Chasing His Brother's Bride
Chasing His Brother’s Bride – Chapter 38

Jolie rolled off the bed when she heard Malik knock once on the door and call out ‘food delivery.’

Pia was almost asleep when he’d knocked but now, she was sitting up in the middle of the bed, a panicked noise escaping her and reaching for Jolie who had moved away to open the door.

Malik immediately engulfed Jolie in a tight hug, lifting her off the floor and burying his nose in her hair. She was stunned by his reaction as he almost rocked her in his arms. He kissed her mouth softly and set her down and then crossed the room and dumped the bag of food on the bed. He took Pia in his arms and peppered her tiny face with tons of k****s until she was squealing with laughter.

Jolie’s lips twisted with the sight.

“Uncle –”

“Na-uh,” Malik frowned, “Daddy. It’s Daddy. It doesn’t matter what the angry old shrew downstairs said. Brix and I, we are your dads and that is that.”

Pia held his face in her tiny hands, “we don’t have to move back to the little house?”

“Not in a million years will I let my two favorite girls leave me.” Malik moved to sit in the bed and patted the pillow beside him for Pia to snuggle on. “Right now, Nonna Beckwith is getting an earful. Daddy Brix is very angry with her for making you sad and he is letting her know it is not acceptable. He said he is your daddy and nobody, not anybody on the planet, is ever going to stop him from being your daddy.”

Jolie sat on the edge of the bed and watched Malik wipe tears off Pia’s cheeks gently.

“We love you so much, Pia. You never have to ever worry about whether we want you to call us daddy. Every time you call us Daddy our hearts feel good. It makes us both so happy. Flavia was wrong to say what she said and I can imagine Brix will insist on an apology at the very least.” He motioned to Jolie, “come sit here, beautiful. I’ve missed you today. You took off before I could drive you home.”

“Flavia took into me in front of Mordecai. He sent me and Opal home for the day so we went shoe shopping.” She wasn’t a hundred percent trusting of Malik’s presence considering he’d ignored her all day and it was a full hour since everything had gone down in the kitchen. “You seemed busy today anyway.”

“I was busy today dealing remotely with Vegas issues. I was hoping you would come see me in my office but you didn’t and I tried to give you space, but I did miss you. A lot, Jolie.” He sighed, “I’m sorry it took me a bit to get up here but we were dealing with the psychopath downstairs.”

Jolie felt her breath hitch at his words as she sat beside him on the bed and he wrapped his arm over her shoulder and pressed a warm k**s to her temple. Her emotions felt all over the place as she was torn at wanting to curl into him for comfort and anger for the way she’d been treated today.

He shook the food bag, “what did you order? This bag feels heavy.”

“It’s the only place in the city where she’ll eat the rice. I figured if I was ordering clear across town, I was going to make it worth my while.”

“We should have a picnic,” Malik said with a smile. “Is there enough to share with me?”

“Mommy and me are having alien food in our space shuttle. I’m going to have space rocks and space bugs,” Pia said excitedly. “I’ll share my space bugs!”

“Space bugs?”

Pia’s eyes glittered naughtily, “the chicken balls are the rocks and the rice looks like teeny tiny white worms. I’m pretending they are space bugs.”

“Goodness,” Malik tugged Pia closer, “what if I don’t like bugs?”

“They’re just pretend silly! Mommy said we can untie the curtains and eat in here and pretend it’s a rocket ship.”

“What a great idea. Give me a couple of minutes. Don’t start without me.” Malik bounded off the bed and the thumping of his feet racing through the house made Jolie and Pia look to each other in confusion.

“Where is Daddy Malik going?”

“I don’t know,” Jolie frowned as she leaned to look out the door. She could hear slamming of doors down the hall and then he came tearing back in and motioning for them to get off the bed. “What is that?”

“Shower curtain. Can’t have the bed all stained with food.” He leaned over and whispered in Jolie’s ear, “you’d almost think I knew how to cover up soft surfaces to avoid stains like I was in the mob or something.”

Jolie elbowed him and saw his eyes laughing and took a breath. “Is this to wrap me up in after you feed me a last meal?” Her question was only partly joking. She had hit Brix’ mom. Who was to say he wasn’t here to distract her while Brix set things up.

“Hey,” he took her by the chin and stared into her eyes, “you are not in trouble. I’m personally a little miffed you used an open hand on her face. I want to teach you how to fight so next time, you at least leave a broken nose behind.”

“I don’t want there to be a next time.” Jolie tried to look everywhere but his face.

“There won’t be with her,” he promised and dropped a k**s to Jolie’s forehead. Pia immediately demanded her own k**s to the forehead and then she helped him spread the shower curtain on the bed. The three of them then began untying the gauzy pink curtains and tugging them until they were draped around the bed filtering out the light.

“There, now we can have our dinner in our space shuttle,” Pia said as she climbed onto the crinkling shower curtain.

“Is there room for one more in the space shuttle?” Brix’ voice cut in from behind the curtains.

Pia froze as he poked his head through and stared at him.

“Oh, baby girl, don’t look at daddy like this,” he held his hands out and she jumped at him. He wrapped his arms around her middle and hugged her tight. “I’m sorry you’re sad. I love you little one.”

“Are you still my daddy?”

“Forever and always,” he promised kissing her dark hair. “Did you have a bath? You smell very clean and soapy.” He inhaled the sweet scent of her and continued rocking her in his arms.

“Mommy and me had a bath together,” she said excitedly, “I colored her tiger stripes.”

He pushed the curtains open and sat on the edge of the bed. Jolie couldn’t look at him as she tore open the brown paper bag holding their dinner in it. He reached a hand and pushed hair off her cheek.

“Hey, Jolie, look at me please?”

She shook her head as tears started to well up. She had smacked his mother in the face. He was likely to punish her for it.

“Please?” he spoke quietly.

She sniffed as she refused and dug through the bags, replaceing the little container of Pia’s favorite rice, and setting it aside. Why had she ordered so much food?

“My bugs!” Pia exclaimed and grabbed it excitedly hopping back onto the makeshift space shuttle and settling in next to Malik.

“Jolie,” Brix’ voice was gentle and calm. “You’re not in trouble, love.”

She shook her head aware tears were falling as she dug through the bag for Pia’s chicken balls. Why couldn’t she replace them? A gentle hand took the bag and Brix wrapped his arms around her and she buried her head in his shoulder as tears started to choke her.

“Why is mommy crying?” Pia asked suddenly terrified.

“Mommy is sad because she hit someone,” Brix explained quietly. “It makes mommy feel bad to slap another person. Mommy is such a good person it goes against her grain.” He rocked Jolie in his arms softly as he put k****s to her forehead. “Daddy is very proud of mommy though. So proud.”

Pia leaned closer, her little hands rubbing Jolie’s shoulder, “you’re proud of mommy for slapping the mean lady?”

“Yes, because she was protecting you.” He ruffled Pia’s hair. “She was protecting our family and this means everything to me. Nobody is more important than you Pia and mommy did what was right.”

“Why was the lady mean?” Pia sighed. “I don’t want her to be my Nonna.”

“Then she doesn’t have to be your Nonna,” Brix shrugged as if it were easy. He rubbed Jolie’s back softly, “she’s leaving in the morning and she is not welcome back until she can get her biased and prejudiced head out of her behind.”

Jolie lifted her head, “what do you mean?”

“I will explain more later once little ears are safely asleep but the three of us,” he motioned to Malik, “need to have a very good conversation. For now,” he tilted her head back and stared into her eyes with tenderness and regret, “know I am not upset with you in the least.”

She nodded and pursed her lips, “Pia wanted to have dinner in a space shuttle.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hands.

“And the body bag?” he motioned to the shower curtain.

She giggled at his words, “Malik said it was to keep the stains off the bedsheets.”

“He’s a smart man, our Malik.” He winked at the dark eyed man and smiled. He reached out a hand, ruffled Malik’s hair, and sighed. “What are we having for dinner?”

“Apparently the only rice in the city our little girl will eat,” Malik caught Brix’ hand and kissed his ring.

“Did you k**s Daddy’s ring?” Pia caught the movement. “Why?”

“In our family,” Malik explained as he tugged the little girl to sit on his lap and opened her rice and dug a spoon into it, “when we want to pay respect to the head of our family, we k**s the ring of the man leading our family. Daddy is the head of our little family. He is the boss and he makes the rules. He also has to make very hard decisions, even when they might hurt. I love him very much for making sure the rules are in place and he is the one who make sure we are all taken care of.”

“What is your job?” Pia asked Malik frowning.

“I keep us safe,” he said as he patted her shoulder softly. “It is my job to make sure you, Daddy and Mommy are always safe. I will protect you for as long as I’m alive. Daddy makes the rules and I make sure our family, all of the men and their wives and children, all know to follow daddy’s rules.”

“What is Mommy’s job?”

“Mommy’s job is to make us all feel loved and to remind to be kind when we forget to be loving to each other. Mommy tonight had to remind Nonna she was not being a loving member of our family and mommy reminded her well.” Brix grabbed a plastic fork and stuck it into a piece of sweet and sour pork from one of the paper boxes. He held it to Pia, “want to try?”

“No. It has sauce. I don’t like sauce.” She shriveled her nose up. “My space balls are plain.”

“Trying new things is important Pia. You might miss out on the most delicious thing in the world if you don’t want to try new things.” Brix coaxed her wiggling the red coated deep-fried piece of pork around on the plastic fork.

Malik sniggered at his words and Brix grinned back.

“What is so funny?” Jolie frowned as she sat away from the two men and leaned against the headboard, taking a Styrofoam container with her.

Malik met her eyes with a light in them, “Brix is trying new things and liking it. Remember how I distracted Brix from his call the other day?” When Jolie nodded, “he returned the favor in front of his mom.”

She frowned and then her eyes widened, “oh.” She put her hand over her mouth, “Oh, oh. You, oh.” She was dumbstruck as she considered Malik’s words. Brix chuckled as he dropped an arm over her shoulder and hugged her close. She turned her head to his and looked up into his eyes, “in front of your mom?” What Jolie had seen of her so far was bordering homophobia.

“And Dad and Will,” Brix laughed lowly. “My mother might have thrown up in her own mouth. Will is curious and you could see him trying to figure out if we were screwing with mom.”

“What did your dad say?” Jolie’s heart was thundering.

“My father said he didn’t care who I loved so long as I loved,” he smirked as her jaw dropped open. “He also said a few more crude things geared to make mom squirm after Malik left the room.”

They were quiet as they all shared the food on the bed, Jolie grateful for Malik’s idea of putting the curtain down as the mess Pia was making with the grains of rice would likely have been hell to clean up. Her mind was still focused on Brix’ behavior. Had he really kissed Malik in front of his father? A knock on the bedroom door made them all pause in their eating and then Elio’s voice carried in.

“Can Nonno come in?”

“Nonno,” Pia pulled the curtains apart, “we’re having a picnic.”

He crawled onto the bed, sat at the end of the bed, and regarded the three adults with a crooked grin. “You three sort things out?”

“We’ll have a chat after Pia goes to bed.” Brix regarded his father.

Jolie noted the curious exchange of glances between the two heads of the family.

“I only wanted you to know, I approve of this family,” he moved his finger around the four of them. He looked to Brix pointedly, “and I am proud to call you my son, to call you both my sons.” He looked to Malik, “your father would be proud. I know you have much to work through. I encourage you, my daughter, to lean on these two. You get married tomorrow Jolie and this life and family can be a hard one but if tonight has shown you anything, it is Brix will stand up to anyone for you. Anyone. Even his own mother.” He grinned at the memory, “I love the woman but she needed to be taken down a peg. She’ll come crawling back when she wraps her brain around it.”

“She’s not welcome around my daughter.”

Jolie was stunned to hear Brix’ blunt comment. He was bold and unyielding.

“I cannot say I blame you. I listened to the playback again and I’m angry too.” He tugged Pia to his side. “I support your choices. Also,” he kept the little girl close, “I’m retiring.”

“What?” Brix launched upright at his father, “Why?”

“I’m not going anywhere Brix. I’m going to buy a little house here in Boston and be a full time Nonno. You think you see me too much already? I’m going to be underfoot all the time. I have to fly to Italy next week and try to convince a special lady to join me in retirement. I’ll keep my hand in but it’s time Brix. You’re ready. The men respect you. I waited while you got your business with Will settled and sorted but you can operate his businesses with your eyes closed and we all know it. My wedding gift is the official title of head of this family.”

“Dad,” Brix cleared his throat.

“Brix, run your household and this family the way you did tonight. Unapologetically. I have never been prouder to call you my son than I was tonight to watch you take ownership of your child, your wife, your husband,” he didn’t pull punches as Malik choked earning smacks to the back from Jolie who was clearly stunned by the moniker, he gave Malik. “I love you.” His wide grin grew, “also, watching Will panic over your idea for an international ad campaign was glorious.”

“What ad campaign?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Malik chuckled flicking a glance at Pia who was sitting on Elio’s lap, her eyes getting heavy, morsels of rice spilling from her lips. “For now, I think we need to take five, clean up this mess and get our little girl to bed.”

Jolie watched as the three men took over and cleaned everything up, including Pia and managed to convince her to sleep in her own bed. The little girl was tucked in, with a stuffy, one story read and eyes closed with little snores escaping her in under thirty minutes. Jolie was confused by their efficiency as she tied up all the curtains while Brix and Malik both kissed Pia’s forehead and then followed Elio out of the room. The whole day was coming to a close and yet, Jolie felt like things were only beginning and as she turned by the door to turn out the light, she felt nervous. What was next?