“I don’t think so,” she said, testing his question by wiggling her body back and forth. Beneath her bottom, she felt his cock twitch.
“Ooh,” she said. “Hi there.”
He gave an exasperated sigh. “What just happened?”
She thought back to the last thing she remembered, blushing as she felt slickness between her thighs.
“Whoops.” She cringed.
He moved her off his lap to the cushion, and she was immediately disappointed by the lack of contact. He grabbed a blanket off the back of the couch and slung it around her shoulders. She wasn’t particularly cold, but she huddled within it, because this seemed like the right thing to do.
“You’re not hurt,” he asked again.
She shook her head. “Guess you didn’t know how good you were. Knocked me right out.”
“You’re not funny,” he said.
She shrugged. “Some people think I’m funny. Six-year-olds find me hilarious.”
He reached for his pants, a worried scowl on his face, and she knew she’d better explain quickly.
“I’m sort of hungry,” she said.
His gaze shot to hers, as if desperate for this to be the truth.
“How long’s it been since you’ve eaten?”
“Um...” She rubbed her aching temple. Even the mention of food made her stomach growl. “Before we went dancing?”
His eyes narrowed. “Have you slept at all? Not that I saw last night.”
“Food,” she said, waving her hand weakly. “Sleep. Overrated. Sex with you on the other hand...”
“Don’t move,” he interrupted. He stood, and pulled on his pants, leaving his boxers somewhere on the floor. She caught a glimpse of his ass in the darkness and frowned when it disappeared beneath his jeans.
“Check that,” he said. He turned toward her, and picked her up, a bundle of blanket and fatigued limbs and sexified hair. “Come with me.”
“Not sure my legs are working so well at the moment. Afraid I’ll roll away?” she asked.
“Actually I am,” he said, maneuvering her through the entry of the kitchen, where he set her on the island. “You’d probably be halfway across the living room by the time I caught up to you.”
She scoffed. “Please. You’ve never seen me roll.”
He flipped on the light, and she winced at the brightness that burned straight to the back of her retinas. With a mumbled apology, he turned them off, and instead turned on the dim single bulb sconce over the kitchen table.
“If it’s all the same, I’d rather you stay where I can see you.” His words brought a pang of guilt in her chest. He turned on the stove, his back to her, and then rifled through the pantry beside it. With the light coming from the side, the marks on his back were distorted, blending with his dark skin between his shoulder blades.
She slipped off the countertop silently, waiting for her knees to steady before taking two steps toward him. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she kissed the center of the compass. When his muscles flexed all at once, she squeezed him tighter, and made a slow circle of kisses that followed the tattoo. Again, she was struck by the rough skin, and the curiosity of the story behind this ink, and mostly, by the overwhelming need to take away any pain behind it.
“What does it mean?” she asked.
He became very still.
She waited, watching the marks spread as he inhaled.
“Keep on course when things start closing in. For Chloe.”
Amy traced the vines with her fingertip, feeling his muscles tighten, then relax. “And where’s that course taking you?”
“Anywhere but backwards.”
Her hands fell slowly, eyes darted to the fridge, to the picture of his deceased wife—Denise. Chloe’s mother. She felt a little like an intruder suddenly.
He turned. “It’d make me feel better if you sat down.”
She did as he asked, taking one of the wooden kitchen table chairs. She pulled her knees up to her chest, and watched as he emptied a can of chicken noodle soup into a pot on the stove.
She thought about what he’d said about being lost, and knew too well what he’d meant. Not just as a single mother, but as a wife to a man who never thought she was good enough, and before, as the daughter of a woman she always disappointed.
She knew about being lost. Sometimes she’d felt like she’d been walking into the woods, deeper and deeper, until everywhere she turned she was blocked by trees.
Or vines, like those on Mike’s back.
“I didn’t tell my mom about us because she’d think less of you.”
“Less of me?”
She remembered her mother’s comment that people would stare at him with Paisley, and felt a new shiver of disappointment for the woman who’d raised her.
“Yes. Because if you chose me, something must be wrong with you.” She laughed now, realizing how awful it sounded. “Maybe she’s right, I don’t know.”
He wasn’t laughing.
“I couldn’t stand her looking at you like something I would ruin,” she said. “And I couldn’t stand wondering if you thought she might be right.”
He was quiet for a long moment.
“Amy, I’m not sure you could ruin anything, even if you tried.”
“Oh,” she said. “Would you like me to cook something?”
The frown finally cracked, giving way to the smallest of smiles. “Okay...maybe...”
The momentary reprieve passed, like a cloud over the moon, and the heaviness of their predicament returned again.
“She doesn’t know you,” he said quietly. “And she doesn’t know me, either.”
Amy thought of the feathers he’d brought her, of the box of buttons. How patient he was, how every time she ramped up he seemed to slow down, so they could meet somewhere in the middle.
“Do you know what happened to the wife?” he asked, changing course. “Val, right?”
Her thoughts shifted to her red-haired client. If Amy thought she was stuck in a hard lurch, how must Val have felt, married to a criminal? She felt honored that Val’s compass had pointed to Amy in hard times, but now where would the woman go?
“She went to a shelter,” said Amy. “I ran into her a little while ago at the Hope House donation center.”
Mike nodded, stirring the soup. The smell of broth made her mouth water.
“We stayed in a shelter once,” said Mike, without looking up. “Mom and me. When she tried to leave my dad. They wouldn’t let me stay with her. I was too old so they put me on the men’s side.”
Amy shuddered at the thought of a young boy, forced to spend the night alone in a crowded, dirty place with strangers.
“That’s awful,” she said, resentment rising up in her.
He didn’t look up. “It was bad enough to send us back to him.”
She wanted to hold him. She wished she was the one making him soup, not the other way around. Again, she was reminded of her visit to the donation center, and how their shelter was different than the ones in the city. Hope House offered a chance for survivors to stay with their children, so that they could recover as a family.
At least it had. She didn’t know what would happen to those poor women now.
“Mike, do you have scars underneath the ink?”
His hand had been reaching for the dial on the stove, but paused before turning it off.
“Burns,” he said. “Most people don’t notice.”
His father had done this to him, she felt certain of it. No wonder Mike had hurt him. She wanted to find the man, wherever he was, and beat the shit out of him. She thought of how Mike had sought out Danny after he’d learned what had been done to her. This silent, potent rage must have been what he was feeling.
“Does it bother you?” he asked.
Her heart cracked. “Not at all. Did the tattoos hurt when you got them?”
He scoffed at this. “Not as bad as the burns.” He poured the soup into a bowl. “I’ve got some nerve damag
e. The needle wasn’t easy, but I didn’t want to look at the scars anymore.”
“You should have told me before I...” She made a scratching motion through the air with her nails.
He gave her a half smile. “It’s different when you touch me.”
She wanted him to expand, tell her what she did that felt good so she could do it again, but his brows had knit again. He carried the soup to the table, a spoon tucked in one palm. When he placed it before her, she nearly lowered her face like a cat and lapped it up.
“Thanks,” she said.
“First course,” he said. “After you finish that we’re having sandwiches. And then ice cream.”
She slouched in her chair. She needed to see Paisley, hold her, and hold Chloe too, but they both knew the truth: the kids were safer away from her for the moment.
She took a sip of soup, then another. Her stomach grumbled. “Any ideas yet?”
“Val,” he said. Unconsciously, he tucked a strand of Amy’s hair behind her ear, without any indication that he knew what these tiny moves did to her. She felt the warmth of his skin for seconds afterward, fading like a trace of heat.
“What about her?” asked Amy.
“We convince her to turn in her husband.”
Amy set the spoon down. “We can’t. He’ll kill her.” She’d already explained to Mike how afraid the woman had been when she’d come to see her at the salon.
“Keep eating or I’ll feed you,” said Mike. There was no humor in his voice.
Amy picked up the spoon.
“If he’s really into the kind of trouble Marcos says, she’ll get some kind of protection deal out of it,” he said. “No one wants to put an abused wife away—she’s already got the domestic violence report on the books. If she asks for immunity in exchange for testimony now, before she turns him in, she’ll probably be taken care of.”
“You mean, have a place to stay.” She wondered if he’d learned this at his classes. He seemed very lawyerly just then.
Mike nodded. “Maybe a whole new identity, depending on what she’s got to say.”
Amy considered this, feeling a flame of hope flicker in her chest. If Val’s husband went away, Aiden would have no reason to come after them. The problem would be eliminated, and Val would still be safe. Maybe even more safe.
“We just have to make protection look more appealing than where she is now. Shouldn’t be too hard,” he said.
“No, it shouldn’t,” said Amy. “If her husband is as bad as she thinks, I don’t imagine she’s got a ton of places to hide. Hope House is closing.”
Mike’s brow quirked.
Quickly, she explained everything that she’d learned the night she’d missed Mike’s self-defense class. About their efforts with the lobbyists, and the lack of donations. She ate as she talked, feeling her strength returning. And when he brought out peanut butter and bread, she ate two full sandwiches.
“It’s bullshit, right?” she said. “Now these women have nowhere to go.”
“I think you found your second calling,” said Mike.
“What do you mean?” She looked down at the empty soup bowl, and the crumbs on her plate. Maybe her second calling was competitive eating.
“You should open up a new one.”
“A new Hope House?”
“Yeah.”
She hadn’t realized until that moment that she’d veered off course from Val, from her own pressing emergency, to the unfairness of this other situation.
“I couldn’t do that,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because...” She shoved back in her seat. “What am I going to do? Cut their hair?”
He laughed for the first time in what felt like ages. “Amy, you could run it.”
She’d never considered this. She liked being a stylist at Rave. Hell, she loved it. But if she’d ever wondered if there was more for her out there, she hadn’t entertained it. She’d learned a long time ago it wasn’t safe to dream. That kind of thing just got you hurt.
“You’ve been managing chaos for years,” he said. “You do the schedules at work, and all sorts of business stuff for Derrick. And obviously your heart’s in the right place.”
Maybe it was just the protein from the peanut butter, but the more he talked, the more she could see it. Feel it. It was like the hotel she’d imagined when she was little. A great house with open doors where anyone in trouble was welcome. She thought of the money she’d taken out last night, the money she’d foolishly wanted to hand over to Aiden. If she saved some more, she could use it on the down payment for a house for the women, as long as she and Paisley stayed here.
It had been so long since she’d hoped on anything besides Paisley, it was nearly as uncomfortable as it was exciting. Doubt skirted on the edge of the picture.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I never went to a shelter.” It felt like something you might need experience in.
“Then why’s it so important to you?” he asked.
“Because I could have,” she said. “Because I should have. If I’d known about it, maybe things could have been different.”
His slow smile warmed her. “Then let’s do it.”
She stared back, wide-eyed. No one had ever believed in her so much or so simply. Her mother would have laughed right in her face and told her to grow up. She wouldn’t have even told Danny. But Mike thought she could, and was so matter of fact about helping, she felt confident this crazy idea could actually work. It opened up a whole future of possibilities she’d never even allowed herself to consider.
“First, we need to get through this,” said Mike.
“Yeah.” She couldn’t stop staring at him.
He cleared his throat. “How are you feeling?”
She raised one skinny arm and flexed her bicep. “Strong. If you wanted to get it on, I probably wouldn’t even faint.”
He winced. “How sure is ‘probably?’”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Somewhere between seventy-two and eighty-eight percent. Depends on if you do that hip swivel thing again. Chances of remaining conscious decrease dramatically in that case.”
“Well,” he said, giving a low laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
The blush took a second to catch up, but when it did, she looked down, surprised that she’d been so bold. Who was this woman, who didn’t just have wild, passionate sex on the couch, but joked about it after?
He rose and moved to the freezer, where he grabbed a carton of Triple Carmel Cookies and Cream ice cream, and then set it before her with a spoon.
“Keep eating. I need a confident ninety-four percent by the time I get back.”
***
While Mike checked the front door, and then the living room windows, she reached for her phone. Gathering her bravery, dialed the second number on speed dial.
It didn’t even get through one ring.
“Are you alive?” barked Anna. Mike’s footsteps creaked as he walked upstairs.
“I’m alive and eating ice cream,” said Amy, sticking a delicious spoonful in her mouth and trying not to feel guilty about it.
“You don’t deserve ice cream,” said Anna. “And if you have to have it, it better be something boring like vanilla.”
“You know how I feel about boring ice cream.” She hadn’t bought vanilla in...well, ever.
Anna growled. “Then sandpaper flavored ice cream. I hope you’re eating sandpaper flavored ice cream and it’s making you gag.”
“You would really wish that on your best friend?”
Anna groaned. “Where were you? You come to my house and see my man, ask him a ton of red flag questions and then just disappear? Uh uh. No way.”
Amy tapped the spoon against the cardboard carton. “I had to take care of some stuff.”
“Not a good enough answer.”
She sighed. “Danny owes some men money, and now he’s missing, so they want me to pay.”
There was a moment of silence.
<
br /> “Continue,” said Anna.
She took a deep breath. “He came to see me a few weeks ago. He was outside by my car. It was the day I brought in the bridesmaid dresses.”
Anna was quiet. It was amazing to Amy that even after she’d purged all her secrets to Mike, after what had happened before on the couch, she could still feel traces of guilt.
“He wanted the child support money back.”
“You didn’t give it to him.”
“No.”
Anna sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want it to be real,” said Amy. “Because I didn’t want him to be back. I was just starting to get used to him being in the past tense.”
“And,” said Anna, “because you’re a control freak who’s hellbent on handling everything on her own.”
“Like you’re so different?”
“Takes one to know one.”
And somehow, they’d reached a truce. It was one of the things she loved about Anna. Ever since they’d been young, Anna had understood her.
Amy rubbed her forehead with one ice-cream cooled hand. “I promise I’ll tell you the rest later, but right now I really just need to know the girls are all right.”
Anna made a stubborn sound. “They’re all right. We’re playing Candyland against my dad and Alec. Men suck at this game.”
She could hear Alec object.
“It’s not inherently biased,” Anna argued. “You can’t strategize a faster way into the Licorice Castle, Mama Gingersnap. You just have to roll the dice and be patient.”
Amy smirked. She wished she was there with all of them, and also that they weren’t all there because of her.
“Thanks,” said Amy. “I love you, you know.”
“I know. And we’re all with you on this, whatever the hell it is. No,” Anna called, much louder. “He can’t, Chloe. It’s called bribing.”
Her friend was going to make a kickass mom.
“Hold on,” said Anna.
There was a muffled sound, like a hand over the receiver, and then a heavy breath.
“Mommy?”
Tears filled Amy’s eyes. She blew out a tight breath to try to keep her voice from breaking. “Hi, Pais. Sounds like you’re having fun.”
More: A Body Work Novel (The Body Work Trilogy Book 4) Page 28