Chapter 40
FITZ
“Ijust don’t understand why she didn’t want to come home with me.” I pace around the private room in one of my bars where you have to be A-list to even get in and nothing costs less than five hundred dollars.
I’m losing it in front of my brothers, who are gathered on the velvet lounge seats.
“It’s Knox. She’s into him for some reason. I should burn that whole NHL team.”
“Fitz…”
“It’s my stuff, and if I want to light it on fire, I will.”
“Gee, I can’t imagine why a woman wouldn’t feel safe going alone at night to the house of a man who’s threatening to lock an entire NHL team in a stadium and set it on fire,” Whitman states.
“I’m going to have to marry her.” I sit down.
“You just met her.”
“No, he’s been watching her for months,” Faulkner reminds everyone.
“She’s in love with me. We’ve been communicating through notes and gifts.”
“I still have the underground bunker I built to lock up Dad if we ever caught him,” Crawford tells Salinger. “I could stick him in there.”
“Hey, I’m not after the type of women, girls really, that Dad was,” I argue passionately. “Winnie is an ex–private equity analyst, she has a cupcake monopoly, and she thinks stalkers are a cute way to relax after a hard day’s work. She knows what she’s getting into with me.”
“Keep lying to yourself.” Hawthorne hums.
“Maybe she doesn’t care about you at all,” McCarthy says as he sips his expensive malt scotch through a straw.
“Can you have some class?”
“I don’t know, can you have some chairs that don’t suck and aren’t uncomfortable?”
“Those are from Europe, specially made from hand-oiled Alpine walnut.”
“You should have bought a Walmart futon.”
“And she does care about me. She’s not impressed with my money at all. I think she’d think it was a chore if I asked her to go to the Super Bowl even if it was in a private suite.”
“I mean, maybe then she literally just likes you for your body.” Whitman shrugs.
“That’s not a bad take,” Salinger says, swirling his drink in his hand.
Crawford knocks back the Bud Light.
“Why are you drinking that? We don’t sell that here.”
“Brought it from home,” my half brother states. “I don’t trust any alcohol that costs half a month’s pay for a tiny glass.”
“To be fair, it also has really nice ice.” McCarthy pokes his ice with his straw.
“You can take the white trash out of the compound…” I mutter.
“Oh yeah?” Crawford pulls out a knife and pokes at the ice in McCarthy’s glass, then quick as a scorpion’s tail, he jabs the blade down, and the ice explodes.
“Hey! You ruined my scotch!”
“I bet Winnie moves on to Crawford when she’s tired of you.” Faulkner smirks.
“What? She wouldn’t.”
“To be fair, he lives up to the promise of the violent stalker,” Salinger adds.
“Yeah, you really sold her a bill of goods.”
My brothers chirp at me.
“Does she know how much money you waste online shopping in a month?”
“It’s not a waste. All the stuff I buy goes to good use. Shit, I have a room full of Legos for Christmas.”
“Hunter’s really going to like to hear that.”
“It’s a free country.” Crawford sips his beer calmly. “Like you said, she’s an adult woman. She’s cute.”
“What are you going to do, lock her in your sex dungeon?” My brothers howl in laughter.
I kick McCarthy’s chair out from under him, and he crashes to the floor as Salinger curses at me.
“I’m banning you all from football games for the rest of the year.”
“Fuck no! I have investors I need to take,” Hawthorne complains.
“I’ll help you go wedding ring shopping,” McCarthy offers.
“Why does everyone think I need help ring shopping?”
“I don’t know. That painting is ugly as sin.” Whitman nods.
“He spent almost a million dollars on it. Can you believe it?” Saligner shakes his head.
On the table, my phone rings.
“I’ll get it. Don’t touch my—”
Faulkner hits the green button and presses the phone to his ear.
“Give it—”
“Uh-huh,” Faulkner says as I tussle with him to grab my phone. “Which jail are they in?”
“I thought you were crafting, Creampuff.” Winnie is wearing a cheap stripper uniform unbuttoned at the collar so I can see the line of her cleavage as she and her accomplices are led out. “You look great in handcuffs, by the way.” I can’t help but kiss her.
“Thanks for bailing us out.” She makes a face.
“Bail you out? Creampuff, please. I can’t have the future Mrs. Svensson with a criminal record,” I say lightly.
“You’re free to go.” The cop at the desk waves to them.
“Oh!” Winnie is a little shocked.
“It’s like this never happened.” I nod to several men in suits standing around under the TV in the jail’s waiting room.
“See, when you make big donations to the district attorney’s campaign, you can call them up and say, ‘Hey! My girlfriend and her friends were out chasing down her elderly grandmother who’s losing her marbles, and she’s very sorry for the big misunderstanding.
I hear your daughter runs a charity to offer respite care to families caring for elderly relatives, and I’m planning on making a donation.
’ And then she agrees that of course it was a big misunderstanding. ”
“I don’t know if I should be grateful or appalled,” Winnie says after a moment.
“I see how much money you charge for those maple-bacon glazed cinnamon rolls. The only unethical party here is you, Creampuff.”
“I’m not crazy!” Frances declares as they lead her out, hands behind her back. “And I’m willing to take the fall!”
“Gran, shhh,” Kathy hisses at her. “Yes, she is sundowning. Thank you for being so understanding about our elderly grandmother,” Kathy tells the DA’s representative. Sorry, Fitz, she mouths.
Winnie’s gaze flicks back to her sis and granny.
“So,” I ask them when we’re back out on the street. “Was this a bachelorette party thing? Is Loony Laura missing too?”
“Shh!” Winnie shushes me and subtly looks at the lawyers, who are heading to their cars. “We were just having a girls’ activity.”
“Bonding activity,” Brinley says at the same time.
“Yeah.”
“Ten toes on the ground. You’re not getting anything out of me,” Granny Frances declares.
Winnie looks guilty.
What aren’t you telling me? I want to scream and shake her.
But apparently, everyone else in my life believes that my outburst freaked her out, so I control myself.
“I’ll send you all home,” I tell them then lean in to whisper in Winnie’s ear: “But after that engagement party? You’re mine.”