Eddie gave me a look that said I was quickly curing him of his unrequited passion.
We walked through the living room, up the stairs and the TV was on in the second bedroom. The minute I hit the landing and looked into the TV room, I came to an abrupt halt.
Eddie walked into the room and said, “What’s up, hombre?”
I could see through the open door that Lee’s huge-ass, flat screen TV was in the place where my old-ass, tired TV used to be. I could also see some frames stacked against each other on the floor and leaning against the wall.
I turned my head the other direction and saw two big suitcases on the floor in my bedroom, one of them open and it appeared to have exploded. Men’s clothes, or more to the point, Lee’s clothes, were all over the floor.
I looked into the bathroom and there was an open dop kit on the counter of the bathroom vanity.
Lee had moved in.
I wandered into the TV room. My desk no longer had all my cute stationery, fun girlie boxes, knick knacks and brightly colored journals, that I collected but never wrote in, carefully lined up on the attached shelves with my laptop closed. Everything was shoved around, there was a huge flat screen monitor, wireless keyboard and mouse and a bunch of other crap littering the surface and floor and all sorts of cords everywhere.
There was also an enormous safe next to the TV stand.
Lee was flat on his back on my big, red, poofy, deep-seated, comfortable couch. All my fancy toss pillows, which were normally arranged artfully, were shoved up behind his head and shoulders, he had a beer dangling from his fingers and a baseball game on.
He and Eddie were chatting but when I came in Lee looked at me.
“Hey,” he said.
I didn’t answer. It was a physical impossibility.
I wandered out of the room and into my bedroom.
I was vaguely aware of Eddie leaving and was staring at the exploded clothes when Lee walked into the room.
“Cherry’s gonna be all right,” Lee told me.
I didn’t answer. Not that I wasn’t glad as any good human would be that Cherry was going to live to see another day where she could make other mortals feel inferior, just that I was freaking out.
I walked forward and opened my closet doors. I put both my hands at the very end of the hangers on one side and with all my might, I shoved them to the other side. It was a superhuman effort. Hangers clacked together and all my clothes scrunched up and I managed to free about a foot and a half of space. I stepped back and looked at Lee’s exploded clothes on the floor.
It was then I began hyperventilating.
Lee’s arms came around me from behind and he rested his chin on my shoulder.
“Breathe deep,” he advised.
I did as I was told. In. Out. In. Out.
“Feel better now?” he asked.
“No,” I answered.
He walked over to my CD player and sorted through some CDs. Then I heard Stereophonics “Dakota”. It was a really good song. I was beginning to feel better.
I looked at Lee and took a deep breath.
“Give me a minute, I can do this.”
He left me to it.
Half an hour later, I was losing it. I had freed another foot in the closet and there was a small pile of stuff that I should have thrown out years ago laying in the landing.
It wasn’t going to be enough.
“It’s not gonna be enough!” I shouted hysterically.
Lee walked back in.
“You could help, you know,” I told him, hand on hip.
He walked to the closet, slapped through a couple of hangers and brought out my butterfly-winged shirt liberally threaded with silver that I wore when I wanted to pretend I was Olivia Newton-John. It wasn’t my best look but I’d seen some good times in it, it was a memory shirt.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said.
His eyes crinkled and he put it back, slapped through a couple more hangers and pulled out an embroidered camisole that had a big rip in it. It used to be gorgeous but could never be repaired. It had also seen good times.
“Are you nuts? I went to the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert in that!”
He put it back and walked out of the room and down the stairs. He came back with two open bottles of Fat Tire, gave me one and then walked out again. It wasn’t a lot of help, but it wasn’t a bad effort.
Forty-five minutes later, I’d scaled the mountain. There was a huge pile of my discarded clothes in the landing, some shoes, bags and other junk. Lee’s suitcases were unpacked, zipped up and out on the landing too. He had two and a half drawers all to himself and about a third of the closet.
I was face down on the bed, listening to Kelly Jones doing a fucking great job at singing Rod Stewart’s “Handbags and Gladrags” which I thought was apropos.
I felt the bed depress with Lee’s weight and a hand at the small of my back.
“I ordered a pizza, I’m walking to Famous to get it. You wanna come?”
I shook my head and Lee left.
I finished the song, replayed “Have a Nice Day”, then turned off the CD player, stumbled in the TV room and threw myself onto the couch. A couple minutes later, Lee walked in with a pizza box with two opened Fat Tire bottles balanced on top.
“Please tell me that’s pepperoni mushroom,” I said.
He smiled. “And black olives.”
Thank God.
We ate, we watched baseball, when we were done, Lee took the box and empties downstairs and came back with full bottles.
This wasn’t so bad.
Lee pulled me off the couch, laid down on his back and pulled me on top of him, shifting me to the side then tucking me in. I was snuggled up, cheek on his chest, watching the Rockies night game.
Okay, so, this wasn’t bad at all.
After I made that momentous decision, I fell asleep.
* * * * *
Lee woke me up by shaking me and saying, “Time for bed, gorgeous.”
I rolled over him and got up from the couch.
I disrobed between couch and bedroom, crawling between the sheets wearing nothing but my hot pink hipsters, too tired even to brush my teeth.
It took several seconds for me to notice that Lee was moving around the room but the noises he was making were not bedtime noises.
“What’re you doing?” I mumbled.
“I have work.”
I knew better than to ask and furthermore, I didn’t want to know.
He turned off the light, leaned over me and kissed my temple.
“Be careful,” I told him.
“Always,” he whispered.
Then he was gone.
* * * * *
Lee woke me up getting into bed.
I rolled into him and he tucked me against his side.
“Everything okay?” I mumbled, though I couldn’t imagine he heard me because my mouth was mostly mushed up against his chest.
“Yeah. Go back to sleep,” he said.
I laid there a second, close to dreamland then I asked softly, because I had to know, “Is this gonna be my life?”
His body was tense when I rolled into him but had relaxed after he tucked me in. It got tense again at my question.
“Yeah,” he answered, ever the straight-talker.
I took a deep breath into my nostrils and let it out my mouth. “Just promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“I want you to wake me when you get home.”
His body stayed tense for a beat then relaxed. “I can do that.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Then I fell asleep.
* * * * *
Early the next morning, I was standing outside in the middle of my yard wearing a pair of cutoffs and Lee’s olive drab shirt that said “Army” across the chest. I had a coffee cup in one hand and the hose in the other hand, the spray gun locked down and I was watering my flowers.
I heard a door open and then Stevie called, “Do ours
too, will you?”
Still in my morning stupor, I lifted my coffee cup in a half-assed, “gotcha” not even bothering to turn around and I heard the door close again.
I noticed Lee run across the sidewalk at the front of the house. He stopped and opened the front gate and walked into the yard to stand a couple feet away from me.
I looked up at him. He was wearing another pair of sweats cut at the thigh, these black and faded. The shorts were topped with the white Night Stalkers tee that I considered mine, the shirt was plastered to him with perspiration. His running shoes were shoes that had been run in, not fancy-ass, look-at-me shoes.
Even with all that sweat, he was somehow not breathing heavily and if I wasn’t in a haze, I would have jumped him, I didn’t care how sweaty he was.
“Hey,” I said.
He looked at me, then looked in the direction of the spray. His eyes crinkled and he looked at me again.
“Hey,” he said.
“I’m watering the flowers,” I told him.
He shook his head. “Honey, I hate to tell you this but you’re watering the fence.”
I looked toward the spray and saw that I was aiming a little high, the force of the flow was hitting the fence and running down, not hitting the flowers.
Oopsie.
“I haven’t had enough coffee,” I explained.
He walked up and took the hose out of my hand.
“Perhaps you shouldn’t operate complicated machinery in the morning,” Lee suggested.
A hose spray nozzle wasn’t exactly complicated machinery but I wasn’t going to argue.
“Do Tod and Stevie’s too, would you?” I asked and then I walked into the house and sat on my new couch and put my feet up on the ottoman, staring off into space until I’d emptied the cup.
I topped it up, walked up the stairs, put my mug on the bathroom counter, took off my clothes and got in the shower. I had a head full of shampoo and was rinsing when the shower door slid open and I heard Lee join me. Lee’s hands started on my hips and began gliding around which made it kind of difficult to concentrate on the task at hand but I persevered.
Once the soap was rinsed from my hair, Lee moved me out of the spray and took my place. I grabbed my conditioner and started to massage it into my hair.
“So, how exactly do you work all night, wake up before six in the morning and go for a run?” I asked.
“Practice,” he answered.
Soap was running down his body. At the sight, I kind of lost interest in the conversation. I abandoned my conditioner and started to glide my hands around Lee’s body, the soap making him nice and slippery. I began to explore in earnest, the water falling over both of us. Then, I decided to make it a multi-sensory exploration using hands and mouth, which Lee allowed for awhile then he pulled me up and pressed me against the wall.
I looked into his eyes and noticed that I had unleashed Lee Beast.
One of his hands went down my ass and thigh, he lifted my leg and wrapped it around his waist.
“Did you bring the condoms up from downstairs?” I said against his mouth.
“I’ll pull out,” he replied.
“No! That never works. Ask Andrea.”
“Don’t worry about it, I want you pregnant.”
Holy crap.
“What?” I screeched, coming out of my zone, “like… now?”
“Not now but if it happens, I won’t be disappointed.”
My mind boggled for a moment and then I put my hands to his face, which was looking down at my body and made him look me in the eyes.
“I gave in on the together thing and the moving in thing, going a lot faster than made me comfortable. You gotta give me time with this baby thing, Lee, it’s only been a week.”
He kissed me and I slid back into my zone. When he lifted his head away from mine I found I was totally okay with the baby thing but he said, “I’ll go get the condoms.”
He got out, wrapped a towel around his waist and went downstairs.
Yep, this wasn’t so bad after all.
* * * * *
We were lying on my bed, me face up, Lee face down with his arm wrapped around my waist.
We got kind of carried away, what with seven boxes of condoms within easy reach and after christening the shower, I discovered (to my great fortune) that Cherry was right. Use your mouth on Lee in the morning, he’ll return the favor.
“I have an idea,” I said.
Lee got up on his forearms and looked at me.
“The last idea you shared with me got us caught in a cemetery in the middle of the night. You and Ally fell into a freshly dug grave and made such a ruckus the neighbors called the cops.”
I smiled. That was a good night, a night just before I started to avoid Lee. Eddie, Lee, Ally and me were sitting around drinking and I dared them to go to a graveyard at midnight. It was fun. Though, I could have done without the falling into the grave part.
“This is a better idea,” I told him.
He rolled to his side, the eye-crinkle thing going. “Let’s hear it.”
“I think I should pretend to let Wilcox win. I can go out to dinner with him and…”
I petered out when the eye-crinkle faded and Lee’s face got hard and scary. “That’s not gonna happen.”
“Listen, Lee! I can wear a wire, maybe get him drunk, get him talking –”
“It’s not gonna happen.”
“It’s a good plan!” I said, kind of loudly.
“It’s a screwball plan.”
I’m so sure!
I sat up and stomped to the dresser, pulled out a pair of cream panties with little orange squares on and pulled them up. I grabbed a matching bra and struggled into it, the whole time I was saying, “At least we can try. I can carry a stun gun in my purse. You can have someone follow us… oof!”
All of a sudden, his arm came around my middle, knocking the wind out of me as he pulled me forcibly backwards. I landed on the bed and bounced a couple of times before his body settled on mine.
“Do you love me?” he asked.
I stared at him, getting my breath back.
“Do you love me?” he asked again, this time impatiently and the muscle was going in his cheek. Something else was happening here, something that didn’t have to do with Wilcox or the current fucked-upedness of my life.
Shit!
Shit, shit, shit.
“Lee –”
“Answer me, Indy.”
Shit!
When I hesitated too long, he said (or more like exploded), “Christ!” and then he knifed away from me and went to the dresser and opened and slammed the drawers until he found his and pulled out a pair of those sexy, white brief shorts.
“Lee –”
“I feel like I’ve wanted you for a lifetime. Now, I’ve got you, you want to put yourself even more in the line of sight of a crazy man. He’s already so dangerous you can’t make a move without protection and you want to bait him and use yourself as bait.”
“Lee –”
He pulled on the briefs, pulled on a pair of Levi’s and I sat up on the bed.
“Problem is, you’re so fucking determined to take life by the throat, the only way I can be certain you won’t do it on your own is to force you into a safe house, which’ll mean I could lose you.” He pulled on a white tee and kept talking. “What decision do I make? Keep you alive and piss you off so much you’ll take off or let you risk your life, which, crossing Coxy is a possibility.”
“Lee, if you’d quit ranting and listen to me –”
He turned to me and the look on his face was frightening.
“I’m not ranting.” he said coldly, “I’m very serious.”
I was getting that.
He looked away and started to slam through the drawers again and I stood up on the bed and shouted, “Liam Nightingale, listen to me!”
He turned and looked at my middle, not expecting me to be standing, then his eyes traveled up.
?
??You don’t want me to use myself as bait, I won’t,” I yelled.
“How do I trust that?” he yelled back.
Now I knew how the little boy who cried wolf felt.
“I promise,” I shouted.
“How do I trust that?” he shouted.
“You just do!” I was back to yelling.
“Do you love me?” He followed suit with the yelling.
“Yes! Of course I love you, you big dope! I’ve loved you since I was five!” I decided to shake it up and this time I screamed.
He took one stride to the bed and leaned a shoulder into my thighs in a body tackle. My upper body fell over his back, lifting my feet from the bed. He pulled my legs around his side and tossed me back on the bed. He grabbed my ankle, yanked me across the bed and then, whoosh, away went the panties I’d just put on. He came down on top of me, his mouth finding mine, his hand between us, working the buttons at his fly.
When he stopped kissing me, his hand had moved and was working between my legs.
“You’re wrong. It isn’t me turnin’ myself inside out, it’s you. You drive me nuts,” he told me.
“Thanks.” It should have been snappy but it was breathy because, I think I may have mentioned earlier, Lee was good with his hands.
“Don’t go after Coxy,” he ordered then kissed me again.
“Okay,” I said, after he finished kissing me.
He reached and grabbed a condom, tearing it open with his teeth because his other hand was busy.
“Lee…”
He was multi-tasking, so he muttered, “Yeah?”
“I won’t leave you, even if you act like an asshole.”
His head came up and he looked at me, and his eyes, which, until that moment still held a bit of ticked off, went melty-chocolate.
“Christ, Indy.”
I kissed him while I reached between us and guided him inside me. He started moving immediately.
In his ear, really quietly, I whispered, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m right where I’ve always wanted to be.”
His mouth moved to mine and he said, “It’s about fucking time.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Splat
Ally, Willie and I were sitting outside Liks Ice Cream Parlour. It was approximately three hundred degrees in the shade but we were still sitting out on the patio because what else do you do when you’re at Liks? Even in December, you at least considered the patio when you went to Liks.