The officers were climbing in the front of the cruiser.
Then he said, “Got Billie another teddy bear.”
The cruiser started to pull away as I asked, “Pardon?”
“Before I went to get them from school, swung by Target, got her another teddy bear.”
I moved to the counter and put my hand on it because suddenly my legs were trembling.
And they were trembling because Mitch went out of his way and got Billie another teddy bear.
But they were also trembling because he knew I’d lied about being fine for him to let me go. And my guess was that he was a busy guy but he was still taking his time to talk to me in an attempt to divert my attention from my trailer trash relatives and the mess they were making of my life. And since he was a busy guy, I knew I was sucking more of his time with all that was going on with Billy, Billie, Bill, him bonding with Bob and instigating Operation Take out the Trash and then some.
Therefore, when I had my hand in the counter to hold myself up, I told him softly, “They’re gone.”
“Good,” he said softly back.
I pulled in a steadying breath.
Then, still talking softly, I said, “I’m okay now, Mitch.”
“Good,” he repeated, also still talking softly.
I pulled in another steadying breath.
Then I whispered, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, baby,” he whispered back.
“I’ll see you tonight,” I told him.
“Now, that makes it worth it,” he replied, causing another belly whoosh then he said quietly, “Later, honey.”
“Bye, Mitch.”
Then I heard him disconnect.
I flipped Mr. Pierson’s phone shut and lifted my head to see my crew was all back and their eyes were on me.
I took them all in and said, “I’m so sorry. They –”
“Not another word, Mara,” Mr. Pierson cut me off firmly. I looked to him and his hand came up, his fingers curled around my bicep. He stepped in close and said gently, “Not another word, dear. Don’t think about it. Mitch and I have it all sorted.”
He held my eyes, squeezed my arm, smiled at me then let me go, carefully took his phone from my hand and walked toward the back and his office.
I turned and watched him go.
Then I turned back to see both Roberta and LaTanya staring at me.
That was when I bit my lip.
And when I bit my lip, LaTanya looked down at my mouth then up into my eyes then ordered, “Right, the juicy stuff first and that’s what’s goin’ on with you and Mitch. Then we’ll get to the Roller Derby Rejects. Now, sock it to me.”
Roller Derby Rejects.
That was funny.
And what was funnier, but not in a humorous way, was that both Roberta and LaTanya were not looking at me like I was a Roller Derby Reject or worse, stunned, shocked and disgusted at learning from whose loins I’d sprung. They were looking curious (very) and, well, like Roberta and LaTanya.
Not only that, Mr. Pierson didn’t either. He just told me he and Mitch had it sorted in a way it sounded like he was honored to be in on Operation Take out the Trash.
And so I took in another steadying breath, looked at two women who meant the world to me and my mouth made another decision before my mind caught up.
“Mitch is into me, I’m into him and I think I was switched at birth,” I announced, Roberta and LaTanya both stared at me for several seconds then they both burst out laughing.
And when they were done, I shared.
That’s right, I shared.
Some of it I had to share between dealing with customers but I shared it.
All of it.
And when I was done, they no longer looked curious but they still just looked like Roberta and LaTanya.
Two women who meant the world to me.
Chapter Sixteen
My Mara Likes Candles
Mitch and I didn’t come up with different names for Operation Take out the Trash over chili, cornbread and cupcakes seeing as Mitch was helping Billy with his homework and Billie was inexplicably and unusually grumpy. This took all my attention between bites of delicious chili, cornbread and, finally, cupcake as she grumbled, griped, moaned and misbehaved.
Mitch made good chili, by the way. There were four different kinds of beans; it was spicy, meaty and flavorful but not too hot and he topped it with grated cheese that was all melty. The cornbread was awesome. And cupcakes from Tessa’s Bakery never disappointed partly because the cake was rich and moist but mostly because she always topped them with a mountainous swirl of frosting.
I decided it was Billie’s broken sleep last night that was making her grouchy and I was with her. I was tired too. Except I couldn’t be grouchy with a grouchy kid on my hands and Mitch close.
Finally, we got them ready for bed and in bed, something that was usually not a chore, they were good kids. Billy didn’t put up a fuss but Billie was whiney and recalcitrant and I was a lot more tired when I finally got her settled and, while I read to her, she dropped off, clutching her new teddy bear.
And it was after that I wandered back into Mitch’s living room to see him on the sectional, beer in hand, long legs stretched out, feet up on the huge ottoman, a baseball game on his flat screen but his neck was twisted and his eyes were on me over the back of the couch.
“She down?” he asked quietly and I was tired, worried about Billie, worried about everything else and hoping Billie got a good night’s sleep and still his question made my heart flutter.
It was simple but intimate. His concern for Billie mingled with concern for me wrapped around a familiar kind of question a father asks a mother, a husband asks a wife.
I liked it. The simplicity and intimacy of it was beautiful and it was more beautiful coming from a handsome man, a good man, a nice man who was sitting in his awesome sectional in his gorgeous living room with his eyes warm on me.
I thought all this.
But I said, “Yeah.”
Then, tired, worried, suddenly alone with Mitch, feeling weird about where I was, what I was doing and how quickly all of it happened, not to mention what Mitch had said to me that morning, I considered my options of what was next. And this was where I should sit on his sectional.
I decided the safest bet was as far away from him as possible so that was where I went. He was in the middle of one side of the sofa. I sat close to the armrest on the opposite side.
He watched me do this and his lips twitched but he didn’t move.
It wasn’t lost on me that the last time we had a moment of alone time in a living room while a baseball game was on TV, we’d ended up in a clinch. And I was tired but it was still early-ish. And lastly, going to bed meant going to his bed.
So I had to kill time and do it not ending up in a clinch.
To accomplish that, I blurted the first thing that came to mind, “You have good taste.”
“What?”
As I spoke my eyes were on the ottoman while I shifted to curl my bare feet under me and leaned against the armrest but when he asked his question, I looked at him.
“You have good taste,” I repeated and his brows went up in question so I haltingly explained, now feeling weirder, “You, um…dress really nice and your, uh…apartment is really nice too. I mean, uh…you have really nice furniture.”
To that comment he asked strangely, “You know Design Fusion?”
I tipped my head to the side and asked back, “The store in Cherry Creek North?”
“Yep,” he answered.
“Yes,” I answered.
“My sister, Penny, owns that store.”
Uh…wow.
I’d been to that store. The furniture in that store was unbelievable and the price tags on it were even more so.
“Wow,” I whispered and he grinned then flicked a hand out.
“This is her shit,” he told me.
“Pardon?”
“She furnished this p
lace for me wholesale.”
At that, I blinked. “Your sister furnished your apartment?”
“Yep. She’s a nut. She decorates everything. The inside of her fridge is decorated.”
I blinked again. “The inside of her fridge is decorated?”
Mitch nodded, grinning.
“How do you decorate the inside of a fridge?” I asked, intrigued by this concept.
“She’s got decals on the sides of the fridge and fancy bowls she puts fancy shit in that isn’t food that sits on the shelves. Sometimes she even puts small vases with flowers in there.”
I didn’t know if that was weird or cool. I also didn’t share this indecision with Mitch.
Luckily, he kept talking. “When she redecorated her kids rooms three times in a year, her husband had enough, talked her into opening her own store so she could decorate other people’s houses and make money doin’ it instead of spendin’ all theirs doin’ it. So, when I moved in here, she took over and I let her because if I didn’t, she would anyway and if I fought it, it wouldn’t be pretty.”
“So you had no say?” I asked, surprised, seeing as Mitch seemed like a man in command of everything and definitely his surroundings.
Mitch shook his head. “I told her it had to be comfortable and it had to look like a guy lived here and not a gay guy. She succeeded on the first; the second is up for debate.”
He stopped talking but his eyes didn’t leave me and I got the feeling he expected me to chime in with my opinion.
So I chimed in with my opinion and stated, “It’s, uh…not totally gay.”
He threw his head back and burst out laughing. I bit my lip. His laughter became chuckles, his chin dipped back down and he caught my eyes.
“That’s good, I guess,” he muttered through a smile, his eyes very warm making my chest very, very warm.
Instead of belatedly intelligently keeping my mouth shut and absorbing myself in the baseball game, I stupidly decided to clarify, “It looks really nice, Mitch. It suits you since you always look really nice too.”
“So you’re sayin’ that the way I dress is nice and not totally gay?” he teased and my back straightened a bit because I knew he was teasing but I didn’t want him to think I was insulting him, not even a little bit.
And furthermore, the way he dressed was totally nice and not nice in the way gay guys always looked nice.
“No, I’m saying you always look nice as in, um…nice and, uh…that’s it. You just always look really, really nice.”
When I was finished speaking, his face changed as did his eyes. Both got warmer but the latter got dark in a way that made my warm chest even warmer and other parts of me got warm too. Then suddenly his eyes moved over my body curled into the armrest of his not totally gay but definitely comfy and cool sofa.
Then equally suddenly he got to his feet.
Then I watched as he moved into the kitchen then back into the living room and I noticed he was carrying candle jars. Then I watched as he set them in his wall unit and lit them. Then I watched as he turned out a lamp which meant only one was illuminated so the glow of the room changed from functional to something else entirely. Then I watched as he moved to the ottoman, nabbed the remote, pointed it at the TV and it went blank. Then I watched as he tossed the remote back on the ottoman, tagged another one, pointed it back at the wall unit and suddenly Journey’s “Still They Ride” was playing softly from his stereo.
Great song.
And the candles were good ones; the calming scent of fresh cotton was already filling the room.
Candlelight, romantic room illumination and soft music.
Uh-oh!
Frozen, I stared as he dropped that remote on the ottoman, came to me, put his hands right into my armpits and lifted me straight up.
“Mitch,” I whispered as my hands curled into his shoulders. One of his arms slid down over my bottom and he leaned into me then it hooked behind my knees. The other one curled around my upper back, he lifted me up and maneuvered between the ottoman and the couch, taking me with him. Then he shifted, sat with me in his lap, twisted, leaned back so he was reclining and I was reclining mostly on top of him then he rolled so we were both still reclining but now he was reclining mostly on top of me.
Through this, I was silenced by shock.
As he settled on top and beside me with his back to the back of the couch and my back to the seat, I repeated a now breathy, “Mitch.”
“Operation Take out the Trash,” he whispered, his hand coming up to curl around the side of my neck.
“Pah…pardon?” I whispered back, my hands still curled into his hard shoulders.
“I want your Mom and aunt out of Denver,” he announced.
I did too. I suspected he knew that so I didn’t respond and concentrated on trying not to respond to his warm, hard body pressed down the length of the side of mine with his strong hand warm on the skin of my neck.
This got harder when his thumb moved to stroke the underside of my jaw which felt really nice but luckily he started talking again and I decided to concentrate on that.
“As I guessed, they didn’t know shit about what happened to your apartment. That doesn’t mean I’m gonna lay off them. They’re here to give you a hard time. I’m gonna give them a harder time in the hopes that they’ll decide it isn’t worth it and take off home.”
This sounded like a good plan.
“How are you going to do that?” I asked.
“They’ve been here three days and been to the police station twice. If they move on you, I’ll have them arrested.”
I finally stopped thinking about his warm, hard body pressed down the length of mine, his strong hand warm on the skin of my neck and his thumb sweeping sweetly on my jaw and stared at him in shock.
“Isn’t that police harassment?”
“No,” he answered immediately. “It’s the police’s job to stop citizens being harassed. You haven’t seen your Mom in thirteen years. You haven’t shared much but what you’ve shared tells me there’s a reason why. You’ve moved on, away from her and set up a life, a good one also away from her. Then she comes to your door shouting it down, getting your neighbors involved. Then she comes to your place of work and uses foul language, getting your boss involved. An officer of the law explained calmly to her and your aunt what the situation was and how they could communicate with you and they ignored it and did their own thing which was not the right thing. They change their tune, they contact you and act like decent human beings; we stall Operation Take out the Trash. They keep doin’ what they’re doin’, they get another ride in a cruiser. They’ve had warnings. Two strikes. Strike three, you press charges and they sit in a cell. They get out, they have two choices. They continue on their current bent and make those charges worse which means they’ll spend more time in Colorado than they expected or they get their asses home and leave you and those kids the fuck alone.” He paused and held my eyes for a moment before he finished, “They try to get to you one more time, Mara, I’ll be explaining those choices to them through bars. That’s Operation Take out the Trash.”
I stared into his eyes and didn’t know what to say.
What I did know was that the depths of humiliation were fathomless that this good man stretched out beside me was dealing with all that was me which was to say Bill and all his garbage and my Mom and Lulamae and all the garbage that was just them.
And because of this, I closed my eyes and turned my head away.
Mitch didn’t allow me to escape.
His hand cupped my jaw, turned my head back and he whispered his order, “Look at me, sweetheart.”
I opened my eyes.
His head dropped an inch toward mine.
I held my breath.
Then he plumbed the fathomless depths of my humiliation by informing me quietly, “I called Iowa, pulled their sheets.”
Oh God.
He went on, “I know about them.”
Oh God!
His head dropped another inch so he was all I could see. “And, baby, somethin’ else I know. You are not them.”
My hand left his shoulder so I could curl my fingers around his wrist at my jaw and I whispered, “Mitch.”
“You are not them, Mara.”
“I –”
His thumb moved to press against my lips and his face got even closer.
“You…are…not…them, baby,” he whispered.
“You…” I said against his thumb and he moved it to sweep my cheek. “I mean, everything around you, all the stuff consuming your life right now, it’s about me, Mitch. It’s about where I come from. It’s about who I am and who I am is about them.”
“You’re right and you’re wrong,” he told me.
My other hand at his shoulder slid down to his chest and my hand at his wrist joined it when I asked, “How am I wrong?”
“All the stuff consuming my life, as you put it, is about you and, Mara, baby, I do not mind that. And what it’s about is also about you. You being a good person. You tryin’ to do right for your cousins. You puttin’ yourself out there so they won’t live the life I’m guessin’ you were forced to live. But what’s happening to you and them is about them, Bill and how he didn’t pull himself out of that life you pulled yourself out from and that has not one fuckin’ thing to do with you.”
“It does,” I whispered.
“It doesn’t,” he returned firmly.
“Mitch, it does.”
“Mara,” his fingers tensed on my jaw, “why do you think I don’t mind all the shit that’s consuming my life?”
I blinked because this was a really good question.
“I…I don’t know,” I stammered and he grinned with his mouth and his eyes, close up, and it was phenomenal but he added another thumb sweep of my cheek which made it breathtaking.
“Because, you give good Christmas presents,” he stated.
I felt my brows draw together as, still stammering, I asked, “Pah…pardon?”
“You give good Christmas presents,” he repeated. “LaTanya, Bray, Brent, fuck, even Derek, they all talk about them. And they also talk about the birthday presents you give.”
They did?
“But –” I started but he interrupted me.