House of Payne: Rude (18 page)

“Seriously, you guys need to get a room.”

For the first time in her life, Sass was less than thrilled to see Scout, despite the fact that she hadn’t seen her former foster sister and best friend in two weeks. Tall and hourglass-curvy, with her sable brown hair held back in a pinup-girl bandana, the underside of her hair dyed a shocking poppy orange and a lei of vibrant flowers tattooed around her neck and chest, Theresa “Scout” Upton-Fournier was a sight to behold. When Sass had first met her, she’d had the impression that Scout could do anything. Twelve years had come and gone, and that impression hadn’t changed a bit.

“I thought you guys were coming in around midnight tonight.” Leaving Rude’s arms to fling herself into Scout’s, Sass gave her a big squeeze while Rude and Ivar greeted each other by shaking hands. “If I’d known you were going to be here as well, I would have hired a party bus and picked everyone up in style.”

“You mean you didn’t?” Scout’s mock outrage dissolved into a grin before she leaned back against her husband’s shoulder. “It was kind of crazy, how it all worked out. Our original flight was supposed to have this ridiculously long layover at Gatwick, but something went wrong with our plane—it wasn’t in the mood to fly, or something—so Ivar got busy with his panty-melting smile with the ladies at the ticket counter.”

“I am almost certain no one’s panties melted,
ma fleur
.” Ivar, former supermodel with ebony hair, pale eyes and features so sculpted he almost didn’t look real, wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and gave her a flirtatious wink. “Almost.”

“Ha-ha.” Nevertheless, Scout’s hand fluttered to her chest, and Sass couldn’t blame her. Ivar Fournier was the kind of man who made women flutter. “Anyway, before I knew it, my amazing man had us booked on the next flight out, in fucking first-class, with just a forty-five minute layover in Paris. So here we are, five hours early and just in time to catch you guys making out on the escalator like a couple of horny teenagers.”

“Horny teenagers, my ass.” Rude slung an arm around Sass to pull her to him. “When Sassy and I make out, we do it with way more finesse than horny teenagers.”

“Dude, you were sticking your tongue down her throat.”

“That’s my automatic response when Sass squeezes my ass.”

“An occurrence that might not happen again if you don’t show a little decorum, pal.” Sass shot him an exasperated glance while Scout and Ivar laughed. Seriously, though. The man was freaking incorrigible. “Don’t let us hold you guys up. I know you must be exhausted from your long travel day and probably want to get home. Do you want me to drop Red The Skittish at your place later tonight after we drop Mama Coco and Papa Bolo off at their place, or should I wait until tomorrow, like we’d planned?”

“Red The Skittish?”

“I sort of renamed your cat. She’s actually a pretty good conversationalist, if you ignore her tendency to bathe her privates while chatting.”

Scout snorted. “Sounds like you two got along great. Don’t worry about a thing tonight, tomorrow’s soon enough. I don’t want you running all over town just because we got in early.”

“It’s not a problem—” Sass’s head snapped around when she heard the familiar smoky voice of her former foster mother call out over the usual din at baggage claim.

“My babies! Bolo, look, so many of our babies came to greet us!”

“Just watch. Mama Coco is going to be convinced you guys worked your travel schedule out just so you could be here for their arrival.” Sass grinned, looking from Scout to Ivar. “Even if you tell the whole story, complete with grumpy airplanes and panty-meltings at the ticket counter, she’s going to hear it like you did this deliberately, just so everyone could enjoy this unexpected reunion.”

“Might as well not spoil it with facts and simply go with the flow.” Rude shrugged and walked toward them, arms open wide.

The next few minutes were filled with the happy chaos of hugs, kisses, smiles and extra-loud babble about travel, food, family and whether or not to pay a king’s ransom for a baggage cart. It wasn’t until they’d collected Mama Coco and Papa Bolo’s luggage and descended en masse via an elevator to go through the same routine for Ivar and Scout’s belongings that Papa Bolo turned to Sass to give her a one-armed hug.

“It was so good of you to come all this way to welcome your sister home and to wait around to see us come in as well.” He gave her a one-armed hug and kissed the top of her head before looking to his wife. “I think we raised some sweet kids around here, Mama.”

Oh, shit
. “Uh…”

“Sass, you’re such a good girl.” Mama Coco smiled as they made their way toward the exit, bird-like frail as always compared to her bespectacled husband, her helmet of henna-colored hair the same since Sass had known her. “I can’t tell you how happy it makes me, knowing you’ve remained close to your foster siblings, sweetie.”

“Some closer than others,” Scout snickered while Sass tried not to look like she was dying by inches. “Way, way,
way
closer.”

“Hey, Ivar?” Sass turned to Scout’s husband with her most winning smile. “If I shoved Scout in front of an oncoming bus, how much would you miss her?”

“Quite a lot, to be honest.” Smiling while Scout chuckled, Ivar pushed the luggage cart that carried both his and Scout’s baggage, and most of Mama Coco’s. “My lovely bride has promised she would help me revamp my way of doing travel expenses, because according to her, I do it wrong. So I suppose she has her uses.”

“I’ll remind you of what other uses I have later this evening, Trouble. The same kind of uses,” she confided to Mama Coco, and the wicked grin she slanted Sass’s way was the only warning she got, “that Sass might want to remind Rude about later on as well. Apparently something’s been brewing between those two while we were away.”

Why was there was never an oncoming bus when it was needed the most? Why? It wasn’t fair.

Mama Coco’s eyes widened, and she looked to Sass with her mouth a bright scarlet O. “What’s this?”

“Scout’s exaggerating,” Sass said, automatically downplaying the situation in order to avoid an explosion of Mama Coco’s head. The poor woman had just had a long flight, after all. “It’s just safe to say that Rude and I are no longer enemies.”

Yes, it was definitely safe to say that. It was also safe to say that the sun was warm and water was wet.

“Damn it,” she heard Rude mutter a few feet behind them as he and his father rolled luggage along the sidewalk. “I knew I should have texted it to myself. Hey babe, where did we park again?”

She smiled back at him. “Level 3, row D—right there, two rows to the left.”

“That was it.” As if it was the most natural thing in the world, he cupped a warm hand around her jaw and planted a solid kiss bang on her lips, then another one, just because. “I’d be lost without you, Sassy Pants. Okay troops, let’s move out.”

The loudest silence Sass had ever heard bombed her ears, and with nothing left to do but roll with it, she patted him on his spectacular ass as he passed. “Lead the way, Sugar Britches.”

Chapter Seventeen

It was almost scary, how Mama Coco never stopped beaming the entire drive home. Heaven knew it had creeped Sass out, mainly because there was such a vast amount of dreamy hope in it. That hope was almost as bad as what she’d anticipated in the opposite direction—disapproval that she wasn’t good enough for their youngest son.

Getting away from Mama Coco and Papa Bolo without answering specific questions had been difficult. Thanks to the older couples’ travel fatigue, however, they’d been able to make their escape with the promise of meeting later in the week for dinner. An inquisition with food was probably a better description for what awaited them, but Sass figured she could jump off that bridge once she got to it.

For now, she could relax.

She relaxed so much that she zonked out almost as soon as they dropped Rude’s parents off. One minute she was waving farewell at her old foster parents as she and Rude drove away, and the next thing she knew, the door was opening up and her seatbelt was retracting. Dazedly she let Rude help her out of the SUV, shocked that she was now so comfortable in his presence that she could nod off like she’d been doing it all her life. She’d never been able to sleep so easily in the presence of others. Never.

What the hell did that mean?

She was so preoccupied she didn’t realize he was leading her by the hand through a courtyard gate she didn’t recognize. Her head snapped up, and she looked around in confusion.

“Where are we?”

“My place. I haven’t been back since I left for Canada last week and I need to see if everything’s cool around here.”

A twinge of guilt hit her as he unlocked the door of a vestibule to a mid-century, three-story apartment building faced in varying shades of brown brick. She had washed a load of his clothes that he’d had from his trip, and knew he’d been more or less living out of his suitcase while he spent virtually every waking moment—and non-waking moment, for that matter—with her. She knew he had a life outside of hers, so she needed to respect that and his personal space.

But when she entered his first-floor apartment with its white-washed walls, beige carpet and bland furniture that screamed “furnished apartment,” she had to wonder just how personal his space really was.

“Make yourself at home,” he invited with an absent sweep of his hand before he tossed his keys onto a dinette table that held a stack of junk mail that needed to be shredded, a football and, of all things, an electric razor that was out of its box, but still in its internal packaging. “I’m just going to head across the hall to see how my neighbors are.”

“Neighbors?”

“The Esposito sisters—two of Mom’s bingo buddies and unofficial aunts who’ve been looking out for me since I got back to Chicago. They’re the ones who’ve been making sure I don’t starve whenever I’m here. Be right back,” he added, and with a wave he was out the door, leaving it ajar.

And leaving her speechless with a whirl of emotion so intense she couldn’t begin to make sense of it.

Never in a thousand years would she have guessed that Rudolfo Panuzzi would grow up to be such a conscientious, responsible man. There were some forces of nature that were destructive, like tornadoes or hurricanes. She’d once thought Rude fell into that category too, but that was nowhere near the truth now. He was a positive force, and he found a way to leave goodness in his wake for all the people who knew him.

Especially her.

A quick glance around the living-dining area showed her it was barren of any personal mementos, so she went in search of something that showed Rude truly lived there. Her search led her down a hallway and a sterile white half-bath that looked like it had never been used, before she headed through the open door of what was obviously his bedroom.

Ah. Here we go.

She inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of his soap and fabric softener and some deliciously warm spiciness that was all Rude, and finally found what she was looking for. It was a picture frame set on a nondescript bureau, holding a photo of several men in desert camo. The men were all posed beside a sand-colored Hum-V, sunglasses on, badass rifles in hand, though relaxed with the muzzles pointed down, and big cheesy smiles in place. Rude was almost in the center, cradling his gun and grinning like the rest, while the man next to him had a cigar chomped between his white teeth and an arm slung around Rude’s shoulders, looking as though the picture had been snapped mid-laugh. The way all the men were grouped around him, Sass knew he had to be Miracle Max Gold.

Their “father,” as Rude had called him.

They were all so full of life, so certain they could get out of anything as long as they had each other. As long as they had Max, they were ready to have fun storming the castle, no matter what castle it was. To have had that belief so viciously yanked out from under Rude had to have been part of what shattered him, especially when he found himself alone in the world.

She knew what that was like. More than anything, she knew what that awful, silent hell was like.

A movement in the open doorway had her glancing up at Rude, and only then did she realize there was wetness clinging to her eyelashes.

In two strides he was by her side. “Sass, what—”

“You were right.” She took in a breath to keep the worst of her turbulence in check, and tried to smile at him even as the first tear fell. “You were totally right, thinking that I would understand what you were going through. I never had a family, or a close band of brothers like you obviously had here with your unit and Miracle Max. But it’s true what they say—you don’t miss what you’ve never had, so it was okay. I never felt truly alone until…” Then she rolled her lips between her teeth and shook her head. This wasn’t about her old war stories. This was about him, and letting him know she understood. “I’m just glad you had these amazing men in your life. And even though you miss them with everything in you, I know you could never regret allowing them to become a part of you. That’s how I am with your family. Did you know that? It took a ton of courage to let them in, but I eventually allowed them to become a part of me.”

A hand came to rub slow, soothing circles over her back. “I know, Sass.”

“Our ties to people who aren’t our blood… they might not seem real to other people. But you know how real my ties are to the Panuzzi family, because I see that exact same feeling of closeness in this picture. You get what I feel for them.”

“Yeah, Sassy, I get it.” He moved so that her back was to his front, and his arms wrapped around her from behind while he bent to rest his chin on her shoulder. “The guys in that photo and I became close because we were under the worst kind of pressure. To make that pressure bearable, we became family. You had your own kind of pressures to deal with, because you were under fire too. Weren’t you, baby?”

Her vision of the photo she held grew blurry. In silence, she shrugged a shoulder, something she knew he would feel.

His mouth pressed against the side of her neck, and for a long while he did nothing more than hold her in the peaceful silence of his room. Then, very gently, he nudged his head against hers. “You can tell me anything, you know. Even about when you were made to feel utterly alone.”

“Oh, that.” Again the photo blurred under a wave of warm wetness, and the muscles in her throat clenched so hard it nearly squeezed off the air flow. “It…it was no big deal.”

“You know what I’ve learned about you?” Again he nudged her head with his, a nice, comfortable nuzzle. “I’ve learned that when you decide you’re going to shut down, you say the opposite of what you mean so you can hide behind that camouflage. And your favorite thing to say when you’re in opposite-speech mode is,
it’s no big deal
.” His arms tightened, so that the wealth of his strength cocooned her, promising without words a world of protection, if she’d only just accept it. “When you say
it’s no big deal
, my damn heart almost stops because I know it’s the biggest fucking deal of all. I’m right on this, don’t deny it.”

She shrugged again, not surprised he’d spotted her odd bouts of saying the opposite of what she meant. The funny things was, she there was something in her that wanted to tell him what awful things were inside of her. For the first time ever, she wanted to talk about it.

No. That wasn’t quite right.

She wanted to tell
Rude
.

Maybe.

“Back then…”

No.

Her vocal chords froze. The air dried up in her lungs. She couldn’t do it. She was going to throw up if she tried. She absolutely couldn’t do it.

Not that it mattered, she tried to tell herself to calm the wild thud of her pulse. It was in the past, where it belonged. It really was no big deal.

No big deal.

Never before had she realized what a terrible lie that was. It wasn’t just a lie she told to others.

It was a lie she told to herself.

“Tell me, Sassy. Try to find the words. Even if you feel those words won’t ever describe it well enough. Even if you feel they won’t ever dig deep enough to get all the poison out. Just start with something, and let it flow from there.”

“Back then… they called it child molestation.” It came out softly, because she had the instinct to cushion the ugliness. Those words hurt the ears of anyone who had a soul, including her, and she didn’t want to hurt over this anymore. “I’ve thought a lot about that word usage over the years. I’ve come to the conclusion that that term
molestation
came about because good people couldn’t stand to call it what it is—child rape. So they gave it another name.”

The already-tight hold he had on her tightened further, but only for a moment before they relaxed, as if he’d had to remind himself not to crush her.

“I was thirteen when I was placed in what would be the second-to-last private foster home I would ever have, since your parents’ place was my last. It was the home of Ron and Deenie Dietrich, along with their son, Ron Junior. In a way, he was kind of like you when I walked through the door—he just looked at me like he didn’t want me there. I found out later that he didn’t, but not for the reasons that you didn’t want a new foster sister.”

His lips had again found the side of her neck just below her ear. “Why didn’t he want you there?”

“I think Ron Junior had all the potential for being a genuinely good person, and I have the hope that he became one, despite what his parents were,” she said, trying to keep her emotional level on an even keel. “That first night at the Dietrich house, Ron Junior and I met in the hallway—I was going into the bathroom to brush my teeth and he was coming out—and he said very quietly that if I knew what was good for me, I’d run as far away from that house as I could that night, before anything bad could happen to me. Then he heard his father behind him, and he vanished into his room. The dad, Ron, had come up to make sure I brushed my teeth. He then stood in the bathroom doorway and watched me do it—creeped me the hell out. I didn’t sleep that night. And it was the last night I had before…” She stopped, because she couldn’t find the words that could adequately describe the nightmare of being held down, of being violated. Of not even knowing what was being done to her. Of being dragged to what had felt like her doom and being helpless to stop it. Of having the innocence of childhood amputated away from her with a rusty blade.

How could she express any of that?

“I want this man dead,” came the soft, almost inaudible whisper against the side of her neck, the ultra-violent words at complete odds with the encompassing hold he had on her. “I want this motherfucker dead so fucking bad I can’t even breathe.”

“He is, but it took a while for karma to catch up with him,” she said without emotion, and felt his jolt of surprise. “That first night, after he’d raped me, Ron Senior told me that I needed to get used to him doing that, since there was nothing I could do to stop him. No one would believe me. He knew this, because he’d done this same thing to his other fosters over the years and no one believed them when a few of them had dared to tell their social workers about it. His wife Deenie, who didn’t like sex but loved a nice roof over her head and not working for it, always backed him up.”

“Backed him up how?”

“If any of their former fosters found the courage to speak up, Deenie made sure that they wound up looking like so-called ‘lying whores’. She slut-shamed them to their social workers by accusing them of promiscuous behavior outside the house, just in case those girls got medically examined. She was his constant alibi, swearing she was always present whenever Ron Senior was in the same room with their fosters. She even kept social workers from seeing the children if an unexpected drop-in visit occurred and a rape had recently happened and physical marks were still present. That bitch fucking
helped
Ron Dietrich rape babies. That was when I knew I had to get out of there. But first I had to make sure these two evil beings never savaged another little girl.”

He went still. “Did you kill him?”

She smiled, weirdly amused that he thought she had that in her. “No. What I did was plan.”

“Plan?”

“After I’d healed enough to return to school—with dire threats of what would happen to me if I reported them—I managed to introduce myself to the next door neighbor while she was out in her garden and I was walking home from the bus stop. I wanted her to know who I was just in case I needed to go to her for help. I then snuck a couple of sandwich bags into my room and hid them under the mattress. Then I sharpened my nails so I had some kind of weapon at my disposal if he ever came at me again. I also begged Ron Junior to let me escape out his window if I ever needed to do it. All the windows in the bedroom I’d been put in had been nailed shut, something child welfare services obviously never noticed when they did their routine home inspections. But
I
noticed. There were a lot of scratches around those nails holding the window closed, and I’ll never forget the despair I felt as I realized where those scratches had come from. Then I got pissed. I wasn’t going to be another one of their victims clawing in futility at a nailed-shut window. I’d get out through Ron Junior’s window, even if I had to break his damn door down to do it.”