Chasing Serenity (River Rain 1)

“It’s all right,” she whispered, having turned her gaze to the spray of flowers.

“Did you pick those?” he asked.

“I said red. Blood red. Like her signature lipstick. Mom picked those,” she told him. And then, “Of course, Mom was right. Gram would love that arrangement. Particularly the fact there are about a hundred more roses than are needed and Mom asked for it to be broken down when this is all done and the bouquets made from it sent around to the local nursing homes.”

He was not surprised at all that Genny requested this.

At this juncture, it seemed the low drone of voices in the packed space (save the front row, it was just Genny’s immediate family…and Corey in the front row) was dying away, so Cory looked over his shoulder to see the pastor making his way down the aisle.

The service was about to begin.

The man stopped at Genny and Tom, bent and took Genny’s hand, held it, speaking to her at the same time nodding, like he was agreeing with his own self.

Corey wanted to tackle him, demand he not touch her, just get his ass up front, say his words and get this done so Gen was not sitting in front of a room full of people. Some of them family. Some of them friends. Marilyn was social and popular.

But a lot of them, he knew, were craning their necks to get a good look at Imogen Swan, Tom Pierce…

And Corey Szabo.

“This, she’d hate,” Chloe said, and Corey returned his attention to her.

“She would,” he agreed, moving his gaze back to the pastor.

“She was religious and everything, but she told me she just wanted us to cremate her, have a big party, no tears, no ceremony, lots of booze and fattening food, and when we got back home, throw her ashes in the ocean.”

The ocean.

Corey actually had to close his eyes for a moment as that memory assailed him.

Though, only a moment.

“It’s good I have a driver,” he noted as they both watched the pastor leave Gen and Tom and start to move to the front of the room where the lectern was next to the spray and the picture.

“Why?” Chloe asked.

“Because, if your mom and dad don’t already have said plan, you and I are going out to get shitfaced drunk.”

Chloe snorted, and startled, because Corey did not often (as in hardly ever) make anyone laugh, he slid his gaze to her.

Her lips were trembling with the effort it took for her to stop smiling.

“Are you in?” he asked.

“Can we drink pink ladies?” she returned.

Marilyn’s preferred drink.

In fact, the portrait before them shared that.

“You can, I will not,” he refused.

He caused no offense. Quite the contrary, her lips were trembling again.

“I will also buy you two dozen of them, if that’s what it takes,” he offered.

“If you’re buying, you’re on.”

“Excellent,” he muttered just as the pastor cleared his throat.

The man started speaking, and the good news was, he knew Marilyn and he liked her. Therefore, even as he began, his tone was warm, and it was clear he was feeling his own grief.

Excellent.

That would soothe Genny.

Chloe leaned into Corey so far her arm was pressed to his.

“Uncle Corey?”

He turned his head and tipped his chin down to catch her gaze.

“Thank you,” she said.

He stared into her pretty brown eyes, wondering what another girl who had a different father but the same mother might look like.

He then shut that thought away, grabbed Chloe’s hand and faced front.

He would feel it minutes later, and in doing so, it would make him again turn his head left.

To see Gen angled a bit forward, her eyes aimed at Corey holding her daughter’s hand.

She caught his attention on her, lifted her gaze to his and gave him a small, grateful smile that did nothing to alleviate the anguish on her face.

That smile made Corey feel good.

Even so, he was shocked that, with Chloe’s fingers curved around his, that made him feel better.

Genny returned her focus to the pastor, and Corey gazed at Marilyn’s picture.

If it were him, there would be a million roses crammed into that room, and he would not give that first fuck what anyone thought of the gesture, the largess, or the excess.

Because, growing up, there was one woman on this earth who made Corey feel loved.

And now…

She was dead.

* * *

In the end, sitting with Chloe at a local bar, he drank pink ladies.

Because it made Chloe laugh.

And it would have made Marilyn smile.

Chapter 4

The Party

Chloe

Now…

“Holy crap,” Sully said, eyes on me as he walked into my room at Bowie’s house.

Well…

If I must.

Sasha and my room, since, like now, when we were both there at the same time, we shared it.

However, even if Sasha was up from Phoenix visiting Mom and Bowie more often than I was, I liked to think of this lovely little mountain-chic suite as mine, since I’d claimed it first.