Bad Boy Romance Collection: The Volanis Brothers Trilogy

by Meg Jackson

  She moved her gaze down to her shot glass and, without thinking, downed the remainder of the liquid. As it burned down her throat, she closed her eyes and remembered her father telling her the story as a girl. She’d loved it. She hoped she did it justice.

  “But then, on the first day the waters went down, they found Abe. Somehow, he’d gotten himself stuck on top of a Coke machine in the back of the library. The dog was almost as big as the machine itself, but there he was, sitting on top of it. I guess – well, my father and Rodney and a few other folks were there, and they couldn’t really call the fire department because they were a little busy taking care of the rest of the town, you know? But none of the men were big enough to go get Abe down with a ladder. He would have broken anyone’s back trying to lift him.

  So they think – they go get a trampoline. You know, one of those little ones? I guess one of the guy’s wife had one for exercise, so they go get it and bring it back, but they can’t get Abe down. He’s too scared to jump, he doesn’t know the trampoline will catch him or anything. So Rodney says – go get some pineapple. And everyone’s like, ‘pineapple? What the hell is pineapple gonna do?’ Well, Abe has one weakness, and that’s pineapple. Loves it. This big burly Rottweiler, and he goes nuts over pineapple.

  So they go and get a can and bring it back, put the pineapple on a plate, and they hold it up, let him smell it, and then put it down in front of the trampoline. And poor Abe is up there, whimpering and whining because he wants that pineapple so bad, and Rodney’s saying, ‘c’mere boy, c’mere,’ until eventually, the dog just goes for it. Leaps off the top of the Coke machine and lands dead center on the trampoline.

  But my Dad had some bad luck that day, and he was standing right in front of the trajectory when Abe bounced off, and here comes 100 pounds of startled, confused, scared-ass Rottweiler right into his chest and face, and they both go down hard, knocks the wind right out of Dad and the damn dog ends up pissing all over his shirt. But as Dad’s lying there, on his back, hurting, Abe looks down at him and gives him one big, good lick right from his chin to his hairline. And, well…I mean, that’s it. That’s the story. I guess…it might not even be true but…”

  Kim felt her cheeks turning red as she realized there was no punchline to the joke, no real point to the story, just a funny picture in her mind of a Rottweiler bouncing off a trampoline into her father’s arms. She could, in that moment, heartily empathize with a bad stand-up comedian with an audience of expectant drunks, and shame ran down her spine in an awful wave.

  “Well, he never did eat pineapple after that,” she finally offered with a shrug. One loud cackle of laughter called her attention away from the beer she’d been staring into, and she saw with surprise that the old men were beaming at her, clearly tickled. Kennick leaned down and kissed the top of her head.

  “All stories are true if you tell them right,” he said. Kim didn’t know what that was supposed to mean, but she liked the way he was looking at her, like he wanted her to keep telling stories, all night long.

  19

  So so sorry, the text read, and Kim’s fingers immediately clutched the phone harder as her jaw set tight. Can’t come to lunch. Buried in this story you got me! Cover for me with Ma?

  You’re kidding, right? Kim shot back, tapping so angrily on the screen her thumbs hurt.

  =X, was Ricky’s only response.

  You owe me so so so hard! Kim wrote before throwing her phone down and groaning, her eyes hidden in her palms. She could already see her mother’s raised eyebrows and pursed lips when Kim arrived alone.

  Once a month, Kim and Ricky met their mother for lunch. Sometimes, they went to Dover, where she lived. Sometimes, they met halfway. On a very rare occasion, the eldest member of the James family came down to Kingdom. It made her especially unbearable. She would cluck at the dirt on Main Street and ask why they couldn’t “go somewhere nice for once” before answering her own question: “there’s nowhere nice in this town anymore.”

  Cordelia James was a force to be reckoned with. No one knew that better than Kim, who as the older daughter, had been privileged to experience the brunt of her mother’s disappointment. She always thought that Cordelia had been so worn out by trying to make Kim perfect that she hadn’t had the energy to deal with Ricky.

  Now, she was going to have to sit through their monthly lunch alone. And Ricky hadn’t exactly given her ample warning; she had been about to leave the office when the text came in. Now, she sighed and put the “out to lunch” sign on the door; Mayor Gunderson was taking one of his epic three-hour lunches, which Kim knew was actually just when he’d go home and try to sleep off the rest of last night’s fun. He wouldn’t be back for another two hours.

  Mom doesn’t know that, though, she told herself, thinking she’d probably drop the whole gotta-get-back-to-work line. That would make Cordelia mutter about driving for so long for nothing, but whatever. Kim wasn’t in the mood to deal with her mother alone.

  She should have known that her Mother would have been early. She was always early. Looking at her watch, Kim saw that she was early, too. Not early enough. She waved through the window to get her mother’s attention, which only allowed her to feel the judging stare for a few extra moments as Cordelia’s eyes followed her around the glass front of Sid’s Diner and through the door. She was on her feet as Kim approached.

  “Hi, Mom,” Kim said, accepting the stiff embrace and the hard peck on each cheek before taking a seat opposite her. “Ricky can’t make it. Say she’s swamped with work and very sorry.”

  Cordelia scoffed and her eyes fell to the menu, as though studying it. She would get the same thing she always got, but reading the menu gave her the chance to remark, sneeringly, at the greasy spoon-style offerings.

  “It’s not enough to carry someone in your womb for nine months and then raise them practically on your own and put them through college, I suppose,” she mused. “I suppose your sister expects me to be happy she’s got a job that makes her work through lunch. You know, she’s never going to get anywhere on that dinky little paper.”

  The words cut straight to the quick. The emphasis on “your sister”. The ability to insult Ricky and Kingdom at the same time. Cordelia was good.

  “Oh, Mom,” Kim said, shaking her head. “You didn’t raise us on your own.”

  “I might as well have,” Cordelia snapped, her eyes cold on Ricky’s as they left the menu. “Your father was always working. It was me that took care of you both all day long.”

  Kim bit her lip. There was a lot she could say – wanted to say – in response to that. But none of it would ever penetrate Cordelia’s inflated sense of burden. Tucker James, Kim’s father, had worked a lot, but it was only to keep his wife happy. He loved his daughters, and made time for them even when he was working 70 hour weeks at the now-defunct stained-glass studio. When he’d passed, Cordelia had taken the substantial life insurance payment to Dover, where, she said, she could live “a real life”, not surrounded by “depressing small-town bumpkins.”

  “How was the drive, Ma?” Kim asked, steering the conversation away from sore subjects.

  “Horrid,” Cordelia responded, her eyes flitting back to the menu. Her nose scrunched. “What on earth is a tamale doing on this menu? Is this a Mexican restaurant, Kim? I don’t recall Sid being of the Hispanic ethnicity. I don’t suppose he’s hired some illegal immigrants to work in the kitchen, has he?”

  “That’s always been on the menu, Mom,” Kim answered. “You don’t have to be Hispanic to cook tamales.”

  “And what in blue blazes is a deep-fried Oreo? My God, the gluttony of some people…it’s truly enough to make one sick.”

  When Cordelia’s eyes returned to her daughter, squinting and examining, Kim’s stomach sank. She knew what was coming next.

  “You haven’t been eating those, have you Kimberly? You’re looking a bit pudgy. You know you can’t eat like your sister or I. You just don’t have the metabolism. You’ve been
running, haven’t you? Hard to imagine there are any men banging down your door or begging for your hand, not with that little…what do they call it? Muffin top. Rather a funny term, and quite descriptive, don’t you think?”

  Kim’s jaw clenched. She didn’t have a damn muffin top. Do I? she wondered, second-guessing herself as her eyes travelled down her own body. The light, flowy sundress she wore gave no indication of a muffin top.

  When she looked back up, her mother’s eyes were stuck to the menu once more, her head shaking slowly back and forth. Kim begged for a waitress to come by already. But she was rewarded with quite a different type of distraction.

  20

  Kennick watched Kim’s eyes widen. It made him smile. He’d been driving by when he saw her. She was unmistakable to him, even distorted by the glare of a glass window. He guessed the old broad across from her was her mother. As he approached, she shook her head slightly, but from the way her mouth was set it was clear she needed rescuing. It had been a week since she first spent the night in his bed, a week that had flown by in a blur of quickened heartbeats, long talks in dim lighting, and a growing sense that the space next to him on his mattress had been waiting for her his whole life.

  He also sensed, could almost see, the cracks and slices in Kim’s heart. Places where someone else’s opinion of her had slithered in and made itself at home, filled her with doubt and broke her ego. He wanted to shove his fist right in there and yank that parasite out, fill her heart with all the beauty and strength he saw when he looked at her. And he had a sneaking suspicion that the woman he was about to meet had a little something to do with that parasite.

  The old woman turned around to follow Kim’s eyes and Kennick felt his stomach clench immediately. The woman had blue eyes like Kim’s, but where Kim was all soft and sweet, this lady might as well have been made of broken glass.

  “Funny seeing you here, babe,” he said, putting on his best smile as he slid, uninvited, next to Kim. He could feel her agitation baking off her body in waves and he slipped an arm around her waist, but her spine only stiffened further. He caught the old woman staring daggers at him and gave it back as good as he was getting. “Kennick.”

  He shoved his hand out across the table, but the woman eyed it like it was a pair of skid marked tighty-whities.

  “Who is this man?” she asked sharply, tearing her gaze away from the offering hand to shoot her daughter a withering glance.

  “This is Kennick,” Kim said, eyes lowered. “He’s a…a friend.”

  Kennick laughed and squeezed his arm around Kim but didn’t correct her.

  “Indeed,” the woman said, eyebrows raised and lips pursed. “Well, I’m Cordelia. Kimberly’s mother. And we’re having lunch, if you don’t mind…”

  “Oh, I haven’t eaten yet,” Kennick said. “You ordered already? You know, the tamales here are fire.”

  She couldn’t help it. The way her mother was looking like she’d just been given an acid enema, the fact that Kennick was going to order the very same tamales Cordelia had just been questioning, the way his arm around her waist made her feel safe despite the increasingly awkward situation…it was too much not to laugh. A bit high and hysterical, but genuine all the same. Kennick turned to her with a smile as her mother’s shocked expression deepened.

  “Now, that’s a sound I like hearing,” Kennick said just as a waitress appeared, looking haggard despite the fact that the restaurant was mostly empty. Kim knew her, being something of a regular at Sid’s. Jessica was usually the fastest, perkiest, most affable girl in the world. Something was clearly up, and normally Kim might have extended an invitation to talk about it, but she was swimming in enough of her own mire at the moment.

  “What can I get you today?” Jessica asked, barely looking up from her little ticket book.

  “Coke and an order of those gut-killing tamales will do me,” Kennick said before Cordelia could open her mouth to tell him he wasn’t invited to eat with them. He gave the old woman a too-big smile. “Order whatever you like, ma’am. It’s on me.”

  Cordelia raised her shoulders, obviously put-off but too flustered to argue.

  “Tilapia, broiled, with a side salad, no dressing” she said. “And just water to drink.”

  Kennick’s eyebrows raised. He’d never heard such a boring order in his entire life. Then again, the woman was so thin she’d slip through a crack in a wood floor. She had given Kim her bold blue eyes, but not her soft, sensual body. Kennick could only be glad for that.

  “Ceasar salad for me, Jessica,” Kim said. “And a Diet Coke would be great.”

  “And bring some extra parmesan,” Kennick said, smiling at Kim.

  “You’re going to put parmesan cheese on tamales?” Cordelia asked. To her, Kennick Volanis was a non-stop train of awful.

  “No, it’s Kim’s favorite,” Kennick said. “I’ve seen her coat a pizza with so much cheese it was like a snow day.”

  “I know,” Cordelia said, her lips pursing again as her eyebrow lowered. “We used to have to take the cheese away from her when we had pasta. It was disgusting.”

  Kennick laughed, bright and loud.

  “Nah,” he said. “I like it. It’s cute.”

  Cordelia was nearly shaking with irritation. She didn’t like most people, and Kim knew that Kennick must be some sort of nightmarish figure in her mother’s eyes. From the public affection of putting his arm around her to his tattooed skin and loose, casual clothes to his exotic, tanned skin, he was the sort of man Cordelia would cross the street to avoid in the middle of the day. Somewhere deep down, Kim was happier than she could ever remember being around her mother.

  “Well, as long as you like it, I suppose there’s no argument to be made! Kim, who is this man and why is he ruining our lunch date?” Cordelia’s sense of decorum had fallen to her sense of indignation.

  “Kennick Volanis,” Kim responded tersely. “He’s a friend. A…a close and intimate friend, mother.”

  Now, it was Cordelia’s turn to clench her jaw shut, her eyes widening as she realized what Kim was telling her. Kim could almost see the facts falling into place behind her mother’s cold eyes. Close. Intimate. Friend.

  “Volanis?” Cordelia said, voice low and gruff. Kim felt Kennick stiffen slightly beside her. “That name seems familiar.”

  “Doesn’t matter, Mom. Kennick, thank you for joining….”

  “I know that name,” Cordelia said, a small smirk now spreading across her face. An awful sort of smile. “Your father was Pieter Volanis. You’re one of those gypsies.”

  “Bingo,” Kennick said, meeting her smirk with one of his own. The animosity between them could have sparked a fire in the diner. When Jessica came by with the drinks, Kim saw her nearly turn on her heel and run away from the scene unfolding.

  “Were you aware of that, Kimberly?” Cordelia said, turning back to her daughter.

  “I was,” Kim said, taking a sip of her soda and shrugging. “Like I said, it doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t matter?” Cordelia hissed, leaning in as though Kennick weren’t there at all. “This is…this is…ugh! Excuse me!”

  Trembling and clattering across the tile floor in her kitten heels, Cordelia James slammed her way into the lady’s room, at which point Kim released a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. Turning to Kennick, she wanted to apologize – but couldn’t imagine how she would ever be able to apologize enough for her mother.

  “Don’t,” Kennick said, reading her mind. “You should go talk to her.”

  “Go talk to her?” Kim asked, taken aback. “Are you kidding me? If we’re in private together, I’ll just end up slapping her across the face!”

  “She’s your mother,” Kennick said, eyes softening. “She’s worried about you.”

  “No, she’s not,” Kim said, mumbling now. “She’s worried about what people will think about me. That’s all she’s ever worried about.”

  “You don’t have to,” Kennick said with a si
gh. “But you should. Family is all you have, sometimes. Even very shitty family.”

  Kim bit her lip, considering this. She supposed her mother wasn’t entirely to blame for the outburst; after all, it must have been quite the shock to take in all at once. Maybe she could get Cordelia to calm down enough to come out and finish the lunch in some semblance of peace.

  “How are you so good?” Kim marveled as she stood and Kennick turned to let her out of the booth. He smiled up at her.

  “Just born that way, baby,” he said, and when he gave her ass a tiny pinch as she squeezed past him, she wasn’t sure whether to turn around and slap him or kiss him. She settled on neither, steeling herself for whatever her mother was about to dish out.

  21

  “What the hell are you doing with that gypsy? What kind of woman have you become?” Cordelia began her diatribe before the door even shut behind Kim. She swallowed her regret about following her mother and crossed her arms. She had always let her mother say whatever crazy, judgmental, controlling thing she wanted about Kim. She tried to defend Ricky when she could. But now, she felt more and more enraged as she thought of Kennick. He was a good man, and her mother had no right to say different.

  “The kind of woman who knows what she’s worth,” Kim spit out, not really knowing if the words were true but wanting to believe them all the same. “And that man out there isn’t just ‘some gypsy’. He’s a good man. A strong man. A kind man. And he cares for me, and for his family.”

  “Cares for you! Men like that don’t care about anyone! They just want to…to…use you and lose you! And what will people think, Kimberly? You running around with that kind of person, letting him touch you right in a restaurant? Disgusting!”

  “You’re the one who’s disgusting,” Kim spat back, ire rising in her chest. “Judging people you don’t even know and…and…being so damn mean all the time! That’s all you are, mother! Mean and rude!”