Fire Inside:A Chaos Novel(43)

He studied me and his lips curved up. “I’m sensing you’re not close with your parents.”

“Wrong!” I snapped. “I am. I just don’t want to be.”

His lip curve faded and he continued studying me, but now with his warm intensity and he also ordered, “Talk to me.”

In the throes of a drama, I didn’t hesitate.

In the throes of a drama, I never hesitated.

This was one thing, amongst many, that I really needed to work on.

I just had no intention of doing it right then.

“I’m spending next weekend with my mom and dad in Vail while my house is not getting fumigated.”

“And this is bad because…?” he prompted when I said no more.

I held his eyes.

Then I socked it to him.

“This is bad because my mother is an alcoholic.”

His warm, intent eyes got soft as he drew in a quiet breath.

Then he let it out, murmuring, “Lady.”

“It’ll be okay. Totally fine. She’ll drink wine with dinner. More than Dad and me but she won’t get hammered. No, she’ll say she’s going to bed with a book, having sneaked a bottle or two or four up to their room. Dad will stay with me and we’ll both ignore the fact she’s up there reading at the same time getting sloshed, and I’ll go to bed knowing Dad is staying up later, waiting for her to finish up by passing out. This means the entire weekend will be a lie. This means all of us will spend it dancing around the dysfunction, something we always do, something I find seriously un-fun at the same time emotionally exhausting. They’ll leave. I’ll call my sister Elissa to vent. She’ll lecture me on how I should cut them out of my life like she has because this is insanity. Even though she is absolutely right, I won’t listen to her like I never do, and then it starts up all over again because now they only have one daughter and thus only one daughter’s life to make a misery.”

To that, instantly, Hop decreed, “Me and the kids are coming up to Vail next weekend.”

I felt my eyes bug out as my lungs seized.

Was he crazy?

I knew he had two kids and I knew his kids. They came to the Compound all the time.

Molly, his eleven-year-old daughter, was the female epitome of her dad. Black hair. Gray eyes. Long, lean body. Easy, bright smile. She was a good kid. Funny, sweet. A little weirdly watchful, though very loving, of her dad, but I figured kids from broken homes could be that way.

Cody, his nine-year-old son, was not the epitome of his dad, and I always found that strange. Hop had clearly dominant traits that not only personality-wise but scientifically should naturally come out on top hereditarily. But Cody was sandy-haired, blue-eyed, and although he was tall and lean, his body somehow didn’t fit the shape of his dad’s. He was gangly in a way you knew he’d never stop being gangly. Hop was not at all gangly.

He was also a good kid, funny and sweet and loving of his dad.

They were all tight and, if I would admit it to myself (which I wouldn’t), I’d always loved watching him with his kids. They were loving of him and he returned it in spades.

But Cody, maybe being younger, maybe being a boy and not as sensitive, didn’t seem watchful of his dad like Molly was.

Cody also didn’t look like Mitzi, Hop’s ex. Or maybe he did since she had platinum hair that was not handed to her by God but she also had green eyes, a tough demeanor that didn’t invite approach and she was buxom but petite.

Paying attention to Hop over the years, although I was not around when they were together or when they fell apart. There was always talk amongst family. Chaos was family, so I heard this talk. Further, since they shared kids, I’d seen her at the Compound. She didn’t come to party or hang out but she sometimes came there to pick up her kids.

I knew she was not well-liked by the brothers. I also knew that their break was ugly, as in extremely ugly, though I didn’t know the details. I just knew she didn’t get a lot of love when she showed. Even Sheila, who was really sweet, didn’t have anything good to say about her. The murmurings were there, the detail wasn’t, and if I pressed for it I feared it would expose my interest in Hop so I hadn’t.

Hop declaring he and his kids would meet me in Vail when I was with my parents could not happen for so many reasons that it was impossible to relay them all.

It just couldn’t happen.

“That isn’t going to happen,” I told him.

“It is,” he told me.

Here we go again.

I leaned toward him. “Hop, that isn’t going to happen.”

He leaned toward me. “Lanie, it is.” I opened my mouth to say something but he beat me to it. “I’m not talkin’ about showin’ and broadcasting to my kids or your folks how we tear each other up. I’m talkin’ about givin’ my kids a good weekend in the mountains. They love the mountains. They know you. They like you. And us bein’ there and wrangling a meet gives you a break from that shit with your parents.”