Page 47 of Badd Ass
Mrs. Kingsley coughed in scandalized shock. “Oh. Oh, I see.” She glanced at Zane, still trying to salvage the conversation. “And you’re from where?”
He took a sip of wine with a delicacy that I wouldn’t have thought him capable of. “Oh, I’m from Ketchikan, actually. Born and raised.” He left a dramatic pause. “I’m Zane Badd.”
Mr. Kingsley’s eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened. “I knew your father.” He took the stack of bowls from his wife and headed for the kitchen.
Zane nodded. “I expect you did. Just about everyone knew Dad. He was a hard man to miss.”
“I was sad to hear of his passing.”
Zane nodded. “Yeah, so was I.”
“Condolences,” Mr. Kingsley said, and then vanished into the kitchen, his contribution to the conversation apparently over.
“I’ve heard all of you Badd boys have come back to Ketchikan,” Mrs. Kingsley said, and then frowned at her own unintentional turn of phrase. “I mean, you and your brothers.”
Zane chuckled. “We’re the Badd brothers, Mrs. Kingsley. The name fits us, and none of us have ever pretended otherwise.”
Mrs. Kingsley shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, possibly regretting opening the conversation. “Yes, well…your elder brother, Sebastian, he did a remarkable job keeping your father’s bar open.”
“That he did,” Zane said, finishing his food. “And now we’re all back in good ol’ Ketchikan, all eight of us. All grown up now, too. Last time all eight of us were under one roof, half of my younger brothers were just kids.”
“All eight of you,” Mrs. Kingsley said, as if the full force of what that meant was sinking in. “Oh my.”
“Yeah, exactly.” Zane laughed. “I’d advise keeping your granddaughters indoors, next time they come visiting. They were shaping up to be real heartbreakers if I remember correctly, and Canaan and Corin would be right about their age.”
“That’s about enough of that talk,” Mr. Kingsley bit out from the kitchen doorway.
Zane just laughed again. “I was just kidding. Mostly.” He stood up and extended a hand to me. “You ready, hot stuff? Movie starts in thirty.”
I stood up. “Thank you for dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley. It was delicious.”
“Our pleasure, dear. Have fun.” She turned to listen to whatever it was the Aussie couple was bickering about.
We were outside in the golden evening light, then, the air cool but not cold, warm but not hot. Zane took my hand and we walked unhurriedly toward downtown.
I glanced up at him. “What was all that about? With the Kingsleys?”
“I was messing with them, that’s all.”
I frowned at him. “What’s that mean?”
He shrugged. “Well, our mom died going on eleven years ago. It was sudden, some kind of cancer that struck hard and fast, nothing anyone could do. Which left dad to raise eight boys by himself while running a bar. He’d been a hell-raiser himself, back in the day, until Mom got ahold of him and tamed him a bit, but we’ve all got a lot of Dad in us, which means they’d have had their hands full even if Mom had lived. But raising us alone? Dad didn’t stand a chance, and he was a mess over Mom’s death anyway.” He paused, and then continued. “We ran wild. No mom, Dad was busy and emotionally unavailable or whatever…so we all fought, drank, and fucked our way through this town. The name Badd is synonymous in with trouble in this town. We’re the Badd brothers. We always stuck together, looked out for each other. So, yeah, I knew the Kingsley’s would know my name.”
“And the thing about their granddaughters?”
Zane laughed. “Oh, that. Well, Rachel Kingsley, their daughter, she always had…pretensions of grandeur, I guess. Thought she was better than all of us in this stupid little town, that was the air she always put on. Married this hoity-toity investment banker over in New York City. They come visit every now and again, with their twin daughters, Aerie and Tate. Same age as Cane and Cor. And like I said, they’re heartbreakers, Aerie and Tate are.” He pronounced the first nameAIR-ee. “Those girls are seriously stunning, and seem to have escaped inheriting their parents’ sticks-up-the-ass. The last thing Rachel Kingsley would ever allow, though, is for her daughters to be caught so much aslookingat any member of the Badd family.”
“I see. And you think this is funny?”
He nodded. “Yep. I sure as hell do. We earned our reputation, and we’re proud of it. But we’re not bad people. We’ll help you, if you need help. We didn’t go around boinking underage girls or married women—although there was that one time Bax got caught with a guy’s wife, but she hadn’t told him she was married, so that was on her, not him. Point is, we were rough boys and didn’t follow anyone’s rules but our own—we’re still like that, come to think of it—but we weren’t cruel or mean. We weren’t bullies. And Bax, he never told anyone, but he volunteered sixth period through all of senior year in the special education room. He was really close with all those kids, good friends to them. Anyone picked on the special ed kids, Bax would pound ‘em. But still, a lot of the locals look down on us. Or at best, aren’t quite sure what to make of us. They were all thankful when Xavier left, because that meant all the Badd brothers except Bast had left Ketchikan….meaning their daughters were safe, as long as they stayed away from Badd’s Bar and Grill. And now? Here we are, all eight of us.”
“And the virtue of all the single women is at risk, huh?” I teased.
He shrugged, conceding the point. “Pretty much. Although Bast is married now, so that takes one of the biggest threats to Ketchikan’s female virtue out of the equation.”
“And you’re mine,” I heard myself say, and then stumbled to cover the gaffe. “For this week, at least.”
He didn’t miss anything. “Amarantha.” He halted as he said my name, pivoting to face me, hands on my arms.
