“Sounds like a plan,” Rix replied. “Alex will be with us when we go in the morning. She’s not a runner, but she’ll wanna be out. Maybe we can pick a loop where we can meet back with her?”
“Absolutely,” Judge finished.
Jamie shifted. “You men want another beer? Or is it time for bourbon? Scotch?”
“You’re pouring, I’m not gonna say no,” Rix replied.
“Which?” Jamie asked.
“I trust you,” Rix said.
He grinned at Rix and looked to his son.
“Same, Dad.”
Jamie clasped Judge’s shoulder warmly before he took off.
They watched the guy go.
Then Rix looked right at Judge.
“He good?”
Judge drew breath into his nose before answering, “She goes to class. He goes to work. She does a few things with her friends. A few. He works too much, but when he gets home, he’s home. That’s it. Outside that, they’re attached at the fucking hip.”
Rix grimaced.
“Yeah,” Judge agreed. “Chloe’s ready to hatch a plot the minute I give her the go ahead. Her dreams and schemes scare the fuck out of me. But I’m thinking it’s almost time to give her the go ahead.”
“Yeah, a plot like when she accidentally told me weeks ago I was gonna be here with Alexandra?” Rix asked.
Judge’s lips went up on one end.
Rix couldn’t say he’d clued in at the time.
But since, he’d clued in.
“Seems like she’s got it goin’ on to me,” Rix noted.
That was when Judge grinned, but there was a different emotion in his voice when he said, “She loves you a lot, Rix.”
“She doesn’t hide it, Judge. Never thought I’d be one with my bud’s woman sticking her nose in my love life, but I find I got no complaints.”
They shared a look.
Then they got back to it.
“Ned likes him,” Rix shared. “Lots of respect there. Thought the world of Rosalind.”
“She was fantastic,” Judge confirmed.
“Maybe get him involved in the wedding. Pull him somehow into Trail Blazer. Give him something to do so Dru knows you got him, and she can do her thing. And Jamie isn’t just existing on nothing but the time he gets to look after his girl, and the less time he gets to be with his boy.”
“Good idea,” Judge muttered.
Judge then looked right to Rix.
“She really okay?”
Rix nodded.
“I think so. Proud as fuck she ripped them a new one, bud. Her father made a noise when her blade struck true, I know he’s spent all day with her words in his head too. The mom is a wash. But as pissed as I am Ned’s parting shot left Alex with something to worry about, I think she misses a dynamic that’s always been there. Ned is proud of her. Straight up, doesn’t hide it. He isn’t crawling up her ass. It rolls out of him like he’s done it a million times before. Even in front of her sister, or maybe especially. But Helena gives shades of the same thing. Their expectations of her are high, not just that she act like a rational adult. Maybe because Alexandra always exceeded them. And they haven’t missed it. Though I think the fact is they haven’t, but she’s missed that they haven’t.”
“You gonna talk to her about that?”
“If Ned doesn’t sit down with her soon, I’ll be talking to Ned about talking to her about that.”
“Good call,” Judge agreed.
“Oh my God!” Dru cried.
They looked to the couches.
Dru looked surprised.
Chloe was shaking her head in disgust at the same time she was staring at the fire and sipping her wine.
Alex was looking over the back of the couch at Rix.
“Just got a text from Mum,” she called.
Shit.
“The wedding’s still on,” she finished.
And…
Fuck.
Rix was sitting on the side of their bed, rolling the liner off his left leg when he sensed her.
He looked up.
Alex was leaning against the door to the bathroom, watching him.
Her pajama pants had a drawstring at the waist. She had a thin thermal on. He could see one of the little bras she wore to bed through it.
She’d had a shit day and she seemed zoned out, her gaze aimed to his legs.
“All good?” he asked.
Her eyes came to him.
“I’ve timed you,” she said.
“What?” he asked.
“The first time was the day before we left to come here.”
She wasn’t making any sense.
“Baby…what?”
“When you’re doing it by rote, it takes you just over a minute and a half to put on your legs. And the first time you didn’t hide it from me was when you took them off the night before we left to come here.”
He sat still.
“You’d always gone to the bathroom second, so you could turn your back on me, and I couldn’t see. That night, I came in the room later. And I looked it up. That neoprene thing is called the liner. The cuff you put your leg in is called the socket. That thing you roll up your thigh at the end is called a sleeve.”
“I could have told you that,” he said quietly.
“You hid it. I was giving you time. And I wanted to know.” She didn’t move when she went on, “Did you know you switch up? When you put them on, you do left then right. When you take off, you do right then left.”
Rix did know that, but that wasn’t the only reason he had no reply.
“You’re trained to keep your head in an emergency. Even should that be personal, I have no doubt you’d have your legs on in under a minute, maybe a little over one. If there’s an intruder, we’re calling nine one one anyway, but in a minute, you’d be ready.”
“Alexandra,” he whispered.
“You played left field on your fire crew’s softball team and batted clean up. At your party, your friend Drake told me they missed you in the lineup. You can run and you can hike and you can fuck me on your knees, but you can’t play softball?”
“Come here.”
“I have never in my life seen my father approve of anybody. Not without years and batteries of his tests. You introduce yourself to him by agreeing that I’m perfect, and he immediately accepts you. But it’s the man you are. You saw him with Chad today. He’s no dummy. He read who you were the minute he saw you.”
“Got my legs off, baby, come here.”
“Thanks for standing up for me today, repeatedly, and once, literally.”
“Baby.”
“I couldn’t have done this without you.”
“Get your ass over here,” he growled.
She got over there, crawling right into his lap, where he liked her, but he fell back, twisted and rolled, so her head was to the pillows, and he was on top of her.
She had his face in her hands.
“You take care of me.”
“Yeah,” he grunted.
“I don’t ever want you to doubt it again. I don’t.”
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
“Quiet,” he ordered.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“The day you had, I’m supposed to be looking after you, and you’re all over seeing to me,” he grumbled.