Trouble: A BWWM Bad-Boy Billionaire Romance (8 page)

I
f I made
a run for it now, maybe I would still be breathing tomorrow. I looked back at my car. I looked at Laila.

"Chris!" She hugged him. "Oh my god, what are you doing here?"

"Half of my buddies got alcohol poisoning at our pre-gaming session before we went, so we canceled our trip." He squinted at me. "What is he doing here?"

"His dad is in Singapore," Laila explained. "So I invited him home. Mom asked. Mom said he didn't even need an invitation."

"Okay. Hey, man." Chris still looked like he thought something was up. I prayed to God that Laila would think twice about introducing me to her parents as her boyfriend. I had no idea how I was going to tell her to back off right now. This was like sitting at home, watching a tornado come at you and being helpless to move.

I squirmed a little bit inside. I clapped Chris on the back. "Hey." By the way, I'm fucking your younger sister, the one thing that you didn't want me to do. Surprise, surprise. I hoped I still had a windpipe after dinner.

"Baby!" Mr. King came out and picked Laila up. "You're home."

"Hi, sugar," Mrs. King said, giving Laila a kiss on the cheek. "And oh, you did bring Trouble. How are you, kiddo?"

She kissed me on the cheek, too, as if I were their third child.

"I'm great, Mrs. King." I smiled at her. She was so warm and natural that it totally disintegrated all the tension that I felt. I didn't feel like there was a monkey on my back anymore, which I didn't even notice until it was gone. It would be okay.

I clapped Mr. King on the back when he came over to whack me on the shoulder.

"I'll talk to you about dating my little girl after dinner," he said in a low voice in my ear. "Alone."

And the monkey was back. Now I didn't have one King ready to beat my ass to a bloody pulp. I had two. Why had I ever agreed to come to dinner?

I sat down at the wonderful spread that Mrs. King laid out. I was nervous, so I ate twice as much as I usually did. I felt like I was hoovering up the entire table.

When half of the food was gone, all of us were sitting back in our chairs, groaning from the weight of the food in our stomachs.

Laila cleared her throat. She touched my arm. I yanked it away like she had burnt me with a lighter.

Don't say anything, I said with my eyes. For the love of God, if you want to keep me alive, don't say a word.

She did not hear my silent plea. "Mom. Dad. Chris. I want to talk about something."

"Her classes have been amazing this semester. She's really having fun with the Resident Honors Program." Come on, babe, take my lead. I want to live.

"Um, yeah, but that's not what I was going to announce." She looked at me like I had just announced that unicorns danced on rainbows in my car. "I'm dating Trouble."

"You fucking bastard."

I didn't even have time to react before Chris' fist smashed into my face like a brick wall was attacking me.

I went down on the floor. He was right on top of me.

"I asked you to keep all the wolves away from her door, and this is what you do? You eat her up yourself? This is my little sister, fucker!"

I was not going to keep taking his fists to my face like this. Chris and I had the same strength, but I trained in jiu jitsu, one of the million activities I had done as a child so that my father would never see me. Chris did not. I also didn't want to hurt him. With my leg, I swept him off of me. I turned him over so that he was facedown, and I put my knee in his back.

"Listen up. I'm only going to say this once. I'm sorry. I tried not to. Laila and I are dating now."

He tried to surge off the floor, but I dug my knee in a little harder.

"Get out of my house," he hissed. "I don't want to see your face."

I looked around. There was utter shock on Laila and Mrs. King's faces. Thanksgiving dinner was ruined because of me.

Mr. King was just looking on, as if he were a spectator at a WWE match. He didn't look surprised at all.

Still on top of Chris, I started my car. I heard it chirp out in the driveway.

"Thanks for the meal," I said, as if their son hadn't lunged for me at Thanksgiving. "It was delicious."

They looked at me in complete bemusement. Laila looked like she thought I should be locked in a loony bin.

In a half second, I flowed to my feet. I was out the front door before Chris realized that I wasn't on top of him anymore. I was driving down the driveway when I saw the front door open. As he came out, his dad came behind him and held him back.

So much for Thanksgiving.

M
om
and I looked at Chris as he came back into the house, with Dad holding his arm.

"Your knuckles are bleeding," Mom said. She went to the kitchen and got some ice packs and a first aid kit. "Sit."

Chris sat at our table, which just a little while ago was a place where all of us joined. Now this room was full of the negative energy from that fight.

Mom cleaned up Chris' hands.

My arms were crossed. "What was that?" I demanded.

"I could ask the same of you. What, are you dating the entire college now?"

I gasped. "How dare you imply that! You know that I didn't date in high school. Trouble is my first boyfriend. You know it, too."

I saw an angry flush rise in his cheeks. "He's not good enough for you."

"I'm pretty sure that I get to make those decisions," I snapped back. "You aren't the boss of me."

"I kept Brayden Roberts away from you," Chris growled. "And I'll keep assholes like my best friend away from you, too. Do you have any idea how many girls Trouble has had? Do you even know if its dozens, hundreds, or thousands?"

I stuck out my chin. "I don't need to know. I just need to know that he wants to be with me right now."

"Boys like me and Trouble only want one thing! And you're too young for that."

"You're insane! You brought a million girls home when you were a teenager, and I'm 18 now. I'm more than old enough to start dating."

Chris slumped in his chair. Mom did the finishing touches on his hands. "I just don't want you to get hurt, whether it's some random guy or my best friend."

"You are a control freak." I blinked. "Wait a minute, you kept Brayden Roberts away from me? How long have you been beating away men?"

His eyes were on the dirty dishes on the table. "Since high school."

I felt like my head was going to explode.

"You've been beating them away with sticks for years? Oh my god, Chris, you seriously are over the line. I'm a normal girl, and you've stolen the experience of dating at all from me."

"I know what kind of dating boys like Trouble do. I'm one of them. And I don't want you going on those kinds of dates or even knowing about them."

"Trouble has been a perfect gentleman. He does roses, candles, tiramisu, the whole nine yards. He really treats me right, taking me on fun dates like Jump Zone."

Chris' head snapped up. In fascinated horror, he said, "He took you to Jump Zone?"

"Yeah. We go on the boardwalk and stuff."

Chris blinked. "I don't know what to think about that." He looked like I had hit him in the face with a baseball bat.

"You have no say over who I do or don't date. You never have.“

His eyes were on the ground. He looked like a red-hot poker was branding his butt.

"He's not good enough for you. You know it, too, Laila." He met my eyes, his gaze defiant. He wasn’t sorry at all for driving away my first boyfriend and his best friend.

"You don't get to make decisions about the quality of my boyfriends. Not that I've had more than one, but still."

He looked straight into my face, and I could see how angry he was. "Your first boyfriend shouldn't be someone like Trouble. No matter how mad you are at me, I know that for sure."

"You might have good intentions, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions," I screamed back. "This is complete idiocy!"

"Kids," my dad said quietly. "Knock it off. Sit down. Eat."

Both of us sat down in our seats across the table from one another and quietly glared at each other. I couldn’t believe how much Chris wanted to interfere with my life.

It was the most awkward Thanksgiving ever. I hated my older brother so much. He had no right to interfere with my life, my decisions, my love life. He was such a butt.

The delicious, succulent turkey that my mom cooked for me tasted like sawdust. Mashed potatoes, my favorite, tasted chunky and awful. I was so upset that comfort food couldn't even do the trick, which upset me even more.

Chris and I were silent for the rest of the meal. Our parents tried to fill the silence.

"So, Laila, how are classes going?"

"Fine," I muttered.

My dad cleared his throat. "And Chris, how is college for you?"

"Great," Chris said, sarcasm evident in his voice.

Our parents looked at each other, and they let it drop. The two of them forced conversation that sounded stilted, but it was better than their children's monosyllabic responses. This wasn’t what Thanksgiving was supposed to be like at all.

When our meal was over, the whole family cleaned up the kitchen. When it was spotless, I announced, "I want to go back."

"But Laila," my mom said, her eyes filling with hurt. She frowned. "You don't have to go back for another couple days. Don't you want to spend time as a family?"

I looked at Chris. "No."

She gasped, her hand going over her heart.

"Let it go, Sunshine," my dad broke in. "We'll sort it out. I'll drive you back, honey."

"Thanks, Daddy." My tote bag was still in the hall, and I threw it over my shoulder. "I'm ready to go now."

Instead of watching the game and dozing on the couch, my dad drove me back to school. We drove in silence. As I reached for the radio to have some music fill the car, my dad spoke.

"I think Chris was out of line."

M
y head snapped quickly
to my dad's face. "You do?"

"Yeah."

I blinked. "Why didn't you say so?"

"You two are legally adults now, over eighteen. When you were younger, your mom and I would resolve your disputes. But now that you're adults...it's good for you to learn conflict resolution skills."

"Ugh, Dad," I teased playfully, "I don't want to be a grownup."

Hints of a smile touched the edges of his mouth. "I think that it's too late for that. You're in college now. You can make your own decisions. And, sweetheart, if you want to date Trouble, your mom and I approve."

"What?!" I almost bounced out of my seat, but my seatbelt held me back.

"I know that Trouble was a player in high school. I'm not blind. But I think that Trouble has always been in love with you, and you've always been the one for him. I am glad that you two are in college together. It was hard for you to do it when you were at home with Chris. Now you are not, and you can sort out your relationship like reasonable adults.”

I relaxed into my seat. What Dad said made a lot of sense.

"Chris said that Trouble saw me as a sister, and that it was disgusting."

Dad snorted. "Trouble doesn't see you as a sister, sweetheart. Chris is just projecting."

He sighed. "Do you know why Trouble was always over at our house during your childhood?”

"No. Why?"

"You know that Chris' mother died when he was born, right?"

"Yeah. There are pictures of her everywhere."

"And you know the Trouble's mom died when he was born, right?"

"Yeah, Dad," I said and looked at the split ends of my hair. "That's old news."

"We haven't talked about that time in my life." He stopped. "The first time that I met Trouble, he was just a firecracker in the same swimming class as Chris. The rest of the kids had a parent who toweled them off after swim class and told them how proud they were of their work. Instead, Trouble had a dour old woman who drove him around. She was his nanny."

"When Chris won his first ribbon in a swim meet, I was so proud. I put him on my shoulders, water and all. I saw how envious Trouble was, how much he wanted to have a father who loved him as much as I loved Chris."

"But Trouble's dad is barely home."

"Exactly. So that day, I took the two boys out for ice cream. I told the nanny that I'd have him back in two hours. She was relieved to take a break. We went to the park, too. The boys chased each other around the playground, and I watched them."

"So you feel like Trouble's dad, almost."

"Yeah, almost. He's sort of like an adopted child to me. He probably spent more waking hours at our house than at his own for the first 18 years of his life, really. Your mom and I don't mind it if you two date. If it doesn't work out, he'll still be part of our family. If it does, then he'll still be part of our family. I'm not afraid of the two of you trying something new. I'm proud of you."

My eyes widened. "Proud of me?"

"Proud of you for taking a risk. I know you played it safe, and I know that your mom and I have a lot to do with that. I thanked Heaven every day that you didn't show any interest in boys when you were in high school, especially when I was worried that Chris was going to get shackled to some girl for the rest of his life when he was a teenager." Dad shook his head. "It was a relief when the two of you went off to college without any teen pregnancies, let me tell you."

I smiled. "That's absurd, Dad. I have big plans for my life, ones that don't include teen pregnancy."

"That's my girl, raised right." He turned and tugged on my ear like he used to when I was little. "There's more to the story, too." He sighed.

"When my first wife died..." he trailed off and parked the car in one of the big parking garages.

“I was completely overwhelmed when she died. I stayed in the house, barely seeing other people. Your mom came to help me take care of Chris, and that’s when I fell in love with her.”

"I know the story. You hired her, and then you swept her off her feet."

"That's right, baby girl." The corners of my dad's eyes crinkled when he smiled. “I grieved pretty hard when Chris was a newborn. She brought me out of my depression. That’s why I call her Sunshine. She took my grief and made me a better man.” He cleared his throat. "But Trouble's father, after Trouble's mother died...he didn't react the same way. He hired a nanny, too, but he scheduled as many business trips as he could. Trouble, if he hadn't been such close friends with Chris, would have been completely raised by a carousel of foreign housekeepers. I wanted him to know that somebody loved him and cared what he did, you know?"

He looked at his hands. "It hasn't been easy. I'm not his father. But we've made it work.” He squeezed my hand. “But I want you to know that I am fine with what happens now. You know that you can come home and talk to us whenever you want.”

“Okay, Daddy,” I said, jumping out of the car. “I’ll call you sometime this week.”

Dad drove away with a quick smile and wave.