16. Meet the Parents - Cash
Jules can barely look at me. The clinking of silver on china and the polite, hushed conversation does little to cut through the tension between us. I pray to God no one else picks up on it. She’s sitting next to my brother across the table from me, unusually quiet and subdued. I don’t like her this way, with the warmth in her brown eyes gone and the smile I adore absent from her lips. She’s far too interested in the grilled halibut on her plate.
I can’t keep my attention from straying to her every few seconds. Hell, she looks amazing tonight with the sky lit up behind her in soft pink and orange hues. The light breeze coming off Union Bay is rustling through all of that luscious, wavy hair falling around her face. And the neckline on that little black dress…Jesus. It’s modest by most standards, but it doesn’t take much to get my dick hard when it comes to Jules, and that’s exactly what the hint of her cleavage is doing to me right now.
“You have a beautiful home,” she tells my mother. “The view is amazing.”
I have to agree with her, but it’s not the expanse of green lawn or the water I find so alluring, nor the willow tree off to the side of the patio where the eight of us are seated for dinner. If anything is beautiful here, it’s Jules.
“Thank you,” my mother says. “So how long have you worked for my son?”
And that’s when she finally meets my eyes. It’s a blip in time—insignificant to anyone watching—but to me it’s everything. To me it’s reassurance that what we feel is still there, despite the fact that she’s sitting next to my brother as his date.
“Just a few weeks,” she answers.
“Speaking of the company,” my father-in-law says, “are we any closer to becoming grandparents?” Ned Blake’s voice is deep and gruff, and his question throws me completely off guard. Monica freezes at my side, and I catch her shooting daggers at her father.
“You’ll be among the first to know,” I say, slicing a metaphorical knife through the tension his intrusive question brought on.
“Better get busy, son,” Ned says. “Never too soon to begin planning for the future of MontBlake.”
Monica scoots her chair back on the brick patio. “Please, excuse me for a moment.”
The disquiet that emerges as she disappears into the house is staggering.
“Ned, please. This isn’t the time or place.” Veronica Blake is without a doubt the mother of my wife. The woman is staring down her husband with the same cold, calculated look I find in Monica’s eyes everyday.
“It’s not like we see them often enough to have this conversation, Roni.”
What the Blakes—or my parents, for that matter—don’t know is that Monica doesn’t want kids right now. Shortly after we married, I discovered she was taking birth control pills. I didn’t understand her need for secrecy at the time, but as the months wore on, it became clear to me. She couldn’t handle the pressure our families put on us, and it was easier to take the pills in secret than deal with their disapproval.
Ever the mediator, my mother clears her throat before addressing Kaden. “How did you and Jules meet?”
“We met at the club. Her friend is in a band.” The carefree smile he aims at Jules digs under my skin. “You’re going to be there next weekend when they play, right?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.” She returns his smile, and I want to stab someone. I don’t like her looking at him like that; it’s too close to the way she looks at me.
“Still wasting time on that dead-end venture, I see.” Dad’s voice is sharp and scathing, putting everyone on alert. “When are you going to sell that hole in the wall and come work for MontBlake? There’s still time to do something worthwhile with your life.”
“The corporate world isn’t for me,” Kaden says. “You already know this.”
“I refuse to believe it. Thirty-years-old and you’ve got nothing to show for it but a night club. Look at what Cash has accomplished.”
Jesus. Here we go again. I pinch the bridge of my nose, irritated on Kaden’s behalf. He might be sitting next to the one woman I’d give my right arm to be with, but he’s still my brother.
“Sure, Dad. Cash looks really happy with all of that responsibility on his shoulders. It must suck to work so fucking hard to live up to your unreasonable expectations.”
“Kaden!”
“Sorry, Mom. Just keeping it real.”
“You know what you lack?” Dad says, wagging his finger at my brother.
“I’m sure you’re gonna tell me.”
“Initiative.”
“How do I lack initiative? I own my own business. And business has been good, I’ll have you know. I don’t answer to anyone, and that’s the way I like it.”
“You’re thirty-years-old, Kaden. It’s time to stop throwing your life away. You’ll never find a suitable wife at this rate.”
“You mean like Cash has? Again, case in point,” he says, gesturing to the doors Monica disappeared through. “Where’s his wife now? Oh, that’s right. She’s the only smart one here, since she bolted before the usual vitriol began.” Rising to his feet, Kaden throws his fork down. “Let’s go, Jules. I’m sorry I made you sit through this bullshit. I was stupid to think we could get through one fucking dinner without going to war.”
She slowly stands, pink tinting her cheeks. And no matter how hard I try to catch her eye, she refuses to look at me.
“Kaden, it’s your birthday,” Mom says. “Don’t leave.”
“Sorry, Mom, but I can’t do this.” As my brother and Jules head for the door, she finally glances at me, and it makes me crazy that I can’t read her expression, especially since her face is usually an open book.
The silence hanging over the table in their wake is crushing.
“Thank God for Cash and Monica,” my father says. “Those two are going to do amazing things at MontBlake.”
The slam of a car door echoes through the night. A few seconds later, an engine roars to life. Unable to take it any longer, I push back my chair and stand. “Since you think everything is so perfect, maybe you should know that Monica is cheating on me.”
My mother gasps, and Jed Blake’s face flushes with outrage. But the shocking revelation doesn’t seem to faze my father.
“Well man-up and put a stop to it.”
I take in each person at the table. Ned with his immovable disposition, and Roni with her icy blue-eyed indifference. My dad and his superiority and pig-headed know-it-all nature. My mom is the only one I feel bad for, because she’s too kind-spirited to handle the bullshit Ned and my father put her through.
The shit they’ve put us all through for years.
“I don’t even know why I try anymore,” I say. “Our marriage is crumbling. Monica sure as hell isn’t happy. I’m not either. In fact, I don’t see a single person at this table who looks happy right now.”
As my mother covers her mouth with a trembling hand, my father rises. “If something’s broken, you fix it,” he says, his voice reverberating like a clap of thunder. Slamming his palms onto the table, he stares me down. “Do you hear me? Fix it, Cash.”
“Got it, Dad. Loud and clear.”
“MontBlake can’t afford bad publicity, especially so soon after the merger. So make it right.”
My gut is roiling with fury, but I hold it in. Blowing a gasket in front of my father will accomplish nothing. He’s set in his ways more than ever and refuses to address the real problem.
The only thing that needs fixing is the pathetic state of our family.