Epilogue #2
“You’re so cute when you’re fuzzy like this.
You like my new shoes?” He juts one foot forward and shows off a shiny white Air Jordan high top with sharp red stitching and the famous tick on the side.
Then, moving down another step, he shows off the other.
“They’re not exactly like the pair I used to own, since they don’t sell those anymore.
But they’re pretty damn close, and I swear,” he shakes his head.
“I’m a sophisticated, high-end, high-baller motherfucker these days, but wearing these shoes feels damn good, too.
” He leads me down the last flight of stairs and onto the tile at the bottom.
Then swinging right, he risks a glance back up to make sure Archer is still following us.
He is.
“Wearing these makes me feel like I’m eighteen all over again, Doctor Cutie. Also, ZoZo’s smiling for you.” He bumps my shoulder with his. “Pay attention to her. She’s fuckin’ adorable.”
I glance down and study the spit bubbles she blows.
“Finally!” Cato struts through the doorway and sweeps Zora straight out of my arms. He slobbers all over her face, kissing and hugging and making the whole thing exceptionally noisy. But maybe that’s just my sex-starved brain existing within its overstimulated phase.
“Oh my gosh, Cato!” Mia stands on the kitchen counter, a goofy grin stretching her face, a puffy tutu taking up a whole bunch of space, and a chunky watch wrapped securely around her left wrist. “You act like she’s your favorite or somefin! I thought you loved me most?”
“I love both of my girls!” He scoops her smoothly off the counter and carries them both despite Mia’s giggles and wild flailing. “I don’t play favorites, silly. But it works out, ‘cos my heart is so freakin’ big, nobody ever complains I don’t have enough to go around.”
“Why are there so many people here?” Felix brought all of New York.
Or, well, Micah and Tiia, as well as Christabelle and the baby.
Fletch is here. Fifi is here. Aubree and Tim.
Even Doctor Raquel sits on my counter in itty-bitty shorts and long, platinum blonde hair trailing all the way to her elbows. “What the hell is happening?”
“Justice. Nearly two decades after it was due.” Felix drags me straight through the kitchen, past a smiling Steve, a content Mary. Even Chloe sprawls on the cold tile, her tail flicking and her arctic blue eyes watching us all. “It’s time we put some shit to bed.”
“Felix!” Archer chases after us, through the kitchen with a stomp of his feet, then outside until we’re on the pool patio, the midday sun blaring from high above.
“You can’t just come into my house and take over all the fuckin’ time.
This was literally the first day Mayet and I had off in forever! We were gonna—”
He skids to a stop and looks straight past me, past Felix, even past Tim, who isn’t wearing a flannel today.
Instead, he stops on Detective Banks’ wary gaze and studies the man who wears a black ball cap pulled low over his eyes, a pair of loose basketball shorts sitting low on his hips, and a tank that shows off much of his ribs, kinda like the tanks Cato wears around the house half the time.
Just six feet to his right, a shy, red-faced Officer Clay wrings his hands.
Distrusting, Archer brings his eyes back to Felix, then to Cato as, behind me, he hands Zora off to Rory and helps her sit at the patio table.
Slowly, Tiia and Christabelle filter out of the house and join her. Then Aubree. Raquel. Fifi.
“What’s going on?” Archer’s stare is hard and mean. His chest and shoulders swell with adrenaline. Swinging back around, he repeats through gritted teeth, “What’s going on?”
“Five against one. Six, if Detective Fletcher wants to join in.” Smug, Felix drags his shirt off and suggestively—obnoxiously—drapes the fabric over my shoulder.
Then he looks to Drake and grins. “You knew this was coming, Special Agent Fuckface.” He digs his hands into his pockets and pulls out a wallet.
A phone. A pacifier. Very mafia of him. Dropping it all into my hands, and adding a lighter, though I know he no longer smokes, and a clip of money I don’t bother counting, he tilts his chin as though to dismiss me, then he saunters toward the wary detective and rubs his hands together.
“Six against two, if Officer Clay wants a taste of this. If he’s injured, he can thank you for it.
All ‘cos you hurt my baby brother’s feelings that one time.
The game ends when I say it ends. Contact rules don’t exist, except with Cato. ”
Suspicious, Drake’s eyes flicker across to Cato.
“He’s still smaller than the rest of us, and he has a pro career waiting for him.”
“So you’re saying you can elbow me in the face and I just have to deal with it. But if the kid wants to step up to the big dogs, I’m responsible for tucking my arms in and making damn sure we don’t accidentally tap him?”
“Yup.” Felix broadens his chest. “That’s what I’m saying.”
“No contact rules for Officer Clay, too,” Rory declares. “He’s the next youngest, and he doesn’t understand the beef here today. He’s an innocent.”
“Fine.” Felix nods. “‘Cos the brave one vouches, I’ll put my elbows away for Clay. But every time I could have smashed him, and don’t…” He looks at Drake, “I’m gonna land twice as many on your face.”
“This sounds kinda dangerous.” Raquel perches her butt on the table, rather than sitting on a chair like a normal person. But she grins, wide and thrilled. “Take your shirts off, gentlemen. If you’re gonna do this, I demand you do it right.”
“You like chicks!” Aubree laughs. “Don’t be so damn greedy.”
“I like all sorts of human bodies.” She plays with a ball of gum and pulls a long strand between her teeth. “I like to observe. Except you.” She wrinkles her nose and looks Cato up and down. “You’re still a baby, so I’m not feeling it.”
“It should be two on two,” Drake grunts. “Me and Clay, versus two of you. Tim’s out, though, ‘cos he’s too angry. And not Cato, ‘cos he’s going pro. That’s not fair.”
“Six against one,” Felix counters. “Because this is the price you pay. But if you prefer, I can send your girl inside so she doesn’t have to watch you piss your pants at the end.”
“Good lord.” Fifi pushes through the crowd, shaking her head. She’s not in her typical skirt suit work attire today. Instead, she wears a cute little sun dress that shows off more leg than even Raquel’s itty shorts do, and her hair is in a messy bun at the top of her head.
The sexy, strategically fluffed kind of messy bun. Not the ‘Minka is sick and sleepy and hasn’t showered today’ kind of messy bun.
She strides past me and crosses into no man’s land, stopping between the pool and the basketball hoop Cato had delivered here long before Steve’s heart attack changed our living arrangements. A gentle breeze flutters through her hair. It makes her dress dance.
And draws Fletch’s eyes like a hound on the hunt.
She points a finger in Felix’s direction. “You playing?”
He nods.
She looks to Tim, then Cato. “Yes or no?”
Game faces on. Flannel left at home. They nod.
She brings her focus around to Drake. “In or out, Detective.”
His jaw clenches tight, but he drops his chin and nods.
So she swings back around to Archer and Fletch. “Detectives?”
“Fine.” Archer stomps closer, slamming a violent kiss to my cheek and jockeying me back. “Stay here. Stay out of the way.”
“You’re being entirely too dramatic about this,” I grumble. “It’s just a game.”
“It’s gonna get messy.” He draws a deep breath and expands his chest, then he exhales again and finally flashes a boyish smile. “It’s gonna be fun. Watch me score for you.”
I press my hand to my heart. “Swoon.”
“Charlie?” Fifi raises a questioning brow. “Are you playing, or no?”
“Do it, Daddy! Show them how you get three points from really far away!”
“Go out to dinner with me!”
Stunned, we all turn and stare at the pale-faced, shaky-handed, trembling-kneed detective. Even Drake seems less concerned by his imminent beatdown and stretches his neck to get a better view.
Fifi gulps and looks left. Right. Down. Around. “What?”
“Please go out with me, Sera.” He stumbles forward a step.
Two. Three. “I know shit’s been rocky for us, and I know I’m not all that much of a catch.
I know I’m weird and annoying, and I only meant to ask you out, but now this has turned into a whole speech.
But I really, really want you to give me a chance. ”
“Ch-Charlie.” She inches backward. “I don’t—”