He needed to end that for his friend.
He’d definitely worried.
Three rings and a sleepy, “Rix? You good?”
“I’m falling in love with her, man.”
Zero hesitation and…
“Yeah,” Judge replied.
“I keep throwing obstacles in her path.”
“Yeah.”
“She just keeps vaulting over them.”
Sleep gone, humor in its place, and another, “Yeah.”
“I need to ask you, man. Don’t let me fuck this up.”
“Rix, you are without a doubt the single best man I know. You won’t fuck this up.”
Rix shut his eyes.
“You with her now?” Judge asked.
He opened his eyes. “She’s upstairs, asleep.”
“Go to her. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah, thanks, later.”
“Hang on…” Silence and then, “Chloe says she loves you.”
Rix’s chest heaved.
Then he pushed out, “Tell her she’s got that back.”
“Will do. Later.”
“Later.”
They hung up.
Rix went inside.
He made sure everything was locked up.
He went upstairs, got undressed, sat on the side of the bed and took off his legs.
Careful, he swung under the covers and curled into Alex.
“Okay?” she mumbled.
“Yeah, go back to sleep.”
She pressed close.
Rix pressed in, pushing his thigh between her legs.
She hooked hers on the outside of it.
If he tried real hard, he could feel his calf resting on the sheet, instead of his knee resting there, half a calf and then…nothing.
He didn’t try hard.
He focused on Alex’s soft skin hugging his thigh.
And he fell asleep.
Chapter 20
The Family
Rix
Four days later…
* * *
Rix was totally going to fuck this up.
He pressed go on his phone, put it to his ear, shoved the jacket of his four thousand dollar suit back (yeah, he and Alex looked it up, her laughing, him stunned speechless) and shoved his hand in his pocket while he looked out the back window.
Ferns and shrubbery and a fireplace built at the bottom of a tall statement wall made of shiny gray something and edged in what looked like chrome.
Built-in seating.
And a built-in fucking bookshelf.
In the back fucking yard.
There was a fire burning in the fireplace.
And there was nobody out there.
Suffice it to say, they’d made it to New York.
They’d arrived the evening before.
It was a quarter to eight the next night.
And Rix had not yet met a single member of her family.
But he wanted to kill them.
“Yo, how’s it going?” Judge answered.
“Well, we showed up last night,” he said.
“Yeah,” Judge replied slowly.
“No one met the plane.”
Silence.
“They didn’t even send a car. Alex had to call Cathy, her sister’s assistant. The rich people airport has a nice lounge. It still sucked we waited an hour and a half in it, after sitting on a five-hour flight, even though Cathy said she’d send a luxury Lyft, and it’d be there in ten minutes. Apparently, she also told Blake she was doing this, and Blake lost her shit and said no Lyft. Sharps didn’t do Lyft. Send a limo. So we waited for a fucking limo. Which it’s worth a repeat, took an hour and a half. And nobody told us this change of plans, or we would have ordered our own goddamned Lyft. But we kept thinking the goddamned Lyft would show and no one would respond to Alex’s calls or texts asking what the fuck was going on.”
“I’m thinking, although that shit is already not right, there’s an ‘and,’” Judge remarked warily when Rix took a second to calm his shit.
“There’s an ‘and,’” he confirmed. “And we get to her dad’s place, he’s not here. But the staff is expecting us, though they expected us a couple hours earlier. The mom isn’t here either. Sister. Nobody. We’re fuckin’ starved at this point, and they say they were instructed to make us dinner, anything we want. Problem is, we were supposed to be there hours before to tell them what to make. They ask us what we’d like to eat, and they’ll cook it for us. You wouldn’t believe the options they rattled off, which would probably take six hours to make. They’re practically barring the kitchen so we can’t scrounge up some cheese and crackers or something. We ended up going out, and we got slices of pizza from some walkup place Alex digs. By the way, the pizza here is the shit. So far, that’s the best thing that’s happened.”
“New York pizza is the shit, Rix. But it isn’t the best thing about New York.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Rix lamely joked.
Judge didn’t sound amused when he asked, “What else?”
“Nothing today except her dad, her mom, her sister, fucking Cathy, members of staff and other assistants calling, telling Alex they’d let us know where we’re to be, when. We’re up way fuckin’ early, because of the time change, but also early here, so we can get ready to rumble. First we’re meeting the mom for breakfast, even though we’re staying with the dad. And mind, Judge, been in his house twenty-four hours, seen hide nor hair of the asshole.”
“Shit.”
“But, the mom cancels breakfast. Then we’re on with Blake and the mom for brunch. That’s canceled. Since Alex is free, and the dad somehow hears of it, he decides he wants us for lunch. We go to some fancy restaurant, wait half an hour, some skinny guy in a suit shows and apologizes profusely that Mr. Sharp won’t be able to make it, but please, enjoy ourselves, he’s picking up the tab. So obviously, I got the fucking lobster, times two, and that would be times two just for me. Also always wanted to taste Dom, and now I have.”
Judge laughed.
Rix wanted to get there.
But he couldn’t.
“Blake says she wants us early for the cocktail party, a family gathering, and she so can’t wait to meet me. We’re supposed to pitch up somewhere, not where the cocktail party is happening. Which isn’t here. The dad hates anyone in his house except staff, family at a push and ‘close friends,’ which Alex knows as his mistresses. Of which she also knows that number is plural.”
“Jesus,” Judge muttered.
“Yeah, so Alex is an old hand at this and has since realized that, even with the upcoming festivities, it’s going to be standard operating procedure. Since it is, she tells me we shouldn’t hold our breath to learn deets on when and where this family cocktail hour is gonna happen. Good thing. Blake never shares. So I lied about the pizza. We had hours to kill, and I took her mind off shit in ways we both like. That’s the best part of New York so far. Now our new limo has been outside, waiting for us for the last hour, we’re supposed to be there already, and Alex’s phone is blowing up with demands from her mom and sister to know where the fuck she is.”
Again, silence from Judge, but this time Rix could feel his own fury mirroring back at him.