"Hey, did you know our senator is a zombie? Apparently, this established 'news' outlet has empirical proof."
"Shit. Do we need to head back to the baking aisle and get you some tinfoil for that hat you will obviously be needing?" I quipped dryly, making a deep chuckle roll through his chest as he threw an arm around my shoulders, and pressed a quick, sweet, disarming kiss to my temple.
Damn him.
As odd as it may have been to think, being around him was a lot like a warm hug on a bad day, a steaming cup of hot chocolate on a rainy night, half a dozen blankets when you want to hide from the world.
He was... comforting.
Which was absurd given that I didn't know him from Adam. But feelings weren't rational things. I had accepted that about the first time I had had an epic shitfit over the breakup of a fictional couple on a show I was obsessed with as a young teen. Sure, they weren't real, but they felt real, damnit.
Okay, maybe I still wasn't completely over that whole situation.
"Baby, as much as I'm fine with you staring at my sexy ass all day," Mark said, making me jerk back out of my thoughts to find him looking at me as he loaded a couple bags into the cart. He had somehow loaded them up onto the belt, had them rung up, and bagged them without me noticing. "We got to get going," he added when I just kept standing there gawking at him like some psycho.
"Right," I said as he pulled the cart and moved out of the lane so I could follow.
I chanced a look at the cashier who gave me a knowing look that made me feel slightly less awkward and ridiculous. We had all been struck dumb by an attractive, charming man before. She knew the drill.
"So what are you making?" I asked as the silence stretched a little too long on the walk back to the truck.
"Steak, green beans, steak fries. What are you making?"
"Apple flowers."
"Apple flowers?" he repeated as he started loading the groceries up.
"You cut a strip of puff pastry, line it with some butter and cinnamon then lay sliced apples in it, roll it up, and cook them in a cupcake sheet. They cook and look like flowers. Oh, and they're delicious."
It was right about then too that I realized I hadn't made apple flowers since my mom passed. My brothers had asked me countless times, but that had always been my mothers 'cheer up, Scotti' treat she made when I had a crummy day. It always hurt too much to think about making them. Why then didn't I even give it a second thought about making it for Mark? A practical stranger?
"Honey, you alright?" Mark asked, looking down at me with furrowed brows and worried eyes. "You're pale as a fucking sheet all a sudden."
"Ah, yeah. Sorry. Just must be hungry," I lied. I had, instead, had some weird, major life realization and it was settling uneasily inside, and I didn't know what to think of that. But that was just a tad too much information for a first date.
"Well, good thing I am about to feed you then," he said, reaching out to take my arm, watching me like I might faint, as he led me to my door and helped me in before disappearing with the cart. You had to like a man who brought the cart back to the return.
So I wasn't exactly lying when I told him I half-expected his place to be a bit like a frat house. And by that, I meant nothing soft, nothing decorative, everything necessary or, in the case of electronics, unnecessary but in over-abundance.
As for the structure itself, I had him pegged for an apartment guy. Why? Because it was low maintenance. Because you could leave it and take off on a wild hair at any point in time without worrying about it. Because, aside from a one-year contract, it was low on the commitment.
What I definitely did not have planned was a pretty, but worn-down craftsman house situated on a chunk of land that had to be closing in on two acres. It was a charming deep blue structure with white rafters and brackets, all the paint in desperate need of a refresher, with a small front porch under a deeply overhanging roofline, large tapered, square columns supporting the roof, double-hung windows, and a single dormer.
"Not exactly a frat house, huh?"
"Well, you might not have any Greek letters, but I am reserving my judgment until I see the inside."
"Fair enough. Parts are still under construction, but the living and kitchen area are all done. This place was almost falling down when I bought it. It's been a lot of fucking work."
I reached for a couple of the bags. "Why not get one that needed less work?"
"Fucking beautiful little craftsman," he said as we walked up the path, the bricks half-disappeared beneath the ground. "On this piece of land? Developers would have come in and knocked this down to build more goddamn ugly, characterless townhouses. Couldn't let that happen. Besides, this is what I do."
"What is what you do?" I asked as we stepped on the porch and he reached to unlock the door.
"Construction."
"I thought you were a loanshark," I said, grimacing a little at how callous that sort of sounded.
"I am. But we all have legit businesses. Shane with his gym and his apartment building. My Pops has a bar. Ryan has a bunch of boring shit. I have a construction company and lawn service. Shit that involves working with my hands. It was nice for a change to be able to reap the benefits of all the work. Come on," he invited, pushing the door open and waiting for me to pass in.
Roots were things I tried to not give a lot of thought to. But as I stepped into Mark's lovingly restored living room, I felt a pull inside I hadn't let myself feel in a long, long while. The hardwood on the floors was wide, and an assortment of all different kinds of seemingly reclaimed woods, all the flaws still intact, giving the whole space a very homey vibe. The walls were a warm, inviting green. The sectional was deep brown. The coffee table was scuffed like many had rested their boots there at some time or another. The TV, well, it was huge. What man didn't have a huge TV?
"Wow, this is really nice," I said, giving him a genuine smile as he moved past me through the doorway that seemed to lead to the kitchen.
"Thanks," he said as he placed the bags on an island in a space that seemed almost too big for a house that didn't seem very big from the outside. "I took out the dining room to just make a big eat-in kitchen. Makes it feel more open in here," he said, gesturing toward the windows lining the back wall that let in a ton of natural light and did, in fact, make it feel very open.
It also helped that he had chosen white cabinets, butcher block countertops, and more of the same reclaimed wood floors. Everything seemed to flow perfectly.
There was a white breakfast table near the windows with four seats and a basket of potatoes in the center of it.
Charming.
The whole place was utterly charming.
It was definitely the kind of place you wanted to come home to after a long day.
He steadily unpacked bags, moving things together to start prep work as I moved around and looked at a collection of pictures he had in a large frame on the wall, one I figured must have been given to him as a gift because, let's face it, what man sits around printing out pictures and carefully places them into a big collage frame?
There was a picture of him and his brothers as kids, each wearing almost identical popsicle stick grins, colors running down their faces. There was another of them as young teenagers, two of them bloodied, the remaining three bruised. There was an older couple, the genetics strong enough in their family to be able to tell immediately they must have been the parents. There were three pictures down the middle, each of a different little girl. And then there were three remaining couple pictures- one with Shane, who I had met, and a beautiful dark-haired woman. There was another with the serious brother I had seen at the gym and a pretty blonde woman with green eyes. And finally, there was his brother who was covered in tattoos along with a woman covered in them as well, blonde-haired, impeccably dressed.
All of them, from the parents to the siblings, all seemed blissfully happy with their partners.
There was that strange yearning sensation again inside as I forced
myself to move away, to move back toward the island where Mark had set up the ingredients for me as well.
"Are you the only single brother?"
"Nah. Eli hasn't settled down yet either. Don't know why with him. He has never been a huge ladies man. He likes the idea of a wife and kids. He just hasn't gotten around to it. He's dating some chick now but..."
"But?" I prompted when he trailed off.
"Don't want to say negative things about a woman who could possibly be my sister-in-law one day, but she's nasty as fuck. No one likes her."
"Is it serious?"
"They've only been going out a couple weeks. I don't think it's gonna last. Think he just wanted to try his hand at something less casual."
I nodded at that, reaching for a knife and starting to slice the apples right on the countertop, like he was doing with the green beans. There was definitely a perk to butcher block counters.
"Alright, Scotti. What's your story?"
I almost sliced off the tip of my finger.
"What?"
"Your story," he repeated when I looked up at him, finding him watching me. "Where you're from. What possessed you and your brothers to pursue a life of crime? Why, specifically, armed robbery?"
Why did he want my story?
I was pretty sure it was clear that what we had going on, whatever you wanted to call it, was casual. It couldn't be serious. I was leaving. I would always be leaving. That was the life we led. There was no way around that. There was no way to continue a relationship through that. Especially seeing as my end game was in Russia or China. The only way that'd work would be if the guy wanted to come with. And given how tight he was with his family, there was no chance of that. So why bother trying to learn my origin story? Why try to drag out all my skeletons and see what they look like in the light?
"We don't need to do this," I said, trying for breezy and casual even though I felt like my heart was going to explode out of my chest. "I think it's clear that this thing between us is casual. You don't have to ask me about my life."
"I don't have to, no," he agreed, brow raised. "But I want to."
"Why?"
"Why not?"
"That's not an answer."
"It was hardly a question," he shot right back, looking almost confused. "Is it so weird that someone wants to get to know you? I've only gotten to spend a total of an hour or so with you, and I think you're fucking fascinating. You're here. We have the time. So I'd like to know more." When I didn't immediately respond to that because I was too wrapped up in the realization that no one outside of my brothers actually knew my story, his smile went a little wicked. "What? Worried I am going to rat on you or am wearing a wire or some shit? Here. I can prove one." Then with that, he reached for his shirt and hauled it off.
I repeat. He reached behind his back, snagged his tee, pulled it over his head, and then discarded it to the floor. To the floor. Which seemed to imply that he had no intentions of retrieving it.
It also meant he was shirtless.
Shirtless.
As in his whole chest and torso area was on display.
And, let me tell you, it was quite the chest and torso area.
First, I hadn't realized how much ink he had. But with nothing covering him, I could see two half-sleeves, a chest piece, and something snaking down his back. He did, blissfully, leave his whole stomach area free. Which was good because you could really appreciate the deep, indented grooves of his abdominal muscles, and the delicious (seriously, I wanted to lick them) adonis belt muscles that half-disappeared into the waistband of his jeans.
"See a wire anywhere, baby?" he asked, making my guilty eyes shoot up as a flush crept over every inch of skin, heating me, making desire uncurl through my body. "I mean, I can take these off too if you want to check," he offered, hands going to the button and zip of his jeans, smile absolutely devilish.
"That won't be necessary." Unless he wanted me to do a hands-on inspection. With my mouth.
Oh, Jesus.
"Well, if you're sure," he said with a shrug as he just went right back to chopping the ends off the green beans like he wasn't half-naked and fully distracting. "And as for the ratting you out. Honey, last Monday, I followed a guy name Mick Mallard down an alley where I knew he went to get high on his lunch break, and I slammed his head into the bricks until he agreed to pay the cash at the end of the business day. So now you got some serious dirt on me. Take it as a show of trust. Now all you gotta do is trust me back."
Surprisingly, I didn't actually have trust issues. Not in the typical way people often did in relationships, constantly worried about things like cheating or someone getting bored of them and leaving. I was too secure for that.
My trust issues stemmed wholly from the fact that I did illegal things and I didn't want to go to jail for them. Or my brothers.
That being said, Mark knew exactly what that was like for himself and his family as well.
I could, I was sure, trust him.
"When I was nine, my dad dropped dead from a sudden aneurysm. No warning. No life insurance. No support for my stay-at-home mother of five."
I remembered the devastation, sure. It was something we all felt, something we all experienced in our own ways. But, for some reason, I remembered the panic more. I remembered the wild eyes as she stared at a wall or a stack of mail. I remembered the way her face went from youthful and lovely to ten years older and sunken seemingly overnight. I remembered the absolutely frantic calling to all the local businesses, all the afternoons after school when we would all sit in the back of the van doing homework while she went on interviews. I remembered the way she brought a calculator to the grocery store and would have to choose between the laundry detergent and paper towels. That's why we have so many dishrags! Plus, it's better for the environment! Even to a nine-year-old, that enthusiasm sounded fake.
Because, see, the jobs never called back.
After all, she had graduated high school and gotten almost immediately pregnant. And then again. And again. And again. And again. But it didn't matter because my father made good money and she could focus on raising us.
But it also meant that she had absolutely no work history.
Nada.
Zilch.
Trying to hit the workforce for the first time in your late thirties was, well, almost impossible. At least if you wanted to make an actual salary you could live off of.
But three months after our father was lowered into the ground, she finally got a call back. Then three days after the drug test cleared, she had a job.
Making seven dollars an hour.
With five other mouths to feed.
Yet it was the best she could do. So we sold the house and downsized to a two bedroom, me and my mom in one, all my brothers in the other. We cut out anything that could be considered a luxury, like new school clothes every fall that had always been a tradition before. Santa got a little stingier with the presents. There was no money for the ice cream man or school lunches.
But the lights stayed on and we never went hungry.
Things went well enough for a long time.
Kingston aged up and moved on. Following him, so did Nixon and Atlas. Until it was just me, Mom, and Rush at home. Rush was never actually home either, so it really was just me all by my lonesome most of the time.
"And it was me who realized first that the cold that Mom had that just wouldn't seem to go away, maybe wasn't a cold after all."
"Shit," Mark said under his breath, eyes sad for me.
"See, while her job was decent enough, they kept her two hours under full-time so they didn't have to put in for her benefits. Luckily, we all just... stayed relatively well. No one ever had to go to the doctor. It never even occurred to her to go. But then she kept losing her weight, then her voice. And finally... she started coughing up blood. Lung cancer, stage three. She and my Dad smoked casually for most of my childhood. Outside, but they did it. And then when he died, she stress-smoked a lot. It... caught
up with her. She went to go to her company and begged them to put her on full-time to get insurance, to try to offset the costs. But it was a pre-existing condition. No one would take her on."
"Scotti..."
He was trying to tell me that I didn't have to go on. But the thing was, I did. Because, I realized, I had never gotten it out before. My brothers had always just... known what was going on. I had never gotten the catharsis of purging it out to a sympathetic ear.
"But she started treatment. I guess... you know... she had a lot to live for. She started chemo and kept working and trying to take care of all of us. She seemed to be getting better. Then she had the doctor visit that told her it was getting more aggressive, that in turn, the treatment had to get more aggressive. But she was already up to her ears in debt. We didn't know how much then. We didn't find out until after she passed. It was half a million dollars. And then she got too sick to even work anymore. She died just a couple weeks later," I said, voice getting a little thick. "We didn't know until after she died that she had refused further treatment, knowing it wouldn't help, just prolong her life... and debt."
Mark put his knife down, watching me with a look I couldn't quite read, but it was intense. "Bet I can guess what shitty fucking company she worked for."
I nodded at that.
"We were young and devastated and alone in the world and so fucking angry all the time. There was never a break from that rage. One night, we were just sitting around, kicking around thoughts of vengeance for a company that didn't value its employees enough to try to help keep them alive. And it just... came to us. We all just... knew we wanted them to pay. That they had to pay every last cent of the money that made her decide to offer over her life instead of having to pay any more."
"You couldn't have been more than a kid."
"I was eighteen. In fact, it was the day I turned eighteen that I walked into my mother's old store and I got myself a job. Then Rush got one. And Atlas. Then Nixon. Finally, once he had time, Kingston. We each worked different departments. We each paid attention. We learned every single in and out from how the registers worked to how the security system did. When the money got dropped. When change of shift was. Everything. Every small little seemingly inconsequential detail. Then we slowly gave out notice over the course of several months, so no one was any the wiser. And then we robbed them."
Mark (The Mallick Brothers #3) Page 8