I can feel the tension coming from Ian and Ryan. Until Dex laughs, and we all relax.
“Both, Mrs. Gritt,” he says with a smile.
“Nonsense, sweetheart, call me Bella.”
“As in Isabella?” Dex asks playfully.
“I wish. As in Arabella. I guess your parents and mine had the same idea.”
“Sit down, boys,” my father says to my friends.
They look at the single empty chair around the table. Ryan and Ian rush for it while Dex waits a few steps back.
“Aaron, Barnabas, up!” my father says.
My brothers rise and go into the kitchen to grab two new chairs. Ryan is sitting between my parents while Ian takes Aaron’s chair next to my mother. She’s beaming and blushing at them. Freaking ridiculous.
“We’re sorry to impose, but we needed to speak to Luke. It’s urgent.”
“What about?” my father asks.
“Is he in trouble?” Barnabas sets a chair next to me and tells Dex to sit in it. The little ass winks at me, which of course my mother sees. She’s the kind of mother who sees it all.
“Awww. You’re the reason he broke up with Bruce?” she asks Dex.
“Moooom,” I say, looking at him while Dex tries to disappear.
“Don’t complain about him coming home only once a year, Mom,” Barnabas says.
My father turns to Dex, “Are you?”
“Don’t answer,” I tell him.
“You’re kind of admitting by not answering,” Salomé chimes in.
“Are you the reason you’re all here?” Mom presses. Dex blinks, drawing back in his chair.
“Well, if it’s all right with you Mr. and Mrs. Gritt, and with Luke, of course,” Ian rumbles, “we would like Dex to stay with Luke for a little while.”
My eyes bug out. What the fuck are they talking about? “Sorry what?”
“Dex needs a change of pace, and we thought it could be a great opportunity. He won’t be any good at the farm, but if you need legal advice, he’s your man,” Ryan explains.
“Well, Aaron is divorcing,” my mother says.
“For fuck’s sake!” Aaron finally speaks.
“Mom, Dex isn’t that kind of lawyer.” To him, I whisper, “Are you okay?”
He shrugs, not looking at me. His body language is closed up. If Ryan and Ian announcing they need me to babysit him wasn’t an indication something’s going on with him, his behavior right now are the polar opposite of how Dex usually acts.
My parents eye him for a few seconds and, out of the blue, announce that he can stay. “Let me ask you something, boy,” my father says, turning to Dex. “Do you want children?”
My mother is hanging on Dex’s response, hoping he’ll be the man to change my mind.
“No, sir, I don’t.”
“Shit! This is serious,” my father says, slamming his palm on the table.
Barn, Salomé, and Aaron nod. I wait for my mother to lose her shit.
“What do you mean ‘this is serious,’ Ridge? How can it be serious if they don’t want children? How am I going to be a grandmother? Seriously, this is such a shame. Look at them together, they would make beautiful babies.”
“That’s not how you make babies, Grandma,” Lawson says, chuckling.
“And you have us. Are we not the best?” Hailey insists.
“Of course you are, but I could have more grandbabies. We could take Salomé’s egg—God knows she doesn’t need to reproduce with that man of hers—and take some of Dex’s sperm, and we could make a baby. Wouldn’t you give an egg to your brother if he was asking, Salomé?”
“I guess…” my sister says, shyly.
“But I’m not asking, and this is disgusting,” I interrupt, willing to stop this insane conversation.
“And a little disturbing,” Dex mumbles.
“Well, you’ll see when all your friends have grandbabies and you don’t have any. I’m always seeing all my friends’ grandkids on Facebook and commenting on their pictures and talking about how you haven’t given me any yet.”
I ignore my mother’s rambling.
“It’s the first time you bring home someone you’re so serious about.” My dad clearly doesn’t realize there’s nothing between Dex and me and certainly never will be.
“It’s not what you think, and I didn’t bring him home. They did.” I point at Ian and Ryan. “Now, let’s go back to what you said earlier. You two want to drop Dex here?” I turn to Dex. “And you’re okay with this, babe?”
He shrugs again.
“Babe?” Aaron says. “There’s nothing between you two, but you call him babe?”
Shit… It slipped again.
“Did he ever call anybody babe?” Barn sounds amused.
My siblings and father are grinning from ear to ear, studying every one of my moves toward Dex.
“Listen,” Ian says, “there are things we didn’t tell you. I don’t want to throw my wife under the bus, but she might have told me it was better to give you space and—”
“What do you mean, things you didn’t tell me? About Dex?” I say, standing abruptly.
“Oh shit, guys, Luke is getting angry,” Barnabas says.
I am indeed. Before I know what I’m doing it, I’m rolling up my sleeves.
“Let’s get out of here!” my father adds, throwing his napkin on his plate and leaving the table.
“Can you please go outside? I just redecorated,” my mother pleads while my whole family disappears into the kitchen.
I barely ever get angry, but when I do, I’ve been known to throw things and destroy the house. I’m still trying to keep it under control, but I’m not sure I can. Not when they hid things from me about Dex. Not when Dex looks as sad as if someone skinned his pet snake to make a purse out of it.
“Well, with what happened to the shop, we thought it was better to—”
“What happened to the shop?” Dex raises his voice, standing as well.
If we were in a cartoon, you could see our ears fuming. My feet are planted wide and my nostrils flare, while Dex is baring his teeth and glaring at them.
“First things first! What happened to Dex?” I look at Ryan for an answer.
“Why don’t we each take one and explain what happened to the other?” Ryan tells Ian.
“I take Dex, you take Luke?” Ian asks.
Ryan nods and pulls me aside to fill me in on what I missed over the past weeks.
20
Dex
“And nobody thought that telling me was important?” Luke is screaming inside the house.
Ryan and Ian are trying not to poke the bear after explaining what happened in my life the last week or so. After telling me how the tattoo parlor got vandalized, Ian went back inside to try to contain Luke’s anger. He asked me to stay on the porch, to not make matters worse. I’m pretty sure I should be the one talking to Luke—I’m also certain I could calm him down better than anybody else here—but I want our friends to get their asses chewed out for driving me here. They gave me a choice: go see Luke at his farm and try to find myself again or check into the Los Angeles Center for Anxiety and Depression. I chose Luke. I’ll always choose Luke. He’s my weakness.