Deke moved and was halfway to the door to the back hall when Jussy came out of it, dressed in a new pair of ridiculous pajamas she’d unearthed from a box that came the day before from an online order.
Bottoms long, gathered at the ankle, a peachy-cream with bright embroidery across the front of the hips and down one leg, waistband so loose, it didn’t sit at her waist but hung on the tops of her hips. Top, a tight-fitting, army green thermal with a dizzying pattern of stars on it that in no way matched the pants, but came with them.
Deke had learned to look on the bright side with some of Jussy’s clothing. A lot of it rocked because it showed tits, legs, or if he got close, panties and/or bra. The rest of it, there was always something good about it, even if he had to dig to find the good.
This was no exception. The top fit snug at her tits which were clearly not bound by a bra. The bottoms had slits all the way up the sides from gathered hem to waistband.
In bed, and out of it, his hand could find itself in very good places with the slits in those pants. And starting about five minutes after she’d put them on last night, they had.
Almost as good, her nipples were showing through the thermal, she didn’t give a shit, he liked that and he liked the view.
“Uh…what the hell?” she asked, her eyes aimed beyond Deke to her mother and stepdad.
“Surprise,” Joss answered on a drawl.
Jussy’s face screwed up.
Deke stopped at her side and put a hand to her belly.
She tipped her pissed-off expression to him.
“As you can see, your family’s here. Gettin’ a shirt. Makin’ pancakes for four. And it’s all good,” he stated.
She clearly didn’t agree.
So he pressed his hand light into her stomach and repeated, “It’s all good, gypsy.”
She drew in breath, doing it pulling a Jussy, which meant pulling her shit together.
Seeing that, Deke let her go and kept moving.
But he’d find she hadn’t pulled her shit totally together because he heard her mother asking, “My baby girl gonna come and give her momma a hug?”
“Yes, she is, because she loves you. But first, she’s going to ask if your fingers have all been broken, and Roddy’s, so you couldn’t text me to tell me you were showing first thing on a frickin’ Saturday morning.”
That’s all he got before he was in her room and the voices became less distinct.
So he was grinning when he hit her room.
He grabbed his own thermal, pulled it on and moved his ass back to where Jussy was with her family.
When he got there, he saw Joss’s sheepskin jacket was off, it and her bag thrown on one of the denim couches. This exposed a bright red tee, barely-there sleeves, a dead-fucking-cool Chinese dragon stitched on the front.
Rembrandt’s jacket was on the couch too, and Jussy was giving him a hug. It was a jerky, short, annoyed one, but it was still a hug.
Deke’s lips quirked as he moved to the side of the couch opposite them and leaned against it.
Jussy pulled out of Rembrandt’s arms and turned Deke’s way.
“I take it you met Deke,” she remarked, throwing her hand toward him.
“That we did,” Joss replied.
“And Deke’s a mellow guy, so he’s always laidback, so I can’t tell from him if you were cool when you met him,” Jussy went on.
Joss’s eyes narrowed on her daughter. “We’ve barely been here five minutes, girl, and I’ve barely said five words to him.”
Jussy lifted her brows to her mother, not missing a beat. “And were those five words cool?”
Joss seemed like she was fixing to blow when Rembrandt skirted the couch, put his back to the arm, and collapsed into it, still wearing his shades, announcing, “Took the redeye here. Got fuckin’ six fuckin’ suitcases, four of ’em filled with your shit, Jussy, in that SUV. Wrangled that crap myself because your mother wanted to arrive without an entourage,” he said the last like this was a sticking point on a variety of things between Joss and Roddy. “Now I’m bone-tired, need coffee, food, to bonk my wife and then pass out.”
“Rod!” Joss snapped.
“What?” he asked, looking up at her through his shades from his position on the couch. “That’s not all gonna happen?”
“All of it would have happened if you hadn’t announced in front of Jussy’s new man that you were gonna bonk your wife. Now that particular part is not gonna happen,” Joss returned.
“The dude’s a dude,” Rembrandt shot back, turning his head on the couch to look at Deke. “A big dude.” He aimed his shades back up at his wife. “We dudes don’t get offended by that shit. He’s cool.”
“So, say, Jussy doesn’t feel like carrying the knowledge her guest room bed is gonna get broken in by her stepdad bonking her mom,” Joss retorted.
“Jussy’s cooler than her dude, I know that for sure,” Rembrandt muttered, something that was absolutely correct, and he did this folding his hands on his chest like he was a vampire in a coffin except his coffin was a couch his legs were dangling off the side.