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CHAPTER13
ALEX
“There!” Paco pointed. The scream was coming from the bathrooms.
They ran toward the men’s room. Another scream stopped them in their tracks. The gut-curdling cry was coming from the other direction.
“Stop!” they heard AJ cry.
“AJ?”
With a split-second pause at the signLadies Room, they rushed inside.
There, an angry elderly woman wielding a handbag was thrashing AJ about the shoulders and torso and anywhere she could reach, really.
Helpless, AJ’s eyes locked with Alex’s, desperation pouring from his eyes. “Please, make her stop.”
Amused, Alex crossed his arms and watched. “Lesson number one, young Drake,” he said with a playful shake of his head. “You don’t find the cougar. The cougar finds you.”
Swiftly, Paco intervened, flashing what appeared to be credentials that were most likely fake. “Mall security. We’ll take it from here, ma’am,” Paco said, calmly guiding the woman away from scene and towards the door.
The woman departed, with one last furious swing of her handbag. Fuck, by the size of it, she probably had her laundry in it and the damn thing looked to weigh a ton.
Alex chuckled. “This is what happens when you try to run away,” he remarked, a hint of levity in his voice. “Old lady smack down.”
* * *
The ride home was quiet. Too quiet. Alex was angry at AJ for running, and AJ was angry that Alex wouldn’t believe him.
Paco bailed all together, determined not to take a side.
Once they were back at the penthouse, Madison had dinner waiting.
Uncomfortably, they all sat around the table, the two men determined not to eat. Or, look at each other.
Alex’s full-blown stroke had finally settled to a manageable heart rate to the point he could think. Then, he did the unthinkable.
“No games. No Netflix. And you can kiss any of Paco’s driving lesson’s goodbye.”
“You’re grounding me?” AJ yelled.
In Alex’s sternest parental voice, which wasn’t very stern, he looked AJ straight in the eye. “You had me racing around that mall like the damn Indy 500, and you think you’re not grounded?”
AJ points at his own chest incredulously. “I did not run away. I was seconds from being kidnapped.”
“Ha!” Alex raised his voice. “By who? The old witch from Hansel and Gretel? News flash, you’re too big to fit in her pie.”
Madison’s eyes popped nearly to the sky, as AJ’s dropped to his feet. Smirks spread across their faces as their shoulders trembled in silent, barely contained laughter.
Okay, fine. Worst timing ever for a double-entendre.
He shot Madison a glare. “It’s not funny.”
“It’s not,” she choked back, lips pursed tight as tears of hysteria began welling up.
Alex crossed his arms. “You have no idea how much trouble you’re in. You left my credit card and bolted. The least you could’ve done was say goodbye to Ashlyn.”
AJ crossed his arms back, mirroring him and brimming with frustration. “I’m telling you, I’m being followed. I could’ve been kidnapped.”
