Stay Vertical (The Bare Bones MC #2)(23)
But when I got the text from Maddy, I had to return to P & E.
“Keep my shirt,” Lytton had insisted. “You sweated through your shirt when your fever was high.”
There was no more attempt at even a kiss, and I began to despair that I’d just had another one night stand. That would be even more embarrassing and intolerable if and when Lytton proved to be Ford’s real brother and I was forced into social contact with him. The whole way back to P & E with my tits once again pressed to his strong, warm back, I felt like sobbing. The fever had wracked my brain and I felt like I’d been through the wringer on the tail end of one very long-ass, bad hallucinogenic dream.
No one had yet invited Lytton to the meeting, and I tried not to meet his eyes when I dismounted from his bike. “Well, thanks for everything,” I said listlessly, swinging my purse, looking at the sidewalk.
But Lytton dismounted too, coming around to my side. He lifted my chin in his fingers, forcing me to look at him. “I want you to know, June. I’m not normally this big of an *. Well, yes, maybe I am, normally. But with you I feel different. No matter what happens in there, I want you to know I had a good time with you. I’m glad we met.”
What the f*ck was that supposed to mean? It sounded like the brush-off of some f*cking shallow lothario, some user. He did kiss me then, tenderly and chastely. No lusty tongue action for that chemist. I was in a confused fog when I walked into Slushy’s office. What were Lytton’s intentions? Was he basing his choice on the DNA test results? Suddenly my whole future hung in the balance of that f*cking spit in a cup.
Ford, Madison, and Turk were hunched over in chairs with their hands clasped between their knees, listening to Slushy lecture them as he waved a pen. Slushy looked like the sort of bad comb-over guy who would still wear a three-piece suit to a job behind an archery range even if no one else was going to see him all day long. His dress shirt was chartreuse green, a matching handkerchief in his jacket pocket, and his tie a psychedelic mash-up.
He was saying, “You can listen to me or not. People like to ignore good advice. But I’m saying that in the eyes of the law, half-brothers have the same legal rights as full brothers.” He smacked a palm on his desk. “I’m telling you, Ford, two words. Nail salon. Was I right about the zombies? I was right about the zombies.”
“You were right about the zombies.” Ford spoke above his tented fingers. “Too right. Faux Pas is raking it in hand over fist on that video game. So my existing will covers me, then? Everything goes to Maddy, Fidelia, and Turk.”
Slushy said, “Right, because those are your express wishes as set down in your living trust. How-so-ever, it would attest to your upstanding character in the community were you to allow your brother a slice of the pie. Give him, say, an interest in your tuxedo rental business. Guys gotta go to prom, right?”
Ford shook his head. “I don’t know, Slushy. I start handing him tuxedo rental, he’s going to want part of the gas station.”
Turk turned to his best friend. “You have a gas station? Listen, my main worry is that he barged on in here and straightaway started demanding the dispensary.”
I decided to butt on in, since no one had acknowledged me, taking a chair next to my sister. “To his credit, Lytton only said run the dispensary, not own it. I don’t think he has any interest in owning anything of yours, Ford.”
Ford glared sideways at me. “Says the bleeding heart who took off with my brother. Before we even knew he was my brother.”
“Now, now,” said Slushy, spreading out calming hands. “Those of the half-blood have the same rights as those of the whole blood. Theoretically he could come after you for a slice of your empire, ill-gotten as it may be. I think it would behoove you to play things close to the vest, make a show of goodwill, as it were. Now, you must be June Shellmound. I see Ford’s taste in women is the same as his taste in lawyers. Excellent, with a tendency to be sneaky.”
I shook the lawyer’s hand over his desk. “I’m not normally sneaky like that. I have to apologize, Ford. I don’t know what came over me. Actually, I do know. Malaria. Lytton wound up taking me to the hospital—the same one you used to work at, Maddy—and getting me antimalarial drugs.”
Ford just smoldered angrily, and it was Turk who said, “Yeah, but you blatantly took off with him, June. Right on front of the entire club, you just climbed on his * pad and peeled out.”
Slushy rolled his eyes. “* pad, begorra. God, do I miss the nineties.”
I had to face the music. I couldn’t blame fever for having leaped so eagerly onto Lytton’s bike. Leaving my rental car in the Citadel’s lot and riding up the mountain with a relative stranger, even if he did look a lot like Ford, was inexcusable. “I’m sorry, you guys. I got carried away. I’ve had a lot on my mind what with our mother’s illness and all. I guess I just needed to cut loose.”
Maddy spoke up. Luckily she was smiling. “And what better way to do it than with a Ford lookalike? I completely feel you, sister. I wouldn’t have been able to resist, either.” She quickly glanced at Ford. “I mean, if I wasn’t married to Ford, of course.”
Slushy said, “Listen, I agree he’s a completely loose cannon, an unknown quantity. We have no idea if he’s going to lawyer up and sue you for half of the trucking biz, for instance.”