37. Devlin
DEVLIN
I opened the bottle of wine and set two glasses on the counter.
A good wine and a great pizza. Our meal reflected our balance.
A combination of refinement and casual charm.
I’d do my best to pretend there weren’t things we needed to discuss.
For tonight. But if Scarlett thought I’d be willing to stay in another relationship where I was kept in the dark, she had another thing coming.
She’d done so well tonight, I thought, pouring the wine.
Scarlett never pretended to be someone she wasn’t.
That was her power. Her unapologetic authenticity.
There was a danger in being yourself in this space.
Everyone was always looking for a weakness, a vulnerability, to exploit.
But with Scarlett, was that possible? Did the weakness lie in me?
Was I vulnerable because I worked so hard to hide my flaws rather than embracing them?
Would Scarlett end up being my greatest strength or my most bitter weakness?
My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was late for a non-emergency call. When I saw my mother’s number on the screen, I answered.
“Is everything all right? ”
“No, everything is decidedly not all right, Devlin,” she said, her tone clipped.
“What’s wrong?”
“You were supposed to stay out of sight. Not parade your bumpkin girlfriend around the city, rubbing her in Johanna’s face. Just imagine how it looks. Like you’re trying to get revenge by traipsing around some trophy?—”
“Scarlett isn’t a trophy,” I interrupted, annoyed at the comparison. “And I don’t give a good goddamn what Johanna thinks about me moving on with my life. She moved on with hers while we were still married!”
“She at least did it discreetly,” my mother shot back.
“I can’t believe you’re defending her.”
“And I can’t believe my son who has been groomed for this life is so willing to throw it all away. People were just starting to forget, and then you have to surprise everyone with Redneck Ruby.”
“Scarlett,” I corrected.
“Devlin, forgive me for saying so, but does it sound like I care what her name is? I’m not having some barefoot country hillbilly ruining your career.
We’ve worked so hard for this, given you every opportunity, and to see you just throwing it away on a girl.
..” she trailed off as if she couldn’t bear to finish the thought.
“I’m not throwing anything away. I’m finally enjoying myself for the first time in thirty-some years, Mother.”
“Enjoying yourself?” her tone was reaching into the upper octaves of horror. “Do you think you have the liberty to enjoy yourself? McCallisters serve. It’s a responsibility and an honor.”
“You’re overreacting,” I told her. My blood pressure was rising. It wasn’t the first time one of my parents had laid a guilt trip to keep me on the straight and narrow. I always caved .
“You’re not grasping the damage you’ve done tonight. Everyone is talking about you and her. Blake is going to have to work overtime just to sweep this under the rug.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I took my girlfriend to an event where we both had a nice time,” I said evenly.
“The fact that you refuse to even consider the ramifications just proves that you’re not ready to come back. Your father is going to be devastated. You’re acting like you don’t even want this anymore.”
I scraped my hand through my hair, pacing the kitchen. “I have to go, Mother.”
She huffed out a few more insults and guilt trips and I disconnected.
Once they met her, they’d understand the draw.
But I wasn’t about to force Scarlett into a visit with them.
Certainly not now. She’d done nothing wrong.
Hell, I wasn’t convinced that I had either.
Why would being with someone who made me happy, made me feel stronger, be wrong?
Scarlett had been there for me when my own family closed ranks against me, shunning me.
It had been Scarlett who’d picked up the pieces and put them back together again. It was Scarlett who?—
“You look like you’re contemplating a word problem on the SATs,” she said lightly from behind me. I turned to admire the view.
She wore a cami and short set in soft heather gray with pink trim. Pajamas had never looked so sexy. My anger over my mother’s phone call was already dulling.
I handed her a glass of wine.
“I heard you talking,” she confessed, perching on the arm of the leather armchair.
“My mother called,” I told her, pushing her hair over her shoulder and trailing my fingertips down her neck .
“Is everything okay?” she asked, her gray eyes wide and worried.
I nodded. “Everything is good,” I murmured.
She perked up. “So we can eat that pizza that smells like heaven?”
I smiled down at her. “I’ll get the plates.”
“Can we eat on the balcony?” she asked, nodding toward the glass wall.
“Of course.” We divided up slices and plates and spices—garlic salt for her, oregano for me—and juggled everything to the sliding door. Annapolis on the water was always quiet at night. I could hear the faraway echoes of late night diners on a restaurant patio overlooking the bay.
Boat mooring lights glowed and bobbed gently in the night.
Scarlett flopped down in one of the cushioned patio chairs and propped her bare feet up on the railing.
She was so different from Johanna. I didn’t know why I felt the need to make the comparison other than the fact that my ex-wife and I had attended so many events like the one tonight.
Johanna had never picked up a horseshoe or caused a scene over malicious gossip.
And when we’d come home, she’d change into silk pajamas and sip hot tea while we discussed who said what to whom.
She wasn’t a woman to prop her feet up on anything or to ever consider pizza a meal.
“I can practically hear you thinking,” Scarlett said dryly, with her mouth full.
I gave her a half smile. “Just thinking about tonight.”
“You’re thinking about a lot more than just tonight. Did it feel good to be back?” she asked, mopping at the sauce on the corner of her mouth.
“It felt...” I paused and thought. “Familiar. Comfortable.”
“Hmm,” she said without further comment .
“My mother was unhappy that I came back. She felt it was too early.”
Scarlett rolled her eyes. “A mother who doesn’t want to see her son. Nice.”
“There are appearances to be maintained,” I said in a falsetto.
Scarlett laughed in appreciation. “Let me guess, she wasn’t happy with you parading your redneck girlfriend all over the place.”
“She may have mentioned something along those lines,” I hedged.
Scarlett laid her hand on my wrist. “It’s okay. Because I probably won’t like her either.”
I choked on my wine laughing. It made my nose burn.
We ate in silence for a few minutes. “What are you and Gibson fighting about?” I asked.
“Devlin McCallister! You are tenacious!”
“It’s the attorney side of me.”
She sighed heavily, and I felt a sliver of guilt for pushing her. “Cleaning out our father’s house brought up a lot of... history,” she explained. “Gibson has always hated Daddy. And the one thing he hates more than that is my loyalty to him.”
“He saw you caring for your dad as a slap in the face?”
She nodded, sipping her wine slowly. “It’s an issue we’ve kept buried for a long time.
He never understood why I kept forgiving our dad and kept trying.
Gibson didn’t have a healthy relationship with my father.
He got the worst of it, and he’s hurt that I chose to forgive rather than hold grudges alongside him. ”
“And this all just came to a head?” I asked.
“We finally said all the words we’d been holdin’ in. It wasn’t pretty, and now we have to wait for the dust to settle.”
“So why shut me out?” I asked .
She gave a little one-shouldered shrug and stared straight ahead into the night. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just used to handling things on my own.”
“When your mother was upset with your father or one of you, what would she do?”
“Ugh. It was the worst. She’d give us the silent treatment for days. Just freeze everyone out.”
I lifted an eyebrow and waited.
“Wait... you’re not saying?—”
“Maybe you’re seeing the other side of that?” I suggested mildly. “You were angry and overwhelmed and froze me out.”
She opened her mouth and shut it again. “I don’t like this conversation. Not one bit.”
“We all carry pieces of our parents,” I reminded her.
“Your mama just called to yell at you for showing your face in town. What part of her are you carrying around like a cross to bear?” Scarlett demanded.
She was angry at the implication, but at least she was still talking to me.
“From my mother?” I mused. Suddenly I wasn’t liking this conversation either.
“Yeah, not so much fun now, is it buddy?” Scarlett said smugly.
“Let’s just boil it down to this. It hurt me when you froze me out, Scarlett. I’ve already had one relationship end because someone was keeping secrets and holding things back from me. I’m not interested in a repeat.”
She swallowed hard, keeping her gaze straight ahead into the darkness. I couldn’t read her thoughts and felt unsettled.
“The thing about secrets is some of them need to be kept,” she said quietly.
“Bullshit.”
She put her wine down on the concrete, placed her plate beside it, and rose.
She moved to me in the dark and pulled her hair out of the confines of the band she’d secured it with.
She was a goddess of the night. I knew I should press.
I should insist on continuing the conversation, but she was taking my glass, my plate, and setting them aside.
And then she was settling herself astride my lap.
I opened my mouth, but no words came forth. She scooted higher so that my hardening cock was buried at the apex of her thighs, begging to be released from my pants.