I gaped at the woman, unsure of what to say. The blush that she mentioned was not something I was putting on. Duke’s touch, his nearness had triggered it. I smiled my movie star smile. I prepared to go with my movie star script for being introduced to people. But instead, I blurted, “I can’t believe his name is really Duke. I thought he moved to LA, decided to go on the badass track and changed his name to something to suit his badass life.”
My blush that I hadn’t known I’d gotten from Duke turned into a full-face flush once I realized what I’d said, how I’d inadvertently insulted their choice of name for their son and potentially blown my cover for being Duke’s girlfriend. Surely if I knew him well enough to travel to meet his parents across the country I’d know his fucking birth name.
Instead of looking insulted or disbelieving, his mother looked at me straight-faced for about a second then burst out laughing.
It was a nice sound. Throaty. Not delicate and feminine. Strong, but easy at the same time.
His father looked similarly amused, but he just shook his head and let out a low chuckle. “My wife does like to think she had the powers to look into the future and see that her son would actually grow up to suit a name like Duke, but more accurately, it’s due to the drugs coursing through her system after giving birth and me being the schmuck who let her choose the name of the second-born son since I got to name the first.”
Duke had a brother? An older brother?
Interesting, since he definitely had an older brother vibe about him. If this was the youngest of the clan, I was interested to see just how macho his brother was. Could the world handle two men with that degree of machoness? His father surely had it, but it wasn’t as prominent, the years not so much shaving it off him but subduing it. I had no doubt Duke’s father was a badass in his day.
I didn’t dare glance to my side to see what shade of pissed off Duke was at me for this outburst, so I focused on his parents. The attractive couple that laughed easily, and obviously loved their son and each other. There was an easy happiness to them, but a sadness too. I saw something in their eyes that told me that Duke was a source of this. He didn’t come home often, that much was apparent. For what reason, I couldn’t understand, seeing the surface, but everything was always so much more than surface. The more beautiful, usually the uglier it was below.
“I stand by my choice,” Anna said, looking to her son fondly. “And my ability to see the future.”
Her husband rolled his eyes in what seemed to be a practiced way. “I’m Andrew, by the way,” he said with that same ease. There was no hesitancy in Duke bringing me here. They weren’t bracing for me to be a bitch. They weren’t expecting to disapprove of me. Weren’t reserving judgement. They loved their son and the mere fact he brought me here seemed to show them that I was worth...something.
I smiled again. But this was not my movie star smile. It felt odd on my face, since it was not one I had much experience with. It was genuine.
I expected Duke’s father to be the handshake type of guy. He looked every bit the rancher, down to the tanned skin from working in the sun to the slightly tattered flannel shirt, belt buckle and boots. He looked older, for sure, but not old enough to have a son Duke’s age. It boded well for Duke, not that I’d be knowing him long enough to see that happen. Before I could stretch out my arm, he yanked me in for a hug.
Another hug.
He didn’t smell like his son. It was a different cologne, but you could also smell the outdoors on him. Again, I was unused to such a gesture, the warmth of it.
Every man that tried to hug me in a friendly interaction was trying to cop a feel. It was a horrible thing to learn to get used to, that casual sexual assault, but it was more familiar than a genuine, welcoming hug from an older man.
Luckily, he let me go and I stepped back, right into Duke.
My body jolted and I tried to scuttle away but he grasped my hips firmly and yanked my back to his front. My body reacted violently to this, heat crawling up my cheeks. His body was hard, all muscle. But I molded into it perfectly. Like we were made to stand like this. But of course not. This was an act. Less than five minutes and I was already forgetting that.
He began playing with my hair. My nerve endings were about fried with so much human contact…and authenticity. It was like culture shock after being immersed in Hollywood for so long. I’d faked almost every single gesture of love and intimacy in the book, all with an audience of directors, producers, writers, cameramen, assistants and countless others. I’d engaged in cold, casual sex with strangers and not felt an ounce of embarrassment or shyness. And yet I was damn near falling apart with Duke playing with my hair.
“It’s nice to meet you both,” I said, recovering ever so slightly, despite gritting my teeth against my reaction to Duke’s affection.
He’s acting, I reminded myself.
“I can’t believe you’re dating a movie star and instead of flying us to Hollywood land and taking us to the Oscars, you bring her here,” someone yelled from the porch.
The owner of the voice was a woman older than Anna, by my guess, her mother since the resemblance between the two was uncanny. Except where Anna’s long hair was mostly blonde, her mother’s was all gray and its wild curls were flying around her shoulders as she moved quickly down the porch steps.
Unlike her daughter, she wasn’t wearing a kickass female rancher outfit. She was just wearing a plain kickass outfit—a Rolling Stones tee I suspected she wasn’t wearing how the youth shopping at Forever 21 did. It had rhinestones on it and was tucked into ripped jeans. She was wearing bright red Chucks.
Her arms were stacked with bracelets and her lips were painted the same red as her sneakers.
She looked like the most interesting rock ‘n’ roll grandma I’d ever seen. I immediately wanted to be her when I grew up.
She stopped in front of us, grinning with youth and beauty. She pointed to Duke, brows furrowed. “I’m mad at you. Not mad enough to take you out of my will, but mad enough to refuse you a hug until I’ve had my first drink.” She looked to me. “You drink?”
I laughed at the question, then I realized that could be construed as rude so I quickly composed myself. “Yeah, I drink.”
“Great.” She locked her arm with mine and all but yanked me toward the house. “I made margaritas.” She turned her head. “Duke, you’ll get the bags, won’t you? And if there isn’t an expensive jar of face cream in there somewhere I will be taking you out of my will.” She grinned to me. “Welcome to the family, dollface.”
4
“Here you go, sweetheart, this will straight-up change your darn life,” Harriet, Duke’s batshit crazy—read fucking awesome—grandmother said to me.
I looked down at the gigantic slice of pie, smothered in vanilla ice cream that was already melting lazily over the crust.
My mouth watered at the smell alone before my brain shut it down. I hadn’t let myself crave food in years. It was just another thing about my life I’d accepted. Another thing I wouldn’t have. Another sacrifice. It wasn’t something that was difficult in my life. Not with my trainers and chefs I paid for. When I went to dinner parties, they were thrown by the Hollywood elite, who served food in miniscule portions and didn’t expect anyone to finish them.