Twelve #2
“Yes, though not in Dane Harcourt’s league.”
“I’m sure you’re brilliant.” I gave him my automatic response, because people complimented my boss all the time.
“Well, thank you, but your boss is amazing. I actually tried to get a job there, but he said my sketches were rudimentary and unimaginative.”
I squinted at him. “Were you there before lunch?”
“Pardon me?” I had surprised him. It was not the answer he’d been expecting.
“Lunch. Did you come, say, around ten thirty?”
“I don’t—”
“’Cause he’s kind of worthless before lunch. If he’s eaten and his blood sugar is balanced out, he’s much nicer,” I assured him, smiling.
“I’ll keep it in mind for next time.”
“Good.” I nodded.
“Maybe I’ll have you talk to him for me. Being his assistant, you must have quite a lot of pull.”
“Yeah, right,” I scoffed as my phone rang. “Speak of the devil. Excuse me,” I said as I moved away from the others. “Hey, boss.”
“Is my schedule done for next week?”
“Of course. I emailed it this morning. Didn’t you see it?”
“No.”
“Did you check?”
“No.”
“Well, that could be the problem.”
“Don’t be flip.”
“No, sir.”
“Did you leave Friday open for my trip to Dallas?”
“Yeah.”
“Yes,” he corrected me.
“Yes.”
“I need to have a dinner party for a client tomorrow night. You need to coordinate that for me now.”
“Sure,” I said quickly. “How many for dinner, boss?”
“Fifteen. I want to have a very intimate meal, so get the best, all right?”
“Of course.”
“And I want you there, understand?”
“Aren’t I always?”
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Yessir.”
“Jory.”
“What?”
“Don’t say what.”
I made a disgruntled noise before I said, “Yes?”
“Better.”
I groaned.
“Now I forgot what I was going to say,” he said irritably.
“Hey, guess who I just saw?”
“I’m sure I have no idea.”
“Paige Ralston,” I teased him. “She said to give you her best.”
“Uh-huh.” He could not have sounded any more bored.
“So I’ll see ya in the morning.”
“Good. How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay.”
“All right. Good night.”
I clicked off my phone and then began entering the party in my calendar.
“You are the man to call, Jory,” Michael teased me. “Put me on the guest list.”
I smiled at him, and once I was done with my entry, I asked Regina what she wanted me to do next. She wanted to show me her house, so I followed her.
We had a good time looking at old movie posters, and I looked at scrapbooks and photo albums. I never tired of looking at other people’s history, since I had none of my own.
Dinner was a loud undertaking, with kids running all over, lots of talking that I thought bordered on arguing, and conversation about a thousand things I knew nothing about, like raising children and baseball.
I concentrated on eating until the doorbell rang.
We all looked up when Rachel returned in no time with an older couple and a younger woman.
There was a loud yell from the table as both Thomas and Regina got up to greet them.
“Oh my goodness, look who it is.” Michael beamed, getting up to go around the table.
I leaned in next to Jen. “Who’re they?”
She put her arm around my shoulders and whispered to me, “The Gordons. They’re old friends of my folks. Their daughter, Nora, and Sammy used to date back in high school. I had no idea she was back from California.”
I nodded, feeling like the air was being sucked out of the room. “How long has she been gone?”
“I dunno, years.”
“Why’d she leave?”
“She went to school out there.”
I nodded, leaning back in my chair.
Sam stood up, and Nora moved fast, coming around the table to fill his arms. She pressed herself in tight against him, her breasts crushed to his chest as she kissed his cheek and his jaw.
He looked at me, directly into my eyes, and I turned all my attention to my food.
I heard his rumbling laugh and felt my face get hot.
I was first up to help clear the table, but I went out the back door to stand around the side of the house instead of starting the dishes.
It was cold outside in just my shirt and cardigan, but I needed the moment alone.
Hard to sit and watch her put her hands all over him and do nothing.
When I heard the yell from the kitchen, since I was under the window, I decided to go back in.
Sam was standing in the kitchen, yelling, while Michael held on to him.
Nora was begging him to calm down while one of his other nameless cousins I hadn’t met stood on the other side of the room, with Levi holding on to him.
Regina stood at the sink with Jen, who was pressing a paper towel to her nose.
It was bleeding, and when the door swung open and Mitch came in, followed by Thomas, I saw Mitch lunge toward the same guy Sam was yelling at.
“You drunk asshole!” Mitch yelled as Thomas grabbed him, arm around his neck and another across his chest. “Get the hell outta here!”
“Oh fuck you, Mitchie. I could kill you, man. I didn’t mean to fuckin’ hit Jen. I meant to bitch-slap Michael, not her.” The man I didn’t know roared.
“I told you not to invite him,” Michael yelled across the room. “But you never listen, Mom. Jesus Christ! You know he’s a total deadbeat and you invite him anyway.”
I saw her eyes fill as she held Jen’s head back.
“Shut the fuck up,” Sam yelled at Michael before shaking him off and striding across the floor toward the guy trying to twist out of Levi’s grasp. “Mom wants to help, let her fuckin’ help. But we deal with this shit right now. This bullshit is gonna—”
“Sam!” Nora shouted at him. “Don’t be such a mindless brute. We don’t just beat people.”
“Watch me,” he said, shoving Levi off and grabbing the guy around the throat.
“Sam!” Thomas barked at him.
“Sam!” his mother yelled at him. “That’s your cousin, leave him alone!”
“Hey,” I called over to Sam.
He stopped and looked over his shoulder at me.
“You’re gonna end some guy in your mom’s kitchen?”
His eyes locked on mine.
“Maybe we just put him in a cab, huh?” I smiled at him.
You could have heard a pin drop in the room. I saw the look on the guy’s face, the terror there, knowing how close he was to being put on the floor.
“Fine,” Sam growled, shoving the guy hard away from him before he went to check on his sister. “Call a cab, Mike.”
His brother pulled out his cell phone and was on it seconds later. I leaned back against the door as everyone scrambled around the kitchen. When Regina moved Jen over to the small table in the kitchen to sit down, I took my place back at the sink to start the dinner cleanup.
“Hello.”
I looked sideways and found Nora. “Hi.”
“I didn’t meet you yet.”
“I’m Jory.”
“Well, Jory, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Usually when Sam’s that mad, we don’t get him back. I remember a guy once cut us off in traffic, and he followed him all the way home—with me in the car no less—and beat the crap out of him.”
I shrugged.
“How long have you and Sam been friends?”
“Not long,” I told her as someone turned up the radio, and suddenly Jen was beside me.
“Hey, you.” I smiled at her. “You all right?”
“I am now that Sammy didn’t kill poor Charlie. It was an accident.”
“I’m thinking he shouldn’t have been trying to touch Mike either.”
She chuckled, and it sounded nasal from the blood in her nose. “True. Can I help you?”
“Only if you sing along with me.”
She heard the beginnings of the Dionne Warwick song. “Jory, we’re both too young to know this song.”
I started singing “Then Came You,” and she laughed at me before she joined in, singing along with me at the top of her lungs.
When I dried my hands on my jeans and held out my hand to her, she took it, and then we were moving around the kitchen together.
I saw Regina smiling and noted the fall of Thomas’ shoulders as he calmed.
I surrendered her to Mitch when the song changed and returned to my dishes.
Rachel and Regina sang along with Aretha Franklin and me as they helped.
“Ooh, Jory, look at you move, honey,” Rachel cooed, watching me dance next to the sink. “Somebody’s missing out.”
I arched a brow for her and she smacked my ass.
“Hey.”
I turned at his voice; Sam was standing at the back door.
“Can you come here for a second?”
“Yeah,” I said quickly. “Excuse me, ladies.”
When I was within reach, he grabbed a handful of my sweater and pulled me close.
“I wanna go now, okay?”
“Sure. Why?”
“Why?”
“Yeah, why?”
“’Cause I just realized something.”
“What’s that?”
His jaw clenched. “I’m better at home.”
“You are home.”
“No, our home.”
Our home? God, the things that came out of the man’s mouth. “Okay.”
He put his hand on the side of my neck and leaned his forehead against mine.
“Thanks for keeping me grounded today. I have trouble when I’m here. My family expects me to be one way, so I am.”
I had no idea what that meant. His family wanted him to be a hothead? That made no sense.
“It’s hard to be here sometimes.”
I just took a deep breath, closing my eyes, enjoying his closeness and how he didn’t seem to want to move away from me.
He bumped my jaw with his nose, tilting my head as he buried his face in the side of my neck, inhaling me. “You’re definitely good for me.”
I trembled because I couldn’t help it.
As he pulled back, he rubbed his cheek along mine. “I’ll get your coat, all right?”
“Yessir.”
“Say goodbye to my mom.”
“I will.”
“Knock it off. What time do I need to drop you off at work in the morning?”
I shook my head. “I can take the train, no worries.”
“No, idiot. I will drive you so nobody kills you on your way to work. What time does your boss get in?”
“Eight.”
He grunted.
“And tomorrow night he’s got an event, so you’re gonna hafta fend for yourself at dinner.”
“Maybe I’ll bring ya some food and eat with ya.”
I scoffed. “Yeah, right.”
He threaded his fingers fast through my hair and he yanked me back to him, hard, his breath warm across my face. “You doubt me?”
I smiled wide, laughing softly, thinking that the man had no idea how often he touched me. “No, sir, Detective.”