Taking the Leap (River Rain 3)

“I don’t know, but I might be more worried now,” I returned.

He scowled at me.

I rolled my eyes and turned to his family, sticking up my hand at random to whoever wanted to take it, and stated, “Hi, I’m Alex, and it probably comes as no surprise your son-slash-brother is overprotective. I’d appreciate it if you could just ignore his intro and stick with mine.”

No one said a word.

No one moved.

Then Hailey snorted.

Which caused Mr. Hendrix to guffaw.

That led to Josh chuckling.

And Mrs. Hendrix moved forward, taking my hand.

“Alex, so nice to meet you,” she said, not gushy or anything, just real.

“You too. Rix has talked a lot about you,” I told her.

“Lord help me, I don’t want to know what he said,” she replied.

“It’s all good,” I promised.

“You can let her go, son, we won’t release the hounds,” his dad promised.

Reluctantly, Rix let me go.

He gave and received hugs (and through this, I got to watch a heartwarming Hendrix Show when his dad’s hug went on a long time, his hug with his brother ended in a long, loving moment of eye contact, and Rix not only kissed the side of his mom’s head, he did the same with Hailey).

I got introductions (his dad, whose first name was Garrison, told me to call him Gare, his mom, with whom I shared a name, though mine was my middle one, told me to call her Mags).

Then Josh asked his brother, “Do you want to go in first? Do a walkthrough? Make sure we haven’t laid any traps?”

“Fuck off,” Rix muttered, claiming me again, but a lot less aggressively.

“Language,” Mags snapped.

“Where’s Kins?” Rix ignored his mom to ask Josh as we moved to the house.

“Napping.”

Rix then turned his attention to his mother and promptly communicated he wasn’t over it.

“You couldn’t have had just the two of you to start? You had to call Joshua and Hails here?”

“Rix!” I chided.

“What?” he asked me as we shuffled into his family’s home, still attached. “It’s a valid question. Your friends didn’t trial-by-fire me. My family doesn’t need to pull that shit with you.”

“John Hendrix,” his mother clipped. “Language.”

“Mom, I’m thirty-four years old, give it up,” Rix returned.

“Ohmigod,” I breathed as it dawned on me. “You’re the baby boy who gets away with everything.”

Rix was unfazed by this. “Well, yeah.”

“And…yeah,” Josh confirmed. “And I have a million and five stories to illustrate that.”

“Like you were the perfect son,” Rix scoffed.

“I had to put the effort into not getting caught,” Josh returned. “You didn’t give a shit you got caught because you knew you could get away with anything.”

We were all heading toward the kitchen, but Mags had already made it there, and she was addressing the ceiling.

“Lord God, you have my devotion. You’ve given me great bounty. I’m grateful, so I don’t ask much. But can you please send a message down to my sons that they are to respect their mother in her own home by cleaning up their mouths? I’ll accept a lightning bolt.”

Hailey laughed softly.

I caught her eyes as I did the same.

“Sweetheart, they’re boys,” for some reason Gare pointed out the obvious.

“And this is why they don’t respect their mother,” Mags shot back. “You and that tired excuse of ‘they’re boys.’” She turned to me and Hailey, who was standing beside me. “Foul mouths? It is what it is. They’re boys. Totaled car? No big deal. They’re boys. Eight hundred dollars for hockey skates, times two? We must. They’re boys. Girl’s panties in my laundry that were not mine? It comes with the territory. They’re boys.”

“Those panties had nothing to do with me,” Rix said, too fast.

“Horseshit,” Josh returned. “For fuck’s sake, Rix, cut that crap. My wife is standing right there.”

Hailey stuck her arm through mine and announced, “I feel like day drinking.” She looked down at me. “Do you feel like day drinking?”

It was barely nine o’clock.

“Mimosas!” Mags nearly shouted.

“Let’s do it,” Hailey agreed, pulling me toward Mags and away from Rix.

I looked back at him.

He was glowering at Hailey’s back like he feared she was about to rush me into a windowless van, and then I’d disappear.

When his eyes came to me, I mouthed I’m okay.

He jerked up his chin.

Hailey pulled me to a massive kitchen island from under which Mags was unearthing champagne from a wine fridge while Hailey let me go and went to the fridge-fridge to extract a plethora of fruit juices.

“Okay, this is the plan,” Mags started. “We’re ignoring them for at least half an hour. Maybe forty-five minutes. I think my blood pressure will even out by then. In the meantime, Elsa had some pix of you on her show today. Do you really know Harry?”

Damn.

I knew it.

Elsa wasn’t done with us.

And she’d gone searching.

I shot Rix a warning, don’t intervene look.

He scowled again but kept his mouth shut.