“You’re being ridiculous. How do you even know about this?”
“I have a PI, too. Had I known you were one, I would have just asked you. You lied. You told me you were some sort of secretary, filing folders and answering phones. I would have known sooner, but the day I called him to find out about you he was headed to Maui with his new wife for a two-week honeymoon. I would have never guessed you were a fox in sheep’s clothing. I told him not to worry about it, he could get to it when he got back. He got back today.”
“Oh my god, Becker. Shut up and listen to me. I wasn’t investigating you. My dad would kill me and you both if he knew I was here. Marti works for my dad, too. She got your case. I just stole it after she and my dad closed it. Nobody is investigating you. You’re not on anyone’s radar. I broke into Marti’s filing cabinet to get your file. In my defense, I did not hack your game. That was totally on accident.”
“Why did you steal the file on me?”
“Marti said one of your… your girls’ sister called our office. Josie Thomas, her sister Britney is here. She thought she was being held here and you wouldn’t let her leave. Marti never made the first move on your case. The girl called and said she wanted to revoke the investigation, she’d talked to her sister and visited here.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“That’s because you won’t shut up and let me finish.” Thank god, I saw the sparkle in his eye and the hint of a smile trying not to curl his lip.
“I was intrigued if you will. I was captivated by a man, loving more than one woman. I was never investigating you. Nobody knows I am even here.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“It’s true, Becker. I swear, but it doesn’t really matter anyway. We shouldn’t see each other again. I wish you didn’t spend seventy thousand dollars on me. The house isn’t even worth that much.”
“It was only thirty, but the house isn’t worth that, either. You need a new roof, they’re coming to do it Friday. I took care of your electric bill, too. We were held up, trying to work with no power or light for two hours.”
“Shoot. I meant to pay that.”
“It’s been shut off four times since you moved in. That means you pay it about half the time.”
“I forget,” I quietly said, walking to him. “How am I supposed to pay you back?”
“Tell me the truth.”
“I am, Becker. That’s the truth, I swear on my mother’s grave. Nobody is investigating you, except me. I was the only one interested in your way of living. But—”
“But?” he asked, running his hand down my arm.
I didn’t know if I liked that any better than him yelling and being mad at me. This was hard. This was so fucking hard.
“You weren’t honest with me, either. Why didn’t you tell me you were living here with three other women? Don’t you think I had a right to know that before you wined and dined me?”
“Or spent a substantial amount of money on you,” he teased. “I’m sorry, too. I wasn’t looking for you. You just happened. You sort of picked me. I didn’t really pick you.”
“You sort of did. You wouldn’t leave me alone from the get go.”
“You were determined to find me. I only sought you out after I hacked into your computer. I knew you were Googling me, I just didn’t think it was because you were a private investigator. You sort of suck at it now that I think about it.”
“I do suck at it,” I admitted. “How many other PIs do you know that offer up their real name right off the bat?”
“Why are you doing it?”
I shrugged my shoulders. It didn’t matter. We were not going to be together. “It’s in my blood.” I smiled.
“So daddy says.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think my private investigator is a little better than you. I know a lot, Cassie. I know you’re there because your father is on some sort of hero trip where he needs you to help him save the world. I know you were there when your mother was shot in the face. I know you were glued to your father’s side after that happened. I know you have never really had any friends, and Justine Clover is the only person you are really in contact with. I know your grandmother passed away with brain cancer almost a year ago. You moved in with her and cared for her until she passed. You never moved back home with your father. You stayed.
“I know you’ve never really had a life outside that dingy office downtown. I know you are the messiest human being I have ever met, and I know you’re sort of a scatterbrain.” He smiled. I didn’t smile back. Everything he was saying was dead on. He knew me better than I knew me. I felt sad.
“I have to go,” I decided, coming to my senses. What the hell was I doing?
“Cass, please don’t. Stay for supper, let’s talk. If you still want to say goodbye to me after tonight, I’ll let you go,” he promised, delicately holding onto my pinky.
“Will you still fix my roof?” I caved.
“Sure,” he laughed, nodding for me to sit. I sipped my wine and took a deep breath. I didn’t want this to be over.
Becker and I talked through supper. There was so much to talk about, we didn’t even get started by the time we were pushing our plates away. We talked about my job, my dad, how I’d grown up inside that building, how I did all my schooling right there in his sight. We talked about his house, how he designed every inch of it, the putt-putt golf he was building through a thick patch of pine trees, and his wives. I reverted that conversation. I didn’t like the way it made me feel when he talked lovingly about all three of them.
“I have to go, Becker,” I said around nine. There was really nothing left to say. We were just buying time and we both knew it.
Chapter 11
“Will you at least meet them before you judge me?”
“I’m not judging you,” I defensively retorted.
“You are. You’ve been judging me since you found out about me. Please.”
“I don’t need to meet them, Becker. Really. It’s fine. I’m not judging you.” No way. I didn’t want to meet them. Truth is, I’d already judged them, all of them. I found them to be disgusting creatures. Why would anyone think it’s okay? The sex part was just sick. How could they sleep knowing he was having sex with one of the others, or did they do it as a group? I bet they did.
“Come on. It’ll only take a minute.”
My heart was beating out of my chest. I was more nervous about meeting his three wives than I was him. I didn’t want to meet them. I didn’t need to meet them.
I was right. The girls lived on the other side of the house. Becker opened a set of double doors to a sitting room with two fluffy sofas facing each other, a big screen television, and a wide open floor. Two of the girls were bowling with Wii controllers and the other one was painting her toe nails a pretty orange color. I liked it. I was going to look for it.
I squeezed Becker’s hand a little and he squeezed mine back. “I thought you ladies just had your nails done,” Becker questioned the pretty girl who was smiling at me. My face instantly flushed. I felt it. Why was she smiling at me?
“We did, Britney here dropped the mustard bottle. It squirted all over me. I didn’t know mustard could stain nail polish. You must be Cassie. We’ve heard a lot about you,” she said, taking my hand from Becker’s. She was really okay with this. “I’m Alana.”
Becker leaned in and kissed the corner of her mouth. “Alana is studying to be an art teacher. She wants to teach at a university.” Moving on, he stood between the other two girls. “This is Britney. Britney here’s our chef. If you ever need to find her, she’s in the kitchen. She’s taking some business classes before she opens up her own restaurant.” Dropping his arm over both girls’ shoulders, he continued. “Christina hasn’t not here much lately. She’s interning with some big-shot fashion designer. What’s his name? Mike Litoris?” Becker questioned.
“Shut up,” she taunted. It took me saying Mike Litori
s in my own mind before I laughed, too.
“Don’t listen to him. He knows absolutely nothing about fashion. His name is Mick Liscorios.”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, I know who he is. I watch the E channel a lot. His name is often mentioned on the red carpet.”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Christina bounced around, dancing, and rubbing something in Becker’s face. I laughed at their playfulness. “Pay up,” she boasted, rubbing her fingers together.
Oh. My. God. I loved these girls. Nothing was the way I’d seen it. This wasn’t what I was expecting at all. It reminded me of some of the new reality shows where strangers were locked in a house, or an island together.
“You suck. And you suck, too,” Becker pointed a finger at me while retrieving his wallet. “You’re not supposed to know who that dude is.”
“That’s so cool, Christina. Have you been to any big shows?” I asked, intrigued that she was working with Mick Liscorios. He was like famous or something.
“I went to Chanel Paris Fashion Week back in July.”
Gasping, my eyes opened wider. “You did not.”
“I did. It was amazing.”
Becker rolled his eyes and walked toward me. “Will you stay for tea or coffee?”
“Oh my god, Beck. For real?” Alana questioned.
“I can’t take you three anywhere,” Becker accused.
“Look, we don’t really do tea and coffee unless it’s noon and we’re nursing hangovers.”
“Oh, I have to work tomorrow. I can’t get drunk,” I explained to Alana. They all laughed, but not at me. It was out of fun.
“We’re not getting drunk, either. We were just breaking the news to Becker here,” Becker slid his arm around her waist when Alana leaned into his side. “Those night caps we have every night aren’t really warm tea.”
“You’re so bad,” Becker teased her. “You okay here with these three for a minute? I’ll see what I can come up with.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I assured him. For some reason, I felt fine. Christina pulled me to the sofa and talked busily about the fashion shows she had attended. She was going to Chicago in another month. They were working on the fall dress line, and Mick was letting her put it all together. She was so nervous, or so she said. I liked her. She was very pretty with dainty, yet strong features. I determined she worked out with raised eyebrows.
None of them looked how I imagined. I imagined them two ways—one, being all put together in pretty flowing dresses and four-inch heels. Or two, wearing conservative long skirts with their hair in buns. They weren’t either at all. Christina was wearing a pair of white loose capris with a tight pink cami. Her blond hair was piled high on her head in a messy bun. And of course, her pretty painted toes were bare.
Alana sat across from us. She, too, wore comfortable lounge-around-the-house clothes—shorts and a cami. Her hair was up, too. A long ponytail hung from the back of her head. She was the only one of the three wearing makeup.
Britney’s blond hair hung loosely down her back. She was wearing a cute little sundress with matching pink toes. Sitting across from Christina and me, she joined in, too. They all looked alike but different, each sporting their own bubbly personality. Shit. I loved them. All three of them. It wasn’t awkward at all. They somehow refused to let it be awkward.
“You’ve got to come over Friday night. Mason and the girls are coming over to play this glow in the dark putt-putt Becker keeps talking about,” Christina spouted.
The shock that he’d managed to have an entire putt-putt golf game built in a matter of days wasn’t what surprised me. “Girls? Mason has more than one wife, too?”
“Yes. Two. He hasn’t found number three yet,” Alana joked.
“I’m so confused,” I admitted audibly. “You’re all so pretty and young. Why are you doing this? I don’t get it.”
“It’s a challenge at first, but none of us were anywhere good when we met Becker. We sort of sucked at life before him. We love him. He’s good to us and brings out the best in us. Hell, I’d probably still be dancing on a pole had I not run into Becker.”
“How did you meet him?” I asked curiously. Damn. She didn’t get the chance to answer. Becker opened the door and held two of the four glasses. The lady that served our meal was right behind him, carrying two more.
“I swear I didn’t mix this,” he said, handing my drink. “Gale here insists this is the best Mai Tai you’re going to find in these parts.”
Smiling at the fresh chunk of pineapple, I sipped my drink. Gale was right. It was the best Mai Tai I’d ever tasted, even if it were the first one. I could taste the rum, but the pineapple masked most of it. It was good, very good.
“I don’t blame you guys. I’d take this over tea, too. Gale, I meant to thank you for the delicious meal.”
“I can’t take credit for it. Britt took care of that. I just served it.”
I turned to look at her. What the hell was this? This wasn’t real life. I was in the game. Yes, that had to be it. This was too crazy to be real. “You are a wonderful cook.”
“Thank you,” she boasted.
This was a family. They talked around the room, including me in everything they talked about. Not one of them seemed to be jealous of Becker’s hand resting on my knee, the way he kept looking at me, or the way he sat right beside me, never leaving my side. I mostly listened, happily. That’s how I felt around them. Happy.
“Becker, I really need to get home. I have an early day tomorrow.” My stomach curled at the thought of spending the day with Matt again.
“What do you do?” Alana asked.
“Let’s save that for another night,” Becker stood, letting me off the hook. I was glad. I didn’t want to explain my boring job that I hated when they were all doing things they loved.
All three of them hugged me, hoping I came back. I wanted to. I wanted to come back every day, but I wouldn’t. There was no way I could get sucked into this mess. My dad would have a heart attack and die. My mother would roll over in her grave and my grandma would do backflips from hers. She would have been the only one okay with it. There wasn’t a more open-minded person than my grandma.
“If it makes you happy then it’s okay. That’s the one question you always ask yourself,” she’d say. My dad would never say that. He wasn’t even capable of thinking like that. His brain worked like the majority. Society wouldn’t understand. I guess I always was a little different in that sense. I didn’t get different.
I could remember walking down the sidewalk, holding my dad’s hand once when I was maybe seven or eight. He pulled me closer as we neared a pair of cross-dressing men. One of them wore bright purple pants with a long pink sweater. He hobbled on heels, flipping his wrists while he joked with his friend that was wearing a black mini skirt.
“That. That right there, Cassandra. That’s why you have to stay close to me. You see what’s out there?” he asked, jerking me along.
“Was his skirt too short?” I asked, looking up at him. I didn’t understand what he meant. They didn’t look different to me. I thought they were pretty and they were having fun. I didn’t understand the concentration on his face, either. He almost got it, but not quite. He went back to being prejudice the very next sentence.
“What do you make of all this?” Becker asked, taking my hand in his car.
“I’m at a loss for words.”
“I’m sure you are. Sleep on it.”
“Sleep on what?” What was he asking me?
“Sleep on us. I don’t want to stop seeing you. I love being around you.”
“Becker, you love three other women. I don’t think there’s room for me.”
“There is, Cass. Let me show you.”
I snorted. This was crazy. Show me? Show me what? “Matt will shoot you in the head.” That’s what came out of my mouth. I wasn’t even thinking that. What the hell?
“Matt’s not going to shoot me in the head. Your dad’s not going to shoot me in the head and life wo
uld move on. I’m sure of it. Nobody’s going to hate you for wanting to be happy.”
“I couldn’t be happy like that,” I assured him.
“Like what, Cass? Like Britney, Alana, and Christina?”
Well shit.
“Becker, I’m not like them.”
“Hmm, I wasn’t aware that you knew anything about them. What is it you think you know?”
“I think you sought them out, like you picked them. I read the file on you, remember? I know none of them have pleasant backgrounds.”
“So you think I used their misfortunes to manipulate the situation?”
“Well, didn’t you? Why don’t you have any wives with good backgrounds and families who love them?” I was just patting myself on the back five minutes before and there I was, the queen of closed-minded prejudice.
“I’m going to leave that one alone. How about you ask the girls that one? Ask me anything else. I’m sure you have questions.”
I had a million of them. I didn’t even know where to begin. “Why?”
“Why did I choose this life?”
“Yes.”
“It chose me.”
“Were you raised in a polygamy home?”
“Yes, but my relationship with the others has nothing to do with the way I grew up. I don’t practice the way my father did.”
“Tell me, Beck. I want to know.”
“I’ll tell you about my childhood if you tell me about yours.”
“Yeah, that’s not really fair. My childhood was pretty messed up.”
“And so was mine. Everyone has a story, Cass,” Becker spoke quietly.
“I’m sorry. Tell me.”
“I was raised in a cult. Twenty-seven brothers and sisters and fifteen sister wives.”
“You had fifteen mothers?!”
“No. I had one. And one biological brother. The rest were all the halves from my piece of shit father’s sperm.”
Oh boy. Now what have I done?
“Not all families that practice this are like what you see on television, Cassie. My home consisted of chaos. A father that thought he was king and everyone in his presence belonged to him. We all belonged to him. I hated the way he treated my mother. He was never nice to her. He made it well known that the only reason he touched her was because of the name he was required to carry on.”