8. Aubree
8
AUbrEE
I LOVE MY FAMILY. I LOVE MY FAMILY. I LOVE MY FAMILY.
T he next night, after ruling Mrs. Shoemaker’s death natural causes and preparing my reports so a certificate can be given to the next of kin, I arrive at my parents’ house about a fifteen-minute drive from the central business district where I live.
Except, I don’t have a car. So I have to catch a bus, then a second bus, and then I have to walk ten minutes from the bus stop to my parents’ house, which turns fifteen minutes into fifty. And though I hardly mind the trek, my oversized purse weighs heavily on my shoulder, a bottle of wine tucked somewhere in the depths.
My gift.
My hope is to get my mother tipsy, which will hopefully dull her spooky insistence on being completely and overbearingly up in my business and asking unnecessary questions about my love life.
Non-existent as it is.
I trudge up the front stairs of my childhood home, a half dozen cars parked in the driveway and on the street, which means everyone is here. Eight grown Emeri children, two Emeri parents, a handful of girlfriends and boyfriends, one husband, my sister’s two kids, my brother’s wife, and the family Golden Retriever, Barney.
Noise floods the house like a battering ram that, honest to God, feels like a hammer slamming against my chest.
Coming home is comforting and exhausting at the same time. It’s love and intolerance at once. Because Emeris are nosey people, and when you’re me, a twenty-seven-year-old doctor for the dead, having never brought a man home to meet the family, and your siblings are already in the throes of marriage and having children, discussions can become tense.
That tension is enough to make me wish for a lobotomy.
“Aubree!” The door swings wide and Eli, my older brother and the groom-to-be, surges through, grabbing my arms kind of how Tim does when he wants to control me. His eyes shimmer with mischief, and perhaps, a little panic. Then Curtis, his future husband, follows. Just as energized. Scandalized, even. “We have to talk!” Eli drags me through the door and lobs me into the front living room, the one no one ever enters, and once upon a time, had plastic covers on everything to save the fancy furniture from eight rambunctious kids. With fast steps, he follows me in and grabs the door, then he waits for Curtis, grinning when the second fixes his bowtie.
Because I guess family dinner is a formal affair.
“What the hell are you doing, Eli?” I push the straps of my bag back onto my shoulder. “You don’t have to be so big all the time.”
“Sissy…” He leaves his fiancé by the door and grabs my hands, holding on tight even when I try to pull away. “What did you do?”
“What? I don’t know what you mean.”
“You brought a date to family dinner!” he explodes in a hushed shout. “Aubree! You didn’t think to text me first?” Then he leans closer, whispering, “He’s mafia, honey. I know we don’t tell Mom and Daddy, and I know his family relations is kind of an unspoken thing. I know he’s been around a long time, all of my research says he’s not, like… active mafia anymore, and I’ve seen the way he’s protective of you. So I’m not panicking. But family dinner ? Are you insane?”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t bring anyone to dinner!”
“He’s in the dining room, sweetie.” Curtis’ eyes glitter with mischief. He’s having the time of his life, which is great for him and all, but my stomach drops from the anxiety swirling in its depths. “And he’s so handsome. I’m not into the beard thing”—He brings his hand up and touches his cleanly shaven chin—“but that’s not to say beards are less than . He said you’re bringing him this weekend.”
“ He said?” Rage bubbles in my blood, burning up and frying my common sense. “Timothy Malone is in this house right now? And he said he’s coming to the wedding?”
“That’s what he said,” Eli sniggers. “He brought wine and kissed Momma. He introduced himself, and then he went out back and fussed in the garden for a few minutes with Daddy. He ran the gamut, Aubree. And now we’re waiting for you so we can serve up dinner.”
“I’m gonna kill him.” I shove my purse at my older brother and swing past him with the rage of a million warriors. Then I growl when Curtis blocks the door, though he raises his hands and side-steps quickly enough. “Good choice.”
I yank the door wide and feel no guilt when it hits my future brother-in-law— he’ll be fine —then I stomp along the hall and emerge into the kitchen to find my Mom mooning over the man I’ve spent the last several years doing the exact same thing to. She stares at him, her chin in her hand, in love, and completely charmed by his easy smile. But his eyes come to me. Playful. Happy. So fucking relaxed, I know I’ll take extra pleasure wiping the damn grin off his face.
“My baby girl is here.” Daddy—Edward Emeri—spots me long before my mother does, skipping around the counter and wrapping me in a hug that smooshes my face against his chest and encases my arms, like he knows I’m about to throw fists. He presses a kiss to my cheek and whispers, oh so softly, “You didn’t think to warn us?”
I pull back, holding my words inside or risk that disappointment parents are so good at expressing. Then I move around and grab Tim by the ear.
He’s a powerful man. No one else would dare. Yada yada yada . I wrench him out of his seat and start toward the back door. “We’ll be back in a moment, Momma. Dinner smells amazing. Get outside.” I practically toss him, body and soul, and know in the back of my mind very few people will have done so in his life.
His father, present for every single event.
“What are you doing?” I slam my hands into his chest when he tries to stalk back toward me. “You weren’t invited!”
“You needed a plus one.”
“I need a cyanide pill, too! Or I will, now that you’ve inserted yourself in my life like this. You can’t come around here, Tim!”
“I wanted to see where you grew up.”
“You didn’t have my permission! I’ve gone twenty-seven years having never brought a man to my home, because I didn’t want to be that person who introduces a new guy every few months after a breakup. You didn’t have my consent to do this.”
“We’re not gonna break up. So it’s a non-issue.”
“We. Are. Not. Together! Why can’t you understand what I’m telling you? You’ve asked me out, I said no. You’ve badgered me, I maintain my no . Where is the miscommunication?”
“Words are not the same as feelings.” He steps closer and takes my hands in his, prying my fingers apart so I can no longer ball my fists. “Your heart is not saying the same thing as your words, Aubree. You wanted me before, and you want me now. Your no is pride and nothing more.”
“My pride?” I yank my hand from his grip, bring my elbow back as far as I can manage, then I barrel it forward and slam my fist to the top of his chest.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t move even an inch.
“I’m allowed to be proud! I’m also allowed to decide when I introduce a man to my family.”
“And I’m allowed to knock on a door and accept an invitation in for dinner.” He grabs my fist and brings it up, bravely, to press a kiss to my knuckles. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“Yes!” I hate that my hand stings. I hate that my ego is wounded. I hate that beneath my hate is a woman desperately clinging to her pride. If I take even a single misstep, I know I’ll long for the man who had the chance to prioritize me in the past… and didn’t.
“I didn’t want this.” The backs of my eyes sting. My emotions, forever and always so easily visible on my face. “If I wanted you to meet them, I would have made it happen.”
“I want us to be together.” He presses another kiss to my knuckles, the hair on his chin tickling my sensitive skin. “I want to be your protector, Aubree Grace. I want to be the guy you come home to. And I know you want that too. So how do we get from where we are right now to where we need to be?”
“We go back in time to when you chose to date someone else, like you thought that would make me fall out of love. We go back to when you had a chance to hold my heart, and instead of stomping it into the floor, you hold it gently and never give me a reason to doubt who you can be for me.”
“I was trying to help you!”
“And in the end, you hurt me.” I tug my hands free and bring one up to swipe beneath my eye. “And then you added more damage tonight, coming to my home and invading a safe space I count on. This is my family, Tim. Mine. Not ours.”
“Well…” He swallows, the movement of his throat a visible, audible thing despite the black beard covering his flesh. Then he sets his hands on his hips an d looks me up and down. “Would you feel better if I told you I introduced myself to your family as a friend?”
My heart thunders painfully. “What?”
“Your mom kept trying to pry, asking if Eli’s wedding had prompted me to step out of the shadows and announce our pending nuptials.”
“ Goddddd .” I drop my head and groan. “She’s relentless.”
“I told her we were just friends. We’ve been friends for many years, and this isn’t romantic. I explained I was coming to dinner purely for moral support and to get to know my friend’s family. That’s it.”
Liar! I feel his deception in the air and search his eyes for the truth. “She believed you?”
“I can be very convincing when I need to be. Are you done freaking out now?”
“No.”
“I’m starving. And your mother’s pot roast smells divine. I never get home-cooked meals unless I’m in New York, so I’d really like to enjoy this, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t…” Doubt trickles in to cast a shadow over what I know to be the truth, but then he takes my hand and reignites the fire in my blood. “Friends? And she accepted that?”
“Of course.” He opens the back door, only to stop and grin when my mother bursts through, screeching like a banshee.
“Engaged!?” She wraps me up in a hug and squeezes until the pressure in my head turns dangerous. “I knew you’d eventually bring Mr. Right home.”
Furious, I bring my eyes around. “Engaged?”
Tim takes off like a shot, clapping hands with Eli, his ally in a colorful war zone. His partner in crime, inside a home bursting with sun catchers and the smell of sage. Rosemary. Incense. “Good to see you again.” He turns to Curtis. “Nice to meet you. Thanks for including me in your big day. My brother just got married this past weekend, too. I guess December is the new May.”
“ H ow is your sex life, Aubree?” My mother fills her glass with deep red Shiraz, pouring until the liquid touches the lip. Then she flashes a smile and meets my eyes. No doubt, my face pales almost as much as the deceased Mrs. Shoemaker. “Healthy, I hope.”
“Mother.” I burn her with a glare and pay Tim no mind at all when he brings a hand up to cover his curling lips. “This is not something I wish to discuss.”
“At the dinner table? Why not?”
“Ever! And because I said so.”
“Sex is natural!” She gestures toward Eli, completely unphased by my niece and nephew perched at the end of the table. “Eli, honey, you understand, don’t you?”
“Yes, Momma.” He wraps his arm over Curtis’ shoulders and picks his wine up to sip. “Mine is very healthy.”
“And Amelia?” My mom leans forward at the table, searching until she catches my sister’s taunting eyes. “Hormone health is in everyone’s best interests. Are you and Malcolm finding time for intimacy now that the kids are a little older?”
“Yes, Momma.” Amelia’s face burns hot. This isn’t the first time our mom has talked about sex in a public setting. But it’s the first time she’s done it in front of Timothy Malone. “We’re trying for a third baby. We’ve only had one cycle so far, but we’re hopeful it’ll happen for us soon.”
“When will you try for babies?” She’s relentless, rotating her head horror-movie style and pinning Tim with a wildly unhinged smile. “Soon after the wedding, I hope.”
“Mom!”
“We have tentative plans for a spring wedding,” Tim offers soooo fucking easily. He drapes his arm over my shoulders and pulls me in until my cheek squishes against the side of his muscular chest. Then he presses a noisy, infuriating kiss to the top of my head. “She accepted my proposal in the summer, so I thought it would be nice to chase the sun a second time.”
“That’s so sweet!” My mom chugs a little more of her wine. “Though I must say, engaged in the summer, and we find out now… in the winter?” She tut tuts . “Disappointing, for sure.”
I push away from my fiancé and gift him a glare that says see ! Parents and their I’m disappointed eyes.
“We’ve been busy,” Tim offers, picking at the remnants of his dinner and placing a green bean between his teeth. “Aubree, especially. I’m so proud of the career she’s chosen for her life’s work. It takes someone very special to do what she does.”
“She could have been a schoolteacher. Or a florist. Or a wedding planner.” Mom’s eyes light up. “Aubree! A wedding planner?—”
“I’m not leaving my job.” But I do as the Emeris do, and chug my wine. “I’m not hiring a wedding planner either.”
“You can have ours,” Eli offers smugly. “Sandra’s been a godsend.”
“No, thanks.” I fake a smile and reach across for the bottle of wine. My plans were to come here and get my mom plastered. Distract her with wedding flowers and plant the seeds of surrogacy for my sweet brother. He’s mentioned it in the past, and it was going to be my Hail Mary if tonight turned to shit. But these things change. My new plan: get me plastered. “Is everything all sorted for the weekend, Elijah? Need help with anything?”
“Just collect your gown from the dressmaker and ensure your cute little tush is on time on Saturday.” He’s a traitor. A monster. A bastard. Because he looks to Tim. “I can get you the information for our tailor if you like, so you can color match your tie and pocket square. Matching our Aubree will make all the difference in the photo album.”
I wave him off and snort-giggle. Panic and humor. Desperation and devastation meeting with alcohol and Tim’s hand touching my thigh under the table. “That won’t be necessary. He won’t be in the family photos.”
“Hogwash!” Katie, my one-night-stand kitty-heathen sister, announces. Because she, too, is a bastard. “Malcolm will be in the pictures. And Seely.” She gestures toward the woman who burrows beside my brother, Liam. “Partners have always been included. It wouldn’t be right to exclude Tim just because you’re shy.”
“Yeah, babe.” Tim’s eyes glitter with menace. “I never took you for the kind of woman to exclude others. Especially not someone you consider family.”
“What’s for dessert, anyway?” Seely saves me, sort of, and draws my mother’s gaze. “You know I have a sweet tooth, Joanette.”
“Chocolate mud.” She pops up from her chair as though the damn thing has springs in the cushions, then she skirts the table and makes a beeline for the kitchen counter. “I was hoping Duane would arrive in time for me to serve up. But I guess he’s not coming tonight.”
I slap Tim’s hand from my leg while my mother’s back is turned, and meet Seely’s kind gaze, a thank you so clearly in mine.
She nods. Short. Discreet. Lifesaving.