“There’s one,” Nova drawled as, on cue, a clunker of an old Toyota came barreling down the drive and fish tailed to a stop about five inches from the porch stairs. Even through the cacophony of the music thudding through the shit speakers, I could hear the couple inside yelling at each other. A second later, Harleigh Rose climbed out in tiny denim shorts over fishnet tights and combat boots, a tight black leather jacket zipped up to just below her cleavage and her masses of hair tossed all over her head. It was like an ad for the original bad girl, rock music playing in the background for special effect as she slammed the door and yelled, “Fucking fuck you!”
The car roared out of the drive and into the lane a moment later, kicking up dust that swirled around Harleigh Rose as she stood staring after it, flipping him the bird.
“Pity the poor bastard that gets saddled with H.R.,” Nova muttered.
And Mute, my lovely friend who had been so quietly standing against the porch railing the entire time softly added, “Seconded.”
The entire porch burst into laughter, which was shit timing because when H.R. turned on her boot and stomped up the stairs it looked like we were laughing at her. She scowled at everyone as she came to a stop in the middle of the porch, planted her hands on her hips and said, “Well if this isn’t a motley fuckin’ crew.”
“Harleigh Rose,” Zeus growled, tightening his hold on me. “This is Loulou. Think you two ’ave met but why don’t we give the introducin’ part a second go ’round, yeah?”
“Hey, Harleigh Rose,” I said on a small smile, hyper aware of the healing cut her ring had left on my cheek and the fact that her dad had me pressed to his side from tip to toe.
Her jaw worked as she struggled not to say something mean. It wasn’t necessary, her acidic eyes, an aquamarine blue that was so startling they seemed to glow, said it all for her. She hated my fucking guts.
She cut her eyes from me to her father and did something with her face that might have been a smile but seemed to me more like a painful grimace. “Welcome to our lovely home, Louise. Can I offer you a refreshing beverage?”
“A beer would be good,” I suggested, careful because I wanted to show her I wasn’t going to back down, but I didn’t want another throw down.
“While you’re at it, I’ll take one too,” King added casually but his eyes were sharp on his little sister.
“Me too, honey,” Cressida put in.
It was only then that Harleigh Rose flinched like Cressida throwing down for me was the worst possible betrayal. Her head turned to look at her and even though I couldn’t see H.R.’s face, I knew there was pain in it.
Clearly, she did not have the same problem with King’s woman as she did with me.
“Beer, honey,” Cressida said in a way that meant she expected Harleigh Rose to do as she was told and do it with a smile. “You need help carrying it out?”
“I’m capable of carrying some fuckin’ beer,” she muttered petulantly.
“You capable of rememberin’ your fuckin’ manners?” Zeus asked and immediately drew a glare from his kid. He shrugged. “Hey, you’re proud of the way you’re actin’ like a fuckin’ fourteen-year-old brat just cause I found a woman happens to be your age with twice your life experience, then go at ’er, sweetheart. Just thought I raised a girl bright, kind and true. Fuck me if I was mistaken.”
His words hit her like a ton of bricks; the stubborn cruelty in her eyes shattered like mirrored glass and revealed the wounded heart of her.
I knew the words were coming before they came.
“She’s a fuckin’ Lafayette, Dad. You think the minute comes that she has to stand up for our family, she’s going to sacrifice hers for ours? She lives in a house like a fuckin’ castle up on Entrance Hill. You want young pussy, fine, who am I to stop you. Guess I just expected you to have better taste than that.” She sneered as she waved her hand over me, her eyes like fingers ripping apart my big curled hair tied back with a black velvet ribbon, my pink lipstick and spike heeled black leather boots.
They seemed to tell me that I was too rich to be authentic, too young to be wise and too fuckin’ privileged to be wild.
I stepped forward away from Zeus and smiled prettily at her. “You can insult me until the cows come home, Harleigh Rose, I’m here to fuckin’ stay and I don’t care if it takes you two decades to be civil to me, nothing, not even you can take me away from Zeus.”
Uncertainty made her blink like a lost little girl for a moment and it was a moment my man took advantage of.
Zeus stepped forward and tagged his daughter around the hips to haul her into his chest and wrap his massive arms around her in a great, big bear hug. He even growled for effect as he rocked her back and forth.
“You fuckin’ suck sometimes H.R.,” he said as he bent down in a pseudo squat so they were at eye level. “But I’d do fuckin’ anythin’ for ya.”
“Yeah?” she asked hopefully, casting a sly look over her shoulder at me.
I laughed at her audacity, perilously close to liking her despite everything.
Zeus’s grin was a bright wedge of joy in his dark, close-cropped beard. “Fuck yeah. Just a warnin’ though, you ask me to stay away from my little warrior, she’d fight you and win. Even if she didn’t, there’s no way in heaven or hell my fallen angel would leave me in peace.”
“You know it,” I winked at him.
H.R. pouted but she did it in a cute way and she didn’t gripe when Z slid one arm around her shoulder and reached out to grab mine with his other hand.
“Fuckin’ starvin’, let’s get the feast fuckin’ started.”
Zeus.
It was dark, late into the night past little girl’s bedtimes but I had a surprise for Lou and I couldn’t wait to see her put it to use for me. Her hand was in mine as I led her out of the house where some of the brothers lay crashed out in the livin’ room and the two guest bedrooms, where King and Cress were makin’ out like teenagers ’cause one of ’em was one, where my daughter was pretendin’ to sleep in her bed ’til she could sneak off to Cricket.
We left that all behind for a moment or two of solitude in any man’s paradise.
His garage.
We went through the side door and when I flipped the light switch, Lou gasped and declared, “Wicked.”
It was.
Not only my cages—the huge GMC truck I used to haul dead bodies to Dixon’s farm and wood for my fireplace to my hearth, and the black 1969 Boss 429 Mustang—but the entire space was admittedly pretty fuckin’ wicked. Eugene had done up some of his neon light shit and I’d put up old street signs and license plates Bat, Blackjack and I stole as kids. I’d built the garage and the house with my own bare hands, so I took a fuckuva lot’a pride in it and I loved that Lou’s dazzled expression said she did too.
Then she noticed her surprise, wrapped in a red bow in the corner of the concrete space with a workbench dragged in front of it just exactly for what I planned that night.
“Did you install a stripper pole in your garage?” Lou asked me, cocking out her hip as she turned at me with a sassy eyebrow raised. “Seriously, Z?”