by Lainey Davis
Sometimes I think I’m extra crass on purpose just as an added ‘fuck you’ to my prim mother. I shake my shoulders and shove the door open, adjusting my grip on the gift bag I’m carrying, and wincing a little as I climb the steps. I’m not sure if it was the run or the rough sex that’s left me tender, but I’m not looking forward to the group run tomorrow if this keeps up.
At least I know my clit’s not broken.
I hear the Stag family before I even slide open the door to the remodeled loft space. Emma’s husband designed this place and did most of the work with his brothers. Which of course means that I helped with a lot of the work, too, because I knew how to do all this stuff. I smile, remembering those late nights with the Brothers Stag and Emma, giving each other shit and working together toward a common goal. As far as I’m concerned, those are my family memories. The ones that make me feel good.
I met Emma in college, at the very beginning of my quest to shed my family. She was also working to overcome her family’s restrictive treatment of her epilepsy, and I really feel like the two of us grew up together, becoming confident women who make our own decisions. My mom used to complain when her friends achieved something, would hiss about how they probably cheated some system. When Emma got her book published and started winning awards, I was the first person in line with a paperback copy for an autograph.
When she got pregnant unexpectedly and wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, I helped her make a fucking spreadsheet so she could come to her own conclusions.
I catch myself smiling at the sight inside. Emma’s husband and their two kids, his brothers and all their zillion kids are building a tower from magnetic blocks. Tim’s oldest kid, Petey, keeps kicking the tower over. “Little jerk,” I mutter, adding my gift bag to the heap.
Emma catches sight of me and runs over, pulling me in for a hug like it’s been months since we’ve seen each other. She’s the only person who ever embraces me like this, really folds into the hug. Ladies don’t squeeze, darling, my mother used to say when I’d try to hug her if I was upset.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Emma says. “I know these big family dinners aren’t your favorite.”
I shrug. “They’re growing on me,” I tell her, honestly. Emma still has hold of my hands and cocks her head to the side, pondering something.
“Were you limping just now? Walking?”
“Ugh.” I roll my eyes. “I’ve been training for that marathon thing Tim is making me run.” At the sound of his name, my boss extracts himself from the heap of children and heads toward me.
“Nicole! Did I hear you mention the marathon?” Tim and his brothers have probably run ten miles this morning before the party. That thought leads me to think about Isaac running with his brothers, and then my mind wanders back to my kitchen last night and I realize I shouldn’t be at a kids’ party with my filthy brain.
“I’m working up to the four mile training run tomorrow,” I tell him, gratefully accepting the cocktail Emma hands me. One reason I tolerate the Stags so well is they offer cocktails, even at baby parties. Tim frowns at the drink.
“It’s very important that we beat Beltane,” he says, gesturing at my drink. “I can have Tyrion send you the meal plan he made for us when my brothers and I were training for the full marathon.”
I glare daggers at Tim and gulp down the drink. “Look, boss, I know your brother is a professional athlete and his wife is an olympian, but that’s not me.” I reach for one of the pastries sitting on the counter and bite into it. “I’m going to give this my best, but I’m not eating kale.”
“Well then, you’re not giving it your best, are you?” He crosses his arms. I can tell Tim and I are about to launch into a scold-a-thon, but we’re interrupted by Emma’s parents floating over to us.
Her parents and mine have gotten along swimmingly since Emma and I met in the dorms, which shows what I think of her parents. To be fair, Emma and her mom have been really working on their relationship since she got with Thatcher. I clench my entire body as her mom leans in for cheek kisses. “Nicole, you look radiant,” she says.
“Thank you, Mrs. Cheswick. You look like the very definition of a glamorous grandma.” She pinches her lips as Senator Cheswick chuckles.
He reaches out for a handshake and then frowns. “Say,” he says, “what’s this I hear about trouble with your property?”
“I’m not sure this is the place for—“ Emma’s mom starts to interrupt. But given the choice between talking about running with my boss, talking about babies with my best friend, or bitching about my yard with her dad…
“Ugh, Mr. Cheswick, I’m going to need another drink if I’m going to talk about the landslide.” He laughs again, like I’m not serious, and I remember that Emma also comes from a house where real emotions were discouraged. “I’ve been stressed as fuck about my yard, frankly,” I say, watching Mrs. Cheswick’s eyes bulge out of her head.
Running with Isaac and banging Isaac were the two moments in over a week where I wasn’t on the brink of hyperventilating that my yard was going to slide into the river and cost me two lifetimes worth of savings to get back.
I raise my eyebrows and take a sip of my drink, and give him the bare details of my situation. He scratches his chin. “You got an engineer on the job? I probably know a guy…”
“Let me guess,” I tell him, sucking on an ice cube. “You know the folks from Beltane Engineering?”
He nods, grinning. “Mick and I go way back,” he says. I remember what Isaac told me about his father collecting wives and I frown.
“Well, Mick’s youngest son, Isaac, is handling the repair for me and I guess for my neighbor, even though I can’t stand the old bat.”
Emma’s dad frowns and fiddles with his tie. “Landslides…gosh, Nicole, that’s going to be expensive to repair.”
I crunch down on the ice and nod. “Can I be really honest right now,” I tell him, knowing I’m only going to be half honest because the real me would give his wife a heart attack. “I don’t want to talk about money at my best friend’s son’s birthday party.”
I excuse myself, and they look relieved, as I make my way back to the living room to watch a sticky toddler open his birthday presents. I nod toward Maddie, who mouths nice rack to me, and I laugh. I try to tamp down the feelings of fear that Isaac and his lawyer won’t be able to find someone responsible for the landslide costs, that the city will condemn my house and I’ll be tossed out on the street.
Maddie’s right about my rack. I try to focus on how good I feel in another one of the fancy bras while I watch the little Stag open his gifts.
Wesley makes his way to my bag, and I allow myself a smug moment of happiness when he squeals about the plain red playground ball I brought him. “Wish we could roll it around in my back yard, kid,” I mutter.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Zack
CAL AND LIAM meet me by the running trail early on Sunday morning. The two of them aren’t saddled with a beginner for the group run, but all of us are used to running way more than the four miles scheduled for today’s group run. We can get in at least six miles before the crowds arrive, if we hurry.
I park next to Cal and interrupt him and Liam arguing about their living arrangements.
“I don’t get why you don’t want to move in with Granny,” Cal says, smacking Liam’s ass when he bends to stretch his hamstrings. “She’ll feed us and she won’t hear you coming in with your special company.”
Liam kicks Cal in the ankle, making him hop on one foot in pain. “First of all, she won’t feed us because she doesn’t cook anymore, which you’d know if you visited more often.” They’re talking about our dad’s Irish mother, who lives alone in Dad’s childhood home that he refuses to sell. Granny is almost 90, grouchy as Liam, and neither dad nor Uncle Kellen can convince her to downgrade to a senior living arrangement.
Callum has been pushing Liam to end the lease on their bachelor pad so they can move in with our grandmother
and maybe get some contractors in there to at least keep the squirrels out of the chimney.
Liam continues, saying, “and you’re nuts if you think I’d be bringing special company into that drafty old house with my grandmother home.”
I grunt my agreement with Liam. Cal is the ladies’ man among us. I sniff and adjust my shirt, hoping my mannerisms don’t give away the fact that I’ve had my own special company this week. Normally, I view my runs with my brothers as a time to escape the frustrations of work, but all of us view engineering as part of us. Our brains are just wired to think methodically and find solutions to problems. So I break code a bit to talk about the landslide project with them.
“I could use your advice if the two of you are done fighting over Granny.” They look at me, eyes wide.
Liam snorts. “Yeah, because we’re such model citizens. We’re great at advice, Zack.” We start running west on the path, toward the old prison by the Ohio River.
“I meant engineering advice. We all know Uncle Kellen is the only Brady worth giving out life advice.” This gets a few grunts of approval and we run three abreast up the path, hopping around small patches of black ice. Nobody else is out this way, and the group runs will head the opposite direction on the recreational trail.
I tell my brothers about the landslide and my conversation with Jared. “I’ve combed through blueprints for the major construction projects nearby,” I say, “but nothing seems off.”
“Yeah, because the plans are made by engineers,” Liam spits out. “Who did the actual construction on each of the sites?”
Liam is a structural engineer. While he works mostly on bridge projects throughout the city and with industrial clients in the region, he knows a lot about the local construction firms and the ones who cross their t’s and dot their i’s.
I try to picture the list of projects near Nicole’s house. “I think Kellinger did a few. Rothermel definitely did one. I’d have to look.”
“If any of them are Meyer, you should send one of my inspectors out to look at the work,” he says, explaining that he recently found a number of potentially deadly errors on a bridge repair work that the Meyer company had completed. “Without my guys checking, we could have had a 20-ton crane collapse, spilling god knows what chemicals. God. I hate sloppy work.” He spits off to the side of the path in frustration, then unzips his top layer.
As the sun comes out from behind a cloud, I can tell it’s going to be warm by the time our group run finishes. I wish I had layered up like Liam. “I’ll take a look. Thanks, brother.”
They return to bickering about what to do about our grandmother, wondering why she won’t just go move in with Uncle Kellen, since he lives alone in a much smaller house in a nearby neighborhood.
By the time we reach the prison, turn around, and run back to where we started, the corporate teams for the group run have begun to gather. Orla flips me the bird when she sees us.
“Thanks a lot, assholes,” she says, gesturing toward our dad. “I’ve had to listen to at least six of his long stories so far. Why didn’t you tell me you were pre-gaming?”
I’m about to apologize for leaving her out, when my dad catches my eye and gestures for me to come over to him. “Zack, great. I want you to come meet someone.”
He starts pulling me over toward the Stag Law crew. Nicole is pouting by her boss and some other guys I assume work with them at the law firm. Her eyes widen as she sees me coming toward them with my dad. “Tim, Ms. Kennedy, I want you to meet my youngest son. Zack’s going to come with us when we head to Paraguay.”
Nicole and I both whip our heads toward Dad. “What?” We say at once. Dad laughs. “Trust me,” he says. “This is a good idea. I want to tell you some of the ideas I had about our meeting with El Presidente.”
Tim looks like he’s not quite sure what to say to this new information and he frowns, considering. I don’t blame him. From what I understand, this trip is a big opportunity for his firm to help establish a charitable foundation with one of their baseball player clients. Dad doesn’t miss a beat, though. He claps Tim on the back.
“Why don’t the four of us grab some brunch after this run and we can talk it over.”
Nicole crosses her arms over her chest as the run leader picks up the bullhorn and starts his cheery welcome speech. “Tim, don’t you have family dinner on Sunday afternoons? With your pregnant wife?”
He considers this as we start following the crowd toward the starting place for the run. “Hm,” Tim says. “It’s true, Mick. I’ve got some family obligations today. But you know what, I trust Nicole to run point on this. Plus she knows Zack already! You three go talk it out and brief me later.” Tim claps Nicole on the back. “For now, though,” he says, grinning, “I’ve got to pound out some miles to make sure Old Man Brady eats my dust in the relay.”
Dad and Tim laugh and take off at a quick pace, talking about who knows what. Nicole looks at me like this is somehow my fault. “You’re absolutely not coming along on my business trip,” she says. “For one thing, you’ve got to fix my damn yard.”
“Now who’s telling who what to do,” I tease. The fact that she doesn’t want me to come along makes me decide I’m going to Paraguay now no matter what.
“It’s whom,” she says, not looking at me as she takes off toward the 16th Street Bridge. I guess we’re not going to talk about Friday night.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Nicole
I RUN THE entire four miles without stopping, and I want to celebrate that fact with Isaac, but I’m too pissed off about him and his father sabotaging my trip to Paraguay. Tim Stag hired me to strategize the future of his law firm, and I can’t do that when he’s looping in golf buddies behind my back and having them bring their damn kids along on my information gathering trips for our clients.
Throughout the entirety of the run, my thoughts alternated between remembering Friday night and the way I feel strangled by Tim lately. He’s not listening to me at work and, worse, he’s making decisions without consulting me at all. I realize my miles were achieved in part thanks to my anger, and marvel that my head is feeling a bit clearer by the time we reach the turn-around point.
Isaac seemed as surprised by his father’s antics as me, so at least there’s that. I can hear him keeping pace right behind me throughout our run, and it drives me bananas that he doesn’t say anything to me. I want him to pick a fight, say something annoying, drag me by the ponytail off into the bushes and fuck me again.
Ok, where did that last part come from? My thighs are burning as I speed up for the final stretch of our run, trying and failing to forget how it felt to spend time with him on Friday, to wrestle with his long, firm body in my kitchen until he had me screaming and panting for more.
Isaac’s dad stands in the parking lot clapping his hands and cracking gum as we run up to him. “Is my son talking to you about your stride, Nicole? I know you’re the competition and all, but he’s also supposed to be coaching you here on these group runs.”
“My stride?” I look over at Zack, confused.
He stares daggers at his father. “We just got past breath work, Dad. I’m not going to dump everything on her at once.”
“What the hell is wrong with my stride?” Does he mean the way I’m moving my legs? God, are there things to change about that? Who are these people that they think they can stand there and watch me run and talk about my legs moving?
Mick Brady squints at his son, thinks for a minute, and shakes his head. “Zack’s right, honey. I’m sure you’ll get to talking about footwork eventually.”
“I’m not your honey,” I huff at him. And then I remember that he’s a friend of my boss and I suck a breath in through my teeth. I ought to be using that ‘in through the nose and out through the mouth’ breathing method Isaac talks about when we’re working hard. “I prefer Nicole or Ms. Kennedy.”
Mick nods. “My bad, my bad. Let’s head over to Mulligan’s. We can walk. They’ve got great eggs.
” He starts off toward a dingy looking diner near the 16th Street bridge, and I’m surprised. He seems like the kind of man who’d hire a driver to take us to the William Penn or something more glamorous. Something serving alcohol at least.
When we get inside, Mick greets the hostess familiarly and Isaac stews, silently. We sit, the two of them opposite me at a small booth, and Mick orders rounds of orange juice for the table. “We all need the sugar after a long run,” he says. “You get your miles in before the group run, son?”
My eyes widen as Isaac nods. They chat, apparently having all run about 10 miles today altogether. Here I was feeling so proud to run four without stopping to rest. And here I was feeling proud that I didn’t pass out this time. Apparently I’m in over my head in both athletics and business lately.
We order our breakfasts, and Mick chastises his son for getting extra sausage, facing toward me and saying, “My boys never listen to me about healthy foods. The older two at least have their mother to influence them a bit. This one thinks I’m full of shit.”
Isaac points a fork at his father and retorts, “First of all, you are full of shit, and second, I can eat sausage once a week. I’m not going to clog my arteries.”
I frown, focusing back on what Mick said about Cal and Liam’s mom. I remember what Zack said, about not seeing his mom since he was a baby. My own mother would have fainted if she saw me order an omelet with the yolks in it, let alone a side of bacon. In front of men, no less.
Mick leans back and presses his lips together. “Hmm,” he says. “Guess he probably didn’t tell you about his mother when he was surveying your rotational landslide.” I open my mouth to correct him, but Mick charges on ahead. “Thing is, Ms. Kennedy, I make better decisions about engineering than I do about my personal life.”
“Dad, we don’t need to talk about this.”
Mick waves a hand at his son and tries to bat away the toast Isaac is buttering. “It’s white bread, son. This stuff will kill you! Look at your grandfather.” Mick turns toward me. “Zack’s mother thought having a baby would help our relationship. She…she wasn’t cut out to be anyone’s parent.” Zack looks like he’s going to snap his butter knife in half, slathering the butter and smashing the bread to pieces in the process. “She skipped town not too long after Zack was born. He grew up coming to work with me most of the time. That’s what gave him such an edge as an engineer, I think.”