As Fate Would Have It (Capparelli & Co. Book 2)

by Dee Lagasse

  In the middle of them, Cole looks like a rock star. Her perfectly curled bleach blonde hair, her bright blue eyes popping from the grays and black of her eye makeup, and then there’s the leather jacket that’s currently sitting on her lap.

  “I’ll get the information to Pax,” she tells them, referring to the cheer program.

  “Or here, take our numbers, you can just text it to us.” Kennedy smiles, looking over at me. “We love our baby brother, but let’s be real now. He’d probably forget to pass on the information. Oh. Hi, Pax. Didn’t see you there.”

  Rolling my eyes, I shake my head as Cole takes her phone out of one of the pockets of the jacket, my sisters taking turns giving her their phone numbers.

  “The food will be here in about five minutes,” I tell them.

  “Alright, ladies,” Reagan starts. “Head up and wash your hands before dinner gets here.”

  When my sisters and nieces have all made their way past me, Cole pauses, offers me something that is supposed to be a smile and steps forward. Gently grabbing her arm, I feel her whole body shift, the weight of whatever is on her mind sitting heavy on her shoulders as she sighs.

  “Hey. You okay?” I ask, worry flooding through me when she doesn’t turn at my touch. We’ve only been together for a short time, but there’s no mistaking there’s something wrong.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” she says, trying to brush it off before she faces me. “I just had a weird afternoon and I’m having a hard time shaking it off. I didn’t want to drag it into tonight, our night, so I haven’t said anything.”

  “What happened?”

  I swear I see a flicker of panic shoot through her eyes as she searches mine.

  “I got pulled over for speeding,” she starts, pausing as if she’s not sure if she wants to go on.

  “Okay,” I chuckle. “I mean, I can’t say I’ve never been there. How bad was it?”

  “It wasn’t the ticket or the speed,” she sighs. “It was Travis. Travis was the officer that pulled me over. He was so impersonal and cold. He didn’t even call me by my first name until I called him out on handing me a two hundred fifty dollar ticket just because I’m not sleeping with him anymore. And then to make matters worse, he was wearing a police cam and Davis saw the whole thing. He called me and told me to rip the ticket up. I acted like a crazy person, Pax. I was so angry at him for treating me like I was a common criminal. He even looked over my license like he had no idea who I was.”

  “And you’re worried Davis is going to say something,” I finish for her, pulling her in and planting a kiss on her forehead.

  “Yes and no,” she says. “He’s not very good at keeping things from Kinley. Which makes him a great husband, but a bad secret keeper. At this point, I don’t know if I care that anyone knows. It’s over. It’ll never happen again, that’s for damn sure. I’m just worried what it’s going to do to our group. If he was like that when it was just us, I don’t even want to know what it’ll be like the next time we’re all together.”

  “What can I do?” I ask her, wanting to help, knowing to tread lightly. What I want to do is drive back up to Abbott Hills and give Travis Lindsey a piece of my mind. I get it. He was doing his job pulling her over for speeding, but to treat her like shit because she’s with me and not secretly screwing him? No. That will not fly with me.

  But it took five minutes being in Kinley and Davis’s kitchen last weekend to know they all stick together like glue. Even though he’s treating her like garbage, I have no doubt Cole would still be loyal to their friendship. When it all comes down to it, I’m still the new guy. I’m still the outsider.

  “Honestly,” she says, looking up at me, the frustration and worry gone from her face. “Just telling you made me feel better. I’m sorry I let him get in my head. Tonight’s about us, about you and your family and your friends. I just want to focus on that.”

  Knowing this isn’t the time for anything more than a small kiss, I barely graze her lips when she pulls me back to her gently, tugging on my bottom lip with her teeth. Pushing her back against the floor to ceiling mirror wall, her smile wicked and seductive as I lean down with my hands resting beneath her jaw, the pads of my thumbs resting on her flushed cheeks, I pull her face to me as my lips crash on hers. A small moan escapes her lips, passing through my body right to my cock as the kiss deepens.

  “Damn it,” I curse, pulling myself back before this goes any further.

  If there wasn’t a good chance any of my nieces or nephews, or my mother, could walk down here at any second, I wouldn’t have stopped when I did. But nothing says family dinner like Chinese food and a boner.

  “To be continued?” Cole smirks, running her fingers through her tousled hair.

  “Let’s go. Up the stairs, trouble,” I laugh, shaking my head, giving her a gentle swat on the ass as she walks by me.

  The moment she steps over the threshold onto the second floor, she comes alive again. Eleven of us, with paper plates stacked high with Chinese takeout pile into the living room to watch the Bruins game.

  Cole, once again, blows my nieces’—and probably my sisters’— minds when I make the comment that before she was a Patriots Cheerleader, she was a Bruins Ice Girl too.

  “What do you do for work now?” my brother-in-law, Christopher (to be clear, it’s Christopher. Not ‘Chris.’ Or ‘Topher.’ Believe me, we all made that mistake when Reagan first brought him around.), asks as he pulls his beef teriyaki off the stick with his fork and begins cutting it with a knife.

  Now don’t get me wrong. He’s a good guy. He started dating Reagan when she was a single mom, working two jobs to put a roof over her and Lennon’s heads. Lennon was only three and her “dad” for all intents and purposes is useless. He comes in and out of Lennon’s life at his convenience, barely helping with child support, but Christopher loves her like she is his own. Reagan, Lennon, and Milo want for nothing. But sometimes he has his head so far up his own ass he can’t see past his own shit.

  Kennedy’s husband Ryan and I get along much better than Christopher and I do. We always have. He gave me my first job, sweeping the floor at the auto shop he works at when I was fifteen. He actually met my sister when she was picking me up from work one night. Ryan’s also the man that taught me everything I know about cars.

  As I got older, Ryan and I could relate more and we grew to be close like, well, like brothers. Christopher won’t even play a game of pick up football in the backyard with us because he’s afraid he’ll get grass stains on his chinos. The only thing he ever wants to talk about is investing and the stock market, and I get it, that’s his thing…but that’s his only thing. I’m surprised he’s even here tonight, to be honest. Usually we only see him if there’s a birthday or a special event.

  His expression is blank when she tells everyone how she started her own business last year and now she and her sister are merging both of their successful businesses to create an entertainment and event service unlike anything around Abbott Hills.

  Earning himself a smack from Reagan, Christopher has the nerve to look at Cole and ask her what kind of money a simple karaoke and party planning startup could actually bring in compared to becoming a doctor like she had originally planned.

  Just as I’m about to apologize on his behalf and tell her there’s no reason for her to answer that, Cole twirls lo mein noodles around her fork and shrugs.

  “After paying the twenty employees between the two businesses, leasing and furnishing our new office space, buying three new vans and enough equipment that each of my five DJs and I can all be out working, our projected income for the year is at just over two hundred thousand dollars, so I’d say for a startup, we’re doing alright.”

  Popping the noodles in her mouth, she turns her attention to the hockey game on the television, but I notice the corners of her mouth turning up just the slightest. As she should be, she’s proud of wiping the smugness right off Christopher’s face.

  Partially because I’m a pr
oud boyfriend, knowing how much time and energy she puts into their business every single day, and partially because it’s fun to shut Christopher up, I add, “And neither one of them will brag about it, but Kinley and Cole both did it all on their own. They both started their businesses from the ground up, with no help from their parents despite being offered the help repeatedly.”

  My mom has been quiet watching Cole and Christopher go back and forth. If I hadn’t been paying attention, I wouldn’t have noticed the smile on her face every time Cole managed to shut Christopher’s assumptions down. Breaking her silence, she chuckles.

  “I can’t imagine pushing your mom away was easy,” she says. “Helen Christian is a persuasive woman.”

  “Wait a minute!” Kennedy says from the other side of the couch. “Your mom is Helen Christian? As in, United States Senator Helen Christian?”

  “She sure is,” my mom answers for Cole when she sees the pink flush in Cole’s cheeks. “Don’t you worry about political drama here, love. We adore your mom. Sophia and she have a special relationship.”

  Up until now, I had forgotten all about how my niece and Helen knew each other.

  “Sophia was obsessed with becoming president when she was about five,” Kennedy explains to Cole. “My mom asked your mom if she could possibly bring her home something special from Washington, and not only did she do that, but she got letters from Michelle Obama and Ruth Bader Ginsburg and gave Soph a private, personal tour around the New Hampshire State House. She emails and checks in on how she’s doing in school and cheer, and it’s nothing to come home and find a package from DC addressed to Sophia.”

  Ryan adds in, “She took us out to lunch at this cute little Italian restaurant right in Abbott Hills. I can’t think of the name of it right now, but it was the best food we’ve ever had. We keep saying we’re going to go back up there, but then we never do, because parenthood.”

  “Yeah. That sounds just like my mom,” Cole smiles. “And you went to Capparelli & Co. Now that Pax lives up there, you have an excuse to come up. They’re closed on Sundays, but I’m there at least two nights during the week and on Saturdays.”

  When dinner is done and everyone has had a good laugh at their fortune cookies, I make the comment that Cole and I should probably head out knowing it’ll take us about twenty minutes to get out the door.

  Sure enough, between my mom and my sisters and a quick FaceTime between Sophia and Helen, it takes us twenty-seven minutes from the time I first mentioned leaving for us to get out the door.

  “I’ll text you early next week,” Kennedy says to Cole. “We’ll definitely come up for dinner one night.”

  “This sounds like trouble,” Ryan laughs in the background.

  “I like trouble.” Cole winks at me, stepping down the concrete steps.

  “Any kind of trouble you’re getting into is the kind I want to be in too,” I tell her, slipping my hand into the back pocket of her jeans as we walk to my car.

  “Well, aren’t you two just the cutest friggin’ thing?” Kennedy yells from the doorway. “Have fun tonight, kiddos!”

  I didn’t think there would be any issues tonight. It’s hard not to like Cole, but I had no idea it would go over this well. Thankfully no one brought up the fact that I’ve only been in Abbott Hills for a couple weeks now and there’s no way Cole and I could have known or been together any longer than that.

  I don’t think I would have had any rebuttal other than, “when you know, you know.”

  I never believed any of that bullshit until I walked out of Helen Christian’s office and came face-to-face with the woman from the Halloween Gala. She had no idea who I was, and when she found out a week later, she made the comment about how I saved her.

  But I know now that’s not it. She saved me.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Cole

  We don’t even pull into the parking lot of the college Pax’s friends are all hanging out at before he goes straight instead of turning.

  “Is there a reason we didn’t go see your friends?” I ask as we drive past a Target store.

  “Tyson’s truck was there,” he sighs. “I know I should be over it. And I don’t even care about Alyssa, but he was my best friend. He was my best friend and he fucked my girlfriend and then denied it, lying to my face, repeatedly until he had no other choice but to admit it when Alyssa realized she was pregnant. He wasn’t supposed to be there. He hasn’t hung out with those people in like a year. I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to hear about my ex and the bullshit from my past.”

  Looking ahead to the road, Pax suddenly looks tired. Like the exhaustion of having to internalize all that finally hit him like a ton of bricks. I wish we weren’t in the car so I could comfort him the way he deserved, the way he comforted me earlier tonight.

  “You sat there in your mother’s basement listening to me bitch about Travis,” I remind him. “We’re still really new at this us thing, babe. There’s going to be baggage and shit we’re going to have to deal with. Every relationship has it. If you don’t want to deal with Tyson tonight, we won’t go back there. What do you want to do instead?”

  His shoulders and chest rise and drop as he exhales in the seat next to me. The red light in front of us allows him to look over at me.

  “You’re pretty amazing, you know that?” he says. Before I can answer, he continues, “What would you say about getting some snacks and going on a mini road trip? You can even have control of the music.”

  I don’t have to be at Capparelli & Co. until nine o’clock tomorrow night, so there’s no reason not to. I mean, getting to gawk at Pax as he drives for an extended amount of time? Sign me up.

  “I’m in.”

  One Walmart trip that left us walking out with three different flavors of Doritos, a family-size bag of peanut M&M’s, a bag of teriyaki beef jerky, two bottles of water, and an additional stop at Dunkin Donuts for iced coffees and we’re on the road to nowhere.

  With no place to be, no destination in mind, Pax keeps up his end of the bargain. He drives, I control the music. Connecting my phone to his car, I pick through my own personal playlists.

  At first, we listen to today’s country. A little Florida-Georgia Line, some Eric Church, Devin Dawson, and Carrie Underwood…but then, I decided to go back further and it’s the best decision I’ve made all night.

  Completely off-key, we croon along to Dolly Parton’s version of “I Will Always Love You,” Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire,” and “He Stopped Loving Her Today” by George Jones.

  Willie Nelson’s “On The Road Again” comes on and Pax laughs, turning down the music slightly. “Willie Nelson was my favorite growing up. My dad took me to see him when I was seven or eight. It was my first concert and the first time I got a contact-high.”

  “He’s in South Carolina, right?” I ask as we drive through the winding woods. “Your dad. Not Willie Nelson.”

  I’m not even sure where we are right now. The truth is, I don’t even care. Letting go of control is usually something that’s hard for me. I think it’s why I started my own business. Even when I was going to school to be a doctor, the end game plan was always to have my own practice. But with Pax, it’s easy, effortless to let him take the reins.

  The sun has long set, the blackness of the night surrounding us.

  “Yeah,” Pax answers, popping a Cool Ranch Dorito in his mouth. “He’ll be coming up in a few weeks for Thanksgiving. He stays with my mom, funny enough.”

  “So they’re over the divorce then?” I laugh.

  “I don’t think they were ever upset about it,” he shrugs. “After I graduated from high school, they sat me and my sisters down and told us they were getting a divorce. Kennedy was more upset than my mom was. They realized shortly after I was born that they were better off as friends. They co-existed for us, but their marriage had been over for years. I honestly thought they just weren’t affectionate people. They never fought, at least not that us kids knew about. They spen
t almost two decades being glorified roommates because neither one of them wanted to give up their time with us.”

  “Wow,” I say as Willie and Waylon Jennings caution about letting your babies grow up to be cowboys on the stereo. “Kudos to them. I don’t know if I could have done it. I mean, I’m obviously not a parent, so I won’t pretend I understand the depth of a mother’s or a father’s love, but twenty years of your life is a lot to give away.”

  “Huh,” Pax says, reaching for another chip. “I guess I never thought of it like that.”

  The silence that hangs over us after isn’t awkward or uncomfortable but seems to serve as a few minutes of reflection. I’d been so fixated on Pax and our conversation I hadn’t even realized we passed the big white “Welcome to Abbott Hills” sign until we were a few feet away from the entrance to our apartment complex.

  “I can keep driving, or we can go home,” Pax starts. “It’s up to you.”

  As much as I’ve loved this drive and getting Pax’s undivided attention for three and a half hours, I need to stretch my legs. And there’s the whole being in close proximity to him and not being able to kiss him thing.

  “Let’s go home.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Pax

  It’s been five months since the Halloween Gala.

  Five amazing months.

  Cole and I celebrated our first holiday together on Thanksgiving, we split Christmas between our two families and the Capparellis, we celebrated Kinley and Cole’s grand opening and took our first vacation to South Carolina to visit my dad last month. There have been weekly dinners at her parents’, birthday parties at my sisters’ houses, and tonight we would celebrate another milestone of our friends together.