“That was fun. What’s up next?” she asks. Her voice echoes in the open room, even though she’s speaking quietly.
“Why are you here?” I ask.
Her hand covers mine. “Because you needed me.” She squeezes my hand gently.
“Go home, Friday,” I bite out.
But she doesn’t. She just sits there, quietly. “Why don’t you start another movie?”
“I don’t want to watch another movie.”
I lay my head back and close my eyes.
“Why didn’t you call me?” she asks quietly.
“I couldn’t figure out how to tell anyone.”
“Even me?”
“Even you.”
“Why?” Her voice is soft.
“Because I feel so fucking guilty that it’s like somebody is taking a knife and stabbing me in the gut over and over and over.”
“Guilty about what?”
“I lied, Friday. I fucking lied, okay?” I lied to the people I love, and they’ll probably never forgive me.
“Lied about what?”
“Dad didn’t leave. I threw him out.” I pick at a piece of lint on my jeans.
“Why did you do that?” Her voice is so quiet that I can barely hear her.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.” I feel her shift, and she climbs into my lap. She straddles me, one thigh on each side of my hips, and I reach for her bottom and jerk her against me. She yelps because I move so fast I scare her. But I need her. I need to feel her against me. I need her on top of me and fucking me. I need her. “It does matter.” She takes my face in her hands. “Why did you kick him out?”
“I came home in the middle of the day and found him in my mother’s bed with another woman. He was really careful not to bring women around us, and I had heard he was dating someone, but he hadn’t told us. But I walked in and found them together. I wasn’t supposed to be there.”
“Keep going.” She touches the pad of her thumb to my lower lip, and I chase her thumb and try to bite it. She smiles and rests on my chest on her elbows.
“Mom had been gone for a year, but I felt like he was taking a knife to her memory.”
“I can understand that.”
“I got mad, and I was bigger than him, so I jerked him out of bed. He tried to explain, but I wouldn’t listen. I kicked the woman out, and he was really angry. He swung at me, and he missed, so I punched him in the stomach. Then I hit him in the face. I threw him out. I tossed him out like garbage. I didn’t even let him get a change of clothes. Nothing.”
She doesn’t say anything.
“Then I told my brothers he left.”
“Oh, Paul,” she says quietly.
“They showed me the picture of his dead body. On his cheek is a slash. It’s from where I hit him with my fist. I was wearing my new class ring. I had just gotten it. I saw it across his face when I hit him. I saw it that day, and I saw it today. So, he died right after our fight.”
“Paul.” She shakes her head. “It’s not your fault.”
“It is my fault. I thought he would get over being mad and that I would, too, and then he would come back, but he never did. So I blamed him. And all that time, he was dead. Dead. Gone. Never to be heard from again. Not until someone found his fucking dead body in a freezer.”
A tear rolls down my cheek, and she catches it with her lips. She swipes my face with her thumbs to wipe my tears away.
“I kicked him out. It’s my fault. And now I have to tell my brothers that I did it. That he never left. That it was all because of me.”
“It’s perfectly natural to want to protect your mother’s memory. You didn’t kill him. He was a grown man. We have no way of knowing why or how he ended up in a freezer, but you didn’t put him there.”
“My last memory is a fight with him.”
“No, it’s not. If it was, you wouldn’t be here.” She looks around us. “This is your last memory, this perfect place, Paul, and those perfect times you had with him. You know that.”
“Friday,” I say. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You do what you always do, dummy.” She laughs. “You proceed with honesty and integrity. That’s what’s in your heart.”
“I have to tell them the truth.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Come here,” I say. I pull her against my chest. “I love you so much.”
We sit like that until I feel her lips on my neck. She purrs against my skin and nips me playfully.
“You fixed me,” I say.
“You weren’t broken.”
“I wasn’t whole until you, either.”
“Neither was I.”
“I want you.”
“I’m yours.” She sucks my earlobe into her mouth and nibbles it with her teeth, tonguing my piercing and rolling it gently. My dick starts to throb and presses insistently against my jeans.
She’s wearing one of those dresses she likes so much, so I lift the skirt and settle my hands on her hips. I bend my head and lick across the exposed flesh of her boobs. “I want to get to these,” I say against her skin.
She shrugs and her straps come down, and she shoves the dress down below her boobs. With my hand at her back, I pull her toward me, and she lifts up a little so that I can get to her tits. They’re so fucking pretty, her skin alabaster white in the soft light of the room. She mewls when I take her into my mouth.
My hands sink into her panties to cup her ass and draw her forward. “You’re going home with no panties,” I say next to ear. She shivers and nods. I rip her panties at the hip and pull them out of my way. I need to be inside her. I need in her now. I can’t wait. I can’t stop.
I unbutton my jeans and shove them down just far enough, along with my boxers. She takes me in her hands and squeezes my shaft. I hiss out a breath. “Fuck me,” I say. “Fuck me now.”
She lifts up and positions me at her center. Then she sinks down slowly. I arch my hips, pressing deeper inside her. I can’t get deep enough, so I use my fingers to spread her open and push farther.
“God, you feel so good,” she whispers. “So big like this.”
“Am I hurting you?” I stop and let her rest on me, her silken walls sheathing me.
She bounces, and I sink in to the hilt.
“Fuck,” I breathe. “Be still for a second.”
“How many times did you jack off while I was gone?” she asks against my lips.
“None.”
She laughs and squeezes me inside her. “Are you telling the truth?”
“You’re going to find out when I shoot off like a sixteen-year-old if you don’t stop doing that.” She’s squeezing me inside her, and I feel like I’m going to come undone.
“Doing what?” she whispers. She squeezes me again.
I grab her bottom and tip her forward so that with every retreat, she rides the ridge of my dick.
She cries out my name. “Paul! God, Paul!”
She’s so fucking wet that my balls are slick, and I don’t let up. I continue to pull her forward and back, holding tightly to her bottom. “God, Friday. I need for you to come.”
She looks into my eyes, adjusts our bodies, and leans back so that she’s resting on her hands, with her weight on my knees. I look down between us and I can see where I’m buried inside her as far as I can go. My dick is shiny in the dim light, and her cream coats me. Her legs are spread wide and I can see her hood piercing, so I cover it with my thumb and start to massage it as she bounces on my dick. I have to close my eyes because I can’t watch her tits move. I can’t watch her mouth fall open. But even then I can feel her breaths, hot and humid.
She rides me, taking me hard, and I massage her clit. Her legs begin to quiver, and her arms start to shake. Her rhythm falters, and I know she’s close.
“Come for me,” I say. “Please.”
She cries out. Then she stills and her walls milk me, clenching tightly as I rub her clit in small, tight circles the way I kn
ow she likes. She comes hard, and I let her ride it out until she shoves my hand away.
She sits forward. “Now you,” she says.
She rides my dick, taking me in her slick hole over and over, and I push through it, holding off for as long as I can. I can hear the smack of our bodies together, all tight and wet and hot.
Suddenly, she pulls my hair. “Open your eyes,” she says. “Look at me.”
I open them, and it’s like I can see her soul looking back at me.
“I fucking love you so much,” she says.
“I’m going to come inside you,” I warn.
“I know.”
Suddenly, she grows even wetter, and her mouth falls open, and I realize she’s coming again. She’s coming on my dick, and I join her, pumping all the way through the orgasm as she looks into my eyes.
“I fucking love you,” I tell her as my dick begins to go soft inside her. She falls onto my chest and collapses there. I wince as I slip out of her tight little body, and I’m already thinking about how soon I can get back in there.
“I don’t think I’m ever going to want to start using condoms after this baby gets here,” she says.
“Good. Because I’m going to get you pregnant as soon as you have this one.”
“Okay,” she says. And I can feel her smile against my chest.
I palm the back of her head and tug her hair so she’ll look up at me. “Okay?”
“Yes. Get me pregnant. Please. Make a baby with me. Make our family bigger.” She throws her arms open wide. “I want it to be fucking huge.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
“You’re in, Paul.”
“Yes, I’m in.” I’m further in than I ever dreamed she would let me be.
We sit there for I don’t know how long. But finally, we have to move. “I need to go and talk to my brothers,” I say.
“I know.” I use her torn panties to clean us up, and we fix our clothing. I go and turn off the projector, and we sneak out the same way we sneaked in. Only this time, we’re hand in hand.
We get to the apartment, and I’m not surprised at all to find all my brothers and their partners there. They’re quiet as we walk in the door.
Friday goes and changes into her pajamas, since she’s not wearing panties, and I go to my brothers. They deserve an explanation.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“For what?” Matt bites out. I can tell he’s angry.
“For making you wait. They gave me the news, and I freaked out a little.”
“Why?” Logan asks.
“Guilt.”
“For what?” This time, it’s Pete.
“He didn’t leave,” I blurt out. “I kicked him out.”
“We know,” Sam says. They all look at one another. “We’ve always known.”
“What?” I jump to my feet. “How the fuck did you know?”
“Sam was home that day,” Matt says. “He skipped school, and he was hiding in the closet. He heard the whole thing.”
“You knew.”
“Yes,” Sam says.
“You always knew.”
“Yes,” he repeats.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to get him killed.”
They look at one another. Finally Matt speaks up. “Just how do you think you killed him?”
“I threw him out. Then he died. If I hadn’t tossed him out, he might still be alive.”
“Fate’s a fickle bitch,” Matt says. “If anyone knows that, it’s me.”
“You don’t honestly think you have enough power to cause the fates to take him out. You’re not quite that awesome,” Logan says. He laughs.
“But—”
“But nothing,” Matt says. “You didn’t cause it. That’s the end of it.”
“You’re not mad at me?”
They all get up and wrap their arms around me. They squeeze and jostle me around until I laugh and cry out, “That’s enough.”
They step back, but they’re never far away. I know that.
“I’m going to have Dad buried beside Mom,” I say.
“Let’s plan a service and everything,” Matt says.
“Okay.” I smile. I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders.
My brothers and Emily, Sky, and Reagan leave. But as the three girls are walking out the door, I hear Friday ask them, “Wait, where’s Kelly?”
Emily snorts. “We threw the bitch out. She was walking around like she owned the place wearing one of Paul’s shirts. Fuck that.”
Friday high-fives them both, and I have to shake my head at their antics. And at the fact that Kelly lingered instead of taking Hayley home with her immediately.
Friday tangles her fingers with mine and pulls me toward the bedroom.
But just as we’re settling into bed, the door opens and Hayley jumps in the middle. “The sun is shining,” she says.
“No, it’s not,” I tell her. “Go back to sleep.” She snuggles between us and gets comfortable. Friday reaches a hand toward me, and I flip her palm up and lay my cheek on it.
I love you, she mouths at me.
“I love you, too,” I say out loud.
“Me, too?” Hayley asks.
“You, too,” I say. I kiss her cheek and snuggle into Friday’s palm.
I’m in.
Quite some time later
Friday
The apartment is so full that we can barely move. All of Paul’s brothers are here and their wives and girlfriends. Cody and Garrett are here, too, along with their baby girl, Tuesday. Hayley and Joey are fighting over who gets to play with her first. But Matt says, “There are enough babies to go around.” He points to his own. One is little Matty, his son, and the other is Hope, his daughter. They call her Hoppy most of the time because she’s much more active than Matty is. Matty and Hoppy are almost eighteen months old, so they’re into everything.
We’re all together to watch an episode of “Reeds,” the new reality show based on life in the tattoo parlor. We’ve seen a few episodes, and this is the one when Tuesday was born. She’s exactly one year old today, so this was filmed a while ago.
I already know that this is going to bring up a shit ton of memories for me, so I have a box of tissues ready. And I have Paul. I always have Paul, no matter what.
A knock sounds on the door, and the members from Fallen from Zero, Emily’s band, walk in. They’re in this episode, too, since I just happened to be watching them all record when I went into labor.
Fallen from Zero is an odd group of women. The only thing they have in common is that they all grew up in the same foster home. Emilio and Marta Vasquez took the kids from group homes who no one else wanted. They took the ones who had the most damage and the most to work through, and they tried to help them. They couldn’t help everyone, but they did help a lot of people.
Sam opens the door and steps back to let them in. I watch as his eyes fall on the drummer’s ass. He bites his lower lip and makes a noise, and Logan punches his shoulder. Cut it out, Logan signs.
Sam signs back to him. Damn, Logan. That one’s got a swing on her back porch that I could swing on all day long, he signs.
Dude, shut up, Logan says, his hands flying wildly.
I know, I know, Sam signs. It’s rude to sign in front of people who don’t know what we’re saying, but did you see her thighs? I want her to wrap them around me. He draws an hourglass figure in the air with his hands. Introduce me, he says. She’s got enough ass to hold on to. I bet she’d like a cupcake. He shoves Logan’s shoulder again. I want to meet her. He points like he wants Logan to get her attention. Please. He puts his hands together like he’s pleading.
I watch all this from the couch, and it’s like watching a train wreck. Sam hasn’t met these girls yet, not any of them, but the rest of us know them pretty well. We know that Peck, the girl who has gotten his attention, is not someone he should fuck with.
Logan taps Peck on the shoulder. Then he signs to her
. Peck, I’d like for you to meet my stupid brother, the dumbest man on the planet. He waves at Sam, and Sam’s mouth falls open.
“Oh, fuck,” Sam says. “She’s deaf.”
Not deaf, she signs back. I can hear.
And you can sign.
Apparently. She grins at him.
I’m Sam. I’m an idiot. And I like your ass. And your thighs. He jerks a thumb behind him. Do you want a cupcake?
His face is red, and the whole room bursts out in laughter.
She pulls her drumsticks out of her pocket and taps them lightly on the counter. Then she opens her mouth and says hello. It’s a Peck thing. Sam watches her sticks while she speaks to Reagan and Emily. When she’s done talking, her sticks stop moving.
Sam has been gone. He started playing pro football right after graduating from college. So while we have spent time with Wren, Finch, Lark, Star, and Peck, he hasn’t.
You should tell her how you play pro ball and make a shit ton of money. That’s the only thing that would save you now, Logan tells him. He laughs.
Sam flips him the bird. Fuck you.
Sam flops down on the floor beside the couch. Paul is sitting at my feet with my leg over his shoulder. He rubs my instep, and I fucking love that he still likes to do this.
“The episode is starting,” I cry. I turn the TV up loud, because no one can hear over all the children.
The tears don’t start until halfway through the episode, and they’re mainly from Garrett and Cody. We watch as Tuesday comes into the world. We let the cameras into the room, but they had to stay up by my head. So, when they pick her up and lay her on my belly on the TV, I can almost feel the weight of her on me now. I close my eyes and I’m right back there, right back to the day that Tuesday was born. I held her for a moment while Cody and Garrett cried on each other, and then I handed her over. She wasn’t mine.
They now had their family, and they were happy. So was I.
We all laugh at some of the outtakes in the shop that the cameras caught. We never know what the final cuts will look like, but so far, they have been a lot more about the customers than about us.
Our business has gotten so busy that we bought the shop right next door to ours, added eight more booths, and hired a slew of new artists. People wait months for appointments with us.