I POPPED THE TRUNK OF the waiting taxi when we got out of the airport and swung both our suitcases inside. By that time, I was fairly sober. And by “fairly sober,” I mean I could distinguish faces, colors, and large shapes. Good enough for my parents, so Rosie had to make do with that shit, too.
Twisting my head to check on her for the first time since I’d boarded the plane, I drank her in. I was out of it most of the flight. Not that it mattered. Baby LeBlanc wouldn’t have talked to me if I were the last person capable of speaking on planet Earth.
But that was then and this was now, and now she looked like she had a lot to say to me.
I slammed the trunk, leaned against it—the fuckwit taxi driver was inside talking to his wife on the phone in decibels more fitted for a Broadway show—and folded my arms, waiting for her to pour her sweet wrath on me.
“Should I pay a visit to Mommy Cole? Tell her that her son has a drinking problem?” She frowned, peppering the question with a little cough. It was adorable. Baby LeBlanc didn’t even know my mother, let alone have the power or authority to talk to her. I tugged at her ponytail as I bypassed her, opening the door to the backseat and tilting my chin for her to hop in. She did. I rounded the vehicle and got into the seat next to her.
“My drinking isn’t a problem. It’s when I’m not drinking that things start to get fucked up.” I pressed my knees into the driver’s seat on purpose. I was too tall and too big for this car, and the fucker deserved it anyway. He hadn’t shut up since we got in, barely taking a breath to ask where we were heading.
She pulled out a lip moisturizer and dabbed her finger into it, patting her lips. The sweet scent of cotton candy filled the backseat. I wanted to lick the shiny gloss off her finger, then shove it into her skinny jeans, watch her finger herself with my saliva all over it. She was talking to me now. Fuck if I had any idea what she was saying. I blinked, trying to refocus.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, Dean, but I’m worried about you.”
“Funny shit, because I’m worried about you.” I ran my fingers through my hair, knowing damn well it made her thighs press together. “Worried you can’t resist me for much longer.”
“You live too hard.” She disregarded my comeback, which I loved about her. She never took the bait. But she was going to. Eventually, she was going to succumb to the pressure I was putting on her ever since she broke up with Dr. Dickface. Because giving up was not in my dictionary. When I wanted something, I took it. And I fucking wanted her. A lot.
“You don’t live at all,” I retorted. “That cruise-control shit that you put your life on? Sleep, work, volunteer, repeat? I’m putting an end to it soon.”
She turned her head to look at me and swallowed. I pretended to look ahead, giving her the time to remember she liked what she saw. Luring her into a web. Waiting for her to get tangled before I devoured my prey.
Easing into my seat—we had a forty-minute journey to Todos Santos—I declared my intentions. Only fair to keep her posted on the plan.
“Just so you know, Baby LeBlanc, I am going to fuck you sometime soon,” I said flatly, not giving a damn that her eyes bulged out and her mouth dropped, nor giving a fuck that the driver had stopped talking loudly and now glared at us through the rearview mirror with intent interest. “It may not be this week—it may not even be this month, but it will happen. And once it does, you’ll have to face your fears and tell your saint sister that we are together, or I will. Because once I fuck you, no one else will be enough for you. Ever. Again. So I’m just going to tell you right here and now, you’re welcome to my dick anytime you want, any hour of the day. I see us as a long-term thing, so it’s important to me to keep you happy.”
“Duly noted, Mr. Delusional.”
“Glad we got that all sorted, Miss Soon-to-be-in-My-Bed.”
What makes you feel alive?
Familiar scent. Of my bed sheets, perfume, and first breaths in the morning. Of the faint sweat when the first sun rays graze my flesh. The scent of home.
He always made me feel played.
It wasn’t the fact that he wanted to sleep with me. I was the queen of throwaway, short-term relationships. Knowing you can’t have anything more would do that to you. I didn’t do relationships, just like Dean.
He was my sister’s ex-boyfriend and my first love. These two facts should never be connected. Hell, they had no place being in the same sentence together.
That didn’t make them any less true.
My loyalty to my sister—who worked two jobs to support us so I could unclaw myself from my parents’ suffocating grip and live in New York—was stronger than my need to steal the warmth of his body. Anyway, even if he wasn’t Millie’s, I had a strict no-boyfriend policy, and a guy like Dean was bound to steal my heart. In fact, there was a small part of it he still hadn’t given me back.
A tiny, ageless housekeeper opened the door to Vicious and Millie’s mansion and ushered me in. I washed my face in one of the first floor’s many bathrooms and gave myself a pep talk in front of the mirror.
You’re fine. You’re an adult. You’re in charge. Don’t let them baby you.
Then I made myself known by walking through the foyer of the Italian villa my sister had purchased with her husband-to-be recently.
I passed golden-hued hallways, rounded arches, and grand, dripping chandeliers, walking past the maid’s quarter—I guess Millie and Vicious were kind enough to let their “help” sleep under the same roof, a courtesy my family wasn’t offered when my parents worked for the Spencers—before finally reaching the drawing room. I scanned the infinite space, digging my cold fingers into the back of the silky Victorian sofa. The only reason I got this far in the mansion without being noticed was because it was the size of the Louvre.
My sister and I were both humble creatures—born and raised to find joy in non-materialistic things—and still, even I could admit that living in such a place would bring you naked, unsolicited joy. It was airy, beautiful, and romantic.
Just like Emilia.
I tilted my head slowly, taking everything in. Up until a few months ago, Millie, Vicious, and my parents all lived in Los Angeles, in the same luxurious duplex. When Vicious and Millie had decided to nest in the suburban haven that was Todos Santos and purchased this house, my parents jumped on the opportunity to stay close to their elder daughter and took up a room here. I say a room, but really, they had their own bathroom, living room, and I heard they had two kitchens here. It was hardly going to be crowded.
I loved my life in New York. The urban filth, the boiling sewers, and diverse faces. I loved my independence—clung to it like it was air, knowing how smothering life with my parents could be—but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a black dagger twisting into my heart.
“There you are!” my sister bellowed, making me turn around on my heels. I slouched against her sofa’s hardwood headrest, grinning ear to ear.
She looked different. Good different.
She was no longer scrawny, her eyes weren’t sunken in, and her pink-purple hair looked luscious and flawless—roots to tips. She wore a white A-line shaped dress sprinkled with red cherries, pairing it with strappy blue sandals that made no sense at all, unless you were Emilia LeBlanc.
“Oh, Rosie,” she said when I threw myself on her, making us both stumble backwards as I smothered her with my love. “I’ve missed you like a limb. Does that even make sense?” She peeled me off of her for a second so she could examine my face, caressing my cheek. Her huge, pink diamond ring sparkled so bright, I was momentarily blinded by the sunlight reflected through the rare twenty-one-carat stone.
I should have been jealous.
Jealous of her engagement and house and fiancé and proximity to our parents. Jealous of her health. Jealous because she had so much, because I had so little.
Swanky Italian villa or not, she deserved it. And no, it wasn’t weird that she’d missed me like a limb, because I’d missed her like a lung. Bitch got me addicted fresh from the womb. She had the talent of taking care of me without making me feel like a burden, something Mama never managed to excel.
Millie smiled, holding my shoulders and scanning me, doing the usual inventory.
“You look too good,” I complained, scrunching my nose. “I hate it when you set the bar too high. You always do.”
She pinched my shoulder and laughed. “Where’s your boyfriend? Thought he’d be coming with you?”
For a reason beyond logic, I found myself blushing as Dean crossed my mind. Millie, of course, was talking about Darren. I never bothered to tell my family we broke up. Millie had enough on her wedding-planning plate without me dumping the breakup into the mix. The plan was to tell them tonight, but I was going to use any excuse to postpone the inevitable. I would rather get a dental treatment from a mechanic than break it to my parents.
“I wanted to spend some time with my family, one on one.” I plastered on a smile. She quirked her eyebrow, silently calling me on my bullshit, and smoothed my light brown hair with her palm.
“I still can’t believe you have a boyfriend,” she mused. “I thought you’d never settle down.”
“Well, I’m getting old. Twenty-eight is like sixty-five in cystic fibrosis years.” I shrugged. “We’ll revisit this subject at dinner.”
Where I will crush your hearts and tell you Darren is no longer in the picture.
She nudged me toward the hallway with a snort.
“Mama is waiting for you. She’s in the kitchen, making a casserole.”
My favorite dish. A zing of warmth slashed through my belly. She remembered.
There was hardly any resemblance to the way my parents treated Millie and me. They respected, admired, and consulted with my older sister, whereas I was babied, smothered, and treated like a cracked egg that was about to spill at any minute. Daddy was a trillion times better than Mama, though. He, at least, adored my snarky personality and cheered for me finding my independence in New York. Mama was too busy worrying about my health, she didn’t have time to fully get to know me, to fall in love with the person I was. Always in full-blown mama bear mode, without taking a second to get to know her cub.
To her, I was the token sick child, the punk, the rascal. The silly girl who risked her life to work at a stupid café in New York instead of opting to live close to her family. The girl who never settled down with a nice boy.
Because Vicious is such a nice boy.
That was the second reason why my family was oblivious to my breaking up with Darren. Dating a doctor meant that they got off my case after Millie moved to Los Angeles. Admittedly, it was part of Darren’s charm. His—unbeknownst to him—ability to keep my parents from drilling in my ear about coming back to California and living under their roof like a sad, introvert bubble boy.
I wasn’t a bubble boy. I was a music-buff pixie who made a mean cup of coffee, read Vice magazine, made anxious mothers to premature newborns laugh, and was always up for a good party. I was a person. With traits and ideas.
But in Todos Santos, I never felt this way.
“Is Daddy around?” I played with Millie’s electric hair as we started our way to the kitchen.
“Went downtown with Vic.” She ushered me forward. A mouthwatering aroma of earthy vegetables, cinnamon, and succulent meat wafted in the air. “I needed a few things from Walgreens. They’ll be back in a few.”
In the kitchen, the anticlimactic meeting with Mama had reminded me why I packed a bag and moved to the other side of the country as soon as I graduated from high school. She hugged me, patted my cheeks, and asked me when Darren was coming, making me feel like a consolation prize.
I opened my mouth, ready to spill the beans then and there, but Mama interjected before I could form any words, telling me that she was proud of me, that she was so happy that I ‘finally found a respectable man to settle down with.’
Go on and just say it, I wanted to bite out. Not anyone is noble enough to sacrifice so much for a sick girl.
“I reckon he’s mighty busy. Hope you aren’t giving him a hard time for it, Rosie. I’m just glad he can make it at all.” Mama patted my cheek a little too hard, her heavy chest rising and falling to the rhythm of her breaths. Mama was a big woman, with big brown hair, big blue eyes, and big everything else. Ever since I could remember, she had a thin layer of sweat coating her smooth skin. I used to love feeling it stick to my flesh as I hugged her.
“Well…” I cleared my throat. I should get it over with. Peel it off like a Band-Aid. “Actually…”
“Can’t wait to meet the boy. I even bought a new dress. First impressions are everything. I have a feeling about this one, Rosie.” She dangled her finger in my face. “You’ve been living together for a while now, and he knows your situation with…”
I knew exactly with what. Ever since I told my family about that situation a year ago, shortly before Millie had left, they started treating me like an old arthritic dog with bladder issues.
Darren was supposed to arrive on the same weekend of the wedding. He thought that, by then, we could also break it to my family that we were next in line.
He thought wrong.
Mama buying herself a new dress for their meeting meant she was no less than ecstatic. Her usual attire didn’t exactly give Carrie Bradshaw a run for her money. I let her soak in faux bliss, saving the bombshell for when I wasn’t sleep-deprived and slightly jet-lagged.
Living in New York meant that I called the shots and cherry-picked the information I shared with my family. My parents and sister had no way of knowing I broke up with my boyfriend. No one could tell them.
Other than Dean Cole.
I made a mental note to fire Dean a text about keeping his pipe shut.
“So, Rosie, how’s work?” Mama asked through the background noise of a lively kitchen, pulling the casserole out of the oven with her flowery mitts. The scent of beef, onion, and fat egg noodles floated throughout the room, crawling into my nose and making my stomach growl. Millie licked her lips, gazing at the dish like it was Jamie Dornan. She didn’t normally like casseroles, but maybe she had realized how fundamentally wrong she was, because Mama’s casseroles were the eighth wonder of the world. I was just about to answer Mama’s question when she cut me off. Again.
“My sweet girl, are you hungry? Have a seat. I’ll give you a piece right now.” She patted my older sister’s back. I clamped my mouth shut, waiting to see if she’d prompt me to answer her previous question. If she really gave a damn about my job.
Mama ran from corner to corner, fixing Millie a plate while I stood there, arms folded, watching the scene. Charlene LeBlanc was an old-school Southern belle, down to her very core, and catering to people—especially her children—ran in her blood, thick and vital like oxygen. But there was something else there. The urgency in which she fed Millie, like my sister was incapable, or alternatively, had lost all her teeth.
“Rosie? Would you like some, too?” She glanced behind her shoulder as she opened the fridge, taking out a pitcher of her signature homemade iced tea. Peach pieces floated lazily on top, and drool pooled in my mouth.
I wanted both, but to my surprise, heard myself saying, “No, thank you.”
Mama turned around and brushed Millie’s lavender hair away from her forehead. “Is the casserole good for you? I know that it’s your favorite.”
Millie nodded, taking another bite, and my insides just about detonated.
“Actually,” I opened the fridge, making myself at home—not that Mama had made me feel particularly welcome—“Millie’s favorite food is your pulled pork sandwiches. Noodle and beef casserole is my favorite.” I plucked a beer bottle from one of the doors—of course, the fridge was a double-door and about as spacious as our previous Sunnyside apartment. Twisting the bottle cap, I took a swig. It was still early to be drinking, but I guess it was five o’clock somewhere in the universe. Wherever it was, that was where I wanted to be.
My sister and Mama stared at me through a curtain of sheer surprise, Millie’s mouth still stuffed with food. I wished she’d wash it down with the iced tea I loved so much—Millie never liked iced tea, she was more into Coke—so I wouldn’t have to see the confusion swimming in her eyes.
“I’m sorry.” I put the bottle to my lips and waved a dismissive hand. “Long, bumpy flight with Dean Cole as a companion. I think I’m going to take my sour butt upstairs, if you don’t mind.”
Millie got to her feet. “I’ll show you to your room,” she volunteered. “It’s really pretty. I even bought and hung up all your favorite bands’ posters. Let me get your suitcase,” she added, and guilt immediately slammed into my gut for orchestrating that little scene to piss Mama off.
“You will do no such thing.” Mama’s voice was steel, and it cut through my nerves, leaving a burn. “I’ll get the suitcase. Meet you girls upstairs.”
I followed Millie up the stairs, head hanging in shame. The silence was so loud, it bounced off the walls. They were all getting along fine before I got there.
Knowing that I had the tendency to make things stressful—with my illness, my attitude, and my general existence—I vowed to lower my head and get out of their way for the remainder of my stay. Truth be told, it was one of the reasons I didn’t want to come here earlier.
Wanting to make conversation, I asked my older sister, “So what’s up with Mama acting like you’re a six-year-old and force-feeding you all of a sudden?”
“Nothing is up,” Millie chirped, gesturing with her hands to random pictures hanging on the walls and statues in the corners of the airy hallways. “You know Mama. She’s a feeder, a nester, and a worrier.”
“True, but she never had a problem with you doing my heavy lifting,” I pressed. Millie’s laughter was foreign on her lips.
“She’s been acting like I’m made out of cotton ever since I got engaged. She wants everything to be perfect. Brides don’t look too good with a giant gash on their heads or an arm in a cast.”
I dropped the subject, mainly because I was too tired to dig deeper into it, and partly because I had enough to worry about. I needed to make last-minute changes to her bachelorette party, and I still had to break the Darren news over dinner.
“I’m really happy that you’re here.” She rubbed my arm, we were both small women, but I was tiny. It felt fitting that I was pocket-size, especially as I felt that way whenever Mama was around. “I know you’re busy. You’ve got your life in New York, and I want you to know that I appreciate you coming here. So, so much, Rosie-bug.”
We talked some more before she retreated back to the kitchen. The minute I was alone, I flung my body onto the queen-sized mattress with dozens of fluffy pillows, fished my phone out of the back pocket of my bleached denim skirt, and wrote Dean a message. The first text message I’d ever sent him.
Rosie
Parents and sister don’t know I broke up with Darren. Please don’t say a word. Telling them tonight.
He replied within seconds.
Dean
Shit. Need to cancel that press release I scheduled. That bad over there?
It felt good to be asked a question, knowing he was actually waiting for an answer.
Rosie
The usual LeBlanc shenanigans. You?
Dean
Wolfing down a sandwich while listening to Mom’s town gossip about the new lawn regulations. Living the dream. Call if you need saving.
Rosie
You’re not my superman.
Dean
I’m whatever you need me to be.
Rosie
That was so cheesy, you actually gave me the munchies.
Dean
Funny you should mention munchies, I’m just thinking about how a certain body part of yours would be so much more delicious than my sandwich.
I snorted out an unattractive laugh as my head hit the pillow, then closed my eyes. Sleep came, and so did I, numerous times. In my dreams. My co-star? Dean ‘Ruckus’ Cole.
Dammit.