“Ask her about the fascinators.”
This time, she did shoot Bing a look. A warning glare.
“The what?” Brody’s brows rose over his sunglass frames.
Too bad the terrain around their charming, single-family neighborhood was flat. If there were hills, she could pretend she was too out of breath to respond. “It’s nothing. Drea wants us all to wear hats to the ceremony.”
“Why would Bing know about that?”
She waved a hand. “I don’t know. We crossed paths a few days ago. It came up.”
Brody went silent and so, uncharacteristically, did she.
Maybe she should just spill the truth. He’d sympathize with her feelings about her cousin. From the first, she and Brody had clicked. The morning he came across her in her driveway inspecting her car’s flat rear tire, she’d not hesitated to accept his help. That evening, she’d brought over a plate of cookies as payback. He’d invited her in for a beer, they’d had a couple on his back patio, and she’d found in him that guy-buddy that was the staple of many women’s dreams.
Patient and funny, Brody would serve up his male opinion whenever asked. She’d spilled some about her miserable high school years, her horrid first dates in college, the jerk who’d taken her virginity as well as the final paper she’d just completed for the history course they were both taking.
She didn’t have a great track record when it came to men, obviously, since said track record was capped off with Nico’s defection.
Brody had pointed that out, but in the kindest way possible.
He was a great listener.
So why did she hesitate to tell him about the plan to use his brother as her wedding escort?
Because it was old business. A done deal before it even had a chance to get started.
“Any upcoming social plans?” Brody asked now.
“All of us in Drea’s bridal party have a happy hour to attend Monday.” She upped her speed as if she could outrun the idea of it. “You?”
“Not sure. I might be going out of town again,” Brody said.
Bing cleared his throat. “I got nothing going.”
She stumbled, and she sensed him reaching for her arm. Righting herself, she managed to avoid his touch. What did his “I got nothing going” mean? Was it a signal that he expected to attend her obligation with her?
Now he came up on her other side, and she was the jelly to the Maddox men sandwich. Daring a peek at him, she read nothing in his expression.
“I thought you were booked, the usual stuff plus heading into the Canyon for that consult,” Brody said to his brother.
“I’m not committed to work day and night,” he replied.
“The owner still want to scrape the two places and build one larger house?”
“Yep. He saw what we did for the Seabergs in Malibu.”
Alexa had seen it too. Victor Seaberg had bought three sequential 1940s-era bungalows on one of the famous stretches of sand there and replaced them with a single home of monster mansion-proportions. It was an attractive design, but big. “Don’t you ever feel bad about it?” she mused aloud. “Those beach houses had history to them…and allowed three families to enjoy the view. Now…”
Both twins stared at her.
“I’m just saying…” She brushed the dampness off her forehead with the back of her hand. “You guys grew up in Laurel Canyon. How do you feel about changes like your client is proposing?”
They were still staring at her, and she didn’t get it. Early on, Brody had told her about the place where they grew up. A huge compound in the canyon, which held a house for each of the members of the Velvet Lemons, the famous band of their father. She’d visited it herself a couple of times not that long ago, when eight of the nine collective kids of the Lemons—now all grown up—had reunited.
“It’s a beautiful place,” she said, weirded out by the way they were looking at her.
Then they shifted their gazes to each other, only for a second, before they directed their attention to the road ahead. “We’re not sentimental men,” Bing said.
Brody added, “There’s a lot of ugly beneath the most beautiful things.”
Oh-kay. The unsentimental part—she should have known that. They had a younger sister, Cilla, and despite the fact that their mother was long dead and their father, Mad Dog Maddox, was currently on a world tour, the twins had gone for extended periods of time without visiting with her or with the other Velvet Lemon kids. That seemed to be changing, though, because Cilla was now together with Ren Colson, another of the Lemon progeny. The couple seemed intent on bringing the tribe back together. Still, what was that about the ugliness beneath the beauty?
“So…back to this happy hour…” Bing began.
Alexa’s thoughts were instantly derailed, as she switched to worrying that he’d bring up that was-it-on-was-it-off arrangement they had. Panicked by the idea, she came to an abrupt stop. The twins ran ahead a few steps, then made identical turns. “What?” they said together.
For a second she studied them. Their hair was wet around the edges of their identical hairlines. They had an identical sweat stains on their T-shirts between their identical pectoral muscles. But it was Bing’s gaze she felt on her skin, making it hot enough to dry the dampness there. Clearing her throat, she spoke to Brody, the safer option. “I need to cut my run short today.”
He always went another couple of miles after she turned back anyway.
“Are you all right?” Bing asked.
She flashed a fake smile. “Awesome. Just a boatload of work to do.” Turning, she jogged off with a wave of her hand. “Later.”
To her dismay, the sound of shoes slapping on asphalt followed her. She didn’t need to look to know it was Bing who fell into step with her. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Pulled muscle?”
“Uh, thirsty,” she improvised, thinking of the corner ahead. She could turn there and hit the deli at the end of the block. The refrigerator section carried bottles of cold water and would be happily Maddox men-free.
Except when she made the direction-shift, Bing stayed in step.
“I don’t need an escort,” she protested.
“I thought that’s exactly what we agreed I’d be.”
Heat flashed over her again as she pushed through the glass doors of the small shop. The air conditioned cold raised chills on her skin. “I…I wasn’t sure you were still, um, interested.”
“A bunch of baby pictures and some shop talk isn’t going to scare me off.”
But it was she who was scared! That was the truth. There’d been that wild kiss in the kitchen that had so rattled her the next thing she knew she was talking about her dateless teens and her rejected valentines. She’d been forced to run to the kitchen before making some other mortifying confession.
I’ve had the biggest crush on you since your brother introduced us.
It had been a month or so after she’d started hanging out with Brody. Bing had come breezing into his brother’s house, no knock, no warning, and it was as if he’d barged straight into her sexual fantasies. From that moment on, he’d starred in them. Detailed fantasies that she was helpless to shut off. Fantasies in which she was helpless against the onslaught of his touch, his mouth, him.
Such vivid, powerful, fantasies that she often awoke to tangled sheets and her hand pressing hard between her legs.
When they occurred at night. Sometimes she’d wander into hot daydreams while she was staring at her computer and she’d have to force herself up and out into the fresh air, blowing out breaths to clear the sexual fog from her head.
“Why don’t you want Brody to know?”
Alexa realized she was gazing blankly at the rows of clear bottles, her mind on other things. She wrapped her fingers around the closest water.
“Lex?”
She shrugged, not knowing what to answer. “I told you. I feel foolish about needing a date.” That was the best explanation she had to give either of them.
Until the truth whispered through her head. Though she hurried toward the cashier, she knew she couldn’t outrun the truth. Because if I tell your brother he’ll try to talk me out of it.
Bing pushed through the door of B&B Construction, as always experiencing a burst of satisfaction. When he and Brody had stuffed clothes in a couple of backpacks and left the compound the day after they turned eighteen, their only goal had been to get the hell out.
Of course, they’d yet to learn that even if the band’s notoriety and debauchery didn’t dog them out the door, their own memories couldn’t be outrun. They’d lived out of their cars at first, signing up as day laborers. Hard work and sweat had actually been a balm of sorts, or maybe they’d just been too tired at the end of the day to dwell on the ugly ending to an adolescence filled with all kinds of unhealthy excess. Then they’d taken semi-permanent positions on a construction crew that specialized in rehabbing beach cottages and a dream had been born.
The two kids who as children had escaped home to build their own places and spaces amongst the canyon’s oaks and eucalyptus had found an adult outlet for their imagination and ingenuity.
Years later, they had their own business, with a portfolio to be proud of and glowing referrals that kept them busy during every season. As he breezed through the reception area, he noted a photo of their latest project had been hung next to the string of others. The photographer had taken a shot of the Seaberg place from offshore, so the blue water of Santa Monica Bay and a golden stretch of Malibu sand were included.
Another new frame caught his eye and he paused, a smile tugging at his lips. Cilla, he thought. His sweet little sister, Cilla. She’d been sorting the belongings of the late Gwendolyn Moon, infamous rock ‘n’ roll groupie who’d lived in a cottage at the Laurel Canyon compound where she’d also served as a mother of sorts to the Lemons’ nine children.
After Gwen’s recent death from cancer, Ren Colson, band member String Bean’s eldest son, discovered she’d left him a stash of photos dating back to their childhoods. The man was oddly silent on the subject, but Cilla occasionally shared special finds. This was one, Bing suspected. It showed him and Brody, age twelve or so, standing at the base of a treehouse they’d constructed deep in the fissures of the canyon behind the compound.
He remembered that particular structure well. They’d made an actual staircase instead of a simple ladder ascent. A rope and bucket stood at the ready to haul up supplies. A railed sleeping porch was big enough for two bags.
There, they’d sought refuge from the parties, the noise, the general chaos of the Velvet Lemons lifestyle. It had eventually caught up with them, but Bing and his twin had been relative innocents when this photograph was taken.
Still smiling, he strode into the hall that led to the conference room, drafting room, and the generous-sized offices that belonged to him and Brody. Out of nowhere, his brother appeared, big hands slamming against his shoulders to shove Bing against the wall.
He hit with a thud that rattled the windows. “What—”
“That’s my question.” Brody stared at him through furious eyes. “What the hell are you doing with Lex?”
“Uh—”
“Don’t try to deny it. Roberto and Jim saw you two at the deli. They said it looked cozy.”
“Roberto and Jim are gossipy old ladies. You know how drywallers are.” Plumbers kept to themselves, carpenters bragged unceasingly about their sexual exploits, but the guys who put up the sheetrock, taped the seams, then spread the mud talked nonstop about everybody and everything. “We were getting some water. No big deal.”
Bing figured he didn’t owe his bro any more than that, though, shit, he hadn’t even noticed the other men in the small store. When Alexa was around, his focus narrowed to a single fine point.
Brody backed off, but his expression remained suspicious. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“So we’re into sharing secrets now?” Bing crossed his arms over his chest. “Then I expect a full report on your latest pleasure trip.”
His brother muttered something ugly.
He sighed. They each had their own manner of dealing when darkness crept up from the depths of their souls. Bing would head to the soundproof basement room at his old house in the compound and beat the shit out of the skins on his drum kit until he’d lost a gallon of sweat and all the feeling in his fingers. Brody would…
Well, Bing wasn’t entirely sure, but certainly it involved Brody dragging his good-twin angel wings through some very grimy gutters.
As his brother frowned, the tired lines around his eyes deepened. “You’re doing nothing with Lex?”
Bing hesitated. Flat-out lying to a twin—there were unwritten rules about the practice. And rules about something else, too. His belly tightened. “You’re not trying to tell me you want her for yourself, are you?”
“No! God. We’re just friends.”
Bing exhaled the breath he’d been holding.
“That doesn’t mean I’m not watching out for her.”
He cleared his throat. “Maybe I want to watch out for her too.”
Brody stepped close again. “Damn it—”
“She’s struggling with the upcoming wedding,” he said quickly, then sketched out her mood that day in the kitchen. Though she’d said she didn’t want his brother to know, he didn’t consider it betraying a confidence since she’d thought she was spilling to Brody in the first place. “She needs somebody at her back.”
“Then I’ll do it.”
“Somebody at her back who is less like a brother and more like a lover.”
At that last word, Brody’s eyes narrowed, displeasure obviously kindling again. “I don’t like this.”
“It’s a good deed!”
“Yeah. So why would you volunteer for the job?”
“Jesus. Thanks a lot.” Bing frowned. “While I might not be like you, Mostly-a-Saint Maddox, I can still do a woman a favor.”
“We learned what can happen when you do that,” Brody muttered.
His gut bubbled with the byproducts of anger and guilt. “That wasn’t all me.”
“Shit.” Brody looked away. “I know. I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to hurt Lex.”
“She knows me,” Bing said, hating how defensive he sounded. “Surely she knows what to expect—er, not to expect.” Brushing past his brother, he made his way to his office.
As he dropped into his chair, he was aware that Brody had followed him. His brother stood in the doorway, arms overhead, fingers curled around the upper jamb. “Look,” he said. “You can understand my worry.”
“Maybe not. She’s a grown woman.”
“She’s a babe in the woods,” Brody countered. “Take, for example, how she’s romanticized the whole canyon thing. You know she’s imagining it was campfires with ‘Kumbaya’ sing-alongs and Velvet Lemons s’mores parties.”
“You could tell her how it really was,” Bing suggested, then instantly wanted to snatch the words back. How would Alexa look at him if she learned the whole truth?
“Not a good idea.”
“Yeah,” Bing replied, relieved.
“So do me a favor,” his twin said.
“What kind?”
Brody narrowed his eyes. “How often do I ask for a favor?”
“Fine, fine,” Bing said, waving a hand.
“Swear you won’t touch her.”
Don’t touch her? Bing stared. Fuck. Fuck. Touching her was the whole point! It was the means to the end of slaking this inconvenient lust. It was why he’d volunteered to go to a goddamn wedding. Idiot that he was, he’d walked right into that one.
“Bing.” His brother’s eyes narrowed even more, until they were sharp shards of blue glass. “Swear.”
Hell. He rubbed the tightening muscles at the back of his neck. Maybe he could have worked up a refusal to his twin’s request. But his conscience was yammering at him too. For some damn reason it had never been completely squelched despit
e everything he’d seen and everything he’d done.
“All right.” On a sigh, he closed his eyes, weary already although the day had just begun. “No touching. I swear.”
Chapter Four
Alexa hummed to herself as she entered the Canyon Country Store, located at Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Kirkwood. While parking, she’d noticed tourists across the street whipping out their cell phones to immortalize The Love House, made infamous by The Doors’ Jimmy Morrison who’d once lived there. Inside the store there was more evidence of the famous folk who claimed canyon-dwelling status. Besides several photos of the Velvet Lemons, there were autographed shots of The Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Avett Brothers, and the latest boy band from the UK. Other memorabilia included hand-annotated pages of screenplays of hit movies penned by residents. Costume pieces worn by A-list actors hung on the walls too, donated by the celebrities who appreciated that the shopkeeper dedicated some of his limited shelf space to their favorite products: Cristal champagne in the coolers and The Times out of London on the newsstand.
Squeezing past the line at the deli section, she made her way to the back where she found a rotating rack of greeting cards, something she remembered from an earlier visit. Driving from her house to the Velvet Lemons compound, she’d decided to bring something besides the green salad Cilla Maddox, Brody and Bing’s sister, had asked her to contribute to Sunday lunch.
As she perused the selection, she had to shake her head. The offerings were more than the usual birthday and anniversary acknowledgements. There was a card wishing the receiver congratulations on the firing of an agent. Another was a semi-humorous warning about the dangers of palimony. Yet another read “Happy Divorce!” in multi-colored glitter.
Quickly spinning the rack, she found a more appropriate card. The inside expressed the right sentiment. The outside was colored in sunny hues that matched her mood.
Purchase made, it didn’t take long for her to reach the piece of property where Bing and Brody and the other kids had grown up. She’d visited a few times before, yet still the place amazed her. As the gates opened, it felt as if she was entering a different world. The urban streets of L.A. seemed far, far away. The only sounds were the birds rustling in the well-maintained shrubbery, their lively twitters and chirps cheerful noise. An oversized turquoise pool was a centerpiece of sorts, with a charming pool house and a fruit orchard as backdrop. Sitting in separate corners of the expansive estate were four houses: the quaint cottage that had been Gwendolyn Moon’s, as well as the abodes of the band members. The Colson ranch-styled mansion, the Hopkins place that was modern to the extreme, and the Maddox home. It tickled her to think of the rough-and-tough twins tumbling in and out of a very real-looking castle.
Love Her Madly Page 4