Chapter 20 #2
Knowing Byron was a good kisser.
Awesome.
More when it came to my sister?
TMI.
“Maybe we should leave that there,” I suggested.
“The sex act is the most natural act on the planet, Luna. Every animal does it.”
“I know. But do you want me to wax poetic about how great Knox is at giving head?”
“I’m very pleased to know he doesn’t avoid the act,” she said, all uppity.
“Men are constantly begging us to suck their dicks, and yet any of that business returned is perfunctory, if it happens at all. It’s unconscionable.
Do you know that historians consider the nineteen twenties as the decade men discovered the clitoris?
That’s why there was somewhat of a sexual revolution then. The nineteen twenties. Outrageous.”
This was the sister I knew, and yeah…
Oh yeah…
Loved.
“I’m feeling this opposite attracts thing for you and Byron,” I remarked.
“Maybe he’ll turn vegan,” she mused.
“And maybe you’ll let him be who he is, because it’s clear he likes you just as you are, and the things about him that are not the same as you, you find your way to dealing.”
“I’ll feel him out,” she replied.
Well, at least that wasn’t a line she was going to draw in the sand.
“He has no choice but to be vegan tomorrow,” she shared. “He’s coming over for dinner.”
Another date?
Brilliant.
“Avoid anything that needs cheese,” I advised.
“It isn’t that bad,” she scoffed.
“You haven’t eaten real cheese in a decade. You forgot its wonders. It’s that bad, Dream.”
She huffed.
I grinned as I drew in my brows.
“You’ve been a good sister, Luna.”
I stopped drawing my brows and sniffed. “Don’t make me cry while I’m doing my makeup.”
“Wait. You’re going out?”
Oh shit.
Should I ask her to go?
She wasn’t an Angel.
Furthermore, how would she feel about breaking bread with a bona fide gangster?
“The girls and I are going to a restaurant owned by the Russian mob,” I informed her. “Wanna come?”
Total silence.
So I called again, “Dream?”
“No shade, sister, but on that, I’ll pass.”
I was relieved, but not in the way I would have been two weeks ago.
“Chill out about Byron. Let it happen,” I instructed.
“Whatever.”
“And remember to call me if you need me to swing by the post office.”
“That’s part of what Byron and I are going to do tomorrow night. He’s interested in my Etsy business. We’re going to pack orders, and he said he’d take them with him and drop them at the PO the next morning.”
Go, Byron!
“Babe, this dude really sounds like a keeper.”
“We’ll see,” she hedged.
As Dream would say, whatever.
“You good?” I asked.
It took her several very long seconds before she said, “Thanks for making the effort with this, Luna.”
“You missed it, Dream. I didn’t. You did. I showed at my lowest, and you looked after me. Albeit you served me vegan cheese during that time, but that was the only part where you fell down on the job.”
“Shut up.” She said those words, but were my ears deceiving me? Did it sound like she was kinda laughing?
I didn’t ask.
I said, “Have fun tomorrow night. I want another progress report on Thursday.”
“Will do.”
“Dream?”
“What?”
“I love you, you know.”
Another very long several seconds before she said, “I know. Same.”
Same.
Not a blood pact chockful of loyalty and sisterhood.
But I’d take it.
* * *
I was running five minutes late to meet the girls at the storage units.
Fortunately, Raye texted to say she was running ten minutes late.
Since I was her ride, I told her, to shave off some time I’d fire up the Prius and meet her outside the gate.
Therefore, wearing my fabulous emerald-green, satin-strapped, spike-heeled sandals that were only a smidge off the color of the green of the leaves of the big orange flower on my one-shoulder-bared/one-arm-flowy dress, and after a cuddle with Jacques, I hustled to my car.
I unplugged it from the juicer, put the nozzle back in its holder, and was heading to the driver’s side door when I heard a woman call, “Luna Nelson?”
I looked beyond the carport to the lot next door.
And yep.
There stood a woman, late forties or a very well-preserved somewhere-in-her-fifties. She was illuminated by the lights of our parking lot, and the one next door.
She had blonde hair with a hint of red. It was thick. Brushed her shoulders in a style that suited her. She was wearing nice jeans, high-heeled pumps, a white T-shirt with a plaid blazer over it that had a feminine cut and was rad.
She was also staring at me and not moving.
Further, she knew my name.
My cute, black clutch didn’t hold a Taser, so I wasn’t carrying one (though, I also wasn’t carrying one because I thought Dimitri would frown on us coming in packing, even packing Tasers).
But now I wished I was because this was giving me very bad feelings.
“Can I help you?” I queried.
She took a step forward, but stopped again, beyond the carport, still on the property next door.
A chill ran down my spine because that was out of the line of any angle of the cameras trained on the Oasis Square parking lot.
In other words…off the grid for the boys in the control room at NI&S to see what was happening.
“I’m Cynthia,” she said.
I edged back and put my hand to the handle of the car door.
“Cynthia Chambers,” she added a word.
I went statue-still.
“Knox’s mom,” she finished.
A huge-ass, angry crack formed in my statue.
“You’re Knox’s mother?” I pushed out between stiff lips.
“Are you meeting him?” she indicated me with an upward sweep of her arm. “I mean, you’re wearing that pretty dress.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Chambers, but that’s none of your business.”
“You’re back together though, yes?”
Oh my God.
What did she know about Knox and me?
“Again, no offense. I’m sure you have some sense of why I’m repeating that’s none of your business.”
She threw both hands out to her sides. “I was hoping that you’d—”
“Stop hoping,” I stated firmly. “I won’t.”
“I’m not sure you understand—”
“I am sure I understand you left him. When he was eleven years old. I also understand it was unsafe for you. But it was unsafe for him too. He was only a child, and he didn’t hear from you in any meaningful way for nearly twenty years.”
“I had to—”
Okay.
Hell no.
I was not doing this.
And yeah, the slim hold I had on courtesy was out the window.
“Listen,” I spat. “I don’t really give a fuck what you had to. That was your son you left behind. Actually, three of them and a daughter. And you left them behind with a known criminal who did not, and you knew this too, have very good parenting skills. Or any at all.”
“I’d like to explain to Knox—”
“Talk to Knox. Not me.”
“He won’t talk to me.”
“Then leave him alone.”
She straightened her shoulders. “I’m his mother.”
“And I’m his woman,” I shot back. “And he got himself a good one. Now, allow me to explain what that means. If I can shield him from pain, I will. If he needs a listening ear, I’m there.
If he makes a decision about his life, I back him.
And if he has issues with his family, the only side I’m on with that…
or anything…is his. In other words, this is not your play, Ms. Chambers.
Furthermore, when Knox finds out you pulled this, if he had any desire to speak to you again, he’ll lose it.
Because he’s all those things to me as well. ”
“I see he found a good woman. Please know, that’s a comfort.”
“I’m not here to comfort you. I don’t want to be talking to you at all.”
“Loon?”
I turned at Raye’s voice.
Regrettably, I was in no mood to compliment her on her wine-colored sweater dress that was sleeveless, off-the-shoulder, had a ribbed waistband that made her waist look tiny, and a daring, matching scarf tossed across her neck that gave the overall effect of class. She looked great.
I couldn’t tell her that because I was too busy talking myself into not rushing Knox’s mom and getting in a catfight.
I might break a heel.
Or a nail.
“Who’s this?” she asked when she got up close to me.
She was looking at Knox’s mom.
“I’ll just go now,” Cynthia Chambers said.
“Bye,” I replied shortly.
She gave me a lingering look then turned and picked her way through the dead weeds and gravel that delineated Oasis Square’s parking lot and the property next door, which was a medical complex that housed dentists and such.
I watched her walk to a BMW.
A fucking BMW.
And she walked to it in her pumps, cute jeans and a trendy blazer.
Guess she got some money somewhere along the way.
I felt Raye get close.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“Knox’s mother,” I answered.
I heard the wind whistle between her teeth as she sucked in breath.
“No joke?” she asked.
“Not even a little,” I answered.
“What was she doing here?”
“She wanted me to be the go-between to talk to Knox.”
Raye made an impatient noise before asking, “Why does everyone think you’ll do that?”
“Don’t ask me.”
A short hesitation before, “I know…a little about this. Cap told me.”
Not a surprise.
“She left when he was eleven. That wasn’t the problem.
It wasn’t a healthy environment, for any of them.
The problem was she didn’t look back until he was an adult.
They’ve had one meet. He wasn’t feeling moving that family reunion forward.
And if he doesn’t feel that, I’m not feeling it. Does that fill in any blanks?”
She nodded slowly and asked, “Are you going to tell him she showed tonight?”
“Of course I’m going to tell him.”
That said, I wasn’t looking forward to that convo. Not having to lay that on him after he sat down with Brady (for me). Not ever.
“I’m sorry, babe,” she murmured.
“I am too.”
“How did she find you?”
“My guess?”
She nodded.
“Gypsy.”
“Gypsy knows about you?”
“My guess again?”
She nodded again.
“I bet Gypsy keeps tabs on her brother. Especially after one of her thugs shot him.”
“And if she’s feeling more forgiving of the mom unit than Knox is, and Gypsy told the mom he’d been hurt, the mom is now freaking and wants to make sure her boy is okay.”
“She should have made sure he got to junior football practice when he was eleven,” I snapped.
“Luna, honey, you’re among friends,” Raye cooed, reaching out and stroking my arm to soothe me. “I agree with you. I’m just trying to suss this out.”
I shut my mouth.
“Do you want to go back up to your apartment. Ditch tonight? I can give you a full debrief tomorrow.”
“No, I’m going.”
“Maybe—”
“I need to take my mind off that, and I need time to figure out how I’m going to tell Knox about it. He’ll definitely be home before me. He’ll also definitely be pissed as fuck his mom ambushed me. Another hour or two will assist me in the endeavor of finding the right words.”
“Whatever you need.”
That was what a friend said (so fuck you, all Dream’s ex-friends).
That was what made the foundation of a good partner, which would in turn form the foundations of a good mom (so fuck you, Cynthia Chambers).
That was what Knox had with the Hottie Squad.
The rest of the bullshit, he was out.
And we’d agreed that I wasn’t going to ask Dimitri to make that clear to Gypsy et al.
But damn it all to hell.
I just changed my mind.