Chapter 12
them we or us we
Lorien
I start from the beginning, including my cleaning and mood music and work through the tale until the ambulance came and went and I was left re-cleaning the house, trying to remove the smell of urine from not one, but two men soiling themselves in my house before eight in the morning.
It’s the first time I’ve told the story, and I realize I needed to get it out. It’s downright therapeutic.
When I’ve come to the end of my story, I look up at the man who’s stopped pacing, who’s bare feet are rooted to his wood-planked floor and ask, “What are they suing you for? I’d assume self-defense is fair.”
“I didn’t defend myself, did I? I entered your home and defended you. In their estimation, I attacked them.”
“But they were holding me at knife point. I was vulnerable and they could’ve…” My voice trails off.
“I know that and I don’t regret what I did.” He sets the papers down on the coffee table and stabs his hands onto his hips. “So they’re suing Lorien for an attack on her property. The same as if I were a rabid dog.”
Fitting. I don’t say it aloud, but he was definitely the counter-aggressor in that situation, if I look at it from an outsider’s perspective.
“And they’re suing me for all the rest. I’m not sure my homeowner’s insurance will cover anything as I wasn’t under this roof.”
“Interesting thought,” Cian starts and hands the baby off to Ayla, beginning his own pacing. “This townhome row has a joint roof, actually. It covers five of you. Could you use that as part of the castle doctrine?”
“We definitely need Sherman,” Ayla says.
“Who’s Sherman?” I ask.
“Our family’s attorney,” Cian offers.
“You have a family attorney? Is that a thing?” I ask Liam, but it’s Ayla who answers.
“We get into a fair bit of trouble.” Her smirk would be reassuring if I hadn’t just been dropped into the plot of some angsty movie I don’t want to be cast in.
Oh-kay.
“So this Sherman guy could answer whether our HOA or bylaws could protect Liam, but it wouldn’t necessarily protect me.”
“Okay.” Cian is still pacing but he’s looking around the room from person to person.
“We’re creative, smart people, albeit from different careers, but there’s no reason the four of us can’t come up with a solution.
Or at least multiple options. I know our expertise.
” He looks from his siblings to me. “What do you do, Lorien?”
I can’t be sure, but I think Liam smirks as I reply, “I’m a nuclear biochemist working on genomic mapping for autoimmunology.”
Cian’s shoes squeak to halt as he freezes, his head comically twisting from me to his… “I’m sorry. May I ask? Are you brothers or brothers in law?”
“Ew.” Ayla offers, after she manages to hinge her jaw shut from my explanation. “That’s my brother. I love him and all, but…” There’s a lightness in the room that wasn’t there before. Ayla continues. “Sophia is not his.” She shoots a look at her brother. “She’s all mine. And her daddy’s.”
“I have my own, thank you very much. Two actually. Beat that.”
“Look what you started,” Liam says, hands still on his hips, his head shaking back and forth as if he’s watching bickering he’s seen more than once before.
“Backing up to the last reasonable thing that was said in this room… Cian’s right.
We’re smart—” He looks at me. “Some of us more than others.” To the room he adds, “There’s no reason we can’t brainstorm creative options before we meet with Sherman. ”
We? Does he mean them we or us we?
Cian resumes his pacing. Ayla stands, passes Sophia to Liam before scurrying down the hall, muttering to the room at large, “Stupid bladder.”
Muscled, painted, burly Liam Murphy with a dainty baby tucked against his pec just caused my ovaries to explode. Boom.
I can’t say I wasn’t attracted to him before. Seriously, gray sweatpants on day one was enough, and things have only gotten stronger since, but graham crackers.
Cian is pacing again and, when Ayla passes by, he tags her hand. She stops and he pulls her into a hug. “I didn’t get to say hi earlier. How’re you doing?”
“I’m good.” She taps his shoulder. “Apparently I get to sleep in eighteen years, so that’s good news.” She slides back into her seat. “Where were we?”
“Brainstorming creative ideas to get Liam and me out of legal trouble. Nothing’s been offered yet.”
“Ayla, grab your notes app?” Cian asks.
“Why am I the secretary?”
“Fine. Hand me my phone then.” He extends his hand in demonstration.
“I didn’t say no, but assumptions should not be made of women.” The woman winks at me.
“As if we ever would,” Liam grumbles.
“Where were we?” Cian begins again. “Yes. Legal requirements for castle domain.”
“Doctrine,” Liam corrects.
Cian nods at his sister. “HOA terms, legal covenants, insurance limits. Both Liam’s and Lorien’s.”
Ayla, with a glint in her eye, asks, “What makes it castle doctrine? Is it the domicile itself or the person in it?”
Cian circles the furniture and grabs his phone as well.
Here I sit, watching family have each other’s backs, working on problems to protect a loved one. And I have no knowledge and no way to research. Not that having my phone would help in this situation. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.
“This is interesting.” Cian says, looking up from his phone. “Castle doctrine only applies to lethal force. Li, you didn’t apply lethal force.”
Liam begins pacing, but his face looks at the baby sleeping in his arms. “So, the thing that didn’t work to begin with”— he takes a huge breath and lets it go slowly—“works even less than we wanted? That’s not better, Ci.”
“Sherman handles my shit. I’m no Columbo.”
“Columbo was a detective,” I throw out. I figure I get a voice since they’re discussing me at the same time.
“Matlock then.” His voice is less sure this time and rises in question.
“Also a detective,” Liam puts in. “And those are from the eighties. Seriously, you need to come into the twenty-twenties.”
“I’ll update my Netflix accordingly.”
“Ooh. I have a couple of great recommendations,” I offer.
Liam looks as if he’s trying to figure out raccoon ballet all sung in Portuguese, while Ayla beams a smile I’ve seen before. It’s pure joy. It’s the one in the photo in Liam’s kitchen. The one with her two brothers and her sister-in-law.
“You know the easiest answer to all of this, don’t you?” Ayla says, her face so full of mischief that I’m nervous for her answer.
“If I did, I wouldn’t have you all in my living room—” Three shrill beeps slice through the room, cutting off his sentence. So does his sister.
“What’s that?” Ayla asks.
“Coffee pot turning itself off. You’ve been here a minute.”
I raise my hand and all eyes turn to me.
“Yes?” Liam asks, incredulous since, apparently, I’m doing the school thing when they most certainly are not.
“Mind if I get a cup? I missed breakfast and coffee sounds great.”
He mumbles the word breakfast under his breath as he nods. “Help yourself. Mugs and sweeteners in the cabinet above the coffee. Cream is in the fridge.”
I help myself to his kitchen and study the picture while I’m there. I see it now… the family resemblance, the way they love each other, who they are to one another. I wonder why Ayla’s husband isn’t in the picture, but only for a second because voices rise from the other room.
I return to a three-way stand-off. My mind immediately goes to that show about the paper sales company and the crew having a shootout with their gun fingers. An awkward giggle threatens… and escapes. “What did I miss?”
With more care than I could imagine, Liam places Sophia in Ayla’s lap, slides my coffee cup from my hand to set it on the island, and drops a bomb as he walks toward the back door, slipping into a pair of shoes he left there.
“They think we should get married.”
Liam
The fuck?
My sister and her big mouth. Though, it’s on me for repeating it.
I walk as I spin over the idea. Pacing was too… confining.
We said nothing was off the table. I assumed that marriage—fake or real—was never on the table. What the hell was she thinking?
Okay, so if we were married, and that’s a big if, then I would’ve been defending my wife and my home by extension. Her name on her mortgage and mine on my own would be harder to explain and discovery will find that.
Unless I put my name on hers and place her name on mine.
That creates entanglements. I don’t do entanglements. Certainly not legal ones.
Definitely not financial ones.
Marital ones? No fucking chance.
But if I had to. If I had to, then the sassy, nerdy girl with the spine to stand up to me would be the one— I stop that thought in its tracks.
Colorado allows sixty-three days to file a marriage certificate. I only know that from a friend’s situation.
We’d need to explain why Lorien was buying a home in her name alone during that window.
I have no answer for that. I have no answer for why it wouldn’t be joint if we’d already been wed.
Much less why she wouldn’t have moved into my place.
It could be for the sake of investment, but that doesn’t jive with the laws in Jefferson County.
We could go with the short-term rental argument.
I’ve been in mine long enough to apply to do so.
So, we’d live in hers and rent mine out?
But mine’s an end unit.
I’m overthinking this. And I can promise my sister already has answers. Or Cian does.
So I walk and wonder why I wouldn’t…
The first answer is being legally bound to someone. A ball and chain. I’m not opposed to the concept. But it would take the right person. Ayla found it. So did Ci. But they’re much more amenable to people in their spaces, to compromising, to… being nice.
I’ve never considered what it would take for me. I can’t say I’ve ever wanted a second date with someone. Hell, half the time, I don’t want a first date.
Sex is good. Food is good. Bad conversation is… Well, I’d rather be alone.
But a temporary arrangement with an iron-clad prenup, where we live apart, avoid huge financial disasters?
I saved her once. What if this isn’t about me saving her again?
What if it’s about her paying me back? A favor for a favor.
She’d be out no more than her deductible, be minorly inconvenienced, but it would save me millions.
Literal millions. And I don’t want to part with my money, or have anything I work for in the future go to pay some fucker who was willing to rape or kidnap or murder. Or going to any of his friends.
The eye was… unfortunate. I’ll give a lame apology if they force me to. I can do anything to avoid the loss of everything I’ve worked for… even if it’s an I’m sorry when I’m not or marrying my annoying neighbor.
I wonder if it would hurt her feelings if our legal arrangement includes me doing the cooking. I already do that, and it’d save me from her terrible baking. Come to think of it, are all her swear words baking terms? Why?
She’s a brainiac, but a baker she is not.