“Mama,” he said warningly. “Max was real sick last night…”
“What?” Nadine dropped her bags on a driftwood accent table. Then she reached for her grandson’s forehead. “Why didn’t you call me? I would have come over—”
Max darted under her arm, climbed up on the couch with his bread, and went back to staring at the TV. Nadine’s attention, however, was suddenly riveted on the woman fidgeting beside him. “Oh my,” she drawled, “I didn’t realize you had company.”
PJ gave up on her hair and rose from the couch with a tentative smile. “Hi, Mrs. Browning—”
“PJ!” his mother gasped. “My goodness, child, I almost didn’t recognize you. What a lovely young woman you’ve been hiding under all that makeup!”
“Uhm, thanks.” PJ sidled towards her backpack near the end of the sofa, her entire posture screaming that she was ready to bolt. “I was just—”
“She was just helping me with Max,” Beau finished for her. PJ nodded, relaxing slightly as she looked back at him, searching his face like she was trying to sort out whether he wanted his mother to know if they had something going on or not.
If he were being honest, Beau would have preferred keeping their evolving relationship under wraps for a little longer than eight hours. At the moment, however, it didn’t seem to matter because Nadine Browning was no dummy. Her gaze bounced between them, shrewdly assessing the rumpled state of their attire, and the fact that PJ was standing there in a pair of his old jogging sweats, sporting a very noticeable hickey.
“Well… of course,” his mother said, recovering enough to offer them a bright smile that Beau didn’t buy for a second. “Why don’t I go make us some breakfast.” Nadine bent to ruffle his son’s curls, then snatched up the bag of bread from the coffee table. “Who wants toast?”
“Wash your hands,” Beau called after her. “We don’t know what kind of illness he had last night—”
His mother waved him off as she headed for the kitchen. “Not my first rodeo, son.”
Beau turned back to PJ. She was slinging her bag over her shoulder.
“I should go,” she said with a shy smile.
“You should stay,” he told her once again.
She held out her palm. “Keys, Browning. I need to get my board.”
Beau grimaced, suddenly, remembering what was waiting for him in the backseat of his Audi. “Jesus. I need to call a detailer.”
PJ bit her lip, mischief in the silky curve of it.
Beau was getting distracted. He shook his head, pointing at her with sudden decisiveness. “And I need to get you a car. That skateboard isn’t going to fly with me anymore.”
PJ’s lip popped free. “What the hell? You can’t buy me a car!”
“Why not? I owe you a cool present.”
“Because, for one thing, it’s flippin’ weird.” PJ cocked a hip, her head tilting as she stared at him. “Boyfriends buy their girlfriends flowers, candy, maybe some cool bling—”
“Shopkins,” Max chimed in from the couch, where he was side-eying the television.
“Exactly.” PJ shot his son a fist bump, then leaned towards Beau, her breath tickling his ear as she hissed. “Only married people buy each other cars.”
Now Beau was the one biting his lip because PJ spat the m-word like she thought it was a contagious disease. “I’m pretty sure that’s not always the case.”
PJ nodded her head adamantly. “Uh, yeah, crazy. It is—”
Beau cut her off with his mouth, silencing her sass with one quick sweep of his tongue before pulling away. Damn, she tasted good. Even with morning breath. And judging by the sudden heat in her eyes, PJ didn’t seem to mind his too much either. “What’s the other thing?” he asked in a husky whisper.
“Hmmm?”
“You said ‘for one thing’.” Beau smiled, enjoying PJ’s slightly dazed expression. “So, what’s the other?”
PJ blinked, snapping to with a sheepish smirk as she whipped out her phone. “Well, to be honest, I already have a car.”
“What?” Beau had not expected this to be the other thing. “Then why do you keep riding around on a skateboard?”
“Well, it’s not exactly drivable yet.” PJ swiped at her phone, a hint of excitement in her movements. She flipped the screen around, so Beau could see a picture in one of her text chains.
He stared at the shell of an old car, raised up on jacks. It was matte gray, like it had recently been primed, and its sleek front end and sharply tapered back end marked it as something out of the seventies, but Beau couldn’t quite place it.
“It’s a 1972 Chevy Nova,” PJ explained. “My dad rescued it from the wreckers a couple years ago, and he’s been working on restoring it for me during his spare time at the shop.” PJ grinned as she swiped to another picture, showing the car from a different angle. “I got this update from him last night while you were getting dressed. Says it should be done in the next couple months. What do ya think?”
Beau was quiet as he stared at the second image. There was a man in the shot. He stood at the back of the car, his face turned away from it as he rummaged through a toolbox on a workbench. Even caught in profile, Beau could tell this man was PJ’s father. He was tall, well over six feet, and he had the same fair hair and freckles as his daughter.
Beau didn’t know how to feel about the guy. Part of him couldn’t help being a little resentful, like where the hell was this dude when PJ had needed him growing up. The other part of him was solidly impressed at the guy’s dedication to salvaging an old pile of junk and turning it into something beautiful for his kid.
PJ slipped her phone back in her pocket, a hint of red at her cheeks. “I mean, I know it’s no Shelby, but I still think it’s—”
“Badass,” Beau said finally. “It’s really cool, Pru.”
She smiled.
Beau winked. “Guess that means you’re stuck with me picking you up from work for the next couple months then.”
PJ rolled her eyes.
“Oh, come on now,” Beau drawled, walking over to the little driftwood table to grab his keys. “That is absolutely something a boyfriend would do.”
“Whatever,” she whispered as he tossed them to her. Then with another pleased little grin she was heading for the door.
Beau didn’t follow her. He knew she’d be back. He also knew his mother was champing at the bit to lay into him after eavesdropping from the kitchen, so without further ado, Beau strode over to a large quartz-topped island, scrubbed down his hands at the sink, and grabbed a knife for the herbs on his cutting board.
For several seconds, they worked silently next to each other, Nadine whisking up a batch of eggs, Beau dicing up chives the way she’d taught him when he was ten. Then his mother set her bowl aside and turned to face him.
“She’s your cousin’s stepdaughter,” she said, leveling him with a look that would have had him running away like a whipped puppy when he was a boy. Only he wasn’t a boy anymore. He was a grown-ass man.
“She was my cousin’s stepdaughter,” Beau clapped back.
“She’s young...”
“She’s eighteen.”
“You’re twenty-six.”
Beau gritted his teeth. “Do we need to talk about how much older the Colonel was than Dani? How about Francine? I’m pretty sure the age gap was even wider in both of those relationships, and nobody gave Grayson this lecture.”
His mother knocked back a swig of sherry she’d pilfered from his wine cabinet and tried a new tactic. “She’s got baggage, son. ”
“I know.”
Nadine grabbed the bread and slotted four slices in the toaster before dumping the eggs in a skillet. Then she turned back to him, worry deepening the lines about her face. “I just don’t want to see my baby get hurt.” Her gaze darted to Max on the couch. “Or yours.”
Beau leveled his mother with a weighted look of his own. “I trust her.”
They watched each other for a moment. Then Nadine
sighed, walked over to him, and wrapped her arms about his middle. “Then I trust her too.”
Beau hugged her back, breathing in the powdery sweet scent of the same perfume she’d been wearing every day for as far back as he could remember.
“I won’t say anything to my girls about this tomorrow,” she added.
“Appreciate that,” Beau said dryly. His mother’s “girls” were the ladies in her sewing circle at the church. If they got wind of things, half the congregation of East Baton Rouge Evangelical would be talking about PJ and Beau by the end of the week.
The gossip had been bad enough after he’d knocked up the minister’s daughter six years ago. For weeks after the news broke, Beau had heard the chatter spreading: wild tales of his “rampant partying,” “growing drug addiction,” and his “shotgun wedding to Pastor Noel Grantham’s only child.” And for weeks after, he’d pretended he hadn’t been bothered by any of it.
But then one day, a few months into Janelle’s pregnancy, Beau had spotted his old Maison Hills neighbor, Myra Ratherty, in town. He’d been walking into Prescriptions to Geaux to pick up some vitamins for Janelle. Myra had been exiting the drugstore with her daughter in tow. Beau hadn’t missed the way Myra had ushered Jenny past him, as though she thought he were some kind of creepy bastard who’d perv on a preteen. That shit had bothered him. It had bothered him a lot.
And now here he was, a twenty-six-year old dating a teenager. Jesus, the rumor mill was going to have a field day.
But fuck it, PJ was right. Legal was legal. And he didn’t have to explain their relationship to anyone. It was nobody’s business but their own.
“You need to tell your cousin before he finds out from someone else.”
Beau snapped out of his brooding to find his mother had schooled her features into something stern and was jabbing a finger at him.
“You know how he is about these things,” she added.
Damn it. His mother was right as usual. Beau did owe at least one person an explanation. Beau sighed. “I’ll talk to Gray when he gets back from Atlanta.”
The Colonel had flown out on business and wasn’t expected back for several days. At least Beau had a reprieve from having to deal with the crap his cousin was inevitably going to give him when he brought the man up to speed on current affairs, which was namely that Beau had been doing jack squat to patch things up between Lily and PJ… because he’d been too busy screwing around with the man’s stepdaughter.
Chapter 30
Beau’s reprieve from the Colonel was a lot shorter than he would have liked. Grayson flew back early from Atlanta and by Thursday morning was summoning Beau to his office with the following text.
The Colonel: Get your ass to my office. Shit’s hitting the fan.
Beau sighed, then turned to his administrative assistant. “Gladys, would you cancel my ten o’clock? I’ve gotta go get my ass handed to me.”
“Sounds painful.” Gladys winced as she pressed a ‘sign me’ sticker to the bottom of a report before shifting it to a pile on her desk. She waved him off with a flick of fingers topped by nails so long Beau was often amazed at the woman’s ability to work with adhesives.
“It will be,” Beau said, chuckling ruefully as he made for the door.
Gladys stopped him with a jab of one of her nails. “Starbucks after. The Keurig’s on the fritz, and you know I need my caffeine.”
“Expense a new machine. I’ll get you your mocha.”
“Double whip—”
“Extra chocolate. Yeah, yeah, I got it.” Beau shot her a salute as he pocketed his wallet. Then he slipped out to the sidewalk and made for the tall mirrored building at the end of the block.
His cousin’s office was located, of course, on the top floor of Browning’s Holdings, so when Beau walked into the elevator a couple minutes later and punched the number for the ninth floor, he took a moment to consider how badly the patriarch of the family business was about to ream him.
It had only been a few days since things had heated up between Beau and PJ, and with his cousin having just returned, Beau was surprised the man had already sorted out what was going on. Beau had made it a point to be discreet when he’d picked PJ up from Journeys the last couple nights, making sure he didn’t get to the clinic too early and run into Janelle picking up Max, not that his ex would be all that likely to give him a hard time about his love life any more than she’d be inclined to go blabbing to the Colonel about it, but still…
Beau had been fairly careful about keeping his relationship with PJ private. The only people who knew about it besides his mother were Francine and Johnny. This was because when Beau had dropped PJ off Monday night, she’d planted the sweetest little kiss on him as they’d been standing there on her welcome mat, and the second her mouth had pressed against his, Beau had been wholly unable to do anything else but sink his hands into her hair, back her up in the alcove outside her front door, and utterly destroy her wicked red lipstick.
Several seconds into their make-out session, the front door had popped open, and Francine was standing there watching them with a recurrent ringing coming from inside her apartment. Evidently, in the heat of the moment, Beau had backed PJ’s ass right into the doorbell.
Beau shook his head as the elevator passed the third floor. So maybe that hadn’t been so discreet, but it had been funny as hell. Francine had taken one look at her daughter’s flushed face and swollen lips, and then turned to Beau, gesturing towards her own mouth.
“You’ve got a little something here, sugar,” she’d told him.
Beau had swiped at his tingly lips, his fingers coming away red. He’d felt a perverse sense of satisfaction he had to admit was only made sweeter by the scowl of the pool guy who’d walked up behind Francine. Because screw that cheating bastard. At least Beau hadn’t been caught making out with a married woman.
Johnny had then had the gall to mad dog him as they’d been standing there, which really did take balls considering the sniffling idiot obviously had some kind of cold, and also because he’d shown up to the door in Burberry boxers. Fucking asshole.
But there had been something. Something in the way he’d looked at PJ protectively that Beau hadn’t missed, and he’d actually had a seed of respect for. So Beau had ignored the man’s posturing as he’d turned to PJ’s mother.
“Miss Bruister, I’m dating your daughter,” he’d told her simply.
“I can see that,” she’d said, her eyes sparkling with amusement.
PJ had giggled nervously, and Beau had turned back to find her biting her bottom lip right where he’d sunk his teeth only seconds earlier. And the craziest thing about that was how much he’d wanted to nibble it again, not giving a rip her mother and the pool guy were standing right there. But then PJ had slipped into her apartment with a regretful wave, Francine following her with a look that said she was about two seconds away from grilling her daughter royally, and Johnny Gable, of Gable Pool and Spas, had slammed the door in his face.
Motherfucker.
Literally.
Beau snorted as he passed the sixth floor. Only a couple months ago, he’d been wondering who was looking out for PJ. Now he had an idea. Between the mysterious mechanic building her a car, her mother’s boyfriend, and the man who’d just summoned Beau to his office, PJ had more than enough father figures for him to contend with.
The elevator dinged on the ninth floor, and Beau stepped out, his jaw clenching with resolve. Screw it. He’d own up to every last one of them. From here on out, he was the one who was going to be looking out for PJ. And if looking out for PJ also involved kissing, and fucking, and gorging on tacos, then that was just the way it was going to be.
The Colonel’s admin waved Beau towards a set of doors at the end of a wide hallway with polished marble flooring, modern rectangular planters in the same stark white hue, and several colorful pops of color in the form of canvases purchased from local Louisiana artists. “Go on in,” she said with a wink. “Your cousin�
�s in quite the mood.”
Something about the woman’s jovial tone had Beau a little confused, and as he drew closer to the Colonel’s office, the music blasting through the doors was really throwing him for a loop. Maybe he wasn’t about to get reamed. Beau stepped into the room and blinked.
Grayson sat behind a large industrial desk, eyes closed, his fingers locked behind his head as he hummed along to an American rock classic. Watson stood in the corner of the room with his usual neutral expression, but Beau could see the subtle rhythm of his right boot as it moved against the floor.
Beau smirked at him.
Watson shot him the finger.
Beau chuckled. You’d have to be lacking a pulse not to do a little toe-tapping to Bob Seger’s legendary rendition of “Old Time Rock and Roll.” At the moment, however, the song was probably twenty decibels louder than necessary, even in the large expanse of the Colonel’s office. Beau strode over to his desk and tapped the volume control on his phone.
The Colonel’s eyes popped open. “Glad you could make it, cousin.”
“You summoned,” Beau said dryly.
“Seen the news this morning?”
“Nope. Busy at the office. Why? What’s up?”
The smile lurking about Grayson’s mouth widened as he turned to the recessed paneling across from his desk. Beau could only now make out the low buzz coming from the TV inside it. Grayson muted the Seger and cranked up the CNN. “The shit. Has hit. The fan,” he drawled with supreme satisfaction.
Beau’s attention was immediately arrested by the image of a tall man with a silvery gray comb-over and hard amber eyes pushing through a crowd of paparazzi. A popular news anchor was in the midst of reporting on the scene.
“…CEO of Illustrium Records, Whip Hollis, is now facing allegations of sexual misconduct. Former vice president of marketing at Illustrium, Mara Paulson-Jones, has just come forward in the last twenty-four hours, adding her name to the growing list of women speaking out against powerful executives in the industry…”
Pretty Jane (The Browning Series Book 3) Page 21