Now he was pulling into his garage with her at his side, his house spic and span for her visit, food in the fridge, clean sheets on the bed, and he was asking himself for the five hundredth time what the fuck he was doing, as he put the truck into park and switched off the ignition.
You take care of your children until you die.
Shit.
I like nice things. I have the means to get them. I’ll even desire to get some of them for you. But I’ll do that in a way that does not make you uncomfortable, if you return that favor by not making me feel uncomfortable I have those means.
Shit, fuck.
She made it sound like they could work.
She made it sound like they did work.
You take care of your children until you die.
And that was just . . .
Jesus.
It was just the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard in his life.
He got out, reached in and grabbed her bag.
She got out chattering.
“Oh, I’m going to do this. This is marvelous. This is everything.”
He rounded the hood, hit the button to bring down the garage door and then looked at her.
She was staring at his peg wall that had some tools and garden equipment on it.
He had to admit, that wall was the shit.
His house was a disaster (until he cleaned it).
His garage was the bomb. Everything organized, maintained, in its place.
He didn’t so much as have to spend five minutes looking for a screw if he needed it. He knew he had what he needed (because he also kept everything stocked, no being woken in the middle of the night by fire alarms that needed their batteries changed—he had the batteries and he changed them on a rota before those bastards even beeped they were kinda pissed).
His grandfather taught him that.
The thing was, he hadn’t seen even a portable blower in Luci’s garage.
“You do your own yard?” he asked.
She looked at him. “No. But in the future, as we get our feet wet, and continue to do so, are you going to allow me to carry on paying my landscapers to see to my beach grass and planters?”
Was she high?
“Hell no.”
She smiled at him and tossed her head to his wall. “So I’ll need a wall like this.”
He’d give her a wall like that.
So you do got something to give, don’t you, asshole?
Shit.
Fuck.
“You wanna get inside or you wanna go through my lockers?” he asked, jerking his head to the opposite wall where he had the bright red cabinets, drawers and lockers installed.
Luci looked that way and stated, “I like the red.”
Of course she did.
“Babe, it’s after eleven. Let’s get inside so I can show you around, we can fit a quickie in, and I can pass out.”
The smile he got from that was a lot bigger.
It also shot straight to his dick.
He opened the door, held it for her and she walked through it.
He followed her, right into the kitchen.
When he got the house, he’d been dating a woman for a while that he’d liked and thought would stick around, and maybe they’d build more, so he’d gone for some upgrades.
There were tile and hardwood floors, not linoleum and laminate. The countertops were granite. The cabinets whisper closed. The fireplace was gas. And there was some shelving, segmented, lined drawers and shit in the master closet he’d thought a chick would dig.
He’d finally gotten around to that woman finding out about his dad, this being when his father showed up, out of money and wanting Hap to believe he was half a second away from panhandling. He’d laid it on thick, even if he saw Hap had company, or maybe because he had company, and when things did not progress as he would have liked, his father had lost his mind.
Hap worked out so he could eat junk food. Sure, he did the protein shake gig, and was smart about fueling for a workout with decent food. But he was a stick-to-your-ribs, meat and potatoes (including potato chips) guy, had a physically demanding job where he was expected to stay in top shape, so he did.
Not exactly ancillary to that, he worked out to keep his mood level.
Luci was a fiery Italian.
Back in the day, Hap’s temper could flash at a blink. It was ugly. It could get physical. And he’d thought he had no control over it.
He’d lived, aged and learned. The Army had helped . . . a lot.
His dad was a match though, and Hap was his tinder.
In other words, that visit had not gone well and the tell-all after it about his father to his woman had not gone better.
And his temper had scared the shit out of her.
Exit woman.
The story of his life.
Which brought him to now, Luci wandering into his living room that he had to admit had pretty boss furniture, since he liked to be comfortable but didn’t like to piss away money, so he bought the good stuff that would last, not stuff he’d have to replace in a few years.
He dumped her bag by the opening from kitchen to living room.
“You have three TVs,” she remarked.
He looked to the three TVs and back to her.
“Yup.”
She turned to him. “Why do you need three TVs?”
He actually had five. One in his bedroom. One in his workout room. And the three there.
As far as he knew, Luci had one hanging on the wall in her white living room, another one for her guests in the downstairs suite.
And that was it.
Then again, her view from her bed was the ocean and even he wouldn’t stick a TV in front of that.
“Sunday ticket,” he explained.
“What?” she asked.
“Sunday ticket, Luce. I can watch three games simultaneously on three TVs.”
For a second, she looked confused. It didn’t last long. Her beautiful face brightened with humor and he caught sight of her perfect, white teeth.
Time for that quickie.
“I fear, next to the word ‘man’ in the American dictionary, there’s a picture of you,” she noted.
Okay, maybe not time for that quickie.
Time for a little more of Luci being cute.
He leaned a shoulder against the jamb. “Why is that a fear?”
“I actually don’t know,” she replied. “In fact, I think I’ll call the dictionary people, tell them about you and suggest it if it’s not there already.”
He grinned at her.
She took in his grin before she wandered deeper into the space.
He thought this was going well.
But like it was calling to her, she made a beeline to the only photograph he had framed in the whole house, and Hap felt his body string tight.
It was set to the side, out of eyeline of the huge TV mounted above the fireplace, on his mantle.
She reached out and curled her long fingers around it, bringing it to her, and honest to Christ, it felt like her touching it was her touching him.
And he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
Hap only had her profile, but he still saw her face change. Go soft. Sweet.
He knew how he felt about that. He just wished he didn’t feel it.
“Your grandparents,” she murmured.
Yeah.
And him. On the porch. On the farm. Before it was lost. He’d been fifteen.
“You look like your grandmother,” she whispered. She turned her eyes to him. “She was very beautiful.”
She was. Sweet. Tough. No nonsense. Hard working. Strict. Hilarious. Strong.
And beautiful.
Luci’s attention floated back to the picture. “But unlike you, she’s very dainty.”
“She wanted to be a ballerina,” Hap told her.
She looked again to Hap.
“Then she met my gramps,” he went on.
“I don’t suspect she regrett
ed it,” Luci guessed.
“No tellin’. That wasn’t somethin’ she’d share, not to anyone. She made her choice. Cast her lot. Love makes you do stupid shit and maybe she regretted it a thousand times in the years they had together. I’ll never know.”
She kept hold of the picture but turned fully to him. “Love makes you do stupid shit?”
Yeah.
Like her being right there, holding the picture of him with the only family he’d ever had until he went into the Army.
Stupid.
“Workin’ a farm isn’t easy on a man, or a woman. She did not live the high life.”
Slowly, almost methodically, Luci returned the frame to the mantle, saying, “The high life comes in many forms, Hap.”
“There weren’t any tutus near our farm, Luce. Or any spotlights.”
She lifted her chin and locked her gaze with his.
“But there was her husband. And eventually you.”
“I didn’t make her life any easier.”
“And still, you don’t understand banana bread.”
Hap went solid.
“Women have many ways of doing things,” Luci said quietly. “If she knew you didn’t like bananas, she didn’t buy them to try and make you like them. She bought them to let them get ripe because she also knew you liked her banana bread. If you had little money, that was probably a treat. So she found a way to give you a treat. And then she did.”
Hap’s throat closed and his eyes strayed to that frame.
She’d do that, his gram. That was something she’d do.
And obviously something she’d done.
He just hadn’t caught on.
Fuck.
“Her grandson, angry at the world because of his father, his mother, the hard life he watched his grandparents lead, enjoying banana bread. That’s about the highest high life you can get,” she finished.
And there was the second most beautiful thing he’d heard in his life.
He had no idea what made him say what he said next.
Maybe self-preservation.
But he said it.
“She met you, she would not like you. She’d think you were a fancy woman out slumming for shits and grins.”
“And then I’d prove her wrong,” she instantly shot back. “But right now, I’ll prove you wrong. She’d never consider you slumming. She might think I was flighty or spoiled, and thus unworthy of you. But she wouldn’t ever think I was too good for you.”
“You don’t even know her, babe,” he pointed out, and she just shrugged.
“But I know you. Someone made you the man you are today. And both of those someones are right there,” she stated, lifting a hand and jabbing a long fingernail at the frame. “Now are you going to give me a quick orgasm and pass out? Or would you like more time to try to push me away, fail and unnecessarily delay said orgasm and passing out?”
It shocked the shit out of him, but Hap ignored the invitation.
“I made their life hell, Luci.”
“And still they kept you in it.”
“An obligation. That’s what people do in Iowa,” he returned.
Shit.
Now it appeared he was pissing her off.
Luci pissed off was cute, but it wasn’t a good thing because, although it was worth a repeat that it was cute, she said things when she was pissed that blew his mind.
“No. That’s what grandparents do if they’re good grandparents who love their grandchild. Look at them, Hap,” she snapped on another jab of her finger at the picture. “They’re smiling. I’m a model. I know these things. Those smiles aren’t forced. You think she cried for hours because you went into the Army and she thought maybe you’d amount to something?” She shook her head. “You’re wrong. She cried for hours, beside herself with happiness that you’d proved what she always believed to be correct. You were a good boy who would grow into a good man, that coming from what was inside you that she knew was there and they nurtured.”
“That’s a pretty big leap from a smile in a picture, babe,” he retorted.
“Then you need to look really fucking close at that picture, Hap, because I see it. I see it because I know you. And I’m a woman. I know if I had a hand in making a man like you, the pride in that smile would shine through like the pride in her smile is shining through.”
Hap again looked at the picture.
“Did you work with your grandfather when you had the farm?” she demanded.
He turned his attention back to her. “Yeah.”
“Of course. And you decided on the Army after you lost the farm. What were you going to do before?”
He saw where this was going so he clenched his teeth.
She watched.
Then she whispered, “I see.”
“Babe, maybe we should quit talkin’ about this,” he suggested.
“No, because, you see, you were going to work that farm.”
She was right.
He opened his mouth to shut this down but didn’t get dick out.
“And they knew it. And they were happy you were going to take on their legacy. And they understood completely that you acted out when your future was lost. And then you did what they’d hoped you’d do. Adjusted your future and found a new path. One that is one of the most honorable you can take, even if it’s also one of the most difficult. So yes, I’m sure they felt relief when you did that. But likely not surprise, except for the fact that you did it so quickly and didn’t knock about aimless for decades before you did it.”
“You make me sound pretty fuckin’ great,” he forced out.
“Because you are.”
Yup.
There it was again.
Luci convinced they worked, they fit, saying shit that if he let it in would make him think the same.
“Luci, I am not great. I’m just a guy.”
“So is Sam and I suspect you think he’s great.”
“He’s an ex-NFL player who quit to become a soldier. Everyone thinks Sam is great. And by everyone, I mean everyone on the whole fuckin’ planet.”
“Because God gave him the talent to play football?” she asked incredulously.
“Well . . . yeah, and made him the man who’d quit it to serve his country.”
“You serve your country,” she returned.
Hap clenched his teeth again.
Luci tipped her head to the side. “Am I great because God made me beautiful and people would pay me large sums of money to take photos of me?”
He definitely thought she was great, and he had to admit that was one of the reasons why.
But the way she said that made it sound absurd.
Because it was.
He decided to stop talking.
“Now, your father is a felon, your mother is . . . I don’t know, except she’s an awful mother so,” she fluttered her hand in the hair, “whatever. You lost your farm. You could have held up liquor stores. You could be angry at the world and take it out on other people. You could drink yourself to an early death. But no.” She tossed her hand his way “You became you. With those circumstances, are you not great?”
“You’ve made your point, honey,” he said quietly.
She hadn’t, though she made sense, he just didn’t feel like talking about it any longer.
But he hoped saying that would shut her up.
She lifted her chin. “Good.”
“Can we go to bed now?” he prompted. “I’m wiped.”
“You think I’m too good for you,” she accused.
God dammit.
Hap pushed away from the jamb. “Luce—”
She lifted both hands and pressed her palms his way.
“Fine. Fine. We’ll take up this conversation after you haven’t been driving for hours,” she declared.
“Not somethin’ to look forward to,” he muttered.
“Travis thought the world of you,” she snapped, and his attention sharpened on her as his gut got tight. “Sam does. Kia does.
When he’s not being cantankerous, Skip does. Celeste. Thomas. Maris. I do. The only one who doesn’t is you.”
“Babe, can we talk about this later?” he growled.
She drew an audible breath through her nose.
When she let it out, her tone had changed. “Don’t push me away, Hap.”
“I’m not gonna push you away. In about ten minutes, I’d like to be as close as I can get to you, so let’s move on to that.”
“And don’t be funny and tempting when I’m being serious.”
He sighed.
Then he asked, “Tempting?”
“All right,” she retorted. “Hot.”
Her not being cute would help a lot.
It really would.
He had no hope of that, though.
“It’s you I’d like to get hot,” he returned. “So is it okay with you I get on with that?”
“It’s rather annoying you’re such a good lover because I’m angry at you and frustrated with you, and I still want you to fuck me.”
For a second, he was thrown.
Then he busted out laughing.
Through it, she ordered, “Bring my bag. I assume your room is up there?”
And then he watched, still laughing, as she didn’t wait for him to confirm. She flounced toward his stairs.
When Hap lost sight of her, he went to the garage door, locked it, then nabbed her bag, shut out the lights and headed to the stairs.
That Tim McGraw song could gut a man who knew the pain of loving a woman he could not have.
It was just Luci who made that shit tougher than he could ever imagine.
As well as . . .
Fuck him running . . .
Fun.
My Happy
Hap
HAP WOKE TO the sound of the alarm the next morning feeling great, smelling Luci on his sheets and . . .
Bacon.
He opened his eyes to a dark room.
He was the only one in the bed.
She was downstairs cooking.
Luci, in his kitchen, making him breakfast.
“Fuck,” he muttered, rolling and reaching to turn off the alarm.
He lay on his back, lifted his hands and rubbed his face, feeling the stubble that had grown since yesterday morning.
He didn’t want to shave.
He did not believe he was even thinking this, but he also didn’t want to eat bacon.
Loose Ends Page 10