Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Mabilia, I love you but if your brothers fuck up my bar again, I’m holding out on sex,” Tommy says as he leans over the counter.
Mabilia’s head turns towards the door where I’m now watching a very pissed-off Lex stalk in our direction.
“What do you mean again?” I ask Tommy.
“Last time Lex was in here, he broke every piece of furniture, splattered blood from the floor to the ceiling, and then tried to burn the fucking place down.”
“You’re exaggerating. It wasn’t that bad,” Mabilia says. “And he’s better now. He has Addison.”
“Whatever magic powers you’re wielding, do your thing and make sure your boyfriend doesn’t break anything,” Tommy tells me.
“Fiancé,” I correct him. “Lex is my fiancé.”
“Your funeral.” Tommy shakes his head and walks down to the other side of the bar to serve someone.
Lex stops right in front of me. Leaning forward, he presses his lips to mine. His hand cups my cheek and I lean into him.
“Hi.”
“Hey.” He pulls away, his gaze running from my head to my toes. “You okay?”
“Uh-huh.” I nod and smile.
“What are you drinking?” Lex picks up my pink mocktail, taking a sip of the sugary, fruity concoction that has absolutely no fruit in it.
“It’s a mocktail,” I tell him when he screws his face up.
“That needs vodka.” Lex reaches over the bar and helps himself to a bottle.
“You can’t just take that,” I whisper to him.
“Who’s going to stop me?” Lex raises a single brow.
“Me,” Mabilia says.
“No, you’re not.” He laughs.
“You’re right. I’m not. Pour me one of those.” Mabilia leans over the bar and grabs a stack of shot glasses.
My eyes fall to Neo. He hasn’t said anything since he walked in. He just stood behind Lex stoically, looking around the bar.
“Hi.” I offer him a weak smile.
“Hello, Addison. How are you?” Neo nods to me.
“Good, you?”
“Been better.”
“Did you get your errands done?” I ask Lex.
“Mhmm.” He nods as he pours vodka into four shot glasses.
“You’re not drinking in here, Lex,” Tommy says, stomping over.
Lex stares back at him while lifting the bottle to his mouth, and then he tips it back. He used to drink the stuff like water at school. I’ve never been much of a drinker, though.
“Seems like he is. What exactly are you going to do?” Neo asks Tommy.
“Neo, cut it out,” Mabilia growls at her brother.
“What I do?” he grunts.
“You know, we were actually having a good time before you two showed up.” Mabilia points to herself and then me. “We don’t need you ruining our fun.”
“Addi wants me here,” Lex tells his sister.
“Addison wants a girls’ day.”
“Addison has a mind of her own,” I chime in.
“And?” Lex prompts.
“Well, I always want you with me,” I tell him.
“See? Told you.” Lex smirks at his sister.
“But I do like hanging out with Mabilia too,” I add.
“Trust me, Addison, I grew up with her. You’ll get over that real quick,” Neo grumbles under his breath.
I turn and look to Lex again. “Is this what having siblings is like?”
“Unfortunately,” he grunts. “You wanna get out of here?”
“Where do you want to go?” I ask him.
“Anywhere that I get you to myself and don’t have to share your attention with anyone else,” he tells me.
“That’s sweet, borderline psychotic, Lex. But sweet.” I smile like the fool in love that I am.
“Just borderline?” Neo laughs.
“I’m going to run to the bathroom. Stay with Neo.” Lex kisses my forehead and then walks away.
I look for Mabilia but she’s now behind the bar with Tommy at the other end. Great, guess it’s just me and Lex’s scary brother.
“Why do you look scared?” Neo asks.
“Have you seen yourself, like at all?” I retort. “Shit, sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“You have no reason to be afraid of me, Addison,” he says.
“It’s not really you. I don’t like males in general.”
“And you’re engaged to my brother? You’re not scared of him?”
“Lex doesn’t scare me.”
“Why don’t you like males?” Neo presses.
“What do you mean?”
“You just said you’re afraid of men. Why?”
“You don’t know?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking you.”
“I… ah… I was raped. At school,” I explain.
Neo’s face hardens. If I thought it were possible for someone to turn to stone, I’d be afraid he just did. “Is that why you left?”
I nod my head.
“Did Lex know?”
“I didn’t tell him. I left before he could see me.”
“You leaving destroyed him. He was a fucking lunatic without you around,” Neo says. “Don’t hurt him like that again.”
“I didn’t ask to be raped, Neo.” I push off the barstool. Now, I’m annoyed. I need to get out of here, away from this conversation.
“No, but you did leave without telling him why.”
“For his own good. What do you think he would have done?”
“Oh, I know exactly what he would have done.”
“Which is why I left, so he didn’t do something that would ruin his life. It’s bad enough mine was fucked up. I wasn’t going to fuck Lex’s life up too,” I say. “I need to go.”
I turn and march towards the door. Why does the place feel so much more crowded now than when Mabilia and I first came in?
“Hey, where you going in such a hurry?” A man steps in front of me.
I take a step backwards. “I…” Shit.
“Get out of her fucking way.”
I spin around to see Neo right behind me.
“Who the fuck are you?” the guy asks.
“Her brother, and about to be your worst fucking nightmare if you don’t move.” Neo steps in front of me. The man doesn’t get another word in before Neo swings his arm out, his fist landing on the man’s face.
Everything happens so fast. Mabilia jumps over the bar. She’s shoving at people. Nope, never mind. She’s not shoving at people. She’s fighting grown-ass men. She and Neo together.
A pair of arms wrap around me from behind, and I stiffen. “It’s me,” Lex says. “What the fuck happened?”
“I… I wanted to leave.”
“Okay, let’s get out of here.” Lex takes my hand and walks in front of me, pushing bodies out of the way as he leads us to the exit. As soon as we’re outside, he wraps his arms around my waist and holds me against his chest.
“Should you go back in there and help them?” I ask him.
“They can handle those assholes themselves.” Lex laughs. “You okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why were you leaving?”
“I got annoyed at Neo.”
“What did he say to you?”
“Just warned me not to leave you again.” I shrug. “Which I’m not going to anyway.”
“Ignore him. He’s overprotective of all of us.”
“Yeah, I saw.” I smile. His brother just started a bar brawl because some man stepped in front of me.
“We should set a date,” Lex tells me, changing the subject.
“A date for what?”
“To get married?”
“Oh, I already have a date. September 7th. It’s the day we met.”
Lex smiles down at me. “Then let’s get married on September 7th.”
The door opens behind us and Neo and Mabilia walk out, appearing unscathed. “You okay?” Neo asks me.
I nod. “Sorry… You didn’t have to do that for me.”
“Yes, I did. You’re my sister and no one fucks with my family, Addison,” he says.
“Plus, it was fun. Until I broke a fucking nail.” Mabilia looks at her hand and frowns.
“Seriously? We’re trying not to scare Addison off,” Lex growls.
“Pfft, she fell in love with you, Lex. If she’s not scared of you, nothing can scare her,” Mabilia says.
“We set a date,” I announce, my voice full of excitement. “September 7th.”
“Okay, we’re going to need to start planning. Mom is going to love this.” Mabilia smiles at me.
“We’re going home.” Lex tugs me along the sidewalk, leaving his brother and sister behind.
“That was a bit rude,” I tell him.
“I don’t care,” he says. “I want to get you alone so I can fuck my future bride, and then we’re getting on a flight.”
“Where?”
“Your mother’s place. I want to meet her.”
My feet pause. My mom is doing really well now, but she’s nothing like Mrs. Petrov. “Lex, you don’t have to do that.”
“You don’t want me to meet your mom?”
“I don’t want you to see where I really come from.”
“Addi, I don’t care where you came from. I love you. It doesn’t matter what kind of home you grew up in.”
“It was a trailer actually, not a home. But I don’t know.
It’s just…” I huff out a breath. I don’t know what excuse to use.
“I’m embarrassed of her, which I know is horrible.
But even though she’s doing better now, there’s always that small fear of not knowing if she’s relapsed while I’ve been gone.
What if we get there and she’s strung out on the sofa? ”
“Then we’ll pick her up and get her into rehab, Addi. We’ll help her.”
“Really? Just like that? You’d help my mom?”
“She’s family. We help family.”
I’ve never had family like the Petrovs. It’s going to take a while to get used to having one now. “I really love being your family,” I tell Lex.
“Good, because you are the only one that matters,” he says.
“Okay, let’s do this. You can meet my mom. Then we’ll come back here and plan our future together.”
“Oh, our future doesn’t need planning, Addi. It’s already been written. You and me forever. This lifetime and a million more after.”
“I love you,” I tell him in Russian, and then repeat the phrase in Italian, and then in English.
Lex says all three phrases back to me before his lips come down onto mine, and everything else fades away. It’s just me and him. Forever.