“Now what?” I couldn’t tell where we’d ended up, but it definitely wasn’t the roof.
“Now we take the stairs.” Still holding onto me, he led the way.
When we reached the top, we were faced with yet another door. The instant he opened it, a thunderous roaring drowned out the entire world. I thought an airplane was crash landing right on top of us. I wasn’t far off. It was a helicopter. And it had already landed quite safely on the roof.
“Holy shit,” I breathed. I could have shouted it, Derek still wouldn’t have heard me.
Knowing any argument I made at that point would literally land on deaf ears, I closed my eyes and let my feet take me wherever Derek directed them to. When I opened them again, I was being shoved inside the surprisingly large cabin of the chopper.
Next thing I knew, the doors had closed and we were taking off. Thankfully it was much quieter inside than it had been on that roof.
“What. Just. Happened?” My arms were gesturing wildly in the air.
Derek just sat back, a satisfied grin on his face. “I was tired of always being followed. Figured Travis would have a hell of a time getting that shitty Civic of his airborne.”
“Are you insane? Who gets picked up from court in a helicopter?” It was a pretty damn fancy one at that. Not like a rescue or military chopper you see on TV. This thing had style. Leather seats and everything.
“You do. Joss, meet my buddy, Carson. Our pilot.”
Carson turned back halfway to give me a friendly wave before returning his attention to flying the chopper. Meanwhile, I wasn’t sure what the appropriate response was to any of this, so I simply waved back, mouth hanging open like an idiot.
Derek took advantage of my current state of dumbstruck and silent. “Carson and I met when we were both overseas. He got out a couple of years before me though. Landed this sweet job flying around corporate bigwigs.”
“That explains his fancy ride,” I mumbled. It didn’t really explain shit else. “So, what’s going to happen to my Bronco? You got some former tank driver you met out on a secret mission coming to pick up?” I was joking. Or, at least I sincerely I hoped I was.
“Not a tank driver, no. Bobby’s sending Mattie to get it and bring it back to the Flying Monk. I’ve gotta head over there later anyway and grab a few of my tools I left behind.”
My mouth opened to tell him that Mattie got a DUI three months ago and didn’t currently have a driver’s license, but it seemed like a sort of trivial bit of information all things considered, so I just closed it again and said nothing.
“Check out the view.” Derek pointed past me, out the window beside my head. We were just flying over downtown. It really was pretty spectacular looking at it from way up here. At ground level all I ever saw anymore was the annoying amount of traffic that seemed to spread out between the buildings, not leaving much room to enjoy anything else.
Aside from a phenomenal window seat, traveling by helicopter came with another perk. Travel time was cut down tremendously. Next thing I knew, we were hovering over my neighbor’s pasture. Thankfully, he’d recently moved his cattle to another lot and was resting this field for the time being, making landing a lot easier.
When we walked into the house, Deb looked, surprised to see us.
“Where the hell did you two come from? I didn’t hear your truck pull up.”
“Did you hear the massive helicopter landing in Farmer Tom’s field next door?”
She made a face. “Obviously. Pretty damn hard to miss – ohhhh.”
“Yeeaah.” I gave her a patronizing pat on the shoulder, because in our family we didn’t just let stupid slide, and then went on to find Wyatt. “Monkey man! Guess what mommy did!”
He poked his head out of his room and came to meet me in the living room for a big hug.
“You wented high in the sky with a rocket?” His big brown eyes were wide and I couldn’t help but wonder what he’d seen on TV that morning after Tom and Jerry ended.
“Close. Derek took me for a ride in a helicopter.”
“Whoa.” I loved how for a four-year-old, a chopper ride could be even cooler than taking off into outer space. Distance and probability played no role in his realm of functioning. It was great.
My aunt and Derek had joined us in the living room.
“So, you two have any lunch on that helicopter ride of yours?”
I laughed, thinking about the luxurious interior. “Surprisingly no, there was no food in flight. No peanuts, no nothin’. Seriously, who do I talk to about that?”
Derek shook his head, the right corner of his lips lifted, making his eyes crinkle in the most adorable way. “I’ll be sure to mention something to Carson about snacks next time I see him. Meanwhile, who do I talk to about getting some chicken fajitas? Is it Wednesday or what?”
Aunt Deb actually blushed a little. It was the cutest thing ever and it made me think I needed to spend a little more time gushing over the food she made for us day in and day out. Over the years I’d become complacent about it, but I didn’t want her to think that I didn’t appreciate everything she did for us.
After lunch, Derek went to take care of a job he’d been putting off for two weeks while I ventured into my workshop to work on his bedroom furniture. I’d made quite a bit of progress on it already, working here and there in between other projects. Now that he was my husband I could hardly charge him for it, so that had kind of bumped him down on my to-do list. Not that I’d told him that. Didn’t really matter anyway. At this point, who knew when he’d get to sleep in his own bedroom again?
Derek still wasn’t back by dinner or when I put Wyatt to bed, something I tried not to be bothered by, but which clearly had an effect on my son, who had already grown accustomed to their nightly routine of sharing a banana before bed and then making up a bedtime rap before he and I disappeared in his room for a book and cuddle before he finally went to sleep.
Wyatt wasn’t the only one working Derek into his daily habits, something I became eerily aware of when I had a slice of Aunt Deb’s key lime pie and he wasn’t around to eat the dry graham cracker crust I always left behind. And then again when I went to water the garden after sunset and he wasn’t sitting on the porch steps with Hattie, keeping me company. I didn’t like it. Not the fact that he wasn’t there, nor the part where I wanted him to be. I didn’t like any of it. Not. At. All.
By the time he finally showed up at the house again, I was sitting curled up on the sofa watching re-runs of Who’s The Boss and wondering how Tony and Angela maintained their friendship all those years without crossing over the line when they were so clearly nuts for one another. Sure, in the end they wound up together, but why wait? What had kept them both from jumping in heart first, head second? Especially when things seemed to work so...perfectly.
I was stuffing the fourth chocolate chip cookie down my throat when Derek walked in. I had a moment of reality and fiction clashing, and subsequently another where I realized just how absurd it had been to spend such an overabundance of thoughts on a relationship that wasn’t even real. Of course it didn’t take a genius to figure out why I’d spent an hour and a half obsessing about Tony and Angela. It was simply preferable over having to analyze my own situation.
“Hey, sorry I’m so late. Let me just jump in the shower and we can head out.”
He came by and kissed the top of my head on the way to the kitchen. I heard the fridge door open and close and a minute later he was back guzzling from a water bottle.
“Head out where? The only place I’m headed is my bed.” I would have thought the sweats and wife beater I was wearing were a clear indicator of my plans.
“We have to go pick up your truck. Did you forget?” He was leaning against the wall casually, water bottle now lowered down below his waist and resting against his thigh. Don’t ask me why this was the part I was choosing to focus on. Probably for the same reason I was still trying to decide if Tony and Angela had been right not to get involved unt
il the final season.
“My truck? Shit, it’s still at the Monk, huh?! Don’t you think it’d be better to wait until tomorrow to get it? I don’t know how I feel about leaving Wyatt and Aunt Deb here alone at night. Especially after the way we pranked Travis today. What if we pissed him off and he shows up here after we leave to try something?”
Derek finished his water and went to toss the empty bottle into the recycling bin. “Got it covered. I made a couple of calls. Turns out some guys I used to serve with are in town on leave right now. They’re headed over here to sit on the place. Deb and Wyatt won’t even know they’re there.”
I climbed up from the sofa, not really following what he was saying. “You’re calling in military back up to deal with Travis?”
He laughed. “I guess you could put it that way.”
I shook my head. “That’s crazy, Derek. I’m sure they have better things to do than come and sit outside of my house for a few hours. We can’t ask them to do that.”
Derek reached out for the waistband of my pants with both hands and gently brought me closer to him. “Listen to me, these guys are like my family. This is what we do for one another. They would be offended if they found out I was in trouble and didn’t call them. Okay? Now come on and get dressed. You need a night out of this house.”
He cupped the side of my face with his hand and kissed my cheek, his soft stubble brushing against my chin in a familiar way. I inhaled deeply while he stood so close to me. Derek always smelled of sawdust and fresh air. He wore cologne as well, but it was a secondary scent that merely complimented the others. I sort of loved that about breathing him in, like it gave me some sort of secret insight into his day even if I hadn’t been a part of it.
“Alright. I’ll go put on something more suitable to wear,” I finally conceded. And I did.
Ten minutes later we were sitting in his pickup and on our way out to my brother’s pub. We’d passed a black Suburban in my driveway, which Derek had indicated as being his former Navy playmates. I couldn’t help but feel as though I’d unknowingly been enrolled in some sort of secret club of arms where all you’d ever need to do was shoot up a flare and the troops would come running. I kinda liked it.
For a long time, we just sat there in silence, both of us apparently busy sorting through our own troubling thoughts. Or, in my case, thoughts as trite as Tony and Angela’s unconventional set up and whether or not they’d been onto something.
“You ever watch Who’s the Boss?” The moment I heard myself say it out loud I wanted to be cloaked in my own shame and hidden out of sight.
“Are you kidding? I loved that show.”
Surprised, I leaned to the side to get a better look at his expression. “You did?”
“Absolutely. Come on. Alyssa Milano? Every guy I knew was watching that show!”
I pressed my lips together tightly in spite of every effort to seem unfazed by the news of his childhood crush. In reality, I was brimming with jealousy. And then more shame.
“Wasn’t she a bit old for you?” I asked snidely and in spite of myself.
“Of course. That was the best part.” His enthusiasm was quickly starting to be annoying, but since I’d already opened the door, there was no point in not walking through it, even if I had to step over Alyssa Milano to do it.
“So, where did you stand on the whole Tony and Angela thing? Did you feel like it dragged on for too long, them not being a couple? Or did you think they were always better off the way they were?”
Derek turned his head toward me at the stop light to answer. “Not sure. They weren’t really the reason I was watching, you know?” Then the light changed and he went back to facing the road.
“So you didn’t feel like it was about time when they finally got together? You didn’t experience any sort of excitement over their long awaited happily ever after?”
“Wasn’t much of a happy ever after. They broke up in the final episode.”
WHAT?! How had I never seen that? I spent the rest of the drive stewing in silence. Partially because that one little revelation had somehow ruined the entire show for me, but more importantly because it suddenly seemed perfectly clear what I needed to do. If Tony and Angela hadn’t been able to hack it as a couple when they had everything going for them, there really was no hope for us. And yeah. Basing major life decisions on sitcoms from the eighties isn’t always the brightest idea, but desperate times called for desperate measures. That, and I was running scared and at a point where any reason to speed up and not look back was a welcome one.
Derek had barely put the truck in park, when after an eternity of silence I blurted out, “Thank you for being such a good friend.”
His brow furrowed in confusion. “Okay.”
I waited to see if he would ask for more clarification. When he didn’t, I gave him some anyway. “I mean, ever since Cara’s been gone, I haven’t really had a close friend like that. You know, someone I can count on. So, thank you. Our friendship really means a lot to me and I hope that we can stay friends even after all of this is over.” I’d said the word friend about as often as I possibly could have. The only way I could have driven the point home any harder would have been to refer to him as some sort of a brother figure, but all the sex we’d been having sort of made that comparison out of the question.
“Joss, what’s going on?” he’d dropped his hands to his lap and was looking at me in anticipation of some grand revelation. Only I had already given it.
“Nothing. I just wanted to say thanks, that’s all.” I reached for the door handle and popped it open. “Ready to go in?” Then I took off without waiting for his answer. One wrong glance from him and I would have recanted my whole statement. And I couldn’t do that. Not if we’d just wind up calling it quits in the series finale.
***
I watched Joss practically run through the parking lot and into the bar. Sort of summed up what had just happened in the truck, really. When I walked in a few minutes later, she was busy chatting with Mattie who was tending the back bar. For a moment, I stood in the doorway taking in the scene. The place was pretty packed, but that was normal of a Wednesday night. It would be easy to let her do her thing and just sit back and relax for a bit. She’d be safe here even if I didn’t have my eyes on her the whole time. Except of course, I would have my eyes on her the entire time and it had nothing to do with how responsible I felt for her, but everything to do with how fucking mesmerized I was by her. And she was hoping we could stay friends after this was over. She had lost her goddamned mind if she really believed any of the crap she’d just ranted off to me.
On the other hand, if she was bound and determined to keep stalling the inevitable, what was I supposed to do? Not fucking let her, that’s what.
Then, before I lost my newfound nerve, I marched straight over to her. Acting like no one else was in the room, because to me there wasn’t, I caught hold of her hand mid gesture to Mattie and pulled her to me in one determined swoop.
Once I had her standing so close to me that I could feel the movement of each breath her body took in and released, I took her face in my palms, leaned down into her and kissed her. Her lips parted for me in an instant, my tongue teasing her mouth and daring her to open up to me completely. And she did. Slowly her arms wove up around my neck while mine simultaneously began to glide down along her back where I wrapped both arms around her and lifted her up, never once allowing our lips to part.
Once I was confident I’d made my point and turned her legs to Jell-O, making it impossible for her to make another attempt at running, my words softly thundered against her kiss, “I don’t want to be your fucking friend.”
Stunned, she slowly nodded and gradually slid back down the front of my body until her feet hit the ground again. “Okay.”
Still leaning into her, holding her steady with my forehead resting on hers, I continued quietly, “I understand that you’re afraid, but you need to understand that I’m not. Which is why I’m going
to go ahead and do all of the scary stuff. And all you have to do is let me. Deal?”
She nodded again. “Deal.”
Chapter Sixteen
Maybe we were nothing like Tony and Angela after all. Maybe I’d been totally off on that. Maybe we were really like...like, well, I was drawing a blank, but just some other couple who had actually made it in spite of the fact that their union had been based on something completely unromantic and essentially been forced upon them. Maybe we were just going to have to tell our own story and hope it came with a happy ending.
Whatever the future was holding for us, the present was pretty damn nice for a change. Somehow giving up all control of the situation and putting it all in Derek’s hands had been the easiest thing in the world to do. What was more, it had made me feel something I hadn’t in a long time. Happy. Really, truly happy.
The next morning when we showed up at Diane’s office for our meeting, I felt an overwhelming sense of confidence. Everything was going to be fine. It seemed so obvious suddenly. It was only logical that the judge would take one look at Travis and his checkered past along with his silent puppet of a wife, then look at me and Derek and see that we were the only viable choice when it came to parenting Wyatt.
Diane seemed equally confident. Or, at least if she wasn’t, she was very convincing.
“I’m assuming we’ll be using the same character witnesses we did last time? Your brother and Aunt?”
I pulled out my notebook. I liked having a place to scribble everything down, especially in situations like these. “Yeah, they’re ready to go whenever you want them.”
Her attention turned to Derek, who was beside me on the long leather sofa in her office, his hand resting on my knee ever since we sat down. “I’m sure you realize you’ll be called to the stand as well?”
He agreed. “Absolutely. Put me up there. Please. I want my chance to tell the judge what an amazing home and mother Wyatt has with Joss.”
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