Page 1 of Casual Felonies (Wildlings #1)

ANDERS AND OMAR

“Hey, Uncle Anders!”

Oakley, nearly six and a half feet tall and still wet from a raucous game of water volleyball, jogs up with a wide grin.

Anders narrows his eyes at his nephew. Oakley is the eldest of the Wildlings and generally a good egg, but like all Wildlings, he has a mischievous streak.

“Hi, Oak. What’s?—”

Before Anders even finishes his thought, Oakley picks him up in a bridal carry and starts racing for the pool.

“Don’t you dare!”

Oakley, whose eyes are brimming with unbridled glee, cannot be stopped.

“I’m in jeans, Oak!” Anders shouts, but to no avail. “At least let me get changed into?—”

Splash.

Cheers go up around the pool, and the Wildlings pump their fists in the air. Anders is usually the one dunking the kids in Uncle Hendrix’s pool, and revenge is so very sweet. When they break the surface, Oakley is laughing so hard he nearly falls back under .

“You know, you used to be my favorite nephew,” Anders grumps, pulling at the T-shirt material spackled to his body. “I thought you were getting a degree in psychology. Something mature .”

“Oh darn,” Oakley retorts, unfazed. “And my concentration is in applied psychopathy, so…” He shrugs.

The laughter continues around them, but Anders picks up on the one voice he doesn’t hear. His eyes track around the pool, and there’s definitely someone missing.

“Where’s Rami?” he asks, tying his long hair back into a messy bun.

Oakley’s smile drops. “Rami caught Tadrick making out with some girl last night. Turns out, she’s his girlfriend, and they’ve been going out since middle school.”

Anders’ jaw clenches. He never liked that guy to begin with. Omar says he can’t murder their son’s shitty boyfriends, but he intends to see if an exception can be made.

While Rami is crazy smart and super mature for his age, he’s younger than all his university classmates, having handily passed his GED before most kids his age had gone to high school. He also tested out of all of his pre-reqs, even calculus, and is nearly at the end of his master’s program.

It’s easy to forget that he’s barely nineteen and doesn’t know yet how cruel the world can be, especially in matters of the heart.

“Where is he?” Anders asks, wondering if Omar would let him break their rule about not terrifying the people their children date.

Oak thumbs a gesture behind him. “He’s been hiding out in the pool house.” He lifts his wide shoulders. “I took one of Uncle Sawyer’s burgers to him, but he said he wasn’t hungry.”

Anders clamps his hand on one of Oakley’s massive arms. “Thanks for looking out for him, man. ”

“Oh, you know how it is with us Wildlings, Uncle A. We take care of each other.”

Anders, in his sopping wet clothes, makes his way out of the pool, ignoring the jeers and laughs. Omar walks over with a towel and a poorly concealed grin.

“Oh, shut up,” Anders says, taking the towel from his beloved.

“Oakley said he wanted to push you into the pool, but I didn’t know he was gonna do all of that.”

Anders stops drying himself to glare at his darling husband. “You knew he was gonna do that and didn’t save me?”

“What? And miss that shocked look on your face when he jumped in the pool with you?” Omar responds, hilariously imitating said look. “Absolutely not. These are the moments a good marriage is made of.”

“You know I’m going to take that out on your ass later, right?”

Omar winks. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

Anders’ expression shifts.

“Habibi? What’s going on?”

“It’s Rami,” Anders responds, shaking his head. “Oak said that his boyfriend—who I never liked—already has a girlfriend.”

Omar’s face falls. “Oh no. Rami was so painfully in love with him.”

“I know ,” Anders says, his voice gone rough. He fucking hates knowing how devastated Rami must be.

“I tried to talk to him about that boy,” Omar says, shaking his head. “Tried to tell him to slow it down a little, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“I swear, he is the least wild of all the Wildlings, and he’s still obstinate as fuck.”

Omar snorts. “No idea where he got that from.”

They walk to the little changing screen by the outdoor shower and Omar grins as Anders struggles, getting hemmed up in the wet material.

“I could help you with that.”

Anders finally rips the T-shirt over his head, revealing his pretty muscles. Omar drags his fingers across the abs he came all over this morning. Anders grunts and steps away.

“Stop ‘helping.’ I need to check on our son, and I cannot do that with a boner,” he says, unzipping his jeans, which are unpleasantly heavy, like wet papier-maché.

“Good point.” Omar pauses, biting his upper lip. “Do you think he’s going to be okay?”

“Of course he’s going to be okay,” Anders grumps, finally shoving the clinging material down past his sculpted ass, then knees, until he’s able to step out of the pool of denim, totally commando. Accepting the swim shorts from his husband, he continues, “But I think it’s going to be a while.”

Rami has a one-track mind, which is a blessing and a curse.

“Since he’s on break from school, maybe we can get him involved in something that’ll keep his mind off things,” Omar suggests. “Maybe this is as good a time as any for him to explore the charities he’d like to help with his trust-fund money.”

Anders nods, pulling up his shorts. “Not a bad idea.”

“Do you want me to talk to him?” Omar asks. “Now might not be the time for the full Anders-as-protective-Dad experience.”

Anders shakes his head. “You’re the more levelheaded one, but I’m the one who’s had his heart broken.”

Omar reluctantly agrees, then kisses his husband’s cheek. “I’m blessed to have a man who would never break my heart.”

Anders’ throat goes a little raw, and he steps in for a quick kiss. “Never, my love.”

They kiss again and then separate. Anders follows the stone path to the pool house, which is surrounded by Texas-native trees and plants—a small modern oasis set back from the hustle and bustle of the main house.

The side and front walls are made of a thick, solid glass, but the drapes have been pulled across the pretty view.

“Knock, knock,” Anders says, rapping gently on the door.

“You don’t have to say knock, knock when you are, in fact, knocking,” Rami calls out, his voice rough.

Anders is pretty sure he hears an affectionate dork as he opens the door, but he doesn’t rise to the bait.

Instead, he enters the pool house, which is dark save for a small lamp on a side table.

Making his way through the shadowed room, he sits down on the couch next to Rami, who’s curled up on his side.

“I take it you heard about Tadrick,” Rami mutters.

Anders places his large hand on his son’s ankle. “I did. You didn’t deserve that, and I’m sorry this happened to you, son.”

Rami doesn’t respond, and Anders realizes he’s trying to hide his tears.

“Rahm, if I could get away with it, I would do everything in my power to make that chump miserable. Really fucking miserable,” Anders says, and he’s a guy who knows about inflicting pain. Rami’s never seen that side of his father, though, so Anders does what he can to keep a lid on it.

“And I’d let you do it,” his son answers, voice tight with grief. “Egg his precious car and sign him up for Bible study visits while you’re at it.”

Ah, sweet summer child. That’s not even in the same universe as what Anders is willing and capable of when it comes to those who would harm his children.

Anders pushes those thoughts aside—again—as Rami’s breath catches and his body folds farther in on itself.

Anders gently brushes his hand up and down Rami’s back the way he did when he was upset as a kid.

Perpetually nostalgic for the time his kids regularly looked to him for answers, Anders frequently complains to Omar that they’d done too good a job of raising their children to be independent.

“They don’t need us anymore.”

“Habibi, they will always need us.”

Omar, as usual, was right.

After a while, Rami’s sobs die down, and he sits up, sniffling as he wipes his eyes. “Sorry, Dad.”

Anders shakes his head. “No, son. Never be sorry for your emotions. This is a shitty thing that happened, and you’d have to be a robot not to cry. I know you felt deeply for Tadrick.”

Anders congratulates himself for not calling him Tadpole, like he does mentally every time the name comes up.

“I was so in love with him,” Rami says, a few more tears slipping down his cheeks. “I thought he was my forever.”

“I’m glad you got to feel that kind of love, son, even if this was the result.” Anders lets out a knowing sigh. “It just means you’ll know this kind of love is possible for you when you find the right guy.”

“Yeah, no .” Rami sniffs. “I never want to go through that again.”

“You’re right, son. Now is not the time to worry about some new guy.”

“No, Dad.” Rami shakes his head in that determined way of his. “I am never falling in love again. Fuck that .”

“Son, I get that you’re a member of the one-and-done generation, but you’re also a Bash.

Sorry to say…we love big. And sometimes that means we run straight for the wrong person.

” Anders laughs at a memory. “I know I did when I was your age. Had my heart broken by a girl named Sandra Brody. She didn’t want to go to college while still chained to her high school boyfriend, and I think I cried the whole summer over her. ”

“How did you get over her?”

“I fucked her brother,” Anders says, always a little too honest with his sexual history. He grins at Rami’s muttered, “ God, Dad. ”

Rami snorts through his tears, then asks, “Why does that not surprise me?”

“Not all bisexuals are vengeful,” Anders responds sagely. “But all vengeful people are bisexual.”

That’s not true, of course, but Rami’s laugh, one of his dad’s favorite sounds in the world, rings throughout the small pool house, and Anders is grateful for the break in the heavy emotions.

Rami, still snort-laughing, tilts to his side, falling against his dad. Anders may be the goofy one, but he’s also the one who bandaged Rami’s scrapes, taught him to be bold, and showed him how to defend himself when necessary.

Both Rami and Maya always say they’re lucky to have two amazing dads, and Anders believes they mean it.

It never seems to be about the money either.

The kids just love them, like maybe he and Omar have done something right after all.

Rami sniffles again, and Anders reaches behind the couch to snag the tissue box off the credenza.

“If you’re feeling up to it, why don’t we join everyone else and enjoy our family today?” he suggests as Rami blows his nose. “And then on Saturday, maybe lets you and I volunteer at the queer kids camp they have going on at Windy Point. Sound good?”

Rami stands and stretches, as if maybe he’d been curled up in a ball a bit too long. “That might be good, Dad. They’ll get to see what a great parent looks like.”

“And they’ll get to see what it’s like to have such an amazing son.” Anders stands and brings Rami into a warm hug. “I’m so proud of the man you’re becoming. I know you’ll get past this, and it’ll open your heart to the right person for you.”

Rami makes the appropriate, agreeable-sounding noises, but Anders worries he’s just mollifying his old man. He hates to see his son hurting this much and knows Rami judges himself for not being able to just get over the pain he feels.

As they make their way into the sunshine, Anders sends a small prayer to the god of broken hearts that his son will find the kind of love he deserves.