Chapter 14 #2
“Back off until I talk to her and get the lay of the land,” Knox ordered.
“We’ll give you space, brother,” Shanti said. “But we’re still gonna plan because she isn’t gonna give up that easy and we gotta be ready.”
Knox didn’t look happy about that, and it was such that it was killing my “Walking on Sunshine” vibe.
“And by the way, I’m just making us coffees because I’m out and I don’t feel like navigating a grocery store on a Saturday,” Shanti said. “As soon as I set us up,”—she grinned—“you can resume your reun—”
She didn’t finish her statement because there was another hammering on the door.
Jessie was closest, but Knox stalked to it, opened it, and Martha was there.
This could mean anything. Impromptu brunch by the pool and she was there to give us our assignments for food (or booze).
Her needing a hideout because she saw one of her daughters-in-law pull in.
Or, even though her unit wasn’t close to mine, she was miffed the Angels had knocked so loud, so early, and she didn’t feel she should keep that a secret.
It was none of these things.
Instead, she said, gazing irascibly up at Knox, “Good. You’re here. So is Alexis’s father, and he had a few things to say Jacob didn’t like, so things are getting very real right now down in the courtyard.”
Oh no!
Alexis’s father was against her marrying Jacob. To the point he’d refused to pay for the wedding. He and her mom had been sent an invitation (I knew, I helped her address them). I didn’t know what their RSVP was, considering that deadline was a while ago since their wedding was next Saturday.
But I suspected his version of an RSVP was happening right now.
Knox asked for no further information.
He just turned to me and looked at his shirt on my body.
Ah, fuck.
I’d been guarding this secret and had no intention of ever telling it. Not even now that he was back. It exposed far too much.
“Babe,” he grunted as his way of telling me he needed his shirt.
Crap.
“That tee I stole from you? You know, the army one I liked so much?” I asked.
He said nothing.
“It’s under my pillow,” I mumbled.
Okay, so we shared a lot last night, including avowals of love.
But that said a whole lot more, precisely why I wasn’t ever going to tell him (all right, maybe one day, when we were old and gray and watching our great-grandchildren graduate high school, but not a day before that).
“Mm-hmm,” Shanti hummed.
Harlow and Gemma giggled.
“Well, all right,” Jessie whispered.
But Knox…
Knox stared at me…
And God…
God.
This man really, really loved me.
“Well!” Martha exclaimed impatiently. “Isn’t anyone going to stop Jacob from blooding the courtyard with what comes gushing out of his future father-in-law’s nose?”
The Angels started dashing out the door.
Knox jogged to my bedroom and jogged out sans sling (gah!), tugging on his tee.
I jogged out after him completely forgetting I was wearing nothing but his shirt.
Jacques jogged out with us.
You would not think Knox had a healing hole blown through his thigh just eight days and some change before with the way he caught sight of what was happening outside Jacob and Alexis’s apartment, and he started sprinting.
I hastened my step too, as did all the Angels (and Jacques, though sadly, my wee boy’s legs were very short, so he had no hope of keeping up with his guy), but Knox passed them on the stairs in order to get to Jacob, who was bumping chests, nose-to-nose with an older man.
Linda was holding onto a sobbing Alexis just outside their door.
A handful of other residents had fanned out around them.
An older woman who looked a touch like Alexis was standing away from the action and the other residents and scowling at Jacob and the man who I was suspecting was her husband, though, the scowl seemed aimed at the husband.
And Cap was crowding close to the combatants, appearing like he was trying to talk some sense into them.
Knox had a different philosophy on how to deal with this, and we would all see very clearly the instant he made it to Jacob and Alexis’s dad.
This being, he jerked Alexis’s dad back by the shoulder.
“Oh shit,” I whispered, still racing to make it to the tableau.
Oh shit was right.
Alexis’s dad, taken by surprise, lost it, immediately wound up to take a swing and took it to gasps all around, though Alexis whimpered.
But quick as a dart, Knox ducked it, then landed a flat hand in Alexis’s father’s chest and pushed him back (one push, three steps, just sayin’) and then he did it again. This while Cap rounded Jacob and pressed him into retreat to put space between him and his future father-in-law.
I stopped next to Jessie and Rhea, one of the other tenants, and it took all I had, but I stayed clear of the action, and I kept my mouth shut about Knox seeing to his injuries.
Jacques was not as quiet, though I didn’t think him barking at Alexis’s dad had anything to do with Knox’s injuries.
Alexis’s father was blustering, and Knox put a finger right in his face, something that shut him right up (again, he just shoved, one handed, and the man went back three steps, not to mention, Knox had a good four, five inches on him and perhaps fifty extra pounds of pure muscle, so there was that—the man might be angry, but obviously was no fool).
“I have no fuckin’ clue what your problem is, but for fuck’s sake, a week from today, your daughter is marrying that man, and this is the memory you wanna give her of the run up to it?” Knox demanded.
“I came to talk sense into my daughter,” the man lashed back.
“And what sense would that be?” Knox asked but didn’t wait for him to answer. “I work with Jacob. He’s also a good friend. And he worships the ground your daughter walks on. He’d give her his kidney. He’d take a bullet for her. So tell me, man, what sense would that be?”
“He was a pothead construction worker before he got into some business where, half the time, she doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing,” the man spat.
“He’s a private investigator for the premier firm in the nation, asshole,” Knox retorted.
“And she doesn’t know what he’s doing because we offer confidentiality to our clients.
Your daughter knows that, and it isn’t a fuckin’ issue because it isn’t a goddamned fuckin’ issue.
It’s part of his job. And as his woman, she understands that part of his job. ”
“Daddy, I do,” Alexis cried from where she was still clinging to Linda.
Her father looked to her. “You have no idea what your future husband does to make a living and you’re okay with that?
” he demanded. “You think that’s okay at all?
Let me answer for you, Alexis. It…is…not.
” Before anyone could say anything, he went on to accuse, “No doubt, you’re smoking drugs now too. ”
Clearly having had enough (didn’t blame her, he was treating her like a child), Alexis tore from Linda’s hold, and with fists clenched, her torso spiked her father’s way.
“Yes! Actually, I do!” she snapped. “Because, you see, I’m marrying the love of my life in a week, and my father is being cruel and ugly about it, and I love him, and my mom, and I’m losing them, so I can’t sleep.
So I take some hits from a weed vape to help me go to sleep because if I lose anymore over you being so…
incredibly…heartless, it’ll upset my guy, and what’s happening right now would have happened a lot earlier because Jacob detests anything that bothers me.
And he never fails to do something about it. ”
She marched up to her father, and only then did Knox back off (but he didn’t go far).
She swiped at the tears on her face and shook her head before she launched back in.
“The thing that hurts the most is that you think I’m so danged stupid, I can’t pick the right man for me.
” She shook her head again. “Oh, don’t think it doesn’t kill that you say the things you do about Jacob.
That you behave the way you do to him. It does, Dad.
It kills. But what hurts even more is that you think so little…
of me…that you think I’m not smart enough to make the most important decision of my life.
That being who I’m going to spend the rest of it with.
Who I’m going to create a family with. Who loves me and deserves my love in return. ”
“Alexis, if this guy is such a great PI, tell my why you two are still in an apartment,” her father responded.
“Well, for one, he wants me to have the wedding of my dreams,” she returned.
“And even though all of our friends kicked in, and it’s going to be everything I want, and then some, I was stupid in one thing.
Jacob overheard me telling Patsy I found my dream gown, but I couldn’t buy it because it was too expensive.
As in, fifteen thousand dollars expensive. ”
“Well, shit. That is expensive,” Rhea whispered.
“And Jacob bought it for me,” Alexis stated.
“Well, shit,” Rhea, Jessie and I repeated.
“And I can’t dance forever, Dad,” Alexis carried on (she was, not incidentally at this juncture, a ballerina at the Arizona Ballet).
“I’m aging out. So Jacob asked me what I wanted to do.
I said I wanted my own studio. So we’re saving what we’d put down on a house so he can give me my studio.
I tried to fight him on it. He wouldn’t listen.
He said we’re in a good spot, someplace we both like being, if it takes another couple years for us to find the home we’re gonna put kids into, it doesn’t matter.
But he wants me spending my days doing something I love, so I’m gonna do that. ”
Oh jeez.
I was getting all teary-eyed, because that was so sweet.
Jacob was the man.
Alexis’s dad’s jaw was working, but obviously, to all his daughter had said, he had no retort.
Alexis did, and what came next broke my heart.