Good Girl : An Enemies-to-Lovers, Roommate Romance (Alphahole Roommates Book 2), page 44
“Why waste money getting rid of perfectly good furniture?” she asks.
I laugh. “My mother redecorates every second year.”
She waves her hand. “I love everything I see so far. Show me the rest. And when can we go to the ocean?”
“Tomorrow? Does that work?”
She jumps up and down excitedly and throws her arms around me as she jumps up, wrapping her arms and legs around me. I catch her and smile.
I’m really, really fucking happy right now.
“My first plane trip, my first time to California, my first trip to the ocean tomorrow. You’re giving me so many firsts Austin. I love it.”
I kiss her. “And I fuckin’ love that I get so many of those.”
***
The look on Jada’s face when we get to Ocean Beach is a look I’ll never forget.
It’s sunset and the sky is a swirl of crimson, yellow, and purple. She’s in awe as we walk the sand.
“Hey,” I whisper, turning her to me as she stares at the horizon.
“I smell it,” she tells me.
“Are you happy? Because California has been home, sweetheart, but if you’d rather we stay in New York or go somewhere else, I’m totally open to talking about that.”
“I don’t care where we are as long as I’m with you,” she says.
“I love you,” I whisper and then touch her lips with my fingertips.
Her eyes go bright with tears and she swallows before she whispers, “I love you, too, Austin.”
She wraps her arms around my neck and gets on her tiptoes.
“Your first ocean kiss,” I say, and then our lips meet.
62
Jada
Waking up in Austin’s bed feels like a dream. It’s been amazing – these few days here so far. My new life feels like a vacation. Sun and palm trees, and living in a big, beautiful home with sunshine spilling through the windows. Austin’s home office has a desk right by the window that looks at the pool and he tells me it’s now my office – a place for me to write. Though I can see myself writing outside a lot, too.
Yesterday, while he was sitting at the desk going through his mail, I told him I wanted to get a job and he sweetly told me no.
“No? What do you mean?”
He shook his head. “Your job right now is to get settled, see if this feels like home, and to write.”
I frowned. He opened an envelope and pulled a bank card out. And then ripped open another envelope.
“Here.” He handed me two cards. “One debit, one credit. You can give me the Carmichael card back since you’re… you know… fired.” He smirked at me. “Call the number on the back and follow the prompts to pick your pin.”
“Fired?” I gasped.
“Yeah. You’re no longer my housekeeper. You’re my girlfriend.”
“Yeah, well, your girlfriend is not looking to be a kept woman.”
He studied my face for a minute. “How about this? Take two months and then we’ll talk again. Those cards are for anything you want or need in the meantime.”
“I don’t need anything.” I pouted.
“If you do, use them. Especially the credit card. I get killer air miles with it and then we can fly for free when we wanna go to Glasgow, Spain, or wherever. I use that and pay it each month so groceries, gas, whatever. Racks the miles up fast.” He waved his hand.
“I saved almost all the money I made while working for you so if I need something, I can buy it myself.” I pouted and crossed my arms. I also have some money in the bank leftover from my father’s finances.
“Okay, fine. But buy the food, gas for the car, and shit for the house with the Amex, though.”
I said nothing.
“Stop pouting or I’ll put you over my knee and spank you.”
I jolted in surprise. And then I put a huge fake pout on my face. I pushed my lower lip out as far as it’d go.
Austin’s eyes lit with delight, then I was hauled up over his shoulder. I dropped the bank cards in surprise and was taken up to his bedroom, spanked on my butt three times over his knee, and then he fucked me doggie style on his bed.
I love that he wants to take care of me. It’s something I’ve never had.
I also don’t want to be a burden, don’t want to be a taker and not a giver in the relationship. But he’s been so sweet and nurturing and I know it comes from a good place, so I figure I’ll take the two months he’s offering and then make sure I’m contributing somehow beyond cooking, cleaning, and shopping.
***
It feels a little daunting walking into Adele’s house with Austin for my first Carmichael family Sunday dinner, but it’s a big and important one so the focus won’t all be on me, the newcomer. As soon as we’re out of the car, the door is flying open. Once we climb the steps, I’ve got little Braeden grabbing my waist and hugging me.
“Told you!” Braeden beams a smile up at me.
“Uh, what?” Austin squats. “And don’t I even get a hello?”
“Hey Unco Austin.”
Austin’s face goes funny.
“What’s wrong?” I whisper.
He shakes his head and clears the expression. “Told her what?”
“Never mind,” I say to Austin. And I wink at Braeden. He winks back. Or tries, but it’s a struggle and the cutest attempted wink I’ve ever seen as his little face goes all twisty as he blinks with both eyes and then pulls one open with his little hand.
Adele and Carly approach together with big smiles on their faces and I’m engulfed in hugs.
“He said my name properly,” Austin grumbles to his sister, hugging her.
She shrugs. “I know. He’s growing up too fast. He still mispronounces Aiden. I’m guessing that’ll end in a week max.”
“And he’s wise beyond his years,” I say, stroking Braeden’s head.
“I told her she was gonna be my auntie,” Braeden announces. “And I was right.”
“We haven’t gotten married,” I warn in a whisper.
He shrugs. “I think it’ll be a couple months,” Braeden announces.
I laugh nervously. And then my eyes are met by Austin’s and he has a serious look on his face that makes my heart skip a beat.
I smile shyly as we move further into the house.
“How are you?” Carly asks, eyes concerned.
“I’m okay,” I say, “and also amazing. Austin’s made it all so much easier. It’s kind of crazy to have everything fall apart and come together all at the same time, you know?”
She squeezes my hand. “I know,” she says softly.
Austin’s eyes are on me with a look of love and promise. I feel all squishy inside.
“So, Audra and Q are here with their significant others?” Austin asks under his breath.
“Oh yes…” Adele says with her lips pulled tight and her eyes saying something like ‘oh shit’.
We head into the big family room and as I compliment Adele on her lovely home, I see Alice holding Baby Lilly on her lap. Lilly is sucking on a fabric book. Austin’s dad Quentin is beside her on the couch, smiling at the baby.
On the deck outside, I spot Austin’s mother with a tall and attractive older man. They’re talking to a dark-haired guy who is grilling food.
“Hello, Jada,” Austin’s father rises and gives me a hug. “Welcome to California.”
“Hello again. How are you, love?” Alice asks.
“Good. Thanks. How are you?”
“Wonderful,” she beams.
Lilly squeals at me.
“Hi baby girl!” I greet and tickle her feet.
“You know everyone here,” Adele says, “Come meet my husband and Mom and her beau. Wait. What to drink? Long island iced tea okay?”
“Sounds good. I met your mom briefly in New York,” I say.
“Beer please,” Austin replies.
“And how was that?” Aiden asks, coming into the conversation, smiling.
“Hi Aiden.”
“Hey,” he greets and hugs me. “Welcome to the nut house. And the family. Same diff.”
I chuckle and my eyes bounce to Austin who’s smiling wide at his brother.
Adele puts drinks in each of our hands, then pulls the screen door aside and waves me out. My eyes land on Austin.
“Right behind you, baby,” he says and follows.
63
Austin
It all happens in a blink around sunset. One minute, I’m sitting with my family, cuddling my sleeping niece against my chest while watching my mother and the girl I know I’m going to marry bond – seeing my mother laughing and looking happy, having my father and his ex best friend speaking off to the side with my brother and brother-in-law looking like they’re trying, for the sake of all of us, when things go more fucked up than any of us could’ve imagined.
***
We’re just finishing dinner and my mother has already told me she wants to speak to me privately before the night is over. She’s been rather well-behaved today so far. For Audra, that is. So I instead say, “What about breakfast tomorrow instead? Come over. Spend the morning with me and Jada.”
My mother smiled at that and seemed even more at ease.
She hasn’t even been rude to Jada once, though she refuses to look at my father or Alice.
Alice takes it all in stride and talks happily with everyone, seeming completely unaffected.
Jada tried to bring Alice into the conversation twice, once asking about her accent and then asking her about Wales, her birthplace.
My mother pulled Carly into a separate conversation at that point, trying to avoid eye contact with Alice.
Her need to ignore Alice might be why she’s being so sweet to Jada, but as it’s making my girl happy right now to be welcomed into the fold, I’ll take it.
***
We’re sitting in the backyard and I’m on a lounger with my niece asleep on my chest. Aiden has just finished telling Jada and Roger the story of Carly breaking records on the leaderboard at laser tag back when “she didn’t appreciate my management style.”
“You mean when I wanted to castrate you?” Carly corrects.
“Ouch, Peaches. That’s not nice.”
She rolls her eyes. “He was the biggest alphahole ever,” she says.
“Oh, I don’t know about ever,” Jada mutters under her breath.
“Hey!” I act affronted and then I wink at her.
“Now look at you, all… ovary destroying over there.” Jada waves. “With a baby sleeping on you like that. These Carmichael boys, I tell ya.”
“They get it honestly,” Dad chimes in.
We all laugh.
“What?” he asks, affronted. “I’ve exploded some ovaries in my day.”
My mother busts up laughing. “Uh, no. My hysterectomy did that, not you.”
Alice laughs. Roger snickers.
This is bizarre. My parents getting along. Their significant others laughing as Mom ribs Dad.
***
My siblings and I exchange glances. My father, too. His brows are up in surprise as he looks at my mother laughing, sitting with Jada and Carly, looking like she’s having fun without it being related to alcohol and without looking like she’s only smiling due to enjoying anyone else’s discomfort.
But she’s been in conversation with them both for the past half hour, discussing some author my mother reads. I think Carly brought up books knowing it’d give them common ground. Jada has explained she was attending that author’s workshops in the big apple and Mom and her talked about going to a signing next month in Los Angeles when that author is doing a book tour for her latest. Sounds like the three of them are making plans to go together. My mother doesn’t even get bitchy when Jada timidly tells her she wants to be a writer and write steamy romance. My mother says she wants to read her work. Jada laughs nervously and I shoot her a look of horror.
***
I’m stretched out on a lounger by the pool, thinking I’ll pass the baby to Adele or Dirk next time one of them heads inside when from the corner of my eye, I see a flash of auburn hair.
Sienna?
“What the fuck?” I say, and watch her bolt through the yard, having come over the fence of the yard behind Adele and Dirk’s and then she’s at the table with my mother, Carly, and Jada and she’s lunging for Jada.
“Fuck!’ I shout. But I’ve got the baby in my arms. And now she’s wailing because I’ve shouted. And they’re thirty feet away. My eyes go wild looking for the nearest person to hand Lilly off to when my mother is pulling a flailing Sienna away from Jada. It’s arms, hair, screams. A tangle of Sienna trying to swing for my mother, for Jada, or even Carly who is also right there. Roger moves fast, hauling Sienna away from my mother.
And Sienna’s hair is flying wildly as she kicks her feet, being pulled up off the ground by her father. She shouts, face contorted. “You and you next!” Sienna hisses at Carly and Jada. “Bitches fucking everything up in my life!”
I hand Lilly to Adele, who’s run out and I rush in that direction.
“Let me go! Let me go! She’s ruining everything! And you! You bitch, Audra. I hate you. You fixed nothing. Why did you lie to me? I hope you bleed out and die right here.”
“Sienna, fuck!” I get between Sienna and Jada and Carly. “Call the cops, Dirk. You got her, Rog?”
Sienna struggles in her father’s grip as he tries to settle her down.
“Princess, settle down. Give me the knife.”
Knife?
I see it now.
Roger tries to take it from her but Sienna struggles, shouting at her father for being here with the traitor Carmichaels, the enemies. The kitchen knife blade glints with bright red on the tip. My eyes slash to Jada, no blood that I can see. Carly. No blood either. They’re both freaked, but neither are bleeding.
Sienna struggles some more, grunting, crying.
She’s a mess. Her hair is everywhere. She looks nothing like the pampered and coiffed rich bitch we all know. There’s blood on her but I don’t know if it’s hers.
It’s mayhem, with Lilly crying in my sister’s arms as my sister grabs Braeden’s hand and tries to usher him toward the house and Braeden’s crying, too.
I hear Dirk on the phone with emergency services as my eyes wildly traverse everyone.
“You!” Sienna points at me. “and you,” she hisses at Aiden. “I hate you both.”
And then I hear Braeden.
“Grammy’s bleeding! Grammy’s bleeding!” Braeden shouts as Adele pulls him into the house.
Alice gasps, grabbing my father’s arm. All eyes must move to my mother, whose back is to me. My mother looks down at her stomach and slumps to the patio while the knife clatters. Roger lets go of Sienna to reach for my mother, who hasn’t said a word, whose cream-blouse I can now see is glowing crimson across the middle. Aiden grabs Sienna and wrestles her to the ground, holding her down.
Jada pulls out of my grip to reach for my mother, and then she and Carly are on their knees in front of my mother, whose middle is gushing blood. Alice is there, too, piling towels on my mother’s stomach. My mother’s eyes dart between me, my brother, my sister, and then Roger and she looks at us with fear in her eyes that I’ve never seen and will never forget for the rest of my life.
“It’s okay, Mom. Dirk has an ambulance is coming,” Aiden says. “Hang on!”
Sienna roars out a banshee-like scream.
“Shut the fuck up you goddamn bunny boiler,” I snap and Aiden growls in her face.
She laughs maniacally while my brother continues to pin her.
“We’ll put pressure on it, Mrs. Carmichael,” Alice says. “Try to relax. Q, Roger, help please.”
My father gets on his knees beside Roger and presses a towel to her middle. Alice puts her hands there, too. They all try to keep my mother talking, telling her to hang on while Dad’s, Alice’s, and Roger’s hands all hold the towels in place.
Jada and Carly have their arms around one another. I put my arms around them both.
“You two okay?”
I get nods and sniffles, and Jada wrapping both arms around me and hanging on. I feel both of them trembling.
Sirens.
The ambulance. Thank God.
***
Aiden contained Sienna until the cops arrived and arrested her.
Sienna was in hysterics under my brother, thrashing, calling him names, spouting insults at all of us as her father looked on in horror between his daughter and at my mother.
While she was carted away by the cops, she was out of her mind screaming threats at me, at Aiden, Carly, and Jada. That she’ll kill us. That she’ll pay to have us killed. That we should be looking over our shoulders always. That when my kid is born, she’s killing that too. She screamed at her father that she hopes Audra dies, hopes he dies.
She’s completely lost it.
***
We’re at the hospital while my mother is in surgery. And I’m fucking furious. I can’t sit, I can’t think, I can only pace.
I can’t stop looking over Jada to make sure she didn’t actually get hurt, too. Aiden and Carly are cuddled on a couch in the corner, Aiden looking pissed and Carly looking traumatized.
Dirk went to get more coffee and Adele paces, talking on the phone to Alice who has the kids back at her place. My father and Roger are also here, both looking lost in their own thoughts.
Dad leans over and puts a hand on Roger’s shoulder. Their eyes meet. Roger dissolves into tears and my father hugs him.
Jada seems to know to let me pace. Her eyes on me are sad.
“Girls, I’m so sorry,” Roger chokes out. “All of you. I’ve sent doctors over, but Sienna wouldn’t speak to them. Her mother was worried about her, said she was becoming more and more despondent at the thought of the upcoming court date, and we didn’t know she would… would have a psychotic break I guess.” He shrugs. “I’m so sorry. If I’d known this was a possibility…”
“You didn’t know,” Dad says. “She’s gonna get the help she needs now, Rog. Did you get ahold of Suz?”
Roger nods. “Not yet, but the travel agent is trying.”
I close my eyes and blow out a breath. What mother goes on a vacation when her daughter is in a state like that?
