Return of the Bad Boy, page 20
Damn him.
When he lifted his head, he was smiling, mischief twinkling in his eyes. “You girls have fun.” He placed a kiss on his mother’s cheek as he passed by. Elana was nearly as tall as her son, even in flats.
“This yours?” Elana picked up a slouchy black purse that was, in fact, Gloria’s. Clearly the decision had been made. Gloria was going shopping with Asher’s mom.
Whether she wanted to or not.
Chapter 18
The last place on the planet Gloria belonged in was a Toys “R” Us. Whenever she’d attended baby showers in the past, she’d strictly been an online shopper. And usually sent a gift card. A store full of children’s toys made her feel as comfortable as she had in seventh-grade softball: not at all.
Elana had mentioned shopping for the party. Why they were picking out board games and stuffed toys was a mystery, until she finally interrupted Elana’s decision over which Lego set to buy him with, “I thought we were buying decorations. Why are we shopping for Hawk?”
Elana paused, Lego boxes in hand, and blinked over at Gloria. Then she smiled. “You know what? I really like you.” She put both boxes in the cart along with several other items she’d picked out for him and started off toward the register. “I haven’t met my grandson yet. I intend to meet him. And I’m not meeting him without making up for all of the birthdays I’ve missed.”
At the counter, Elana unloaded the toys for the teenaged cashier who looked like she’d rather be getting dental work than spending her Sunday here. Gloria didn’t hate being here as much as this girl, so there was that.
“Emily is easier to deal with than Jordan,” Elana said. “Maybe it’s because she relates to me grandma to grandma. Though she seems the type to prefer the term ‘grandmother,’ doesn’t she?”
“I’ve heard her refer to herself as such,” Glo said. “But the only preference of hers I’m sure of is that she does not prefer me at all.”
“Why the hell not?” Elana asked, her brows pinching. The cashier mumbled the total. Elana kept her eyes on Gloria’s face while she handed over a credit card.
“It’s nothing.” Gloria was quick to shake her head and play down her feelings of inadequacy. “I’m…I don’t really know what I am in this situation. She wasn’t wrong about me not having any experience with children.”
Elana huffed, signed for her purchases, and dropped her credit card into her purse. “I’m not sure about that.” She then paused at the door to address the cashier, throwing a clipped, “Thanks, hon. And listen, you smile through this day and you’ll be much happier for it,” over her shoulder.
Outside, Elana strode to a kick-ass white convertible and stowed the bags in the minuscule trunk. Once behind the wheel, she took her time weaving through the back roads of Evergreen Cove.
“Groupies are a dime a dozen, sweetheart,” Elana said. “Asher’s dad used to be in a rock band in his twenties. Did you know that?”
“Ash mentioned it.”
“He never made it big-time, but that didn’t stop the local girls from trying to get into his pants.”
Gloria smiled at Asher’s mom’s frankness. “And did they?” She pushed her hair away from her face, whipping in the warm lake air as Elana took a curve smoothly.
“Fuck no! He had me.”
Gloria chuckled.
“And Asher has you.”
She didn’t know what to say to that.
“I know all about you, Gloria Shields,” Elana said to the windshield, her hair blowing, sunglasses on. “He’s been chattering about you since the first time he met you. Smart, intimidating, beautiful, and a badass.” She spared Gloria a glance. “That’s an exact quote.”
Words. There were no words for this conversation. Gloria focused on the road and kept her lips pressed together.
“You don’t think you’re good enough to care for Hawk?”
Since that was a direct question, Glo didn’t have a choice but to answer. She did so with a shrug and a head shake.
On Endless Avenue, Elana parked in front of Sugar Hi and put her convertible in Park. She arranged her hair in the vanity mirror and said, “Let’s discuss this over dessert. I sense this is going to be a long answer. And I intend for you to share everything with me.”
* * *
Gloria cradled her coffee mug and eyed the crinkled wrapper that once held a Devil Dog. She ate every last bite of it while Elana had chosen a carrot cake cupcake that looked equally luscious.
“Okay, let’s hear it.” Elana sipped her coffee.
“Where to start?” Gloria asked her mug. She imagined being questioned by Elana Knight was a lot like being captured by the KGB. If she tried to lie, Elana would know.
“Where are your parents?” Elana asked.
Ah, so they were starting with the ugliest topic of all. Elana wore a no-BS look on her attractive face, eyebrows lifted in genuine curiosity. Gloria had no idea why she trusted this woman. But she did. And so she decided to tell her the unvarnished truth. A rare occurrence considering Gloria rarely opened up to anyone, but in Elana she sensed a kindred spirit.
“My father died of a drug overdose when I was twelve. My mother’s recreational use became a daily habit and eventually, because I stopped showing up at school, Children’s Services found out she was unfit and took me away at age sixteen.”
“Foster care?” To her testament, Elana hadn’t flinched.
“Yep. I had three homes over the next year and a half. By then I’d aged out or, well, close enough.”
“Were they abusive, your foster parents?”
Gloria shook her head. “They weren’t. I sensed that they were more interested in the paycheck from the state than in reforming a misbehaving teenager, but that’s fair. I was not a good girl. I’d sneak out at night. I had a lot of boyfriends.”
Elana’s head moved up and down in a subtle nod. Her intense stare was unnerving.
Glo averted her gaze to her hands wrapped around her cooling coffee and tapped the porcelain with her fingernails. There it was. All the ugly. She braced for judgment.
“And you think this makes you unqualified to be with my grandson?”
“Well, it’s not in the plus column,” Glo said with a wry smile.
“Yeah. It is,” she snapped. “Sounds to me like you know exactly what not to do with a child.”
“I’m…sorry?”
Elana sounded almost angry, which threw her.
“What not to do is often more important than what you do,” Elana said. “I bet you would never ignore a child, especially if he was misbehaving. I further wager you’d avoid getting too close unless you knew for sure you were going to be in that child’s life long-term.” She sipped her coffee. “If you’ve been avoiding spending time with Hawk, maybe you should reconsider.”
“I haven’t avoided him,” Gloria said, feeling her face grow warm. She hadn’t exactly been actively seeking a relationship with him, had she? “Not on purpose,” she mumbled.
“You’re nuts about him, aren’t you?” A sly smile played on Elana’s lips.
“Hawk?”
“Well, that’s an eventuality.” Elana waved a hand. “I’m talking about Asher.”
Gloria felt more exposed than when she’d shared her home life. She swept a hand through her hair and licked her lips.
“Out of the boys in your past—the ones who did you wrong and a few who tried to do you right but you pushed away—Asher is the one who’s stuck, isn’t he?” his mother asked. “Stuck in your heart like gum in your hair. Even when you tried to push him away, he stayed, didn’t he?”
“He went back to his life,” Gloria hedged.
“Back to the girls who meant nothing to him,” Elana amended. She rolled her eyes. “Bitches.”
Because the backs of her eyes were burning with an emotion she didn’t want to name, Gloria blew out a laugh to cover.
“How can I say this delicately?” Elana paused, thought, then confessed, “I can’t. So I’ll just say it.” She leaned on her elbows on the small table. “Asher tires of girls very quickly. Always has.”
Awesome.
“But you? He always had a spark in his eye when he mentioned you.”
Maybe more than a spark. I love you, Gloria.
“Then, today…” Elana grinned and sat straight in her chair. “Today, I saw flames. He’s gone for you, gorgeous, so you should prepare for that.”
Wow. This woman didn’t miss a thing.
Elana stood and extended her hand. Gloria looked at it, unsure how to feel about anything she’d said or done. Elana snapped her fingers and Gloria took her hand and stood from her chair. Elana then linked Gloria’s arm with hers. “If you had been my teen, I’d have let you know you were loved. That’s on them, sweetheart. Not you.”
Then she winked and they walked to Elana’s car arm in arm, Gloria biting back the sharp, so-good-it-hurt stab of emotion in the center of her chest. The feeling that someone cared about her.
Someone saw her.
Someone got her.
Finally.
* * *
Tank was hiding beneath the sofa in the studio, clearly uncomfortable with the level of voices, the tension slicing into the air like razor blades. Asher knew this, but he also knew he could tend to his dog later. Right now, he wanted to bash Fonz’s face in.
Broderick and Asher stood on one side of the studio, Shiff and Fonz on the other. Broderick had hold of Asher’s arm, one hand wrapped around his biceps. He was murmuring something like, “Chill, man. Just…let’s take a walk.”
Shiff was standing near Fonz, frowning down at him with such a look of displeasure, he may stop protecting him and let Asher beat his ass after all.
“Couldn’t keep your mouth shut?” Fonz said, eyes on Broderick, fists at his sides.
“Fuck, I didn’t know it was a secret!” Ricky said, his voice climbing. “I thought maybe you and your wife had some kind of open, on-the-road arrangement!”
Asher took his eyes off Fonz to glare over at Broderick. “You don’t let go of me in two seconds, I’m going to beat your ass after I beat Fonz’s.”
Wisely, Ricky let him go.
“You are one to fuckin’ talk,” Fonz barked at Asher. “You get more tail than all of us combined.”
“Not a cheater, Fonz,” Ash said, taking a step forward. Tensions had run high in the studio today, everyone grumpy and worse for it. Finding out this bit of news about a friend he thought he knew, a friend who did the whole family thing and did it well, sent Asher boiling over.
Fonz clamped his teeth, a muscle ticking in his cheek. Ash had him there. Of all the girls he’d had, never did he have one when he was seeing someone. He rarely saw any of them exclusively. Except for Glo.
“You two need to mellow,” Shiff advised.
“I’m not working with this asshole,” Asher stated.
Fonz’s wife, Pam, had been like a sister to the band for a lot of years. She’d trailed along on tours—several of them—until she’d gotten pregnant with Fonz’s first child. And now, after she’d just given birth to kid number two, Fonz decided to get fresh pussy on the road? Unacceptable.
“Get out,” Asher said, giving him a clear path to the door.
“My pleasure.”
“Guys.” This from Ricky, who backed to the studio door, hands raised. “Come on, this has nothing to do with the songwriting, right? This has to do with personal stuff, so let’s shelf that and get to work.”
“Business not pleasure.” Fonz strolled by, cocky glint in his eye. Ash may have let him go, too, if he hadn’t turned to face him and blurted, “Like you could ever keep it in your pants, you fuckin’ hypocrite.”
Asher lunged, then pulled back an elbow and delivered a punch directly into Fonz’s face. On contact, Fonz’s lip split. But he didn’t waste any time whining. He turned on Ash and started swinging. They crashed into the keyboard, turning it over, and Fonz knocked his Fender to the floor, kicking it under the sofa when he scurried to knee Asher in the nuts.
Ash barely moved out of the way. Tank, head down, scurried out from under the sofa to avoid being kicked by either of them, since legs were scrabbling and Asher was currently holding Fonz by the scruff of his shirt.
“Get the dog!” Ash yelled.
Ricky was on it, scooping up Tank and carrying him out of the room.
Asher was aware of a huge shadow leaning over him.
“Swear to God, Shiff,” he yelled. “You don’t let this play out, I’ll tangle with you next.”
“Like to see you try,” Shiff said. “But I respect you, boss. Fonz?”
“I can handle him,” he said, not taking his eyes off Asher.
“On your own.” Shiff left the studio.
Fonz’s glasses had come off. He had Asher by the collar just like Asher had a hold of his. “What’s your plan, Knight?” he asked, voice strained from holding his head off the floor.
“Beat your ass and feel better that justice was served,” he answered between clenched teeth.
“Gonna beat Pam’s ass, too?” A trickle of blood ran from the side of Fonz’s mouth. “She started this shit. That’s why we separated last week.”
Asher felt his face go cold. He loosened his hold the slightest bit.
“Yeah. You didn’t know that, did you? We didn’t want to tell everyone, because it’s completely humiliating to find out your wife is banging your brother and has been for two years.”
Two years.
“Will?” Asher blinked. Fonz’s older brother, Will, was a dick. Pam never liked him, often complained about him. And she’d started sleeping with Will behind Fonz’s back? That raised a whole other set of uncomfortable questions.
“Yeah.” Fonz let go of Ash’s shirt, dropped his head on the ground, and held up his hands in surrender. “Now you know.”
Ash let him go and eased off him. Once he was on his feet, he extended a hand. Fonz slapped it away and pushed himself up, using the bottom of his vintage Aerosmith T-shirt to mop the blood off his chin.
“Your boy?” Ash asked, and Fonz knew just what he meant.
“He’s mine. For sure. She told me the day Thane was born. We’ve been trying to work things out, but she told me she’s in love with Will.” He swiped his lip again, put his hands on his hips, and looked at his shoes.
“Fuck,” Asher breathed.
“That about covers it,” Fonz said.
Asher pulled a hand over his face. He’d gone to blows with one of his best friends over a misunderstanding. There wasn’t much he could say about it except for, “Sorry about the lip.”
Fonz waved him off. “I shoulda said somethin’.”
“Your business.”
“Yeah.”
The studio door popped open and Shiff put his head inside. “Girls are back. You good?”
Ash and Fonz exchanged glances and Fonz gave a chin-bob.
“Good,” Ash agreed.
“You want to tell Shiff and Ricky?” Ash asked Fonz.
“Yeah. I’ll tell ’em.”
Ash left him behind to do just that as Gloria stepped into the living room. All he wanted to do was bury his nose in her hair and hold on tight. It was possible he was having some sort of creative meltdown, and just seeing her made him feel like there was hope.
“Hey,” Gloria greeted.
“Hey,” Ash returned.
“I’m heading home, sweetheart,” his mom said, appearing behind Gloria a second later. She leaned close to whisper something to Gloria. Seeing the two women he loved most on this earth close, and seeing Gloria smile, made his heart squeeze.
“You staying, Sarge?” he asked.
“If you want me to.”
“I want you to,” he said. He did. He needed her here.
His mom came to his side to kiss his cheek. “See you Thursday, kiddo.”
“Later, Mom.” When she left the house, he pointed to the studio. “Gimme a minute?”
“Sure,” Gloria answered.
He nodded and pulled the studio door shut behind him, but not before he gave Gloria a wink that held the promise of more to come later.
Chapter 19
Asher’s minute turned into a half hour, and then a full hour.
Gloria had checked her e-mail, returned a few phone calls, and then gave up on working. Today had been a bust, but only in the business sense. She couldn’t bring herself to regret spending time with Elana.
Gloria and Tank walked the length of the dock. She turned to look over her shoulder toward the house. Night had fallen and the boys were still in there, but none of them were playing instruments, which she found odd.
It looked more like an impromptu therapy session. Fonz sat on the couch, elbows on his knees, while Broderick sat at Shiff’s drums, flipping a drumstick end over end. Shiff stood by the door, arms folded like a sentry, and Asher sat on a high stool, guitar in his lap but not playing.
She felt a little guilty spying, but how could it be considered spying if the room was nothing but windows and they’d left the lights ablaze?
Immediately she thought of last night in that room. How Asher had killed the lights, giving them privacy from…well, no one, actually. Nothing but trees and lake and moon—though tonight it wasn’t full. She couldn’t tell what it was because clouds had swept in, making the orb a fuzzy yellow circle set in black.
She lifted Tank in her arms and carried him down the steps to the beach below. She scrubbed his tiny ears and he licked the underside of her chin, his tail wagging enthusiastically. At least no one could debate she was good with dogs. Once on the shoreline, she released him and he toddled along beside her, no interest in running off.
“Me and you both, pup,” she told him. Where Asher was concerned, weren’t they both at home here in paradise?
And what was she doing here? Waiting around for…what?
A repeat of last night?
