Dirty Talk

by Megan Erickson

  The female voice was softer now. “Hey, Brent.”

  He finally focused on her face. Red lips. But not Ivy’s color. Dark hair, but it didn’t feel like Ivy’s. Brown eyes. Definitely not Ivy’s.

  Stop thinking about Ivy!

  Those nails were curving around his back, sneaking under his shirt. “Hey, you wanna get out of here?”

  He wanted to fuck. That’s what he wanted to do. But he couldn’t really do that here, could he? No, that was probably a bad idea. Technically illegal.

  But he didn’t know this woman’s name. And hell, he couldn’t even really tell what her face looked like. He reached around and grabbed a handful of ass. She squealed and laughed. He smiled. Okay, so she had an ass, a nice firm one. He could work with that. “Yeah, let’s get outta here.”

  Fingers wrapped around his wrist, and then he was walking. Somehow. One foot in front of the other. The room was still moving, but at least he was moving with it. Sort of.

  They walked out into the parking lot, and the cool air shocked his heated face. He blinked at the harsh lights in the lot and shielded his eyes. “Damn fucking lights. Why they gotta make ’em so bright? Trying to tell the aliens where we are?”

  “I don’t think they’re that bright,” the woman said as she tugged him along.

  “Fucking bright,” he muttered.

  He allowed himself to be led deeper into parking lot, and that’s when he realized he hadn’t said anything to his brothers. “Oh shit, I think I gotta . . . ” His mouth went dry, and he licked his lips to try again. “I think I gotta go tell my brothers where I’m going.”

  “It’s okay,” she said, “They know where you are.”

  She let go of his wrist, and then he was jostled into a car. He heard a voice, a male one, which confused him. But Brent was in a car now, and it was vibrating and heat was coming out of the vents. And he just wanted to sleep. To sleep.

  Oh wait, he was supposed to fuck. Right?

  But sleep. Sleep first . . .

  SOMEONE WAS KICKING down his door. Or his walls. Or . . . the inside of his head.

  Brent groaned and rolled over, raising a weak fist to his temple to make sure his head was still attached to his body. Because fuck, was he in pain.

  His arm brushed something warm.

  Skin.

  And despite his head and shaky limbs, he bolted upright, the night rushing back to him—the girl, the girl, oh shit, motherfucker, the girl!

  He pulled the covers down and sleeping beside him, shirtless, was not a woman.

  Not at all.

  It was Cal.

  His brother.

  In fact, Cal snuffled a little with a snort and rolled over, snuggling himself into Brent’s hip.

  “What the fuck?” Brent pushed him away. “No cuddling when I have a hangover!”

  Cal’s eyes opened, and he blinked. “Wha—” He rubbed his face. “Shit, I fell asleep.”

  “What the hell are you doing in my bed?”

  “Making sure you didn’t die of alcohol poisoning overnight.”

  “I wouldn’t—”

  “Next time, don’t hang out with the single woman from a bachelorette party who is the last of her friends to get married. Because she will drink you under the table.”

  “But wait, didn’t—”

  “That girl was a saint. Saw you were drunk off your ass, talked to me, and helped get you out of that bar because you wouldn’t listen to us. You wanted to stay and dance and chase tail. Chase tail—that’s what you said. What are you, fucking seventy?”

  “I was drunk.” Brent winced. “Stop shouting.”

  “Stop shouting? Oh, well, I fucking recall when I was not feeling so hot, and you called my ass up and yelled into the phone and didn’t give a fuck when I told you to shut your mouth.”

  Brent rubbed his scalp. “Again with the yelling. And what do you mean she helped you? Didn’t she want to take me home and ravage me?”

  Cal stared at him. “You could barely walk, and I think you had lost motor function in the right side of your face.”

  Brent pouted. “But I’m charming and irresistible.”

  Cal rolled his eyes and rose from the bed. He raised his arms over his head and stretched his back. “Shit, that was kinda cramped. And you don’t smell as good as Jenna.”

  Brent snorted.

  “You shower, and I’ll get us some breakfast sorted, okay?”

  Brent rolled over, fishing in the pockets of his jeans on the floor beside his bed before he tossed them in the hamper. Something crinkled, and he pulled out a slip of paper. On it was the name Charlotte and a phone number. “Hey, look!” he cried triumphantly, ignoring his pounding head. “She did want to ravage me. She gave me her number!”

  Cal was halfway out the door before he froze and turned around slowly. He blinked at the piece of paper in Brent’s hand. “Are you serious?”

  Brent grinned and waved the paper.

  Cal sighed and walked out the door.

  “Told you I’m charming and irresistible!” Brent called after him.

  He plunked his head down on the mattress and groaned. Never again was he drinking that much. Even the thought of another bachelorette party made him want to dry heave.

  He slowly pulled himself to a sitting position, where he stayed for a minute, and then all the way to standing. He walked in a shuffle across his room to the bathroom. He felt seventy. On the way, he dropped the piece of paper in the trash can. He wouldn’t be calling Charlotte, even if she seemed like a nice woman who still wanted him, despite his drunkenness.

  He needed time to get over Ivy.

  Looking in the mirror, Brent checked his pale face, crazy hair, and chapped lips. He looked like roadkill warmed over, so he did as he was told and hopped in the shower, soaping up quickly. Afterward, he dried off his body and pulled on a pair of sweatpants.

  He could smell the coffee as he walked into the kitchen. Cal stood at the counter, sipping from a mug, eyes on the backyard. “I let Honeybear out and then brought her in and fed her breakfast.”

  Brent grunted at Honeybear, where she sat in the corner of the kitchen, gnawing on a rawhide. “Thanks.”

  Cal poured him a cup of coffee and set a plate of scrambled eggs down in front of him. He sat down with his own plate across from Brent and ate heartily. Brent plucked at his eggs with a fork. “So I’m thinking I need closure.”

  Cal paused eating and then resumed with his eyes on Brent. “Okay.”

  “I thought maybe it was better to just let it go, but I don’t think that’s right. I need to know . . . I need to know some things. Like that she cared and that this as hard for her as it is for me. Do you think that’s wrong?”

  Cal chewed slowly and then swallowed. “No, I don’t think that’s wrong.”

  “I don’t want to make her choose between Alex and me. I don’t want it to be about that. No matter what she does, I want it to be because that’s what she wants to do.”

  Cal put down his fork and took a sip of his coffee. “Brent.”

  He clenched his jaw, bracing for some sort of lecture. “What?”

  “I know I give you a hard time. Hell, we all do. We tease you and laugh at your jokes, but you get why I do it, right?”

  Brent wasn’t sure where this was going. “No.”

  Something flickered across Cal’s face. A little regret, maybe. “Because you’re solid. I guess I never told you enough how reliable I think you are. Max and I talked, and I get now that you felt you couldn’t talk to us about wanting to volunteer, and man, that’s been bothering the shit out me.” He sighed. “You’re there. You’re always there. For me. For this family. And I took it for granted. I don’t know what I would have done without you this summer. And I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like that wasn’t the case.”

  Brent blinked his eyes. “I-I think if I wasn’t so dehydrated, I’d cry.”

  Cal scoffed, “Paytons don’t cry.”

  They both laughed. Because th
at was a favorite saying of their dad’s. And it was a lie. The last couple of years had proved that Paytons did, in fact, cry. With good reason.

  “And,” Cal continued, “I don’t think you should let Ivy leave without talking to her. Alex said she wants to be gone in a week. So you have some time. Give them the weekend. And then talk to her.”

  Brent gulped some coffee. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Yeah. Thanks for the pep talk, big brother.”

  Cal smiled and stood up with his empty plate. “Any time. And hey, don’t forget. This Sunday is your night to host family dinner.”

  Brent groaned. “Shit.”

  “Don’t bitch. You’ll invite Davis?”

  “Yeah.”

  Cal placed his plate in the sink and leaned a fist on the counter. “I’m going to head out now. Jenna likes me home on my Saturdays off.”

  “Shit, I’m sorry, and you spent the night here—”

  Cal waved him off. “It’s fine. She agreed I needed to be here.”

  “God, that makes me sound pathetic.”

  Cal lifted his chin. “We all need help now and then. It says more about your character when you let someone help then when you stubbornly try to do it all by yourself when you’re not succeeding.” And didn’t Cal know about that.

  “You’re smart.”

  “I’m older.” Cal grinned.

  “By a whole year.”

  Cal grabbed a bottle of pills out of a kitchen cabinet and placed them on the counter. “Take something for your headache, and get your plan together. See ya Sunday.” He patted Brent on the back before heading toward the door.

  Brent sat for a little longer, staring at his plate of now-cold eggs.

  He didn’t know what he wanted to say to Ivy, but he had to know she was okay, that Violet was okay, that Alex was okay. And then, if he had to, he’d move on.

  Chapter Twenty

  IVY DIDN’T KNOW if this would work. She felt like she was going behind Alex’s back, but something had to change. They couldn’t keep running scared like this.

  Ivy had sent Violet off with Asher and Julian to get hot chocolate and doughnuts. And now she stood hovering near the front door of their apartment, waiting for the doorbell to ring.

  Alex was in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner.

  There was a knock at the door, and a crash came from the kitchen. “Who’s that?” Alex called down the hallway.

  Ivy opened the door to the unusually somber faces of Delilah and Jenna. They stepped inside at the same time and wrapped Ivy in a hug, squeezing her so tightly that she could barely breathe. Delilah’s lips brushed her cheek, and Jenna’s hair tangled in Ivy’s eyelashes.

  Ivy almost started to cry.

  She took a deep breath to get herself under control and then stepped back and closed the door behind her friends. “Thank you so much. I don’t know how this will work, but—”

  “Ivy? Who’s there?” Alex’s voice was a little panicked now, fear bleeding into her words.

  Ivy spoke up quickly. “It’s Jenna and Delilah. Everything’s fine.”

  Alex appeared in the mouth of the hallway, wringing a kitchen towel in her hands, and the relief on her face when she saw it was the women was evident. However, it didn’t last long, as wariness crept over her expression. “Oh hey, ladies. What’s going on?”

  Delilah didn’t waste time. She pulled a bottle of wine out of her huge purse on her arm, and Jenna brandished wine glasses from hers. And then Delilah looked at Alex and said firmly, “We need to talk.”

  Alex’s gaze shot to Ivy and then to the two other woman. Ivy waited for her to yell, or glare, or run. Instead, her lips shifted over her teeth, and she blinked wide blue eyes at her sister. “Is this about moving?”

  “It is,” Ivy whispered.

  Alex blinked. “You don’t want to move?”

  Ivy shook her head slowly. “I’m tired of running.”

  There was a pause, and then Alex’s shoulders slumped. “I’m tired of running too.” Her voice cracked. And so did Ivy’s heart. What was left of it.

  Alex ducked her head and walked toward the living room, taking a seat on the couch. She held out a hand. “I’m gonna need some wine.”

  Delilah and Jenna both blew out identical relieved breaths.

  THEY ALL DRANK one glass of wine, talking about mundane things, like the weather and what clothes were in season, and how Jenna’s brother was a dickhead who had caused all kinds of problems for Jenna and Cal over the summer.

  When Alex tilted the last of the wine in her mouth, she held out her glass for a refill. “Okay, I’m ready for the intervention now.”

  “It’s not really an inter—” Ivy began.

  “It’s pretty much an intervention,” Delilah said.

  Ivy fell silent. Okay, it kind of was.

  “So,” Jenna said, “I know you might be mad at Ivy for this, but she came to us and talked about the situation. She did it because she loves you. And because we love you. You haven’t been here long, but you’ve been here enough for all of us to care about you. A whole hell of a lot. Enough that we don’t want you to leave. And most of all, enough that we don’t want you to feel afraid, or like you’re alone, or like we’ll turn on you.”

  Delilah tilted her chin. “I’ve met men like your ex-boyfriend. I’ve been with men like him. And I get that it’s not easy to just say, ‘I don’t deserve this,’ and walk away.”

  Alex shook her head, her eyes on Delilah with a little bit of hope in them. “No, no, it’s not easy at all. In fact, it’s fucking hard.”

  Delilah stood up, and sat down beside Alex on the couch, slipping her hand in Alex’s. “It is. And I’m so glad that you have a sister and a niece who love you, but sometimes that’s not enough. Sometimes it takes a village. Or, I guess, a garage full of dirty boys and some kick-ass friends who have great hair.”

  Delilah tossed her black mane over her shoulder, and Alex snorted.

  “Listen,” Jenna said. “We don’t want you to leave. We want you to stay where we can all be a support system for you. I get that you’re used to leaving, and we admire that you took yourself out of the situation, but we’re worried it’ll never end, this running. So we want to be here for you. We don’t think less of you, not at all.”

  “I think you’re fucking strong,” Delilah said. “I admire you.”

  Alex was crying now, her shoulders shaking, and Ivy had to shove her fist in her mouth to stop her own sobs.

  Delilah rubbed Alex’s back. “I see an amazing therapist. She also has a fabulous wardrobe, so that’s fun. And I think she can help you.”

  Alex frowned. “A therapist?”

  “I swear,” Delilah said, “they work wonders. All this amazingness you see”—she waved a hand down her body—“is because of a therapist. I got my groove back.”

  “You never lost your groove,” Jenna pointed out.

  “But it got a little less groovy.”

  “Okay, so that’s true.”

  “So”—Delilah turned to Alex—“what do you think? Will you stay?”

  Ivy waited, her entire body poised at the end of the couch while she watched her sister struggle with this answer. Every emotion was on her face, probably because the wine had lowered her guard. But she was still scared. Unsure.

  Before she answered, there was another knock at the door.

  Ivy frowned, because she wasn’t sure who that could be. Jenna and Delilah weren’t sure either, because they were blinking at each other in confusion.

  When Ivy opened the front door, she came face-to-face with the scent of cigarette smoke and the sight of a big-barreled chest. She looked up, and up, and into the weathered face of Jack Payton.

  She stared.

  He stared back. Then he barked one word. “Alex.”

  It took a minute for the word to register, but then Ivy jolted and pointed off to the side of the door into the living room. “Um, she’s—”

  Jack didn�
��t wait to hear the rest; he brushed past Ivy, stomping into the house on muddy boots and heading right for the living room.

  He stopped and eyed the coffee table full of wine glasses and the tearful women sitting on the couch. Uncertainty crossed his face for a minute, and it was rather amusing to see him glance around the apartment full of estrogen.

  He cleared his throat. “Alex,” he barked again. And Ivy wondered if that was how he spoke. One volume, each word a shout.

  Alex stared at him, her eyes clearing quickly. “Jack?”

  He scratched his head, like he wasn’t sure what to say now that he’d found her. “Cal spilled the beans on why you’re over here.” He waved a hand at Jenna.

  “Jesus, you all gossip like hens,” Alex muttered.

  “Alex,” he said again.

  “What, Jack?” She sounded exasperated. “I’m right here.”

  Another pause, and then he sank into the empty recliner opposite Alex. They stared at each other for a minute, petite Alex meeting the gaze of the massive Jack head-on. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter, calmer, and slower. “I don’t want you to leave.”

  Six words.

  And Alex seemed to flinch at every one.

  “I never had a daughter.” He clasped his hands together and stared at his fists. “I had three sons, and they turned out okay, in spite of me. I don’t think I was made to be a father, but I was one anyway.” He took a deep breath. “But if I had a daughter, I think she’d be like you. And I won’t stand for my daughter being scared of a man. You stay, and we’ll make sure he never breathes your air again.”

  Jenna’s eyes were huge, practically taking up her whole face. Alex looked like she was going to dissolve into a puddle on the floor, and Delilah had her fists pressed to her face.

  And Ivy . . . well, finally someone else was loving her sister as much as she loved her. This was their home; this was where they deserved to be.

  Jack turned to Ivy now, his eyes narrowed slightly. “And you,” he said, “I like you because my middle son has gone and fallen ass over teakettle for you. But I don’t like you because you’re breaking his heart. Brent doesn’t do sad. It doesn’t suit him.”