Live Free (Lords of Mayhem 3)

“Me either. Things change.” Evonne shrugged.

“Well, then I guess, okay,” Juliette said.

“Now that we’ve done our obligational, let’s move on and ask what we all want to know. How was he?” Joey asked as she plopped down on the couch.

Juliette and Hilary sat on opposite sides of her.

Evonne sank down on the chair beside them, laughing. “Do you take me for a woman who kisses and tells?” She fluttered her lashes.

“I sure as hell hope so. The man is fine,” Hil said.

“Look, even Hil isn’t immune to his charms.” Joey gestured toward her friend.

Juliette cleared her throat. “He does have quite a reputation.”

“It’s well earned,” Evonne said.

“Oooh!” The girls tittered and Evonne smirked.

“So, you’re…as okay as you could be?” Juliette asked.

“Yeah, Jul.” Evonne reached over and squeezed her hand. “Shaken, pissed at myself and still processing, but maintaining. Now, how about we move me in?” Evonne said, thinking of the boxes piled up in her room.

“That’s what we really came here for. The cleaning supplies are in the kitchen. You know how bachelors live,” Hil said, shuddering.

Evonne rose, grateful they’d decided to drop it for now. “Let’s get some music going.” She walked to her room, took out her mp3 player. A few minutes later, upbeat pop from her workout playlist filled the room.

* * * * *

Rocky opened the door to his house and stepped inside. The scent of something light and citrusy filled his nostrils. A red warning flag went up. Evonne had been cleaning. Did she move my shit around too? We’re going to have to talk. I’ll share my space for a time, but I’m not surrendering the keys to the bachelor pad totally. He shut the door behind him and walked farther down the small hall that led to the living room. The scent of something rich and meaty wafted in from the kitchen. His stomach grumbled. “Evonne?”

“In the kitchen.”

His gaze swept over his domain as he walked. Good, nothing’s been moved around. “What are you doing?” He stepped into the kitchen and paused in the doorframe.

Evonne pulled out a glass plate of lasagna from the oven, set it on the stove and grabbed a loaf of garlic bread cut in half. “I’m just going to pop this in, and we can eat in like…ten?”

“It smells amazing, but you didn’t have to do any of this shit. I can tell you cleaned up. You’re not a house mouse. There are no chores to be done when I leave.”

“Yeah, I know.” She shrugged. “But I am staying here, cramping your style and I need something to keep me busy. I had to cancel all my upcoming jobs and now, if I don’t keep busy…I’ll go out of my mind here during the day.”

“All right, fair enough. Let me put my shit in my room and I’ll meet up with you at the table.”

She gave a small smile and nodded. “Sounds good. Beer okay?”

“Hell, yeah. I need it after the ass kicking I just did.” He winked at her and headed back to his room. He couldn’t help but feel a bit appreciative. It’d been a long-ass time since he had a home-cooked meal.

Images of his grandmother, whom he always called Nona, the Italian word for grandmother dance

d, in his head. The woman had birthed ten children. Small meals weren’t in her vocabulary. She’d had a soft spot for him, despite the banishment his mother earned when she had him out of wedlock and stepped out on her own. Family affairs had been a tense thing with his grandfather pretending he didn’t exist and glowering at his mom. His grandparents hadn’t come around at all until he was about ten, and his Nona had a heart attack. Apparently her near-death experience gave his soft-spoken, somewhat submissive Nona her own voice. Petite with tan skin, hands calloused and worn from hard work and with her curly white hair in a bun, she’d been a saint.

Too bad none of that stuck with my mother. Junkie bitch. When his mom, Mona, wasn’t strung out she could give a Stepford wife a run for her money. Home-cooked meals, clean house, help with his homework. But he could never trust it. Because he knew eventually she’d fall off the wagon and turn into a monster.

Pasty faced, rail thin, and constantly twitching, junkie Mona would do anything to get money for drugs and tended to forget about everything else. She cursed him, swung at him in her paranoid state when she swore he was after her stash and forced him to scrounge for food to keep from starving. He’d been grateful when he left the hellhole of an apartment he shared with her. Thank God Nona didn’t live to see the worst of it.

Dropping the bag inside his room, he paused in the bathroom to wash his hands and proceeded to the kitchen. The wood floor practically gleamed and the counters were brighter than he’d seen them in a while. “It looks good. Did you do this all by yourself?”

“No, the girls helped. They wanted to make sure I was settled in properly.”