Ruckus

“Knight!” I call out for him, and he looks up, the black marker clutched in his small fist.

Oh, fuck.

It doesn’t look like a marker. It looks like a Sharpie.

“Come here, please.” I nod toward the corner where Jaime, Vicious, Trent, and I are standing. Luna is clasping Trent’s leg like an anchor. Her gray-green eyes are wide and exploring, and she is wearing a black top, black jeans, and black Chucks.

She never leaves her father’s side.

Knight sashays toward us, swinging his arms next to his body in an exaggerated way. We’re celebrating his fourth birthday today, and all of his pre-school friends are here. Trent’s flipping steaks and burgers, there’s a hot dog stand by the giant pool, a clown, a magician, and a cotton candy machine. Only the best for my son.

I know, I know, he’s mine and I’m biased, blah, blah, blah, but I swear, this kid is something special. My wife and I knew that the minute we saw him.

“He was born on August eighteenth,” the woman at the adoption agency stated when she slid a picture of him across her desk three years ago. We came to see her right after our shotgun wedding in Vegas. My wife and I exchanged an unreadable look before we burst out laughing. That was the date we slept together for the first time. August eighteenth. Fate has a twisted sense of humor like that.

Knight looks just like me, even though he didn’t come from me. But his hair is ash brown, his eyes jade green. He is twice as tall as kids his age. Well, other than Vaughn, Vicious and Emilia’s son.

Knight (my better half called him that because he came to save the day) stands in front of me, waiting for the inevitable Spanish Inquisition.

“What did you do to Daria?” I ask, kneeling down to his eye level. Daria is two years older than Knight. She should be the one bossing him around, not the other way. But I guess it is in our blood to raise little hell-raiser, alpha-males and the girls who fight them off until they cave to their charm.

“I tattooed her,” my kid says, his voice even. He’s staring me right in the eye, and he has that what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it look on his face.

“You drew on her forehead,” I correct. “Why did you do that?”

“She asked to get inked.” Jesus Christ. No more watching Ink Master with this dude when his mom is too busy to notice.

“What did you ink…paint on her forehead, exactly?”

Don’t say a dick. Don’t say a dick. Don’t say a dick.

“A spaceship,” he answers. He turns around and calls Daria, who jogs the short distance to us. Knight proceeds to explain, his finger moving across her forehead. “This is the external tank,” he points at the head of the cock—and did I mention that my kid wants to be an astronaut and loves space just as much as I do?—“and this is the orbiter,” he points at the balls.

“And what is shooting from the external tank, exactly?” Jaime inquires, his voice stiff. I swallow my laughter and wait for Knight to answer. His eyes widen.

“Bullets, of course. Lots and lots of bullets.”

Thank God, he didn’t say cum.

I place a hand on my son’s soft, ruddy cheek. “Listen to me carefully, Knight, okay? We do not draw on other people’s body parts. Ever. Especially not spaceships.” Jaime is a friend, but I’m not sure how I feel about other fathers knocking on my door complaining that my son is drawing dicks on their daughters.

“Got it.” He nods. “No spaceships.”

“And no giving other kids tattoos, period. Now, why don’t you go play with Vaughn?”

“Because I hate him,” Knight answers matter-of-factly.

The next generation is definitely following in their fathers’ footsteps. I mess his hair. “Go check on your mom, bud.” I kiss the top of his head.

“Okay, Daddy.”

“And give me the Sharpie.”

Daria is still looking at her dad. Jaime pulls her into his leg with a hug.

“Baby, can you promise Daddy something?”

“Yes.”

“Never, ever, look or talk or play with Knight ever again.”

Daria rolls her eyes and walks off to the cotton candy machine my mom, Helen, is in charge of. Jaime, Vicious, and I laugh.

Trent is flipping burgers with a beer in his hand, shaking his head.

“Who the fuck are all these people? I don’t even know half of them.” I motion with my bottled water to the crowd. Now that we all live in Todos Santos—life away from each other felt a little too close to death, we realized, after what happened to Rosie—and live in the same neighborhood, we hang out every day.

“You did invite most of our colleagues.” Jaime shrugs.

“Did I?” I scratch my head.

“Your wife did,” Vic interrupts. “Em told her to. Networking and shit. Oh, and lookie here. Our new partner came to say hi.” He jerks his chin to a man I do recognize. His face was just plastered across the front page of The Wall Street Journal. Jordan Van Der Zee. Late fifties going on seventy. Looks like an evil version of Putin. He bought fifty percent of our shares two years ago, making us split the rest among us.

A multi-million-dollar deal that left us with more money than we can spend in ten lifetimes but less power in Fiscal Heights Holdings. We now have the time to spend with our families. Together. Van Der Zee scattered his own management team around Chicago, London, and New York, and none of us are crushed, because we took our souls with us when we signed the deal. Sue now has a new person she can call Mr. Whatever.

“Racist bastard,” Trent mutters into his beer, and we all jerk our heads toward him. He doesn’t swear around Luna, but sometimes we forget that she is around. Trent looks down, kisses his daughter’s cheek, and whispers, “Sorry. Daddy said a bad word. Won’t happen again.”

She doesn’t nod. She doesn’t answer. Just stares at him with her blank eyes.

“Come again?” Vicious asks, spinning the wheel of the conversation back to safe water. Trent’s eyes flare, the recollection of what makes him call Van Der Zee a racist flashing through his mind.

“Guy’s a racist. I had an incident with him. To say I don’t like him would be the understatement of the fu—” his eyes dart down to Luna, and he clears his throat, “of the fudging century.”

“Well, none of us are going to buy him a beer—or a fudge, for that matter. But maybe he was a poo-poo head to you for the sake of being a poo-poo head. It’s kind of his thing,” I offer, refraining from saying the words ‘little shit’ and adding, “Is that his kid over there?”

I sure the fuck hope it is, because otherwise, he has passed Sugar Daddy territory and is now in Sugar Grandpa zone. It’s hard to miss the girl beside him because he doesn’t let her move. Literally. He is clasping her slender arm in his and spits when he talks to her. She is too young for me to form an opinion about her looks. Eighteen or nineteen, maybe. Her skin is ghostly fair, she has long hair the color of the sun, two hoops for nose rings, and even though she doesn’t want her father to know, when she tried to jerk her arm away, her shirt rode up and a tattoo peeked on her abdomen. Not a small one, either.

“Edie Van Der Zee,” Vicious confirms my assessment. “Poor kid.”

Jaime laughs. “Poor, she isn’t. And since Edie is easy on the eyes, I bet he’s just trying to make sure she doesn’t get harassed by the harem of corporate dickbags we work with.”

We all frown at Jaime.

“Little Edie looks twelve,” Trent retorts in horror. It’s been three years since Val bailed on his ass, and he’s never bothered reclaiming his throne as the king of one-night stands. No interest in the other sex whatsoever. It’s like his blood turned blue or something.

“Not twelve,” Jaime says evenly. “She looks twenty. Twenty-two, maybe? Totally legal, but still taboo. Lethal combination. Danger is my favorite flavor.”

“She is eighteen.” Vicious puts Jaime out of his misery, tsking his disapproval. “Her dad just bought my old car for her birthday. Jordan believes in showing Edie money doesn’t grow on trees and all that jazz. Fun guy. And what the fuck is wrong with you?” It’s his turn to punch Jaime’s arm. “You either go for the old ones or the young ones. No middle ground for you.”

“Fuck you, my wife is not old.”

“Your wife is not old, but she is here,” Trent reminds him, and we all shift our gaze to watch a very pregnant Mel. “So you might want to stop drooling over a teenager. And while you’re at it, stop cursing in front of my kid.”

“Shit, sorry, Luna,” Vicious says. Jaime laughs. I shake my head. Our kids are going to talk like drunk sailors before they hit ten.

“She doesn’t look a day over sixteen,” Trent offers his two cents on Van Der Zee’s daughter. Yet, his eyes are fixated on her. I’m not sure what to make of it. On one hand, it’s a good sign that he is actually looking at someone. On the other, he is looking at the wrong fucking person. Story of our lives, I guess.

“Sixteen, huh? Is that why you’re glaring?” I smirk. Trent looks away and frowns before sliding a burger onto a bun, squishing ketchup onto it, and handing it to his daughter.

“We were having a conversation about her, so I stated my fudging opinion.”

“Stated your fudging opinion, or imagined how it would feel to fudge her?” I start, and Jaime cuts into our conversation.

“This is getting creepier by the second. Make me one as well.” He points at the burgers.

My dad walks over to us, holding a red Solo cup with a very virgin punch. Everyone slaps his back. I stay put, but when he comes in for a hug, I stretch my arms open and let him in. My arms, my heart, my life.

Shit, I sound like a cheese ball, but it’s true.

Three years ago, I spent a month and a half in the hospital nursing my dying girlfriend.

Three years ago, she came back to me.

Three years ago, one night, when I thought she was for sure going to die, I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of beeping hospital machines. I snuggled next to her every night, one hand pressed against her heart—I didn’t trust any fucking machine other than the beating organ in my chest—and realized that her flesh was warm again. My Rachel came back to me. Fourteen years it took me, but this Jacob got the sister he had yearned for.