He was also late because he stopped at the liquor store. He meant to buy a bottle of red wine for Rocky but ended up purchasing three and, because she hadn’t been of age when they were together and he had no fucking clue what she drank (outside red wine and fancy-ass beer, the latter of which he wasn’t spending money on on principle), he bought bottles of vodka, rum, gin, tequila as well as margarita mix and two-liters of diet cola and tonic water.
When Layne pulled into his drive, the garage door was up and the Charger was parked inside. Rocky and Dev undoubtedly parked in the street because Layne was coming in and Jasper had to go out to pick up Keira.
He pulled in, jumped down and Blondie jumped down behind him. Layne opened the backdoor of the SUV and hefted out the three carrier bags. He led the dog into the house and this took effort because Blondie was crowding him in her excitement to get to her boys, so much that they walked into the kitchen together.
Blondie shot forward but Layne stopped dead.
The vacuum was going and this was because Jasper was pushing it around the rug in the living room. Tripp was also in the living room, a dust rag in one hand, a can of furniture polish in the other and he was working on the wood of the TV unit. Rocky was still wearing her work getup, her back to him, standing at an island that was cleared of mail, magazines, papers, used coffee mugs, pop cans, beer bottles and other detritus. It now appeared to be covered in vegetables and at the end was an enormous bouquet of flowers. All the other counters had also been cleared as well as wiped down. Devin was sitting on a stool opposite Raquel, his fingers curled around a bottle of beer. When Layne walked in, both Devin and Rocky were laughing.
“Hey Dad!” Tripp shouted, Jasper’s head swung to him, Devin’s eyes went to him and Rocky turned toward him, a knife in her hand. Blondie barked and attacked Jasper and the vacuum.
“Have I entered a new dimension?” Layne asked the room to which Jasper grinned as he gave Blondie a head rub.
“Rocky says girls don’t like dirty houses,” he shouted over the vacuum then Blondie lost interest in Jas and attacked Tripp and Jasper grabbed the handle of the vacuum again and started pushing it under the coffee table.
There you go. Rocky was behind this activity.
“She’d know,” Layne muttered, his eyes swinging to Rocky and catching her dimple before she turned back to her vegetables.
He walked to the island beside her and dumped his bags next to the vegetables. She had a bowl in front of her already filled with salad leaves, sliced cucumbers, diced tomatoes, strips of yellow bell pepper and she was working on a carrot.
“Hey Dev,” Layne greeted.
“Boy,” Dev greeted back, his eyes slid to Rocky, back to Layne and he smiled slowly.
Layne had no idea how long Rocky was there but however long it was, she’d earned Dev’s approval. This didn’t surprise Layne. Her Dad was a cop so was her brother and she knew every uniform and plainclothesman in the county – Rocky was Dev’s kind of people. Rocky was also a female of the beautiful variety who wore tight skirts, high heels and soft sweaters – that was Dev’s kind of people too.
Layne moved into Rocky’s back, put a hand to the counter in front of her and discovered one good thing about her wearing her hair up. It left her neck totally exposed. With this opportunity afforded him, he placed a hand on her sweater at her waist, slid it forward to her belly and touched his lips to the skin behind her ear.
He absorbed the minor tremor that slid through her body before it went stiff and he whispered in her ear, “Hey baby.”
She kept cutting as she whispered back, “Hey Layne.”
“You’re early,” he noted and she nodded, her body still stiff, likely because his was pressed the length of her back, from hips to shoulders and he not only hadn’t moved either hand, he also had begun to slide his thumb back and forth across the soft material of her sweater.
“I thought I’d help Jasper impress Keira with his concern over her nutrition,” she replied and tossed some of the carrots into the bowl. “Though, not too concerned. I also bought an apple pie and vanilla bean ice cream for dessert.”
She hadn’t changed because, after work, she’d gone to the store and she’d gone to the store to do something for his boy.
Layne grinned and lifted his face from her neck but didn’t move away when he asked, “Flowers?”
“Those’re from me. You don’t have dinner with the ladies without buyin’ ‘em flowers,” Dev put in and Layne smiled at him.
“Fair warning, sweetcheeks, Dev’s a ladies’ man,” Layne told Rocky.
“He’s already impressed that on me,” Rocky returned and Layne chuckled.
Then he put his lips back to her ear and invited softly, “You need to get outta those shoes, baby.”
“I would,” she replied, “if I wasn’t scared of what my feet would encounter after doing it.”
Layne lifted his head again, still smiling, and called to Tripp, “Finish polishing, Pal, then get that thing that sweeps the floors.”
At his words, Rocky twisted her neck and tilted her head back to look up at him. “It’s called a broom, Layne.”
He smiled down at her. “I told you this was a testosterone zone, sweetcheeks. ‘Bout the only thing in the house that has a connection to work that doesn’t have a plug or use batteries is that polish Tripp’s wielding. We got a thing that sweeps the floors.”
Rocky kept staring up at him after he’d finished speaking, the vacuum had gone off and Layne forced his eyes from hers when he heard Jasper announce, “I’m on that, Dad. Tripp’s gonna clean the downstairs bathroom after he finishes with the furniture.”
Layne looked to Tripp. He had no idea how his youngest bought that chore but him accepting it gave new meaning to his adoration of Rocky.
“I think I got a gasmask and industrial gloves in the garage, Pal. And after you do that, I’ll give you five dollars.”
Tripp sauntered into the kitchen, Blondie at his heels, muttering, “I think it’s worth more like fifty.”
Tripp was not wrong.
Both his boys, and the dog, hit the utility room and Layne turned his attention back to the island. He took his hand from Rocky’s stomach, nabbed a slice of the carrot she was cutting and tossed it into his mouth.