REDEEMING THE ROSE: GILDED KNIGHTS SERIES BOOK 1 Read online

  It totally works.

  “If you tell me what’s got you down, maybe my drunk brain can work it out for you,” he offers. “Alcohol helps me set aside the serious side of my head, and delve deeper into the creative side.”

  “So you wanna tell stories?” I question. “See if you can make up something that isn’t real to help me fake a smile?”

  “Nah. I don’t want you to fake a smile. I want you to smile for reals, then I wanna put you on a board and watch you fall again.” He giggles, like a girl who just saw her crush in the school halls. “Never imagined anyone could fall so spectacularly.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “But here we are, and Mitchell Rosa looks like a baby giraffe on a skateboard.” His giggles roll and trill, and almost make me smile. “Tell me what’s up, and Uncle Luc will help you out.” He throws an arm over my shoulder with fast, uncoordinated movements, and makes me spill my beer. “You sad we said no to the dancing girls?”

  “No.” I bring my beer up, and layer alcohol on top of my shit. “Didn’t want a dancing girl anyway. I’m allergic to college girls dancing in my lap for ramen money.”

  “Saaaaaame.” He sits taller and rips out an alcohol-covered belch. “I didn’t even like them when I was in college. There’s something non-kosher about taking advantage of chicks trying to pay rent.”

  Chuckling, I lower my drink and watch in awe as Scotch does an actual fucking flip with his skateboard. “How’d you guys learn that shit, anyway?”

  “Lots of practice,” Luc answers. “Lots of falls. And lots of fake falls, all to get the girls’ attention.”

  “Pipsqueak one of those girls?”

  If we talk about him and his love life, I can pretend mine doesn’t suck so much.

  Right?

  “She was one of ‘em for sure. But she was younger than me by a bit, so while I liked the attention, there was definitely a line I had to tiptoe.”

  “Or what?”

  Grinning foolishly, he nods toward Marcus, the next skater. His hair is shorter compared to his pals’, so it moves less as he makes the board flip between his feet. “Her big brother would belt the fuck outta me. Brotherhood forgotten, bro. Best friends no mo’. He belted me a few times over what she and I have. But you’d understand all that, right?” He sways to the side and bumps into me as he moves. “Big, bad Mitchell Rosa sure ain’t letting anyone near his baby sister.”

  “That’s my job,” I grunt. “It’s my purpose in life. But Abby’s not like Kari. Abby isn’t strong. It’s not the same.”

  “M-mm. Marcus would disagree on both fronts,” he hums. “Both women are strong. And yet, you’d have us believe both women need their big brothers to be an ape about it all. Ya know, as the boyfriend, and now fiancé,” he preens on the word, grins, and scrunches his nose, “and soon-to-be husband of one of these protected girls, imma ask for all mankind that you motherfuckers stop hitting. It hurts.”

  “Stop hitting on sisters, and we won’t hit your face.”

  “You’d rather they’re alone? These little girls, who are actually women, should just stay home and knit until they die?”

  His words, though he never intended to hurt, arrow straight for my gut. “Some might die sooner than others. Some need to cherish the time they have, and not waste it on stupid assholes who won’t treat them right.”

  “And how do you know how a man’ll treat her if you never let her out of her tower? Huh?”

  “I can hear you fuckers!” Marcus flips his board and two middle fingers in our direction. “Don’t talk about my fuckin’ sister.”

  Luc only snickers. Then he looks over until our eyes meet. Speaking low, he says, “I’d have to be deaf and blind not to have heard the rumors about Spence and Abby. I’m not deaf, nor am I blind. Nor am I clueless to the fact he’s outta town right now. Abby isn’t smiling all that much when I see her in the hallways of the hospital, bro. That means my math says one and one make seven feet, and she misses her man.”

  “Ugh.” I jolt in my seat, and spill more of my beer. “Don’t call him her man! Gross.”

  Luc rolls his eyes, but it’s not playful. “It is what it is. So you can get the fuck on board and be happy for her, or she’ll hide it from you, exclude you, and eventually ask someone else to walk her down the aisle.”

  “Wait. What?” My eyes flare wide as I turn back to him. “The fuck?”

  He only shrugs. “She has a lot of options out there. Five brothers and a willing daddy. The competition is fierce, bruh, and I know you guys are close. You keep scaring her into hiding, and you won’t even make it into the wedding party. Fuck knows, she might elope and exclude all of y’all.”

  “Stop ‘y’all’in,” inserts Alex Turner—chief of police, and quasi big brother to Luc—as he grinds the bottom of his board along a metal bar sunken into the concrete. “You sound like Jules.”

  “What’s wrong with sounding like Jules, huh?” Luc straightens and puffs his chest to fight his friend. “Jules is a fuckin’ sweetheart, so don’t tell me what to do.”

  “Mature,” Alex grouses. “And ‘cos I miss her. I’m too old for bachelor parties, so now I wanna go home to my y’aller. Your shitty attempt at southern makes me wanna call home.”

  “Pussy!” Scotch taunts. “X is a pussy.”

  “All of you are pussies,” Marc adds in. “Fuckin’ sissies whining about girlfriends and wives and missing the girls and wanting a fuckin’ hug. Give me a break.”

  “Your phone’s mooing,” Luc looks toward a pile of bags we all dropped when we arrived here. Sure enough, a cellphone illuminates the inside of one, and with the flashing lights comes a distinct mooing sound that Marc races for.

  He fumbles the device, and smacks his drunk self on the side of the face as he brings it up. “Poot? You okay?”

  “Psht,” Alex scoffs. “Pussy indeed.”

  “Ya know, Marc and Kari came to us through the foster care system,” Luc murmurs. “Not to my family,” he clarifies, “but to Scotch and Alex’s. Their folks took Marc and Kari in, and I just so happened to live up the street and have a penchant for asking for a free meal.”

  “Wow, this news shocks me.”

  He snorts. “Marc had a tendency to overreact when it came to Kari too, which was understandable, I guess, seeing as how their lives before that were traumatic as fuck.”

  “Trauma?” That word catches my attention with the same force as if someone had just said Nadia’s name, or Abby’s, or ‘cancer’. “What happened to them?”

  “Home invasion,” he whispers with a glance across to a smiling Marc.

  He’s in his own world, talking to his wife, and pretending he ain’t whipped like everyone else here.

  “Dudes came in hoping to grab a little cash, I guess. They weren’t expecting Mom and Dad to be awake.” Luc lifts his arms, and makes an almost silent cocking sound in the back of his throat. “Boom. Boom. Two down, and two kids upstairs who just woke to the sound of shots fired.

  “Marc tossed Kari into a closet, they hunkered down and waited it out, and while they sat in that closet, Marc, as the oldest, as the one responsible for his baby sister, was developing new pathways in his young brain. New traumas. New triggers. New responses. Next day, they were in the care of the state. Not so long after that, they were on the Turners’ doorstep and fumbling through their new reality in a new family.”

  “Fuck…”

  “No one realized how fucked up about it Marc was until he was older. I mean, he was always protective of Kari, always a quiet kid, always squirreling away cash just in case they needed to move again, but that shit never escalated until I decided I wanted her. From that moment on, we were at war. Decades of friendship went forgotten, and Marc’s only mission in life was to keep his sister away from all men. Just in case.”

  When Marc throws his head back and laughs about something his caller says, Luc murmurs, “He was terrified someone was gonna hurt her, petrified someone would take her away. He was killin
g himself, and me, over something that really wasn’t as scary as he thought it was.”

  “But it is scary,” I tell him. “It’s fucking horrible. And really, he got lucky—his best friend wanted her, and he knew his best friend was pretty fuckin’ cool. But I’m over here with a sheltered baby sister, and word on the street is she’s digging some kind of fuckin’ mercenary. I don’t know him. I don’t know his people.”

  “I know him.” Angelo is another one of Luc’s friends; he’s the other one who was in the hospital room the day Bishop’s twins were born, the one who opened Laine’s Snickers bar.

  He’s another skater who defies the laws of gravity, and as he wobbles his way closer to us, he flips long hair back out of his eyes to reveal steely determination. “Spence is solid,” he says. “He’s loyal, and if he decides he’s got your sister’s back, then she’s safe for life. He’ll die before he lets anyone hurt her.”

  He peeks to Luc for a moment, works to flatten a small grin, then looks back to me. “I don’t know you, Mitch. I know who you are, but I don’t know your people. But I’m calling it; if Spence wants your sister, then you are the lucky one. She’ll never want for anything again in her life.”

  “Well, shit,” Luc hoots. “And there you have it. If Ang trusts, then it’s real.”

  “Fuck you, Lenaghan.”

  “Mind your fuckin’ manners,” he tosses back. “And stay away from my sister. It’s my turn to join this crew of overprotective ape bullshit. Out of all you motherfuckers, I’m the only one who didn’t lose his shit when his sisters started dating.”

  “Yeah,” Alex taunts, “that’s ‘cuz Jess married a fuckin’ thug, and Laine is with Angelo, and we all know not to fuck with him.”

  Angelo rolls his eyes and backs out of our little huddle. He said what he came here to say, and he doesn’t seem inclined to elaborate on the thug stuff. “I’m vouching for Spence,” he stares into my eyes as he rolls away. “So you’d better change your tune soon, or he’ll swoop her up, and she’ll realize how much cooler he is than you are.”

  “Hey now,” Luc drunkenly sniggers, “no need to hurt feelings. Mitch has got troubles, and my bros don’t shit on that.”

  “Not true,” Alex inserts on a slur. “Everyone shits on that. Don’t y’all remember when Britt started dating? No one cared about my feelings, or the dent in my fuckin’ head when she started throwing shit.”

  “And that’s the end of that discussion.” Giggling, Luc pushes to his feet and stumbles forward. “I don’t wanna fight tonight, so I’m calling a truce. C’mere, Mitchy. Step on this board, and I’ll hold your hips the way I used to hold Kari’s when I was teaching her.”

  “Motherfucker, you what?” Marcus drops his phone by his thigh and squares up to his best friend. “Wanna step outside so we can discuss this?”

  “We are outside!” Luc points toward the stars, the twinkling balls of orange and white. “You ready to rumble, Macchio? ‘Cuz I’ve been training since we last had beef. I won’t lay down this time.”

  “Get on board,” Angelo says once Luc bounces away. “Or be prepared to lose her. I don’t know exactly what’s up with your sister and Spence, but if they’re in love, then you don’t get a fuckin’ choice what she does. You only get to decide what you do.”

  * * *

  Drunk and in love. It’s rarely a good combo, especially if the drunk one is in love with someone who won’t say it back.

  But then again, I’m the pensive kinda drunk. The quiet, thoughtful, not-emotional, and not-angry kind of drunk. So while Luc and his friends attempt to break bones and have a laugh about it, I stay mildly functional, prepare to wrap limbs that need wrapping, and in my downtime, I enjoy an evening of stargazing while I think of Nadia. And Abigail.

  I think of that word—trauma—and my responses to it over the years. I think of my new friend Marc, and the way he handled his own lot in life. And hell, since I’m going, I think of Cady’s father, and the way he’s responding to the loss of his daughter.

  Marc and I swung in a similar direction; protect the girls at all costs, even if that means becoming irrational and mean. Even if that means hurting friendships, relationships, happy homes.

  It means I ruined a perfectly imperfect relationship with the woman I love, all because of my obsession with making something that was never my fault, and never controllable, my responsibility. I made it something I had to grab a hold of. I made Abby’s sickness a crutch for myself, and perhaps a therapist would even suggest it’s my way of keeping the rest of the world at arm’s length.

  Because the fewer people I have in my life, the less chance I’ll be hurt by their demise.

  My buzzing brain naturally slides on over to Cady’s father. His anger. His thirst for some kind of closure. Closure that his grief insists I possess and that taking me down will provide.

  I resist the urge to open any news site on my phone and search for my name. It’ll be there, headline news and mean as a snake. He’s digging up information on my life, from my teen years as a football player, to my prom night with Lorraine Whatsherface. He’s hired PIs, I guess, who’ve found my high school transcripts, and my driver’s license and history of speeding offenses.

  He’s found Abby—her sickness, and after that, her business—and he’s found Nadia. Though, lucky for us both, his interest in Nadia is because of her connection to Abby, and not to me. Having a secret relationship has worked out in the end, I suppose, because had it been known that she and I were together, no doubt he’d be all up in her business and causing trouble.

  I’m just a guy, just a regular worker paid a pittance by the state, and no one would accuse me of living an espionage-type of life, but I also have quiet confidence in the fact that Troy knows people who know people who make sure that their people have squeaky clean records. So whatever information the PI has found is information Troy long ago allowed to remain. Which means the news articles are sensationalized and reaching.

  But they’re mean, nonetheless, and make it hard to sleep at night.

  Taking out my phone, but not jumping over to the internet, I find Abby’s name at the top of my message list, hit enter, and start typing.

  Abby Cadabby. Someone recently told me that I’m obsessed with you. I got mad about it, lashed out, and wasn’t very nice to them. But now I’m a little drunk, my pride slips to the left and reveals that they may be right.

  I hit send, take another sip of beer, then keep going.

  This person thinks I use you, smother you, and rarely let you think for yourself.

  Again I hit send, but before I can keep typing, a response bounces back to me.

  Oh God, Mitch. Did Spencer text you? I’m calling you. Hold on.

  I don’t even have time to tell her not to call. I don’t get the chance to do any damn thing, because my phone buzzes in my hand and forces my heart from a trot to a run.

  Hitting accept, since that’s one trauma response I’m never going to give up, I bring the phone to my ear and smile. “You’re obsessed with me, too, huh?”

  “Oh sheesh.” She sighs the moment I snigger. “You’re drunk!”

  “I’m drinking,” I clarify. “Too drunk to drive, but not so drunk I can’t reset a broken arm. Why are you up so late, Cadabby? Huh?”

  “It’s nine o’clock,” she drawls. “Why are you drunk texting?”

  “Because I was made aware of a couple things recently. Things I can’t look past, no matter how much I wanna.”

  “Oh yeah?” She’s wary, but curious. Dreading this discussion, but unable to look away. “What things?”

  “Well…” I lay back on the grass just fifteen feet from where Luc ollies… shimmies… backflips… something like that. “I found out maybe I have lingering trauma after my childhood with a sick sister.”

  “My fault?” She’s both sad and angry. Devastated, but wary. “This call is to make me feel worse than I already do about your investment?”

  “Investment?” My brows furrow clos
e together. “What investment?”

  “The bone marrow,” she snaps. “The pain you went through. The hospital stays. All the time you missed out from your own life, because you were busy watching over mine. Am I not living up to your standards, Mitchell? Am I a disappointment because you don’t like some of the choices I’m making lately?”

  “You just…” I widen my eyes, and see a billion stars above. “Wow. You had all that bottled up, huh? Ready to strike me down and hurt me.”

  “So that’s my fault too? Dang it, Mitchell. What do you want from me? What can I do that will make you happy? What is enough for you?”

  “How ‘bout you listen, Red? That might be a great first step.”

  “Don’t call me Red,” she bites right back. “Jay Bishop does that, and I like it! Don’t steal that from him.”

  “Holy Christ on a fuckin’ cracker, Abigail. Are you done? Let me speak.”

  “Do not cuss at me, Mitchell Rosa! Do not call me up when you’re drunk, fling insults at me, then make out that I’m in the wrong.”

  “You’re enough.” I say it. Fast. Cutting. Certain. And succeed in shutting her the hell up. “Abby…” I sigh. “I never meant for you to feel like you owe me something. It’s… well… the opposite, really. I feel like I owe you. Protection. Love. Comfort. Stability. Safety. I got the good life, the healthy body, the…” I pause, and grin. “The good looks.”

  Abby laughs. “It’s true. You’re so handsome.”

  “I got the healthy body, Ab. And you got sick. I owed it to you to make your life smooth. To help you out, and make sure no one came along to hurt you.”

  “But you hurt me.” She says it so softly, but the volume of her words doesn’t take away from the ache they leave behind. “When you act like I’m unable to make my own choices, you minimize my strength. You make me doubt myself. That hurts me.”

  “I’m sorry.” I bring my free hand up to rest on my belly. “I’m truly sorry, Ab. That was never my intention. And for the record, I never considered you an investment, I never wanted you to feel like you owed me something. I never wanted to stifle your hopes and dreams. Or… ya know… your preferences in men.”