Rix sat with it for a second, then he went back to the email, hit reply and typed, Don’t air it.
And he hit send.
After that, he picked up his phone and sent two texts.
The first, to Jarrod: You’re an asshole, but you look good on camera. It’s not gonna air. Leave P alone. It’s done for me. Tell the guys to lay off. Sorry to kill your bid to score pussy through a gossip show. Fuck off but let’s get a beer.
The second, to Nic: It’s not gonna air. Love you, beautiful. Tell that ugly mug you married he’s safe. You won’t leave him for me now that I’ve found my own woman. And stop it. Both of you sleep. I’m happy.
He’d just put his phone down when he got a three-word email reply from Elsa.
Understood. It’s dead.
At that, Rix had to sit for a minute because he had a feeling all of what he just saw was not about Elsa developing a conscience but giving something to Rix she thought he needed.
And he did not want to like that woman.
But there it was.
The first text back was Nic.
Love you too.
The second was Jarrod.
I don’t need a gossip show to score pussy. I’m a way bigger stud than you ever were. Brats and beer at my house Saturday. Fuck off until then and bring Alex.
Rix smiled.
Got up.
Opened his door.
Returned to his big, important desk.
And with the only thought in his head being a mental note to remember to tell Alex they had plans on Saturday, Rix got back to work.
“It’s crazy,” she declared.
They were sitting in line behind two cars at the window at Scooter’s, waiting to roll up and get their coffee. It was Saturday morning, and they were heading to Cottonwood to hike the Jail Trail.
Well, they’d be doing that, just not right after coffee, like Alex thought they were.
“It isn’t crazy,” Rix replied. “I know you don’t have a lot of experience with shit like this, but this is normal.”
“It’s normal for someone’s father and sister to show the week of Thanksgiving, commence occupation of the six thousand square foot, five-bedroom, six-bath monstrosity they’ve rented, and do that until the first week of January?”
He grinned at her. “Six thousand square feet for two people, no. Family wanting to be around family for holidays. Yes. Your sister doesn’t have a job, so she can be anywhere she wants to be for seven weeks. And your dad needs a break.”
Because she knew he was right, she did a visible if not auditory huff and looked forward.
Then she mumbled, “Go, honey.”
Rix looked forward too, saw the car at the window had taken off, the next one was up, so he inched up a car length.
“Blake insists on making Thanksgiving dinner, and that terrifies me,” Alex went on complaining.
It terrified him too, especially since this was Blake’s new thing. Alex had told him she’d never cooked before. Now she’d thrown herself into learning and had decided to show off her new skills on the most important cooking day of the year.
“We’ll keep an eye on it, we’ll make sure there’s plenty of snacks stocked and backup shit we can do if things go south, and who cares if it sucks? It’s just a meal,” Rix returned.
“A meal your mom, dad, brother, sister-in-law, you and me will be eating,” she retorted.
He turned and grinned at her. “Yes, that’s what’s happening next Thursday, Thanksgiving, where family gets together and stuffs their faces.”
“Ohmigod, it’s gonna be a disaster,” she grumbled to the windshield.
He stopped teasing her, getting the feeling she was actually concerned about this regardless that Blake was getting her shit tight. And regardless her dad was doing this because he was far from stupid, he saw his opportunity to have a deeper bond with both of his girls, so he was taking his shot. And regardless that Rix’s family liked everyone, especially Alex. Which meant, even if they didn’t get along with her dad or Blake, they’d still love Alex and make the most of whatever they could build with Alex’s family.
But they’d get along.
“Babe, it’s gonna be awesome,” he assured. “You’re worried your people aren’t gonna jive with my people. That Blake’s gonna be Blake. That my folks are going to be intimidated by dinner in a mansion with an unrestricted view of Thumb Butte.”
He wasn’t finished when she said, “Your parents are down to earth and have a really awesome house, they won’t get intimidated by that.”
“Then okay, what’s your issue?”
“I don’t know how to be a family,” she whispered.
Jesus.
He had no idea how that felt, he still felt that.
“Baby,” he called.
She looked his way.
He leaned into an elbow on the console. “I’d put money down on the fact it’s gonna be a lot easier learning how to be a family than it was not being one.”
Her two-toned eyes roamed his face, they warmed, and she nodded.
He leaned further, across to her, and pressed hard on her lips.
As he was pulling back, the car behind them tooted.
He looked forward, seeing that the car in front was still at the window, so he looked at the rearview mirror, tension hitting his neck at a memory.
He also felt Alex twist to look too.
“Ohmigod. That’s Dani,” she announced.
The woman who was apparently Dani was a pretty, massively smiling blonde who, for some reason, was pumping two happy thumbs up in front of her.
“Who’s Dani?” Rix asked, still watching as the woman shoved her head out of the side window of her Tahoe.
“A…friend,” Alex answered, and he heard her window whirring down.
He looked right, and watched Al releasing her seatbelt and pulling her entire body out to sit her ass on the window edge.
“Number, bitch!” Dani shouted. She was now waving her phone out the window. “We need drinks and a very long chat!”
“Okay!” Alex yelled back, shouted her number, Rix watched in the review as Dani entered it into her phone, then Alex yelled. “Text me so I have yours.”
“Gotcha, sister. Will do! You rock! You roll! You got it goin’ on! I love it!” Dani hollered.
Rix watched her pump more thumbs up as Alex came back into the car.
She buckled up.
Rix pulled up to the window, got out his wallet, and paid.
He waited for the drinks and remarked, “A friend and you don’t have her number?”
“When I was giving myself a pep talk to go back out and flirt with you that night at the Raven, she was in the bathroom,” Alex began, this share making his gut get tight.
He took the drinks, handed them to her, and she dealt with them as he rolled up his window and rolled out.
She kept talking.
“She helped with the pep talk. She was really cool. I liked her.”
Her phone binged, and Rix glanced at her to see she was smiling at it.
Dani had texted.
When she was done programming in the number, she dropped her hands to her lap, and he said gently, “I thought you’d ditched me.”
She was quiet right back when she said, “It’s okay.”
“I wasn’t there yet.”