“I love you,” I told her, feeling it down to my bones. “And I know you would come if I needed you. But I really think I am just going to crash. It’s been… a day.”
“You want me to have a word with that shithead who never deserved you?” my father asked.
To be fair, he believed that every guy was a “shithead who didn’t deserve me,” so it wasn’t exactly personal.
“No. But thank you. I promise… everything is fine. I will text you guys if anything is wrong. And first thing in the morning,” I added, knowing they would be worried.
“Okay. We love you,” my mom said, and my dad said it almost at the same time.
“I love you guys too,” I told them before hanging up.
It was another solid ten minutes before Valen showed back up again, likely trying really hard not to have to be near even the voices of my parents.
“I take tea the same way,” I told him as he walked in the door with a bottle of water and a can of soda under one arm, a tea in his hand, and various snacks piled on his other arm.
“I’m kind of shocked your mother hasn’t barged in here,” he said, dropping everything on the table, then bringing one of the chairs over to me to work as a makeshift nightstand, where he tried to pile all the stuff he’d brought, but a few items landed on the floor anyway.
“She wanted to. I managed to push her off until tomorrow.”
“Prepare yourself for the tonics and supplements.”
“Yeah, I know,” I agreed. “My body probably needs it,” I said, shrugging.
“Meds kicking in at all yet?”
“No,” I admitted, trying to situate myself upward so I could drink the tea without spilling it all over myself and the bed.
“Maybe I can get—” Valen started, only to be cut off when the door opened, and Brooks was walking in. Holding a TV.
“Figure you earned some distraction,” he said, bringing a small, appreciative smile to my lips. “Stick it on the table for now,” he added, doing just that, then plugging it in and checking to make sure it was signed in to all of the streaming apps before bringing me the remote. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “I’ll be better once the pain pill kicks in,” I told him.
“Until then, try to distract yourself,” he said, motioning toward the TV.
“Thanks, Brooks,” I called as he walked out. I didn’t get a response. I didn’t expect one.
“That was the most human I think I’ve ever seen him be,” Valen admitted when we were alone.
“He’s a hardass, but he’s a nice guy,” I told him. “He just wants to make sure everyone is doing their fair share.”
“Or in your case, more than,” Valen said.
“I do that willingly. I like being busy. I’m not good at sitting around and doing nothing.”
“Except when you’re watching movies,” he said even as I clicked past all the series sections and went right to the movies.
Because he knew me.
Because he knew that movies were something that my father had always shared with me, instilling a love for them in me since I was tiny.
So while I enjoyed going out, being active, hitting the gym, or hanging with friends, I always found time at least once a week to catch a new movie in the theatre with my dad, or watch one of his many favorites, one that I likely never would have seen otherwise.
“They’ll always be a comfort thing for me,” I admitted. Even when I was overseas and staying somewhere that I didn’t speak the language, I would look for something on the TV that was either dubbed or had English subtitles, and get lost for a few hours.
For my father, movies had always sort of been about things he wouldn’t let himself see or do, places he wouldn’t go, people he wouldn’t meet.
For me, it was more of a way to escape all of the adventure my life had to offer, to settle into something simpler.
Action and suspense movies had never really been my thing. I liked classics or comedies or even the occasional romance. Though, admittedly, I swore off romances right around the time Valen swore off me.
“Are we going black and white or classic eighties comedy?”
Damn him.
He knew too much, remembered too much.
Why couldn’t he be one of those dickhead boyfriends who forgot everything about you while they were with you, let alone after it was all over?
“Summer School,” I decided, having been debating between that and Real Genius and Clue.
Clue had the murder aspect that I wasn’t in the mood for. And Real Genius was a bit over-the-top for my mood. Summer School was a nice, easy, sometimes funny, sometimes heartwarming, with just a hint of romance, good time.
“If I had a teacher more like Mr. Shoop, maybe I would have liked school more,” Valen said, and I tried not to be charmed about his recall of the movie.
“It’s strange to see Mark Harmon so young,” I added. “Also, Kirstie Alley was such a babe. I always wanted to be her since I saw her in—“
“Look Who’s Talking. And then It Takes Two.”
Could he get just one thing wrong?
“If you’re still awake after this, maybe we should put on Little Giants,” he said. “Your other hero. Becky Icebox O’Shea. And your second crush is in that one too. Junior. Who was second only to—“
“Stop,” I demanded, voice soft.
“Why?”
“Because it’s harder to hate you when you remember every little fucking thing about me,” I admitted.
“Maybe you just don’t want to hate me,” Valen said. “No no,” he added. “I don’t want to fight,” he told me, knowing it was coming. “Just put on the movie.”
Not wanting to talk about it any more than that, I went ahead and hit play. Then turned the volume up high enough that it drowned out the thoughts in my head.
Eventually, those meds kicked in.
Between that and the stress of the day, I managed to be out cold before Mr. Shoop and Robin ended up together.
CHAPTER NINE
Valen
I felt like a complete fucking coward, but I was looking for a reason not to be around the clubhouse the following morning.
The fact of the matter was, Louana’s mom, Evangeline,—or Evan, as everyone called her—was coming. And the woman was terrifying.
Sure, Luce, her father, was scary in his own right. But there was something about the fierceness of a mom that instilled the fear of God in me.
And she was planning on coming to see her daughter.
She sure as shit was looking for an excuse to run into me and give me a piece of her mine. And I was trying like hell not to put myself in that situation.
“Your eagerness is suspicious,” Brooks declared, giving me a hard look as we stood in the kitchen.
Everyone else was still out cold after the events of the night before.
There’d been a group effort that ended up with Cary’s girl getting saved, even if the situation wasn’t exactly over yet, since the guy who had fucked up her life was still on the loose.
It wouldn’t take long for that to be all cleaned up, though, if I knew anything about this club and their tenacity, it wouldn’t be long until she was free and clear to live her life.