Page 4 of Desirous

CHAPTER TWO

Alex

By the timeI reach my favorite bedroom in my grandmother’s house, I’m a strange combination of angry and guilty. I didn’t want to unload on all of them like that. I told them exactly what I wanted, and still they refused to do as I asked.

Then again, they are used to me being pretty easygoing all the time. They probably have no idea how to react to how I’m acting today.

I don’t want to think about more people I’ve pissed off. It was bad enough to know Kat thinks I’m a selfish bastard. Now I guess my family thinks the same.

Great.

Looking around the room, I smile at how little it’s changed since I used to sleep here as a little boy. The same blue curtains my grandmother bought when I first began staying over when I was only five. The same pale blue bedspread and blue sheets. I guess my grandmother assumed since we were boys she should make everything that color.

Back then, she’d take Cade and me for weekends, and I swear she’d barely see us from sunup to sundown. We’d have breakfast with her and then race out the back door to play outside. We’d swim and build sandcastles and bury one another in the sand up to our chins. Then we’d come in for lunch before hurrying outside for another few hours until dinner. By the time bedtime came, she barely had enough time to tell us to take a bath and brush our teeth before we collapsed into our beds.

Those were good days.

I sit down on the bed that seems so much smaller now and look at the pictures that have been hanging on the wall since we were boys. A Bucs poster back before they became a team anyone feared hangs on the wall near the window, and a Dolphins one for Cade hangs on the other side of the window.

A picture of the two of us when we were no more than seven sits in a gold frame next to the TV on the dresser. I can’t help but smile as the memory of that day comes flooding back to me. Cade got stung by a jellyfish, and because I had heard that you should urinate on where it got you, I pissed all over his calf. We were little boys, so pissing and whipping our junk out was second nature. Alexandria was mortified and hurried him inside, ordering him to get into the shower immediately. It turned out the piss did nothing to help.

But we had so much fun that day that she took a picture of us smiling like it was the best day of our lives.

“You know, I never spanked any of you grandchildren because that’s not what grandmothers do, but I came close that day with you, Alex.”

I look over toward the door to see my grandmother standing there smiling at me. “I thought I was always your favorite.”

She nods and walks over to sit down next to me on the bed. “You are. Between you and me, I think you might be yourmother’s favorite too. Don’t tell Cash I said that. He’s got your father’s approval, though, so he’ll be fine.”

With a chuckle, I smile at her assessment of who’s the favorite for our parents. I know my mother has always had a special place in her heart for me. She used to tell me Cash was her miracle baby since she didn’t think she would ever be able to have children, but I was nothing short of incredible since I was her second miracle.

“I didn’t mean to snap at her like that,” I quietly admit.

My grandmother shrugs and smooths her white hair off her forehead. “Don’t worry. Your mother will be fine. She’s tougher than she looks. Your father tends to baby her, which don’t get me wrong isn’t a bad thing. He could be like your grandfather. That would be bad.”

“I just wanted to be left alone.”

She smiles and shakes her head. “I’ve seen this condition many times in my life. It’s a woman, isn’t it?”

I wave away her suggestion that it could be a woman making me act like this. “Me? Have women problems? Please. I leave that kind of stuff for Cash and Liam. They’re the ones who always have women problems.”

“Don’t lie to me, Alexander March. I can see it as clear as day written all over your face,” she says, wagging her finger as she chastises me.

Is it that obvious? No wonder everyone kept insisting on trying to get me to talk.

“It’s not like that. At least, it’s not what you think,” I say, trying to hedge my way out of talking about my woman problems with my grandmother, of all people.

She lets out a heavy sigh and shakes her head. “You’ve always had it very easy, honey. I wondered when that would run out and you’d have to deal with things like your brother and cousins have had to all their lives.”

Yet another person in the world who thinks my life has been one huge cakewalk.

Turning to face her, I ask, “Why is it that everyone thinks I’ve had it so easy all my life? I had to go to school to be a chef. It’s not like that was handed to me. Yes, I work in the restaurant my father and uncle own, but I had to prove myself to all those people in the kitchen, and trust me, they weren’t willing to give me an inch of leeway exactly because of who I’m related to.”

My grandmother gives me one of those smiles that says I’ve completely misunderstood what she meant. Patting my arm, she sighs again.

“Oh, Alex, this has nothing to do with your job. Everyone knows how hard you work and how much of your time and energy you’ve given to make CK the best restaurant in town. This has to do with you.”

Now I’m utterly confused. What is she talking about?

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