Say what?

“Honey, where are you goin’ now?” he asked.

She threw her head back, pounded his shirt into his chest and snapped, “Mom! She couldn’t leave well enough alone! She had to ask us to Thanksgiving!”

“Okay,” he said carefully, “I’m not following.”

“Fabulous,” she snapped.

“Reb—”

“You’re going to think I’m a nutcase, and I like you.” Another chest pound. “You have a beautiful voice, you don’t mind being teased and you’re a really good kisser.”

He beat back a grin.

Good to know.

But not where they needed to be right now.

“How about you cry it out then we’ll talk about Thanksgiving and after that, we’ll talk about Valenzuela again.”

She shoved her face back in his chest. “You don’t want to talk about Valenzuela.”

“That was before I knew how much you liked my voice.”

She made a sound like a laugh that ended like a sob and slid her arms around him.

He held on, and he held on thinking it was freakishly uncanny how his father could read shit.

It took less time than he thought it would before she turned her head, rested her cheek on his chest and let out a big sigh that he heard and felt.

He lifted one hand to wrap around the side of her neck and used his thumb to stroke the skin there.

“You good?” he asked.

“Not really,” she answered.

“Rephrase. You done cryin’?”

“I think so.”

“You think you can let me go so I can cook and we can talk?”

Her arms squeezed tighter. “No.”

“Babe—”

“I think I cried my makeup off.”

He smiled and bent his neck to say to the top of her hair. “You’re beautiful, Rebel, probably just as beautiful or even more without makeup.”

“Not with raccoon eyes.”

“Let me see.”

“No fucking way. Just close your eyes and point me to the bathroom.”

He removed his hand from her neck and took hold of her chin.

“Let me see, honey.”

She fought it a few beats but then tipped her head back.

Jesus.

“Bathroom’s through that door, behind the stairs.”

Her lips twitched “That bad?”

He bent his head again, this time to brush his mouth to hers.

He pulled away. “You look better than the girl who did that look for Hole.”

She started giggling.

He smiled down at her, cupped her face and this time ran his thumb through a big black smudge of melting mascara.

“Go. Clean up. I’ll make hamburgers,” he murmured.

Something new moved through her face, it didn’t freak him, what it made him feel was good, but he still braced.

“I don’t think my dad’s ever been to the grocery store,” she declared.

Right.

He was fucking ecstatic she was being open and talkative again.

But it’d be good she started to make sense.

“Baby, I’m not gettin’ you,” he said gently.

“He never bought my mom potato chips.”

Ah.

Right.

“Not four bags.”

He didn’t share that he didn’t expect her to eat them all.

But he did buy all four for her because he didn’t know what she liked.

“Or hamburger meat,” she went on.

“I’m not your dad, honey,” he reminded her.

“Yeah,” she whispered, rolled up on the toes of her boots and touched her mouth to his. “Be back,” she said before pulling out of his arms, strutting to her tote, grabbing it, and moseying to the hall where she disappeared.

Rush nabbed her phone and purse from the floor and went back to the kitchen.

He had four huge hamburger patties formed and the skillet on the stove heating up when she returned with her eyes a little bloodshot and her makeup a little less heavy, but she was back together.

Something in him missed the raccoon look.

“Still beautiful,” he murmured.

“You’re just trying to save a night where you end it getting laid,” she teased, sliding her ass on one of his stools and reclaiming her beer.

There it was.

Now she was really back.

“And she sees right through me,” he muttered, grinning and seasoning the patties.

“Those look boss,” she declared.

“My mom cooked because she had to, and her food tasted like it. My dad cooks because he loves food, and his food tastes like it. I cook like my dad,” he shared.

“I’m hoping I’ll get to meet this dad of yours,” she said softly, hesitant and almost shy.

Yeah.

He had not read her wrong.

Rebel Stapleton had promise.

Which meant she was going to meet his dad.

He put the hamburgers in the skillet, saying, “Talk through the shit that’s weighing on you, sweetheart.”

He heard her take in a breath before she said, “I’ll preface this by saying I saw Amy and Paul today.”

He turned from the stove to fully face her. “That explains a lot.”

“They have no idea what I’m doing,” she informed him.

“How would they feel about it?” he asked.

“They’d be super, extra, double, mega pissed.”

“Right,” he muttered and moved to the drawer to get his spatula.

“I’m mad at myself,” she said softly.

Spatula in hand, Rush turned back to her.

“Why, baby?”

“Because I think I’m Superwoman. Because I think I could have saved Diane. Because I think I can make it all right for Amy and Paul by catching Diane’s killer, when nothing can make it all right ever again. And I think I could have done something to cushion the blow for my brother, and I’ll admit, maybe also my mom when she called Diesel to ask him and Molly, and expressly not Maddox, to Thanksgiving dinner, necessitating him coming out to her that he was bi. Because I called him to warn him she was going to call about Thanksgiving, and I should have told him she wasn’t there, wasn’t ready to hear that. But I heard he was struggling with knowing, after years of being with Mad and Molly, that the time had come to officially commit, and it was freaking him. And I thought I had the power to make it all better for him. For everyone.”

That explained Thanksgiving.

“Because after that went way south,” she carried on, “and Dad and Mom and Gunner couldn’t call and land their shit on Diesel because he’d cut them out, they landed it on me. And it was heavy. And I didn’t want Diesel to know they kept at me after it was all over, and how ugly it got, and how much it was, and how I started to hate them. I mean really hate them, Rush. They were shoving their hate at me and I just absorbed it, and it grew, and I started shoveling it back. Hate is a burden. And it’s so fucking heavy.”

He moved to the counter opposite her, keeping hold on her eyes, and when she stopped talking, he agreed quietly, “Yeah it is.”

“So I cut them out and it hurt. I’ve totally blocked all of them. And I didn’t have . . .” She shook her head. “I have friends. I have Essence. I could have unloaded. But back in the day, I’d unload on Diane. Or if I needed a mom unit, Amy. And I didn’t have them to unload on with this shit.”

You have a beautiful voice.

Christ, she’d been all alone.

“Sweetheart,” he whispered.

“I’m directing porn. I don’t want to direct porn. I didn’t come to the realization that I wanted to make films and my first thought was, ‘Great! I’ll do porn!’”

He chuckled, and she shot him an amused look, but she kept talking.

“And Valenzuela is creepy. And Harrietta is even more filled with hate than my brother Gunner is. To the point she kinda scares me. Even more than Benito does. And I’d gone down to Phoenix to be with Diesel because I was worried about his frame of mind and they were all tight. Tighter than ever. And I’d lie in bed in my hotel room down there, knowing they were all piled together in their big bed. And, Rush, there is absolutely nothing conventional about what Diesel has with his man and his woman. But it’s so beautiful. They just fit. From the start. D does the yardwork. And Mad fixes shit around the house. And Molly does the laundry. And they all tangle up together to watch TV.” She grinned. “And they fuck like bunnies.”