I shifted in my seat, thinking, even if everything I said was true and honest, although the day had gone really well, I liked these people and they seemed to like me, I’d just blown it.
“No, Alex, he’s right. We do. And I needed to hear that,” Mags assured me.
“He told me you got him his legs,” I mentioned.
“Assholes were trying to foist some junk on him,” Mags groused, and Hailey snorted again, this time into her wine, doing this no doubt because Mags just cursed (and yes, that theme had continued, seeing as both Hendrix brothers, and occasionally their father, did not shy away from swear words).
Hailey recovered and told me, “Seriously, Alex, the worst. Nickle and diming every freaking thing. It was disgusting.”
“I’ll tell you, I was never a proponent of socialized medicine, until that happened to my boy,” Mags declared. “We had to fight tooth and nail for every little thing. Staff, awesome. Every one of them, angels. The suits, an army of Satan. And we saw it. Some folks going home early, far too soon, needing help and support and care, but shuffled out the door because their insurance ran out or they couldn’t afford it. Then other folks getting top of the line everything.”
“It was gross,” Hailey piped in.
“It was. Gross,” Mags firmly agreed, turning back to the yard.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.
“Don’t be sorry,” Mags ordered, eyes to her son. “Life tests us. We all get different ones. This is one of his. And look at him. There’s nothing to be sorry for. When it comes to my son, all I feel is pride.”
“Oh my God, I’m gonna cry,” Hailey whispered.
But I was studying my wineglass.
“Alex?”
I swallowed, sniffed, blinked a couple of times and looked at Mags.
Her face grew soft.
“He’s the most wonderful man I’ve ever met,” I blurted.
Her response was immediate.
“I’m not surprised.”
Then she grinned at me.
I returned it.
Rix was showing.
Not telling.
He was doing that lying in bed with me with his head on my midriff, drawing randomly on my stomach, sometimes kissing it, sometimes nipping it, once running the tip of his tongue around my belly button.
Mags and Gare’s friends’ cabin being occupied, we were in the basement.
Considering the fact that the basement room was the guest bedroom, complete with full bath, and one end of it opened out to a secluded patio that was cut into the earth, I wondered why we’d ever sleep in his bedroom, which clearly and hilariously had not changed since he left it.
Yes.
Ice hockey and lacrosse trophies.
Yes.
Rage Against the Machine and Limp Bizkit posters.
“His mother took posters with the girls on them down,” Gare whispered to me.
I bet she did.
And yes.
An entire wall made of dark corkboard with push-pinned pieces of life: movie stubs, concert tickets, lift tickets, strips of photo booth pictures, bumper stickers, and a carefully spread and tacked Nirvana tee.
“Can we all stop standing in here now?” Rix had asked, and I had to admit, all of us standing in there was a little weird.
Almost as weird as that room being preserved like it was.
“It’s like a shrine to you,” I replied.
“Of course it is,” Mags said breezily. “Josh has one too. Kinsley naps in there, her father all around her.” She aimed a steady look at me, as if I’d dare contradict her (which I would not). “The grandbabies Rix gives me will do the same in this room.”
“That’s sweet,” I commented, and it was (in a weird way). “And it’s never too early to start appreciating Rage Against the Machine.”
At that point, Rix hooked his arm around my neck, and leading me out of the room, said to Josh, “I win.”
To which Hailey snapped, “For the last time, there is nothing wrong with N Sync!”
Everyone laughed.
Though, Hailey didn’t.
Now was now. Josh and his family off home. We were doing brunch at their place tomorrow, and I was interested to see the house Hailey made with Rix’s brother.
I was a lot more like Mags than she was. Mags wasn’t shy, she was forthright and funny, but also down to earth. Hailey was a bit higher strung, not in a bad sense. She was just more openly emotional.
But Hailey was a doll, and the way she was, with Josh, they’d probably made a lovely, albeit, I suspected, a lot more feminine home.
Rix’s mom and dad’s house was very attractive.
But it wasn’t lost on me that, if Mags ever had the urge, living with three men, she’d given it up long ago.
Mags and Gare’s space was welcoming, lived in, sturdy and no nonsense.
I felt very comfortable there.
Best of all was how laidback and mellow Rix was in the house where he grew up.
He was definitely home, and I loved watching him in that element.
With his family.
“You’re cute with Kinsley,” I said softly, tracing the wing of his phoenix on his back.
He kissed my stomach then shifted so he could turn to look up at me, and now he was resting his head right on my tummy.
“I’m not cute with her. I’m communicating to her I’m the man who will rip the head off anyone who messes with her.”
“Oh, is that what you were doing when you were shoving fruit in her mouth and babytalking her?”
“Yup. That was what I was doing.”
“Not sure how I missed that,” I mumbled.
“Get with the program,” he returned. “And I don’t babytalk. She and I have our own language.”
“That includes you only saying things to her like, ‘Look what a good girl you are,’ and ‘Is there a more beautiful girl in the world? Don’t answer that. No. There isn’t.’”
He lifted his brows. “Did I lie in any of that?”
I shook my head, because no, he didn’t.
“No, I did not,” he muttered, his hand finding mine, then his fingers threading through my own.
I watched his long fingers curl over the back of my hand, my feeling-lazy self starting to feel even lazier, and whispered, “They were worried about you being on your legs all day. Your mom is concerned about pain.”
He stroked the back of my hand with his thumb and asked, “They talked to you about that?”
I didn’t correct him that I talked to them about it.
I said, “Yes.”
“No pain, sweetheart.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
He caught my gaze. “So you can stop worrying about it too.”
I twitched my nose at him.
He brought our hands to his mouth and kissed mine.
I shared, “Your family is great.”
“You have anybody?”
I felt my brows draw together. “Sorry?”
“There was your Grandmother Brooke, but she passed. Did you have anybody else?”
“I wasn’t lonely.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
I pressed my lips together.
Rix watched.
Then he murmured, “Right.”
“I have people now,” I reminded him.