Page 94 of Shade
“I’m due in like a week.” Willa sighs, leaning back in her chair and cups her swollen belly. “I can’t wait to not chase these shits around for three months and hold a precious baby girl.”
My eyes light up. “It’s a girl?”
“Yep. Not sure what I’m doing bringing her into this madness.” She pauses, motioning around the party when the music switches to Eminem and a very catchy song. Tiller begins dancing to it with a girl near the pool.
I’m curious now because she hasn’t mentioned much about the baby or who the father might be.
“Sooooo,” I draw out and then think maybe I shouldn’t ask when Ricky chooses then to sit down with a plate of food and hands me a taco, and two for Willa. “Are you alone in all this?”
Willa glances at me, midbite of her taco. She’s not who you should focus on. Don’t look at her. Look to her left. Do you see the way the tension stiffens Ricky’s shoulders? The way he coughs and stands up like someone called his name, or he’s choking on his food?
No one called his name. Despite him not saying anything, I know he’s that baby’s daddy.
Willa, however, never misses a beat when she says, “Complicated,” through a mouthful of food.
I chose to leave it at that and inhale the taco in front of me. We have good food in Seattle. Mostly seafood, but these tacos are straight up the best food I’ve ever tasted. “Who made these?”
Willa nods. “Roan. He’s an amazing cook and does most of the cooking around here, aside from Ricky.”
After we’ve finished with the tacos, I sit back and observe everything around me. Willa points to Roan by the pool. He’s relaxed in a lounge chair with a younger woman, maybe early twenties next to him, talking. They seem to be disagreeing on something. Then she gets up to leave and walks into the house, wiping what looks to be tears away.
Only Roan’s not having it. “Don’t fucking walk away from me when I’m talking to you.”
Tiller’s standing at the sliding glass doors drinking a beer and the girl runs into his chest. He shoots Roan a scowl. “Hey, man, easy there. No need to yell at her.”
Brushing tears away, the girl gives Tiller a death glare. One he’s probably used to from women. “You stay out of it.”
He raises his arms wide. “Yeah, I’d love to, honey, but you made me a part of it to get back at him so fuckin’ deal with it.”
“They better not get in a fight tonight.” Willa shakes her head about the time Ricky intervenes and takes the girl inside away from them. “That’s Ophelia. Carl’s daughter. She’s here a lot since Carl is too.”
“Does Carl live here?”
“No. Just here a lot. He’s their head of security.” She points to two more guys by the pool, about ten feet from Roan. “That’s Brad and Zack. They’re security guards for them. Brad will be going with you guys to Paris.”
Paris. Can you believe it? Last week I was checking in a VIP and making sure his wife couldn’t contact him at the hotel because his girlfriend checked in with him.
Now I will be boarding a plane tomorrow morning for Paris. It’s unreal.
Willa sighs when Roan stomps away, kicking over a chair in the process only to have Tiller toss an empty beer can at the back of his head. “Roan and Tiller are like oil and water. When they get along, they do. When they don’t, it’s like World War III started. Roan, he’s the most reckless of the three. If there’s a trick they want to try, Roan’s the first to try it and most of the time the first to fail. He’s also the most loyal and always has to have the last word, except with Tiller.”
“How old are they?”
“Roan’s twenty-three. Tiller’s twenty-two and Shade’s twenty-one.”
I blink, unbelieving. Their parents must have been busy. “Wow. That’s pretty close in age.”
“They’re like triplets with incredibly different personalities.”
“What’s Tiller like, aside from scary?”
“Tiller’s shy.”
I glance at him. He’s next to the pool, perched on a boulder near the edge and sitting on what looks to be a BMX bike, screaming at someone below to move. “Doesn’t look like it.”
“Totally different. Get him in an environment he’s not familiar with, and he won’t talk. To anyone.”
“Do Tiller and Roan have girlfriends?”
