What I Love About You (Truly, Idaho)

by Rachel Gibson

  For the next half hour, the four of them talked about little things like Charlotte’s dog and her swimming lessons last summer. She was signed up for ski lessons after Christmas and her favorite color was purple. It was all extremely surreal. The Coopers’ house hadn’t changed since the nineties. It was a time warp of Carla’s Precious Moments collection, the huge entertainment center filled with the big-screen TV, and photos, mostly of Charlotte and Michael in his glory days.

  Strange. Definitely strange sitting in this room with Michael. Everything looked the same, yet everything was different. Physically, five years hadn’t changed Michael much. He looked the same and his voice sounded the same. She’d spoken with him on the telephone from time to time, but it was odd to see and hear him at the same time.

  When it was time to go, Natalie helped Charlotte on with her coat and waited while she gave Carla a hug good-bye.

  “I’ll walk you girls out,” Michael said, and grabbed a blue coat from a closet by the front room. He held the door open, then closed it behind them. They moved across the wide porch and down the steps of the home where Michael and Natalie had married fourteen years ago.

  “I’d forgotten how good the air in Truly smells,” he said.

  Natalie buttoned her coat and wrapped her red scarf around her neck. She imagined any air outside of the prison smelled good.

  “I’d like to take you two girls to dinner one night this week.”

  “I don’t know about that.” She opened the door to her Subaru and Charlotte climbed inside. “Do you want to say good-bye to your dad?”

  Charlotte raised one hand. “Bye.”

  Natalie leaned into the car and buckled the seat belt. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, Mama.” She looked beyond the window to Michael. Charlotte was usually an open book, but Natalie couldn’t read her expression. That concerned her. She straightened and closed the car door. She turned, and Michael stood right in front of her. Close. Too close. His cocoa brown eyes had a little crease at the corners that hadn’t been there before. He didn’t seem as big as she remembered and he was shorter. She was fairly sure he was shorter. She had on flats, so it wasn’t her shoes.

  “You are as beautiful as always, Natalie.”

  “Don’t, Michael.” Warning bells went off in her head. What did he want? “I’m the mother of your child. Nothing more.”

  A cool breeze brushed across his short, spiky hair. “You are the first girl I ever loved.”

  “You left me when I was pregnant. You ran off . . .” She shook her head and moved to the other side of her Subaru. “I’m not going to do this, not with my child in the car. I’m not going to rehash the past with you. Ever.”

  “You can let me apologize.”

  She glanced at him across the roof. “It doesn’t matter now. I’ve moved on. I don’t need you to apologize to me.”

  “Maybe,” he said on the breeze, “I need to apologize for me.”

  She got in the car and turned the key. He needed to apologize for him. She backed out of the driveway and headed home. She knew what Michael meant. In order for him to forgive himself, she had to forgive him. That surprised her. Never in a million years did she suspect that he needed to forgive himself.

  But there was just one problem. She didn’t know if she could. Yes, she’d moved on, but she’d never forgotten the past. She’d never forgotten sitting in their home alone, thinking the man she loved was missing. Hurt or dead or any number of things. But none of those things had involved fleeing with a new girlfriend to start a new life without her and the baby they’d worked so hard to conceive. At least she’d worked hard to conceive. He’d just shown up.

  “Mom?”

  Natalie glanced in the rearview mirror. She held her breath waiting for Charlotte to say something about her father. Her daughter had sat so quiet on the couch. Well, quiet for a little girl who usually talked nonstop. There had to be something important brewing in that little brain.

  “Can we have corndogs for dinner tonight?”

  That was it? “I don’t have corndogs.”

  “What do we got?”

  “I’ll look when we get home.” She glanced back at the road lined with pine and ponderosa. “What did you think of your dad?”

  “I don’t know. Okay, I guess.”

  “Do you want to see him again?”

  Natalie would be okay with the answer no.

  “Yeah. When I go to Nana’s house.” Charlotte paused, then said, “I got a book about a lost dog from the library at school. It’s called A Lost Dog book.”

  Conversation about Michael was obviously over and she didn’t push. “We’ll read it in bed tonight.” She turned onto Red Fox Road.

  When she got home, she called Lilah, and her friend showed up half an hour later with a pizza—half pepperoni, half cheese—and a bottle of wine. She’d dyed the tips of her spiked hair white and was dressed almost conservatively in a color-block blouse and pencil skirt. Almost conservative except for her furry knee-high boots.

  “Your hair’s going to fall out one of these days,” Natalie told her as she set the table.

  “I never overprocess anyone’s hair. Including my own.”

  “I like it.” Charlotte took a bite of pizza. “It looks like Buddy, our school iguana.”

  Natalie laughed and Lilah chuckled. They ate dinner, and afterward, Charlotte had a small bowl of ice cream for dessert while they waited for Charlotte to bring up the subject of Michael. They waited while they helped her with homework and while they all played “Bow Tie on Parade.” Bow Tie, of course, was always the fanciest and fastest horse in the show. They waited for her to mention her first meeting with Michael while she took a bath and while Lilah read her a bedtime story, but she never mentioned her father.

  “That was weird,” Lilah said as she walked down the hall and joined Natalie in the laundry room. “I thought she’d be excited to meet her father for the first time.”

  “I know.” Natalie reached beneath the pink “Makin’ Bacon” T-shirt Lilah had bought her last year. The shirt had two pigs kissing on the front and was only suitable for wearing to bed. She unhooked her bra, pulled the straps down her arms, and tossed it on the pile of white underwear in a laundry basket. “I tried to talk to her about him, but she just kind of clammed up.”

  “How did Michael look?”

  Natalie changed into a pair of red polka-dot pajama pants and didn’t bother to tuck in the bottom of her T-shirt hugging her waist and hips. “Good.” She tossed her black pants in the washing machine, and measured out soap and fabric softener. “Kind of pale now that I think about it.” Changing in the laundry room was a convenient habit that she’d developed when Charlotte had been a baby and thrown up on everything Natalie owned.

  She turned on the washer and flipped off the laundry room light. She grabbed her glass of wine off the kitchen counter and moved to the living room. “Michael’s shorter, maybe.” She sat on the blue sectional made of microfiber for easy cleaning. “Either he’s shorter or I’m taller.”

  “Shorter?” Lilah sat down the couch from her. “Do men get shorter in the joint?”

  Natalie pulled one bare foot beneath her and took a sip of her chardonnay. “I wouldn’t think so. Maybe I just forgot how tall he was.” Maybe she’d subconsciously compared him to Blake. Which wasn’t fair to any man. Blake was taller and hotter. Bigger than life.

  “Hmm. Does Michael have a prison tat?” Lilah pointed to the corner of his eye. “Maybe a teardrop?”

  “A teardrop for his dead homies?” Natalie made a pistol out of her fingers. “Or do you get a tear when you bust a cap in a homie?”

  “Listen to you talkin’ all gangsta.” Lilah chuckled and shook her head. “Have you seen Elliot Perry’s tattoo?”

  “No.” They’d gone to school with Elliot and about five other Perrys.

 
; “It’s a big skull that takes up the back of his head. It’s kind of disturbing when you see it from behind.”

  “Does it have bloody eyes?”

  Lilah nodded and took a drink.

  “Last week, Kim came in and picked up some prints,” Natalie said, mentioning Elliot’s third wife. “A picture of that skull on someone’s bony head was in the order. I should have known it was Elliot.” She swirled her wine in her glass. “Kim took a picture of her new tattoo.”

  “What is it? Some cheesy saying like: ‘Believe in Love’ or ‘Never Stop Dreamin’ ’ ? ‘Keep It Reel’ misspelled with two E’s.”

  Natalie smiled and raised the glass to her lips. “A kitty right next to her kitty.”

  Lilah’s nose wrinkled. “Yuck.”

  “Guess what she named her kitty?”

  “Stinky?”

  Natalie laughed. “No, but that fits Kim. She named it Pussy Galore.”

  “That’s so stupid. No one can ever accuse those two of having any class.” She turned to the side and stretched her furry black boots out on Natalie’s sofa.

  Speaking of class, Lilah looked like she had goat legs. Not that Natalie would tell her. Or if she did, not that Lilah would care.

  “Is Michael still as good-looking as ever?”

  Natalie thought for a moment and nodded. “He’s still a very handsome guy. I’m sure he won’t have any problem finding some desperate female to bone.”

  “Are you sure there isn’t any part of you that wants to get back together with him and bone?”

  Now it was Natalie’s turn to wrinkle her nose in disgust. “No.”

  “Good. I read that some people keep boning after a breakup because it’s easier than finding someone new to bone.”

  “Relax, Dr. Cosmo. Seeing him today didn’t make me want to do anything with him. Let alone have sex.” Actually, when she thought about sex these days, the neighbor popped into her head. His bare chest and arms and mouth that sucked out her pitiful resistance. She adjusted the striped pillow behind her. She liked blond guys with gray eyes and square jaws. Guys who kicked down doors to rescue hostages, and who carried little girls on their shoulders, both with equal ease. “He wants to take me and Charlotte to dinner, though.”

  “Are you going to go?”

  The problem with a guy like Blake was that he wasn’t dependable to stick around after the door was kicked down. “I don’t know if I want to be seen with Michael.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Not because he’s been in prison, but because everyone in town will talk and wonder if we’re back together. Then I’ll have to explain we’re not, and I don’t want to explain my life because it’s no one’s business.” Natalie turned behind her and set her empty glass on the iron and wood end table.

  “Do you remember how his mom used to iron his T-shirt and jeans for him?”

  “Yeah. When Michael and I first got married, Carla had a problem with me because I wouldn’t iron his clothes.” Or make sure he was hydrated.

  “Carla was always a pip.” Lilah crossed her furry legs and yawned. “It’s too cold to drive home, do you care if I crash in the spare bedroom?”

  Natalie stretched her arms above her head. “Of course not. Your toothbrush is in the bathroom.” The doorbell chimed, and she dropped her hands to her lap. She glanced at the ornate iron clock on her stone mantel. It was eight-forty. The only person rude enough to show up this late without calling sat on the couch across from her.

  “Are you expecting company?” Lilah bit her lips and her eyes lit up.

  “No.” Natalie got up and walked across the short beige carpet. Perhaps because they’d been talking about him, she kind of expected it to be Michael. If it was, she was sure she’d get a delayed urge to punch his forehead, and she couldn’t promise not to act on it. Besides the fact that she didn’t like Michael, a man just couldn’t show up on a woman’s porch this late at night. It was bad-mannered and rude.

  The stone floor entry chilled her bare feet as she looked through the peephole. It wasn’t Michael, but someone definitely bad-mannered and rude. Blake stood on her porch, the shadow from the beige Navy ball cap on his head hiding the top half of his face.

  He held up Charlotte’s unicorn hat and she opened the door.

  “Where did you find that?” Cold November night air rushed into the house and chilled her face and arms as she took the hat from him.

  He didn’t answer right away and stood perfectly still like he was suddenly frozen in place.

  “Blake?”

  “I found it in Sparky’s crate,” he finally answered. “Are you alone?”

  Natalie took it from him and looked for tooth marks and holes in Charlotte’s favorite hat. “Lilah is over and we’re talking.”

  “Just Lilah?” He’d shaved since she’d last seen him and he almost looked respectable. Respectable in a big, bad, kick-your-door-down sort of way.

  “Yeah.” There was one little snag in the hat, but it was in good shape otherwise. “Thanks, but you could have brought it tomorrow.”

  “I’m leaving in the morning.” He walked inside, forcing her to take a few steps back. “I’ll try and bring Sparky over before you leave for work.”

  He shut the door behind him, and Natalie guessed that meant he was staying. “Does it do any good to ask where you’re going this time?”

  “South America.”

  “Big country.” His hip and bare arm bumped hers as they walked into the living room. Natalie was fairly sure there was room for both of them without bumping into each other. She was also fairly sure she liked the touch of his cool forearm sliding against her warmer skin. “You can’t be any more specific?”

  “Yeah. Not Brazil.”

  Lilah stood by the couch, shoving her arms into her black wool coat. “I gotta go.”

  “What? I thought you were staying the night?”

  “I got stuff to do tomorrow. I can’t spend all night drinking with you.” Lilah glanced at Blake as if she didn’t know which piece of him to stare at first. Natalie knew the feeling. Having him in her house was like having G.I. Joe jump off the silver screen and land in her living room, minus nothing but his submachine gun and gritty sweat. He wore a body-hugging T-shirt and cargo pants and his hat shading his eyes and nose. “Hello, Blake.”

  “How are you, Lilah?”

  “Good.” She moved toward Natalie. “Call me if Michael tries anything. I know people.”

  She didn’t know who Lilah was talking about. They knew the same people. “Okay.” She walked her friend to the door and hugged her good-bye.

  “Please,” Lilah whispered in her ear, “get laid by that man.”

  “He just came here to return Charlotte’s hat.”

  “Bullshit. He looks at you like you’re sex on a stick. His eyes got so hot, I’m surprised your clothes aren’t singed.”

  How had Lilah seen his eyes beneath his hat?

  “Now pull your stick out and get in there,” Lilah said, suddenly sounding like a football coach. “Take notes. Take pictures. Take one for the team and tell me everything.”

  Natalie wasn’t going to pull or take anything. She watched Lilah until her Honda drove away before returning to the living room. “We looked all over for that hat this morning.” Blake stood in front of the mantel, with Charlotte’s school picture in one hand.

  “Without a doubt, those were the scariest boots I’ve ever seen,” he said as he looked at the picture. “And I don’t scare easy.”

  “I think they might be made of goat.”

  The corner of his mouth tilted up. “I thought she maybe skinned a black Lab.” He set the frame on top of the heavy wood mantel. “Where’s Charlotte?”

  “In bed asleep.”

  He looked across his shoulder at her, the shadow from his hat slipping across his top lip. “What happened with your ex t
oday?” he asked. “Did he get out of line with you?”

  “No.” She tossed Charlotte’s hat on the coffee table.

  “Then why does Lilah think he’ll try something?”

  “Because I’m the first girl he loved and he thinks that means something?”

  “Does it?”

  “Maybe to him.”

  He took off his hat and tossed it next to Charlotte’s. His pupils were very black and his eyes a hot, steamy gray she recognized. She didn’t know if those eyes singed clothes, but they singed her thighs.

  “Does it mean anything to you?”

  “No. I don’t love Michael anymore, but even if I did, I could never forgive him. He’s a cheater and a liar. The cheating hurt, but I hate when people lie to me.” She squeezed her legs together against the hot ache pooling there. “Any more questions?”

  “Just one.”

  His gaze slipped from hers to pause on her lips before sliding to her chin and throat. “Are you cold?” he asked, his voice dropping to a velvet hush as his eyes dropped to the front of her shirt. “Or just happy to see me?”

  Natalie looked down and her mouth fell open. Her hands came up to cover her hard nipples poking the eyes out of the two kissing pigs on her shirt. “I’m not wearing a bra.” She stated the obvious as heat rose to her cheeks, so hot and fast she feared she might pass out.

  “I noticed.” Blake took a step forward and wrapped his hands around her wrists. “Your shirt is the sexiest thing I’ve seen in a very long time.” He pulled her palms away and held her wrists wide.

  She should pull her wrists free. He couldn’t just grab her and force her arms to her sides. She should tell him to stop and make him leave. Except that was one of the things that turned her on about him. He didn’t ask. He pushed her up against windows or tugged her hair or grabbed her wrists. He was a little rough and she liked it. Maybe she shouldn’t, but she did.

  “You make me want to bury my face in your shirt and suck you through the cotton.”