Loose Ends

by Kristen Ashley

  “How sweet,” Luci drawled.

  The blonde took one look at Gagnon, her face went pink, then her mouth moved as she said something before she pulled from his hold and dashed away, shouldering through the crowd.

  “You have got to be fuckin’ kidding me,” Hap repeated, his words shaking with laughter.

  “Dio mio,” Luci murmured, those words amused too.

  When Gagnon hesitated, Hap shouted, “Do you need to check your horoscope, bro?”

  Many turned to look.

  But Gagnon shot him a shit-eating grin.

  Then he pushed after her.

  “That’s the way, brother,” Hap muttered.

  “Horoscope?” Pearl asked.

  He looked down at her. He then took a drag from his beer.

  And after he swallowed it down, he said, “I’m thinking the stars are aligned tonight.”

  Luci curled her front into his side, giving him her weight.

  The wrinkles on Pearl’s face rearranged in her version of a huge-ass smile.

  It was one of the most beautiful things Hap ever saw.

  He didn’t share this.

  He took another draw from his brew.

  It was two days after they got back from New York.

  Just two.

  They were laid out on his couch bingeing Altered Carbon on Netflix (for the second time, the show was the shit, they both thought so). There was enough junk food on the coffee table, this their dinner, to take out a battalion.

  It was getting late.

  After nine o’clock.

  And the doorbell rang.

  “What the fuck?” Hap muttered as Luci used his chest to push up and look over the back of the couch.

  She turned her head to look down at him. “Are you expecting someone?”

  “No.”

  He was going to ignore it when the doorbell rang again.

  “Maybe it’s someone with a mistaken delivery of pizza and we can take it and then not answer the door the second time when they come back after they realize their mistake,” she suggested.

  He glanced at the coffee table, where on top of the mess was an empty bag of cheddar cheese Ruffles that Luce had not ten minutes ago upended the last crushed bits into her mouth, then he looked back at his woman.

  “Babe, how in the fuck can you want pizza?” he asked.

  “Is there ever a time when it’s okay not to want pizza?” she asked back.

  He could not answer that because there wasn’t ever that time.

  The doorbell rang again.

  “Shit,” he murmured, sliding her off and coming out from under her.

  He took his feet, walked to the door, didn’t see anything out the high windows, but got up to them, checked side to side and the doorbell rang again.

  He looked down.

  And his chest seized.

  He should have known.

  They’d taken pictures of him. Of Luci blowing the kiss to him. Of them at the party afterward. They’d even posed for some.

  He hadn’t seen the pictures anywhere.

  That didn’t mean they hadn’t been printed somewhere.

  Like it had a mind of its own, his hand reached out, unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door.

  “Ma,” he whispered.

  She smiled up at him, but her attention wasn’t on him. Her eyes were darting beyond him, into the house.

  “Georgie.”

  It all happened in a flash.

  One second he was standing there, staring at his mother.

  The next second he was catching Luci on attack, arm around her belly, and hauling her back.

  “Babe,” he said in her ear, plastering her to his front.

  “Get the fuck out of here!” she screamed at his mother.

  “Honey,” he whispered.

  “You have no business here. You have no business even looking at this magnificent man! Go! Leave! And don’t ever come back!”

  This magnificent man.

  Nice.

  “George?”

  His mother’s call was tremulous.

  He forced Luci behind him and shut the door enough his body was fully blocking the opening. He felt Luce at his back, and he looked into his mother’s eyes.

  “Two choices,” he stated. “Leave. Or cops.”

  Then he stepped back, pushing Luci with him, and shut the door.

  He locked it.

  He turned, hands clamped on Luci’s waist, and shuffled her backwards.

  “She dares!” she shouted, heated gaze laser-aimed at the door.

  “Cool it, Luce.”

  “She saw us in the papers. We were in the papers. Massimo told me. So, she dares.”

  He pressed her against the back of the couch. “Luciana. Look at me.”

  She turned blazing eyes to him. “She’s ugly! Hideous! That woman is not your mother.”

  His mom was actually a good-looking woman.

  He didn’t debate that.

  “Baby.” He got in her face. “Calm down.”

  She hissed in a breath.

  Hap took her in.

  “Christ, serious as fuck, I pretty much need to fuck you really motherfucking hard right now. Prepare, Luci, you’re not gonna be able to move for a week,” he announced.

  Luci blinked.

  “Get upstairs. Get naked. I’ll put away the food and be up ASAP,” Hap ordered.

  “But, she’s—”

  “She doesn’t exist, Luce. She is not of our world. This,” he squeezed her waist, “and this,” he took her hand and pressed it flat to his chest, “is our world. Now are you gonna get naked, or what?”

  “You . . . you’re not angry,” she observed.

  “What do I have to be angry about?”

  She stared at him.

  “And anyway,” he continued, “you flying at her like an Italian she-devil is anger enough for the both of us.”

  Her lips twitched.

  He fought a grin.

  He stopped fighting his grin when he realized she wasn’t doing as she’d been told.

  “Baby, a man’s woman moves to take down his estranged, middle-aged mother on his doorstep, he gets in a certain mood,” he educated her. “You gonna help me out with that?”

  She sounded a lot calmer when she offered, “I can help you put away the food first.”

  “And take away me knowing you’re waiting for me naked in my bed? I don’t think so.”

  She added her other hand to his chest, leaned in and whispered, “I love you, Happy.”

  “Not as much as I love you.”

  “I have a feeling I love you more.”

  Hap looked deep into her eyes and stated, “Luciana, that would be impossible.”

  Her eyes got wet and she sniffed.

  “Go upstairs,” he ordered quietly.

  “Okay, bello.”

  He touched his lips to hers.

  She slid her hands up to either side of his neck and gave him a squeeze.

  Then she let him go, sidled out from in front of him, and he turned to watch her strut like she was on a catwalk (her normal gait) to his stairs.

  When he lost sight of her, he put away the food. Made sure the back door and door to the garage were locked. He turned out the lights. Went to the front door and opened it.

  No mom.

  No car.

  His mom or dad, you mention cops, they didn’t fuck around.

  They vaporized.

  He didn’t give it a thought.

  He closed and locked the door.

  Then he walked up the stairs to his woman.

  His girl.

  Luci.

  Life Was Beautiful

  Luci

  SHE HAD HIM in her mouth, her hand wrapped around him working him too, her other hand cupping his sac, gently squeezing.

  She lifted her eyes and felt a spasm all over, but stronger in one particular place, as she saw him on his ass with his broad back to the headboard, his legs spread, knees cocked, feet to
the bed, his powerful arms lifted over his head, holding on, his eyes dark and hungry and locked on her.

  He wasn’t holding on to the headboard as one of their games.

  He was holding on to have an unobstructed view of her work.

  “Come ’ere,” he growled.

  Gaze still to his, sucking hard, Luci pulled up, following the movement with a tight stroke of her hand, giving his balls a firm squeeze, and she watched the muscles strain in his pecs, his neck, one jumping in his hard jaw, those in his biceps bunching.

  “Luciana, come here,” he ordered thickly.

  She licked the tip, showing him her taking in his pre-climax pearl of offering.

  His expression intensified, his gaze burning.

  “Luce,” he warned.

  She let him go and climbed up.

  Or more aptly, climbed on.

  Except to wrap his arms around her, Hap didn’t change his position at all.

  As she knew he would do, he let her fuck him for a time, taking it, enjoying it, watching her do it.

  Then he took her to her back and made her orgasm there before he let her watch him do the same.

  For her part, Luci hastened this by digging her nails in his ass and dragging them up his back, forcing him to arch into her, fill her completely, and explode inside her with a rough, muted roar.

  After, she held him close.

  He nuzzled one side of her neck with his mouth as he stroked the other side with his thumb.

  Eventually, he moved his lips to the hinge of her jaw. “I’m gonna go check.”

  Of course he was.

  “All right, amore.”

  He lifted his head and looked into her eyes.

  But his eyes.

  Dio mio, he was handsome.

  “You gonna snooze?” he asked.

  Of course she was.

  She smiled at him.

  He grinned, kissed her nose, then took her mouth and kissed her there, long, wet and sweet.

  He pulled out and away, tossing the soft sheet over her as he left their bed.

  Hap walked naked to the bathroom.

  She rolled to watch and only when he disappeared did she stretch languidly and turn to her other side.

  He came back, and she felt the bed depress with his weight at her back, felt his arm move under the sheet and heard his quiet, “Tip, baby, yeah?”

  She did and closed her eyes, her lips curling when she felt the warm cloth move between her legs as he washed her.

  “All good?” he asked when the cloth went away.

  “Yes.”

  She felt his lips skim the point of her shoulder. “Love you, Luce.”

  “Love you too, Happy.”

  He moved away.

  Luci’s eyes opened, drifted closed, opened again, and then closed as she fell back to sleep.

  She opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was her left hand laying on the butter-yellow sheet.

  On it was a band of diamonds, three tiered, the two outer layers, the stones were small, the inner layer, they were much larger, all of this set in yellow gold.

  No engagement ring.

  She didn’t want one.

  Hap had not been happy.

  It took some time to explain she wasn’t making a point, it was that she wanted their marriage rings to symbolize the exquisite simplicity of their lives.

  They’d chosen lovely, matching narrow bands.

  But on the day, when Kia had handed her the band she was to put on Hap in that precious moment, it had been far wider, bolder.

  And when Hap had slid hers on her finger, it had been filled with sparkling diamonds.

  She lifted her eyes to the framed photo on the nightstand at Hap’s side of the bed.

  She was in ivory. A Massimo (of course). Sleeveless. A deeply plunging vee neckline, gathered crossover, natural waist, a full, ethereal, tiered skirt of floating gossamer flounces. Delicate. Stylish. Sophisticated. Angelic.

  Hap was in his mess dress.

  They were standing tight to each other’s side, their arms around each other’s backs and were both looking to the side, laughing at something Skip had said.

  Behind them was a field of corn.

  She heard a high-pitched giggle and that was what pulled her from the bed.

  She reached to the bottom, grabbing then shrugging on the boldly printed silk robe, closing it and tying it at her waist, the deep slits in the sides and opening at the front making the bottom waft about her legs as she walked across the cool stone to and through the opened doors of the Juliet balcony.

  She stopped, resting her hands on the balustrade. The beautiful blue waters dotted with sailboats, leafy green swells of mountains at the sides, mingled with the terracotta roofed buildings adorning the fringes of Lake Como was her view.

  She didn’t study it.

  She looked down to the veranda below.

  Sam, wearing a pale-blue linen shirt and jeans, had hold of nearly three-year-old Bash, her darling, her baby, little George Sebastiano, wheeling him through the air as Ben danced around his father’s long legs, pulling at the denim, crying out for his turn.

  She swept her gaze down to the end of the veranda where there sat a wrought iron table. On it, it appeared there was fruit, slices of cheese, pastry, toast, crystal pitchers of juice, silver-topped French presses, bright-colored stoneware, cutlery glinting in the sun.

  Celeste sat with head bowed to Talia, Sam and Kia’s little girl, who was in her lap. Talia was reaching to a strawberry.

  Kia sat across from them, next to Thomas, also wearing a beautifully printed robe and leaned back with her coffee cup in her hands, her head turned, her face filled with laughter at whatever Thomas was telling her.

  Luci swung her attention to the other end of the veranda where the steps started that led down to the vine-covered arches at the edge of the lake where they kept their gleaming Riva Aquarama with its ivory cushions.

  As she suspected, Hap, in jeans, a tight tee, with a baseball cap pulled down on his head and running shoes on his feet had an abundance of pink frills with white details stuffed secure in his arm, pudgy legs tucked to his ribs, a little white hat on her head.

  Daddy’s little girl.

  TeeTee.

  Vita mia.

  Little Luciana Vita, their six-month-old baby girl.

  “Mama!”

  Her eyes went direct to her son, who was upside down against Sam’s side, but still waving frantically up at her.

  Luci smiled and waved back.

  Sam flipped him around and he squealed.

  Her smile got bigger, but she felt it and her attention turned.

  Her husband was two steps down, but he’d stopped, tipped his head back, and under the bill of his cap he was looking up at her even while his daughter was slapping his throat, an indication she wanted him to keep moving.

  When Hap took Luci out on the boat, he went fast, held her close, the wind whipping her hair, making it fly in her face, his face, and often she would laugh. Laugh and laugh. For no reason except she liked speed. She liked the beauty of Lake Como. And she loved being with her husband.

  When Daddy took his baby girl on the boat, he held her tucked tight in his lap and he went slow.

  Vita still laughed and laughed for no reason, except she loved the wind in her face and being with her daddy.

  Luci lifted her fingers to her lips and blew him and their daughter a kiss.

  He shook his head, grinning, but eventually tilted up his chin.

  Then he resumed his descent.

  Luci stood where she was and watched, her eyes trained precisely where they needed to be.

  The gleaming boat made its appearance, sedately trailing white foam against the deep blue of the lake, the man in the cap with a precious bundle of pink frills in his lap, his fingers wrapped firm around the ivory wheel, father and daughter gliding into the sun.

  And life was beautiful.

  The End

  A short story from The
Unfinished Heroes Series

  featuring Deacon and Cassidy of Deacon

  DEACON BARELY GOT in the front door before he heard stampeding little feet and a screech of, “Daddaaaaaaay!”

  And boom!

  Pepper hit him like a bullet shaped as a four-year-old girl.

  He swayed back, righted himself, cupped a hand on her head over her thick, soft, dark hair and watched as, a lot slower on her feet and a lot less steady, not to mention a lot quieter, Ruth followed her big sister.

  On the move, he swung Pepper up into his arms and deposited her on a hip, all the while she shrieked with glee like they didn’t do this every day, something they did.

  Still on the go, he scooped up Ruth, who giggled softly and latched on to his tee with a fist while he strode to the kitchen to find their mother.

  In the kitchen Deacon did not find their mother, his wife, his Cassie.

  He found their friend Milagros.

  “Hola, Deacon,” she greeted with a smile.

  “Hey,” he replied, glancing around for his wife.

  “Sorry, we were supposed to be gone by now,” she told him.

  His eyes shot back to her.

  We?

  Gone?

  “Note for you from Cassidy,” she said, tipping her head to the counter where an envelope lay. “The girls are coming with me to have dinner with Manuel y mis hijos.”

  “Enchiladas!” Pepper shouted.

  “Tamalaysh,” Ruth whispered.

  Deacon tightened his arms around his girls as he dropped his eyes to the note.

  On it, he could see, was written, Deacon Deacon.

  His lips twitched.

  All was good.

  Used to Deacon not saying much, Milagros clapped her hands in front of her, announcing, “All right. We’ve got the car seats in. Jackets, girls. Let’s go. Vamanos, mijas.”

  Processing the order that was not exactly verbalized, Deacon turned his head and kissed Pepper’s cheek, muttering, “Be good for Milagros, baby.”

  She giggled, gave him a kiss on the mouth and replied, “I always am, Dadday!”

  She never was.

  He shot her a grin, hunkered down to put her on her feet and still in a squat with his hold on his two-year-old, he turned and kissed her cheek.

  She laid her hand solemnly on his.

  “You be good too,” he said.