Chapter 11
Zephyr
”Idon”t like it,” Gaia informed me.
We were at her and Rome”s new place for dinner. I”d invited Grace to join, and it somehow felt right to have her with me, like we were a couple. In the past week, we”d spent a lot of time together going through the op and getting our stories straight. I had to say it was kinda cool being a civilian playing undercover.
”He”ll be fine, Calla Lily,” Rome soothed her, a hand on her back.
”I hate this.” Gaia put a hand on her stomach and leaned into her husband.
I felt something shift inside me when I saw my sister do that. Joy unfurled, and I could hardly contain my broad smile. ”Should we open champagne or find cigars, Rome?”
Rome flashed surprise. ”Ah…?”
”What am I missing?” Blaze demanded. ”Baby girl?”
Gaia rolled her eyes. ”Yes. I”m pregnant. Eight weeks. I was going to wait, but Z apparently has a nose for such things.”
Blaze was the first to pull Gaia into his arms for a hug. He kissed her forehead. ”Fuck waiting! This is amazing news. I love you, baby girl. So much.”
I was next, and then Nick and even Grace.
We”d invited Ash, but he hadn”t been able to make it—but I knew he”d come to care for Gaia as well after learning about her childhood with our mother. He”d be just as thrilled as we were.
”How do you feel, Daddy Decuir?” I teased my friend.
Rome chuckled. ”What can I say? I got good gris-gris. And I”ve been trying hard to get her knocked up for a while now.” He hugged my sister tight. ”So, she can”t be runnin” away for me.”
She kissed his jaw. ”I don”t want to, Mon Roi.”
”She”s still my baby sister,” Blaze growled. ”Can we keep the sex talk to a minimum?”
”Yeah, man, she got pregnant without any sex.” Rome chuckled.
”That”s the story I”m going with,” Blaze retorted.
”Whatever keeps you sane, sha,” Nick teased. ”For a man who”s as oversexed as you, it”s amazing that you—””No,” Gaia cut in. ”No talk about my brothers having sex. My stomach is fragile, and I don”t need to be throwing up any more than I already am.”
”You know, there are some people who don”t have sex.” I raised my wine glass. ”Someone”s parents and children…and I guess brothers and sisters.”
”Christ, she”s having a baby, and we will not talk about sex ever” — Blaze ran a hand over his face — ”especially if I have a niece.” He looked at Nick in panic. ”What the fuck am I going to do if she has a girl?”
Nick patted her fiancé”s arm. ”You”ll persevere, sha.”
I glanced at Grace, who was watching the interplay between Blaze and Nick with a mixture of fascination and longing. She was alone; I knew that. No parents. An ex-husband. An estranged aunt. No kids. No siblings. But it was more than that; Grace was lonely. I was happy I had brought her along for dinner and wished I could give her my family.
After dinner, we went to enjoy our after-dinner drinks in Rome and Gaia”s new house”s gorgeous courtyard with a water fountain. It was classic New Orleans, and we stayed under the warmth of the gas heaters as they warded off the early spring chill.
”Who”s scripting this showdown between Z and me?” Blaze wanted to know.
”I am.” Nick raised her hand. ”But we also need proper direction for what will happen at the BBH board meeting.”
”I can help with that,” Rome offered. ”Don”t worry, Z. I”ll make sure you sound like a money-hungry fils de pute.”
”Va te faire foutre.” Kiss my ass. I gave him a finger.
”I can”t stand if something happens to Z.” Gaia had tears in her eyes, and I groaned.
”Merdé.” Rome hugged his wife. ”Her hormones are all over the place. Yesterday, I asked if we could go out for dinner, and she burst into tears because she”d wanted to cook.”
”It”s gonna be a long nine months.” I grimaced.
”Don”t upset her then,” Blaze ground out. ”Rome, just let her fuckin” cook, man. And, you, Z, you stay fuckin” alive and unhurt.”
Blaze couldn”t stand seeing Gaia upset, even a little. She was his baby sister, and he”d kill to keep her happy.
”Calm down, Blaze. I”m getting upset at the drop of a hat; it”s hormones,” Gaia protested.
”New rule. No one says fuck to Gaia about this,” my older brother announced.
”No way,” Gaia snapped. ”I”ll worry more if I think everyone is hiding things from me.”
”Putain!” Blaze bellowed.
”You”re going to have to trust me,” Nick told her fiancée. ”Do you?”
”With my life, Spice.”
”Then stop worrying about Zephyr,” she instructed him and the rest of us.
Grace raised her glass of port. ”I”ll not let anything happen to your brother, Gaia. It”s a promise. I”ll protect him, be it with my life.”
Her words shouldn”t have had an impact. She was just trying to calm Gaia down. But I felt the sincerity in her words and something warm and pleasant moved inside me.
I was the easygoing Doucet, the one with no problems—that meant I was the one who took care of myself and others. I took care of Gaia, Rome, Angela…even Blaze. I took care of the people who worked at the bar, my band, and my friends. I was the one who helped people. This was the first time someone was doing for me what I did for others. Not that my family didn”t. Hell, they”d die for me, I knew that, but no one had said what Grace had to me.
I”ll protect him, be it with my life.
I put a hand on her thigh under the table and squeezed. ”Stop making it sound like I”m in an episode of The Wire, Little Tempest? This is gonna be simple. I got no money. Volkovs come to me to see how they can use BBH through me to launder their money. End of story.”
Blaze banged a hand on the table. ”You take this fucking thing seriously, Z, or I”m gonna stop this shitshow right fast and now.”
”Blaze, look—”
”Fuck no! This is not gonna be simple. This is gonna be a clusterfuck. I won”t have you walk into this like you”re picking up your guitar and playing a tune. It ain”t like that.” Blaze had a temper, and the only way to get it under control was not to lose mine. I”d been doing this all my life. I knew how to handle him.
I raised both hands, palms out, in a gesture of peace. ”I”m taking it very seriously. I”m also not going to fucking freak out about it. And I”d appreciate it if y”all didn”t either.”
”I”m hormonal,” Gaia pouted. ”I can”t help myself. What”s your excuse, Blaze?”
”I don”t need a fucking excuse to worry about my brother,” he ground out and then softened when Nick leaned into him. She was a calming influence, and it was still sometimes a shock to see my brother so madly in love. She was the right woman for him. Was there one for me?
Holy fuck! Where had that come from? Anyways, why the hell was I looking at Grace like she could be the one? How much wine have I drunk tonight?
”I don”t want to cause stress in your family,” Grace suddenly said. ”We can find another way to—”
”Hell no,” I cut in. ”I want this done. I want my family safe. This has gone on long enough. Since Grandpère died, it”s been one hellscape after the other. I don”t want to see my family in the emergency room unless it”s because someone got drunk and shot their toe off.”
”In my defense, it wasn”t my toe that I shot off,” Blaze countered. ”It was also not my gun.”
I laughed. ”You got no defense, asshole.”
”No shit,” Rome added. ”You almost shot off that girl”s toe…the one you were banging.”
It was one of many incidents from our childhood that had led to the Doucet family having more scandals than a gumbo pot has spices.
”She had the gun. I was tryin” to get it away from her.Christ. Keep your stories straight. And you”re one to talk, Z. It wasn”t me who drove a car into the bayou,” Blaze reminded me.
Rome grinned. ”Oui! That was somethin”. He bought his dream car,” he told Nick and Grace, who didn”t know the story, ”gets fuckin” high on mushrooms, and the next thing we know, the son of a bitch is in the bayou. It”s not too deep, so he”s still sitting up. The next morning Blaze and I find him and ask him what da fuck? And he says—”
”Damn it, Blaze, I thought I was on a boat,” Blaze finished, guffawing.
”I never did shrooms after that,” I recounted in good humor.
”But there was that time when you did edibles,” Gaia chuckled. ”And he kept saying, what about my ducks and my chickens, Gaia, who”s going to feed them?”
”You have ducks and chickens?” Grace asked, her eyes wide.
”No.” I put my arm around her. ”That was Buddha”s Breath talking. Last time I did weed. Look at it this way, Grace; I”m never gonna do drugs ever again.”
”Just sex and alcohol?” she asked sweetly.
”Yeah.” I nipped at her lower lip then. She pulled away shocked that I kissed her in front of my family, the people who were most important in my life. Hell, I was surprised as well. It wasn”t like I didn”t date or my siblings hadn”t seen me with a girlfriend or two. But it had been a long while since I”d brought someone home. But Grace was the ADA on the case. That”s why I invited her…right?
Blaze and Nick took Grace home since they”d picked her up to bring her over. I sat alone with Rome in his courtyard, Gaia long in bed.
”You have feelings for Grace,” Rome declared.
”Yeah. It”s…we haven”t fucked.”
”Wow!”
Yeah, that was a shocker. I wasn”t the kind who waited or panted. If a woman was interesting and interested, we had sex; if she wasn”t, we moved on. I didn”t normally do the dance I was doing with Grace.
”She wants to, but she”s reluctant. I know I could get her so hot that we”d end up in bed…but I don”t know what I want.”
”Capitulation?” Rome suggested.
”Not into that kind of thing. But I do want her to come to me because she wants me and not because I got her so aroused that she”s desperate.”
”Sounds serious.”
I drank some port from Grace”s glass. She hadn”t finished hers, and I”d taken it over, liking her taste mixed in with the vintage fortified wine.
”I”ve never been in love, Rome. You”ve always loved Gaia. Blaze is…hell, never saw that coming.”
”And you?”
”You think I”m maybe feeling this way because you”re married; Blaze is getting married, and I feel like it”s my turn, and Grace is the first woman to arouse my interest since?”
Rome leaned back in his chair and rocked. ”Could be…but I don”t see it, Z. You”re not a follower. You always did your thing. I think you like Grace. I think you think she”s strong and smart. I think…you have a secretary porn fantasy.”
I laughed out loud. ”Hell, yeah. She wears those tight black skirts with white dress shirts, and I want her to take her glasses off and shake her hair loose.”
”She”s not your type.”
”What”s my type?” I mused.
”Easy.”
”She ain”t that.”
”No shit.” Rome raised his glass of wine in a toast. ”Easy is boring, Z, and I think you”re done with boring.”
”And you”d know?”
”Yeah. I had it easy for years. When I met Isabel and asked her to marry me, I knew she”d say yes, and I could continue to live my life the way I wanted, and she”d let me.”
Rome had been engaged for a hot minute to a New York blueblood type, but then he saw Gaia, and he ended that before you could say, alligator in the bayou.
”You think Isabel would not have minded if you fucked around?”
”No, I don”t think so. The sad truth is that I wouldn”t have minded if she did either.”
”But with Gaia?”
His jaw tightened. ”I”d fucking kill anyone who touched her. I can”t imagine having my hands on any other woman. For years, every woman was a substitute for her, which makes me a class A putain. But that”s the truth.”
”I”ve never cared if a woman I was with was getting sex elsewhere. I always use a condom and keep my dick clean.” I twirled the glass of port.
”How does it feel to think about Grace sleeping with another man?”
I imagined it and felt a tightness in my chest. ”It doesn”t feel great.”
”Right.”
I”d always been open with Rome and he with me. We”d known each other for years, and we were brothers in the truest sense. I wasn”t the kind of man who worried about getting too emotional with a buddy. I had feelings, and I talked about them. I think it was never an issue because Blaze talked so easily and openly about how he felt with me, and he was such a badass that I never associated emotions with weakness.
”Let”s get through this Volkov nonsense, and then I can figure out if ADA Grace Carta is a relationship or just a good tumble.”
”She ain”t just a tumble.”
I shrugged. ”Yeah, I”m not ready to accept that yet.”
”You”ll get there eventually, and I speak from experience.”
”You really think my feelings for Grace are that strong?” Was he seeing something I wasn”t?
”It”s written all over your face whenever she”s around.”
”What is?”
”That you want to fuck her brains out.”
That wasn”t news to me. ”And?”
”And you”d want to do it again and again.”
Yeah, so that was the problem right there because Rome was right.