by London Casey
“Come join us for coffee,” Callie’s mother said.
“No,” Callie said.
“I was going to go for a run,” I said.
“You take such good care of yourself,” Callie’s mother said.
“Enjoy the run,” Callie said.
She tried to shut the door and I put my hand out. “Wait a second… coffee sounds good.”
“Jackson,” Callie said. “My mother came to talk about something personal.”
“What about you?” I asked. “Don’t you have something personal to share?”
“What does that mean?” her mother asked.
“He’s being an idiot,” Callie said. “That’s his thing. He thinks it works on people.”
“It worked on you, sweetie,” I said.
Callie’s face turned red.
Her mother gasped. “You two… I knew I felt some energy here. Wait, wait, wait, I have something for you. I have some stones. You can hold them and feel each other. Even when you’re not together…”
“Mom!” Callie said.
“Oh, I think we’re good there,” I said. “We live next door. And, plus, this isn’t about sex…”
“Jackson,” Callie said.
“What’s it about then?” her mother asked with a grin.
“Tell her, Callie,” I said.
“Go for your run,” Callie said. “I’m begging you.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll get out of your hair.” I looked at Callie’s mother. “I wouldn’t want to get my wife upset, right?”
Callie gasped.
“Wife?” her mother asked.
“You never told her?” I asked.
“Callie, you’re married?” her mother yelled.
“Mom, it’s not…” Callie had to make a decision.
A really quick decision too.
I smiled, waiting to see how she was going to handle this moment.
“I’m married,” she said. “Fine. I’m married. Jackson and I fell for each other and just did it. It was fast. It was crazy. I really didn’t know what to say to you, Mom. Or how to say it. I didn’t want you to get mad at me.”
“I don’t think she could get mad at our love,” I said.
“Jackson is right,” Callie’s mother said.
“I’m not used to hearing that,” I said with a laugh.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Callie snapped.
“Callie,” her mother said.
“Jackson, I really need to speak to my mother alone.”
“I understand,” I said. “Forgive me. I was just excited. I don’t have a mother. So this is… I just thought it was nice to be able to say I have a mother now.”
Callie’s mother touched her chest. “Oh, Jackson. Your energy is something fierce. When I first met you, the energy was wild. A man who was on the prowl all the time. But hearing you speak and seeing you and my daughter look at each other, it’s no wonder you two ran off and got married. How can I be upset with that? In fact… let me and the ladies throw you a party.”
“A wedding reception?” Callie asked.
“No,” her mother said. “Forget that. Let’s make it a declaration and celebration of your love party. That’s what it’ll be. I’ll arrange different setups. One for love. One for kindness. One for understanding. One for… great sex…”
“Oh, I like that one,” I said.
“Jackson,” Callie growled again.
I actually enjoyed hearing her growl my name. When I took that soundbite and threw it on the image of her pulling her dress down to tease me and moved it to her in the bathroom taking off the same dress where I saw her bare breast…
I cleared my throat and casually kept my right hand in front of my shorts.
Last thing I needed to do here was pitch a tent in front of my mother-in-law.
Then again, from what I had seen from Callie’s mother, she would probably try to rub some magic rocks on my dick and sing to my boner.
Now that was an image to have…
“I’m going to do this whether you like it or not,” Callie’s mother said.
Callie looked at me and it was pure hatred.
I enjoyed it.
“You know, I better get going for that run,” I said. “If I don’t go now, I’m going to convince myself not to go at all.”
“That’s a great idea,” Callie said. “I like my hubby super fit. You don’t want my eyes looking around, do you?”
“You’re too much, wife,” I said. I touched Callie’s mother’s hand. “And it was a pleasure to see you again. Hope to see you more now.”
“I hope so too,” she said with a sparkle in her eye.
“Mom, he’s your son-in-law,” Callie said.
“I know,” her mother said.
I looked at Callie and smiled.
She put her thumb to her neck and ran it from one side to another.
She wanted to kill me.
I deserved it.
But trust me, she was already killing me.
I went for a cool five mile jog through the city.
It was a pain in the ass to run in the city. Trying to work around people, crosswalks, and vehicles that didn’t give a shit about traffic signals or pedestrians.
The run did nothing to clear my head.
I should have gone down to the park and just looped it a few times.
Oh well.
I got back to my apartment and took a long shower.
That didn’t help much either.
Each time I looked down at my dick, I felt like I owed it an apology for what was happening. The poor guy kept getting hard with no real action. It was certainly sick of the palm of my right hand. And my right hand would rather have been broken and in a cast than to touch my dick one more time.
I finished my shower, got dressed, and walked out of the bathroom to find Callie standing at the counter in my kitchen.
With a bottle of beer.
“Well,” I said. “Did you come to make me something to eat?”
“What the fuck is your problem, Jackson?”
“I’m not sure. Want to talk about it?”
“You want to mess with me? That’s fine. I don’t care. We can go back and forth. But my mother?”
“What? You were going to hide your marriage from your mother?”
“This isn’t a marriage,” she said. “This is fake. This doesn’t count.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No,” she said. “And now she…” Callie took a drink of beer. “You don’t know what you just did, Jackson. She’s going to try and go above and beyond for this party thing. And none of it is real.”
“Callie, get real then,” I said. “By the time she wants to do this, we’ll be over with. Okay? Then you can run to Mommy and cry and she’ll fix it all and life goes on.”
“Fuck you,” Callie said. “You just don’t care.”
“I don’t care?” I asked. “We have an arrangement. You went on a date with another man. You tried to bring that man home to fuck him.”
Callie laughed. “Is that what this is? Punishment? You’re trying to hurt me? Are you serious right now?”
“No,” I said. “I’m just… I don’t know. I was trying to get things back on track.”
“Back on track?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Last night got… intense. We were close, Callie. There were things happening between us. We were both feeling something. Don’t deny that. You teasing me with your dress…”
“Wow,” she said. “You really are a piece of shit, Jackson. You are nothing but a child.”
“Don’t say that,” I said.
“No wonder Vince won’t give you the company.”
Callie wiggled her eyebrows, knowing she went for a low blow.
“Get out of my apartment,” I said.
“You don’t like it, right?” Callie asked. “Good.”
“I was just trying to have fun.”
“That wasn’t fun for me. My mother brought me an unpaid t
ax bill.”
“For what?”
Callie laughed. “She doesn’t pay anything, Jackson. She doesn’t believe in it. She has her own theories on life and how to live. And each time she gets into a mess, she calls me to help her. And guess what? I always help. I have no choice. If I don’t, she’ll end up broke and homeless. Or she’ll end up broke and on my couch. So it wasn’t a fucking fun visit for me. And the last thing I needed was her even more distracted.” Callie waved her hands. “Oh, pay my fucking taxes? Screw that. I’m going to rub rocks together and throw a party for my daughter’s fake fucking marriage. Nothing bad can happen to me… I have bamboo… and I have…”
I ran toward Callie and touched her shoulders.
“Hey,” I said, getting her to be quiet for a second. “Callie. I didn’t know.”
She shook my away. “Of course you didn’t know. We don’t know anything about each other. This is fake. Remember? Just stay out of it, Jackson. Do your job. Be my husband in front of Vince and everyone else.”
She moved to the door and left the apartment.
I didn’t go after her.
Now I knew something about her that I didn’t know before.
A little more of the truth behind Callie’s persona.
She was a slob at home. Her mother was a financial mess.
Maybe the right thing right then would have been to get her the bonus and get her a new job. She’d have money to help her mother and a new job to take care of herself with.
And I’d be away from her.
It felt logical, but it felt wrong.
In a shocking twist to my heart…
I wanted to know more about Callie and her life.
Chapter Thirty
Callie
The logical question was the same.
How could someone not know to pay their taxes?
Believe me, that question ran through my mind all morning, even after I spread all the paperwork out on my desk to go over it and see what needed to be done and when.
The when part was a long time ago.
These taxes were way overdue.
Not only were they not paid, there was no money to actually pay them.
Which meant my mother was running her little hippy shop like it was a secret cash-only business. Like it was a board game and at any time she could walk away, get a snack and watch a TV show.
She was like a child.
And I was the adult.
The roles were reversed. It had been that way my entire life.
I was so used to it…
Misha knocked on the door and smiled at me, holding a bouquet of flowers.
I scooped up the tax paperwork and put it into a folder and closed it.
Nobody needed to know about this mess.
Except me and my mother.
And Jackson.
Of course Jackson was involved.
He didn’t know how to stay out of anything in my life anymore.
“Callie?”
I shook my head. “Yeah?”
“I said these are for you,” Misha said.
“The flowers?”
“Yeah,” she said. “They came to the front desk and they called me. Apparently you’re in a mood today.”
“Who said that?” I asked. “I’ll fire them.”
“You’re not firing anyone. What’s wrong? Something wrong with Jackson? Is that why he sent these?”
“Jackson sent those flowers?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Misha said. “Were you expecting flowers from someone else?”
“No,” I said. “I thought… maybe Derrick… but Jackson threw him out on his ass.”
“Oh? What did I miss?”
“You don’t want to know,” I said. “This marriage thing is a pain in the ass.”
“Just imagine if it was real,” Misha said.
She put the vase down on my desk.
It was an array of beautiful flowers. I didn’t know any of their names, except for the six red roses in the mix. There were all kinds of colors though. And they smelled like Easter in the springtime.
There was a card on top.
I plucked it off the holder and flipped it open.
To my bride.
My love grows more each day - like these flowers.
Love,
Jackson
I flicked the card to my desk.
“What an asshole,” I said.
“He’s playing it hard,” Misha said. “You have a little audience watching. Just so you know.”
I looked and saw a few people in the hallway.
I grabbed the flowers and walked to my door.
Jackson casually strolled to his door.
We stared at each other.
He smiled.
I looked down the hallway. “How did I get so lucky? Did you see these flowers?”
Everyone smiled.
“And to think he got them delivered even though he could have just brought them to me. This is… so thoughtful.”
“I’m glad you like them, wife,” Jackson said.
I turned and walked into my office.
I slammed the door behind me.
I curled my lip and put the vase on my desk.
“I’m going to throw up,” I said.
“He’s just so sweet, Callie,” Misha said with a laugh.
“I just have to remind myself this is about the bonus money,” I said.
“That’s right,” Misha said. “The bonus. The promotion. You got this, Callie. I’m in your corner.”
I looked at the flowers.
I pictured the face Jackson made when he ordered them.
Not out of love.
But with a smart-ass smirk on his face.
I could play the same game.
Jackson was playing a game he wasn’t going to win.
There was still a banner above the store.
Crooked.
Faded.
Clarice’s Vision.
My mother’s name and her purpose of life.
Her vision.
That’s all she ever had were visions.
But visions didn’t pay the rent.
If she wanted to have a real vision, she should have started with the winning lottery numbers so she could take care of herself.
I opened the door to the shop and the smell of clove and lavender hit me so hard, my eyes started to water.
“Whew,” I said, waving my hands like I was walking through a burning room.
“Callie!” Lake yelled.
“Where?” Sunny called out.
“I’m over here,” I said.
Joni sat behind the counter with her eyes closed.
A smile on her face.
Sunny came walking toward me with a box in her hand.
She put the box on the counter and hugged me.
“That smell is…”
“Pure,” Sunny said from across the room, nodding. “It’s so perfectly cleansing. Just what this place needed. It’s been a slow few days. Time to change the energy.”
“Sure,” I said. I nodded to Joni. “What’s she doing?”
“Deep meditation,” Sunny said. “We better leave her. We don’t want to mess with the energy.”
“Where’s Mom?” I asked.
“In the back,” Sunny said.
She took my hand.
When I walked by Lake, she reached for my face.
Her fingers grazed my cheek.
I tried hard not to show how cringeworthy the moment was.
In the back of the shop, Mom sat behind a desk being held up by books.
“I got your info here,” I said to her.
“Are we all set?”
“It’s a lot of money you owe,” I said. “You don’t have anything saved?”
“For what?”
“Mom, the taxes…”
She waved a hand. “I thought you were going to call them.”
“There is no calling about taxes,” I said. “This is what you owe. You hav
e to pay this.”
“Okay. So then I’ll pay it.”
“With what money?” I asked.
“I’ll get something in order,” she said. “I can ask the universe…”
She looked up and put her hands together.
I rolled my eyes.
“I’m going to need your books,” I said. “I want to go through everything and double check some numbers. I can probably get you on a payment plan. But you’re going to have to put money away for your taxes and pay them on time going forward.”
“Look at you,” Mom said. She stood up. “So smart. Capable. No wonder Jackson swept you up.”
“Mom, you have to listen to me about that…”
“When’s the party?” Lake asked. “I can’t wait to see you two together!”
“Soon,” Mom said. “I’m waiting for the correct date to come to me.”
“It’s not…”
“There’s the bride!” Joni’s voice yelled.
Oh, shit.
I had them all facing me.
Mom. Lake. Summer. And Joni.
“You look radiant,” Sunny said. “Brighter than the last time we saw you.”
“Love will do that,” Joni said. “Good love.”
“Good sex too,” Lake said.
My cheeks warmed up.
I looked at my mother.
She showed her hands. “No judgement from me. Everyone needs sex. It’s natural. And with a man like that…” She fanned herself.
“Is everything as hard as it looks?” Joni whispered.
“Please, don’t ask that,” I said.
“Oh, come on,” Sunny said. “We’re just a bunch of girls gossiping. Have a little fun with it.”
“That man looked primed to-”
“Please, don’t finish that sentence, Lake,” I said.
“I have something for you, Callie,” Mom said. “Before I forget…”
I wished it was a check for the taxes.
If they didn’t get paid and she got shutdown… she would end up in my apartment. On my couch. I would be in the middle of this no matter what I did.
Mom opened the drawer of the desk and took out a rock.
No.
“I got this for you,” she said. “It’s a love rock. It’s very potent. I wasn’t sure about giving it to you fearing the energy would make you love the wrong person.”
“So why do I need it now?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s important,” Joni said. “It’ll remind you of why you’re with Jackson.”