Chapter Three
Chef
“Shit, could you look any sadder?” Saint murmurs, eyeing me as we walk down the lane toward Vex and Loyal’s house.
“Shut up.” I try to growl the words out but I just sound pathetic and whiney.
“Seriously. You’re being given a gift here, and it’s one you’re lucky to be getting,” Saint continues. “I know you fucked up. Dunno how, don’t even want to know. But I know you’re a good man, which is why my brothers and I are letting you near our niece."
“What he said,” Omen agrees. “I wanted to kick your ass, but obviously my sister had a better plan. Make you live with a woman who can’t stand you.” He grins at me.
“She’s always been mean as a snake,” Saint says, shaking his head slowly.
“I have no idea how Sage came out so damn sweet. She’s too good for me, you know?” I kick a stone and watch it skitter away. “So sweet, and gentle. She’s soft, and somehow I broke that in her. I deserve her anger.”
Crickets. I expected some type of ribbing but neither of them have said a thing. Chancing a glance in their direction I frown when I see the looks on their faces. Looks of shock and disgust.
“Who the hell are you talking about?” Saint spits. “Not my niece, that’s for sure. Not unless she tricked you into all that. Sagey-Girl is a sweetheart, but she ain’t that sweet, soft or kind.”
My brows dip even lower at his words.
“Seriously, brother. She’s our eldest niece, Blanche’s eldest daughter. We taught her everything she needs to know to survive, which includes, and isn’t limited to, guns, knives, knuckle dusters, jiu jitsu -” he lists all these things on his fingers.
“Karate for a bit,” Omen offers as Vex takes one look at my face and then snorts.
“Yup, karate, kick boxing and archery,” Saint finishes.
“You think Cove is scary? Sage is worse because she’s quieter, more thoughtful -”
“Cunning, I’d say,” Vex says, interrupting Omen. He slaps me so hard on the shoulder I swear my guts almost fall out. “But I’m sure you’ll be fine, living in a little house with her, all alone with no one to hear you scream.”
All three Landry brothers laugh out loud at my expense and I can’t say I don’t deserve it. I know what I did. I know I was wrong and I’ve been paying for it ever since I let Sage close that door behind her. What a fucking idiot.
“Here she is,” Loyal sing songs, dragging Sage and Joe up the little porch steps before unlocking the door.
“Wait! Don’t you want your husband to carry you over the threshold?” Omen wiggles his brows and Sage gives him a blank stare.
Omen laughs like it’s the funniest joke in the world and I’m tempted to march up those steps, scoop her up into my arms and carry her through the doorway as I should.
Then I remember the sweat on my forehead and upper lip from the effort of walking here with my stomach wound and I think better of it.
“Up she goes!” Damian says, scooping up a giggling Sage and carrying her through the doorway.
“That fucker is skating on thin fucking ice,” I mutter to myself.
“You can’t kill the prospect,” Saint sings. “We need him. And his momma.” I huff out a breath and slowly follow behind.
Walking through the front door I’m met with a magazine worthy-cabin. Sage must agree because I can hear her cooing about how cute everything is as she wanders around the small space.
“This is darling! Who decorated this place? It’s like a magazine,” she exclaims, her voice awed.
“It was Justice and Damian. Don’t ask me why but them boys got taste,” Joe says in her sassy way.
Sage shoots Damian an impressed look before she notices me standing in the doorway. “This will be my room. There’s another down the hall for you. Unfortunately we’ll have to share a bathroom but I’m sure we can figure that all out.”
I don’t say anything. Just purse my lips and nod.
What is there to say? Sorry I fucked up?
Sorry I fucked you and then dumped you? Sorry that I’m a piece of shit and you’re a fucking angel?
Sorry, I love you? So many things to say sorry for, and none of them will ever make up for what I did.
I fist my clammy palms and move as quickly as I can to the front door.
I need air. I need to take a breath and try to swallow down this suffocating feeling in my chest. I need-
“You need Pops.” A phone is thrust at me from someone in my peripheral and I don’t have the ability to even say no.
I have no voice and no fucking wits about me other than to put the phone to my ear.
“Kid? You there?”
“Yeah,” I rasp out as I try to breathe through my nose and out of my mouth.
“Finally hit ya like a kick in the balls. Takes your breath away, huh?” Pops doesn’t even wait for me to answer.
“Wheeze once if you want to make this right.” I blow out a long breath.
“Good choice. If you said no I would have got Carmelita out of the garage, broken the speed limit to Louisiana, cut open all those pretty stitches my grandbaby worked so hard on and dragged out your fucking liver. Instead, I will send you Love Pres coaching. Check your email.” With that he hangs up abruptly and I’m left squatting in the dirt, breathing a little easier and wondering what the fuck just happened.
“Sage has chosen her house, now it’s time for you to go pack your shit. You’re moving out, brother.”
Sage
I drag my eyes from Chef’s form as he squats in the garden looking like he’s going to barf, and instead set my sights on Joe and Loyal.
If I’m going to be living here I may as well make some friends.
I mean, sure, we know each other well enough to politely hang out, but if I’m going to do this I need something deeper.
Something like what my mom has with her friends.
“So, do you wanna start a girl gang with me?” I ask. I try for bluster, but I think it comes out uncertain.
Joe and Loyal share a look before wide smiles take over their faces. “Hell yeah! We’ve had experience with your gal gang, and I liked what I saw,” Joe says giddily.
“So, how do we do this?” Loyal asks, pale cheeks flushed with what I hope is excitement.
I rest my hands on my hips and think out loud. “Well, the first time I ever went to the DRMC clubhouse was just after the Girl Gang had brought in male strippers. So we could do that?”
“Hard pass. Damian is the only male stripper in this town and I just, no. Nope. No,” Loyal says, shaking her auburn curls around.
“I dunno, I wouldn’t mind slipping a dollar bill into his panties,” Joe says with a gleam in her eye. She jumps a mile when Justice’s voice quietly, calmly says, “No” from behind her. Very calmly she turns, and smiles impishly. “I’d slip $2 into yours.”
Justice’s brows hit his hairline as his cheeks colour the same way as Loyal’s. Tilting my head, I take them both in.
“Wait, are you two related?”
“Cousin siblings.” They answer at the same time and I can’t help the smile on my face.
“Me too.” I point at my own chest. “Cousin siblings, or step cousin siblings with all my siblings. If that makes sense.” I think for a moment. “Depending on who your moms are, I could probably be cousins with you too.”
Loyal’s brows pull in. “I don’t think we’re related to your mom in any way.”
“Oh, she’s not my biological mom. She’s Niko’s biological mom. The rest of us she smuggled out of the keep when our bio moms reached out to her. We all belong to Royal Landry, just different moms. My mom raised us all.”
“Sheesh, and I thought it was bad when Uncle Phillip divorced Auntie Leona and then married Auntie Janet. Her identical twin,” Joe says, looking between us all.
I stare at her a moment before sharing a look with Justice and Loyal. “Why does that feel worse than our situation?”
“Almost feels illegal,” Justice says, looking baffled.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait. How is Uncle Phillip worse than y’all maybe being cousin siblings not counting all the others out there in the world?” Joe asks, hands on hips.
“We know we’re fucked up,” Justice says in a soothing voice, “but outside people don’t do the fucked up stuff Eden’s Keep did. So when they do do fucked up stuff, it just sounds…worse.”
Joe frowns before standing to her full height of about 5’1, shoulders back. “Is this some kind of weird discrimination because I grew up in the normal world?”
“Well, you are outnumbered by wonky inbreds here,” Loyal grins before throwing her arm over Joe’s shoulder and pulling her in for a hug. “But we love you, even if you are a normie.”
“I’ll curse all y’all’s asses,” Joe says, narrowed eyes on us before she grins, her teeth white against her dark skin.
“Don’t worry, cher. You’re my boy. I got you,” Damian says out of nowhere, slapping Justice on the shoulder and scaring the shit out of me.
“Where the hell did you come from?” I gasp.
“Jus’ makin sure everything in the house is perfect for you and your fiancé.”
My eyes narrow as I glance up at him. “What did you do?”
“Ain’t nothing you won't thank me for later.” He looks down at me. “Now why your eyes all squinty like?”
I jab my finger in his direction, “I’ll find out what you did, big man.”
“I don’t doubt it.” he smirks, “In the meantime, Short Stuff,” he says, pointing a finger at Joe, “ain’t no one laying curses on this man here.
” He moves his pointer finger to Justice.
“He’s under my protection.” Joe raises an unimpressed brow.
“Oh, you best believe it, I got the juju in me jus’ like you got it in you. ”
“Wait, you mean, juju juju? Like witchcraft?” I don’t know why I whisper the end like a total loser, but come on, I grew up on Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns with my mom.
“He’s being dramatic. I know some things my grandma taught me. It’s just how I was raised.”
Damian shakes his head dramatically, “Don’t listen to her, she got that Louisiana voodoo in her. I got a touch, un petit, I’m a momma’s boy, me, and she taught me all she knows. And I earned money as a kid at the markets reading fortunes.”
Joe snorts, rolling her eyes. “This one has had all the jobs imaginable.”
I eye Damian. “I thought you were a bartender?”
“He’s a bar manager,” Justice corrects me. “He also sells bait, runs the BBQ Shack when TumTum is busy, is a part-time undertaker and lawyer,” Justice recites proudly.
“Oh, you two are totally BFF’s.” I grin.
“Damn straight. He’s my boy,” Damian says seriously.
I smile softly as this bunch who somehow have managed to find each other and form a bond and my chest grows tight hoping that I can perhaps grow a bond of sorts too.
At the DRMC I was kinda a fish out of water.
Too old to hang out with the kids, too young to hang out properly with the Ol Ladies.
So I spent most of my time with Mama Debs helping with the kids.
Don’t get me wrong, I love each and every one of them, but it's a little sad that I don’t have the deep connection that Loyal and Joe or Damian and Justice have.
I think I expected it would happen for me when I started college.
But I wasn’t living on campus, instead opting to go into Roxburgh every day to study.
Sure I made some friends, I even dated some after Chef pulled his shit on me and I thought I was really going to go out there and live my best life.
And here I am, about to enter into a marriage with a man who tore my heart out and stomped on it and try to kill another man who thinks of me as his possession. Life really is messed up sometimes.
“Jus’ so you know, I’m taking applications for second best friend,” Damian says with a sly look.
“Oh yeah?” I ask, not rising to the bait.
“Yeah, but there are a few hoops you gotta jump through. It ain’t gon be easy,” he sing songs.
I share a look with Joe and Loyal and think fuck it? It’s early afternoon, I’ve driven my ass here all the way from Rose Grove, I have a fiancé and a wedding on the horizon and I could do with a way to blow off some steam.
“Will there be cocktails involved?” I ask, hoping there are.
“Some of these hoops you gotta jump you don’ wanna do sober.”
“Count me in.”