“Hmm,” I muttered and Colt gave me another squeeze.
“That settled?” Dad asked like he expected an answer rather than made his pronouncement and we were all supposed to fall in line which was the way it always was and the way it always would be.
Of course, if I wasn’t pissed and holding my grudge, this would have all made me pretty happy. I did like my hours but I liked them in a time when I could work them and pretend I wasn’t working them so I wouldn’t remember I was so damn lonely all the time. Now, I wouldn’t know lonely if it bit me on the ass and, God knew, I could use a breather. Not to mention, the idea of a vacation with Colt sounded fucking awesome.
Then again, I’d be happier to wait until it was warmer and have that vacation somewhere we could take his boat.
I was not, of course, going to offer this piece of information to anyone at that present time, however.
“Walk me to the door,” Colt said in my ear and I decided to do what he didn’t exactly ask seeing as I’d already acted uppity in front of Chip, who I didn’t know all that well, and Brad, who I didn’t know hardly at all, and my Momma raised me right and she was right there besides. Jessie obviously didn’t count because she was family and Josie was practically family so she also pretty much didn’t count but still.
Colt said his good-byes as he put on his holster and blazer and then he stopped at the door and turned to me.
At the door, he said, “You got until two thirty, when I come home to change and take you to the funeral, to get over your snit.”
Snit? Did he say snit?
I felt my eyes narrow and my brows furrow and my foot itched to kick him.
He went on, totally ignoring my look. “‘Til then, baby, get your studio sorted, yeah?”
“You do know that I’m letting you boss me around because we have an audience,” I informed him.
He got closer and his voice dipped quiet, only for me to hear. “You’re letting me boss you around because you know what I gave you last night, and the night before, and you probably got a good idea what I’ll give you tonight.”
Okay, so he was right, but I wasn’t going to tell him so I stayed silent.
He got even closer, his face changed, something came over it, something that corresponded with the feeling I felt standing at his bedroom door not so long ago.
He put his hand to my neck and said even quieter, “And because we’re solid.”
I liked that look on his face, a face which had been a constant in my life in one way or another since I could remember. A face I’d seen many expressions glide through over the years. But I liked this one, a lot, better than any other, so much I figured I’d never forget it either.
Even so, I was Feb and he was Colt, and we were now back to the way we were always meant to be so I told him, “We’ll stay solid if you quit bossing me around.”
He grinned, then he kissed me lightly before he said, “Nothin’s gonna shake us, Feb. Not again.” He gave me a squeeze before his grin changed to something else, the intensity slid from his expression and he whispered, “Really like those shorts, baby.”
Then he took his hand from my neck, put it to my belly, pushed me back a foot, opened and walked out the door, shutting it behind him.
“Lock it, February!” he shouted from the outside.
“There’s a million people in here!” I shouted back from the inside.
“Lock!” he shouted back to my shout.
I locked it then I watched through the window as Colt walked to his truck, got in, started it up, backed out of the drive and drove away and something about doing this made my “snit” melt away.
“Seriously?” Josie called from behind me. “Willie Clapton is a shit kisser?”
I turned to see Josie looking at me, Morrie grinning at me, Mom refilling her coffee cup, Dad with his head in the fridge and Jessie with her head tilted toward me, waiting for an answer.
I opened my mouth and the security beeps went off.
* * * * *
That afternoon, somewhere around two thirty, Colt arrived in the doorway of his bathroom while I was standing at the mirror over his sink, finishing up roller drying my hair. His eyes hit me, did a slide from the top of my head, where I was holding a hank of hair pulled straight up, juicing it with heat, down my body, which was in a t-shirt of his I’d confiscated because it was huge, old, the lettering faded, and, most importantly, super soft, to my slouchy sock-clad feet.
Then his eyes came to mine and he said, “Baby, seriously?”
“What?” I asked, releasing my hair which fell mostly in my face.
“You’re not ready?”
“I’m borderline ready,” I replied, pushing the hair out of my eyes.
“You’re doin’ your hair and wearin’ a t-shirt,” he told me like I wasn’t aware of these facts.
“Give me a break. I’ve been busy,” I said then promised, “I’ll be ready in a jiffy.”
His gaze lifted to my hair, where I was wrapping another huge hank around the roller brush, he sighed then disappeared from the doorway.
I looked at myself in the mirror.
I wasn’t lying, I had been busy. After my morning drama, Dad, Mom and I went to my studio and Jessie went to the grocery store to pick up boxes. Dad righted the bed and furniture while Mom tidied and I prioritized my stuff. Jessie showed with the boxes and I packed in my clothes, my CDs and the stoneware for the first wave. One could argue the stoneware was not a priority, since Colt had plates and such. Still, I liked it, it cost a fortune so I should use it as much as I could and it’d go in his kitchen so I decided it took precedence.
While Dad was taking the boxes to my car, a car he and Mom were using while in town since I didn’t seem to be needing it, Mom, Jessie and I packed stuff for the second wave. We closed the boxes and stacked them by the door.
I realized while we were doing this that the third wave would be light and seeing this slightly shifted the feeling of contentment that was settling in my soul and a twitchy feeling slid in its place.
I didn’t have much stuff, never had, and, at that moment, I found it embarrassing that I’d lived as long as I had with so little to show for it. Even when I made my home with Pete for that short while, I hadn’t accumulated much, probably knowing in the back of my mind somewhere that Pete and my arrangement would be temporary.
But all those years I lived light because it was easier to take off when the spirit moved me, which was often.
I hadn’t known then and never thought about it, whether, when I took off, I was running from something or searching for it. I knew now I was hiding from it and “it” was the knowledge that I fucked up my life. I kept on the move so I couldn’t settle into the understanding that the decisions I made, and kept making, weren’t the right ones.
Now I was forty-two years old and never owned a home. I’d always rented furnished places and bought my first furniture, a bed, armchair and dinette set, two years before. I owned stoneware, some clothes, music, kitchen utensils, a box of journals, a yoga mat and some framed photos. My life didn’t amount to much but a few boxes which could be carted across town in three trips. I had a retirement fund, which I started feeding into five years ago. I also had a bunch of savings bonds and certificates of deposit, which I’d been buying for years and were now worth a fair bit, seeing as I didn’t spend money on much. And I had a cat. Other than that, nothing. I didn’t have a house, a couch, a pool table and definitely not a boat.
As I was wondering how Colt would feel about how little I made of my life, we all carried the boxes into Colt’s house.
This would obviously freak me out, but it should have been in a happy way. Instead, I started to get worried and, therefore, I let my guard down and made a mistake.
While unpacking the stoneware and Mom and Jessie rotated Colt’s old stuff to a box to be taken to Goodwill, I told them that I thought Colt needed new dishtowels.
This wasn’t a mistake for me, exactly, more for Dad. Without us fi
nishing with the boxes, Jessie and Mom, both master shoppers, pressed Dad into taking us to the nearest mall where we bought dishtowels and, while we were at it, four new full sets of bath towels that were super thick and luxury soft to replace the ones Colt had in his bathrooms.
Jessie also guided us to her favorite shoe store under Dad’s visibly growing annoyance, and we bought me a pair of black heels to wear to the funeral. I could almost, if I sat down carefully and didn’t move too quickly, fit my ass and tits in her clothes. Shoes, no go. My feet were two sizes bigger than hers and I had nothing but a pair of black cowboy boots and black motorcycle boots and, of the two, I was going to go for the cowboy boots but Jessie said they wouldn’t do. Since we were there, Jessie also talked me into a pair of high-heeled boots she said would go better with my Costa’s with Colt jeans skirt and those boots were so hot, I knew she wasn’t wrong.
Needless to say, we got home at a time where there was no way for me not to run late in preparations for the funeral.
I finished with my hair and was gunking it up with shit that cost a fortune but was worth every penny because it did wonders to my hair when I heard Mom and Dad call out their good-byes. I shouted mine back and wondered what they’d been doing while I was getting ready. I figured, knowing Mom, there weren’t any boxes left and the new towels were probably in the wash in preparation to be used. Hell, by this time, they were probably in the dryer.
I walked into the bedroom and saw Colt’s blazer was on the bed but the rest of the clothes he wore that day were on the floor. This might have irritated me normally, but since he was wearing a pair of suit trousers in dark gray, a tailored shirt in a gray only two shades lighter than the suit, had a tie hanging around his neck that was black but had a subtle pattern of lighter gray, blue and green and he looked really good in all this, I didn’t mention his clothes on the floor.
He looked at me, saw me staring at him unmoving and said, “Feb, get a move on.”
“Right,” I replied, walking to the dresser where I’d commandeered two drawers which meant serious reorganization since it was apparent that Colt had collected t-shirts since he was fourteen and never threw a single one away. After some time spent on this endeavor, I managed the task of fitting his t-shirts into two drawers rather than the four he used because, folded neatly, rather than shoved in in bunches, they took a lot less room.
I pulled out undies and a bra and tugged on the panties under the t-shirt, then yanked off the tee, tossed it on the bed and put on my bra.
I was spritzing with perfume when Colt’s hands hit my waist, slid in, crossed paths, and went up, one palming my breast, the other one wrapping around my side, his fingertips trailing along the bra line under my armpit. I stopped moving except to shiver, mainly because I liked his hands on me and I felt it necessary to concentrate on that feeling.
“Is it sick you can make me hard before we go to a funeral?” he asked in my ear and showed me what he meant by pressing his hips into my ass.
I figured weddings and funerals put you in the mood. The first, because they were romantic and hopeful. The last, because they reminded you that life was short and you should spend as much of your time on the good stuff as you could while you had that time.
“I’m thinkin’ it’s natural,” I told him, the flat of his palm did a circle against my nipple and it felt so good, without me willing it to do so, my head fell to his shoulder. Still, I said, “Colt, remember? We’re runnin’ late.”
“Fuck,” he muttered into my neck and let me go.
He walked to the bathroom while I started the process of getting dressed. I watched through the door as he stood in front of the mirror and did up the last buttons of his shirt at the collar then lifted up his chin and tied his tie. I had to quit watching because this seemed weird to me in a glorious way and it struck me just then that all those years, this was what I was hiding from. The knowledge that I’d lost a life where I could watch Colt casually getting dressed in the bathroom. I’d never needed a romantic fairytale of princes and castles because I always knew my prince was Colt and I didn’t need a castle. I’d be satisfied anywhere, a crackerbox house or a cardboard box, just as long as Colt was there.
And, through those years, Colt wasn’t there.
I shook off these thoughts in order to get dressed and had successfully smoothed on a pair of black hose, something I hadn’t worn in so long I forgot how much I detested them and the act of putting them on, and shimmied into the pencil skirt of Jessie’s I chose mainly because it fit, but barely, when Colt walked out of the bathroom. I was shrugging on the black, satin blouse, which also fit snug, when Colt got close.
“Meet you in the living room,” he said and I nodded at him.
His eyes watched me doing up buttons for awhile before he walked to the closet, nabbed his suit jacket and headed out the door.
I finished dressing and wondered how long it would be before my new spike heels would start killing my feet. I got my answer two seconds later when they started killing my feet. I put on my watch and a pair of diamond stud earrings that Reece bought me on what I thought, at the time, was a lark. I thought this because Reece made his usual show of acting like it was no big thing, even though they cost some serious cake. Now I knew it was a sign neither he nor I cottoned onto until it was too late.
I hit the living room and saw Colt, now wearing his suit jacket and looking even better than before, through the opening over the kitchen bar. His eyes were aimed at the counter but his head came up when he caught my movement and I nearly slid off the side of my heel when his gaze hit me.
“Ready,” I announced and he grinned.
“I can see that.”
I stopped in the living room but he didn’t move nor did he take his eyes from me.
“We going or what?”
“Give me a minute, Feb. Don’t get this view very often. In fact, never.”
“It’s just a skirt,” I said.
“And heels.”
“It’s just a skirt and heels.”
“A tight skirt.”
“Jessie’s smaller than me.”
“And high heels.”
“Colt –”
“Sexy as hell high heels.”
I put my hands to my hips which made the blouse stretch tighter at my breasts and I knew Colt saw it because his eyes moved directly there.
“We’re going to a funeral,” I reminded him.
He looked at my face again but I could tell it cost him. “I take you to Costa’s, you ditch the jeans skirt and wear that.”
“This is too fancy, even for Costa’s.”
“Don’t care.”
“If I eat wearin’ this outfit, I’ll explode out of it like The Hulk.”
He liked this idea, I knew it because he smiled, slow and sexy.
In order to get a move on, I decided to throw him a bone. “I bought new boots for when we go to Costa’s.”
“Don’t care about that either.”
“You’ll like them, they’re high heels and, even bein’ a girl, I think they’re sexy.”
“Costa’s, tomorrow night,” Colt said instantly and I couldn’t help but smile.
“You’ll never get a reservation at Costa’s on a Saturday night.”
“Watch me.”
My smile got wider but I prompted, “Are we gonna go?”
His head tipped down to indicate the counter. “What’s this?”
“What?” I asked.
“Looks like a pile of your mail.”
“Mom, Dad, Jessie and I got a start on me movin’ in. I grabbed my mail while I was there.”
He looked down at the counter again and seemed to slip away to a place that he didn’t like so I walked to the bar.
“Colt?”
His head came up and he said, “We haven’t touched your mail, didn’t fuckin’ think of it. He could be communicatin’ with you.”
Although the specter of Denny was ever present, I still had managed to ignore it just enoug
h to be able deal with it and I liked it that way. I peered over the bar at the stack of mail which had a small parcel in it. I hadn’t even sifted through it because I never got any good mail. I’d set it on the counter to go through when I had a bit of time. Now it seemed I was staring at a ticking bomb with a counter closing in on zero.
I looked back at Colt and asked quietly, “Can we deal with Amy first and that later?”
I needed him to say yes. I couldn’t face Amy’s parents and her funeral if I knew something from Denny came through the post. I could barely deal with it anyway.
“Yeah, baby,” he said and relief filled me. “Let’s go.”
I nodded and we went to his truck. I had forgotten about the truck and if I hadn’t I might have chosen a different outfit, something stretchy. As I stood in the passenger side door, my mind flew through strategies of how I was going to heft my ass into the seat without ripping the skirt at the seams.
“Feb, honey, get in,” Colt said from where he was standing in the driver’s side door watching me with mild irritation at another delay.
I looked at him and said, “I can’t.”
“Baby, we gotta –”
“No,” I cut him off, “I mean, my skirt’s too tight and my heels are too high, I can’t –” I stopped talking when he shook his head and moved out of the driver’s side door.
He approached me and bent, sliding an arm behind my knees, one at my waist, and he lifted me and put me in the seat. I held my breath while he did this for two reasons. One, it would hopefully suck in my flesh so the material wouldn’t tear and two, because I didn’t hold much hope it would suck in my flesh so the material wouldn’t tear. Hope won and the material didn’t tear.
“Thanks,” I said when his arms slid away.
He was looking at me and grinning and I knew he thought I was a nut.
“Do I amuse you?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he answered and then moved away.
He’d backed out and we were on the road when my mind went to places I didn’t want it to go. Places that would torture me and places that made my pronouncement of Colt and me being solid as a rock a lie. I knew this shit with Denny, all we’d learned and all that we’d lost, would fuck with my head. I just didn’t know how to fight it.