Page 84 of Lavish

God, she felt good in my arms. Familiar. Right. Like she belonged there. It felt how it used to be, before all the world fell apart. Damn. Each day I wished things were like how itusedto be.

I was a damn fool for wanting more.

Because wanting her meant risking it all again. Trust. Control. Love.

And love…love got you gutted.

Should I do what Victor wanted? I tossed it around in my head. But what would that mean for us? My family had suffered enough. I was hesitant to tell them, but needed advice.

I went out back, and the sun cast long shadows on the cracked patio. Pops was sitting with his back to me, eating breakfast. He rhythmically tapped his wheelchair, gazing distantly.

“How you doin’, old man?”

He turned, frowning. “Came to check on me, huh? How’s the wife? What happened to your eye? She did that?”

“She’s fine. I just got into a little fight.”

“Little fight?”

Grabbing a piece of toast, its crust giving way with a satisfying crunch, I plopped into the chair opposite him, observing him closely. Pops looked worn and weary. The sun had kissed his bald brown head with a scattering of freckles, and his once-black beard was now largely white. Deep lines and shadows marred his face. He looked older than his fifties.

“You been talking to Vincent? Or Yvonne?” I couldn’t look at him when I said it, but I knew he’d catch the weight of it. Vincent. The man who had been more of a brother to him than a business partner. “Dante come back with any other back-door tricks he wants us to turn like we hookers on the street?”

Pops shifted in his seat, his jaw clenching.

“Thank fucking God,no,” Pops muttered, shaking his head, his voice lowering. “Remember, we’re only worried about covering our asses. You not getting sucked too much into the marriage, are you?”

How could I not? I was living with Serena. The only woman outside of my mother I ever loved.

“No.” I shook my head. “I know the game.”

“Your mom said when she went to the store with Drill Sergeant Teagues, it was better.” Pops grunted, reaching for his orange juice.

“Better?”

I remembered when Pops began acting strange. It was a few weeks after Gramps’s funeral. He used to be up by 6:30 sharp. After Gramps died, some mornings he didn’t come out of his room till noon—or not at all. I thought it was just normal stress. Staying at the office late. Coming in during the early morning. Not eating dinner with us. Phone calls at all hours of the night.

That was business, right?

“They let her into the store?” I asked. Last time she went to the grocery store in town, they “closed early for inventory.”

After the Kings’ soirée six years ago, things went to a fucked-up place.

At first, when Ma or I would call to hang out with our friends, people just said they were “busy.” Then they stopped saying anything at all. The Whitmore name disappeared from charity committee rosters. Then we stopped getting cc’d on event invites—no more ladies’ brunches for Ma, no more community real estate mixers for Pops.

“She said they were able to shop, easy as pie.”

“So…we’re back in?” I said.

Pops shook his head. “Nah. Don’t jump the gun. It’s tentative. These fuckers will turn on us again like that—” Pops snapped his fingers. “The moment Queen Yvonne says so.”

“Yvonne’s a lot of things, but she’s not gonna risk her family’s reputation just to spite you or Dante.”

“You don’t know her like I do.”

Pops’s and Yvonne’s fathers were best friends so they’d grown up together like siblings. In the photos he hadn’t cut up or burned, they were kids with big smiles and skinned knees.

I shook my head. “We just need to focus on us.”