7. Next Time
SEVEN
CHARITY
“What?” Theo’s clipped tone surprises me, but the man on the other end of the call doesn’t seem to notice. Whoever it is sounds far friendlier than Theo’s being, which is an odd thing to hear. Theo’s usually the nicest man in any situation, and I can’t help but frown when he tells the guy to “Handle it yourself.”
Theo must feel my eyes on him because he turns toward me, sighing when he sees the way I’m looking at him. “Never mind, Julius. I’ll be there in half an hour.”
The phone drops into the cupholder harder than necessary as we pull into Callum’s driveway. Theo pauses before entering the gate code, turning to face me.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I’m not sure,” he admits. “I feel like I’m doing something to fuck this up, but I don’t know what it is, and I’m not sure how to stop doing it.”
My mouth opens, a rant on the tip of my tongue when I realize what I’m about to say. Am I really going to call this man selfish for giving me three orgasms across two separate occasions without asking for anything in return? When was the last time I slept with a guy who even cared if I came, much less ensured my orgasms before his own?
Theo takes my prolonged silence as a lack of answer and leans over to enter the gate code. We’ve just passed through the iron monstrosities when I find my voice again. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need?—”
“Theo,” I roll my eyes at how quickly his mouth snaps shut at the name. “I was feeling self-conscious, and I took it out on you. That was shitty of me.”
He doesn’t respond right away, the silence stretching between us. We’re all the way to the house before he carefully asks, “What could you possibly have to be self-conscious about?”
That’s such an embarrassing question. How do you tell someone I just really wanted your dick in my mouth, and it kind of felt like you maybe didn’t want your dick in my mouth?
“Uh, I just,” I have to look away from him before I can continue. “You’ve been paying so much attention to me, and every time I offer to, you know, return the favor, you shut me down, and it kind of felt like you didn’t really want me to...do...that.”
Silence. So much unbearably loud silence follows my awkward admission I want to run away. My door is halfway open when a large hand closes over mine on the door handle, pulling it closed again. Theo is so close to my body I can feel the heat radiating off his chest, but I refuse to turn around.
“I want you to do that,” his breath ghosts against my skin with each word, sending shivers up my spine. “I want everything from you, Viper.”
“Then why do you turn me away every time?”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
“I...shit.” Theo exhales, resting his forehead against the back of my neck. “There’s a conversation we need to have, Charity, but not here. Not right now. I can’t,” he sighs, moving back to his side of the car. I immediately miss the heat of his body pressed against mine. A gentle hand tips my chin in his direction. “I will explain next time. I promise.”
“Next time?” I raise an eyebrow at the confidence behind his words when I’m feeling anything but confident right now.
“There will be a next time, Viper. And a time after that,” he adds, a small smile spreading across his face. “There will be a lifetime of next times if I have anything to say about it.”
Before I can react to the seriousness of what he’s just said, Theo pulls me into a mind-melting kiss and then shoos me out of the car with everyone’s food. He waits until I’m inside the house before he leaves, his eyes tracking my every movement until the front door closes behind me.
A lifetime of next times? What have I gotten myself into?
“Charity Lawson!” My mother shrieks the moment I answer the phone. “Why did I just hear you are home from Marsha Brown?”
The way she says the other woman’s name tells me this is a Problem, with a capital P. My mother prides herself on knowing everything that happens in “hertown”, so to hear her only daughter arrived home without her knowledge? I might as well have slapped her across the face.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I was planning to tell you, but then some things happened, and?—”
“And you went drinking at Peaks? I can only imagine how important those ‘things’ must have been for you to go gallivanting around town before you came to see me and your father. You couldn’t have at least called us? It doesn’t take much effort to make a phone call, Charity!”
The familiar feeling of whiplash washes over me as I listen to her switch from anger to sadness and back again. “I know, Mom. I’m sorry.”
“You’re coming to dinner. Tonight.”
“Alright.”
“And you’re bringing that no-good little brother of yours!”
“We’ll be there, Mom.” I make an apologetic face at Dane on the opposite end of the couch, and he immediately groans, slipping from his seat to lie in a puddle on the floor. I nearly laugh but catch myself before my mother hears it.
“Seven o’clock!” She informs me with an angry snap, but she’s all smiles when she says, “I’m so happy you’re home, Cherry. See you tonight!”
She hangs up before I can respond, and all the air leaves my lungs in a frustrated groan. “Any room left down there for me?”
Dane shakes his head against the carpet, stretching his legs out to cover the entire space between the couch and the coffee table. “How did she find out?”
“Marsha Brown.”
“That loud-mouthed old bitty,” Dane groans, covering his face with his hands. “Maybe I’m sick? Or dying? Or already dead?”
“Not a chance, shitstick. I am not facing them on my own.”
“You’re a thirty-five-year-old woman! You shouldn’t be scared of our parents.”
“Don’t you kill people for a living?”
He flips me off from his spot on the floor but doesn’t argue any further. He’ll come with me. One of my little brother’s best traits is never leaving a man behind. A valuable skill when you’re walking into the active war zone that is dinner at our parents’ house.
“Was that the doorbell?”
I turn toward Dane, noticing my own fears reflected in his eyes. The last time my parents had an unexpected guest at dinner, it was the Father coming to collect Dane for duty. The time before that was the ancient clergyman from the MacAlister Family Church who “just so happened to be in the area” with a fully prepared speech about the importance of children following in their parents’ footsteps.
Unexpected guests are never a good thing around here.
My mother is every inch the poised and perfect hostess as she approaches the front door. Her long brown hair is swept into an updo that’s entirely too fancy for dinner with her children at home, but it matches her ridiculous green gown perfectly. Our father moves to join her as the door swings open. His obsidian hair and brown eyes match his children perfectly, leaving zero doubt as to our parentage on his part. He shoots a disapproving look in our direction when he sees me and Dane poking our heads around the corner.
“Theodore! How lovely to see you.”
My attention zeros in on the man now filling the doorway. Theo is all easy smiles and bright laughter as he hugs my mother and moves into the house to shake my father’s hand. He’s dressed casually in a soft grey sweater and black slacks. I can’t explain why my mouth suddenly fills with saliva or why I know, even from this distance, that he smells phenomenal.
Dane elbows me in the ribs, forcing me to suck in a breath. “What’s he doing here?”
“I have no idea.”
“You never told me what’s going on between you two,” Dane gives me an accusing look, but I just shrug helplessly. I have no idea what’s going on between us, so it isn’t as if I’d have much to say on the matter.
“Our children are around here somewhere,” my mother assures Theo, but he doesn’t need to be told. He found me just fine on his own. Light blue eyes trace over my skin, taking in my long black skirt and cropped Rolling Stones t-shirt. His gaze narrows on a spot on my thigh where my leg sticks through the thigh-high slit, revealing my snake tattoo. I know he’s seen it before, and far more intimately than this, but he’s looking at it as if this is the first time he’s really seeing it.
“There they are!” My mother breaks Theo’s concentration, and his eyes snap to my face. “Come over here and say hello to our guest.”
“What are you doing here, Dickbag?”
“Charity!”
“Your father invited me.” Theo ignores my mother’s indignant squawk, giving me a crooked grin. “It’s good to see you, Charity.”
I can’t tell if he’s intentionally making it sound like this is the first time we’ve seen each other or if he’s just being polite, but I don’t have the energy to sift through the layers right now. I’m far too interested in why my father looked so surprised by Theo’s words.
My mother doesn’t allow any more small talk, hooking her arm through Theo’s and leading everyone to the dining room. I can’t hear what she’s saying as we enter the dining room, but the way Theo’s shoulders tighten leaves no doubt that it’s embarrassing for everyone involved.
“May I get your chair?” Theo is at my side the moment my mother releases him, placing a gentle hand on my back as he reaches around me to pull out the chair. I want nothing more than to slap his hand away and tell him to go bother someone else.
Or turn further into his arms and demand we leave right now so we can both get naked and rub our bodies all over each other.
Sometimes I hate my brain.
Deciding the best course of action is ignoring Theo; I busy myself with cataloging all the changes my mother has made to the dining room since the last time I was here. The walls are still soft blue, but she’s added a mahogany wainscotting to the lower half. The color perfectly matches the ancient hutch in the corner, still proudly displaying her “wedding china”. The table is the same one we had when I was growing up, but the settings are different. She got placemats to match the baby blue walls but decorated the rest of the table in varying shades of blue with small pops of green. It’s all beautiful and expensive and doing very little to distract me from the heat radiating off Theo’s body as he slides into the seat next to me.
“Are you ignoring me, Viper?”
His voice is so deep, even when he whispers, and I have to stop myself from visibly shuddering at the sound. “Are you going to tell me what you’re really doing here?”
“Protecting you.”
“What?” I hadn’t expected him to answer, and even if I had, that wasn’t the answer I thought he would give. “Protecting me from what?”
“Everyone, help yourselves,” my mother calls over the sound of my hissed questions. She and my father have just finished bringing in the last of the dishes from the kitchen, and she gestures broadly at the array of food.
Everyone else begins to fill their plates, but I’m too distracted by what Theo said to join in the frenzy. I don’t realize I’ve zoned out until a plate full of food drops onto the empty placemat in front of me. I look up to find Theo frowning slightly at the plate.
“I wasn’t sure how hungry you were, but I got some of all your favorites.”
He’s right. There isn’t a single thing on my plate I wouldn’t have gotten for myself, despite there being more than one dish on the table with foods I don’t eat. “How do you know what I like?”
Theo shrugs, filling his own plate with a heaping pile of potatoes. “I know you.”
“You don’t.” The words are more insistent than I mean them to be, but this man has me all kinds of fucked up, and I don’t know what to do with that. For his part, Theo just smiles softly at me, then joins in a conversation with Dane and my mom as if I haven’t said anything. Frustration eats at the back of my brain, but I’m too hungry to let it ruin my meal.
Dinner passes quickly, with my parents on their best behavior. That isn’t technically true. My mother was on her best behavior, adding to the conversation only when she had something positive to say and keeping her backhanded comments to herself. My father, on the other hand, didn’t say anything at all. For the entire meal, he just sat there, silently eating his food and staring a hole in Theo’s head.
My mother has just suggested we clear the table when my father suddenly stands, speaking his first words since Theo’s arrival. “Grady. My office. Now.”
Then he leaves, stomping across the house toward the room he uses as an “office” whenever he’s home. It’s nothing more than a desk and a couple of chairs since the man has been working for a mafia leader since he was twenty years old and knows not to do any real business in his home.
Theo nods at my father’s retreating form as he apologizes for being unable to help with the dishes. My mother waves off his words, a frown attempting to pull at her heavily Botoxed forehead. “Your father certainly knows how to end a perfectly peaceful dinner party, doesn’t he?”
No one says anything in response to her as we help clear the table. Our mother doesn’t seem to notice our lack of interest in the conversation, quickly shifting from annoyance at our father to picking apart every aspect of Dane’s life. Why isn’t he dating? Why doesn’t he come home more? Did he ever get furniture for his apartment? Why would he get his furniture from that place? Doesn’t he know she got their furniture from the place on the other side of town, and it’s lasted nearly forty years without so much as a scratch?
She has him cornered at the kitchen sink, so neither of them notices when I slip out. I’m across the house without much of a plan other than simply listening at the office door, but it turns out I don’t even have to do that. The door is open, and my father doesn’t seem to be trying to keep the conversation quiet.
“Are you coming to collect, then? Is that what this is?”
I pause around the corner from the office door, straining to hear the words filtering through the air.
“No, Edmund. I’ve told you several times now I do not intend to ever ‘collect’.” Theo says the word like it has personally offended him. “I am simply here to have dinner with your family.”
“And intimidate me into doing your bidding.”
“Do I look like I’m trying to intimidate anyone into anything?”
The mental image of Theo in his soft sweater makes me frown. He certainly isn’t dressed to intimidate, so why would my father say that?
“Why else would you be here if it’s not for her?”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t here for her.”
“So, you have come to collect!” My father’s triumphant exclamation is followed by a sharp thump, and I can just picture him slapping a hand against the top of his desk.
“No,” Theo’s voice has changed, a hard edge creeping into his easy cadence. “I am here to protect her. I know what happened, and I will not allow her to get caught in the crossfire should the sons decide to...retaliate.”
“Are you saying you aren’t intimately aware of the sons’ decisions?” My father says the word son with the same disgusted tone Theo used when he said collect.
“I have no allegiance to the MacAlister Brothers. My life is owed to the Father, and you know that.”
“Allegiances can change.”
“Not when it’s her life on the line, Edmund.”
“Her life doesn’t mean anything—ah!”
There’s a scraping sound punctuated by a resounding thud. The following silence is deafening, and I’m about to give up my hiding spot to see what the Hell is going on in the office when angry words fill the air.
“You will not devalue her. She is worth more than any of us, and you will do well to remember that. If you cannot manage it on your own, I would be happy to carve a reminder into your skin. Somewhere you can see it every day, so you never forget the only good thing you’ve ever done in your sorry fucking life is help bring that woman into this world.”
I have never heard Theo speak like that—as if every word is laced with venom and promise. Slowly, I back down the hall, my mind racing. It’s me. The thing Theo is insistent he isn’t here to “collect” is me. Why would he collect me? How would he collect me? I’m not owed to him. Am I?
“Dane.” His name comes out harsher than intended, but I know he’ll understand. “We have to go. Now.”
“Yep,” Dane rushes to join me in the kitchen doorway, not questioning the speed at which we move toward the driveway. Our mother trails behind, asking a million questions and generally causing a scene. Sure enough, her squawking and screeching draw my father and Theo from the office just in time for them all to watch Dane back out of the driveway. Theo’s eyes are locked on me. I can feel them like a physical touch, and I hate it.
“You gonna tell me why we got out of there so fast?”
“Did Dad sell me to someone?”
Dane nearly wrecks the car with how hard he jerks the wheel when he spins to face me. “What?”
“Did our father sell me?” I hold his gaze as the question sinks in, the dots visibly connecting in his mind. “Tell me what you know, Dane.”
“It isn’t much,” he admits, turning back toward the road as we leave our parents’ neighborhood.
“Start from the beginning.”