Chasing Serenity (River Rain 1)

Consequences be damned, the next time he’d pushed her, I’d gone right up to him and punched him in the sternum as hard as my little girl arm could do it.

He’d howled like I’d cut him with a blade.

And then it had been Andrew who’d been causing havoc for weeks, but I got in serious shit with the teacher and principal discussing with my parents my “alarming” tendency toward violence.

Mom and Dad were pissed and worried (incidentally, I distinctly remember Uncle Corey winking at me when he’d been at the house and Mom told him this story).

I found even at five I cared about the worried, but not the pissed.

I also learned from that incident.

Don’t do something, for yourself or someone else, that’ll get your ass in a sling.

Be smarter.

From then, to now, I made it my mission to do just that.

Go forth.

Do what I had to do for myself or someone I loved.

Damn the consequences.

But when I did it, be smart about it.

And I very much wanted to guard my heart which meant, in all that was happening in my life and the lives of the ones I loved, guard my peace of mind when it came to Judge.

But for some reason I could not fathom, I found it impossible to allow him to think I was ghosting him.

Though, I did make him wait precisely one and a half hours before I responded to his ghosting accusation.

Me: You don’t know this about me, because you don’t know me, but I’m a busy girl.

Judge, playing no games (Lord help me with this man), this coming immediately: You OK?

Me, timing it for sixteen minutes later: I was okay yesterday.

Judge, again immediately: You were lying yesterday.

Me, giving it nearly twenty-seven minutes that time: You’re delusional.

Judge, after only maybe five minutes passed: Whatever. Are you timing your responses so I won’t think you’re into me?

Annoying!

Me: Cad.

Judge: I’ve gone from asshole and dick to player to cad. I have to look up cad, but I think that’s progress.

Me: Is there some reason you’re bothering me? I ask this because, you might have missed it with your selective male ears, but I DID mention previously I was a busy girl.

Judge: Just wanna check in on my coat. It was a gift. I wanna make sure you’re taking real good care of it.

I knew he was teasing, flirting, but I found this snippet of information about Judge interesting.

And it was then it occurred to me that I’d given a lot away in our few meetings, but he’d given nothing away.

I knew he was beautiful.

I knew I loved his laugh.

I knew preliminary research showed he was an exceptionally skilled kisser.

I knew he worked for Duncan.

I knew the work he did for Duncan provided evidence that he might genuinely be a good guy (when he wasn’t acting like a cad, of course).

And I now knew someone gave him that fabulous coat.

That was all I knew.

It did nothing for my peace of mind, it clanged mightily against my iron will.

But still, I did it.

I asked.

Me: A gift?

Judge: From my dad.

Me: He has good taste.

Judge: In everything but women.

Then another one from Judge on the heels of that: Though he’s proved he can learn.

Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

My mental alarm went Defcon One as the assault to my shields went in overdrive.

Because this did not intrigue me.

I needed to know what that meant.

Needed it.

I knew he was trouble.

I didn’t know the letters in the name “Judge” spelled d-i-s-a-s-t-e-r.

So, of course, this was when I ghosted him.

I’d heard from him twice right after that: You there? and You get busy?

And I’d heard from him this morning: Get too real for you?

Then…nothing.

Nothing from me in return.

Therefore, now I had Matt still angry with me. Sasha being too…whatever she was, to deal with the file our dead Uncle Corey had some mastermind private dick procure for me. When he started getting real, I’d blown off Judge precisely as he said I had. Making that worse, he was doing it sharing about himself.

And I needed to get my ass in my car so I could go over to Dad’s house because Bowie and Mom were down from Prescott, we were having dinner together (at Dad’s!) because they had something to talk to me about.

All Dad would say about it was, “A project we want you to get involved in.”

I did not want to have dinner with my beloved father, my beloved mother, and my mother’s beloved fiancé, who I also was falling in love with, but who was not my dad.

I further did not want to get involved in a project with the three of them.

A project I knew, without them telling me, was their way to make sure the PR around Mom and Bowie being together, and Mom and Dad not, and all of us being family anyway, stayed positive. This, no matter that Uncle Corey’s bitchface ex, Samantha, had told the world on a YouTube gossip show that Dad cheated on Mom.