Chapter 15 #2
“What?” She sits up straighter. “I don’t want to go to that money-floundering event. It isn’t feasible, anyway. Who will watch the Nashlings?”
“Nashlings?” My heart warms.
“Kimmie coined it.”
Kimmie doesn’t talk, but I file that away for later because she makes a fair point. “Sir, she’s right. Who will watch my children? I don’t have a backup for Lem.”
And I won’t allow myself to linger on why I couldn’t possibly ever want one.
“It does pose a problem,” Emil sighs, “yet I feel strongly that our Lem,” he pauses on the nickname I’ve let slip again as sweat drenches my brow, “she needs to be at the table more if she’s to run part of the company one day.”
“Part?” She moves to the edge of her seat. “What do you mean, part, Papa? I would run it all, would I not? That’s what you’ve always said. I have plans for the future of Perkins Global.”
“Plans?” He chuckles.
It scathes even me that he dismisses her so quickly.
What if she does have plans? I’ve seen her plan plenty—dinners, picnics, even a birthday party for Poppy’s guinea pig, but it doesn’t seem Emil has noticed those attributes.
Her ability to take a scene before her and re-write it, make it her own, finding all the best parts and enhancing their greatness on a whim.
Chaotic poise, like a symphony. Sharp staccato just before a smooth bridge. My fingers play against the seams of the leather seat as they argue.
“Plans to what?” Her father scoffs. “Make videos on the social medias and hope they sell records? It is about business, networking, presence.”
“I’ve watched you run this company my whole life, Vater. I know it from the ground up. Anything you can do for Perkins Global, I can do better—from my phone, with my social medias. I promise you that. In faaaact,” she hiccups, “I bet half my shares on it.”
“Whoa! Lem, that’s a bit much.” I put my hand on her leg, and it all but burns there in her stare. I yank it back as she eyes me with purple venom. “You’re drunk,” I whisper. “Is it wise to be making this kind of deal under the influence?”
“Tell me, Olly, do you think Lem can secure a deal with Miss Tryst before I do?”
“Uh. . .” I drag my eyes to Lemon’s.
“Yeah, what’ll it be, Olly Boy?” She lowers her eyes to my bulge then raises a brow.
“It doesn’t matter,” I remind them. “I don’t have a backup nanny, and you can’t trust just anyone to babysit your kids.”
“Yet you trust my daughter?”
“You told me to trust her!” I gape at the speaker. “You trust me, I trust you, remember?” I rake my hair as Lemon presses back a smile, clearly loving this exchange between her father and me. They’re two peas in a provoking little pod.
“What about Bryar?” she asks.
“Bryar babysit? You’re kidding. She’s—”
“Thirteen. Fourteen soon. Ninth grade in a few short months.”
“Perfect!” Emil rejoices. “Bryar will watch the little ones while you both attend the charity, and then, my little Lemondrop, you will see what it means to be…as you say, cockblocked. I will win this game of ours.”
“Oh…sir, that’s…”
Lemon’s adorable tipsy giggles have me struggling not to laugh, too. She’s uncontrollable.
Messy.
I fucking love her.
“That’s not what cockblocked means,” I finally manage as Lemon snorts, and it’s all I can do not to erupt with laughter, mouthing stop as an uninvited smile skates across my face accompanied by a flutter in my chest I haven’t felt since Lauren.
“Is it not a poker term? You block me with…dem Joker…Ja?
“N-No. It’s—”
Lemon slaps her hand over my mouth.
“Yep! That’s exaaactly what cockblocked means, Papa. Benutze with all your poker buddies, so they know you’re hip.” A wild gleam lights her eyes that has my mouth tugging at the edges.
Jesus, what have I gotten myself into? A pissing match between the woman I want to fuck and the man who could damn well fuck me in a very different way.
Still, there is something endearing about their relationship, as toxic as it may seem on the outside.
I hope my daughters will want to call me every week, make bets and play pranks.
To know they would meddle in my affairs is to know they still care, is it not?
She may be pissed at him, but I can see the part of her smile that betrays her in the safety of her father’s voice.
On the other hand…
“Bye, now, Daddy Dearest. Rest up for your cockblocking!”
Click.
“Holy shit, Sour Patch, you did not just make me part of that.” I scrub my hand over my face, as if I could wring the remaining laughter out of it.
Lemon Perkins has me tickled. My lip quirks my once clean passenger seat, covered in mud from the skates she slung off, and I should be bothered by that, but I don’t mind. The weight of the world seems gone around her. Nothing is serious anymore. And even when it is, she finds the light.
“He’s gonna go tell all the guys at work he cockblocked his daughter. You know that, right?”
“I know!” She steadies her laughter. “I can’t think about it without combusting. That was the best!”
I laugh too. I can’t help it when the light pours from her soul like a song I haven’t played on my violin in eight years.
“Do you do that often?”
“Drink and gamble millions with my father? Or take advantage of his language barrier so he says funny things?”
“Your grin tells me you’re proud of doing both.” I nudge her shoulder, and her eyes fall to our connection, as if summoned.
The question in her gaze nearly knocks the wind out of me, even if I do know the answer. “Olive Lover, can I ask you something super-duper real right now?”
“Keeping in mind you are still, in fact, drunk, and apparently have no mute button…”
She swats me. “I’m serious.”
“Would you kiss me if I weren’t drunk?” Her eyes scrape mine, searching. A real, honest-to-God question.
So, I give her a real, honest-to-God answer.
“Yes.”
My symphony continues against the car’s interior, fingers fiddling to stay grounded through her next admission.
“What I said before I skated away…when I said I love y—”
“Yes,” I repeat.
“But I haven’t finished the question.” She worries her lips, ones I’d kiss if the moment weren’t what it is, and we were who we aren’t.
But it is.
And we are.
So, I lift her chin instead, until our eyes do what our lips won’t dare.
“And yet my answer’s still yes.”
Even if it can’t be.
It’s only after the woman of my dreams peels her way out of the car and stumbles down the entryway that I hear the buzz of an incoming message, only it’s not from my phone.
The hot pink, heart covered rectangle lighting up the seat next to me isn’t my business, and guilt already stains my thoughts at the way I shouldn’t have spoken to Onyx Barringer. So when I scoop her phone up, I have no intention of seeing the unlocked home screen.
Until I do.
New Message from
LIL’ DRUMMER BOY
Idon’t click it.
I won’t invade her privacy any more than I have.
Even if all I want right now is to swipe open the message and delete the whole thread, the entire history of a relationship that existed before me, gone in a single tap…
She isn’t mine.
I have no claim or say or right to be that person for her. I don’t even have her consent to be that man.
Just her confession that she loves me and the pull when I’m in her orbit. Every sense I have claws at me to be her person. But this is her life, and if she’s still texting Onyx Barringer, that’s her own decision.
But she can’t be angry at me for protecting my family. My daughters have hearts, too. Ones she could break just as easily as mine.
She said herself; she won’t stay.
So is it Onyx she’s toying with or me and the four biggest parts of my world?
Does she love me, or love me not?