“The duty of the best man.”
With a deep breath, he opened the door and stepped outside. She met him at the front of the car and gave him a shy smile when he took her hand.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said as they stood on the front step.
“Wait.” When she turned, he pulled her close. “When do I get to see you again?”
She beamed, because they both knew they’d see each other in passing ten different times before nightfall. It was different now though. They needed time alone.
“After your class.” Mike had one of his college classes tonight. “After the girls go to bed.”
“Downstairs.” His fingertips trailed over her hip. “My place.”
She nodded, wishing they could speed up the next hours.
He turned the knob and stepped inside.
“We’re home!” called Mike. “Who survived the reaping?”
“Oh wow.” Amy followed him inside, eyes immediately focusing on the massive fort that took up the entire living room. Every blanket and chair in the house had been used.
“Upstairs!” came Anna’s voice. “Maybe you should wait a few...”
There came an undeniable crash, and with a sigh, Mike took to the stairs, Amy on his heels. At the top, they passed his empty bedroom, and found Alec in the girls’ room, seated on the floor, screwing the legs back on a small drawing table.
“I don’t even want to know,” said Amy.
He glanced up, grinning, and she laughed when she saw the faint outline of lipstick smeared around his mouth.
“Aw,” said Mike. “Don’t you look cute.”
Alec grinned and returned to his task.
The girls were all in the bathroom. Both Paisley and Chloe were in the tub in various stages of undress, and Anna was completely soaked.
Chloe shrieked when she saw them, and bounded out of the tub, immediately launching into a play by play of the night’s events. She was talking so fast Amy could only catch every third or so word.
“All right,” said Mike, grabbing a towel. “Who gave the monster sugar?”
“Alec gave me RED SODA for BREAKFAST!” she screeched, running for the bedroom.
“Alec’s a dead man,” he muttered.
“Hi,” Anna said, hair sticking out like she’d been struck by lightning. “Is it that time already?”
“Actually we’re late,” said Amy. “It’s a little early in the day for baths.”
“Well,” she wrung out her shirt in the sink. “There was a small incident with some pancake batter. Long story short, the kitchen’s been quarantined.”
“Great,” said Amy.
“I’ll check it out,” said Mike, turning the other way.
“No really, I wasn’t kidding...”
Mike waved over his shoulder. “I just want to see if I need to replace any windows.”
“They’re not broken,” said Anna indignantly. Paisley dried off and ran to Amy, wrapping her up in a big, damp hug.
“Sounds like you had fun last night,” said Amy.
“I did! We ate ice cream and didn’t go to bed until...”
“Clothes!” interrupted Anna. “Time to get dressed. Don’t want to be late.”
Amy gave her friend a look.
“So,” Anna said, drying her face on a towel. “You look like you’re in fine spirits.”
“Shut up,” said Amy. “Actually, I really need a shower. Could you...”
“Alec!” called Anna. “Chloe needs clothes!”
“I see that,” he called back.
“Well, do something about it!”
Amy snorted, and made a quick retreat to the bedroom to clean up and get dressed. The entire time she was in the shower she imagined Mike opening the door and slipping in behind her. Washing her hair, and pinning her against the wall while he kissed her senseless. She’d even left the party panties she had bought with Anna out on the bed. But he didn’t show.
In a hurry, she threw on a retro red polka-dotted dress and some fire-engine, patent leather mary janes. The skirt was short enough to see her thighs, and she imagined Mike looking at her legs again, the way he’d done before. Her hair was going to stay crazy today, so she grabbed a white handkerchief and rolled it into a headband to go over twin braids.
The girls were downstairs—she could hear Mike telling them to grab their backpacks when she stepped into the hallway. Preparing for chaos, she was shocked to find Alec and Anna, making out against the wall.
“I want two,” Anna said between kisses. “Soon. Then another two later on.”
“We’ll need a bigger place,” said Alec.
They clearly had no idea Amy was standing there.
“Hey,” she said. “This is a G-rated house.”
Alec cleared his throat, shifting Anna in front of him and grinning over her shoulder. “Amy. Hey. You look great.”
“Uh huh.”
“I’m taking them,” said Anna. “The girls are coming with us.”
Behind her, Alec began to chuckle.
“Might want to run that by your fiancée,” Amy said.
“I’m on board,” he told her.
She had to hand it to him. An overnight wasn’t the same as being a full-time parent, but he was taking it in stride. She’d always known Anna would be a great mom.
“And here Mike thought you might be the first casualty,” she said to him.
“He has no faith in me,” said Alec. “You, on the other hand, he has quite a bit of faith in.”
She wanted to ask what that meant, but suddenly remembered it was go time. The kids had to get the school, and she had to get to work.
Quick hugs for both of them, a muttered agreement to tell Anna she’d spill the details later, and she was headed downstairs. After a quick goodbye, Alec and Anna left, and then it was a second attempt at breakfast, and homework checks, and Mike singing Let it Go at the top of his lungs while he tried to convince Chloe to leave Mr. Jenkins behind.
They were already running late when they all spilled into the garage, but Mike insisted on checking the latches on the booster seats before they left. She watched him through the rearview mirror from the driver’s seat of the Subaru, wondering if he was aware of that deep line that had formed between his brows. She wanted to kiss him there, and smooth it out with her thumbs.
She wanted to do a lot more than that.
“We’re cutting it close.” She cleared her throat. “I hope we hit every green light on the way there.”
If he got it, maybe it would give him something to think about today. She already knew she’d be going crazy.
He paused, and then finished strapping the girls in. Either her comment had flown over his head, or he was already simmering on it. She hoped it was the latter.
“We all set?” she asked.
“Almost.” He came around to the driver’s seat, leaned in, and kissed her right on the mouth.
For the first second she was so frozen in shock, she hardly moved.
For seconds two through six, she softened, every part of her remembering the things he’d done to her body, and the way he could make her feel. Her eyes closed, and for those moments she forgot her own name.
By second seven she registered Chloe’s groans.
“So gross,” she said. “EWWW!”
Amy pulled back, holding her breath. She glanced up in the mirror to see Paisley’s round eyes. She tried to think of what to say, something to help her daughter with this transition, but her mind was completely blank.
Mike maintained his steady smile as he fastened her seatbelt. She should have been mad at him for ambushing her in front of the kids this way, but his hand slid beneath the waistband across the span of her belly, out of view from anyone but them. Her nerves ignited beneath his touch.
“Yeah,” he said, half amused, and more to himself than anyone else. “This is going to be a rough day.” He stood, and returned to the back seat where the door beside Paisley was still open.
&n
bsp; “You all right with me kissing your mom?” he asked.
Amy watched in the mirror as her daughter nodded.
“Eric kissed Ariel at the wedding when she had her legs. And Alec kissed Anna last night. They thought we weren’t watching but we saw them.” She blushed—a trait that had come straight from her mother.
“I’ll be sure to let him know,” said Mike.
“Are you guys boyfriend and girlfriend?” asked Paisley.
“Pais—” Amy started.
“Yes,” answered Mike.
“Okay,” said Paisley. “Can we go to school now?”
Amy turned on the ignition and put the car in reverse. If Paisley was going to make it that easy, Amy wasn’t going to argue.
***
They did in fact hit every green light on the way to drop the girls off at school, and by some miracle they were still twenty minutes early, even given all the chaos of the morning. A checklist of chores she could accomplish in limited time flipped through her mind. They had groceries. The teacher hadn’t sent any new notes home for school supplies. It was impossible given the girls in the back seat to consider swinging back to Mike’s for a quickie, but she entertained the idea anyway.
“My daddy says we can get ice cream tonight if we put all our toys away after school,” said Chloe.
“My daddy takes me to ice cream all the time. And to play at the park.” This was from Paisley, and it surprised Amy. Paisley never talked about her dad.
Amy’s fists tightened around the steering wheel, the memory of his visit to Rave refreshing in her memory.
“That was a long time ago,” said Amy, keeping her voice steady. “I’m surprised you remember.”
“I remember,” said Paisley. The defiance in her voice turned Amy’s frown into a full out scowl.
“You’d tell me if you saw him, right?”
Paisley stared out the window.
“Pais?”
“Yes, Mom,” she said. Paisley’s cheeks reddened, and Amy realized that she’d embarrassed her daughter in front of Chloe. She felt a little bad about that, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
She chalked it up to jealousy. Mike was an awesome dad. Danny wasn’t. He’d taken Paisley a few times to do those things, but not with any regularity, and certainly not since they’d separated. Maybe Mike’s kiss had spurred this. She’d talk with Paisley about it later, when they were alone.
In a last minute decision, she turned off the main road into a shopping center where her bank was located. She needed money for Anna’s bachelorette party, and in light of her date, had completely forgotten that she wanted to talk to someone about the extra grocery store charge. Her debit card was almost expired as well; she wanted to make sure they were sending her a new one.
Driving into one of the teller lanes, she pressed the button to make her withdrawal request, and waited a full five minutes before a crackly voice returned to the line.
“Ms. Elgin, I’m looking at your account now, and it looks like you’ve fallen below the minimum five dollar balance. If you’d like, I can transfer some of your funds from savings, and set you up with overdraft protection, which is a free service we provide...”
“Wait, that’s not right.” Amy put the shifter back in park. This was supposed to be a two minute stop, but now was rolling into the making-the-kids-late-to-school range.
“I just transferred money over a couple days ago,” said Amy. “$100 at an ATM.”
After a moment, the teller replied. “I see that transaction, Ms. Elgin. But I see that $80 was withdrawn last night.”
This was not happening.
“I didn’t withdraw anything,” said Amy, feeling her forehead crease. “There was a charge on my card from a few days ago I didn’t recognize either.”
“I can provide a printout for you,” the teller offered helpfully. “Or like I said, I’m happy to transfer funds from your savings. It looks like you have three thousand there.”
Amy almost choked.
“That’s wrong,” she said. “Are you sure you have the right Amy Elgin? I should have almost eight thousand.”
Danny’s first deposit had been for almost three thousand alone, and she’d been putting aside a little wherever she could for a down payment on a house for her and Paisley.
It’s my money anyway.
Amy forced herself to breathe. She couldn’t panic. This was a mistake. It had to be.
“Has my identity been stolen?” she asked. “Did someone steal my card number or something? If you’re looking at my accounts, you can see I had more last week.”
Pause.
“It looks like there have been multiple withdrawals from your account. I can give you a printout?”
“Who withdrew the money?” she demanded, then lowered her voice when Paisley’s eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. “No one else should have access to my account. Just me.”
A few seconds passed.
“You’re correct, ma’am, it’s just you.”
“Not my...” She looked in the rearview mirror at Paisley, who was staring down at a book. “Not Daniel Elgin, right?”
“It’s just you on the account. No one else.”
That relieved her a little.
“Then where was this $80 taken from? An ATM? I didn’t go to an ATM last night. And the $102 from the grocery store wasn’t me either. And $5,000 ...”
She was starting to feel nauseous.
“Ms. Elgin, it sounds like something fishy is going on. I can give you the number to fraud protection, and you can call at your earliest convenience.”
“Yes.” She glanced back at the girls. “Please,” she added, knowing they were looking.
They stayed quiet as she took down the number and left the drive-through. After she’d gotten to school, she called the bank’s fraud protection division. They agreed that her activity did look suspicious, and after adamantly denying that Danny had accessed her account, agreed to call her back once they figured out what had happened. In the meantime all her cards were frozen, and she was issued a temporary debit card, which she could pick up from the bank. Though inconvenient, the action calmed her considerably, and by the time she got to Rave, she’d done her best to push the incident to the back of her mind.
Chapter Sixteen
The day didn’t exactly fly by. It dragged on excruciatingly slowly, and every time she checked the time on her phone it seemed no more than two or three minutes had passed. She was clumsy, too. She dropped comb after comb and had to stick them in the sterilization jar. She burned herself with a flat iron and nicked herself with her scissors. She accidently cut out a chunk of Rainy Dawson’s hair when she picked up her styling shears instead of her texturizers. It wasn’t easy convincing her long-time client that it was time to turn her waist-length locks into a graduated bob, but she pulled it off, however guiltily.
She’d been to Cloud Nine with Mike and was now sitting on Cloud Eight, waiting to go back.
At lunchtime, she broke whatever girl code said that she should wait for him to make the first move, and sent him a smoldering, innuendo-laden text.
Hi.
She hoped he could read between the lines.
He responded a minute later.
Hi.
She giggled. Snacking on pretzels and string cheese—Paisley’s discarded lunch from yesterday—she set her oversized zebra print bag on the break room table and took out her supplies. A hot glue gun, which she plugged in; a bag of shells, beads, and random buttons that reminded her of the glorious ones Mike had given her; and a plastic tiara. Anna was going to have one hell of a Bride-to-be crown when they went out for her bachelorette party Saturday night.
What are you doing? she typed.
Thinking about you naked.
Her hand, sorting the hodgepodge of flair, paused. She glanced slowly over her shoulder to the door, as if she might be caught doing something wrong. She wondered if they’d crossed the line into sexting. She kind of hoped so.
&
nbsp; She responded: And?
A grin lifted her lips. She was totally sexting.
Being wild.
The memory of the last time he’d said that word had her biting her lip.
I’m just getting started, she wrote.
He didn’t respond right away. She glued a shell onto the tiara. A minute passed. Then another, before her phone vibrated on the tabletop.
I know.
She wished she knew what he was thinking right then, if he was fantasizing about her the way she was about him. What would tonight bring? Would he take off her clothes, one piece at a time? Kiss his way down her neck? Would he be inside her? They hadn’t seen each other naked last night, their hands hadn’t even explored beneath their clothing. But it had been sensual, and hot, and she was ready for more.
The thought of them together, like that, had her burning her hand on the glue gun.
“Shit,” she hissed.
Tonight, she wrote. After a few more shells, and a handful of sequins, she added glitter and a small bell. She wasn’t just a sexting diva, she was an artistic genius. Anna’s crown was a masterpiece.
***
The next text Mike sent was that he’d picked up the girls and was headed home. As soon as she was done at the salon, she packed up her cart and headed out, intent on spending as much time with him as possible before he went to class tonight.
She knew something was off the moment she stepped outside. Call it a sixth sense, but the tiny hairs that rose on her skin had her keeping one hand firmly on the door handle while she scanned the small back lot. Her car was there, as well as Derrick’s, but no old Volvo like the one Danny had driven. No one was loitering, smoking, or drinking. Not even the wild chickens that roamed Ybor City could be seen.
Grabbing her pepper spray, she headed toward her car.
Something moved to her left, in the alley between the salon and O’Malley’s next door. She jumped, and then backed closer to the salon door, keeping her eyes up and her feet light.
“If you want money, the answer’s still no,” she said loudly. With her luck, it was probably just someone from the restaurant taking the trash out to the Dumpster behind the cars.
Another movement, this time closer to the cars. She saw a flash of black fabric, and then a large figure stood, too broad to be her ex-husband. Amy’s heart was pounding. Her hand holding the pepper spray lifted, and she aimed it in that direction, even though whoever it was was five yards away and probably too far to hit.
More: A Body Work Novel (The Body Work Trilogy Book 4) Page 13