Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Hudson
“We shouldn’t have come. We should have just stayed at the house, so you could have your feet up, and you didn’t have to deal with the stress. My family is more than enough for anyone, and after everything you just went through, you seriously don’t need this right now.”
Scarlett merely turned to me while we sat in the cab of my truck, idling in front of Aston’s lake house, and blinked slowly.
“I’m fine. If I have to sit down and keep my feet up, I will be bored out of my mind and will wallow in everything that just happened.
I would rather move on. Can we please just move on? ”
“You can’t even turn to me fully without wincing, Scarlett.”
She set her hand on her side over where I knew her bandage lay and shook her head. “Yes, that’s true. But I didn’t get stitches, and I’m perfectly fine.”
“Don’t lie to me.” I gripped the steering wheel tighter, the whites of my knuckles showing. “You were hurt. And if I hadn’t been there in time, you could have been hurt even more.”
“Everything worked out, and I’m already stressed out your entire family knows the fact that my father is a terrible person. So I would rather put this past us and not think about it. Okay?”
“Considering we’re going to a family dinner that’s going to continue to go over all the bullshit that my jerk and adulterer of a father has put us through, you don’t need to be worried about standing out with father issues.”
Scarlett’s lips twitched, even as her eyes softened. “That’s true. We can do shots later about who has the worst daddy issues, and I honestly don’t know who would win right now.”
I leaned forward and brushed her hair back from her face.
“Let’s just go inside, to this huge dinner with people that I should know all of their names and I haven’t figured them out, and then go home.”
“Okay. Let’s do that. Mostly because I know I will never be able to convince you otherwise.”
“You’re learning so much. I’m so proud of you.” She fluttered her elashes, and then let out a scream as I flinched when Flynn rapped on the window with his knuckles.
“Is there a reason that you’re in here and not in the house? I assumed you were making out, but no. So confusing.”
I flipped off my twin, before reaching down to undo Scarlett’s seatbelt. “Let’s go inside before I have to murder him.”
“Do you mean let’s go inside so you don’t murder him?”
“I said what I said.”
She grinned then, some of the tension on her face finally easing.
I got out of the truck and stomped my way around the front of it, pushing past Flynn so I could help Scarlett down.
The fact she had waited for me instead of jumping down as usual, told me she was in far more pain than she’d let on. I gently sat her feet on the ground and then took her hand.
Flynn looked down at the gesture and smiled. “You guys are so precious. I love it.”
“Flynn,” I warned.
“What? I’m just stating the obvious. Precious.”
This time Scarlett moved forward, slapped him on the shoulder gently, then hooked her arm with his. “Okay, boys, lead me inside. I’m having an out-of-body experience right now.”
“What?” I asked, confused as Flynn threw his head back and laughed.
“The twin thing?”
“Exactly. Two strong men leading me into the house. I mean, what more does a girl want?”
“I have so many questions.”
“If you ask any of them, I will break you,” I warned my twin.
Flynn merely winked before leading us into the house.
Aston’s lake house was the largest of the Cage family homes.
It made sense since he was the eldest, and when we had built it, it was because we knew whenever we visited, we would most likely do our dinners at his place.
We hadn’t taken into account the extra set of siblings and all of their spouses, but we were learning.
It was odd that my parents didn’t have a home here. Yes, Dad had owned the Ackerson place, but it hadn’t been for Mom. Mom did not have a place here, and frankly, she was never going to. At least not until she wised up and learned how to be a human being.
She hadn’t our entire lives, and I had a feeling the only maternal figure we would have in our lives was the other Cage mother who was currently playing with Sophia’s twins.
Constance Cage had known about the secret family, and had willingly gone along with it because she had loved my father for some reason.
I wasn’t sure if every one of her children had forgiven her, but she was here now, and the one grandmother for everybody.
Hell, she even had Ford’s son Micah with her.
They had no blood relation, but she was a grandmother to him.
And I knew she would be for each of the kids that came along in our generation. If I even decided to have kids.
I nearly choked on air at that moment, wondering where the hell that thought had come from. No, thank you. I wasn’t trying to think about that. There was no way I would be having kids. Right? No. Never.
Yet as Scarlett leaned into me, I realized that saying never had gotten me to this point.
“You’re here.” Isabella moved forward and stole Scarlett from me, and suddenly I found myself with a beer in hand, and James and Flynn on either side of me.
“You ready for this?” James asked as he studied the rest of the family.
“You continually force me to come to family dinners, so no. I’m never ready for this.”
“But you brought a woman,” Flynn added.
I raised a brow. “And?”
“You’ve never brought a woman before. Ever. To any family function. Let alone the final Cage forced dinner.”
“It’s a step.” James nodded tightly. “A big step.”
“You guys have been working together for so long that you’re starting to sound like twins who finish each other’s sentences. It’s a little weird.” I shook my head. “And everybody here knows Scarlett. Of course I was going to bring her. I don’t want her to be alone.”
Worry washed over James’s face as Flynn let out a deep breath.
“He’s behind bars?” Flynn asked softly.
“Yes. And will be for a long while. I think this was the final straw in terms of the legal shit.” I gritted my teeth. “At least it better be.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t rough him up a bit,” Flynn said after a moment.
My hand squeezed on my beer bottle, and I forced myself to relax. “I did. A little. But Scarlett needed me more.”
Flynn whistled through his teeth. “Noted.”
“No. Nothing to noted. We’re just… I don’t know. I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing, okay?”
“Do you love her?” James asked, and I cursed under my breath, looking around in case anybody had heard.
“We’re not… I don’t know. That seems like a big…” I wave my hands around. “thing. Let’s just have this dinner, read the ridiculous next step of the will, and go home.”
“Whatever you say,” Flynn drawled out, and I shoved at his shoulder, before stomping towards Aston.
“Can we get this part done?” I asked, interrupting Aston and Kyler’s conversation.
The fact that Kyler had even been able to take time off his tour to be here, spoke volumes. We all wanted this will to be done. Having our father hovering over us for any period of time was our own circle of hell.
“Sure. We can make that happen.”
Aston cleared his throat, and just like that, the noise in the room lowered.
All twelve siblings, the spouses, and even the kids quieted to a murmur.
Constance held Ford’s son in her arms, while the twins played at her feet, and yet, everybody’s attention was still on Aston.
“I have the final paperwork here,” Aston said after a moment, staring down at the envelope in front of him. Blakely moved to him, her hand on the round of her stomach as she came to lean against her husband.
“The lawyer didn’t need to be here?” Theo asked from his seat on one of the couches next to Emily and Phoebe. Phoebe’s husband stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders.
Dorian and Harper sat on the love seat next to them as others began to mill about. Cale came forward and stood next to his wife, an odd expression on his face I couldn’t read.
This whole thing was a farce, and a weird fucking way to begin a dinner, but that was our father, making everything far more complicated than it needed to be.
I looked around the room once more and took a few steps to the right to be near Scarlett. She slid her hand into mine, and I didn’t miss the fact that others had seen. I squeezed her hand and waited for Aston to continue.
“No lawyer. This is just us. He knows we’re all here.
We’ll do the photo just to annoy the fuck out of him like always.
” His lips twitched as everybody gave an awkward laugh.
“I know the kids are in here, so I’ll try to keep my language a little tamer.
” Aston winced. “Our father was not a good man. We all know that. He made his decisions, ones that we didn’t have a say in. ”
I risked a glance over at Constance as she swayed with Wyatt in her arms, but her face was blank.
Maybe she didn’t have the same say in her circumstances as our mother had. I didn’t know her, but I had a feeling with the gravity of my father’s presence, and the way my mother could manipulate, perhaps Constance hadn’t had a choice in the way that we had all thought.
Though I didn’t know why that idea had just come to me in that moment.
She met my gaze, gave me a sad smile, and then slowly began to take the kids out of the room.
Aston’s shoulders relaxed at that moment, and once again I was grateful for a woman that I didn’t know.
“In front of me is the next step of the will. Because there’s always hoops to go through when it comes to Loren Cage.”
“Do you want me to read them?” James asked, his voice low. “Or we can just burn everything.”
“And break the company? No. Never.” Although there was an odd humor in Aston’s voice as he said it.
“This man was a liar. A manipulator. But we’re here.
Together. Maybe it’s what he wanted, or maybe he never thought we could, but we found a way to make this work.
We are a family. All one hundred and ten of us. ”