“Rod!” Joss snapped.
“What?” he asked, looking up at her through his shades from his position on the couch. “That’s not all gonna happen?”
“All of it would have happened if you hadn’t announced in front of Jussy’s new man that you were gonna bonk your wife. Now that particular part is not gonna happen,” Joss returned.
“The dude’s a dude,” Rembrandt shot back, turning his head on the couch to look at Deke. “A big dude.” He aimed his shades back up at his wife. “We dudes don’t get offended by that shit. He’s cool.”
“So, say, Jussy doesn’t feel like carrying the knowledge her guest room bed is gonna get broken in by her stepdad bonking her mom,” Joss retorted.
“Jussy’s cooler than her dude, I know that for sure,” Rembrandt muttered, something that was absolutely correct, and he did this folding his hands on his chest like he was a vampire in a coffin except his coffin was a couch his legs were dangling off the side.
Deke was having a fuckuva time controlling his need to bust out laughing.
He looked from Rembrandt to his gypsy and found that effort easier when he saw her neck bowed, shoulders slumped, head shaking side to side.
“Baby,” he called softly.
Her head came up and she turned her eyes to him.
“I am a dude but you know I’m cool.”
“I need coffee,” she replied.
“Gotcha,” he murmured, turned and moved into the kitchen.
“Did I hear pancakes?” Rembrandt called.
“Those are coming after coffee, Roddy,” Jussy declared, and when she did, Deke knew she was on the move toward him.
“Rod, get your ass up and go bring in the suitcases,” Joss ordered.
“Fuck that,” he replied. “Nothin’ in them is gonna go bad. They can wait until after my nap.”
“Rod—”
“After pancakes, I’ll get ’em,” Deke injected into their exchange, fingers through one of Jussy’s new mugs, other hand reaching toward the pot.
“I’ll help,” Jussy decreed.
“No you won’t,” he told her.
“Yes, I will,” she returned.
“Justice,” he said low.
She looked into his eyes, sighed and shifted to the fridge, undoubtedly to get her creamer.
“I take mine dollop of cream, no sugar,” Joss announced.
“I take mine black and I hope like fuck that shit’s strong,” Rembrandt called from the couch.
“Rod, you wanna cut back on the language?” Joss suggested, sliding her firm ass on a barstool, doing this with torso twisted to the couch.
Turning his shades his wife’s way, Rembrandt fired back, “Babe, the dude is a dude. Relax.”
Joss twisted to her daughter, sharing, “I knew I shouldn’t have brought him.”
Deke handed Jussy her mug, seeing by her profile she agreed.
He beat back a chuckle and reached for another mug.
“You think I’m gonna get left out of lookin’ over Jussy’s boy, think again, somethin’ I told your ass when you tried to elbow me outta this trip,” Rembrandt said.
Deke was pouring and through it he heard Jussy’s audible sigh.
Christ, he hadn’t been called a “boy” since his mother’s dickhead employer referred to him only that way from the time he could understand English to the day the motherfucker fired his ma.
He had this thought and still, Rembrandt doing it, Deke felt his mouth twitch.
“Just so you don’t get peeved, I’m officially ignoring you for the next half an hour,” Joss told her husband.
“I’m down with that,” her husband muttered.
Deke couldn’t beat back the strangled noise that was a swallowed laugh.
“We’re so totally going to need more coffee,” Jussy mumbled.
He turned a smile to her.
She caught it, her face softened and she gave him a small smile back.
“Girl, get your ass over here,” Joss ordered. “Sit by your momma. And tell me about this place which…is…fine. The dining room, baby girl…inspired.”
Jussy’s look to him lingered before she moved to her mother.
A minute later, Deke was sliding her mug across the island toward Joss, who now had Jussy on a stool by her side, when she aimed her eyes to his.
“She wouldn’t let me come. We had to surprise her. She asked for some time. We gave her some time. Time was up. I’m sure you get it.”
It wasn’t asking for a confirmation. She was telling him he’d better get it because it was the way it was, for more reasons than the fact they were actually there.
“I get it. And it’s all good. Soon’s she gets some coffee in her, she’ll beat back her morning mood and she’ll get it too,” Deke replied, pulling away from the island to go back to the mugs.
“He’s good-looking,” Joss shared openly.
“Please don’t talk about him like he’s not here,” Jussy returned.
“You’re good-looking,” Joss stated loudly, this Deke knew was aimed at his back.
“Gratitude,” he muttered, the word sounding tortured because it was torture trying not to laugh.
“And he’s big,” Joss went on. “You’re big,” she called immediately so Jussy wouldn’t get in her shit about it. “Though I already told you that.”
He turned and looked at her. “You did.”
Then he started to walk a filled mug toward Rembrandt on the couch.
“You told him he was big?” Jussy asked.