Let It Burn (3 page)

Giving me the grand tour took longer than the interview itself. I knew without a doubt I had made the right choice. Also, this was my heaven. The stacks went on for days and covered everything from my favorite racy fluff to nineteenth century first edition classics.

Walking down the stacks in absolute awe, I let my fingertips trail lightly over the spines, all things of beauty. The air smelled musty like paper and age. I swear I would bottle that smell and wear it. Sell it too; because people would buy it, I had no doubt. As I followed her, Sara chattered on with talk about the other staff and the neighborhood and then she stunned me.

“Have you settled in just yet, dearie?” I had explained in our previous emails that I was relocating.

“N-No, not yet. I will start apartment hunting...” Just as we reached the periodicals, Sara gave a tsking sound.

“Nonsense. I took the liberty of talking to a friend of mine after our chats. There is a lovely little cottage a few blocks down he is renting out. Perfect fit for you, I think. Told him to hold it for you just in case. I can show you after we’re done here.” The bright early morning sun was like a shaft of warmth through the tall windows, falling all around Sara as she waited for a reply.

It was too good to be true. I had come here with absolutely no plan than to get here. I had a little savings from the wedding that never was and being frugal since I took over the bakery. Rent here would have wiped that out in no time. Let alone the time it would take at a hotel for me to find a place. Dust motes danced around Sara as we stood in the sun and I thought perhaps she was some sort of fairy godmother in the flesh.

A place lined up, close to the library, from someone who was friends with my boss? Could it be real? What’s more, in a big city like this, I hardly expected this kind of warm welcome. Or any kind of warmth at all. I was so stunned by this, I reached out and pressed my fingertip to Sara’s nose, pushing gently.

“Is that a yes, dear? I assure you the little magical place here,” Her hands swung out to indicate the library, “and the lovely cottage are very real places that you can hopefully make yours. Am I showing you the cottage now, or...?” Laughing out loud, disrupting a grumpy looking man pouring over the periodicals beside us, I let my fingers drop.

“Abso-fucking-lutely. Oh! Language. I apologize....” Now she was the one reaching out to me, two fingers pressing to my nose.

“I like a girl with some color. Let’s go, Charli Dixon. A new life awaits you, lass!”

Just like that I had a new job in a new city. A new place if her promise of this cottage turned out to be, in fact, real. From the looks of it, a new friend in Ms. Sara Meyer. She was right. A new life awaited me and I couldn’t wait to start finding what else it might hold for me.

“Yeah, Mom, I promise. Next weekend. Dinner at home with the family. I know. I know it’s important, Mom.” God bless her, my mother was a talker.

Though I had a dozen ways I could spend my day off, I was glad to hear her voice. Though my father, Deacon Cooper, was without a doubt the man of the house, my mother, Gwen was our matriarch. Despite four kids to raise, a difficult firefighter for a husband and large families on both sides, my mother was in tune to it all.

She knew birthdays and anniversaries, was there for every single school play, football game and broken heart. She knew the families of my father’s men, and they had often been welcomed into our family celebrations and holidays. Nothing got by her. Mom was as smart as they came and could go from sweet as Sugar to tough as nails, depending on the situation. As my oldest sister Regan always joked,

“Mom knows everything that happens. Sometimes before it happens. With her entire family, not just the five of us.”

Truer words could not be said. Gwen always knew everything, which was why she was calling me on a Monday morning on my day off. I was close to my family, most especially my younger sister Gigi. She was in college and often crashed here so I wasn’t surprised to find her on my couch this morning.

I thought maybe that’s what the call had been about, to check in with Gigi. I had been wrong. Somehow she knew last night I had ended up at Freckles’ place. Mom did not approve. The first thing out of her mouth reminded me why I always felt so ashamed the morning after I spent my night inside of a girl I gave no shits about.

“Do you like the life you are leading today, son? I know things. I know you think you know what you’re doing. Being a man? Banging girls who will spread their legs for you because of that damn badge you wear? That’s not a man.” The next fifteen minutes had been her lecturing me. Rightfully so if I was being honest. How would I feel if it were my sisters?

“Double standards are bullshit,” My mother did not mince words, especially when she was upset, and I loved her for it, “they did what you do? Whores, is what people call them, Cage Cooper. You want to act like a whore? You change your last name and forget I’m your mother.” We laughed together at that.

“Mom,” We both knew she didn’t mean it, but that she was right too, “I know, Mom. I start out looking for
her
, looking for the girl I know is out there. Then I get sidetracked. I let a pretty face and a set of C cups in a short skirt side track me. I know better, Mom. I do. I just...maybe my whole idea about a her existing at all is bullshit.” My mother had long supported my silly ideas about love and romance. She was a woman still passionately in love with the same man for four decades, how could she not?

“Cage, don’t be silly. Not believing is what is bullshit. Look at me and your father. He knew, just like you do, that there was someone out there waiting for him. I maybe didn’t know before him; but when I met him? I certainly knew then. I
believed
then. Just like Regan knew with Parker. Like I think Tegan knows with Miles. Love is real and when it happens, you know. Lust is also real and it happens a lot easier and means a whole lot less. Lust for you lasts what, one night? Two?” They had all, since my first heartbreak, been short lasting I was ashamed she knew that.

“Yeah, Mom. Just got to keep looking for her. Maybe O’Malley’s is the wrong place to find her, though.” I laughed as my mother scoffed.

“I met your father at a carnival,” I knew the story because they loved to tell it, “won me that stuffed monkey and that was that. Never a day since that I doubted he was the one.” There was more to the story but she got right to the good stuff. That was my mother.

“You know, Regan told me when she met Parker it was just like that. Saw him and that was all it took.” I wondered if it could be that easy.

There was
plenty
more to that story because it took four months before they went on a real date. It had been all the shit they talk about in those trashy novels, like the one Gigi had her nose in right now. Love at first sight, or so they both thought. Issues with exes and people getting in the way, lots of drama. Parker was too afraid of my dad, and he later admitted of me as well, to pursue her.

So, Regan being who she was, pursued him. It had taken awhile for my dad to come around. But I had been on his side from the get go. Any guy who could handle my big sister, who was larger than life and every bit as mouthy as my mother, needed allies.

“It can be. Maybe not the moment you see her or she sees you, but the moment you see
it
. The moment you see that
thing
in them that something inside you needs. Then you know. For me and your father....it was the way he made me laugh. Like it was such an important part of who he was that he could make me laugh.” Smiling as I thought about the two of them together, I knew she was right.

My pop was a complex man. He loved his family but he was not the best at showing it. We knew he loved us, and as he had gotten older he had gotten better, but he struggled with expressing himself. When it came to my mother though...you saw it the minute he looked at her. I could never imagine him looking at another woman or even thinking of straying.

They were made for each other. They laughed together like teenagers still. Did other things, I had the misfortune to learn on a visit home, like teenagers. Pop looked at her like she completed him in a way nothing and no one else could. Which was why we all searched for something like that. I believed there was someone out there for me. Like my mom had been made for my pop.

The last few years I had searched without really looking. I had taken what was given without any kind of effort to find that thing that was missing in me. That I hoped to find in her. The other part of me that I had believed was out there somewhere. I had been naive enough to believe once I got my shit together, got over my teenage heartbreak and had my life on track she might fall into my lap.

Nothing is ever that easy. When easy came, I took it. Which made me less than a man and I knew it. Having my mother call me out on it was not only embarrassing but eye-opening. Because I was not that guy and we both knew it.

Glancing over at Gigi, I had another reason to quit taking the easy way. I would never let a guy do to her what I had done to Freckles. Even if that was what she wanted, and she knew it was just one night. Like had been the case with Freckles. There was nothing wrong with having fun with someone and I knew that.

But to do it because you had nothing better going on? Or because you were so lonely you needed the connection for just a few minutes? That made me a shit guy and I didn’t want to be that guy. I didn’t want my sisters, or my mother, or god forbid I ever have girls of my own, to look at me and see that type of guy. After a few more words with my mother, and promising I’d see to it Gigi also made it to dinner, I let her go.

“Morning, Red. Didn’t hear you come in.” Sinking into the wide leather couch beside her, I shoved her with my shoulder.

“Late night, I understand.” There it was; she knew too and I hated that.

“Nah, not really. Well, maybe. You don’t understand,” I frowned as I wondered if maybe she did and hoped she didn’t have a clue, “what dirty trash is going on today?” I snatched the book out of her hands and skimmed it.

“Cage! Don’t lose my place!” As I read the chapter she had been on, she turned crimson, hence my nickname for her.

“Gigi Cooper! This is filth! Does Pop know he’s paying for you to waste your days reading porn?” It was a smutty romance, the cover just had a woman in lingerie and large male hands gripping her thong covered ass.

“I am an English major, Cage. I have to be open to all forms of literature. I just happen to enjoy reading about Dex,” Her face turned redder as her eyes went dreamy, “as he dominates and pleasures Camilla. They’re my favorite ship right now and I’m two novels in and it’s getting
goo-o-od.
” Gigi wiggled her dark brows and I laughed.

“I suppose so,” I skimmed over more, stunned with how graphic it was, “man I wish girls liked sucking cock as much as your books make it seem like they do.” We laughed again when Gigi snatched the book away.

“First, gross. Second, the type of girls at O’Malley’s must like it enough, don’t they?” Now she was just being an asshole so I shoved her away and turned on the TV.

“Negative, Red. Anyway,” I drug the word out to get off the topic of sex and O’Malley’s, “why exactly are you here today? No classes?” I was proud of her and I always let her know it.

“Also a Negative. Went all the way in for class and the Professor has the measles. What grown ass man has the measles? Anyway, day off for you, brother dear?” Sinking back into me, she laid her head at my shoulder.

“All day, Red. I’m starving; want to order us some Chinese? My treat since you’re a poor student.” We shared a look and she patted her flat stomach.

“I do come by for the visits but I love the perk of food, bro. Two number twelves for you and some egg rolls?”

Gigi looked like a perfect juxtaposition of our parents. Her long dark hair usually fell to the middle of her back, but it was in messy bun atop her head. With an angular jaw, fine nose and fair skin she looked very much like Mom. Gigi was tall and slim like Pop, almost as tall at me and I topped out at a respectable six-four.

Regan and Teagan had more of mom in them; smaller, curvier and with heart shaped faces. All of us had the dark hair like our father and hues ranging from moss to hazel eyes like mom. Gigi got something of her own though, with two different colored eyes. It was her favorite thing about herself and when she did herself up you knew it, because they stood out.

Unhooking the menu for China Wok from the stack of take-out menus hanging beside my phone, she ordered us lunch. Though I was officially a bachelor I didn’t really live like one. I hung out with Gigi and Tegan a lot and spent most nights working or alone home with Mr. Belvedere. My place, though no mansion, was clean and had comfortable leather furniture and I even did my laundry on a regular basis. All the decorating had been Regan, of course.

I mean she did have a degree in it even though she hardly needed it. I expect the degree helped her get her shop, Fancy That, opened up down by Wicker Park. Tegan just finished her own degree awhile back, which I benefited from greatly; a nerd to end all nerds she was a gaming programmer. We spent our time together playing video games as she built them. It was a sweet perk of having a nerdy sister.

“Cage. How many egg rolls?” Realizing Gigi had been calling me for a while, I focused and answered her.

“At least four. For me. How many ever you want, Red.” She made her unique eyes go wide playfully before turning back to complete the order.

Growing up I had always been close to my sisters, something that was rare it seemed. Finn, who I had forgiven for his fuck up with Ariel, had four siblings, none of who he was close to. Finn got along with Gigi, and in fact I was working overtime to thwart what I was sure was a crush on her part. For whatever reason, Gigi had always been closest to me. I had walked her to and from school from the time she was in braids until she no longer wanted her big brother around.

For different reasons, I was close to Regan and Tegan, who were older than me by four years. Barely a year apart themselves, they had been inseparable. Carbon copies of Mom they were often mistaken for twins. They were the type of girls everyone liked and wanted to hang around with. Which made it easy for me to hang out with all the chicks during high school, something I always appreciated. Though we had our moments, as all siblings do, they never made me feel like I wasn’t wanted.

When they began dating, I stepped into the big brother role immediately. Even though their boyfriends were obviously always older. I always felt it was my duty to watch over them. To be sure they were treated right. Even now when they were in serious relationships, with guys I liked, I was always ready to kick someone’s ass if I had to.

That had always been my job with Gigi, of course. Perhaps our closeness was because Gigi and I were just a few years apart. I knew she had briefly dated a douche her first semester at college. I had been there when it took pints of ice cream, sappy movies and those filthy novels to get her over him.

Though I kept the details to a minimum, she knew about the girls I took home. She often rated them on a scale she made up. I did not understand this scale and frowned upon her using it to further objectify my questionable relationships. Gigi got her fire from Mom though, and made her opinion known even if you didn’t ask. In fact, she had taken up for me with Finn, blasting him for fucking Ariel with my taste still in her mouth. Her exact words.

“Fifteen minutes, dear brother. So... our latest conquest. Tell me all about it.” Sinking cross-legged into the wide chair set off from the couch I now took over, she smirked at me.

“Abso-fucking-lutely not. Who said I made a conquest anyway?” Before I even finished the question I knew.

“Who do you think?" Gigi tipped her head towards the door, "He loves to talk; as if telling a young, impressionable girl about how freely the two of you give out orgasms is a proper topic of conversation.” Apparently, I would have to have another talk with Finn about keeping his distance from my little sister. Or kill him.