8. Maddox
MADDOX
“H ey, man.” My brother Rome walks into il leone and looks around like he always does. It might not look like much yet, but the restaurant is getting there. It’s the biggest undertaking I’ve had since I started opening businesses a few years ago, but it’s also the one I’m most excited for.
“Dude, when is this place supposed to open?” He drags his finger over a stack of boxes, then blows the dust off like he’s a drill sergeant and this is a white-glove test.
“Fuck off, asshole. It’s right on track.” We’re looking at a November soft launch, even if it’s hard to see right now.
“Still don’t know why you’d want to put the place in an old bank,” he taunts.
“Look around. They don’t make buildings like this anymore.” This place was built in the early 1900s. The marble columns, stairs, and floors are all original. The massive ceilings and sheer magnitude of the place is a sight to be seen. Hell, the wrought-iron gate that closes over the doors is so heavy, it needs something like eight men to open and close it. It’s only been pulled down twice in the last hundred years. Once during the Great Depression, when people flooded the streets and the original bank in a panic, trying to get to their money, and once, when the Kings won the Superbowl. I guess you could say Philadelphia is a special city.
Rome doesn’t look impressed. “I heard everyone is heading to Kingdom tonight. You going?”
“I promised Lilah I would,” I mutter, wishing I hadn’t. But when our cousin’s wife bats her eyelashes and pouts as she asks you to do something, she’s hard to say no to. Luckily, she doesn’t pull out the big guns often. But she did for tonight.
A friend of Lilah’s is singing at the bar our uncle owns, and Lilah and her husband invited us all to go.
“You think her sister is gonna be there?” Rome asks, trying for nonchalant like a fucking tool.
“Dillan? Probably.” The dumbass looks excited, and I shove him away. “Why don’t you just fuck already? The two of you have been circling each other for years.” I roll up the plans I was looking at and shove them in my bag, then grab my phone and keys. I’ve got to get the hell out of here.
“Ehh... I don’t know. The chase is kinda fun. How about you? You been chasing anything good lately, Madman?”
I shake my head. “Fuck off, brother.”
The dumbass laughs. “You might want to fix that soon before it becomes a permanent issue.”
I smack the back of his head as I follow him out.
It’s not like I’ve been trying to avoid women the past few months.
It’s just none of them are her.
Fuck.
* * *
K ingdom is packed to capacity when I show up, but the bouncer spots me and points me upstairs where the rest of my cousins are. Even two years ago, this would have been my scene, but not now. Not anymore.
Jesus Christ, I sound like a whiney little bitch, even to myself. Fuck this . I make my way to the bar and smile at the hot little bartender. “Macallan, neat.”
Her bright eyes glitter with interest, and I have no doubt I could take her home if I wanted to. “Yes, sir. Can I get you anything else?”
She’s hot, in short black shorts and a black silk tuxedo vest with a white bow tie. Her tits are pushed up under her chin, and she’s definitely looking the part tonight.
But yet... nothing.
My cock doesn’t even jump.
Fucking great.
I spot my cousin Maverick across the private VIP bar area above the stage and dance floor and decide he’s as good an excuse as any to ignore the hot bartender. “What’s with the whole moody, emo, bastard thing you’ve got going on?”
He turns his head and arches his brow. “Emo? Seriously?”
Seriously?
Has he looked in the mirror?
I tap my glass to his bottle of beer. “I mean, to each his own, man. But why the hell are you off in a corner, sulking?”
“Thought you were the all-knowing ,” he calls me out, looking down at the floor below us filled with our family and friends. Everyone having a good time. Care-fucking-free.
“I know you’re a fucking idiot,” I laugh. Maverick and I are two years apart, but we’ve been tight our whole lives. Our moms are sisters, and our dads are brothers. This whole damn town is a little incestuous, and sometimes our family is a prime example.
Mav grins. “You’re unsurprisingly not the first person to tell me that today. Might want to ask Jamie how it went for him.”
I ignore the comparison since Mav’s roommate is as big a dumbass as my brothers. “Want to talk about it?”
He lifts his bottle to his mouth, stalling. “Not even a little bit.”
Rumor has it there’s something going on with his neighbor. Might as well go on the offensive before he starts asking me questions I don’t feel like answering. “So it’s a woman, huh?”
“You heard me say I didn’t want to talk, right?” The crowd below us screams as the band pulls Lilah onstage to sing with them, and Mav acts like it’s the most riveting thing he’s ever seen so he can ignore me.
I get not wanting to talk about something, but there’s no way I’m letting him off that easily. “Get your shit together, or don’t. That’s on you.”
“Thanks, Yoda,” he grumbles.
I’ve been called worse.
“You ever want something you know you shouldn’t have?” he asks.
Damn. Talk about a direct hit.
“Every day for almost a year,” I answer honestly. I can pinpoint just about the exact date. “But I want something I can’t have. Pretty sure you’re torturing yourself over something you can have. There’s a massive difference.”
“Has anybody ever told you the way you have of knowing everything is unsettling? Because it is.”
My chest shakes with silent laughter.
Touché, cousin.
“I watch. It’s what I do. You’ve always acted. It’s what you do. Or it sounds like what you used to do.” I look out over the crowd and shrug. Everyone underestimates the power of observation. “You’ve always been the first one to jump into shit, Mav. You got me in so much trouble growing up because you had to do everything I was doing, like a little dickhead. It didn’t matter that you were younger. You were fearless. Act first, think later. How many times did our moms get on us about that shit?”
We both laugh because it’s true.
I got in more trouble than he ever did because Mom and Aunt Lenny always said I was older and should know better.
They didn’t care that we told him not to do it.
They just cared that he did it and I let him.
“Wanna tell me what’s changed?” I push as the band transitions, and the beat of one of Lilah’s biggest hits starts bouncing off the rafters.
I think about that question.
What’s changed?
I know what’s changed for me.
Pretty sure I know what’s changed for him too.
“Rosie.” His kid... yeah, that’s what I thought he’d say. But that’s not the right answer. “She changed it all. My life. My priorities. Rosie changed everything. Her happiness and her safety trump everything else.”
“Bullshit,” I call him out. “I’ve watched you hook up with plenty of people since Rosie was born. You didn’t stop because of her, you just became more discreet. But rumor has it the new nanny has you tied in knots.”
“Since when do you believe everything you hear?”
Awfully defensive for someone with nothing to hide, little cousin.
And just as quickly as I think that, I realize I’ve become a fucking hypocrite.
Damn...
“Answer one question and I’ll leave you alone,” I taunt him and lift my glass to my mouth. “Better yet, answer me one question, and I’ll get everyone to leave you alone.”
“Cite your source, and I’ll answer,” he counters.
“Dude.” I shake my head. “My mom mentioned it. Pretty sure she’s been talking to your mom.” The two of them together are bad news, but they’re not the only ones talking. “Jamie may have said something the other night when he stopped by the bar for dinner. And Ryker mentioned the hot nanny last week at the poker night you skipped out on. Even Killian?—”
“I never said a word to Killian,” he argues, but he’s already lost this fight, and he knows it.
My grin grows as I hammer the final nail in his coffin. “You didn’t need to. Lilah was at your house when some dude showed up at the nanny’s house, and she said you went ballistic.”
“I didn’t go ballistic,” he grumbles. “And she has a name.” As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he knows he just proved my point. “What’s your question?”
Maverick has no clue how easy it is to read him.
This girl isn’t just some girl.
If she was, he wouldn’t be defensive.
This wouldn’t be driving him to drink alone in a bar full of people who care about him. We don’t stress over ass. We don’t worry about who said what over women who don’t matter. I should know.
This girl matters to him, and she’s here, in Kroydon Hills, living next door and helping with his kid. She’s standing in front of him with nothing in the way... nothing holding him back but himself. And he’s going to miss his chance. “What’s holding you back? What are you scared of?”
Right for the jugular.
What can I say? I don’t pull my punches.
“That was two questions.”
I hold up two fingers. “Two questions—one answer. Same goal. You’ve hooked up since Rosie. But you haven’t dated since Denae showed up at your doorstep pregnant. You didn’t love her. I’m not even sure you liked her. But you haven’t dated since her either, and I’m pretty sure you want to date this girl.”
Maverick looks away, clearly frustrated, when all he has to do is take a look at himself.
“So what’s holding you back? Because the Mav I know isn’t scared of anything.” I swallow my whiskey in one gulp and signal for a waiter. “You’ve always been fearless, and I’ve always respected that.”
“It’s easy to be fearless when you’re only worried about yourself. But it’s not just me. It hasn’t been for a long damn time. I’ve got Rosie to think about. To worry about. How am I supposed to date and bring someone around Rosie when I know it will devastate my kid when they leave? How am I supposed to trust someone with her heart. This girl is young. I doubt she’s looking for an instant family.”
“Don’t put words in other people’s mouths, Mav. Don’t assume you know. It never ends well.” I signal the waiter and order another drink.
The waiter points at Mav’s beer, but he shakes his head. “Sounds like you’re talking from experience, cousin.”
You could say that.
I think back to the first time Lennon asked me to walk away.
To the fear in her eyes.
The way her voice trembled.
The way she pleaded with me to do it for her because she wasn’t strong enough to do it herself, even if she had to. I could have stayed. I could have fought. But it would have just made things harder on her, and it wouldn’t have changed the outcome. “Maybe... I don’t want to see you make my mistakes.” I tilt the ice still in my empty glass, eyes locked on the cubes as I lean over the railing.
Mistakes are a cruel fucking bitch that come back to haunt you when you least expect them to.
Especially mistakes you know you had to make because, for someone else, they were the only choice.
Mav mirrors my stance and stares down at the people below. “I don’t know... I’ve just got this feeling...” He leaves his words hanging in the air. Like there’s more he wants to say but can’t. Won’t.
“Take the chance or don’t, Maverick. You’re the one that has to live with the consequences. But take it from me, consequences fucking suck when they’re permanent, and age doesn’t matter. Fuck, your parents met when they were twenty-two, and they were making out on the dance floor at Killian and Lilah’s wedding a few weeks ago. They’re still happy, and you know it. It can happen. We’re surrounded by examples of what it looks like when it works out.”
And he’s standing next to a man who’s a prime example of what happens when it doesn’t.
There’s a flicker of something in his eyes as he turns his back on the crowd. “Why do you care so much?”
“Because I always did the things first and you followed, and I don’t want you to follow my mistakes this time.” The waiter drops off a fresh drink, and I drop a fifty on his tray and add my empty glass. “Regret sucks, man.”
Maverick thinks about that before he cracks his neck and drops his empty bottle next to mine. “You’re like a broken record.”
“What do you have to lose?” I challenge, wanting him to make the choice I couldn’t.
His situation may be complicated, but I doubt it’s got anything on the royally fucked up shit Lennon has to deal with.
“Rosie’s nanny,” he answers, clipped.
“Sounds like the possible good outweighs the bad. If this girl is all sweetness and light like the guys are saying, she’ll stick around until you find someone else, even if you turn into a giant dick and fuck her over. Hell... maybe her brother could set her up with someone else on the team to ease the pain.”
Mav’s gaze goes fucking feral.
And my work here is done.
“I fucking hate you,” he tells me as he grabs his keys from his pocket.
I watch the motions kicking into gear and fucking smile. “I’m okay with that. Go get the girl, Mav.”
“Dumbass,” he groans as he walks away.
At least one of us has a chance at going home to his woman tonight.
I swallow my Macallen in one gulp and drop it to the table.
Looks like Meatball and I have another night alone coming at us.