"Thought we'd talked about this, Dad," I heard Gabe say.
"Is she really that bad?" Benny asked which I thought was a fair question, especially after today and how my hands were healing.
"Yeah, Dad," Gabe said. "She's got an appointment with the doctor tomorrow. Guess we'll know more then. So you in for Saturday?"
I heard Benny's voice but couldn't understand the words as I wiped down the coffee counter and small table in that back room. There was something about Benny's tone that was rubbing me the wrong way but I didn't know what it was.
I had just put away the broom and dustpan when Gabe poked his head in the door.
"You 'bout ready, Crys?" he asked.
I dusted off my hands on the butt of my jeans as I smiled and nodded.
"Ready, Gabe," I said, moving to him propped against the door jamb and kissed him softly before moving back into the main floor of the shop. The windows had been replaced and Dex said that the insurance covered all of it, although we all knew that the premiums were going to increase as a result.
I picked up the small box marked 'San Luis Obispo' from the reception desk and smiled as I waved goodbye to Ben. I don't think he saw me though since he only had eyes for Gabe who was a couple of steps behind me.
"See you Saturday, Dad," Gabe said as I pushed through the heavy glass door.
Gabe again opened the passenger door for me before moving to the driver side. I don't know when he had started the whole chivalry thing, but I wasn't complaining. It was nice having someone care enough about you to open doors, even though I was sure there were a shitload of feminists that would disagree whole heartedly.
When we got home, Gabe grabbed his guitar and I grabbed the pen and paper, both things that we'd taken to our picnic earlier but not used.
Even though we had sung together last night, it had been emotional and not the time or the place to determine what we wanted to do for Enrique's. Although, I wanted all three songs we'd noodled our way through to be included, especially because they meant so much to the two of us. And I felt like performing together was kind of a statement of sorts.
A statement that announced we were together in 'that' way.
I sent my posse a text message asking them all to be there and why. In fact, I sent the message to everyone in my address book.
Gabe was still tuning as I opened the small box that had been delivered to the shop. The gal in San Luis Obispo, Vicki, had sent me some new pieces and her body jewelry was something to get excited over. This sampling was no different.
She had provided a couple of pieces on spec, which meant that they were new and not offered to the general public at the other piercers she supplied. Human Hieroglyphix was rated the best tattoo shop in the whole of the southwest and I knew that she appreciated having her jewelry on offer as well as having the Human Hiero logo on her website. Though her shit didn't come cheap.
I pulled out a selection of navel jewelry that were in the shape of spirals but had a dangling jewel at the bottom. She had also included a couple of belly chains as well as some labrets for either a Madonna or Marilyn, which were the facial jewelry like I wore on my upper cheekbone.
"Okay, Crys," Gabe said, interrupting my inventory from Vicki. "Let's do a list and then pull the songs into sets."
"Blackbird," I said immediately.
"That's a given, princess," he said, his fingers moving over the strings.
And we were off.
Suggesting, rejecting. Singing and flinging song lyrics around my dining room, laughing as he got the words wrong time and again. I don't know if it was because we grew up together or because our parents had basically the same taste in music, but our selections were so similar it wasn't funny.
I wrote and crossed out, argued and laughed with him before we had all three sets worked out.
"Wow," I said looking back over my notes. "Good songs, Baby."
"Yep," he said still strumming. "It's gonna be cool, Kess."
I smiled up at him and got caught up in his soft gray eyes.
He propped the guitar against one of the other chairs and reached for my hand, pulling me into his lap.
And I again got lost in the feel of his lips on mine.
"God, Kess," he breathed pulling away to hug me close to his chest. "Feel like we fucked the day away and yet I want you again."
I smiled and stroked his face.
"I never thought I'd get to be with you, Gabe," I admitted. "So I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth."
"What the fuck does that even mean?" he said laughing, his beautiful eyes sparkling.
"I think it means not to look at the things you care about too closely," I murmured, tucking my head in the space between his neck and shoulder.
The quiet came over us.
"Do you remember what your mom used to say about the quiet between people?" I asked.
"You mean the one about how sharing laughter helps your heart grow but that shared quiet gives it the room to grow?" he answered.
"Yeah, that's the one," I said softly. "It wasn't until I was a grown up that I got what she meant. The times she said it, though, I thought she was just looking for a way to get us to shut up and go to sleep," I said with a small chuckle.
"She had all sorts of sayings, just like your dad," he said and I could hear the smile in his voice.
We were back to being quiet.
"I've talked about her more in the last couple of days than I have since she died," he admitted.
"I know, Baby," I said and lifted my lips to kiss his jaw. "But, its time, don't you think?"
He shifted me on his lap before leaning down to start his slow and sweet assault.
"Maybe," he murmured against my lips, but I had already forgotten what we had been talking about.
Chapter Fifteen
He was alone in the bed when he woke up the next morning. He stayed still trying to listen for her in the quiet house, but didn't hear anything.
It took a few moments before he sat up and began to open his eyes. Waking up had always been an issue for him and today was no different.
There was no noise coming from the bathroom.
He made his way into it and took care of his morning business before snagging his boxers to go down the hall.
She wasn't in the kitchen either and he roamed to the windows at the front of the house and saw her jeep was gone.
He glanced at the clock.
Fuck.
Ten-thirty?
The morning was more than half gone, and his girl was gone, too.
Gabe went back to the bedroom and pulled his cellphone from the charger.
The text from Crys said, 'Got shit 2 do. C U L8R'.
He smiled.
Texting was perfect for her since reading and writing were difficult even though she had gotten better as she got older. But the phonetic abbreviations of texting made it much easier for her to read and respond to other people, though he knew she still preferred talking and being shown how to do something rather than reading instructions.
Thinking back through what he knew had to be done today, he realized that there was no way he was going to be able to meet her at the doctor's office.
He smiled, knowing she had probably planned it that way.
His girl was so goddamn independent and he should've known when she told him that he didn't have to go with her, she would look for any excuse not to take him with her to see the doctor.
And him sleeping late had provided her with the perfect excuse.
He shook his head as he nabbed a Red Bull from the fridge, making a mental note to stop and pickup some more when he went by the shop later.
He had a couple of fills that he had to complete for his dad that afternoon and wanted to transfer his sales reports to email so he could download and print them.
Gabe wandered into the bathroom to start getting ready for the day when he saw his face in the mirror.
At first, he thought he had some sort of rash until he t
urned on the light over the sink and leaned closer to the mirror.
His face was covered in lipstick lip marks, probably fifteen to twenty and, as his eyes roamed, the kiss marks extended down his neck, across his pecs and down his belly.
Holy shit.
He even had one on the inside of his upper thigh.
The vixen.
She'd marked him as he slept and he never even woke up.
His heart felt almost too full for his chest knowing how much he loved that wisp of a girl and recognizing how much she loved him right back.
Fuck, he'd wasted a lot of years not being with her.
'Stealth kisses?' he texted. 'C U L8R, 2.'
She'd wanted to do that Pink song, 'Who Knew' and had sent it to him on his phone. It was gonna be a bitch to slow it down and rearrange it for an acoustic guitar but he didn't need to be at the shop until two, so he had time.
Now, though, to try and get the dark red lipstick off his face and skin.
Gabe smiled even though it took more than a couple of passes with the soap and washcloth to remove it.
*.*.*.*.*
I had just finished at the doctor's office, where they'd removed the stitches in my palms and shoulder, pronouncing me healthy, when I got Gabe's text.
Stealth kisses.
I couldn't help the shit-eating grin on my face.
Good word for it.
I knew he wasn't gonna like that I left without trying to wake him up, but I needed some space away and I really did have a lot to get done.
Even though my hands were better and could've held the different brushes and pencils, I still only put on the lighter makeup. Seeing myself without all the liner and mascara was something I was still getting used to, but I liked how it looked, was easier to refresh and take off, and took less time.
While digging through my makeup drawers, I spied my tube of 'Cherries in the Snow' lip color.
Oh, yeah.
I carried it back to bed and was amused to see Gabe was still very much asleep and on his back.
Perfect.
I kissed his mouth, his cheeks, his chin and his forehead.
I remember sitting back and admiring my handiwork.
Good, but not quite enough.
I recoated my lips and moved down his neck, across his chest and down his yummy tummy. By trial and error I found that I needed to reapply the color after every third kiss and I made a point of ensuring the kisses were very visible against his skin.
I got down to his manhood and took a moment to rethink my strategy. If I was asleep and I knew someone had been kissing me, would I want evidence of those kisses on my pussy?
Nope.
But high up on my inner thigh?
Oh, hell, yeah.
I was pretty proud of myself as I moved off the bed and picked up my purse from the dresser.
I had made an appointment at Tangles, which I knew was gonna have DeeDee scrambling to rearrange Frank-Kay's schedule. But I was ready to make some changes and needed his help to start them off.
I don't know if I can explain it right, but my time in the hospital with Gabe felt like a turning point for me. I mean, here I was tooling along, living my life in little bits and pieces. Sometimes finding a happy piece or spending time with people that I enjoyed, everything running on all six cylinders.
Then, Bam!
I'm hurt and Gabe is back in my life.
Only not the Gabe that I've known all my life, but a new and improved Gabe.
A Gabe not afraid to love me, in spite of all the shit we'd been through and the way he'd hurt me. And he even apologized for it!
Which made me realize that I didn't just have a six cylinders in my heart's engine. I was a solid v-eight, but hadn't been using the other two cylinders, like, at all.
And, maybe it was because before the attack I'd kind of thought I was invincible, but afterward I recognized that time was slipping away.
I was twenty-two, for God's sake. I had been actively in love with my best friend since I was fourteen. And in my heart of heart's it was time to either fish or cut bait; shit or get off the pot.
I received a couple of texts back from my girls suggesting we meet up at the mall. As Marianne said, I needed to get something new for tomorrow night's performance.
Performance.
Okay, that was a scary word. So I changed it in my head to, 'singing with Gabe', which was so not scary.
It was normal and calming and made me want to sing in front of other people.
Daddy always said that the truth was in the words you used and I may not always know how to spell them, my heart sure could say them.
"What are we doing today, Cara Bella?" Frank-Kay asked as I was finally put in his chair at Tangles. He was one of my favorite people and I'd known him since forever -- or, at least, when I'd been his client at Alberta's, the salon he worked at, slaved at, for years before opening his own shop.
"Need to grow up a bit, Frank-Kay," I said softly, seeing his face bend down next to mine in the mirror.
His scruffy cheek was warm as it pressed against mine.
He was quiet as he regarded my face in the mirror.
"And, what does that mean to you, Baby Girl?" he asked equally as soft.
I was still as I tried to put the picture of what I wanted into words.
"I wanna be me, Frank-Kay," I was almost whispering now. This opening up to other people was some kind of scary for me.
"So that means…" he said.
"No pink tips. Getting back to my natural hair color, whatever that might be," I mumbled. "And length. I want long hair."
He was as still as I was but I saw his eyes move as he tried to imagine in his mind what I was trying to describe.
"Okay. I can take the tips out today and can texture your ends to give you movement," he said straightening and running his fingers through my short, pixie cut. "Let's give it a couple of weeks and we'll talk a darker color. Have you thought about extensions?"
Oh! Extensions!
"I just hired a gal that does amazing work with extensions which will give you the length as your own hair is growing out. But," he voice took on a cautioning tone. "She doesn't come cheap and her appointments are long, usually two hours and up. And, my darling girl, there's both before and after appointments. It's not a one-shot kind of process."
My eyes were following his movements as he dragged his fingers through my short hair but my mind was already seeing how I wanted my hair to be.
It was time.
Time for me to stop trying to look so very different from other people on the outside, when I already was so different from them on the inside.
"Good," I said, leaning my head back into his hands.
I felt his fingers still and looked at him in the mirror.
"Yeah, Baby Girl. Good," he agreed with a smile.
I was at the food court in the Mall when I heard the click-clack of her heels heading towards me.
Leila.
God, I loved this woman. She was one of my best friends and, even though she was a college professor, never ever made me feel less than her when we were together. Do you know how rare that is?
"Crys! You're hair is wonderful!" she gushed pressing her cheek to mine as we hugged.
She was looking spectacular as well. Her low-rise khakis and lilac ruffled top fit her to perfection and her beige platform sandals had her towering over me.
"Hey, you!" I answered back, from the lump in my throat.
Leila was kind of my idol if you wanted to know the truth.
She was a nerd girl when I met her. A nerd girl on a quest not to be such a nerd girl, which is how I came to know her.
She'd come into Human Hieroglyphix to get a tattoo and I had kind of, maybe, sort of set her up to not get the tattoo she'd wanted.
All because she had gotten snippy with me on the phone, using big words and letting me know that she was smart and I wasn't.
So I made her an appointment with Dex when I knew he wa
sn't scheduled to be working.
Boo-yah.
But, then I met her.
I liked her because, through and through, Leila was good people. And just as I realized that, Dex came into the shop on his day off and decided to ink her.
The universe smiled on all of us that night.
I made a new friend.
Leila got the tattoo she wanted.
Dex fell in love and convinced Leila to fall in love with him, too.
"Ladies?" I heard from behind me and saw Leila's face break into a huge smile.
"Marianne!" she said and stood up.
Marianne was one of my most favorite people, too. She was with the Chief of Police in our little town, Ram Patel.
She was hot, he was hot, but together?
They were off the freaking charts.
She lived at and managed the apartments that Caitlin owned, Arminster Arms, but it was looking more and more like she was going to be living with the sexy Police Chief. Marianne had saved my sanity, just like Leila.
On more than one occasion, though, even these smart girls needed me to save them from over-thinking their relationships.
I was only hoping the favor could be returned.
Once I got the nerve to talk about me and Gabe, that is.
I swallowed thickly on that thought.
"Oh, dear God," I heard the voice coming up behind my left shoulder. "What a bunch of sluts, who decided to start without me."
Caitlin.
All three of us stood up as Cait made her way to our table, her tray of some kind of salad balanced in one hand.
Cait was beautiful. The kind of beauty that kept your eyes glued to her to watch for the word, gesture or expression that would make her less beautiful.
But she was just as pretty on the inside as she was on the outside. Which is probably how she had snagged the interest of the most gorgeous man in our county.
Shit.
In the state, if we were being honest.
Jake Stanton, the former co-owner of Fuego's, and the partner to the beautiful Cait.
They, too, had gone through their own brand of hell and, if Marianne was to be believed, were two-halves of one whole.
"Okay, Crys," Leila said, digging into her food. "You called us. Why are we here?"
I smiled and roamed my eyes around the table. I loved these girls and really wanted their opinions.
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