Titus clapped his hands onto his thighs and stood up. “Let’s go, then.”
I glanced at Linda on the way out. “I guess I’ll bring the paperwork back over later.”
She just grinned dazedly at Titus as he swaggered out. “Okay.”
I snapped my fingers at her. “Pull your tongue in, Linda.”
She shook her head. “Sorry, what? I was daydreaming.”
I laughed. “Trust me, I get it. I said, he wants to finish signing at the house, so I’ll bring the papers back over after.”
“Oh, sure.” She gave one last longing look after Titus as he climbed up into his truck. “I was just telling my husband the other day that Titus is the only celebrity on my hall pass list. I love my husband, but if Titus Bright propositioned me, I’m not sure I could say no.”
I just laughed. “You would say no. You love Bert too much.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Titus Bright is Titus Bright. And there’s no one like Titus Bright.”
Honey, you have no fucking clue, I didn’t say. She just might kill me out of pure jealousy if I told her I’d had sex with the man she was jokingly half in lust with. I waved goodbye at her as I headed for my car.
Not long later, we were pulling into the driveway, Titus’s big truck first, my little Aston Martin second, and a white Chrysler Pacifica a minute or two later. Titus climbed out, gesturing at my car. “Sweet little ride. I wouldn’t have pegged you for a classic’s kind of girl. I pictured you driving, like, a pink jeep like Barbie or some shit. A Range Rover, at the very least.”
I rolled my eyes. “I loathe pink. I may look like Barbie, but I’m not.” I closed my door and headed for the front door. “I actually used to drive a Range Rover. It was big and black and powerful. I hated parking it, hated driving it, never used the back seat, rarely used the cargo space, and paid way too much for it. So I sold it and bought this.”
“Hot girl, hot car.” Titus’s eyes raked over me—even hidden behind his sunglasses, I could feel his eyes on my body.
“Quit harassing the realtor,” Jeremy said.
“I’m not harassing,” Titus retorted. “I’m complimenting.”
At that moment, the doors of the minivan all opened at once, and children spilled out, yelling, laughing excitedly, chattering in overlapping cacophony, followed by a short, curvy, beautiful, and very pregnant Hispanic woman, who was scolding the kids in a fast and complicated mixture of Spanish and English, snapping orders and corralling them with remarkable efficiency. There were only four kids, but the noise level and energy level made it feel like there was double that number.
Three girls, one boy. The boy was oldest, looked to be nine or so, with the girls at around seven, five, and three. Jeremy headed over and scooped up the youngest, and in the process transformed from serious businessman to an adoring, affectionate father.
“Hey, Monkey!” he said, kissing the girl until she squealed and batted at him.
“Too many kisses, Daddy!” She grabbed his face in both hands and did her dead level best to stop him. “We goin’ swimmin’, Daddy!”
“I know,” Jeremy answered, setting her down and pointing at Titus, who was watching with a curiously, carefully blank expression. “We’re gonna say thanks to Uncle Titus, right?”
Titus unfroze, a smile blooming on his face as he knelt to get face-to-face with the youngest girl. “Well, you can’t very well say thanks when you haven’t even seen the pool yet, right? Come on, ya’ll. Laurel, you got the keys?”
“Sure do!” I was suddenly the focus of several pairs of eyes. “Who wants to go swimming?”
The middle girl, five or six at my best guess, came up to me. “Are you a princess?”
I snorted. “Would it make me cooler if I said yes?”
“Not if it isn’t true,” she answered, not a hint of humor on her face.
“Well, I wouldn’t lie to you, so…no. But, I did go to school with an actual princess. Her name is so long I can’t even pronounce half of it.”
“You knew a real live princess?” This was the oldest girl—the boy, who my estimate was revising upward to be more like eleven or twelve, just watched without expression. “That is so cool! What was she like?”
I smirked. “The truth is, she was kinda snooty. But her sister, the duchess, was pretty cool. She and I used to steal…uh, I mean, buy—candy together after school.”
My slip had been caught; the middle girl frowned at me. “You stole candy?”
I sighed. “I did. And it was very wrong of me. But the part that’s so funny about it is the duchess’s family had so much money they could have bought the whole town the store was in. And here’s their youngest daughter stealing two buck’s worth of candy.” I led the procession up to the porch, and the front door. “Enough about me. I need to know your names.”
Jeremy’s wife was ambling up the stairs, carrying a giant bag full of pool toys. “My boy here, his name is Emmanuel. If you can get him to say two words together, he’d say to call him Manny.” She pointed at each of the girls in turn. “Kenzie is next, and miss honesty here is Luisa, and my little princess is Violet.” She huffed, wiping at her forehead. “I’m Bex.”
“Laurel McGillis. Nice to meet you, Bex, Emmanuel, Kenzie, Luisa, and Violet.” I pushed the door open and held the storm door, gesturing inside. “After you. Take a look around.”
Titus was last through the door, pausing beside me. “You ready for this? Jeremy’s gonna shit himself, and I’m guessing Bex is gonna cry like a baby.” He was eager, excited—vibrating with energy.
“You’re really having fun, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “Yup. Giving people crazy gifts is my favorite thing.” He winked at me. “Besides the obvious, that is.”
“Really? I mean about the gifts, not the obvious.”
He shrugged. “Sure. It’s my own personal therapy. My dad was a real dick to me, all growing up. Like, he’d alternate between kicking my ribs in and acting like I wasn’t there. A few years ago, I bought him a condo down in Mexico for him to live in full time. Bonus for me is, now he’s thousands of miles away from me. My mom wasn’t much better, so I bought the entire business franchise she worked for and gave it to her. My brother? Same deal. He used to beat me up and give me wedgies and all that shit, make fun of me for being into playing guitar and violin and shit, so when his life took a shit, I paid for his divorce, settled his legal bills, and sent him to the Bahamas for a month.” He waved a hand as we moved into the kitchen and watched Bex overseeing the kids as they fought over who got the unicorn float and who had to settle for the donut one, while Jeremy was tasked with blowing them up the old-fashioned way. Titus was still grinning. “Best one was my old producer. He was the mastermind behind the whole scam to cheat me out of millions of dollars. He’d made sure he pocketed it all. Well, when the whole fiasco came to light, he lost everything. His wife left him, he had to pay me back in full, I got the masters back, his whole label went under, he was fuckin’ ruined. Only reason he avoided jail time was because I asked the judge for leniency. Once the dust settled, he was dead-ass broke, and I mean like he was damn near homeless.”