Just then, the phone started ringing in her hand making her laugh loudly while we all just stared at her. Yeah, she knew she’d opened the gates of hell. “Woman, what the hell?” Raoul growled. “I told you just yesterday to stay out of trouble.”
They’d lived next to each other for roughly a year, and the way they both described it, they didn’t get along. Then again, Rose had a tendency to wind people up with very little effort involved, and Raoul was a sullen son of a bitch. It was like oil and water, and I didn’t trust anyone more with watching over the little shit. Although, he could have proven he had the right to that trust by reading her mind and stopping her from sending that fucking text, just saying.
Snatching the phone out of her hand, I hit the green button and held it up to my ear. “Ellis Beauregard, did you forget to tell me something?” Mom squealed, her deep Texas accent sounding even more pronounced than normal, and that said something. To this day I’ve never met anyone with a stronger Texan accent than my mother. “Hey, Mom,” I croaked, sitting down heavily in my chair and making sure Liv was comfortable as she clutched handfuls of my t-shirt in her tiny hands in case anyone tried to take her away. I swear I hadn’t taught her that, but I wasn’t going to discourage it either.
“That was so weak,” Rose snickered, picking up Raoul’s drink and taking a mouthful. “By all means, help yourself,” he told her drily. “Thanks!”
“Your daddy and I absolutely love Jose, and we adore that little baby girl, as you know. I have so much stuff for her building up, and we’re coming to Piersville tomorrow to see your sister, so we’ll meet at yours and give her bunches of love, okay?”
“I don’t…”
“Excellent. Say lunchtime, we’ll bring it all with us.”
I knew everyone could hear her excited voice when they all burst out laughing, and the block between my brain and mouth evaporated. “Great, but you better bring enough for…” I looked around the table counting heads, “an extra four people. Dave and Tabby are coming, and so is Rose and her boyfriend Raoul. See you later, bye!” I ended the call and waited.
There was nothing but silence from the other occupants of the table. DB knew there was no point in arguing, so he just sat watching the other patrons of the diner in his usual way. Tabby liked my parents and probably had no issues with the invite either, so she was fine, too. Raoul, however, was fidgeting like he was getting an enema with chili water, and Rose was so pale she made milk look tanned. “I think I have an appointment all day tomorrow,” Jose muttered, pretending to check her phone.
“No, you don’t.”
“I’m sure I do.”
Leaning back in my chair, I adjusted Liv so she was facing me with her booty on the table, with both of my hands holding her in place. I’d always shied away from kids, they were an enigma to me and I could never gauge where they were at with their development. What if I said something to a three-year-old that only a six-year-old would understand? There were rigid boundaries with kids and the shit that they understood, and I just didn’t know which applied to what age range. But with Liv, she’d been different from the second I’d seen her for the first time. I’d heard about the development between Jose and Larry – hell, everyone had – but again, there were boundaries with that sort of thing, and I wasn’t the guy to cross them. I’d always thought long and hard about everything I did in life, weighed up every angle, put all my ducks in a uniformed line… but the first time I didn’t follow that mentality, I ended up in Jose’s hospital room, looking into the eyes of a little girl who made her way into my heart the first second I saw her. Literally that first second. I hadn’t thought past making sure Jose was okay, giving her support and helping them all out, until I’d heard that Larry and Rita could still be a threat to them. It was like a switch had been flicked and I had this overwhelming need to make sure they were okay, so I’d camped out in front of Jose’s house without her knowing. Day after day they’d taken more of my heart, until we got to where we were now, and I was happier than I’d ever been – even with my parents coming tomorrow.
Looking over at Jose, who was still frantically searching for an excuse, I laid it all out for her.
“Baby, she loves you and Liv already, she just wants to see y’all. She’s happy for us and will undoubtedly have a billion questions, but you can handle that.” When she looked up at me and I saw how worried she was, I went with humor as the solution. “And if it gets too much, we’ll just pass her the princess to cuddle and she’ll forget all of it.” To prove that point, I lifted Liv up and passed her back to her mom, grinning when she gave me a dirty look at the sneaky maneuver. “Well, isn’t this lovely,” a voice I recognized, and hadn’t particularly ever wanted to hear again, sneered. Turning around, I took a deep breath and tried not to let my feelings show when I saw my ex, Evette, standing there with her hands on her hips. “Evette,” I greeted, doing my best to be as civil as possible. This woman had been a pain in my ass while we were together, and a bigger pain in it when I’d ended things. The amount of times I’d been accused of cheating was probably more than the amount of times we’d said hello to each other. If I smiled at another woman – cheating, if I said hi to one – cheating, tattooing one – cheating, holding a door open for one – cheating. She checked my phone, she drove past my work, she turned up everywhere I went, she lost her shit that I’d had girlfriends before her, the list was endless. I’d done my best to explain it all to her, but in the end I just couldn’t do it, she was too unreasonable for rational discussions. That’s when she’d started rumors about my so-called infidelity, dragging good women’s names into it until people realized she was just full of shit. I’d ended up breaking it off just over a month before Jose gave birth to Liv, and that had been after a month of not seeing Evette at all because I’d made up excuse after excuse why I couldn’t. Was it a pussy thing to do – fuck no, she was terrorizing my life, and I needed to figure out what to do to get her to settle down before I ended it. This woman had a switch in her and flicking it while she was riled up about something wasn’t a good idea. I’d let her calm down, thought through every way I could do what I needed to, and realized there was no way of doing it without her exploding, so I’d just done it. I’d never hurt the heart of one of my ex’s, we’d always had amicable splits, and I’d hoped that this one would be the same even though I knew deep down it wouldn’t be. I was right, and to say she lost her shit after things ended and upped her drama fest was an understatement. I didn’t know the full story because I stayed away, but I know that she ended up leaving town when she did something that showed her true colors. So, seeing her right now was not a good thing.