Red (Hell’s Jury MC #5)

40. Chapter 40

CHAPTER 40

Stella

The date of the hearing races towards us. The bruise on my jaw is fading but not fast enough. Mom and I are in the bathroom where she’s covering it with makeup. “It’ll work as long as you don’t sweat.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say ungraciously. “Means no practice or games yet.”

“You can still run and throw hoops in the driveway.”

“It won’t be the same.”

Lachlan and dad are in the living room with Selma and Lexie, waiting for us. Sorcha’s next door with a neighbor. I already know what we’re gonna talk about, so do mom and dad, but Selma and Lexie need to know and it all bears repeating anyway.

I sit down next to Lachlan and take his hand as he starts the conversation. “I’ve left the Jury. This week the club voted me out. Agreed to leave me alone.”

Selma’s watching Lachlan carefully. “Shouldn’t they anyway?”

Lachlan shrugs. He’s not going to get drawn into Selma’s universe of annoying. “Yeah. It means I don’t have to look over my shoulder every time I go out. They don’t approach us and we don’t approach them.” He looks at Selma and Lexie. “Ever. You’re both in their orbit. You see them on the street, you look right through them. They approach, you cross the road.”

“Okay,” Lexie says hesitantly.

“Geez,” Selma says. “It sounds like we need witness protection.”

“Shut up, Selma,” I snap. “We don’t need your bullshit today.”

Mom doesn’t call me on my language. Instead, she says to Selma, “Take this seriously. The president of Hell’s Jury is called Hangman.”

I grin at my mom.

Lachlan looks down at our entwined hands. “Hangman’s also Sorcha’s father.”

Lexie’s eyes widen. “Holy. Is he your dad too?”

“No,” Lachlan replies bluntly. “He was fuckin’ my mom though.”

Mom narrows her eyes at Lachlan, who ignores her. “Mom put my dad on the birth certificate so he’s the father on record.” He shifts his eyes to dad. “Meredith, my advocate on Gabby’s case, is filing papers to get me custody of Sorcha.”

Dad nods. “All we have to do is get through the hearing tomorrow. I’ve no doubt it will go our way.”

“As it should,” mom says primly.

“And the guys that kidnapped Sorcha and Stella?” Selma asks.

“It didn’t happen,” Dad replies before Lachlan can open his mouth.

Selma furrows her eyebrows. “But?—”

“None of it,” dad says firmly.

My turn to speak. Mom and dad don’t know yet, but it’s easier when there’s an audience. “I’m moving in with Lachlan.” To Lexie, I say, “Sorry.”

Lexie opens her mouth to reply but Selma jumps in. “I’ll move in with Lexie.”

“What about—” Lexie and I say at the same time.

Selma gives us the death glare. “I’m tired of living in the dorms.”

She doesn’t ask Lexie if it’s okay and Lexie doesn’t say no.

Mom is staring at me with pursed lips as dad sighs. “We don’t need to be psychic, Sherri, to see this coming.”

“It’s too soon,” mom says to me and Lachlan. “You barely know each other. Stella, move in with us, then you can see Lachlan as much as you want.”

“Or,” I reply. “I move in with Lachlan and I can see you as much as I want.”

Dad snorts a laugh, then changes the topic. “We have the hearing tomorrow.” He frowns as he scans us. “Try and look grown-up. Lachlan, trim the beard. I recommend you cut your hair, but if you don’t, then at the very least put it in a ponytail. No jeans. Wear a suit. No ego. I get you have an image that reflects who you are. We all do.” He pulls at his tie. “But tomorrow, be the man who wants custody of his sister and the rights to see his daughter. Go into that courtroom looking like that man because the judge needs to see that side of you and first impressions count.”

He takes a sip of his brandy, then turns to me. “And Stella, ditch the jersey and running gear. Get some clothes that don’t look like you’ve just come from the gym. And your hair.” He stares at me for longer than is polite, then looks helplessly at mom, who shakes her head.

“She could shave it off and wear a hat,” Selma says. “A jaunty cap.”

Mom looks like she’s contemplating it.

Dad seems alarmed. “Sherri, that’s not the look she should be going for.”

Lexie snickers. “Well, any other hat will make her look like a clown.”

“Go away you two,” dad orders.

Mom hustles them out of the room.

Dad starts his coaching again. “This hearing is the most important meeting of your lives, so approach it that way. No holding hands under the table, no looking at each for support. No whispering. Be confident, assert yourself, and Stella, you talk only when a question is directed at you.”

Dad stops talking when mom walks in with Sorcha. “Look who I found.”

Sorcha grins. “Me. She found me. I’m gonna help her make lunch.”

“You mind if we don’t stay?” Lachlan asks mom, but Sorcha replies on her behalf.

“We mind.”

“We have to go shopping, sweetie,” I explain. “Get some clothes and stuff. You can come with us.”

Sorcha pales as she sticks her thumb in her mouth and moves behind mom. “I don’t wanna go shopping.”

“That’s okay, Sorcha,” Dad says. “We don’t need them. We’ll eat lunch then play some checkers.”

“Okay!” Sorcha goes from scared to happy in a matter of seconds. “Let’s make lunch, gramma, so I can play checkers.”

They leave, then we do.

Lachlan takes my hand after we fold ourselves into his Mustang. “We gotta stop and eat too. I’m not gettin’ enough food in me.”

“Neither am I,” I tell him.

We stop at a fast-food restaurant and each eat enough to feed a family of eight, then hit the shops.

My shopping is a bit of a struggle because the stores I usually buy my clothes from specialize in running gear, sweats and jerseys.

Lachlan abandons me at the third shop. “I’m gonna go find some toys for Sorcha and Gabby.”

“How is that fair?”

He smirks as he turns his back and walks away.

The clerk, who introduces herself as Kinsley, smiles after him. “You two look too young to have kids.”

I don’t correct her because the thought of Lachlan and me having kids makes my hormones go wild. “Yeah. We get that a lot.”

She looks me up and down. “I have some nice skirts that’ll fit well. You have a slim waist and hips, so it’ll just be the length that’s the problem.”

“The length is always the problem.”

“I like a challenge,” she replies. “You have awesome legs. You don’t mind showing your knees, do you?”

“Not on a basketball court.”

She quirks her eyebrows. “Well, there is a tall women’s store, but they’re closed on Sundays and besides their clothes are ugly. For some reason, they think that big or tall women like wearing floral patterns that are more suited for someone’s grandmother.”

I think of mom, who wouldn’t be caught dead in a shirt with flowers on it. Mind you, she’s only just become a gramma, so maybe she’ll start wearing them now.

“Okay,” I relent with clenched teeth. “I’ll try on some skirts.”

After a half-dozen, I settle on a tan skirt. It just tops my knees but it looks like it was meant for someone as tall as I am. I also buy a blue sleeveless blouse, despite wanting the pink one.

“Not with your coloring,” Kinsley says. “It’ll wash you out.”

We settle on a nice white sweater that almost fits the length of my arms.

“You need some better underwear.”

Despite my protests, I try on some lacy bras, a couple of which give me a surprising amount of cleavage.

“I didn’t know this was possible,” I say as I look at myself sideways.

“Anything’s possible these days.”

She chooses some lacy panties and adds them to the growing pile. “You’ve gotta spice things up for that big dude, girl,” she says like we’re best friends. Maybe we are now.

“Right,” I reply thinking about Lachlan seeing me in my new bra and underwear. “He kind of likes my boy shorts though.”

“Sure he does.”.

“You don’t know him like I do.”

“He’s a man, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” I say because she’s right.

“You should get your ears pierced,” Kinsley says as she checks me out. “Wear a bit more makeup and a bracelet and rings. Put some false eyelashes on.”

False eyelashes. Never! “Then I’ll look pretty?”

“You’re already pretty,” she replies sounding remarkably like my mom. “It doesn’t hurt to enhance your best features.”

“I’ll think about it,” I say as I take my bags and leave the store. I don’t bother looking for shoes. Lexie will have a couple of decent pairs. She also has clothes I could’ve borrowed, but like Kinsley said, they wouldn’t suit my coloring and besides, Lexie has way more curves than I do, even with my new bra.

Lachlan is waiting when I emerge and we go clothes hunting for him, but there are few places that have suits that fit a man as big and tall as he is. One of the men’s shops directs us to a clothing store in downtown Sagebrush that specializes in clothes for men Lachlan’s size.

The female clerk, who introduces herself as Giana, is young, pretty and curvy. She’s all over Lachlan as she takes his measurements. My agitation grows as I watch her. I gotta learn to curb my jealously.

Lachlan turns to me and raises his eyebrows when she measures the length of his leg. She’s so close to his junk, she could bite it.

I jerk to my feet and walk away.

“Where you goin’?” Lachlan calls after me.

“Looking at stuff,” I mutter.

I return with a couple of ties as Lachlan walks out of a dressing room wearing a charcoal suit over a white dress shirt. Holy hell, he looks good. “Wow,” I say.

“I know,” Giana adds. “Right?”

He grins smugly, completely oblivious to my growing animosity to the poor woman who’s only doing her job. Maybe. Or maybe she’s doing more than her job.

“It feels unnatural,” he says as he tugs on the collar of his shirt.

“Looks amazing.” I run a possessive hand down his chest. “If I wasn’t a suit girl before, I am now.”

“It needs some adjustments,” Giana says. “Hemming an inch for sure and letting out a bit on the sides. She gives him a sultry smile. “Too many muscles.”

I take a deep breath, hand the ties to her and walk away again.

“Where are you going now?” Lachlan asks.

“Looking for underwear.”

Despite it being Sunday, Giana promises she can have the adjustments done by closing time. “Our tailor won’t mind.”

We take the shirt, black shoes that actually fit his ginormous feet, two ties and six pairs of underwear, which he protests.

“You can’t wear a suit without underwear,” I tell him. “It’s not like jeans.”

“One pair would do. Do you think I’m gonna piss myself six times at the hearing?”

I do the math. “Hopefully only five times otherwise you’ll have no clean underwear.”

Next we get haircuts. I don’t get my head shaved, but I ask them to trim the curls.

Cora, the beauty specialist, frowns. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You need to grow it long. The weight of your hair would tame the curls and you can easily pull it back into a ponytail.”

“I see your point, but I hate the feeling of hair on the back of my neck. And it won’t grow long in a day, which is what I need.”

She twists her lips. “Hair extensions?”

“No,” I say flatly, imagining the look on Selma’s face if she saw me like that.

“Okay, I’ll trim the hair and thin the curls. It’ll help a bit.”

I don’t see much difference in my appearance as I hand over $100 plus 20% tip. Cora thanks me then says, “You should come back and get it trimmed a little every four weeks, then when it gets long, we’ll shave the back of your head underneath the hair. It’ll look cool.”

“Okay,” I say, only half lying because I kinda like the idea.

I stand outside the barber shop and wait for Lachlan, then gasp at his transformation as he emerges. His beard is trimmed and the rest of his face and neck is whisker free. His once long hair is short and his eyebrows have been thinned. He’s carrying a small bag with the shop’s name, full of what I assume are hair products.

“If it wasn’t for your size, the color of your hair, the frown on your face and the faded jeans, I wouldn’t recognize you.”

“You’re funny,” he replies dryly as he looks at my hair. “If it weren’t for… no, you don’t look much different at all.”

“Yeah,” I reply as I take his arm. “This is what you get for a 120 bucks these days.”

We make a quick stop at the men’s clothing shop to pick up Lachlan’s suit, then my apartment so I can grab Lexie’s shoes. We get home in time to eat supper with dad and mom who fuss over Lachlan’s transformation. Sorcha ate earlier and is sound asleep, so the two of us head across the street without her. To be honest, it’s a relief to us because we’re exhausted and the hearing is first thing tomorrow.

At home, we fall asleep the moment we’re in bed.