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“That was at night in an alleyway. I’m going to walk in there, in my Kingston Motors shirt and have a civil conversation with the man. Like fathers and sons should do.”
It’s only then that I realize he’s changed into a Kingston shirt, I’m shocked he even owns. “Not this father and son.”
“Today we do.”
He turns away and starts to walk.
I dash around him and plant myself in front of him, hands flattening on the hard muscles of his chest. “So you can walk into a trap and end up dead? I forbid it. I’m not going to lose you. I just got you back.”
He drags me to him, that spicy dominant scent of him teasing my nostrils and wrapping me in the almighty force that is this man. “Princess, you’re not getting rid of me today, or this easily. If you run, I’ll run after you.”
“You can’t do that if you’re dead. I forbid you to do this.”
“If you want to forbid me, do it while you’re naked. I’ll listen a whole lot better.”
“Fine. Yes. Let’s get naked. Am I supposed to complain about getting naked with you?”
“No. You most definitely are not.”
“Then let’s get naked.”
“Not now, sweetheart. When I get back.” He kisses me, his hand on my head, a deep, passionate kiss, a promise on his tongue that lands on mine. He’ll come back. He’s not leaving me. With those promises, he parts our lips, and for long moments, seems to just breathe me in before he releases me and turns away. He starts for the door, and this time there’s no stopping him. His strides are too long and determined.
When I turn to Blake to appeal for help, he’s on his feet. “Savage is waiting on us downstairs. We’re going with him. We’ve got his back and Smith has yours. He’s in the living room.” And then he’s walking away, and disappearing around the corner. There’s no stopping Eric now. He’s gone and it feels bad. It feels like he’s not coming back.
Chapter seventy-two
Eric
The past…
It’s one day until I turn twenty-one, mere days before Christmas, and three weeks before I join Isaac in law school, and I know he’s hating that shit. Younger brother tested out of high school, fast-tracked through college, to jump right into law school, years before he can escape my term. Then again, he hates my job at Kingston, my role that grows while he’s off turning pages in a book.
Despite my preference to stay at my own place for Christmas and just eat a damn frozen pizza, my father has demanded my presence, so I’m here. I enter the house and I can hear Isaac and my father speaking in muffled tones, too muffled for me to make out the words. And I don’t want to make them out. The best days of my life are those where Isaac is gone and so the fuck am I. Every time he comes home, we have issues.
The voices seem to be coming from the den and that’s exactly why I head toward the kitchen where Delia will be making the mac n cheese that I love. I make it a few more steps when I hear, “Eric.”
At the sound of my father’s voice to the left, I halt, and for a moment I fight the wave of darkness inside me. These are the days I hate him all over again. These are the days that I forget our working relationship. I forget our bloodline. I remember the man who told me to “get over” my mother dying.
“Son,” he bites out, and I don’t like that word. Not most days. Never when Isaac is here. Never on a holiday when my mom is gone.
Nevertheless, I rotate to find him standing in the doorway of his den, only slightly underdressed for a day of fucking with our heads. His dark hair sprinkled with gray, his jaw shaved clean, because thatis all that’s acceptable. He’s in a dinner jacket, a button-down shirt starched as crisply as his spine is stiff, and of course, dress pants.
My jaw is not shaved clean. It’s sporting a three-day stubble I embrace. And I’m damn sure dressed like my mother had us dress for every holiday: comfortable in jeans and a blue sweater, because comfortable, she’d said, is how a holiday is supposed to feel.
“Join us for a smoke and the whiskey your brother brought me,” my father orders.
I brought him nothing. I figure the games he’ll play today are his gift. I start walking in his direction and he disappears into the room.
In too few steps, I enter the den, which by most standards is a welcoming room with walls of books so high a ladder rolls across one wall. Brown leather couches and chairs rest on top of a heavy oriental rug that decorates a dark wooden floor.
Isaac’s standing by the fireplace, a smoke in one hand, a glass in the other, and holy fuck, he’s dressed like my father. A little clone boy. Clown boy is more like it.
“Celebrating my national chess win,” he greets me like it’s not been months since we last saw each other, “by kicking father’s ass in chess.”
“Smoke, son?” my father asks, and the way he emphasizes “son” isn’t to ensure Isaac knows that’s what I am. It’s to piss him off and it works. His eyes glint hard steel.
“I’ll pass on the smoke,” I say, walking to the couch that faces Isaac and sitting down.
