Loose Ends

by Kristen Ashley

  “Your job is done, caro,” she said softly. “And you did it well. Now you must let me go.”

  “I was gonna go talk to Hap today,” he shared.

  “Good. This will bring him great relief.”

  It also brought her great relief, but she didn’t tell him that.

  “If anything happens to me, promise—” Sam started.

  Luci turned her hand and curled her fingers into his with all her might, leaning into him and hissing, “Nothing is going to happen to you.”

  “Promise me you’ll take care of her,” he finished stubbornly. “Promise me you and Hap will look after her.”

  She pounded their hands on his chest once. “Nothing is going to happen to you, Sam.”

  “Promise me, Luci, you’ll look after Kia and our baby.”

  She stared into his eyes.

  Dio.

  Life was so unkind.

  “You don’t even have to ask me that,” she told him.

  He closed his eyes.

  Luci squeezed his hand.

  He opened his eyes.

  “Nothing is going to happen to you, Sam,” she whispered.

  “I know,” he replied.

  She gave him a small smile.

  He used her hand in his to guide it around his back and then he let it go and pulled her into his arms.

  He engulfed her in a hug and Luci pressed into his big, strong body, wrapping both her arms around him, holding close.

  “I miss him,” she said to Sam’s chest.

  He held Travis to that chest as he died.

  He held Travis to that chest after he died.

  He held Travis to his chest when he carried him home.

  His voice was thick when he replied, “Me too.”

  She tipped her head back and caught his eyes. “Grazie, il mio bell’amico.”

  “It was my pleasure, sweetheart,” he whispered. His study of her face became acute. “You happy?”

  Luci felt her face gentle. “I woke up in his arms. He told me I was his religion last night. And he was not hungry, but I was, so he swung by Bo’s on the way here yesterday.”

  Sam’s head ticked and his eyes registered surprise then warmth at the “religion” comment.

  He was smiling by the end.

  “So yes, Sam,” she continued. “Though, I’m not happy, as such. He’s making me happy.”

  “Good,” he muttered.

  “Now, I must go. He doesn’t like it when I leave him alone in bed in the morning.”

  His smile got bigger and he gave her a squeeze, saying, “I bet he doesn’t.”

  She shot him a return smile and squeezed him back.

  Then she moved her arms from around him so she could catch his head in her hands. She went up on her toes to kiss each cheek and pulled away but didn’t let go.

  “I love you, Sam. So very much.”

  He placed his hands on her neck and kissed her forehead, somewhat like Hap kissed her nose, if not exactly like Hap gave her that.

  “I love you too, Luci,” he replied after he’d pulled back.

  She let him go and stepped away. “We’ll see you later?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.” He looked down the beach toward her house and back at her. “You walk here?”

  It was her turn to nod.

  “Babe, I’ll walk you back.”

  “Not necessary. It isn’t far.”

  “Luci—”

  “Sam, I’m good.” She stared straight into his eyes and the inflection in her tone was much changed. “I’m good, caro.”

  It took him a while to come to terms with that in all its many nuances.

  Then he nodded once again.

  Only then, she knew, did he truly let her go.

  And let Travis go.

  Odd, but she felt no loss. She thought she would. She thought this would be difficult.

  Instead, it was beautiful. Precious. A treasured memory made that she would never forget.

  She gave him another smile and a small wave as she turned and strolled to the walkway to the beach.

  Luci moved at a much faster clip on the way home. Or as fast as the sand would let her white Keds take her.

  She hit the gate to the switchback stairs at the side of her deck and punched in the code that unlocked it. She swung the latticework door open, walked under the arch, and made sure the latch caught behind her.

  She walked up the stairs, eyes to her feet, but lifted her head the instant she hit the top.

  She then halted.

  Hap was leaning against the side of a closed window in the opening made by a panel he’d folded back. He was wearing much the same as Sam, except not track pants, but navy sweats, and not a long sleeve white T-shirt, but a cream, thermal, three-button, long-sleeved Henley.

  He had his arms crossed on his chest and his bare feet crossed at his ankles.

  “Couldn’t help yourself, could you?” he asked.

  She grinned and moved toward him.

  The minute she made it to him, he uncrossed his arms and pulled her into them.

  She gave him as much of her weight as she could with two hands at his pecs.

  “That go okay?” he asked, concern unhidden in his eyes.

  “Yes. Sam will be over sometime today to talk with you.”

  She was right.

  He was relieved.

  He didn’t hide that either.

  “You maneuver that or did Skip?” he queried.

  “He’d come to that conclusion before our talk so my guess . . . Skip.”

  “Right.”

  She had very good friends.

  She had Hap’s arms around her.

  The sun was shining and the waves were crashing into the shore.

  So maybe life was not that unkind.

  Luci kissed him under his chin.

  When she was done doing that, he inquired, “You gonna make me breakfast, or are we gonna go back upstairs and fuck, then you make me breakfast?”

  She didn’t even have to think about it.

  “I choose option two.”

  “Excellent,” he muttered, curling an arm around her shoulders and drawing her inside.

  He kept it around her shoulders when he folded the window back into place and made sure it was secured.

  And he continued to keep it around her shoulders when he walked them upstairs.

  He removed it when they made it to her bed.

  But then, of course, he needed it, and his hands, and other parts of him, to bring her even closer.

  His woman. His girl. Luci.

  Hap

  HAP WALKED IN his back door and was instantly accosted by his woman.

  Though, he was accosted in a way he’d never been accosted by anyone before.

  She had hold of his head and was kissing every inch of his face she could reach.

  He put his hands on her hips and laughing asked, “Jesus, babe. What the fuck is going on?”

  She pulled away and his breath stuck at the look of unadulterated joy on her face.

  “Kia and Sam had their ultrasound today. It’s a boy!”

  His stomach warmed, his mouth smiled, and his lips said, “Fuckin’ brilliant.”

  “I know!” she yelled, dancing away from him and into the kitchen. “We’re having champagne to celebrate.”

  He was not having champagne.

  Champagne did not go with the tacos he was making for dinner that night.

  And he hated champagne.

  He didn’t tell her that.

  He wandered into the kitchen after her.

  It was Wednesday, a week and a half after their roller-coaster weekend at the beach.

  Last week, she’d come to him on Tuesday, as ordered, left on Thursday, and Saturday, he’d used the remote she’d given him to park in her garage. He had to wait all of half an hour for her to get home from the shop late Saturday morning.

  On Sunday, since she’d arranged things with the women who worked her store, she’d come back with
him. They were returning again on Saturday.

  He had no idea how long they could go on like this.

  He also didn’t care.

  He was realizing that Luciana was a woman who lived in the moment.

  Since she’d pulled his head out of his ass, those moments were fucking great.

  So he was sticking there with her.

  And he had a strong feeling he’d be down with that even if it lasted fifty years.

  “I’m gonna get outta my fatigues then I’ll get on dinner,” he told her, head in the fridge, grabbing a beer.

  “I can make dinner, Happy.”

  If they were out, among people, she called him Hap or George.

  When they were alone, not all the time, but a lot of the time, she called him Happy.

  She was big into endearments, and he figured that was part of it, adding the “py” like she might add an “ie” to his real name to be cute, sweet, familiar.

  Mostly, he figured she was making a point.

  Since it was a good point that meant good things for her, he was down.

  “You make breakfast, I make dinner,” he reminded her, popping the cap on his beer.

  “It doesn’t seem fair you work all day and then come home and cook.”

  He sucked some back, swallowed and shared, “I like cookin’.”

  For her.

  He liked cooking for her.

  He didn’t share that distinction with Luci.

  Her eyes were on his beer. “You’re not going to drink champagne with me, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  Her shining eyes came to his. “More for me.”

  “Yup,” he said, went to her, kissed her nose and then walked through the living room, loped up the stairs and changed into jeans and a tee.

  But he took his phone out before he walked back downstairs and made the call.

  “Hey,” Sam greeted.

  “Yo,” Hap replied. “Heard the news, daddio. Awesome.”

  “Yeah.”

  Hap also heard the smile in Sam’s voice.

  It was gone when he continued, “Listen, brother . . .”

  Hap listened but Sam didn’t say anything else.

  So he prompted, “What?”

  “Got about four hundred names written down, but I . . . Hap, buddy, I can’t get around it.”

  “What?” Hap repeated.

  “Now we know he’s a boy, we’re namin’ him Benjamin Travis.”

  “Yeah you are.”

  Sam was silent.

  “Strong name,” Hap went on. “Didn’t know Ben, but Gordo would be fuck-ton honored, dude. Beside himself. And Luci’ll lose her shit, she’ll be so happy.”

  “You’re cool?”

  He sounded dubious.

  Hap dipped his voice low. “Remember, Sam, I loved him too.”

  A second’s hesitation, then, “Yeah.”

  “I won’t tell Luciana. Should come from you.”

  “Thanks, brother.”

  “Happy for you, Sam. You and Kia. He’ll be beautiful.”

  “Yeah.” Sam cleared his throat then said, “Kia’s still pissed you two aren’t gonna be here for Thanksgiving tomorrow. Mom isn’t too happy either.”

  “Makin’ Luci Gramps’s brined bird and Gram’s mushroom sausage stuffing, Sam. No way Maris and Kia’d let me horn in to do that for Luce at your place. Though, like we told you last weekend, you’re all welcome here. We’ll have plenty.”

  “My thoughts on the matter, even though my wife won’t get there with me because it’s all about family for her, is that you want your woman all to yourself.”

  His grandfather’s brined turkey and his grandmother’s stuffing were the shit.

  But yeah.

  Sam knew where it was at.

  “We’ll be back on Saturday.”

  “Don’t bring leftovers. I nearly got a hernia carrying the bird Kia bought up the stairs. It’s like she thinks she’s gonna feed my whole team.”

  Hap laughed.

  Then he said, “Listen, bro, gotta go make dinner for my woman.”

  “Let you go. See you this weekend?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Later, brother.”

  “Later, man.”

  Hap disconnected and sucked in a deep breath.

  He let it out and went downstairs to make dinner for his woman.

  Hap walked in the back door and the first thing he saw was the Christmas tree in the living room.

  Last weekend it had been Christmas trees-a-fuckin’-go-go.

  On Saturday, her two trees. One, a huge, butt-ugly silver one that had white and clear (yeah, clear) ornaments in her living room that he gave her no end of shit about. One, an equally butt-ugly, but smaller and narrow gold one that had pink ornaments made entirely of feathers (yeah, feathers) in her bedroom that he also gave her no end of shit about.

  Onto Sunday and his place, where they got a real tree and he dug out the box of decorations he hadn’t opened in forever.

  The ornaments from Iowa he’d inherited from his grandparents.

  Half the time Luce had been near tears, the other half bursting with excitement and Christmas cheer when he told stories as they unearthed the ornaments and they trimmed the tree.

  Except for the near-tears parts, it had been the bomb.

  And his tree, with its old, mismatched ornaments, was gorgeous.

  He’d also bought some boughs so Luci could decorate his mantle, stringing them with lights, and nestling the new frames she’d bought in them.

  She’d framed pix of his grandparents and pix of him with his grandparents that she dug out of the ones he showed her.

  When she was with him, she had all day on her own and she liked to take long walks to keep fit, but other than that she didn’t have a lot to do but talk on the phone to her friends, clean his house (which she did), keep his larder stocked (which she did), do their laundry (something else she did) and shop.

  But those pictures were her having the means to do something for him in a way she was clued in to how he’d feel about it.

  It worked.

  His house never felt like a home.

  It wasn’t the tree.

  It was Luci and those pictures.

  So now it did.

  It was when he smelled what he smelled that he turned his head to the right.

  Luci was cooking.

  “Luce, I do dinner,” he announced.

  “Well hello to you too,” she replied from her place at the stove, shifting shit around in a skillet, steam swelling from a big pot on another burner.

  He went to her, gave her a quick kiss, pulled not too far away and repeated. “Luciana, I do dinner.”

  She gave him a fake pouty look.

  It was cute.

  “But Happy, I needed my mother’s spaghetti alla carbornara tonight. Needed it.”

  He looked down at the chunks of pancetta frying in the pan and his stomach let it be known on the rare occasion he allowed her to cook, she cooked gen-you-wine eye-talian, and that shit was life.

  “All right, baby,” he muttered and kissed her again. He turned to head out. “I’m gonna change. You cool with eating in front of the game?”

  “When’s football season end again?” she asked his back.

  “July,” he lied.

  He looked over his shoulder at her and chuckled when he saw the expression of horror on her face.

  “Tell me you’re kidding, George Cunningham,” she demanded to his departing back.

  “February,” he answered.

  “Grazie Dio.”

  That made him chuckle again.

  He went up and changed and came down again to find her draining pasta.

  “Got a call from Massimo today,” she told him as he headed to the fridge for a beer.

  On his way, Hap saw her wineglass mostly empty, so he detoured to fill it and asked, “Yeah?”

  “He started his house thirty years ago. He’s decided to do a special show, in Febr
uary. Fashion Week. I checked my phone and it doesn’t clash with your Super Bowl.”

  He’d got his beer, popped the cap, and turned his hips to the counter and his attention to her.

  “You tellin’ me you’re gonna go?”

  She was dumping skillet contents into drained spaghetti in the big pot as she answered, “I’m telling you that I’d like us both to go as Massimo is featuring models from his entire career. The oldest is Siobhan. She’s fifty-two.”

  “Fifty-two. Over the hill.”

  She turned a glare at him.

  He grinned at her and took a drag from his bottle.

  “He wants me to walk. Will you go with me?”

  Would he go to New York, watch her walk a catwalk, kiss a variety of cheeks, and generally hold court in her world, all (except the catwalk) on his arm?

  If he needed leave and didn’t get it, he was going AWOL.

  “Only if I get a front row seat at this show.”

  She dropped her wooden spoon, clapped her hands then rushed to him and threw herself in his arms, jumping up and down in them.

  “Massimo would put you nowhere else!” she cried, then kissed him. When she pulled away, she announced, “This makes me very happy.”

  His meaning in life.

  Serious.

  “Good, baby,” he muttered.

  She shot him a sunny smile and returned to her pasta.

  “Shoot me the dates by text and if I need leave, I’ll request it tomorrow.”

  “All right, bello.”

  He watched her cook, wearing jeans and a sweater with bare feet in his kitchen.

  This was his life.

  Christ.

  This was his life.

  And it was good.

  “Babe, come closer.”

  She didn’t.

  She rode him, wearing nothing but a sexy, lacy little bra, and she did it slow.

  “Luce, go faster and come closer.”

  He was on his back on the couch, naked, his arms over his head, hands stuffed in the cushion by the arm of the couch, and she was on his dick.

  The game had not been boring.

  Luci cupping his junk in the second quarter and giving him a look that told him what she wanted to do with it, he didn’t care what he was missing.

  Her hazy eyes found his as she slowed her roll.

  Slowed her fucking roll.

  She was killing him, all of her, that little bra, that hair, that face, her sweet, tight pussy a wet, hot tease.

  “Babe,” he growled, pulling both hands from the cushion to grasp her hips and get this show on the road.