Monica accepted Pixie’s air kiss. “I’m well. You’re looking fab, as usual.” Cal’s mom wore tight slacks patterned in bold black-and-white stripes. Her hot-pink blouse revealed a risqué amount of cleavage. One more undone button, and her boobs would have been on parade.
Pix flipped a mass of dark hair behind her shoulder. “Oh, Monnie, you’re so very sweet. Whatever are you doing here?”
“I brought Cal.” Monica stepped closer and lowered her voice. “He’s pretty angry right now, so you might want to tread carefully.”
Pix squared her shoulders. “He’s angry with me, is he? We’ll see about that.”
Monica began backing up. She didn’t want to be in the same room when Cal’s heated anger met Pix’s haughty demeanor. Sounded like a perfect recipe for disaster. “Where’s Jules? I’d like to meet her.”
“Game room, down the hall.” She flung her left arm in one direction as she looked toward the doorway, waiting for Cal, no doubt.
She didn’t need to be told twice. Monica retreated to the hallway, and when she heard the sound of pool balls clacking, she headed toward it.
Her first sight of Jules came as a surprise. The younger girl only vaguely resembled the picture Cal had shown her earlier. Jules’s warm brown hair looked longer now, and she’d added a few platinum extensions. Obviously a fan of the spray tan, she displayed too much skin from her neck all the way down to the stacked heels any stripper would be proud to wear. She leaned over the table with her pool cue and lined up a shot.
“Hello. Jules?”
The girl straightened slightly. “Yeah, who are you?” Her brown eyes flashed over Monica and dismissed her. Not waiting for an answer, she bent back over the table, and with a smooth jab, whacked the six ball into the corner pocket.
“I’m Monica, a friend of Cal’s.”
“Cal’s friend? You?” Her perusal was slower this time, taking in Monica’s hair, her jacket, her matching slacks, down to her brown flats. “You?” she asked again.
Monica laid her purse on a bar stool. “I’m not sure what you expect me to say.” She picked out a shorter cue from the row hanging on the wall and faced Jules. “Want to rack ’em?”
“You’re dating my brother? Cal. Calum.”
“Yeah.” Sort of. Monica would characterize it as hooking up, but she wasn’t about to admit that to his sister.
“Saint Monica. You’re not what I expected. That suit is a tragedy. Seriously, it’s making me want to weep right now.”
“Your outfit isn’t doing much for me, either.” She plucked the triangular rack from beneath the table and tossed it at Jules, who caught it in her left hand.
“What do you two have in common, anyway, you and my brother?”
“Not a lot, actually.”
Jules arranged the balls in the right order. “So it’s just sex, then. You don’t look like the type.”
Monica almost laughed. Looks could be deceiving. Back in the day, Monica’s slutty behavior had gotten her into more trouble than she cared to remember. And now that she thought about it, sleeping with a guy because he rode a Harley or had ink covering fifty percent of his body or told her she was pretty—it had left her empty. Oh, it was rebellious and exciting while she did it—which made the sex feel even better—but only because she’d been acting out. Waking up the next morning, hungover and staring at a stranger, left her self-esteem bruised and battered. That was the difference between then and now. Cal might be wrong for her, but Monica was having the time of her life. Plus, she liked him. She was even beginning to respect him. He’d been a frazzled mess when his sister disappeared. That said a lot.
Monica’s gaze flew over Jules once more. If she had to place a bet, she’d guess that Jules wasn’t nearly as brazen as she pretended. This in-your-face look was for shock value. “Cal was worried sick about you today.”
Jules rolled her eyes and removed the rack, tossing it back to Monica. “He can’t wait to send me home. So he can shag you, would be my guess. Though you don’t look that cracking to me.”
Monica ignored the dig. “We spent hours searching for you at the Miracle Mile.”
Jules’s pink lips parted. “How did he know I was there?”
“Lucky guess. You could have answered at least one of his forty-three phone messages.” Monica struck the balls, managing to sink just one into the side pocket.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
Hmm. Defensive. Jules watched as Monica made two more shots, then missed. “No, but you might want to have an excuse ready for Cal though.”
“Is he very angry?”
“Yeah. He’ll probably give you hell. Siblings are like that. You can yell at each other, terrorize each other, but when it’s all over, you hug it out.”
Jules took a turn and scratched, sending the cue ball into the corner pocket.
“I wouldn’t know. Cal and I aren’t like that. He’s always jetting off somewhere or holed up in his garage. And of course he was gone all last year.”
“Australia, right?” Cal hated talking about it. Maybe Jules could fill in a few blanks.
“Yeah. I haven’t seen him in ages.”
Monica and Brynn only saw each other every couple of weeks, but Brynnie would be there in a heartbeat if Monica needed her. And Allie, well…Al would take a bullet for Monica. She’d bitch the whole time and never let anyone forget it—probably show off the scar every chance she got—but she’d do it. “So you and Cal aren’t that close?”
“Not really.” Jules leaned her hip against the table and sighed. “In fairness, Daddy doesn’t want him around, but no matter where he is, Cal always flies in for my birthday. Except for this last year, when Babcock was so ill.”
“Babcock was sick, huh?” That explained a lot.
“He took care of her.”
Monica set the cue on the table. “What was wrong with her?” She felt a little guilty, asking personal questions about Cal. Not guilty enough to stop, though.
“Something with her heart, I think.”
Monica’s pulse sped up. “He was with her until the end, wasn’t he?”
Jules nodded. “Yeah. She died this past spring. Poor Cal was a wreck. I didn’t hear from him for weeks.”
He’d said Babcock was like a mother to him. Watching a loved one die—she and Cal had something in common, after all.
Her suspicions were correct: Calum Hughes was a good man. That didn’t fit in with the image she’d had of him for the last five years—the bad boy who partied and fucked his way around the globe. He still wasn’t partner material, but he was honorable.
She glanced up to find Jules watching her intently. “You fancy him, don’t you?”
Monica ignored the question. “It’s none of my business, but maybe you could cut him some slack. Sounds like he’s had a pretty shitty year.”
“Well, so have I. I mean, it’s not the same, really, but my year hasn’t exactly been one for the memory books.”
“How so?”
Jules crossed her arms. “Daddy’s been nagging me about college. He thinks I’m more clever than I really am, and I hate school. It bores me fucking senseless.”
Monica let out a laugh. “I was you, eight years ago.”
“Get. Out. You’ve never been anything like me. Being a do-gooder is as snore-worthy as it gets.”
“I hate to break it to you, kid, but I was exactly like you. With better makeup.” She raised one brow at Jules’s incredulous expression. “I started skipping school and didn’t get to graduate with my class. I moved out of my dad’s house and shacked up with a loser—the first of many. I got arrested too.”
“What happened to turn you into the paragon you are now?”
“I finally got my shit together.”
“You don’t look together. You look—”
“Yes, I know. Tragic.” Monica was getting a little tired of the Hughes sibs railing on her clothes. “I work for a cancer foundation. I’m not going to strut around in tube tops.”