While We Waited (The Reed Brothers #8) (14 page)

“Are you okay?” Star asks Tag.

He waves a hand at her in dismissal. “I’m fine.” Apparently, she didn’t see the gash on his belly. The one that disappears into the sparse thatch of hair that leads to his rather impressive nether regions.

Emilio turns his back to me and starts to talk on the phone. He’s probably getting the whole story from Jason right now, because he doesn’t believe that it was nothing. But it was. It’s normal when you’re in a famous rock band. We’re used to it. Sometimes the fans get too exuberant. It happens.

Emilio gets off the phone and goes to Tag. He holds out his hand for him to shake. Tag stares at it for a moment and then finally takes it in a handshake. He looks startled, though. “Thank you for bringing her home,” Emilio says.

“No problem,” Tag mutters.

“So, what’s up with the group meeting?” I ask. I take a bag of chips from Lark and drop a handful of greasy goodness onto my shirt.

She snatches the bag back from me. “Get out of my chips,” she snarls playfully.

I pick one up, lick all over it, and then hold it out to her. “Want it back?”

She pretends to heave and then tries to ignore me.

“So, the meeting?” I prompt again.

Emilio and Marta make eye contact with one another for a beat too long. “It’s your mother,” Emilio says.

I look from one to the other. “What about her?”

“She’s worse, Finny,” Emilio says, his voice so gentle that it’s seriously pissing me off.

I snort. “That’s nothing new.”

“No,” Emilio clarifies. “I mean she seriously hurt someone this afternoon. Another resident. They want to move her to a facility with more security.”

I pop another chip into my mouth. “So?”

Marta huffs out a sigh. “So, mija, they need your permission to move her.”

My mother has been in a long-term care facility since I was a little girl. They have to keep her in a place where they can regulate her meds. Usually, she’s fine. Apparently, she now has more to worry about than her mental illness.

“You’ll need to go and make some decisions about her care,” he goes on to explain.

I shrug. “Why me?”

Marta comes to stand beside me and runs her hand down the length of my hair. “You’re the only family she has left.”

“So which one of you is going?” I grin at them. I have no desire to go and see my mother again. She was frantic today when I looked at her through the tiny glass in the door to her room. She paced from one side of the room to the other, wringing her hands, mumbling to herself.

“This is something
you
need to do,” Marta says softly.

“Hire someone to go and evaluate my mother,” I say with a shrug. “No biggie.”

“We can’t do that for you,” Emilio says. “They also want to do some counseling with your mom and they would like for you to be present.”

“No.”
Hell no
.

“Finny–”

“
No
,” I say again. “I’m not going. Besides, none of you can go with me, because we’re booked for the tour. And Jason is in the hospital.” I shrug. It seems so simple to me. I raise my finger in the air. “Speaking of which, if my personal security guard is injured, who’s going to travel with me when we’re on tour?”

Emilio and Marta look at one another, perplexed.

“I could go and help,” a male voice says from the side of the room. I look up to find Tag leaning against the wall, his shoulder hitched in the doorway.

“You would do that?” Star asks.

He nods. “I was going anyway, to be a roadie.” He laughs lightly.

“What about Benji?” says Wren.

He shrugs. “What about him? We’ll take him with us.” He points at Marta. “Marta said she was going to watch him while I worked. Now she won’t have to. He can just hang with me.”

“No.” I say it quickly, and Tag’s head spins around to face me. He’s confused, but I can’t have Tag following me everywhere for six tour dates.

“I can take care of you,” Tag says.

The room goes quiet. You could hear a pin drop, if one should happen to do so.

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me,” I rush to say.

“Then it’s settled.” Emilio stands up and dusts his hands together.

“It’s not settled!” I hiss.

But everyone is getting up from their seats. This is so
not
settled.

“Why aren’t you listening to me?” I practically yell.

“You’re going on tour and you have to have someone to protect you,” Emilio says firmly. “Tag is going with you. Marta will help take care of the baby.” He holds up his hands to stop me when I would interrupt. “That’s all there is to it. Get your shit packed. You leave in the morning.”

He’s using the
dad voice
again. Damn it, I hate it when he does that. Emilio let us get away with a lot, but when he brought out the
dad voice
, we knew we had better listen.

“But–”

“No buts!” he says loudly. “It’s settled, Finny. Go pack your shit.” He points toward my room.

I get up, and I think about throwing the pillow I’m holding in my hands directly at his head, but I would never do it. I have too much respect for Emilio. But damn if it doesn’t cross my mind.

Emilio chuckles as I stomp past him. “Don’t even think about it.”

I stick my middle finger up where he can’t see it, just because I’m feeling defiant.

“I saw that!” he calls to my back.

I slam my bedroom door behind me and lean heavily against it. Then I start to pack my shit, because apparently I’m going on tour and I’m taking the man I had one night with along as security. Then I have to deal with my mother when we get back.

Fuck my life.

Tag

Finny slams her bedroom door and I scratch my head. Peck and Star take their husbands and go home, and Marta and Emilio hang out in the kitchen for a few minutes. Benji is stirring, so I go and fix him a bottle. He has been asleep for a while, and he’s going to wake up hungry.

Emilio leans on the kitchen counter on his elbows and glares at me. I look behind me, because I can’t think of any reason he would be staring at me like he hates me. I cough into my closed fist. “Is everything okay?” I ask him.

“Finny’s special,” he says.

I nod. “I’m sure she is.”

“No, I mean really special.”

I nod again, and pop Benji’s bottle in the microwave.

“Finny’s afraid of commitment,” he says.

“Aren’t we all,” I mutter.

His brow arches, but he doesn’t respond to that. “You’ll take care of her while they’re on tour, right?” he asks.

“I promise to do my best.”

“I believe you.” He points a finger at me. “But if you fuck it up, if she comes home with a single scratch on her body, I will murder you with my own two hands.” He grins, but there’s no humor in it. “You feel me?”

I swallow past the lump in my throat. “I feel you.”

I shake the bottle, waiting for Benji to start making those little mewling noises.

“There are two things you should know about Finny,” he says.

“Okay…”

“One, you have to listen to what she doesn’t say, if you want to figure her out.”

I nod.

“And two, never get between her and a coffee pot. She’ll chop your balls off.”

This much I already know about her, but I instinctively bend my back a little, and my nuts draw up. He laughs.

“Call me if you need anything,” he says. He claps me on the shoulder and follows Marta to the door, after kissing his daughters goodbye.

“Night, Melio,” Wren calls to him.

He waves at them and leaves.

Benji makes a noise from my room, so I take the bottle and go to him. I look down into his crib and see that he has kicked himself free of his swaddling blankets, and his skin is moist and rosy. I pick him up, talk to him as I change his diaper, and go back out to the rocking chair in the living room to sit with him.

Lark goes to bed, and Finny is still in her room, but Wren comes out to sit with me.

“So…” Wren says.

“So…”

“Do you think you can take care of Finny while we’re on tour?” She bites her lower lip, worrying it.

“I’ll do my best.”

“Try not to fall in love with her, okay?”

I jerk my head up. “I won’t.”

“Oh, you will. But try not to, okay?”

“I can guarantee you that I’m not ready for a new relationship, Wren.”

She heaves a sigh. “Neither is Fin. But seriously, Tag, don’t fall in love with her. You’ll just get hurt.”

I look up at her. She’s totally serious. “I can handle it.”

She nods, but she still looks worried. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She gets up and goes to her room. She comes back out carrying a bank deposit receipt. “I put some more money in your account,” she says. She tosses it onto the table.

“I don’t want your money, Wren. Not now. I’m doing odd jobs for the Reeds and I’m okay. I really am. I just have to figure things out.”

“Well, I don’t want my nephew doing without while you figure it all out.” She bends down and kisses Benji on the cheek. Then she shoves the side of my head with the heel of her hand. She reminds me so damn much of Mom right then that tears fill my eyes.

“You do look like her, you know?” I say. I sniffle back a tear.

“She was beautiful,” Wren says softly.

“Yeah, she was.”

She goes to her room and shuts the door.

As soon as she does, Finny’s door opens and she stomps into the room. “Take off your shirt,” she hisses.

“What?” I am startled by her bluntness.

“You were injured. I saw it.” She points to my stomach, where Benji is resting. His mouth is slack around his bottle, so I pull it back and lay him on the couch beside me.

“I’m fine,” I say. But I get up anyway.

“Show me.”

I don’t move, so she reaches out, lifts the edge of my shirt and draws it higher, exposing my stomach. “Oh, it’s not bad,” she says.

“Just a scratch, I think.” I lower my shirt.

She goes to the bathroom and comes back with some antiseptic and cotton gauze. “Let me clean it.”

I hold out my hand for the bottle. “I can do it.”

She shakes her head. “I’ll do it.” She motions for me to take my shirt off, so I pull it over my head and toss it onto the couch beside us.

She pours antiseptic onto the gauze and starts to gently clean the area, but it burns like a bitch. I hiss loudly drawing in a breath.

“Oh, quit being such a baby,” she chides. She bends down and blows across it, and I suppose she’s trying to ease the sting. But the gentle feel of her breath on my skin starts a brand new kind of ache. My dick starts to press against my fly.

“I can do it,” I say. I try to turn, but she grabs my belt loop and holds me still. I close my eyes and think about cheeseburgers. Warts. Ice. But then my ice turns into a drop of water melting and sliding down her skin in my lust-filled mind. Oh, holy hell. “I can do it,” I say again.

Suddenly she notices the bulge behind my fly. “Oh,” she says, her cheeks turning rosy. “Whoops.” She giggles and shoves the first aid supplies into my hands. “Didn’t, um, mean to, um, cause that.” She waves a hand toward my dick. “I mean, we can’t do that again.”

“We totally should,” I tell her, my voice gravelly. “I mean, if you ever drop your moratorium against sleeping with someone twice.”

She nods at me, her gaze once more falling to my dick, which is still standing at attention. “Tempting,” she offers. She grins at me. “You might need help with that.”

I roll my eyes. “I can handle it, thanks.”

“If you say so.” She turns and goes to her room. At the last moment, she turns back to me. “What time do you want to leave in the morning? I need to go talk to my mother’s doctor before we leave, and I guess you’re going with me.”

“Whenever you get up.”

She nods. “I guess we can’t say whenever
you
get up, since, well…” She grins at me.

“Beautiful
and
funny,” I mutter.

She lays a hand on her chest. “Did you just call me
funny?
” She bats her lashes at me.

“Among other things.”

She shrugs. “I like funny better.” Then she goes into her room, the door softly clicking closed behind her.

“Yeah, I do too,” I murmur to no one.

I think I’m in trouble. Big trouble.

Fin

Two cups of coffee is not enough. Tag doesn’t seem to mind my bitchiness, though. He walks solemnly beside me down the sidewalk. I take a deep breath, because for the first time ever, I want to tell someone about my mom.

“The first time my mother ever tried to kill me, we were on a Ferris wheel at the county fair. She was cycling, I know now. I didn’t know it then. I just though we were going to have a fun day. My mother had days that were really low, but every now and then she would have an up day. And when she was up, she was flying. She had an imagination and she wanted to go on adventures and we laughed and played.”