Eva go so easily," Mara said.
"That shit was not fuckin' easy," I snapped. "I let her go because I didn't have a fuckin' choice."
Zane nodded, and then shrugged, in a yeah, but sort of gesture. "And because you were scared she was gonna repeat history on you, with the shit about being from different worlds."
I chuckled bitterly. "No shit. Eva actually did say pretty much that more than once. Not in a mean way, just...stating the facts that we were from different worlds and had totally different lives, and thus the little tryst we were having came with a built-in expiration date."
"Oh," Mara said, "well that explains it."
"She never made me feel...stupid, not like Lauren did. But she made it pretty damn clear we weren't on the same level." I shrugged. "I was sexual education for her. A little walk on the wild side with a bad boy, and then she went back to her comfy little life on the East Coast with her Ivy League friends and her Ivy League wanna-be boyfriend."
Zane eyed me. "You're still hung up on her."
"Sure, maybe." I stood up and stretched, and then headed for the door. "Fat fuckin' lot of good it does me, though. Whatever. It's done."
"Bax--" Mara started.
"You just had a baby, sis, you don't need to worry about my bullshit. I'm a blockheaded caveman. I'll be fine." I grinned at them both. "Congrats, the both of you: you made a human! Now just don't fuck him up."
And with that, I left, letting the rest of my brothers have their turn.
10
Evangeline
* * *
Two weeks. It had only been two weeks, but it felt like it had been a year since I'd been brought back from Alaska...but then, at the same time, the two weeks had passed by so fast I'd barely had time to breathe.
Father had made it clear in no uncertain terms that I had to toe the line or he'd cut me off entirely. That meant focusing in on the poli-sci degree and abandoning my art studies. That meant taking the internship he set up for me. That meant, as well, agreeing to let Thomas "court" me, as Father put it. Meaning marry him, or else.
If I wanted to retain any semblance of my life, I had to do what he wanted. And what he wanted, more than anything, was for Thomas to take his place as Father's right-hand man in everything, be the son he'd always wanted and take over the company, for Thomas to get his seat in Congress so he could perform tactical political machinations behind the scenes on Father's behalf. My place in all that was to be the trophy wife. The arm candy. The perfect accessory to show around at parties and organize fund-raisers.
You bet your ass I was angry about all that...but my back was to the wall. I'd managed to put Father off for a while, saying I needed some time, but finally he'd sent Teddy to collect me from my dorm room, bringing me to his home office.
Which was where I stood at the current moment: outside his office door, nerves jangling--being summoned to Father's office wasn't a good sign. Not at all. I'd only been summoned there once before, when I'd totaled the first car he'd bought me, three months after my sixteenth birthday.
Teddy, towering beside me, knocked on the door, and then when Father called out a stern "Enter," Teddy pushed open the door and ushered me in.
Father tapped at his slim laptop as I approached his enormous battleship of a desk, and then when I remained standing instead of sitting in one of the leather armchairs, he closed the lid of the laptop and eyed me with dark-eyed scrutiny.
"Evangeline," he murmured. "Sit."
"I'm fine," I said. "I have things to do, so say what you want to say and be done with it."
"You'll sit, and you'll listen, and you'll obey," he barked.
I raised an eyebrow at him. "I'm neither an employee of yours, nor am I a child. You don't get to talk to me like that, Dad."
He quirked an eyebrow back at me: I'd never, ever called him "Dad" in my life. He liked to pretend we were haughty eighteenth-century aristocrats, and I'd just fallen into the habit of calling him "Father." Me using the more familiar term was a break in traditio
n, and one I hoped would put across the point that I wasn't going to stand for his nonsense any longer.
"I am your father, and I'll speak to you however I wish."
I crossed my arms over my breasts and glared at him. "If you want this to be...what's that term your idiotic politics people use...a productive dialogue...then you'll, you know, enter the fucking twenty-first century and realize you don't actually get to talk me like that. Speak respectfully or shut the fuck up."
He rocketed out of his chair, outrage on his face. "Evangeline du Maurier! What in the world has gotten into you?"
"You're trying to railroad me, and I won't have it."
"I'm forcing you to see sense."
"Maybe I don't want to see sense, though. What then?"
"I've tolerated your pigheadedness long enough," he bit out, leaning onto his desk, "and now it's high time you accept the instructions put in front of you by those who have your best interests in mind."
"The only person who has my best interests in mind is me," I shot back. "You have your best interests in mind, and Thomas's. You don't give a damn about what I want."
"You don't even know what you want, nor how to get it. You think you want to do art, and run off and have empty-headed little adventures with barbaric and unsavory roughnecks. You claim you're not a child, but your actions prove otherwise. I've given you rein this long, hoping you'd eventually grow up and see things with a more clear-minded and adult reasoning, but it seems I'm mistaken." He sat down again, reached into a drawer of his desk, and produced a manila folder. He opened it, spreading out several sheets of paper, twisted them to let me read them, and then let a smirk of triumph steal over his lips.
One glance was enough for me to know what he was presenting me with a trump card, and I sank into the chair. "Dammit."
"Feeling rather vulgar, today, aren't you?" He tapped the topmost printout, a copy of my private bank account statement. "I've allowed this, thus far. No longer."
Allowed.
Allowed?
I glanced at him. "You knew?"
He snorted. "Of course I knew, idiot child. You think you can steal money from me and I won't notice? You weren't even very clever about it, honestly. It was money I gave you as an allowance, and for the most part you didn't really even do anything with it, so I let it be. And I kept my knowledge of it to myself, as kind of...ace in the hole, so to speak, in case you ever became rebellious." His smirk widened into a shit-eating grin. "You don't get to where I am by being naive or foolish, Evangeline."
I sighed, leaning back in the chair in defeat. "So...what now?"
He gathered the papers and rested his elbows on the desk, steepling his fingers. "I'm good friends with the president of this bank, so I've taken control of the account."
I sat forward, protesting. "I'm an adult and I opened that account myself! You can't do that!"
"You opened it with funds that were, technically, stolen."
"I didn't steal it! You gave it to me as an allowance, and I simply moved it to a different account."
He sighed. "Evangeline," he murmured condescendingly, "it's my money. I gave it to you, and I can take it back at my convenience. Arguing is futile." He slid one of the printouts to me, which showed that he'd shunted all the funds, except for five thousand dollars, into his own account, and named himself as the primary account holder, with me as a secondary account holder with only provisional access. "This is your new reality, my dear. That's what I leave you with, and it is all you will get. Unless..."
"Unless what?" I demanded.
He shrugged. "The same terms I laid out when I first retrieved you from the clutches of that...that redneck, in Alaska, of all places." He tapped his fingertip on the desk as he enumerated each item. "First, you finish your degree at Yale in political science, abdicating all pretension to your artistic frippery. Obviously, once you've gotten your degree and you've performed the second item I shall be naming shortly, you can pursue art all you wish, on your own time, as your husband allows.
"The second item, then, obviously, is to marry Thomas." He paused for effect. "Soon. All the arrangements have already been made. The church, the dress, the cake, the invitations to all the proper people, it's all been taken care of already. All you have to do is show up, say 'I do', and become Mrs. Evangeline Haverton, as has always been your destiny."
"My destiny." I went faint at his words. "And once I've done that, then what?"
"Then you receive your due portion of my estate."
"My...due portion?" I frowned at him, perplexed.
He nodded. "Yes, your due portion."
"I'm your only legitimate heir, Dad. Who else is there to receive a portion?"
"That is none of your concern."
I stared hard at him. "Thomas. You're giving most of it to Thomas, aren't you? You're just giving me a little...dowry, or whatever you want to call it."
"You're hardly being reasonable, Evangeline," he simpered. "You'll be living in the greatest of luxury. Thomas is wealthy in his own right, as well as being heir to a rather large fortune from Richard. And with some of the deals I have in process, Thomas is poised to become even more wealthy and even more influential. You'll want for nothing; you've never wanted for anything." He waved a hand in gesticulation. "Think of Thomas, of his looks, his charisma, and his current political influence, and he's only thirty! He could very well be president in a few years. Think of it! He could, feasibly, become the youngest president in history. Folks on the Hill are already talking about him for the next ticket. And you...you would be his wife. First Lady Evangeline Haverton. How does that sound?"
I sat back, never having realized the scope of Father's ambition. He wouldn't be president himself, but...that was never Father's way--he preferred to machinate in the background. Apply pressure subtly, wielding power from the shadows. He makes Thomas president, and then he's the puppet-master, with the power of the entire country at his fingertips.
But they needed me, for appearances. If I refused, they'd find someone else suitable, but still...they wanted me as their first and primary choice.
I was their pawn, a puppet. A tool.
I heard a certain gravelly, caustic voice in my head, then. Nothin' but a tool, princess--that's all you ever will be to those fuckers. He'd never actually said that, but it's what he would say, if given the chance.
Father chose a third printout from the folder, spun it around to face me, and tapped it with a fingertip. "In case you still have a little rebelliousness left in you, I think that may provide additional...impetus, shall we say, to concede. He seems to be the only thing you've ever shown any real interest in, besides your art."
It was part of a dossier on Baxter. Basically, it was a threat. Father could make one call, an email, even, if he was feeling lazy, and Baxter would be detained. Indefinitely. The underground fighting would be the way they picked him up, but then he would essentially just disappear into the system. At the very least, he would be arrested, and left with a permanent record.
I had nothing, no leverage, no choices. I could walk away from everything, but where would I go? What would I do? Go to Alaska? Hi everyone. So um, I'm homeless and penniless--can I live with you guys, even though I only met you all once? Right. They'd agree because that's the kind of people they were, but it would be charity. And what, I'd live with Baxter? A man I'd known for a matter of not even forty-eight hours, had sex with a handful of times, and then had walked away from? Idiocy to even consider it.
I felt tears pricking at my eyes, hot and stinging. "Fuck you. I hate you."
"It's for the best, Evangeline. And you'll thank me, eventually."
"No, I won't. Neither will I ever forgive you. Or even speak to you." I steeled myself. "Fine. I agree to your terms. But know this, Dad: I will escape. I will find a way to get out from under your control, away from Thomas, and I will live my life my way. I don't have any other options right now, but...someday? Someday I will."
"You say escape as if I'm taking
you prisoner, Evangeline."
"That's because you are."
He snorted. "Don't be dramatic, child," he said. "Besides, you can walk away, if you really feel that way. I've given you a little money. Enough to last you a while, if you're careful."
He was right. But...five thousand dollars? Would that even rent me an apartment? What would I do after that was gone? I had no work experience whatsoever, and currently didn't even have a degree. Without Father's money to finish the degree and his connections, I'd be utterly lost. I knew I was spoiled; I didn't know how to even go about getting a job, not really, and I knew if I tried to strike out on my own, I would...well, I would fail.
Better to plot long term. Get the degree. Cultivate my own connections. Plan. And then, someday, walk away from it all.
"You agree, then?" Father asked. "No more petulance or rebelliousness?"
I sighed, holding back tears. "You know I have no real options."
Father had the audacity to actually clap, laughing. "Very good, very good. I'll inform Thomas. The wedding should take place...let's see..." he consulted the calendar on his desk blotter, "in two weeks. That should give you plenty of time to trim down your figure a touch, which, let's be honest, has suffered some, as of late." He said this with unthinking ease, as if he hadn't just twisted the knife in my back, but added another and poured acid on the wounds.
I managed to hold back the tears until I was back at my dorm.
11
Baxter
* * *
I was at the boxing gym I trained at, hammering my frustrations out on the heavy bag, when Corin walked in, his undercut ponytail tied up in a man-bun. He slouched against the wall near the heavy bag, tugging his earbuds out of his ear.
"Hey, tool, nice man-bun." I shot a grin at him as I grabbed the bag to stop its wobbling spin.
"Nice face, fucker," Corin threw back, stuffing his phone and earbuds in his pocket.
"Don't see you around here much," I said. "What's up?"
He shrugged. "Cane is busy, Xavier is building robots and reading quantum physics, Brock and Bast are both doing shit with their women, Zane is with his new kid, and Luce is tending the bar, which is deader than a graveyard. Leaves me with dick to do, so I figured I'd come see you."
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