Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

Big Events

I was in a conference room at work, surrounded by boxes and stacks of files, working with two other paralegals and highlighting and taking notes like a highlighting-and-taking-notes fool.

We’d just received the discovery on a huge case that the judge for some reason refused to give us a continuance on, so we had tons to get through and about two months less time than we needed to get through it.

It was exactly three weeks since Darius and I brought our family together.

And it had been three weeks heavy with big events.

First, within days of our drama at Miss Dorothea’s, I came home to two fully-kitted-out guest bedrooms upstairs, seeing as Darius called “his guy” who went and packed up all my bedroom furniture, and all Liam’s, and moved mine into the guest suite, Liam’s into the Jack side of the Jack and Jill.

Liam and I had already done a cursory packing of all our most personal items the Sunday before we went to dinner with Darius’s family, but we headed back the next Saturday after Liam was done watching films with the team. We carted over boxes of books, picture frames and other essential items, including packing up all the food in the kitchen.

The next day, Darius and I went back and got all the sheets and towels and bathroom accessories to stock up the guest spaces.

By this time, I’d done a full perusal of what Darius had and found there was nothing of mine I needed to fill the gaps. There was also nothing I needed to make the space mine.

Liam was thriving in Darius’s lair. It suited him, like it suited his dad.

And after not having Darius for so long, being surrounded by him at every turn, well, that totally worked for me.

Darius was surprised I didn’t want to make my mark on our place, but when I explained why, we had to take a break from putting away towels so we could fuck on my old bed in the guest room.

Thankfully, Liam was out with some friends seeing a movie.

At that juncture, Darius called “his guy” again, and he went and packed everything else up—dishes and pots and pans and knickknacks—and stacked those boxes in Darius’s storage room downstairs.

Darius then called a cleaning crew to go in, and after that, a management company to ready it for the market. We dropped some cash on some nice, middle-of-the-road bedroom furniture, and got word a few days ago it had rented, furnished.

In the meantime, I’d extended an olive branch to Danni and Gabby by explaining I did need someplace to put my books, as well as new frames for my pictures that would work in Darius’s space.

They took hold of that olive branch like their life depended on it (they really did love their brother, and actually me, not to mention Liam), and now we had three new handsome shelving units, one in the living room, another in the family room and the last in the study, where I put my books and arranged my newly framed pictures.

And with that, I was good.

Liam and I were firmly in Darius’s home, so it was no longer just his.

It was ours.

In that time, Ally called to confirm that Jeffrey was indeed hiding assets, not extorting them from the firm, and advised that was the last she’d report to me about the situation. She was going to “take care of it,” and she felt the less I knew, the better.

She said that, considering it was a high probability that the only people who knew about it were me, Jeffrey and our network administrator, who was the one who probably mislaid the file on my desk, I should act like handing it over to Jeffrey was the last I’d thought about it. Especially since his shit was soon to hit the fan.

I thought this was good advice, so I took it and asked her to send me an invoice for her time.

“Chickie, Rock Chicks get my services for free,” was her response before she hung up on me.

I wondered how often the Rock Chicks needed investigative services, then decided I didn’t want to know.

Toni met with Tod and Stevie for martinis and wedding discussion, and I let them have at it…for the preliminaries. I’d butt in as soon as things heated up (that being, when Darius put a ring on my finger).

I was busy with work, catching up with my man, solidifying my family, and picking and choosing from the whirlwind of invitations that swirled around the Rock Chicks (we’d all had brunch this past Saturday, I’d been to Daisy’s castle for a facial with Ava and Roxie (and it was a castle, in the middle of Englewood, Colorado, for goodness sake, complete with moat), we’d pimped ourselves out and gone to watch Tod perform (he was one of Denver’s premier drag queens) the Saturday before (Lena getting initiated that night, Toni was already there when I got there), and select Rock Chicks and Hot Bunch were always at Liam’s games, even the away ones, with Indy and Lee, Jet and Eddie coming to every one of them).

And in quiet times, in fits and starts, Darius shared with me about his years away from us.

He did this like he was confessing, and I couldn’t say it was fun to hear, nor could I say he shared it all, or ever would.

What I knew from how he told it was that, even if Shirleen was always there, throughout that time, he felt very alone and very lost, and the shame he carried was extreme.

However, he explained that shame was tempered by an epiphany of redemption he felt when he’d saved Ally from certain dangers that, if she’d survived them, would haunt her for the rest of her life.

He didn’t seem to realize he was on the periphery, helping where he could, having the Rock Chicks’ backs through all their trials and tribulations. Not to mention, he did, indeed, work with Eddie on keeping the underbelly of Denver organized and controlled, weeding out “players” who didn’t know the game and made things messy so people who didn’t choose that life wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire. On top of that, he often worked on the sly with Lee on jobs he was doing.

But it was Ally’s situation that he felt washed him clean.

Which meant he felt he was finally free to come to me.

I could see that. Lee was his brother, so Ally was his sister. It didn’t happen, thank the Good Lord, but he was willing to sacrifice his life for hers.

He almost did.

And she came away from it unscathed, while he had puckered scars in the skin of both of his thighs, and jagged ones on the left side of his head under his twists and up his right side.

These, I could tell, he carried like badges of pride. And although I didn’t like them all that much (say, at all), for Darius, they were the marks that signified the life he felt he had to live, but had always hated, was a life that was no longer his.

He still carried some baggage from that, and as much as it hurt my heart, he was that man, so he always would.

But when he’d saved Ally, the weight had grown a whole lot less heavy.

As for me, I’d been to the grocery store only twice since I moved in with Darius, and I didn’t carry the bags in from the car.

I paid my mortgage, but Darius switched the utilities at my old house to his name (though he’d soon lose those expenditures when our tenants moved in). He paid all the other bills and said we’d discuss it “later” how I would contribute. And I knew the way he said this that “later” would never happen. I also knew how important it was for him to take care of us, so I determined to find my ways to spoil him (evening out our closet was part of that), and I’d let him.

He also cooked most nights, but if I did, he helped, and so did Liam (Liam also helped his dad, but Darius didn’t let me when he was cooking, I could tell he got off on me sitting with them and drinking wine while they provided for me, and I got off on it too). The same with doing the dishes.

And he had a cleaning lady, so I no longer had to clean the house.

He and Liam took care of raking the leaves in the yard one Sunday while I stood in the window sipping tea and watched father and son working side by side, doing something mundane and normal, feeling my fluffy cloud of happy goodness shroud me.

I sometimes had to work late and loved the fact that I had a family text string where I’d tap in that info and send it to my boys so they’d know where I was and when I’d be home.

And Darius never said a word about me arriving an hour or two after I normally did. He knew I loved my work. He also warned me that Lee was keeping him on jobs where his work hours were normal so we could all settle in. But eventually, his hours could be anything.

I encouraged him to tell Lee he could remove those barriers. Because Darius also loved his job. And although it was very clear that team would move mountains to give one member what he needed (because, from what I’d heard, they’d done a lot of that in their time together), I got how Darius didn’t want to be someone who would slack.

But the bottom line was, my life had changed significantly, and it wasn’t just that I came home to a different house and slept every night beside the man of my dreams.

It was because I’d discovered Mister Morris lived on in his son. And the way Darius was guiding Liam, he’d live on in his grandson.

This meant I had time to bake my molasses cookies, just because.

I had time to curl in the club chair in the study and read, because I didn’t have groceries to buy or bathrooms to clean or bills to pay.

After a sweater of mine turned up four sizes smaller than it used to be, I firmly set the boundaries around laundry. But I’d long since taught Liam how to do his own. It was just Darius who needed to stay well away from the laundry room. So that was my only big job.

I didn’t just have the family I always wanted. I had a partner who more than shouldered his share of life’s burdens.

I was living the dream.

The only gray edge on the silver lining of the cloud I resided in was the fact that I hadn’t found the time to share with Darius that I knew who was the likely suspect that told someone about me and Liam.

Or,more to the point, I hadn’t figured out how I was going to tell him.

That and the fact Miss Dorothea and Mom were going head-to-head about who was going to host Thanksgiving this year.

I had a feeling Miss Dorothea was going to win. Danni and Gabby were now kitting out the last bedroom in our house. This was because everyone on Darius’s side was descending on Denver, mostly to meet Liam and look me over, and we were going to have a full house.

“You told me you had this covered!”

I jumped when I heard these words shouted somewhere in the office. I glanced at my two colleagues, then looked over my shoulder through the wall of windows into the bustle of the office, across from which, through another wall of windows, Carrie, the junior associate Jeffrey (it was now in no doubt) was sleeping with was shoving Jeffrey in the chest.

“Easy for you!” she screeched. “But shit like this can derail my whole fucking career!”

She probably should have thought of that before she climbed into a partner’s bed and fucked over his wife.

With that, she flounced out of his office, slamming the door behind her.

I kept staring, because, Lord, I couldn’t help it. That was a scene.

Everyone in the office was staring.

But Jeffrey was glowering at the door.

Until his eyes moved to the window. I could see from all the way across the office his face was red, probably with anger and embarrassment, but unfortunately, as his eyes scanned the space, they eventually locked on me.

Oh hell.

I didn’t know what to do, but turning my head quickly like I was guilty of something I didn’t think was smart. So I held his gaze for a beat, before shifting my attention back to my work.

“We knew that was gonna happen,” Samantha, one of the other two paralegals in the conference room with me, said under her breath.

“Fuck around and find out,” Robin, the other paralegal, replied.

“Literally,” Samantha added.

The door opened and we all looked that way.

Jeffrey was in it.

“Malia. My office. Now.”

He turned on his heel and stormed through the cubbies toward his office.

With Samantha and Robin staring at me, I got up and followed him.

“Close the door,” he snapped when I made it to his office.

I closed the door and stood in front of it.

“Did you defy my direct orders about our client, Remostros?” he asked.

“Sorry?” I asked back.

“Remostros. I told you to let that lie and keep it confidential. Did you speak to anyone about it?”

“I…” I faked confusion. “Wait, you mean that empty file?”

“Yes,” he said through his teeth.

“Honestly, I didn’t think anything about it. I mean, it was empty, and you said you’d handle it and I’ve been busy with other things.” I looked to the door behind me, still faking it, then back to him. “Did I mess up? Is something wrong? Did you need my assistance with something on that?”

He visibly ground his teeth before he kept talking through them. “No. It’s fine. Get back to that discovery.”

I nodded, but still faking it, I asked with concern, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he forced out. “Thank you. But that discovery needs your attention.”

“Of course,” I murmured, then lit out of there trying not to look like I was lighting out of there.

Samantha gave it some time after I returned before she asked, “What was that?”

“My guess, he fucked around and found out,” I told her.

She smiled.

I got to work.

I’d learned to keep the Bluetooth bud in my ear when I was in the car, considering I was a Rock Chick now, and they knew I didn’t have time at work to field calls, but they were rabid communicators. And it wasn’t all just invitations. It was also that they needed style advice, or to complain about their hot guys and how their overabundance of testosterone made them behave, or just to shoot the shit.

I liked it.

I’d missed it.

I’d had a big posse in high school, and I loved having that back.

But this time, on my way home that evening, it was me who called Ally.

“Yo, chickie,” she answered.

“The shit hit the fan today at work.”

Now she was faking it. “Did it?”

“Ally, after Carrie, the woman he’s cheating on his wife with, shouted at him in his office, he came right to me and asked about Remostros.”

“What’d you say?”

“I pretended I forgot all about it.”

“Good.”

“But he latched right onto me,” I told her.

“Assholes like him need someone to blame, considering, in their minds, they can do no wrong. He’s looking for someone to blame.”

“Should I be worried?”

“It’s impossible for this to blow back on you.”

“He can fire me, Ally.”

“He has to have cause, Malia.”

“It’s an employment-at-will state.”

“That’s bullshit, and you above everyone knows it. That protects an employer only so far. And when you’re lashing out because you got caught with your dick in a woman not your wife at the same time you’re moving marital assets to hide them from said wife, you best not be firing a valued employee in retaliation for some slight you have zero evidence she gave you.”

I blew out a breath.

Because she was right.

“Just be cool. He’ll turn his attention to someone else,” Ally advised.

“All right.”

“See you at Liam’s game on Friday. Ren and I are coming.”

“Great, see you then.”

We hung up and I’d almost made it home without another RC interaction before my phone rang.

Tod.

I smiled and answered, “Hey, Tod.”

“Fuchsia, tea rose and lilac blue,” he replied.

I thought about it.

“Don’t answer now,” he said into my thoughts. “I found a bouquet. It…is…life. I’m inspired. I’ll text you a picture. Byeeeeee.” With that, he hung up.

I smiled again, and as I was pulling into the garage, I got a bing on my phone that I had a text.

Once I parked, I pulled it out and looked at it.

Tod was right.

That bouquet was life.

Now I was inspired.

And excited.

My fluffy happy-goodness cloud grew even fluffier.

I texted, Roll with it.

Then I texted, Does it have Toni’s approval?

I hit the remote to lower the garage door, grabbed my purse and headed to the house.

Halfway there, I got a return text from Tod that read, Of course it does! You’ll be a goddess. I swear. It’s perfect!

I’d seen some of the pictures of the other RCHB weddings.

I trusted him.

I hit the back door, the laundry room, but stopped dead in the doorway to the kitchen.

Because Darius wasn’t cooking.

Darius wasn’t doing anything but sitting at a stool by the island, a full wineglass and an open bottle beside him, staring at me like he wanted to murder me.