Malibu Rising: A Novel, Taylor Reid [best fantasy books to read TXT] 📗

ceiling and answered as best she could. “I think he’s an asshole. But I can’t be sure. I don’t actually know him well enough to say.”

Casey watched as Nina continued to stare at the ceiling and breathe deeply, her chest rising high and falling.

“He sounds like a real winner,” Casey said as she lay down on her back next to Nina, staring up at the ceiling, too.

Nina turned to Casey. “Listen, I’m not sure … I mean, if you’re looking for family, there might be better ones to pick.”

Casey turned to Nina and smiled gently. “That’s not exactly how family works, is it?”

“No,” Nina said, shaking her head. “No, I guess it’s not.”

Mick reached the sliding glass door to the lawn and looked out at the crowd. He could tell someone was beating the shit out of someone else. But it wasn’t until he made his way to the edge of the circle that had formed around them that he suspected it might be his sons.

As he looked at the two men grappling on the ground, he had to admit an ugly truth to himself: It was not so easy, to recognize your own children after twenty years away.

He knew Jay from the magazines, much the same way he knew Nina. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure that the one on the ground was Hud. But, Mick reasoned, you probably don’t go to these lengths to beat the shit out of someone unless they are close enough to have really gotten under your skin. So he made an educated guess.

As for his youngest … He would not have recognized her if she were standing right next to him.

Which she was.

Kit had left Ricky behind when she heard her brothers yelling and made her way to the front of the crowd. She was stunned to see that not only was Jay pummeling Hud … but that her father was standing there watching him do it.

She stood, frozen, next to him. Her eyes were wide, her fingers were stiff as her pinkie grazed the arm of his jacket. She could not believe she was in the presence of this larger-than-life figure who had hovered over her her entire life, and yet had been so long out of reach. There he was. She could extend her pinkie just … one half a centimeter … farther … and … touch him.

And then in an instant, he was gone, lunging forward and pulling his older son off his younger one. It wasn’t difficult for Mick to get hold of Jay—Jay’s body was all limbs, easy to grab and throw down onto his back.

Hud put his hands to his nose as Ashley ran toward him. He looked up to see who had stopped the fight.

Jay got ahold of himself and looked up to see who had pulled him off.

“Dad?” the two of them said at the same time, with the same inflection.

Kit found this sort of preposterous. Dad?

Some of the crowd began to disperse now that the fight was over. But a lot of people stuck around, shamelessly gawking at Mick Riva, in the flesh.

“Will you sign this napkin?” Kyle Manheim asked, the second he could get close enough. He handed Mick a pen he’d scrounged up from some girl’s purse.

Mick rolled his eyes and scribbled across the cocktail napkin and handed it back. A line had started to form. Mick shook his head. “No, no, that’s it, no more autographs.” Everyone groaned, acting as if they had been denied a basic human right, but still, they began to wander off.

“All right, get up, you two,” Mick said, offering an arm to each of his sons. This, too, mystified Kit as she watched, that he could offer a boost now, having offered so little for so long.

Hud and Jay each took the arm he offered and pulled themselves onto their feet.

Hud took a quick catalog of his injuries: He was pretty sure his nose was broken and could feel he had a black eye, a nicked eyebrow, and a sliced lip. His ribs were bruised, his legs were sore, his abdomen tender. When he tried to breathe deeply, he almost collapsed.

Jay had a gash on his chin, a bruised tailbone, and a shattered ego.

Ashley moved closer to Hud, as if to try to take care of him. But as she took a step in his direction, she saw him flinch. And she understood that her presence, at least right now, could only make things worse.

She turned from him and Hud breathed her name. But she kept walking, pushing through the onlookers.

She wanted a place to cry alone. As she made her way into the kitchen, she considered going out to her car. But it would take forever for the valets to extract it from the maze of vehicles they had parked on the front lawn. Instead, she cut in line to the bathroom, sat down on the toilet lid, and bawled her eyes out.

• • •

“What are you doing here?” Jay asked his father. His chin stung as the air hit the fresh cut and he wondered just how bad Hud was feeling.

“I got an invitation,” Mick said.

“There are no invitations,” Hud said. “And even if there were …” He didn’t finish the sentence. He couldn’t. He didn’t know the man in front of him well enough to insult him to his face.

“Well, I got one,” Mick said. “But who cares about that? Why are you two beating the life out of each other?”

“It’s not …” It’s not any of your business. “It’s a …” Jay found himself at a staggering loss for words. He looked over at his brother.

Hud looked back at him—bloodied and purple and hunched over, trying hard not to breathe too deeply—but clearly just as confused. And in Hud’s confusion, Jay found solace. He was not crazy. This was, in fact, beyond comprehension.

“You can’t just walk in here and start asking