Chapter Six
Clay
Sunday nights, we all head over to Boone’s fancypants house so Ivy can cook us dinner and we can pretend to be a normal family. We gather around the long mahogany table, scrape the dirt off our boots, and try to be polite. Ivy likes polite, and Boone likes whatever Ivy likes. Most nights it ends in chaos, like the time that Gage and Knox pushed Seth’s face in a plate of spaghetti and then a fistfight broke out. Tonight’s pretty quiet, though. I been sippin’ my beer, watching the others as they chat about a weird house Ivy sold this last week, wonderin’ when I should break the news to them that I’m paying my high school sweetheart to have sex with me.
Knox keeps glancing over at me from his side of the table, and I ignore his ass because I’ll speak up when I’m good and ready.
It’s my little brother, Seth, who decides he needs to front me out, though. “You’re quiet tonight, Clay. Ain’t like you.”
“Ain’t it?” I say mildly, playing with my beer bottle.
“Normally you don’t shut the hell up,” he says with a cocky grin.
Knox just smirks and grabs another piece of bread. “This pot roast is bangin’, Ivy.”
“Why, thank you, Knox.” She beams at him and then gives me a concerned look. “They’re right, though. You’re very quiet, Clay. Is anything wrong?”
“Just thinking up baby names,” I tease. It’s a running joke with her and I—I keep coming up with the worst names possible and she keeps shooting ’em down all polite-like. “Read somewhere it’s popular to name the baby after historical figures. Thought Genghis would be a good name.”
Ivy makes a face. “No.”
“Abraham?” I ask. “Or Lincoln?”
“No and no.” She shoots Boone a help-me look, but he just reaches over the table and rubs her belly, all proud.
“Eisenhower?”
“Dumbass, you can’t even spell Eisenhower,” Gage tells me between bites of pot roast. “It’d have to be something easy for you. Like Ford.”
“I like Ford,” I say mildly. “Good truck.”
“I’m not naming the baby after a truck,” Ivy says patiently. “And you’re very good at changing the subject, Clay, but I’m onto you. What’s the matter?”
“Ain’t nothin’ the matter,” I confess, and take another swig of my beer. All of us have bottles in front of us—mostly because you can’t take the country out of the boy—but Ivy’s drinking water. I finish the beer and get to my feet. “Gonna get a refill. Anyone else?”
“Sit down and spill,” Boone tells me. “You’re hidin’ something.”
“Yeah,” Knox says, a sly grin on his face. “You should tell everyone what’s going on.”
Shithead. I rub at my hair, wishin’ I had my hat on so I could hide my eyes. “So, uh, you know how last year Boone bought up all them properties to impress you? ’Cause he had the money to throw around and he figured, why the fuck not?”
Ivy’s brows go up and Boone’s go down. My brother probably thinks I’m gonna say something to piss Ivy off. He’s been all Papa Bear ever since she got pregnant and it don’t take much to set her off.
“Go on,” Ivy says.
“Well, I thought I’d skip buyin’ myself a house and a golf course. I went to my ex-girlfriend’s house and told her I’d pay off her debt if she’d be my personal assistant for a while.” I feel all weird bein’ on my feet and everyone else sitting. Feels all weird to be the one makin’ a big proclamation instead of tryin’ to smooth things over, too. “‘Cept I didn’t really mean assistin’, I meant fuckin’. Anyhow, I’m gonna be throwin’ a few mil her way and just figured if anyone saw her hangin’ around, that was the situation.”
Ivy’s jaw drops.
Gage snickers. Knox just grins into his pot roast.
Seth cocks his head at me, confused. “Dude, hookers are waaay cheaper than that.”
“She ain’t a hooker,” I tell Seth, arms crossed. Though Nat did say the same thing. “She’s an assistant.”
“She gonna assist you into her snatch?” Gage asks slyly. Knox elbows him, smirking at the joke.
I scowl at my brother, because that ain’t funny. They shouldn’t be laughing at Nat. She might be stuck-up and the one that broke my heart, but I won’t tolerate anyone talking shit about her. “Enough.”
Everyone looks surprised at my response. I’m normally the one to laugh off anything, but some things are off-limits. Nat’s mine, even if it’s just to get my revenge on her. And I’m not gonna allow that sort of thing.
“Surely there are better ways to ask a girl out,” Ivy begins, casting a helpless look in Boone’s direction.
“Don’t know, don’t care. This works for me.” I cross my arms over my chest. “What good’s all this money gonna do if it just sits in a bunch of coffee cans buried in the woods?”
“Oh dear,” Ivy says softly. “You bank the same way your brother does.”
Boone just gives me a canny look. “This the one?”
I haven’t mentioned anyone’s name, but Boone knows exactly who I’m talking about. There’s only ever been one ex-girlfriend for me that ever counted. No one before her has a face—and there was no one after her. I just nod.
He rubs his chin. “Good luck. Don’t spend too much on ’er.”
“Boone!” Ivy sounds shocked.
My brother leans over toward his wife. “Now, baby, you know we’re not nice guys. His money, and he’s got more of it than he knows what to do with. Why can’t he spend it the way he wants?”
Ivy’s exasperated sigh echoes in the enormous dining room.
Boone’s got a point, though. It’s been seven years and I ain’t no happier with a shit-ton of money and no Natalie. Might as well give some of that money away and see if I can get Natalie out of my system.
Ruthless, I remind myself. Hold nothing back. Give it everything I’ve got, because you never know when it’s going to be gone.
I’ve fucked around enough. Seven years is entirely too long to wait. Natalie’s gonna be mine. I don’t care how much I have to pay.