Chapter Six
Kylo
“Uh, incoming?” Dixon called from the living room.
“Huck?” I asked, knowing he was supposed to be rolling in soon. Unless their road trip back to Florida took them on some sort of detour.
“Nah, man,” Dixon said, shooting me that trademark smirk of his.
The family resemblance was strong in the Cider brothers.
Both tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed, both sporting lots of ink.
But Caymen, the elder of the two, clearly spent a bit more time in the gym, had a square jaw and a trim beard, stern brows, and a more serious demeanor.
By contrast, Dixon was the lighter, easier brother with a clean-shaven face, thick lashes, and lips prone to smirking and smiling easily.
True, since they’d shown up, even some of Caymen’s seriousness had lessened a bit.
It was likely thanks to the fact that he was no longer solely responsible for his little brother and their safety and livelihood.
He knew that with us, he had other people to rely on.
It let him let loose. And, apparently, engage in primal play with the club girls who were into getting chased, thrown over a shoulder, and fucked senseless.
“Who then?”
“That old man with the nagging wife. Doug. But he’s got a friend with him this time.”
“Christ,” I sighed.
“What are we, the local entertainment?” Caymen asked, coming in from the kitchen. “Ain’t enough that the old ladies bring out chairs to watch us do chores?”
“Eh, they’re just having some fun,” Dixon said, waving it off.
He liked female attention, no matter from whom. The last time they’d been out watching him mow the lawn, he’d taken his shirt off for them, getting a chorus of hoots and whistles from the delighted women.
“They’re gonna be disappointed when they see we don’t have any girls over,” York said, hauling himself up from the couch to answer the door when Doug rapped his cane on the wood. “Anything laying out that shouldn’t be?” he asked, glancing around with his hand on the knob.
I did a quick walk-through the common areas, making sure no guns were sitting out, then gave him a nod.
“Looking forward to letting Huck handle this from now on,” I mumbled as York opened the door.
Doug had a buddy standing next to him.
He was probably a few years younger than Doug. Or maybe it just appeared that way because he wasn’t so stooped and wasn’t using a cane. He was tall and fit in a pair of gray chino shorts and a tucked-in black polo shirt, with neatly styled gray hair, and bright, almost see-through blue eyes.
“Fellas,” Doug greeted us, already trying to push his way inside. “This is my buddy, Charles. Charles, these are the guys who have all the pretty broads running around.”
“Afraid not today,” York told them. “Just us here today.”
The disappointment was instantaneous on both their faces.
“Hope you guys are hungry,” Eddie called from the kitchen. “I bought the ingredients for enchiladas.”
“Enchiladas,” Doug repeated, interest piqued. “The spicy kind?”
Objectively, no.
But to him? Probably.
“The legit kind. Eddie’s from Mexico,” York explained.
“Where is everyone?” Eddie asked, coming in from the kitchen, still trying one of his many aprons on.
Doug looked at Eddie, then at all of us.
“This someone’s… husband?” he asked, trying really hard to sound like that phrase came naturally to him.
“They should be so lucky,” Eddie said, shrugging. “What’s going on here?”
“We’re staying for lunch, that’s what,” Doug said, his cane tapping across the floor as he let himself in, and made his way to the kitchen.
Charles gave us an apologetic look but followed his friend.
“You all have been keeping secrets,” Eddie said, looking between us.
“In our defense, we didn’t think he’d come back,” I said.
“Or bring friends,” York said, shaking his head. “What are we supposed to do here?” he asked, looking to me.
Right.
Yeah.
For at least a few more hours, I was who they still deferred to.
“I guess… call Cherry and Candy. Give them something pretty to look at, but it lets us control shit more than if we had a party. Those girls wouldn’t screw up and expose shit they shouldn’t.”
“Got it,” Dixon said, already reaching for his phone.
“Hopefully, he just wants to show off to his buddy that he wasn’t bullshitting,” I said. “Then they will just move on already.”
Or, worst case, it was Huck’s problem in the near future.
By the late afternoon, Doug and Charles were fed, and got to sit beside the pool as Cherry and Candy sat on the shoulders of Dixon and Caymen, and whacked at each other with giant inflatable batons.
Bikinis slipped.
Nipples flashed.
The men were thrilled.
Then Doug’s—I shit you not—flip phone started ringing. He was getting his ass handed to him by his wife, leading both men to make their way across the street.
The others decided it was time to call in more girls.
Huck came in, looking road-weary and exhausted, telling me we would catch up the next day, and that we knew where to find him if we needed him.
Then, responsibility removed and not overly in the mood to party, I went ahead and borrowed the SUV once again… then headed out to Vital Greens.
I tried to convince myself that I was going to try to gather more information to share with Huck when we had our meeting the next day.
But I knew damn well I just wanted to see Rue again.
Why, I had no idea.
There was just something about her that felt like it had been drawing me in since I’d seen her. Like she was her own fucking gravitational field. And I just wanted to be pulled in deeper.
The problem was that I didn’t really consider the shop hours of Vital Greens.
By the time I got there, I only had maybe forty-five minutes, which somehow didn’t feel like long enough.
“Oh, hey!” Rue greeted me, looking up from her notepad on the desk where she’d been tapping the tip of her pen frantically. “How are the plants doing?”
“Still alive, surprisingly. The charts really helped, I think.”
“So, are you back for more then?”
“I think I am. I recently got a townhouse, and it’s got a lot of light. And feels kind of empty.”
I’d gotten some new furniture in, but I hadn’t gotten around to any of the painting or hanging art or anything like that.
“Well, we can certainly put all that light to good use. Maybe it’s time to invest in a big plant,” she suggested, gesturing toward the giant plants and trees at the front of the shop.
“You mind if I cut out early and hit the kiln for—oh, hello there,” her employee, Traeger, said, coming to a stop behind the counter, his eyes going round when he spotted me.
“Hey,” I greeted him.
“Go ahead, Traeg. I know you’re drowning in orders.”
“You’re amazing. Make sure he buys a planter or two,” Traeger said before rushing out the door and heading around the building.
“You don’t have to buy pots.”
“Nah, I like to support artists. We’ll pick out some once we choose some—what the hell is that?” I asked when a metallic slamming noise sounded somewhere in the back.
I stepped automatically in front of her, standing between her and what I figured might be some sort of intruder.
Then the source of the noise came into view.
Ernest was toddling in with his metal food bowl hanging from his droopy mouth.
“He picks up and slams his bowl around when he wants to be fed. It’s the most active he is all day,” Rue admitted. “Want to come back and have a coffee? Or, you know, you can totally just browse if you want.”
Her voice had gotten tight and high, like she was uncomfortable with the idea of me turning her down.
“I can go for coffee.”
“He, uh, eats better than I do,” Rue admitted as she added kibble to a bowl and then started scooping extras in: bone broth, Greek yogurt, a few baby carrots, blueberries, mushed orange stuff that was maybe pumpkin or sweet potatoes, and some shredded turkey. “But he deserves it.”
The second the bowl hit the ground, Ernest was going to town on it, pushing the damn thing around the room.
“I should probably get him a stand for it,” she said, catching me watching him. “But he’s so lazy that I figured any movement he gets a day is good. Plus, it forces him to slow down so he doesn’t get a bellyache.”
“He seems to enjoy the process.”
“Do you have any pets?” she asked.
“I help take care of a macaw that kind of belongs to a bunch of buddies and me. And by ‘take care of,’ I mean slip him snacks he’s probably not supposed to have because it’s hard for me to say no to him.”
“Is he friendly?”
“God, no,” I said with a laugh. “He was a rescue, and it doesn’t sound like he came from the most loving home. So he doesn’t really want to be handled. He just wants to eat and watch the goings-on.”
“So, you’re into birds?”
“I never considered it before. I was more of a dog person. But I would be open to a bird, I guess.”
“I fall down rabbit holes of cute birds doing crazy things. Like that one that cries like an actual baby. Can you imagine? Sixty years of listening to a ‘baby’ cry.”
“Mackie heard a fire alarm ring once for all of fifteen seconds when cooking set it off. He still makes the sound on occasion, years later.”
“Do you know it’s him, or does it make everyone rush for an exit?”
“I think everyone has realized the need to listen for a couple of seconds before we decide to investigate or flee.”
“Ernest lets me know when there is a fire siren going off anywhere in a twenty-mile radius. Even dead asleep, he will just start howling. It’s actually kind of cute, not annoying.”
“Was he always so lazy, or was he a normal puppy?”
“Even as a puppy, it was almost impossible to get him out of bed. But that was okay with me.” Something deep and sad crossed her eyes then, like the memory of that wasn’t a great one.
Though I couldn’t understand what was bad about that.
Unless maybe she’d wanted a puppy who would be more interactive and playful.
“And now he is calm enough to be with you all day.”
“Exactly. He’s perfect. And the customers love him.”
I finished my coffee as she washed the dog’s bowl, then she sent him out the back door to do his business while we debated the plants, hemmed and hawed pots, and discussed care requirements.
“Shit,” I said when she let Ernest in, making me realize that the sun had fully set.
“What?”
“I’ve kept you from closing on time, haven’t I?”
“Oh, only by about an hour,” she admitted, flipping the sign.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I honestly had nothing planned. And you saved me from staring at the list that has been driving me nuts all day,” she admitted as she moved behind the desk.
“What’s the list?” I asked as she began ringing things up.
“Well, apparently, my very extroverted grandmother has a more packed social calendar than I do. Which means she is worried about me and my complete and utter lack of one. So I’ve been working on a list of possible clubs, hobbies, or classes I could take.
” She waved toward the list. “Though it has become a bit of a bucket list now too.”
“May I?” I asked, getting a flick of her wrist.
“Improv troupe? You’re into improv?”
“God, no,” she said, looking pained. “I only added it because my grandmother thinks that I need to practice saying yes and getting comfortable doing uncomfortable things. I figured the only way that was going to happen was if I was around a bunch of other people saying yes and doing uncomfortable things. But I’m ninety-eight percent sure I will never actually do that. ”
“What about… parasailing?”
“I actually do want to do that. It would mean overcoming both my fear of high speeds and heights, though. And, also, it’s not exactly a social activity.”
“Why is your grandmother so worried about your social life?”
“I literally don’t have one. I didn’t really even have any friendships back in Chicago, but I don’t have anyone here. Except Traeg. But he’s kind of too young for me to hang out with.”
“Is it really a problem if you don’t mind it?” I asked.
She watched me for a second, and I could swear I could read a thousand unspoken things there.
“Maybe I do kind of mind. I just didn’t realize how much until she mentioned it.”
“In that case, how about we go parasailing?” I suggested before I could overthink it.
“Wait… really?”
“Sure. Why not? It’s fun.”
“But… but what if I chicken out?”
“I’m just as happy to grab a sandwich and eat on the beach.”
“Really? You’re not just saying that?”
“Nah. I’m up for anything.”
“Okay. Well… sure,” she agreed, looking a little surprised at her own willingness to go hang out with a stranger. “If you’re free on Tuesday, that’s my day off.”
“Sounds good to me. We can meet over around Miami, if you want. Or we can meet here and drive over together.”
“Let’s meet here,” she said. “I can drop Ernest off with my grandmother, then we can head over.”
“Sounds great,” I said, narrowly avoiding saying ‘it’s a date.’
“It does,” she agreed, handing me my change.
As I was opening the door to head back to the SUV, I watched her go back to her notebook and strike a line through the parasailing note.
I was still fucking smiling when I made it back to the clubhouse.
I hoped against hope that she wasn’t involved with our rivals. Because Huck might be forgiving of a lot of shit, but I doubted he would be cool with me hanging out with the fucking enemy.