by Emilia Finn
“And a Tosky dating a Kincaid?”
I snort. “Is the worst possible disgrace in their eyes.”
“So, you’re… what? You’re going to deny us? You’re going to pretend today didn’t happen?” He shakes me. “You’d choose family that doesn’t give a shit about love, just appearances, rather than…”
“What?” I snap. “Rather than what?”
“Me! I can share my family with you, Maddi. We have a lot of love to share.”
“Share your… love? Bryan! We met a week ago!”
“So what? You need to give us a chance, Madilyn. You have to give me time to prove myself to you.”
“Prove what?” I cry. “You’re a casual hookup. You’re my proverbial bad boy, my teenage rebellion. You were handy, horny, and right there. This was a thing of convenience, Bry. And I guess after watching you fighting last night, I was riding adrenaline and craziness. I gave into impulse, and—”
He slams his lips over mine and swallows my words. I hate that tears squeeze through my lashes. I hate that my heart skips and swells. And I hate even more that I wish I didn’t have to go home.
“You’re a really bad liar.” He pulls back to rest his brow on mine. “If it was adrenaline, we’d have fucked in the car. If it was craziness, we’d have fucked when you switched pants and I saw your ass.” He grins. “No, Turdsky, we waited, we slept together. Actual sleep, no touchy.” He brings his hands up to cup my neck. “You ate breakfast with me. Introduced yourself to my mom.”
“You did that,” I grumble.
“And then you hung out with me all day, played X-Box while we washed your clothes, and you pretended you weren’t procrastinating as your phone blew up.”
“I hate you.”
He chuckles. “And now you’re right here, still touching me, begging me to demand you stay.”
“I don’t want to go home,” I admit. “You’re right, I don’t want to go. Because when I do, I have to tell them where I was. My father will mentally rearrange his will. My stepmother will try to be my hip, cool girlfriend. Word will spread faster than bushfire in a drought-stricken country. Everyone will know my business, and then I’ll be made to feel guilty for something I don’t want to regret.”
Finally, he accepts my words as truth and plops a gentle kiss on my lips. “No matter what happens with them, you always have a home with me. You don’t need a trust fund, Maddi. You don’t need judgmental asswipes telling you to feel bad for something you shouldn’t have to feel bad for. So…” He chews on his bottom lip while he thinks. “Why not stay right here for the next couple hours? Enjoy dinner, and learn how we, the trailer trash, interact over the dinner table.”
“Don’t tell them I said that,” I plead. “Please don’t tell them that thing about trailer trash. I was only telling you what I’d heard.”
“It’s okay.” He crushes me against his chest for a long hug. Presses his lips to the crown of my head. Then he pulls away and leads me over the lawn of the yard at the top of the estate. “This will be like a cultural experience for you.” Now he’s teasing. “No cloth napkins. No heels. And people will probably talk with their mouths full.”
“Uncivilized.”
He bursts out with a loud laugh, leads us through the front door, and past crowds of kids. “These are all my cousins, but there are too many, so I’m not gonna tell you their names. You can learn them when it becomes relevant.”
“Er…” I clear my throat and wave to a little boy sucking on a pacifier. “Okay.”
He pulls me into the kitchen, and stops so we’re the main attraction, and dozens of grown adults stop speaking and turn to us.
I see Evie and Ben. Bean and Mac. Even Brooke, the sister that I held pre-conceived notions about. She sits beside a guy with an obvious fighter’s body – they’re easy to spot once you’ve hung around one for long enough – and the little girl. Alyssa. Kit sits toward the end of the table, and Bobby, beside her.
Kit smiles for us, and runs her gaze along the length of my body. Curiosity. Not judgment.
Finally, Bry pulls me close under his arm, and smacks an obnoxiously loud kiss on my temple. “Hey, trailer trash. We’re here.”
“Bryan!” My face burns fiery red as I elbow him so hard that I hurt myself, but I finally elicit a gasped – albeit, laughing – breath as he swings an arm down and grabs his ribs.
“Ouch!”
“Why would you do that? I begged you not to!”
“I didn’t do anything.” He laughs. “Come on in.”
He leads me around the long table filled to the brim with food. He passes a set of identical twin guys – not children, but men – and presses a kiss to Alyssa’s head as he moves behind her. He squeezes Brooke’s shoulder, and taps the back of the head belonging to the man sitting beside her. He kisses a tiny woman, and dodges a fist when Jack Reilly – his uncle – swings just for fun.
“Mom.” He stops in front of her as she stands, keeps my hand clasped tightly in his, and bends forward to press a kiss to her cheek. “Sorry we’re late. Maddi had an existential crisis in the driveway.”
“I hate you so much,” I grumble.
Kit only laughs. “It’s fine. We only just sat down. Take a seat and dig in.”
“Mrs. Kincaid.” My manners insist I step toward the woman that kind of terrifies me. I take her hand when she offers, and lean in – Awkward! So fucking awkward – and hug her. “Thank you for having me.”
“My name is Kit.” When I try to end my weird hug and pull away, she yanks me back in and changes it. From stiff, formal, and weird, to a real mom hug. She presses a kiss to my cheek and whispers, “Welcome.” Releasing me, she steps back but holds my hand. “Why don’t you sit with the real Mrs. Kincaid?”
“Hmm?” My eyes move to the older woman who sits on Bobby’s other side.
“Tell her your name, Maddi.” Kit sits so fast and clasps her hands. “Do it, I wanna see.”
“Uh…” I look into a pair of dark eyes, dark hair, beautiful, soft skin, and a kind smile.
This is her. This is the woman I was convinced was a horrible harlot with no morals.
She turns to me, stands when I say nothing. And when the whole room stops breathing and waits, she looks around in search of the punchline. “I don’t get it.”
“You didn’t tell her?” Bry asks.
Bobby shakes his head and grins like the Cheshire cat. “We voted on it, and decided we’d prefer to watch it live.”
“What is going on?” With a huff, the woman lifts her chin and stares straight into my eyes. “Hello, sweetheart. I don’t understand the undercurrents. But since every single person I’m related to is rude, I guess I’ll introduce myself. Nelly Kincaid. And you…” She smiles. “Seem to be very much attached to my grandson. He’s cute, ain’t he?”
“Um…” The pressure. The pressure! “Yes, ma’am. Hello. I’m Madilyn.”
“Finish it,” Evie coughs. “Say it all.”
Nelly watches me with curiosity burning in her eyes.
“Um…” Oh god. “Madilyn… Tosky. I heard you might have known my grandfather.”
Her eyes widen. “Oh shit.”
I slept in Bryan’s home last night. That’s two nights in a row. Same panties. Same clothes… well, except for the eight or so hours I wore nothing at all.
I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what the hell I’m thinking. I have no clue how the hell I ended up with a man I despised just two days ago. A man that I was willing and ready to fuck over however I could manage it.
Now it’s like I’m living in an alternate universe. My blood seems to pump differently, my brain works differently. My feelings have taken a full one-eighty, and now I feel myself wishing I was born into a different family.
Knowing that I answer to no one – well, except my father and grandfather – I wait at Bryan’s home until after breakfast, then, at just before nine, I race back to my house, get changed, whip my hair back into a neat bun, don a pair of heels, t
hen I roar across town in my car and pull up at my office. I’m only fifteen minutes late, but I have a billion unread texts, more emails, and dozens of missed phone calls.
I essentially went missing on Saturday night and told no one where I was. Not my dad, not my stepmother, with her ‘Hey, girlfriend. I just wanted to check in on you’ texts. I ignored Jackson’s calls, I ignored Jenna’s. The only person I replied to was Chrissy, and that’s because she, like I, so rarely participates in the family bitching.
We were both weakened by alcohol when this all began. We were suckered into talking shit. But usually, we keep our traps shut and do our best to work hard and blaze our own trails of success.
She was smarter than me, going to medical school and learning something I never could. In some circles, my job might be considered kind of cool, but I work for the Tosky empire. I didn’t do shit except ride coattails.
I’m so ashamed.
Slamming my car door shut and jogging toward the stairs, I start up at a fast clip, race through the front reception door and wave at my assistant, then I dart along the hall past the rest of my team.
Shoving my office door open and prematurely celebrating my stealth and victory, I spring back with a shriek when I find Jackson standing by the large windows.
He wears a suit, has his hands tucked into the pockets, and watches me through a blackened eye that looks as fresh now as it would have hours after Bryan’s fist hit his face.
But worse, so much worse, is my dad sitting in the visitor chair, and my grandfather sitting in mine.
Three generations of Tosky and one Price stand in one room, but I’m the only one who’s surprised.
“Daddy?” My heart races fast enough that it threatens to explode. “I… uh… hooo.” I exhale an explosive breath and try to calm myself. My handbag rests in my left hand, my keys and phone in my right. So I go for normalcy and set my things down.
I place my bag in my bottom drawer. Drop my keys on top while the silence in the room threatens to suffocate me. I set my phone on the edge of my desk, then I take the second visitor chair and lift my brows. “Monday morning meeting?”
Grandpa finally meets my eyes. He might be a senior citizen now, but he was always sharp. Always forceful. Silently, he reaches out for my phone, taps the screen to bring up my screensaver. There are no missed calls. No texts. So he picks up my desk phone and dials.
So we can all see, he sets my cell down, screen-up, and lets it vibrate, vibrate, vibrate. Finally, he hangs up, waits for the screen to go black, then he taps it again and shows the one missed call.
He looks to me. “Seems to be working just fine. Tell me, Madilyn, why were our calls left to ring for the last thirty-six hours, when your phone appears to be functional and within your reach?”
“Um…” My heart thunders like a jackhammer. “I was busy.”
“For almost two days?” he demands. When he realizes he’s about to lose his shit, he looks to Jackson, who takes the hint and crosses the room to close my door.
My staff will still hear, but at least we can pretend to be civilized.
“Where were you, Madilyn?” My father turns to me, Grandpa’s twenty-years-younger twin. He meets my gaze now, and gives me those disapproving eyes I was so certain would come.
“I was with my friends.”
“Jackson and Jenna were with us,” he growls. “Do not lie to me.”
“Just because I wasn’t with them doesn’t make me a liar, Father. I have friends that weren’t specially selected by my parents.” Maybe Bry has made me braver – or stupid – but I don’t cower under the stares beating against me. “My social circles are growing, and not everyone must be approved by you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Madilyn.” He sits forward and pokes a finger between us. Maybe that’s where I learned it. That thought makes me sick. “When you represent this family, you are forbidden to associate with those who might harm our brand.”
“Our brand?” I snap. “How about we just be a family? Maybe if you were worried about my safety, we could discuss that. But you’re more concerned with the bottom line, and God forbid Mrs. Jones look down on you.”
“Why would I worry for your safety?” he asks calmly. Too calm. Too… uncaring. “You’re a grown woman, Madilyn. I cannot give you a curfew now any more than I could when you were fifteen.”
“First of all,” I snarl, “a responsible parent would have given me a curfew at fifteen. You’d have a conniption if you knew how I represented you when I was young and stupid. And second, exactly! I’m a grown woman. My friends no longer have to pass your rigorous testing to ensure they’re worthy.”
“Yes,” he growls. “They do. If you want to be one of us, if you want the lavish life you live, then you will toe the line, Madilyn. Now is not the time for your rebellion.”
“I will not be having this conversation.” I sit back and adopt that air of aloofness my father and grandfather are so good at. “This is my workplace, my office, and my staff are just twenty feet away, listening to this unprofessional bullshit.”
My swearing offends them. My father shoots back in his seat like my words are fists, and Grandpa’s eyes widen. He’s better at this game than his son.
“If you’d like to discuss my safety or happiness, then I’ll meet you at the dinner table tonight. Though, as you can see, I’m perfectly safe. If you’d like to discuss business, then by all means,” I wave a hand toward my desk, “have at it. But if you have nothing else to say, then I’d like for you to leave so I can get a little work done.”
It takes only a moment for my father to stand and fix his tie. A minute more for my grandfather to do the same.
Together, they walk out of my office without a single expression of love, contrary to the way Bryan’s grandmother smothered him last night. There are no kisses between parent and child the way Kit demanded and received from Bry last night. There are no smiles, no jokes, no good-natured ribbing. Our family contrasts are blinding, and it hurts me to know that, when I left this office on Friday, I thought like them. I considered the Kincaids trailer trash. I hated them simply because I was told to.
And now…
“Maddi.” As soon as my office door closes, Jackson crosses the room.
To create distance, I jump up from my chair and practically sprint to my side of my desk. It’s my power position. My safe place.
Resting his hands on my desk and leaning forward, Jackson studies me through his bruised eyes. “What the fuck?”
“What?” I jiggle my mouse to get my computer powering up. “How was the rest of your weekend, Jackson?”
Shaking his head, he repeats, “What the fuck? Where were you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The cops turned up, and you were gone. I didn’t know where you were, Madilyn!”
“I caught a ride with a friend.” I look up and fake a smile. “But I’m glad you got away safely. I’ve told you all along, Jackson, those racetracks are unsafe. I hope Saturday was a lesson for you.”
“Who did you ride with?” he snarls. He glides over top of everything else I said, and demands the one thing I refuse.
I’m not ashamed of being with Bryan. I’m not sorry for being a changed person now. In two days, I’ve changed from the snobbish bitch who was so easily led around by her family, to this woman. The one who’ll stand up to her family, the one who’ll protect those who need it.
I might have fallen in love with a seven-year-old author last night over dinner. I might have fallen in love with the woman my grandfather was allegedly supposed to marry, and as the stories were told while we ate, I fell in love with the man she actually married.
I too would have chosen passion and love, fire and happiness, over the staunch bullshit she was otherwise destined for. Nelly Kincaid – Robertson, back then – saw what her future held. At only seventeen-years-old, she knew her options. She knew she could go left, and end up right where I am now. Or she could go right, and create
the family that she did.
I think I fell in love with an entire clan last night, and it was done over a really long dining table while we ate delicious homemade food, prepared not by a chef, but a mom. Several moms.
And I wouldn’t know what that feels like.
“Madilyn, answer me!”
I shake my head and look back to my computer. “I will not. Because my private life is exactly that. I owe nobody an explanation.”
“You owe—” He blusters in a way that shows me a preview into life with him twenty years from now. Forty years. Fifty.
I have a chance to escape the reality that Nelly did. Because, like she was supposed to marry Shane Tosky so long ago, well, it doesn’t escape me that my family constantly pushes me toward Jackson. There’s a reason Jenna and I were pushed together. There’s a reason I was allowed to essentially live in her basement with her. There’s a reason why Jackson was ‘selected’ for me, as my prom date. And right now, as my father and his father leave my office, there’s a reason Jackson is allowed to remain behind – black eyes and all.
Because they expect him to ‘straighten me out’.
It’s handy being able to see the future. And if I’m not careful, mine is standing right in front of me in a business suit, with a bruised face, scabbed knuckles, and a problem with being told no.
“Please leave.” I flick a hand toward the door. “I have a lot of work to do, and I’m already…” I look at my watch, “half an hour late. I have to call a meeting with my staff at ten, so if you’ll excuse me, I need to prepare.”
Despite my refusal to look into his eyes, he still makes it so he comes into my peripherals. He bends lower, lower, and snarls, “If I find out you left with Kincaid, there will be trouble.”
I shrug. “I asked you once, Jackson. Don’t make me ask you a second time.”
“You did!” he roars. “You fucking did!”
Instead of answering him, or jumping at his shout, I pick up my phone and pretend to call the front desk.
“Hey, can you have security sent up?” I meet Jackson’s eyes and grin. “Great. We’ll be waiting.”