by A. J. Downey
“You’re doing a damn fine job,” I confided.
He smiled and started the water, helping me into the shower.
“Lock the door?” I asked and he paused, nodding and humoring me, locking the door, turning on the heat lamp and fan.
He got into the shower with me and pulled me into a long kiss, his earlier, almost frenzied and possessive love making forgotten. Dominic was all tenderness and soft wonder now, and I loved the contrast. I didn’t mind the occasional rough sex, I found it a nice change of pace and thrilling, but it was nice and almost perfect to be cared for after. It made me feel like a woman, and that I was loved and cherished, not just an object to be used for sexual gratification. Dominic had the right amalgamation and I loved that about him.
He washed my body carefully, smoothing gentle soapy fingertips over every sensitive bit, and massaging where he’d gripped and between my shoulders. I took the care and time to show him the same consideration and we stayed in the water until we were both prunes and it’d started to run cold on us.
It was perfect; he was perfect, and most of all, we were perfect for each other.
We got ready for bed, which mostly consisted of drying off and going back to the bedroom. I sat on the edge of the bed and picked up my phone which was charging to check it while Dom ran the towel over my hair. I’d missed a call earlier in the afternoon, while I’d been on the beach, but that was okay. I couldn’t do anything about it right now, it was too late; so I left the voicemail until morning, preferring to cuddle with my man instead.
“Hold still,” he said, turning my head with the towel to face back forward.
“Why?” I asked and he chuckled.
“You’re so damn nosey,” he said.
“Hey, I prefer ‘inquisitive’, what are you do – oh!” He stroked my brush through my hair, careful of any knots, holding it so it wouldn’t pull against my scalp as he detangled it, and I think I very nearly melted.
“You can do this any time you want,” I assured him, voice soft and a touch deeper with my relaxed pleasure. I loved having my hair played with, and come to think of it, I didn’t know many women who didn’t.
“I used to love doing this for my wife,” he said gently, “I hadn’t realized how much I missed it, so thanks for being cool with it.”
“Oh, my pleasure, and I mean that quite literally.”
I could hear him smile and it made me smile too, it really was the perfect, low key evening and I found myself hoping and wishing for many, many more like it.
Chapter 40
Nothing
I woke up just before the alarm went off and I secretly found myself glad for it. Just because I had to get up, didn’t mean that Charity did. She slept like an angel, and I didn’t have the heart to wake her, so I slipped out of the bed, hijacked her keys off the nightstand and took some clothes with me down the hall and into the bathroom to change.
I did miss her making my coffee for me, like she had the last couple of mornings, but I could seriously get that going on my own, which I did. I’d just poured myself a travel mug of the stuff when Gator came through the front door. I craned my neck back to see through the living room to the front of the house and put my finger to my lips in the classic sign for ‘shut up.’ He tiptoed back into the kitchen and made a longing face toward the coffee pot and I flipped open the cupboard full of ‘Ander’s Maritime Salvage’ travel mugs the Captain kept on hand.
“Fucking-A man, you rock,” he said low and quiet.
“Need you to run me over to my house so I can bring Char’s Jeep back over here first. She should start getting calls for interviews and shit with as many applications as she’s got out there.”
“Cool deal, yeah. Let’s get that done first,” he agreed.
Footfalls on the back stairs had us turning, Marlin lumbering into view, I sighed in a bit of relief and said, “Well, that answers that question.”
“What question?” he asked and went for the coffee that Gator was setting back on the burner.
“Whether or not anyone but Char and I were in the house.”
“Ah, yeah, we got in late last night.”
“I must have been out,” I said.
“Yeah, Faith looked in on you two and she said you both were passed out.” I grinned and he grinned and he said, “I figured. Why you wondering if we was home?”
“Gonna run and get Char’s Jeep, just wanted to make sure she was taken care of.”
“I know what you mean,” Marlin said, sipping from his freshly poured mug, “Threat’s over, but without benefit of bein’ there handling business first hand, it don’t feel like it, does it?”
“Not exactly,” I admitted.
“Go on an’ do your thing, Bro. I got this. Johnny and I ain’t got shit goin’ for the next couple of days so Faith and I figured we’d chill here, she’s got some damn show she wants me to watch,” he made a face and I chuckled. Marlin had never been much for TV. Still, he looked like he could use the R&R, his face still resembled hamburger with eggplant chunks thrown in for good measure.
“Cool, thanks, we’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
We made the drive to my place, picked up Charity’s Jeep and drove back to the Captain’s. When I went through the door it was to spy Charity in the kitchen.
“There you are!” I went to her and kissed her and she wrapped her arms around me giving me a squeeze. “You trying to sneak out on me?”
“Thought you could use a little extra sleep,” I handed her the keys to her ride, “Brought you your car, thought you might be starting to miss it.”
“Not yet, and you didn’t have to do that, go out of your way, I mean.”
“Weren’t no thing,” I said with a wink. She hugged me tight and leaned up for another kiss which I gave without hesitation.
“Have a good day at work,” she said, voice husky.
“Gonna miss me?” I asked.
“Already do,” she said with a charmed little smile.
“Oh, please! You’re gonna make me puke,” Gator complained.
“Don’t look at me for help,” Marlin said, bouncing Faith in his lap. She giggled and held onto his shoulders.
“Can we please just go?” Gator asked.
“Alright, alright, you pussy, let’s move,” I rolled my eyes and Charity let me go.
“See you tonight?” she asked.
“It’s a promise,” I told her and away Gator and I went for another thrilling day sweating our asses off in the sun laying paint on a house neither one of us could afford in our lifetimes.
Chapter 41
Charity
“This is Charity Dobbins, returning Watch Commander Figaro’s call,” I said into the phone. The lady proclaiming to be a dispatcher on the other end of the line, told me she’d put me right through. The line crackled for a second and started ringing.
“Figaro,” the gruff voice on the other end of the line said by way of greeting.
“Yes Sir, this is Charity Dobbins returning your call, you left a message for me on my voicemail yesterday afternoon.”
“Oh, yes! Hi, I was wondering if you could come in for an interview,” he said.
“Absolutely,” I told him, “When would be good?”
“Can you be here in an hour?” he asked and I was taken a bit aback. I cued up Google maps on my laptop.
“I’m still new to the area, can you tell me where ‘here’ is?” I asked.
He rattled off an address and I punched it in, “Says you’re forty-five minutes from me, and that’s with no traffic, so an hour is pushing it.”
“Great, see you in two then,” he said and hung up. I sat up straighter and looked at my phone, a little stunned.
“Holy shit,” I uttered and busted my ass to get upstairs, presentable and into the Jeep in record time. I was betting this was my first test and when I arrived in an hour and a half flat, to see a man standing in the parking lot, lit cigarette in his mouth checking his watch as I pulled into the
parking space in front of him, I felt like I’d hit the nail on the head.
“You Dobbins?” he asked.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Great,” he stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray at his hip, “Come this way, step into my office.”
I dutifully followed him into a small office in what looked like an industrial warehouse. He had windows looking out onto the garage floor where there were several ambulances in various states of being washed, stocked or repaired.
“Now when I saw your application and résumé, I thought to myself, ‘why is a girl with an education like hers, going for a job like this?’ Care to shed some light on that for me?”
I pursed my lips and gave the Watch Commander a good once-over, “I’m going to do us both a favor and cut the bullshit,” I said and he crossed his arms, mouth drawing down at the corners, his head bobbing up and down, impressed by all outward appearances.
“That’d be nice,” he said.
“My first choice, when it comes to medicine, was to be an ER nurse,” I said.
“And you figured Paramedic would be a good place to start until you could score that position?” he asked.
“No, not exactly,” I said, and he cocked his head to the side like I’d done something interesting.
“We both know I’m over qualified for this job, and I happen to know, you’re understaffed, but what if I told you, if you hired me, that I could bring Dominic Shepard back?” He sat up as if I’d finally really said something interesting.
“What makes you think you can get Shep back in here?” he asked.
“He’s my boyfriend for one,” I said laying it all out on the line, “For two, he’s not meant to be painting houses for a living. He’s meant to be out here saving lives. It’s in his DNA.”
“Won’t argue that, girly. Shep was one of the best guys I ever got and it was a damn shame losing him.” He looked me over, mulling it over, judgment all over his craggy face, like the older white guy in Men in Black, Tommy Lee Jones or whatever.
“It might take me a few days, but I’m fairly convinced that I could convince him,” I said.
“Tell you what, I’ll give you a week. If you come walking through those doors with Shep this time next week, I’ll not only give him his job back; I’ll give you a job and start you both out at the top of the pay scale.”
“Doesn’t sound like you think I can do it,” I said with a feral grin.
“I don’t,” he conceded.
Game on. I thought to myself, out loud I said: “Well Sir, you don’t know me very well, so I’ll give you the benefit of that doubt.” I stood up and held out my hand for him to shake, which he did, and I said, “We’ll see you next week.”
“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” he shot back and sounded as dubious as they came.
He followed me out and the paramedic who’d spoken to me the day Dom and I had saved the boy on the beach asked the Watch Commander, “What is she doing here?”
“Says she can bring Shep back.”
The paramedic scoffed, “Yeah, good luck with that,” he said, disbelieving.
“I don’t need luck,” I called back to them, getting up into the Jeep; I winked at them and with a false bravado said over the top of my windshield, “I got this.”
They both shook their heads and I put it in reverse and pulled out of the lot, heading back to Ft. Royal.
***
“How was your day?” Dom asked me back as I set a plate of food in front of him.
“Had an interview, actually,” I said and he looked interested.
“Oh, yeah? How’d it go?”
“I’m not sure, we’ll see,” I answered and hoped it sounded non-committal while at the same time, I tried not to feel awful for lying. I quickly changed the subject, “What about you? Have anything else lined up?” I asked, and he nodded, chewing through a bite of his food and swallowing before answering.
“Yeah, a few things,” he said.
“Aw, yeah? Maybe I can come help out, I’ve kind of exhausted the current application pool,” he shifted in his seat and hedged.
“Ah, yeah, sorry about it, Baby, but you can’t. I would have to buy additional insurance and sign you on as an employee and all that garbage. I’m really only covered to have one assistant and right now that’s Gator. He needs the money, and I’m always one to help a brother out.”
I smiled, understanding completely, “Hey, it’s no worries, but maybe come the weekend I can stay with you at your place. I’m getting tired of the scenery around here.”
He smiled and shifted in his seat again, and said, “Sounds good to me.”
We ended up spending a fabulous, low key evening, laying in each other’s arms in the hammock out back, watching the sun set, and the stars come out, talking in low and even tones, finding out multitudes of little small things about one another.
I found myself wondering what it would be like to live with this man for real, and let myself daydream about the possibility of working with one another, too. He held me close as if I were his anchor to the Earth and he were afraid to let go, and I liked that about him. I also liked that he held true to his promise, and was open with me, talking about what was, and what is, freely; without any fear of reprisal. I mean, he wasn’t going to get any from me.
Evening wore into night, and we retired up to my room, tucked into each other’s embrace. We skipped sex in favor of domesticity tonight, and I was okay with that. So, apparently was he. I fell asleep in his arms, his hand lightly tracing random patterns on my back. It was bliss.
Chapter 42
Nothing
“Fuck, man. I don’t know how I’m gonna do this,” I said and Lightning was laughing at me.
“Bit off a little more than you can chew, eh?”
“Yeah, just a bit,” I said frowning. The plumbing was fixed and the subflooring in, but that was seriously as far as we’d gotten today. Plumbing was always a bitch, and the simplest fixes always came with ridiculous problems one after the other, and this one had been no exception. Add like seven trips to the hardware store and I was as agitated and just generally as fucked off over the whole damn thing as one man could get.
“Look, I’m willing to stay late if you are,” Gator said and I sighed out, grateful.
“Thanks, man. I’d better call Char and tell her I’m not coming tonight, just easier to stay here if I’ve only got two days to finish this.
“Pfft, two days, that’s easy. We got this,” Lightning said.
“Hell we work through the night that should give it all of tomorrow to dry. You can stay at the Captains tomorrow night, and Saturday, if you both go out and do stuff, that’ll give it another day… it’s tight, but doable.” Gator mused aloud.
“Thanks, guys. I owe you big for this.”
“Hell fucking yeah, you do,” Lightning agreed.
I called Charity. She was disappointed that I wouldn’t be there tonight, and that my job was running late, but Hope was home, so she assured me the girls would have a night and that everything would be fine. I loved her for that, I really did. The fact that she was independent enough to not freak out on me was kind of refreshing. I’d loved Corrine with my all, but sometimes her anxiety had made life difficult. It was still a struggle coming to grips with what she’d done; a struggle that, for now, I could keep conveniently shoving to the back burner with how busy I was, but eventually it was going to catch up with me and I was going to have to deal with it.
“Dude, Nothing, where you at, bro?”
I looked up at Lightning, “Sorry, man. Old ghosts for a second.”
He nodded, “That part of why you’re doing this?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Look, I get what happened to Charity in here was a good excuse, but you sure this doesn’t have more to do with erasing Corrine starting with this room?” he asked.
I thought about it, and nodded eventually, “Hadn’t thought of it that way, but yeah, I guess it could be.
”
“Dude, that’s cold,” Gator said and Lightning swung blindly behind him hoping to connect, he did and Gator jerked back. “Hey!”
“Shut up, noob!” Lightning declared, “You don’t have the full 4-1-1, it was before your time.” Which was true, Gator was only around two and a half years involved with the club while we were coming up on four for my girls leaving me. Except they didn’t leave you. They died. That inner voice chastised me, and I sighed, relieved, that the reality bit, but not quite as hard as it used to.
“Come on man, let’s do this,” Lightning said, and I nodded.
“Yeah, let’s get this done,” I agreed and we attacked the monumental project in front of us with renewed zeal.
I installed a new, white shower wrap with a different, more user-friendly shelving configuration. I wish I had the time for tile, but at the same time, I was glad I didn’t because tile was an ever loving bitch when it came to getting the grout clean whereas the shower wrap wiped clean with minimal effort.
We worked on through the night, bringing in a flood light on a stand to paint the walls and ceiling, taking a break with a beer or two while the paint dried before we put in the fixtures.
We installed a new toilet; we had to with the new plumbing hookup we had to put in. The old one wasn’t as water efficient as the newer model anyways, and with luck, it should pay for its self in the form of a lower water bill every month now that the leak had been found and resolved.
Next, the lights above the vanity went in, a nice fixture, not one of those ugly round bulb things, but three tulip fluted glass ones coming out of an old fashioned metal plate backing. Classy, and way nicer than what’d been in here before. I’d gotten it on the cheap from the clearance section to boot, still, I was gonna hate my credit card bill come next month.
By the time the vanity went in, it was after midnight; by the time we got the sink hooked up and the water uncrossed so the cold flowed cold and the hot flowed hot, it was almost two in the morning. Still, by the time we’d finished laying in the floor, it was three. Thank fuck we’d had the forethought to cut the tile for the floor before the noise ordinances went into effect for the evening. We tried to be good neighbors and keep it cool with the rest of the town. We realized the importance of a symbiotic relationship between The Kraken and Ft. Royal. It was how any of the shit we got away with was going to work.