“You do know, it takes the fun out of busting your chops after you left me with your stepmom like you did when you don’t play along and get insanely jealous I find all your brothers hot.”
“You might want to be not so obvious you’re just busting my chops, then,” he replied.
I hmphed.
Loudly.
He reached out and took my hand.
He linked his fingers in mine, saying softly, “I fucked up, babe. A lot on my mind. I didn’t think. That wasn’t cool. For you or Tyra.”
I looked at him, relatively stunned.
The relatively part was that this was Rush. All the goodness I got from him was beginning not to be a surprise.
He was still a man, so him understanding what he did was not cool, copping to it and kind of apologizing for it, even if he didn’t use those exact words, was the part that was stunning.
“Now you’re screwing with my ability to remain marginally pissed at you by admitting you fucked up,” I shared.
He smiled at the windshield and moved my hand to rest on his thigh.
“It seemed okay,” he noted.
“We had a rocky start,” I told him, and his fingers in mine squeezed. “We smoothed it out. She’s nice.”
“She’s awesome.”
“Yeah,” I murmured, drew in breath and asked, “You guys get things in hand?”
“As best we can.”
I turned to look at him again. “Are you okay?”
He shrugged a shoulder and gave my fingers another squeeze. “As best I can be.”
“Let me guess, brother business is brother business. I quit Benito, I’m in the dark?”
He glanced at me before looking back at the road. “Yes and no. There’s shit you won’t know because it’s brother business. There’s other shit I’ll share.” He hesitated and announced, “At the end of the meet, I didn’t just call Tab like I told you about. I had to call my mom.”
Oh, he’d told me about dinner with his sister the next night.
But even with that scariness at hand, what he said grabbed all my attention.
So it was me squeezing his hand before I asked, “Why?”
“Women are getting dead, Rebel. She has ties to Chaos. They’re historical but all this shit is historical. Dad contacted her, offered Chaos protection. She didn’t take him up on that. So Dad asked me to follow up. I’m hoping she’ll call.”
She didn’t sound all that nice.
Harrietta dumped in the street, how something like that would affect Rush if it was his mother, I hoped she called too.
“Right, of course,” I murmured. “I . . . does she not know what’s happening?”
“It would not surprise me she’d be okay with getting dead just to make Dad feel like shit and fuck with Tabby’s head.”
All right then.
She really didn’t sound all that nice.
“Whoa,” I whispered.
“Yeah, she’s pretty stubborn and holds a mean grudge.”
I knew all about that kind of thing.
“I’m sorry, honey.”
He pressed my hand to his thigh. “It is what it is.”
“I’m still sorry.”
Another glance and a soft, “Thanks, baby.”
I shut up and looked forward.
“We’ll hit the market before we hit home,” he changed the subject. “Make a mental list of what you want in the house.”
“You want me to cook tonight?”
“If you want.”
I thought about making him dinner.
I thought about making him breakfast.
I thought about all the time I would now have on my hands that would probably be mostly filled with cooking for him, hanging with him while he did important stuff and maybe catching some TV.
These thoughts didn’t make me happy.
I was not big on having nothing to do.
It was then I remembered about brunch.
“Oh shit,” I mumbled.
“What?”
I looked at him again. “Brunch. Sunday.”
“What?”
“I asked Amy and Paul over for brunch on Sunday. That’s three days away.”
“Okay. So brunch for them on Sunday is on the agenda,” he replied.
“Um, I’m not sure that’s wise.”
“No worries. Boz or someone will have the main house. And I’ll be there with you.”
Oh boy.
His fingers tightened in mine and I was unsurprised he read my vibe.
He just read it wrong.
“You don’t want me there with you?”
“Well . . . uh . . .”
I didn’t finish that.
“Babe.”
That was a growl.
And he wasn’t done growling.
“You’ve met my dad and my stepmom, and Tab’s pretty much made it command attendance at her and Shy’s pad for dinner tomorrow.”
Eek.
I was ignoring the fact I was meeting his sister the next day.
A girl could only take so much.
It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since we started our first date, for God’s sake.