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“Too late for that.”
Steele did a double-take, looking like he was about to fall out of his lawn chair. “You’re shitting me.”
“Nope.” I couldn’t stop my gaze from traveling to where my wife sat with Steele’s wife, Essie, and my mother, Bebe. At the moment, Eden had Cato on her lap while Steele’s little girl, Tory, kissed Cato’s dark russet curls and offered him a cookie. My heart tried to fill up my whole damn chest when I heard Eden laugh before she curled an arm around Steele’s precocious second-grader and hugged her, the summer sun shining down on her blonde hair. It had lightened to a brilliant ash blonde, thanks in part to the amount of swimming we’d been doing in the backyard pool. The fenced-in pool and rock fireplace had been key selling points for me, and the chef’s kitchen with its stainless-steel commercial-grade appliances had sent Eden into raptures. We’d moved into the ‘burbs one month before Cato was born, and while quiet suburban life was something I’d never really envisioned for myself, I now couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.
Besides, the place had five kickass bedrooms waiting to be filled. Considering we had our second kiddo on the way, we were going to need them.
“So you’re really going for building your own basketball team.” Steele grinned as he clinked his longneck against mine. “Look at you, family man. How does it feel?”
“Other than wanting to put concertina wire on top of the fence around the pool before Cato starts walking, I’m loving every bit of it. I thought life couldn’t get any better after Eden married me, you know? Coming home to a kiss and a shared meal, going to sleep every night with her in my arms and waking up to her smile every morning—all of it’s like a dream come true. Shit, I even like hanging out with her when she’s in the office on a Zoom meeting with a client, listening to her help people find a way to get their shit together. She’s the best damn person I’ve ever known, and I still have moments when I can’t believe she actually chose to marry me. I feel like I won the fucking lottery every day of my life, and I’m pissed off at you for not telling me married life could be this good.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault you took your sweet time finding your other half.” Steele pointed his beer at me. “That’s on you, pal.”
“Besides, not every marriage winds up like a happy suburban dream come true, with your three-car garage and fancy-shmancy pool-hot tub setup.” Dropping into a chair situated around the unlit firepit with a brat-filled plate in one hand and a beer in the other, Nix sent me a scowl. “You just lucked out by finding yourself a winner, asshole. My parents wound up as front-page news in my little shit town because they literally tried to kill each other. I had to join the army just to escape those fucking psychos.”
“Lucky stroke for the US military and PSI,” Cap said mildly, clearly on his way to the pool, in swim trunks and a towel slung over his shoulder. “Where would we be without you, our best tactical field operative? Hell, we’d still have Luke stumbling in and out of operations like a slack-jawed tourist without you there to stop him.”
“I can’t believe he’s still busting my chops over that,” I muttered, watching a chuckling Cap walk away. “That was fucking forever ago.”
“And it should be noted you haven’t stumbled into an active situation since that time.” Steele raised his beer. “To Luke, our host who understands he fucking sucks at fieldwork.”
“To Luke, the one man who has the ability to sound like an entire herd of stampeding bison.” Nix solemnly clinked his beer with Steele’s.
“You guys suck,” I said, then glanced Eden’s way when Echo approached her. “Oh, shit, look at that, guys. Bet you ten bucks Echo’s at it again.”
Steele glanced over and snorted. “That’s a sucker’s bet, pal. No thanks.”
Nix looked over his shoulder as Eden shook her head and Echo wandered away. “What?”
“Ever since he shot a hydroponics tank while Eden did that no-look, from-her-purse, over-the-shoulder trick shot and got the bad guy right up the nose, Echo’s been challenging her to rematches,” I drawled, rolling my eyes. “You name it, he’s tried it—everything from target practice at PSI’s gun range, to darts and beer pong. Either they end in a draw, or she beats him outright. My woman’s a dead-eye.”
“Yeah, she is,” Nix said, chuckling along with Steele. “No wonder her shitty old man exploited the hell out of her. That kind of talent you see once in a century, if that.”
“How is good ol’ Truman Steadfast doing, anyway?” Steele wanted to know, then turned his head to monitor his son Maddox, a mini-Steele with black hair and gray eyes, sneaking up on his sister with a super-soaker. Unless I missed my guess, all hell was about to break loose. “Last I saw that one-eyed fucker he’d decided to drop in here during your housewarming party, what? Six months ago?”
“Oh shit, I remember that,” Nix muttered before chomping down on another brat. “Luke got so mad he turned fucking purple, and I thought Eden was going to go into labor, she was so shocked that sonofabitch would show up after all the bullshit he pulled.”
“Strangely enough, he’s stayed away since then,” I said, shrugging. “Probably because he doesn’t want a repeat performance of me throwing his ass out onto the front lawn and threatening to shoot him if he ever came around here again.”
“I personally think it was how every PSI member came out to stand with you as you yelled your fucking head off at that two-bit grifting piece of shit,” Steele said, smiling in that dreamy way when a person recalled a fond memory. “Imagine what that must’ve looked like from his point of view there on the ground—a worm looking up at the boot threatening to stomp him out of existence. Just the thought fills my heart with joy.”
“Now that’s a party,” Nix agreed, also smiling. “Damn, Luke, you sure you can’t get that asshole back here for a repeat performance? I’d love another shot at scaring that fucker into pissing himself. Betcha we could do it in under five minutes.”
“Not even for my best friends would I bring that shit stain back here. He’s as gone from our lives as HEG is gone from the world.” That was true enough. Just as Eden had predicted, the House of Enlightened Greatness had quietly folded its tent when Tru—a vain narcissist at his core—couldn’t bring himself to get back in front of the camera while wearing an eyepatch. Of course there was also the fact that one of his former employees-slash-disciples tried to kill him, which was a PR nightmare, and it only hastened HEG’s inevitable demise.
Good fucking riddance.
“Even with my background with my snake-loving cult-like father, it’s still hard for me to believe Truman Steadfast blew up his whole life just to get his daughter back under his control.” Steele’s eyes narrowed on his son, who was trying to get an angle where he’d hit only his sister and not the adults around her. Clearly, Steele wanted to see if his kid would show some smarts and hold his proverbial powder for another time. “The man built an empire from nothing, then fucked it all away. Who does that?”
“Every empire-builder who ever lived,” I drawled, also watching Maddox. Then I saw Eden turn her head slightly, and I knew she had clocked the kid as well.Heh. “Most empire-builders start out as special assholes right from the beginning, because they’ve got so much arrogance they believe they deserve an empire. Then they get so big they believe they can’t be toppled, no matter how much shit they pull. But it’s true what they say—the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Your old man found that out that hard way, Steele, and so did Tru Steadfast.”
Maddox raised the super-soaker, dropping to one knee. Excellent form, really. Steele should be proud.
In one smooth move, Eden rose to her feet with a swirl of her white sundress’s skirt, putting Cato on her hip and shielding Tory from the blast about to come her way.
“Cake-time, everyone! Let’s get Luke to blow out his candles so we can get this birthday party started.” With a bright smile she turned toward the house, ruffling a dejected Maddox’s hair as she passed.
*
