Crazy Love (25 page)

“This is…wow.” Sam’s remark oozed the type of reverence one might expect for someone viewing the crown jewels.

“Madison Square Gardens. How many times did my dad tell us about this fight?” Randall gushed, slapping Sam on the back like only someone in the throes of a bromance can. I watched them with fascination, like an anthropologist studying a long-lost tribe on a previously undiscovered island. I got that the poster was from a landmark fight in boxing history, and Randall had made it clear when we talked at Hard Knocks that Sam worshipped Ali. Internet searching had led me to this poster, and thanks to Trip’s check for my modeling work and Imogene’s Gallery, I could afford the splurge.

“She’s a keeper, Sammy.” Randall mumbled and before I had a chance feel too humiliated by his assessment, the doorbell rang and several people used the opportunity to refill empty plates or glasses. Jayse challenged Maisie to a game of foosball, and half the guests vanished toward the rec room.

Sam ignored them all. He leaned in as if he were whispering in my ear and kissed the spot directly behind it on my neck. It tickled, and I fought off the urge to laugh. His warm breath had every hair on my body standing on end.

“How can I properly thank you for such a generous gift?” His husky voice was thick with testosterone and adrenaline.

“I’m sure we can think of something,” I whispered back, sounding more than a little breathless. Raised voices snapped us both out of the moment. Trip’s hostility emanated from the front door, and I immediately looked around for Maisie. It seemed she was still with Jayse. Randall and Sam hurried toward the altercation. Violet disappeared in that direction as well, and I cautiously trailed after them.

I turned the corner in time to see Sam dart out the front door. Whatever was going on had apparently spilled outside onto the porch, so I followed Randall and Violet outside.

I stopped in my tracks when I saw Trip on the lawn. He was waving his finger in his mother’s face. She stood at the bottom of the stairs with Sebastian Wakefield.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Trip,” I heard her say through gritted teeth, “Sam is my son, and I’ll bring whoever the hell I wish to his party.”

She seemed to spot Sam descending the stairs and smiled up at him. “Sam! There you are. Tell your brother to stop acting crazy. You haven’t been giving him scotch, have you?”

Sam stopped one step from the bottom. “Trip hasn’t been drinking, Mama. But I think you’d better leave. Your guests aren’t welcome here.”

I glanced toward the car and saw both of Wakefield’s body guards moving toward the stairs. Cosmo looked at Sam as if he’d just hacked a loogey in her general direction.

“How dare you speak to me that way? I didn’t raise the both of you to carry on in public.”

“You didn’t raise us at all. Athena did,” Trip snapped and by the look their mother gave Sam, I could tell his expression concurred. I stepped closer, wanting to see Sam’s face. I wanted to try to read how this unexpected confrontation was affecting him. The planks creaked beneath me, and Cosmo looked up and saw me. She gave me a poisonous once-over, an unmistakable look of abject disapproval etched in every age line on her face.

“Oh, I see. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve both become clones of your father. Not a lick of ambition between the two of you. Spending your days running around with common whores.” Her voice dropped nearly an octave as she glowered first at Sam, then at Trip. Wakefield watched the entire exchange with what looked like polite amusement. Trip fumed.

“Mama,” Sam snapped, his tone dark and impatient.

“Don’t ever speak to us about Daddy. And
how dare you
bring this man to my house?” In his rage, Trip seemed to misjudge the distance between himself and Wakefield, and slammed his pointer finger into Wakefield’s sternum. His bodyguards sprang at Trip, and the smaller of the two punched him in the jaw. Trip took it like a champ and swung on the guy, missing him entirely. Sam leapt forward, knocking the smaller bodyguard to the ground. Everything seemed to happen at once. There was some general shoving, and Sam grabbed the larger of the two bodyguards by the hair and raised his right fist. Randall hopped down the last half of the flight of stairs and flung himself into the fray. He pushed Sam back before he could land a punch and put himself between the two warring factions. Sam and the larger bodyguard were still practically eye to eye. For a moment, I was sure the larger bodyguard was going to hit Sam.

“Unless you plan to pull that piece you’re wearing under your coat, I suggest you step off of my boy.” Randall’s non-negotiable tone brimmed with promise. Wakefield seemed to decide now was the time to speak up.

“Everyone, relax.” His clipped voice and enigmatic presence drew everyone’s attention. Everyone seemed to focus on him instantly. I was aware of someone next to me and turned to see Violet. Her green eyes surveyed the scene below as if it were a booby trap that might ensnare her if she wasn’t cautious. “Coming here was a mistake, Geenie. Let’s go back to the car.”

“No.” Imogene seemed immune to Wakefield’s spell, her eyes never leaving Trip’s. “I think I’d like to hear why my son seems so hell bent on hating you…and me.”

“This really isn’t the time or the place for this conversation, is it?” Wakefield tried to take her arm but Imogene whipped it away without so much as a glance in his direction.

“I’m being turned away from my son’s birthday party. I think this seems like exactly the time for this conversation,” she snipped, her eyes shifting slowly from Trip to Sam and back again.

“I’m inclined to agree with Mr. Wakefield. This is Trip’s house. He can decline anyone he wishes to. We
were
raised better, Mama. Let’s not make more of a scene.” Sam’s level reasoning seemed to give her pause. She turned her blue eyes on him again, and her shoulders relaxed as she shrugged back into her public persona as if it were a custom mink coat.

“Fine. But I have something for you, Samson.”

Sam could have been in P.R., he handled her so skillfully. “Thank you, Mama. I’m sure I’ll love whatever it is.”

“We’ll do brunch next week?” She asked, firmly ignoring every other person present. It seemed as if she were trying to reconstruct the encounter. I wasn’t sure if all that effort was for her benefit or ours. Whichever, it was the creepiest metamorphosis I’d ever seen.

“Shall we?” She turned to Sebastian as if they were at a garden party with the mayor instead of just moments post fisticuffs on the front lawn.

He nodded. They took two steps toward the car, but he stopped and turned back. He looked apologetic, like a politician who’d been caught in the midst of a sex scandal. “Happy birthday, Sam.”

Sam had his back to me, but I saw him nod once. This seemed to appease both of his parents, because they climbed into Wakefield’s swanky car and once the bodyguards lumbered back in, they drove away.

“What the fuck was that all about?” Violet asked, slanting her eyes in my direction.

“Ask Trip.” Slapping at a mosquito resting on my forearm, I turned and walked back into the house.

An hour after the encounter, Trip was still livid. His jaw was bruised, and Violet kept trying to force a bag of frozen peas against it, but his gestures were so animated as he vented that she could barely maintain contact. I told him to let it go, that I’d handle it, that I had a plan. Violet finally pulled him away from the rest of the party when Maisie resurfaced and started asking questions. They retired to the wrap-around porch off the second floor. On the way out the door Trip gave me a questioning look. I nodded at him. It was long past time for him to tell Violet everything.

Jayse apparently had hit it off with Patience much in the same manner he had Violet at the gala. Dale fussed with the food, but it was clear to me he and Jayse were on the outs by the way he kept himself busy and Jayse occupied his time with everyone and anyone else at the party. The overall tension was palpable to everyone present, and Trip’s friends and Mike and Charles (who had thankfully missed the entire event outside) soon packed up their dates and left.

Annabelle helped Dale in the kitchen, putting leftovers away and wiping down counters. I walked up behind her and wrapped my arms around her. I wanted to reassure her that I in no way condoned my mother implying that Annabelle was somehow a second class citizen. But that wasn’t all; like some sort of vampire, I needed to feed off the way she made me feel. When I focused on her, I felt unstoppable.

She turned to me and gave me a pouty look. “I’m sorry they wrecked your party.”

I tilted her chin up toward me. “Nothing could ruin today. Let me help you with the rest of this stuff. I want to take you for a walk on the beach.”

Annabelle’s color was high as we raced to finish cleaning up. We were about to go out of the back door when Violet and Trip reappeared. Violet looked even paler than usual, and her frown was full of complexity. Trip looked blotchy, and I imagined their conversation had been pretty emotional. He was holding a dripping bag of peas to his face and called to us in a muffled voice.

“You two might want some bug spray. Those mosquitos out there are ravenous.” Annie dropped my hand and took off for the stairs. She returned a moment later, offering the half empty aerosol can to me.

I held up a hand. “Thanks, I’m good.”

“Suit yourself.” She set it down on the nearest end table and off we went. We were halfway down the wooden walkway over the marshy dunes when she took my hand.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked. I stretched my neck from side to side and realized how much tension I’d been holding.

“I was afraid Randall was going to get himself shot.” I pulled my hand from hers and slipped my arm around her shoulders. She responded by wrapping her arms around my waist. As I leaned in to kiss her temple, I inhaled the intoxicating scent of her hair. My chest felt tight as I clung to her more tightly. Somehow Annabelle had become my security blanket. In my spiraling life, she was a talisman against all the gathering insanity. I needed to touch her and be touched by her to remind myself there was tangible good amongst all this ugliness.

“Me too” Her voice was thin, like a hesitant child. It was wild to see her this way. Vulnerable…frightened. It made me want to curb stomp someone.

“And Trip?”

I moved on to what had really been eating at me. The truth spilled out of me now, and rather than be embarrassed by it, all I felt was relief. “If he vented this much way back when, we’d have all been way better off. I guess we have his therapist to thank for him
finding his voice
.”

She stopped walking and turned to face me. Her eyes were weary, but welcoming. “We all screw up, Sam. If I had a Mulligan for my life, I can’t count how many times I would have zigged instead of zagged.”

“I know. I just wish…fuck! I just wish he would have told me. I wish we could have dealt with it together. Daddy might still be alive, and maybe Trip wouldn’t have felt the need to carry the entire world on his shoulders.”

“Then again, maybe not. It’s hard to know how one decision might change things. Where does your mom factor into that scenario? Maybe your mom would be the one who killed herself if you all ganged up on her.”

I chuckled a bit. “Not Cosmo. She’s way too vain to consider self-harm.”

Annie didn’t laugh. “What about you, Sam? Were you more – or less – vulnerable back then?”

The smile I wore melted away. She’d made an excellent point. I’d just lost my girlfriend to my brother and the icing on the cake had been their engagement. That had actually been the beginning of my estrangement with Trip, not his drinking. Watching him take Violet down with him was merely another platinum nail in the designer coffin of our relationship.

“No, I was pretty fucked up back then.” We stepped down onto the alabaster sand, and I silently took in the endless blue expanse of the Atlantic. I already felt small, but seeing its magnitude made me feel less than microbial. The sun hid behind suspiciously dingy clouds, and I had a feeling we were going to get wet before the night was over.

Annie raised her eyes to the water and practically gasped and then wore a sheepish expression. “Sorry…I just never get used to that sight.”

“I can’t even imagine not being near the ocean,” I replied as we strolled in the direction of the North Beach Bar and Grill. Doubt tripped some of my inner alarms. Would Annabelle leave Georgia after school was over? I knew so little about her that it was beginning to feel obnoxious. It was time to turn the tables on little miss ‘tell me about your problems and dreams.’

“Are you planning on going back to the Midwest? After graduation?” I kept it causal. I had the distinct impression Annabelle wasn’t the type of girl who tolerated an interrogation well.

“I don’t think so.” Her answer was swift and her expression firm. I got the distinct vibe she was closing that conversation, like locking a metal security gate on a store front.

“So what do you do in your free time? When you have some, that is?” I switched directions, like changing tactics on the chessboard. I’m no chauvinist – at least I’ve never considered myself to be one – but this woman operated on a different playing field than the other women with whom I’d surrounded myself, and my tried and true strategies were useless.