A/N: Enjoy your weekend!

As always, enjoy x

Chapter 47: Misbehave

Saturday 26th November, 8.39pm, Evelyn's Condo, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Gregory spotted Paul's dark grey truck across the street again but at least this time he buzzed upstairs and asked to see his son. Taylor had been tight-lipped all weekend, and Gregory wasn't the type to push, but when he agreed to join his cousin at the gym for a two-hour workout that afternoon it was clear he was feeling stressed. The hand wringing was replaced by had shaking and Paul suppressed the tremors in his hands by gripping his arms. After all, he was still shocked by the events in the early hours of the morning, and with Gina waiting in the truck downstairs with a new set of plates and glasses in the trunk; it was clear he had some business to take care of.

"Hello Paul." Evelyn said with an uncharacteristic neutrality, wondering what he or Jeremy had done to have him at her house looking sheepish and what he was doing with a bandage on his left hand.

He nodded. "Evelyn."

"How about you and Taylor use the spare room?" Gregory offered, eliminating his wife's opportunity to pry or eavesdrop. "Mind the double bass, I'm keeping it for a friend."

"Thanks." Paul's bloodshot eyes barely met with either of theirs.

Taylor unfolded two stools for them to sit on and had trouble looking as his father. It wasn't going to be an easy conversation, or much of a conversation at all, because he wasn't in the mood to talk. At Gina's urging to say something Paul didn't mind going first, especially since most women would've run for the hills already and he knew he had to honour the promise he would make it right. Whatever that meant and whatever it took. "He's gone…back to VA."

"Okay." Taylor felt numb to his grandfather's departure, neither happy nor sad, just indifferent.

Paul's foot was tapping and he tried to control his breathing. "Taylor I, I do care about you. More than anyone else in my life." Though his son would never know it; it was only because of him that Jeremy was still alive because killing him, and the lengthy sentence that would've followed, would've separated them forever. "I signed over my half to you because I wanted to leave you with something. I didn't think about what else that came with." In his heart and his conscience, Taylor knew the right thing to do was forgive but he couldn't at that time. He could barely talk to him. "But I didn't set you up, not intentionally, I'd never do that to you."

Taylor shook his head. "I can't do it. I can't pretend it doesn't bother me just to make you feel better. You were right there and you could've…but you didn't. And that makes it worse."

Paul knew he let his son down but for the first time he could hear the words from his mouth, see the disappointment on his face and feel his son's pain when usually this was left to Joss to deal with. And to make it worse he was probably going to end up on the phone to her that night, offloading his emotions. Maybe even with John. "I'm sorry. And I'm not gonna stop trying. I'll call you tomorrow." Taylor nodded but he just wanted him gone.

10.46pm, Galah Apartments, Washington Street, West Village, Manhattan

As luck would have it, John wasn't much help getting Joss' stuff when he got a call to stop an organised 'bum fight'; a paid fight between homeless men in exchange for money and booze. It could've gone badly if John hadn't arrived in time to stop a homeless Army veteran from being stabbed but it got even worse when the organiser's ass met John's motorcycle boots and the hero in leather broke his arm, his smartphone and his camera. The 'bums' in question were currently staying at the Newbury Hotel at their exploiter's expense. All Joss could fit in her car was the memory foam sex pillow for her back, her CD and DVD collection, some blankets and a few boxes of clothes and shoes.

With John's buttery steak cooked medium rare and her greens and sweet potatoes they finally got around to dinner at the kitchen island. The brand new light grey leather bar stools were on sale at Rigby's and she figured she might as well start buying furniture. If there was one thing John noticed, it was red wine always made her misbehave. It went straight to her head, unlike the brown liquor she could sip all night and remain lucid enough for Scrabble, and she started to lose her inhibitions. First came the giggles, then the random story, then the proposition and then adventurous Joss came out to play. "This is good, gooooood. Mmm." The steak went down better than ever, with a glass a Shiraz. She giggled. "You know what I was thinking?"

"No. What?"

She bit her lip. "I was thinking you never did end up in my backseat in handcuffs. Shame." She giggled again as though she was back in the sorority house and he was her confidant in royal blue and white. "We could've had some fun."

Those blue eyes shone with possibility and interest. "Really? No time like the present."

"Exactly what I was thinking."

Suddenly she lost her appetite and her decorum. Adventurous Joss didn't waste any time taking off her loose sweater, bra and leggings, but she took her time with each button on his shirt, gently unbuckled his belt and pulled it so it slid through each loop, until it became an inanimate snake on the floor. John had several plans for the thong she was wearing, none of which he had the space to act on because she cut off his mental capacity with her bewitching hand down his pants. From the waist up they made out like teenagers nearing curfew, but her knowing hand stroked him into blind stupor. John fought to exercising the control of a gentleman, that the lady always comes first. But Joss didn't care, with the Shiraz cooking her brain and her fire surely stoked, she had every intention of making John weak enough to crumble. In fact, she wanted him so spent he walked out bow-legged.

Adventurous Joss made him competitive because a true alpha could not – under any circumstances – be dominated and just like that, the leather bar stool became a battle ground where John made the first strike, pulling her thong to the side, pinning her arms and hands down on the kitchen island she asked for and banging her like a random broad he met at a bar. If there was a bet going for who would cave in first, he bet on the hot black woman with jasmine and some other intoxicating scent in her hair. She had other ideas.

11.27pm, Evelyn's Condo, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Taylor saw the D.O.M.S. in his near future because their trip to the gym took it out of every muscle in his body. It surprised him how Reggie could do treadmill sprints and lift weights five times a week, play football and still keep his grades up, and have the energy to chase girls. But this guy wasn't loud-mouthed, drunk Reggie "da Champ" DuChamp, this was chillaxed Reggie in the City who lost two games of scrabble to Gregory, loaded the dishwasher an hour ago, and stole his pillow for 'extra neck support'. It never crossed Taylor mind until then that he hadn't taken or uploaded a selfie all weekend. "How'd you stay with a girl who won't give any?"

Taylor wouldn't dream of revealing Zahra's secrets, like how she could be hot and almost-ready one minute and cold and flinching the next, because that was private. Instead he just shrugged his shoulders. "You'd get it if you knew her."

Reggie played with a Rubix cube with no plans to solve it; his brain was more suited to business models and historical accounts than puzzles. "What if it never happens? I mean never. Then what?"

"I don't know." Taylor made his blow-up bed on the floor because the small double wasn't big enough for two.

"And you're okay with that?" Taylor gave him the side-eye because Reggie liked to clown him. "I'm serious."

Taylor took the philosophical approach. "Let's say that, hypothetically, I love her. Would sex make me love her more if I love her without it? I don't know."

Reggie sighed with the weight of a man whose calls went straight to voicemail. "Aleesha hit me with the Pisces cut-off."

"The what?"

"You know, Pisces, they don't dump you or curse you out or key your car…they just cut you off."

Taylor had the feeling he wasn't just talking about sex and Alijah and Ebony might have had something to do with it. "Girls talk. If you're a jerk, they hate you. Then they tell their friends you're a jerk, and they hate you. And then the only girls left are girls who don't mind you're a jerk. And they're the ones having sex with you."

That was a revelation to Reggie's big eyes. He had to admit the chase had been harder than usual lately, and sometimes girls whispered around him but he never heard what they were saying. And the last time he saw Ebony and Alijah, when Aleesha wouldn't let him in to the kickback; they looked at him like he'd encountered a skunk before he got there. "So that's why!"

"Yep."

"Man. No wonder Levine's a virgin. Levine, Safety." Reggie reminded him of his position.

"Oh. Really?"

"Yeah he's Tim Tebowing 'til marriage." Taylor held back his laughter; at the phrase, not the decision. At least his cousin was thinking. "Did you know Mr G was a savage back in the day?"

Taylor nodded as he'd Skyped with some of his grandkids and they had different accents; British, American and Trini. "Yep. Hard to imagine it, huh?"

Reggie looks him up and down with suspicion. "You really love that girl." Again, he didn't deny it and waited to be called Russell Wilson again. But he wasn't. "Man." Reggie exclaimed, before going to sleep, snoring loudly.

11.51pm, Galah Apartments, Washington Street, West Village, Manhattan

Joss put up a good fight, her trick with the berries almost made John tap out. Almost. She forgot John Something Lastname was the man in the birthday suit and socks and wouldn't be outdone more than once. John picked a bundle of Joss up off the floor and placed her on the L shaped sofa, wishing their bed could arrive tomorrow. She looked peaceful as she slept, knocked out from John's personal World of Warcraft. And for a night things seemed mellow.