Lock You Down (Rivers Brothers 2)

The anxiety was likely misplaced, though, seeing as he didn't struggle to get along with Krissy who was basically a female version of Luis except a sight more grounded. If anything, he found her amusing. And I hoped he would feel the same about Luis.

I didn't tell my parents I was dating anyone new. Our calls over the past several months had been reduced to talks of the weather, Devil Tears, and a recap of all the functions they'd been to recently, and what shows or exhibits they had been to.

It would feel weird to bring up something so personal to them given the obvious tension between us since I had made my accusations, since I had hightailed it out of California--and, for the most part, their lives--nearly two years before.

You're going to have to work on that when all this is done Nixon had advised me one night when I had gotten off the phone with them, walking away from where he was sitting in the living room with Mal happily purring on his lap to have my awkward conversation before rejoining him. I get that shit is weird now, but when all this is done, you have to repair that. Family is important.

Nixon had very strong feelings on family. Coming from such a tight-knit one, joining an even tighter one, I understood his stance even if he clearly couldn't grasp the fact that my parents and I never had the relationship that his siblings and he had with their mother before she passed, or the kind he currently shared with Helen and Charlie.

He was right, though, of course.

He so often was.

It was a fact everyone around him found infuriating because he could be rather smug in his rightness.

I, however, appreciated that I could count on him for sound advice, for impartial council when I was too emotionally invested in something to see it from a different angle.

And he was right about my parents.

I was pretty sure once Michael was outed, once they knew I was right, once the resentment I felt at them not believing me had a chance to dissipate, I knew I would have to make a trip back there; I would have to have those hard discussions. I would need to repair the split. We would all need to learn how to move forward as a family after all we had been through.

It would happen.

But not yet.

First, Michael needed to be brought to justice.

And I was fretting over my dress to wear to the local art opening Lo believed Michael might attend.

It had been longer than I realized since I attended any sort of function that wasn't drinks with my brother and Krissy or Sunday dinners. Both were somewhat informal affairs.

Suddenly, I found something that used to be second-nature to be foreign and frustrating.

"Not the red one," Nixon told me, the first words he'd spoken to me since the text came in, since I told him I would have to go, that he would have to stay home.

We weren't in a fight. Nixon wasn't even freezing me out, giving me the juvenile silent treatment. He was just processing. And I understood him enough to know that he needed to do so without being pressured, so he could come to terms with things more easily. The fact that he was speaking to me, especially about something relating to a night he most definitely did not approve of, said he was there. He had come to terms with it.

"Really?" I asked, scrunching my nose at my reflection as I held it in front of my body. "I was leaning toward it actually."

"It's too sexy. Too attention-grabbing."

"You think the white?" I asked, reaching for that one. "More, I don't know, virginal?"

"The flowers," he suggested, jerking his chin toward the pile hanging over the back of a chair. "The blue one with the white flowers. It's... understated. I think that's the route you want to go. If Lo is right and he is into the women he enjoyed watching grow up..."

"Right," I agreed, lip curling. "I'm going to have to burn this after tonight."

"You okay?" he asked, waiting for me to turn to face him. He sat off the end of the bed, gaze on me, shoulders tense.

"I think so," I told him, nodding. "I'm just happy to get this over with."

Though, as it turned out, it wasn't my night.

Michael did show up.

And he did talk to me.

But he didn't hit on me or ask me to meet him anywhere for dinner.

I went home tired and frustrated, to find Nixon already running me a bath full of soapy water, seemingly knowing I felt slimy and achy. He even stripped out of his clothes with me, climbing in, pulling me against his chest, holding me.

I never thought having a steady man in my life would change it so much. I already had a good life. I had a great career, loving friends, a lovely home, a cat that tolerated my presence. I didn't imagine having someone there would change things too much.