Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing (Hautboy Series Book 3) (22 page)

“The only way to handle Peter is with a pair of cleats and a good kick in the nuts.”

Jake clutched his groin.  “You’re vicious.”

“No offense, but older brothers suck.”  Jake’s own sister wasn’t speaking to him. It was solid proof.  All older brothers were overbearing jerks.  “I'm not letting him boss me around.  I'm an adult.  I don't need his approval.”

“We'll deal with it.  I just don't think this is the time or place.”

“Whatever.”  Him and his fucking rules.  Grasping the door handle, I pushed the door open.  Jake grabbed my arm before I could slide out.

“Paisley.”

“Nothing's changed, has it, Jake?” I said bitingly.  “Your
moral compass
is always going to point in the opposite direction.”

“You're being unreasonable.  You don't even know what he's here for.”

“This doesn't have anything to do with why Peter is here.  It's the fact that you're kowtowing to him, when the only person's opinion that should count is mine.”

“What do you want from me, Shaw?”

“I want to come first!”

“Close the door.  Close it.  Now.”  Blinking back tears, I closed the door.  “The last time your brother hit me, I didn't hit him back.  It won't happen again.  Not this fucking time.  Is that what you want?  An all-out brawl?  Do you think your family is going to approve then?”

“I don't care.”  It sounded childish, I know.  Fuck it.  I was tired of being the adult.  I was entitled to throw a tantrum.  God knows, I had an entire adolescence in reserve.  “My entire life revolved around my family.  I don't give a flying fuck what they think anymore.”

“You do.  You’re just pissed off right now.”  My arm was still in his grasp.  He tugged it, urging me toward him.  “Come here.”

Obstinately, I cast him a glare.  “I am here.”

“Come closer,” he amended.  I inched toward him, but kept my head turned toward the window.  Dissatisfied, he looped his arm around my waist and pulled me into his lap.  “There.  That’s better.”

I disagreed.  I was wedged between him and the steering wheel.  Everything of mine was touching everything of his, and it was quelling my anger.  Like a sieve, his touch filtered the mixed jumble of emotions besieging me, leaving behind only the heavy weight of despair.

“That’s better, right?”

“Yeah,” I lied.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to lose it like that.”  There was no point in arguing.  I knew a lost cause when I saw one.  “It’s just that when Peter’s around, things usually turn to shit.”

“Everything's gonna be fine.  You're jumping to conclusions.”

"You're right."

“Paisley,” he sighed, leery of my sudden resignation.  “I'm thinking of you in the long run, even though it might not feel that way.”

“I know.”  Before he could object again, I hushed him with a kiss.  The kind of kiss you poured your heart and soul into.  The kind that revealed a million emotions if one had the insight to discern them.  It was a confession.  A plea.  A warning.

Moaning, Jake shifted beneath me.  His hands slid down to my ass.  He cupped it in both hands and pulled me toward him while raising his hips to meet me.

Before things could go too far, I pushed away and climbed off his lap.  “I meant what I said last night,” I told him as I flipped the visor down and checked my face in the mirror.  My lipstick was ok, but I wiped a smear of gloss that had gone astray.

“You do know I love a challenge, Shaw.”  Grasping my arm, he pulled me closer and stretched for another kiss.  “Your ass is mine.”

“I was referring to the former half of that statement,” I stated, placing my palm against his chest, “but I see where your priorities lie.”  Grabbing my purse from the floor, I opened the door and slid out of his truck.  He was still digesting that as I slammed the door closed.  Confusion riddled his expression.

Maybe I was expecting too much from him.  I could see where one might overlook a casual admission of love while discussing the future ban of backdoor sex.  Jake was all about sex.  He rarely strayed far from it, it seemed.  Shallow, narcissistic, deviant, jerk.

Entering Tate’s house through the side door, I followed the voices coming from the kitchen.  Everyone was there.  The whole armada, including Peter.  They were gathered around Coop, who was leaning back against Tate’s chest.  Her shirt was pulled up, exposing her belly, and Tate had his hand stretched across one side.  Suddenly, his hand bowed as what must have been a hand or foot jutted out, stretching Coop’s stomach like the skin of a drum.

“That is the both the most amazing and disgusting thing I’ve even seen,” Carter voiced.  “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“
It depends on where they’re kicking you
,” Coop answered.  “
They start beating on internal organs, yeah.
”

“I’m leaning toward gross,” Carter amended.  “It’s like you’re going to pop out an orc.  Maybe an alien.”

“Dude,” Tate objected, “they’re my kids you’re talking about.”

“Like I said—an alien or an orc.”

“
Better an alien or an orc than an asshole
.”

Carter smirked self-righteously.  “You shouldn’t call your husband an asshole, Coop.  The tater tots might hear.”

“
Technically, you’re the asshole
,” Coop corrected.  “
Tate is the alien or the orc.  I was making a hypothetical comparison
.”

“Except Carter’s really an asshole,” Em pointed out, “and Tate’s far from an alien or an orc.”

“Nice.”  Shaking his head, Carter slammed down the last of his beer.  He placed the empty bottle on the counter with a clink, and set his focus on me.  "Violet!"

I pegged him with a glare, which he ignored.

“What happened to you?  Did you get a little…
tied
up?”

“Jake got pulled over,” I explained, diverting his attention.  “Twice.”

“No shit?”

“
How’d it go
?”  Coop asked, ambiguously.  She could’ve been asking about anything, but I knew she meant with Jake.

“One step forward, two steps back.”

“
So did you get the job
?”

Job?  I guess that was the story they were feeding Peter.  “I don’t know if I’m interested.  It was stuffy.  Too many rules.”

“Oh, Marone,” Em muttered.  “These rules again…”

Behind me, Jake entered the kitchen and stopped at my side.  Em scoffed and went back to stirring her pot of gravy.  Everyone else stared.  “What’s doing?”

“What the hell did you get pulled over for?” Carter inquired.  A smirk spread across his face.  He was totally trying to rat us out in front of Peter.

“Speeding.”

“I was running late,” I expounded.  “Looks bad when you can’t even make a job interview on time.”

“Speeding,” Carter said dubiously.  “Twice?”

“Ye—”

“Driving recklessly,” Jake said over me.  “I was double checking her resume, and for whatever reason, she didn’t want me to know her middle name, so she ripped it out of my hand.  When I tried to get it back, I swerved a little.”

My eyes shot to Peter’s face in warning, but he smiled puckishly.  “Shut up, Peter,” I warned.  “Don’t say it.”

“It’s Maddison.”

I hated Peter.  Hated him with passion so sharp, it sliced holes.

“Paisley Maddison Shaw,” Jake said, sounding it out.  He placed his hand on my shoulder in a seemingly comradely gesture.  “What’s so bad about that?”

“Dude,” Carter snorted, “your initials are PMS?”  It wasn’t a question.  It was an exclamation, followed by a cackle.  Asshole.

“It was her nickname from puberty through High School,” Peter laughed.  “She used to get so mad, and the madder she got, the more the name fit, and the more everyone teased her.”

“It’s not funny.”  It came out petulant.  I felt fifteen again.  Again, he was humiliating me in front of my friends.  He never changed.

“It is funny,” Peter disagreed.  “Just a little bit.  You can admit it.”

“They call me Twat,” Tate said with a wry smile.  “We call him Jake-off.”  He nodded just over my shoulder.  “And Carter…we call him every name in the book.”

I forced a smile, but it came out a mockery.  I redirected my attention at Peter.  “What are you doing here?”

“You’re looking at Coop’s new bassist,” Carter announced, clapping Peter on the back with a hearty thump thump thump.

Jake’s hand tightened on my shoulder before it slipped away.

Chapter 18
 

“
M
arian O’Connor is waiting for you,” my coworker told me.  “She’s been talking about you the past hour.  You’re all the gossip around here.”

It had been over a month since I’d told Coop I was running out for a pint of triple chocolate ice cream and never went back.  It had been over a month since I’d talked to Peter or Jake.  It had been over a month since I’d taken a job at The Village, an independent living community in the suburbs of Seattle.  It had been over a month since I felt like I smiled.

That was beside the point.  I’d made the mistake of stopping to watch one of my patients play the piano in the lobby.  At the ripe age of eighty-six, his joints weren’t what they used to be, but he gave his best effort.  Nonetheless, the piano was ruined for me.  Now all I thought of was the stupid, blond Hautboy keyboardist when I heard the thing.

Marian O’Connor happened to be standing near me and noticed my watery eyes.  “He played La Plus que Lente beautifully,” I told her, explaining my tears.

She promptly called bullshit, and pointed out that Mr. Epstein was hacking the piece to bits, which was what she wanted to do to the instrument every night when he set upon the thing.

Since then, it had become her personal mission to find the true cause of my misery.  The woman followed me around like a little bird, picking at my resolve like a brick of suet.

I forced my lips into an upward curve.  “They need to go on more outdoor excursions if I’m their main source of entertainment.”

“Maybe you should just spill the beans,” she suggested.  “You won’t get any peace and quiet until she knows everything about you.”  I couldn’t remember her name.  I felt bad that I didn’t put out more effort to make friends, but the gossip obviously wasn’t strictly confined to the patients.  Nonetheless, she smiled as she walked backward, heading toward her next patient.  “The girls and I are going out for drinks tonight.  You should come.”

“Thanks, but I have an appointment for a haircut after work.”  I had the purple stripped from my hair, and I was going in for a trim and a deep conditioning treatment.  I had essentially started over and invented a new me.  A very unhappy and unsociable, blond new me.

“That’s ok—we’re not meeting until nine.”  Turning, she strode down the hall.  “Leave your number with Lidia,” she threw over her shoulder.”  I’ll text you when I know where we’re going.”

Good luck with that.  I hadn’t gotten a new cell phone yet.  I couldn’t see footing the bill over a device for which I had no use.  As with my land line, I only would have checked the caller ID and rejected the call.  Like I said, I was avoiding Peter, Jake and the rest of them.  I couldn’t see the others without running into Jake.  Peter, I’d essentially disowned as a brother.

As I headed to see my own patient, indecision pestered me like a gnat dive-bombing my face.  Courtesy necessitated that I accept her invitation or be known henceforth as the office snob.  I wasn't ready to hit the bars yet, but I didn’t want to make enemies either.  There was no reason to make my job or my life more miserable than it already was.

“Why does it look like you ate a bag of those sour gum candies?”

“It sort of feels like I did too, Mrs. O’Connor.”  Looking up from my clipboard, I forced another smile.  They were always forced as of late.  “How’re you doing with your medication?  Any reactions the doctor should know about?”

“Sometimes it makes me choke, but then I laugh a lot and I get the nibbles.  Incidentally, pretzels dipped in Nutella hits the spot.”

“I don’t think that’s the antihistamine.”

“Probably not.”

“Marijuana isn't listed under your prescriptions.”

“No, but it makes me feel a hell of a lot better than any antihistamine.”

“If that's the case, pass it to the left,” I said, setting my chart down on the counter.  I grabbed the blood pressure cuff from the pocket on the wall.  “We could all us a little happy happy joy joy.”

Checking for her pulse, I positioned the stethoscope, secured the cuff on her arm and began pumping the bulb with my fist.  Stopping—as usual—just about when the patient made a noise of discomfort, I listened again for her pulse, and noted her systolic and diastolic pressure.

“Those things were created by the powers of Satan,” Mrs. O’Connor said when I was finished.  Smoothing out her blouse sleeve, she rubbed at her arm, regaining the circulation.

“He’s certainly creative in his distractions.”  I’d had been a subject of his amusement too many times.

“You say that as if you’ve been the subject of his amusement.”

A smile wormed its way across my face.  “He’s torturing you with achy bones and blood pressure cuffs.  He teases me with the wrong men.”

“You've been burned, I take it."

“Twice.”

“Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”

“I’m aware,” I said wryly.  “Thanks.”

“There’s always three strikes you’re out.”

“No,” I snorted.  “Not a snowball’s chance in Hell.”

“You sound sure of that.”

“That’s why I’m working here.”

“Sweetheart,” said Mrs. O’Connor, “you should listen to that Camilla and go out for a few drinks.  There’s nothing that’ll get you over a bad break up faster than a hop in the sack with another.”

“Mrs. O'Connor, you never cease to shock me.”  My cheeks were flushed.  She was one-hundred and eighty degrees from my grandmother.

“Why—you think I was never your age?  I'll tell you, missy—”  She wagged her finger at me.  “—I was at my prime during the sixties”.  I've experienced it all.”

“I'm sure.”

“I could tell you stories…”

“Please don’t.”

Mrs. O’Connor barked in laughter as she slid off the exam table.  “Just one.  Come on.  I’ll share it with you on the way out.”

“You haven’t seen the doctor yet.”

“I’m not seeing the doctor.  Aint nothing wrong with me.”

“But it says—”  Headaches.  Dizziness.  I was looking right at the chart.

“Lidia had to put something down on the chart so that I’d have an excuse to come in.”

Unreal.  Camilla was right.  They’d go to any lengths for a little gossip.  “That’s despicable.”

“You’ve been working here a month now.  You see what this place is like.  I take entertainment where I can get it.”

“I could be treating truly sick patients.”

“When you get to be my age, you’ll use any excuse to get out of the house.  Your bunions hurt.  Your age spots are starting to look like cancer.  You need a better lubricant because your who-ha is as dry as the Sahara Desert and you have a date that night.”

My mouth popped open.  She never ceased to shock me.

“Getting old sucks.  It’s not fair.  Men have Viagra.  Women get a bottle of KY.  You tell me—where is the equality?  So much for women’s lib.”

The woman was a ball of fire.  “If you’re bored here, why do you stay?”

“I told you.  Entertainment.  My kids grew up and moved out.  I needed something to do with all the time on my hands.”

“Why don’t you take up knitting or quilting?”

“Why don’t you?”

“I'm not old.  I just work here.”

Mrs. O'Connor cut a scathing glare.  "That is outright sass.  You're supposed to have respect for your elders."

“It's not sass; it's fact.  When you're more worried about age-derived vaginal dryness than shaving your legs before a date, you know your old.”

“Old is when you need to worry about whether you should leave you teeth in or out of your mouth before—”

“Don't say it!" I warned.  "I really don't need to hear the rest of that sentence.”

“I still have all my teeth.”

“I wouldn't have slept tonight without knowing that.”  Another elderly patient from the independent community stared warily as we passed him in the hall.  “Beware, Mr. Gibson, Mrs. O’Connor still has all of her teeth.”

Mrs. O'Connor chortled, causing Mr. Gibson to shake his head.  "Young kids."

“Hear that?”  Mrs. O’Connor tugged on my sleeve as if she didn’t already have my full attention.  “Mr. Gibson called me young.”

“Mr. Gibson is ninety-six.  Everyone’s young by his standards.”

The elevator bell pinged.  Mrs. O’Connor and I rushed to catch the door before it closed.  Stepping into the car, I held the door with my foot and pushed the button for the ground floor.

“It’s not so bad here,” Mrs. O’Connor admitted.  “I take aquatics twice a week.  Thai Chi.  Bocce Ball.  Pottery club.  Stained glass club.  Poker isn’t as fun as it was in the younger days when we used to play for clothing, but we’re probably better off without the excitement.  I’ve seen most of ‘em in the pool.  They’re not much to look at.”

I was still laughing when the elevator door opened.  We stepped into the main lobby and stood off to the side.  “So you're not just the gossip queen, you're the socialite too.”

The smile fell from Mrs. O'Connor's face.  She clutched my hand in hers.  For seventy years old, she had a solid grip.  “I would never repeat a word you said to me in confidence.”

Guilt immediately ensued.  I squeezed her hand.  “People tend to jump to conclusions because I keep to myself, but there's nothing to tell.  I come from a large family, so I value my space.  That’s all.”

Mrs. O’Connor stared hard for a moment.  “All right.  Don’t mind me.  Like I said, I have too much time on my hands, and you remind me of my granddaughter.  It’s been a while since we’ve talked.  I guess I’m missing her.”

Well if that didn’t tug on my heartstrings.  The woman was lonely.  How was I supposed to leave her behind when she was staring up at me like a puppy in a pet store?  She was all brown eyes and wrinkles, a fucking sharpei, but much, much prettier, and with much less hair.

“He was a doctor,” I said.  I could give her that much.  Jake was still raw.  I couldn’t talk about him yet.  “We’re not supposed to fraternize with coworkers.  If things don’t end amicably…you know how that goes.”

“So things didn’t end amicably.”

“No.”

“And you ended up here.”

Lifting my shoulders, I gave an indifferent shrug.  “Now you know the story.”

“I can see why you like to keep that under wraps.”

“Yeah.”

“Your secret’s safe with me.”  Patting my hand, she let it go.  “As far as the girls are concerned, you came from a large family and your value your space.”

“Thank you.  I’d appreciate that.”

“You’re a good kid.  Sounds like you got the short end of the stick.”

“No, it was deserved.  I knew better than to sleep with him.  I knew better than to react unprofessionally at work too.  I did it anyhow.”

“What did you do?”

“I walked in on him with another woman.  I took all of his stuff and hers, and tossed it down the laundry chute so they couldn’t leave the room without making a scene.”

Mrs. O’Connor barked in laughter, garnering the attention of everyone in the lobby for a brief moment.  “That a girl!  I knew I liked you!”  Placing her hand over her chest, she tried to suppress her amusement.  “Go on—get out of here.  Get your hair done.  Take Camilla up on her offer.  Have a few drinks.  Find yourself a man to ease your troubles for a few hours.”

I had paperwork to do, so I didn’t actually leave the office for an hour.  I spent an another hour at the salon, reclining against a shampoo bowl, my hair saturated with conditioner while my stylist maintained my nails.  I had them lacquered with a french manicure, foregoing a flashy color for a more subdued look that matched my mood.  I should’ve went with black.

By the time I pulled into the parking lot of my apartment, it was already seven.  That gave me just enough time to grab something to eat, change my clothes, and apply some makeup.

Unfortunately, Pax’s car was sitting beside my parking space like a fucking harbinger.  I briefly considered going for a short drive in hopes he left while I was gone.  It worked with Peter often enough.  Unlike Peter, however, Pax was virtually unshakable when on a mission.  He probably came armed with a thermos of coffee and a box of crullers to hold him over until dawn.

With reluctance, I coasted into my parking spot and shut my car off.  Pax lifted his head from the headrest and turned in my direction.  As recognition set in, he zipped up his jacket and climbed out of his car.  Steeling myself, I met him on the sidewalk in front of my door.

“You might be angry with Peter,” he started, “but that doesn’t mean you have to blow the rest of us off.”

“I started a new job.  I’ve been busy.”

“Bullshit.”

“Go away, Pax.  If I wanted to hear your shit, I would’ve called.”

“That’s the point.  You
haven’t
called.  You haven’t answered your landline.  You haven’t replaced your cell phone.  You even had your locks changed.”

“My locks are none of your business. I never gave you a key.  I gave Peter a key, and that was obviously a mistake.  It was for emergencies only, like when I lock myself out.  It wasn’t an open invitation to use the place as your crash pad when the two of you are too drunk to make it home from Trum’s.  So fuck off.  I’m done being used.”