Mateo ran full pelt after us as the end of the banister loomed, catching us both in his arms before we could go smash and bang.
My Dead Man kept his hand on my lower back as we headed into the kitchen and I found a massive red cake smashed all over the floor, part of a squid’s head still made from the icing at one end, but it looked like the rest had been jumped on. A lot. I kinda wanted to jump on it too, so I set MJ down and hurried forward to dive headfirst into the mess.
Kyan came striding into the room, all muscles and tattoos and cocky grin before he spotted the mess and his face fell. “Oh man,” he groaned. “What happened?”
“MJ.” Tatum bit her lip as she laughed then hurried forward to pick up the little toddler as I crept closer to the sticky mess, peeling off my socks as I went. “You wild little thing. Did you smash all this cake, you naughty boy?” He nodded as she kissed his cheek, no sign of anger in her eyes as she hugged him tight.
Tatum was the best mom I knew. I mean, I didn’t know many moms. In fact, she might be the only mom I knew, and she was also my first proper, for-true best girlfriend. She liked my crazy, she even had a little crazy of her own in her soul, and whenever we were together, we got up to a bunch of chaos that left our men chasing around after us. It was the best. Like one time, we went out drinking, stole a boat from a guy who’d groped my ass, and drove it out to sea. We’d been having so much fun with the beer we’d found onboard that we hadn’t noticed when the wind had picked up and a storm had blown in, the hours ticking on by.
Saint had tracked us with some fancy fandangle he made Tatum carry around and they’d all shown up on his big ol’ speedboat, looking to spank us and drag us home. I hadn’t minded the spanking, or the bit where Niall had made me promise I would keep one of Saint’s tracking fandagles on me too while he was buried deep inside me, holding me on the edge of bliss. That was the easiest promise I’d ever made.
“I’d better get him changed,” Tatum said. “I guess that’s the surprise for Saint’s birthday ruined.”
“Wait, wasn’t Saint the one watching MJ?” Kyan asked suspiciously.
“Oh dear,” Saint said lightly as he entered the room. “Whatever has happened?”
I looked to him just as I slid my right foot deep into the smooshy cake and found him offering Kyan a smirk.
“You did this,” Kyan hissed, pointing in accusation.
“Perhaps. But you let Mateo forge a blade in our house, and now it is lodged several inches deep in my cedarwood decking,” Saint said with a shrug.
He was so…scary. Like a good scary. Like he might just eat you alive in the night scary. He was extra on edge when we came to stay too, probably because things got broken a lot when we were around. But what was the fun in keeping everything whole? Some things looked much better in pieces.
I jumped fully into the cake and giggled as it squished between my toes, flapping my arms like a bird and drawing Saint’s attention to me, his right eye twitching a little.
“Please desist,” he asked, but I kept jumping and kicking up cake everywhere, splattering it all over the pristine kitchen and beckoning Mateo over to me.
“Come on, Dead Man! Jump with me. Take your socks and shoes off, it feels better that way!” I cried, my laughter carrying up, up and away, and an answering cry came back to me from a room upstairs.
“Great, now Beau is awake,” Saint growled, carving a hand over his face while Kyan laughed at me. “Stop her,” he commanded Mateo, but my Dead Man just slid off his own socks and came to join me in the cake.
“I’m on it!” another of Tatum’s men called from upstairs and I jumped faster and faster up and down, holding Mateo’s hands and making him jump too.
Kyan started pulling off his own socks and Saint swung a finger onto him.
“Don’t you dare, brother,” Saint hissed. “You need to clean up this mess and fix my decking.”
“Or, I could jump in this cake,” Kyan said with a wolf’s grin before leaping into the cake beside us and jumping up and down too, causing Saint’s jaw to grind.
“Come on Saint!” I yelled. “Come play squishy-jumpy!”
“I will not play squishy-jumpy,” he said coolly.
Kyan dropped down, scooping up a big blob of cake in his hand and hurling it at Saint, hitting him squarely in the centre of his crisp white shirt. Saint’s upper lip peeled back and I squealed a laugh, dropping down as he came striding towards us all angry-like just as Niall came chasing Cesar down the stairs with the baseball bat still raised over his head.
Cesar darted past us, but Niall’s foot slipped on a rogue piece of cake and he went crashing into Saint, sending him flying forward and landing right on the floor, his face slamming into the icing squid head. Saint pushed himself half way up with a snarl on his lips and I thought I was genuinely about to be murdered for good this time, but it was so damn funny seeing all that red icing and the big squid eye now stuck to his forehead that instead of running for my life, I started laughing.
“Oops, sorry fella. Oh hey! Cake!” Niall grabbed some from the floor, shoving it into his mouth while Saint glared at him and I laughed so hard my sides hurt.
Everyone else laughed too until suddenly Saint cracked, an amused grin pulling at his mouth as he shoved to his feet with a pile of cake in his hand which he slapped against Niall’s cheek.
Cesar dove into the mess at our feet and Saint finally embraced the chaos as a full-on cake fight broke out.
Jack appeared with little Rowan tucked under his arm and we were soon all making such a mess that it awoke all my demons for a party. This was where I thrived, amidst the mayhem while the people I loved more than anything in the world surrounded me. And the most impossible thing of all was that they loved me back.
I was so happy in this life that it was hard to remember a time when I’d just been a lonely girl on the streets, wishing on rainbows and fishes to bring me the company I craved. I guessed they’d been listening all along, because now they were here at last, my reckless, carefree family.
We were a deck of cards, a club, a heart, a diamond and a spade, all of us made for dealing in death. I had my Joker, my Jack, my King, and my scruffy little pooch of an Ace. Somehow, I’d become the Queen of all that, and together we made a full house, even if it didn’t look like anyone else’s version, even if it was a jumble of suits and colours. It didn’t make us any less real.
We were bound by blood and carnage, and I was no longer afraid to lose them. Because I knew in my heart, deep down where Glenda was nestled, snoozing and content at last, that these tethers that held us as one were made of an unbreakable twine. No creature of evil or purity could sever us now.
We were one entity.
One guild.
A Society of Psychos.
And long may we reign.
ANOTHER TWO YEARS AFTER THAT
“I can’t believe I’m seventy-five,” Brooklyn sighed wistfully as she strode into the bedroom all dolled up in a lacy black scrap of nothing and giving me the sex eyes where I sat waiting for her on the bed.
“Forty, love. You’re forty today, we went over it, remember?”
“Oh right, yeah,” she agreed with a nod. “I always get those two muddled up.”
I snorted at her, my gaze shifting to the door at her back as Jack and Mateo slipped into the room, both of them shirtless already and the tension rising as the anticipation built between us.
“Have you decided what you wanna try this year?” I asked curiously. This was Brooklyn’s birthday tradition, one I’d started around fifteen years ago when I’d started to find it difficult to get her an exciting gift each year on account of the fact that I bought her everything she wanted at the drop of a hat and never remembered to hold anything back for special occasions.