Chapter Three
▲
Oh, he’s gooooone.
Fox
She made popcorn. Instead of, I don’t know, doing her job and closing the bar floor, she went to the kitchen to make popcorn, then she brought it out here, hopped up on the bar—hello, health code violation—and started kicking her feet.
I contemplate firing her for the one million two thousand and third time. Then she blinks her freaking cartoon princess eyes at me and the thought flits out of my brain, along with every other thought I’ve ever had.
I scowl.
“Get off the counter.”
“Make me,” she replies, tossing a handful of popcorn into her mouth.
My fists clench. How I’d love nothing more than to make her. “You’re being a brat,” I grunt, picking up a cleaning rag so I don’t pick her up instead. Pick her up, throw her over my shoulder, and then… what? Carry her around like my neanderthal heart desires?
I snort.
What a lovesick fool.
“Do you think they’ll ground you?” she asks, feet swinging.
“I’m thirty-four years old,” I reply.
“Right,” she draws out. “So… do you think they’ll ground you?”
Probably. Unless I tell them what the drunk guy said. If they knew I was defending Poem, they’d put a plaque in the town square for me. Throw a parade, maybe. Which is exactly why I’m not telling them. Or anyone. Ever.
Instead of answering Poem and inviting more conversation where she’ll inevitably be cute and adorable and make me want to kiss her, I grunt.
She shrugs. “Guess we’re about to find out.”
My shoulders stiffen, scrunching up toward my neck as I turn to face the door, where my parents make their way into the bar. Mom tosses her purse on an empty bar table, charging straight toward me, while Dad halts just inside the door to look around and frown.
I brace myself for Mom, the most imminent threat. Dad’ll hear me out before he tears me a new one, but Mom’s always been a discipline first, ask questions later kind of parent. Now is no exception.
My mother, sweetest woman on earth to everyone but her children, approaches at top speed, grabs me by my ear, and drags me to one of the booths running along the far wall.
“Ouch!” I complain, moving my feet to keep up with her.
She may be half a foot shorter than me, but the woman can move.
She credits her morning power walking group.
They meet three times a week to hustle their way through the streets, gossipping until they hit town square.
Town square being where the local bakery is located, ready with freshly-iced cinnamon rolls made special for them every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
“Oh, do shut up,” Mom snaps, and Poem giggles behind us. Cool. She’s decided to find a close-up viewing location for this whopping heap of embarrassment. That’s just… great. So great.
“What were you thinking?” Mom asks once she’s got me well and cornered in a booth, standing over me with arms crossed.
Well, that’s good news, at least. Arms crossed is a lot better than hands on her hips. Maybe this won’t be so embarrassing after all.
My hope is short-lived when, in the face of my silence, her hands land on her hips.
“Well?” she asks. “I’d like an answer for why my oldest son has lost his mind today. I thought you left all of that ridiculous fighting and whatever else behind when you moved back. That’s what you told us. Made a promise right in this bar. You breaking that promise now?”
I cringe as Poem slides into the opposite side of the booth, glee dancing across her princess features to settle maniacally in her pale gray eyes. Dad slides in next to her.
Mom’s hip juts out. “Fox Hawthorne Blackwood!” she snaps.
Oof.
Okay.
No.
No, I’m not going back to my ridiculous fighting and whatever else.
And, honestly, it kind of hurts that she’d think that.
I’ve spent years upholding my promise to them.
Avoiding fights, women, and even drinking, despite me living above the bar that I also own and work at, surrounded by alcohol nearly 24/7.
I’ve changed, and I thought they knew that.
Thought they’d forgiven and forgotten. I thought that’s what selling me the bar was—acknowledging my growth and rewarding me for it.
Showing me they believed in me now in a way that they weren’t able to before, when I was breaking guys’ noses and girls’ hearts every other weekend.
I thought… I thought we’d all moved on. That maybe I would be able to move on. Not soon, but… sometime on the horizon.
I glance at Poem, whose gaze darts between me and Mom as she offers her popcorn to my dad, and my heart pangs. I guess that horizon is further than I thought.
“Fox,” Mom hisses, and I drag my attention back to her.
Sky blue eyes, identical to my own, glare at me, irritation and disappointment swimming in their depths.
Ouch.
“No, ma’am. I’m not breaking my promise,” I answer, making sure to look her straight in the eye. A single twitch and she’ll think I’m lying, then I’ll really be back to square one. And I’m already too close to that square to bear it.
She studies my face, sharp eyes looking for any dishonesty.
I remain open, letting her see a truth I don’t entirely believe myself.
I’m reliable. I’m responsible. You didn’t make a mistake entrusting me with the bar you worked so hard to build.
And it kind of sucks a lot that you think that you did.
After several tense moments, her hands drop and her eyes soften. “Okay,” she mutters. “Okay. Then what happened?”
My jaw clenches, and I glance at Poem again. “Could we maybe discuss this alone?”
“What for?” Dad asks. “We’re all family here.”
Uh…
This time, I don’t glance at Poem. I stare at her. “I don’t think so,” I say slowly.
Poem isn’t family. Poem can’t be family, because I most certainly don’t have the kinds of thoughts I have about Poem about family. I’d be arrested or something if I did.
Hurt flashes in Poem’s eyes, and I grimace, but don’t correct myself.
I didn’t mean it the way she thinks I did, but I’m not willing to explain how I did mean it.
What would I even say? Sorry, kit, it’s just that I quite badly would like to ravage you, and I definitely can’t say the same about my dear Aunt Wendy.
The very thought of it makes me want to jump into an active volcano.
Or throw her into one. Either works.
“We’ll have this discussion right here,” Mom shuts me down. “Now, talk.”
I guess a little bit of privacy is too much to ask for when it comes to their precious Poem. I guess she has them wrapped around her little finger, much the way she’s wrapped my heart around herself, too.
I wish I could blame them. I wish so badly that I could look at them and tell them that they’re wrong, that she’s not worth it, and that they should give that devotion to me instead.
Unfortunately, I can’t.
I can, however, blame Poem for being so precious in the first place.
It’s infuriating how lovable she is and how very impossible it is to resist the pull as she tugs at your heart.
Even when she’s baiting me into a rage, I can’t help but admire her strength, fortitude, and good humor.
She digs right into every instinct I have to protect and spoil, because a woman like her shouldn’t have to make use of that strength and fortitude if she doesn’t want to.
A woman like her should be revered and adored, reaping the benefits of her princess face and her princess attitude by receiving full princess treatment.
And those are my thoughts as I actively attempt to withstand her allure. How much worse must her effect be when one welcomes it?
My parents never had a chance.
My jaw rocks as I acknowledge that Princess Poem will be staying for this conversation, despite my wishes. I try not to hold it against my parents. I know they’re powerless to her charm, same as me.
And yet.
It sucks.
“That guy was a jerk,” I rumble finally.
Understatement of the century. That guy said he was going to wait for Poem to get off work, meet her in the parking lot, and do things no woman could possibly want done to them in the backseat of his truck.
He was disgusting and vile. Princesses do not get treated that way. Women do not get treated that way.
I should’ve torn his entire head off, not just broken his nose.
“We don’t hit people, Fox,” Dad says gently from across the table.
I turn my head, meeting his disappointed gaze head on. His hair, gray with age, falls over his forehead in a mirror of mine, and I wonder if I’ll look like that one day, scolding my own child for perceived wrongs.
I wonder if I’ll be in the right, or if I’ll be judging the acts of my child too quickly.
“We hit people like him,” I insist. “Harder than what I did.”
Poem snorts, and Mom huffs, but I keep my eyes locked on Dad. His thick, bushy brows furrow, then soften in understanding, gaze shooting to Mom, then Poem. “Ah,” he says. “Very good, then.”
My shoulders relax.
“Very good?” Mom asks. “What do you mean very good? He sent Greg Boggs to the hospital!”
My ears perk. “That guy was Greg Boggs?” Greg Boggs graduated a year before me.
He played hockey for a local team until it earned him a scholarship and he left, never to be seen again.
He didn’t even come back to town for Christmases, during college or after, much to his mother’s eternal heartbreak.
I didn’t know he was back. “Why is Greg Boggs in town?”
“Is he related to Annie Boggs?” Poem asks. “She died last week. Maybe he’s here for the funeral.”
Mom scoffs. “Here for his aunt’s inheritance, more like. Greg’s a slimeball.”
“Then why do you care if I broke his nose?” I ask, throwing my hands up.
“It’s not about Greg,” Mom says. “It’s about decorum.”
Decorum, I mouth, brows furrowed. “Mom, it’s Greg.”
“Beauty,” Dad cuts in, “leave the boy alone. He did right.”
Her jaw drops. “Did right? You got that from a couple of seconds of staring at each other?”
“Yep,” he says, slapping the table before sliding out of the booth. “Now, let’s go get something to eat. I’m hungry.”
“But–”
“What about–”
Poem and Mom protest over each other, both scrambling to chase after him.
“He barely even got in trouble!” Poem whines.
“He’s never going to stop if there aren’t any consequences,” Mom reasons.
I frown, following them to the door. “My hand hurts,” I offer. “If that helps at all.”
Mom sniffs. “Yes, it really does.”
“Well, it doesn’t help me!” Poem complains. “I wanted to watch you get yelled at!” She pouts, and I take a large step away from her, scowling at her downturned lips. Get thee behind me, temptress.
“You can’t always get what you want, kit.” Unfortunately. “Why don’t you console yourself by closing down the bar floor?”
“Stop calling me kit,” she hisses, exactly like a little fox kit. All yowl, no claws.
“Stop acting like one,” I suggest.
“Poem is going to dinner with us,” Mom decides. “And so are you. You can close the bar floor by yourself when you get back.”
Poem sticks her tongue out at me, and I take another step away, glaring at her offensively enticing mouth.
She reels her tongue back in to blink cutely at my parents, eyelashes fluttering over her giant doe eyes. “I appreciate the invite,” she says sweetly. “But if there’s not going to be any scolding, I’m afraid I have to get home to finish up Amia’s cake before tomorrow.”
Dad’s lips turn down, dark brows furrowing in concern. “You need to eat.”
She smiles softly, squeezing his shoulder. “I will, don’t worry. I’ve got leftover pizza in the fridge.”
“You promise you’ll eat?” he pushes.
“That pizza has been calling for me all day,” Poem assures him. “It won’t survive the first ten minutes after I walk through my door, don’t you worry.”
My father, it seems, is easily appeased.
I am not.
“Maybe add a vegetable to your meal,” I suggest, eyeing the dip of her waist, where I know my hand fits perfectly—where I’d like it to continue to fit perfectly, against my better judgment.
Something that won’t happen if she doesn’t properly feed herself.
A single slice of pizza does not a handhold make.
Poem’s gaze narrows on me, and it occurs to me too late that my eyes on her body plus the words from my mouth would deliver a different message than the one I intended to send.
“Have you lost your mind today?” Mom asks, smacking me upside the head. “Apologize this instant!”
Flinching, I do. “I didn’t mean it like that, I swear. I would never.” I’m rude to her, sure, but I’m not that rude.
Poem’s eyes roll. “Whatever,” she scoffs, turning to hug my parents goodbye. When they let her go, she turns to me. “For the record, the pizza has peppers on it. I am, as ever, the personification of health. Not that it’s any of your business, you overgrown toad.”
With that, she sniffs, turns on her heel, and marches out of the bar.
I briefly consider sawing my eyes out of my skull so that the curve of Poem’s body pointedly swaying as she stomps away might be the last thing I ever see.
“Boy, you better pull yourself together, and quick,” Dad mutters before I can fetch my knife.
I do not entirely disagree with him.