by L. J. Stock
“You think they’d mind if we put off introductions and I stole you early?”
I looked up at him and smiled. I understood what he was asking of me. He didn’t want to tear out of here, even if I would have agreed in a heartbeat. He was giving me time with the two of them before we left because if he joined us at the table, we wouldn’t make it ten minutes, and we both knew it.
“An hour?”
“I think I can manage that,” he said, grabbing the beer from tray behind him and draining half the bottle. “Maybe.”
“You’re insatiable,” I whispered, pushing up on my toes and kissing his lips. He tasted like Garrett, beer, and man, which made me hum in appreciation. “But you’re making the assumption I can last that long.”
“You’re killing me.”
I reached around him and slid the tray into my hand, smiling a wicked smile I knew he’d come to enjoy. “Have I told you about my new appreciation for porn?”
His mouth fell open and closed a couple of times like a fish out of water. He made a grab for me, but I was already out of reach and heading back to the table with a satisfied grin. I didn’t need to see his face to know what would be there. I was beginning to learn all of his faces, and what I couldn’t fill in, Jen and Megan did with their reactions.
“What did you just say to him?” Megan asked, eyes flitting between Garrett and me. “He’s still standing there with his mouth open.”
“Order up,” I called, sliding the plate down the kitchen counter toward the little hands waiting for it. I’d barely had an hours sleep, and every part of my body ached, but a promise was a promise, and it wasn’t like I wasn’t in a fantastic mood.
“These are amazing, Mom,” Holly said around her fork, before sliding the syrup to Emmett who was drooling over the two stacked on his own plate. “You think you could make strawberry tomorrow?”
“Not tomorrow, baby, but the morning after, you got it.”
“Ooh, are you staying the night at your boyfriend’s house?” she asked, cutting off another section of pancake and grinning at me before she shoveled it into her mouth.
“I am. If you’re still okay with it.”
“Mom, you don’t have to ask my permission. You’re an adult, and you always make good choices.”
“You’re delusional, my short friend,” Megan said, patting Holly’s head as she passed, sticking her tongue out at me. “She’s been known to make terrible choices.”
“My mom?” Holly asked.
While Emmett inquired, “Why is aunt Kay having a sleepover?”
“Because boyfriends and girlfriends have sex,” Katie responded matter-of-factly, scooping two more pancakes onto her plate.
The silence was thick enough to cut with a knife. Robert was frozen, his cup halfway to his mouth. Megan was standing next to me with her hand over her eyes, and Holly was looking between the three of us with amusement painted on her features. Emmett was the one who finally broke the frozen state, and I almost wished he hadn’t.
“What is sex?”
“Fucking karma,” Megan groaned and dropped her hand to look at me before silent laughter reached her eyes. “Emmett, ask your dad.”
“But—” Rob started, only to be cut off by his son’s inquiry.
“Daddy?”
“Oh my God. You’re such a child, Emmett,” Katie exclaimed. She was eleven going on eleventy as she looked at us all in exasperation. “Men put their penises in a woman’s vagina a lot, and then the sperm fertilizes an egg in the woman’s belly, and a baby grows. It’s like that watermelon seed we planted, right? Sometimes it grows, sometimes it doesn’t.”
We all looked at one another, and Robert shrugged and nodded when Emmett looked at him for confirmation. It seemed the search engine had been doing its job better than we’d been doing ours.
“Wait! Aunt Kay is having another baby?” Emmett asked in excitement. “Is it a boy, like me?”
“No,” I squeaked. “I don’t have an, um, egg to fertilize.”
“Then why are you having sex?”
“Great question, Emmett,” Holly said, turning in her seat, her face red with her attempt to not laugh or cry. I wasn’t sure which at this point, but I was ready to cry, and Megan looked like she was in the same boat. It was like a snowball rolling downhill, gaining traction and disaster levels as it went. “Why are you having sex, Momma?”
Well, this wagon was driverless. I needed someone to grab the reins before we went off a cliff.
“Because when adults like each other very much, sex is a way of expressing that,” Robert finally said, picking up his tablet and scrolling through it. “It doesn’t make sense to you now because you’re too young to understand. One day, it will start to make more sense, and on that day, son, you come and talk to me, okay?”
“M‘kay.”
The room seemed to let out a collective breath as the disaster was averted. It was ironic that this very topic had only come up the evening before. It seemed Little Miss Katie had been doing more research than Megan had anticipated.
“Kate, do you have questions, baby?” Megan asked, bracing the counter for a yes.
“No, ma’am, I’m good for now.”
“Will you come see me if you have questions?” Megan asked, her voice an octave higher than normal.
“Sure, Mom.”
Megan nodded and turned to the coffee pot, her other hand reaching for mine and squeezing. “I shouldn’t have laughed at you last night. Payback is a heinous bitch. I need to call my mom and apologize to her, too. Jeeze.”
“It went better than my talk with Holly,” I whispered. “Katie had better facts.”
Megan laughed earnestly and filled up her mug with coffee as the insanity passed and the conversation at the table turned to horses and the riding lessons from the day before. I made a note to myself to never mention sleepovers at breakfast again, and I went back to cooking the last of the pancakes for myself.
“So, am I going to get to meet your boyfriend?” Holly asked as she slipped her plate into the sink and turned to lean against the counter.
I’d known that question was coming again. Considering this as the longest relationship I’d been in since I’d had Holly, it was only natural that her curiosity would get the better of her. After the discussion at the table that just passed, I should have been more prepared than I was right now.
Holly wasn’t a kid anymore. She wouldn’t instantly get attached to some guy I was with now. She was cautious enough to realize it may not last. I’d protected her for so long. She’d never asked to meet anyone before Garrett.
“You really want to meet him?”
“Of course I do, Mom. He makes you happy. I figure it’s about time.”
I nodded in agreement and turned off the hot plate I’d been using. There was a buzzing in my ears that came with the stark panic of how quickly things were moving, but maybe it was better this way. If she didn’t like him or if they didn’t get along… we could deal with that if or when that happened.
“How about we get you a couple more lessons, then visit the ranch where he works? We can visit with him and the horses.”
“Really?” Holly was practically vibrating with excitement now, and I knew that was the horses, not Garrett, but I would take the meager offering for now. The horses would be a distraction if things got awkward. Although, if Garrett was half as charming to Holly as he was with every other human, I believed she would love him… I just wasn’t sure how I felt about that possibility coming so quickly.
Chapter Thirty-Five
My smile was huge as I stepped out of my car once I’d found a parking space at the bar. I figured that a ‘Bad Company’ song playing on the jukebox as I approached was a good omen. I loved most classic rock, but there was something about their discography that always pulled me back into my happier memories like a warm embrace.
The moment I opened the door, the cacophony of voices joined the song, and I slipped inside with a contented sigh. Owning
a bar meant that this kind of atmosphere was a different kind of home for me. One that always made me feel comfortable.
It didn’t take long for Garrett to notice me. I had sent him a text before leaving the house, and knowing how long that journey took, he’d probably timed my arrival. Just another small thing that made my smile grow wider now that I was there. He looked good in his T-shirt and jeans combination, and I savored the view as I approached and shrugged off my thin summer jacket while leaning in to kiss him.
“Hi,” I sang as the bartender slipped a bottle of beer in front of me. My laughter rang out as Garrett pulled me between his legs and held me in a tight embrace.
“Hey. I’m sure glad you’re here.” That would have been nice to hear on any given day, but he meant that in more ways than one and that was reflected in his tone.
“Oh yeah?” I asked, wrapping my arms around him and rubbing his back. “What’s going on?”
“My ex is in town visiting,” he grumbled. “She’s a bit of a pain in the ass.”
“You wanna get out of here?” I asked quietly. “We can pick up a pack of beer and go to your place.”
“I’m not gonna get a better offer than that tonight.”
I barked out another laugh and wound my arms around his neck, reaching for the bottle that was sat next to me on the bar. I took a long pull and wiped my mouth with the back of my index finger, grinning down at Garrett affectionately.
“Do that again, and we won’t make it out of the parking lot.”
I lifted the bottle to my mouth, but he tugged it away and pressed his lips hungrily to mine. The thud of the bottle hitting the bar made my lips curl into a smile as he did the same. I’d had a great day after the craziness of that morning, and those jovial emotions had stayed with me. I could feel the warmth of emotion and passion as they burned through me pooling where my stomach was pressed against him.
“Is that a threat?” I finally asked, using my thumb to brush some of my lipstick from his bottom lip. “Or a promise?”
“Promise. I would take you here now if I weren’t so adverse to other men seeing you naked.”
“So greedy.”
“Fuck, yes. Now drink your beer like a lady so I can take you home and fuck you.”
“So demanding, too. You’re the full package.”
He met my eyes and locked them in, the deep brown holding me captive before he broke the spell by blinking. “That, and I want to get you as far from my psycho ex as humanly possible.”
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
I squeaked out a sound and shrugged. I could look after myself, but he was probably right about getting out of the bar sooner rather than later. The less attention was drawn to me, the better.
“Let me powder my nose, and we’ll go.”
“Hurry.”
“Consider it done,” I said, kissing his cheek as I grabbed my jacket and headed in the direction of the ladies room.
By some divine intervention, the restroom was empty when I got there, and I was finished in a second. When I flung the door to the stall out of my way, I rocked back on my heels with an intake of breath as the very reddened face of my old adversary, Libby, glared back at me with raw hatred.
“I know you,” she said in a strong twang that was just over the line of reality. She was putting the accent on for my benefit. She stared at me hard, and her lips twisted as she tried to make the mental connection. It seemed unfair that she was still so prevalent in my mind, while I was less than a blip on her radar. She’d made my life miserable in high school, and there she was, not recognizing me.
“Doubtful,” I replied in an even lie, slipping past her to wash my hands. I watched her profile in the mirror as I soaped up my hands and rinsed them off, and I thought I’d gotten away with whatever she had planned for me for barely a minute, but the sudden flutter of recognition and hatred that filled her aging face almost bowled me over, and I knew I’d finally been made.
Covering her mouth with her hand, Libby turned to the door and back to me as her other hand balled and released at her side. When she finally dropped her hand, her lips curled in disgust, and I finally began to catch up with what she’d already figured out.
She was the psycho ex.
“You’re Kay?” The words were followed by a maniacal laugh.
“You’re the psy… ex?” I countered, my heart dropping.
“Yeah, I am. I always knew you were a bitch, but this?”
“How was I supposed to know he was your ex? I thought you were married or something?”
It was a bit of a dig on my part as I was well aware she was also divorced, but there was no way I could have known that out of all the men in Childress, Garrett was her ex.
“I don’t give a shit about you having my seconds, bitch. It’s not the first time,” she said, raising her voice, her body leaning toward mine in anger. “But I still care about him, and what you’re doing to him is just sick.”
“What I’m doing?” I repeated confusion the only thing I was capable of offering her.
She sneered at me so coldly I could have sworn I was developing frostbite on my hands. She held it for a while before her sneer broke into a wave of bitter humor.
“Christ, you don’t know, do you?” She shook her head as gratification warmed the chill of her features. “Oh, this is gonna be fun.”
I managed to stop myself from rolling my eyes and giving her a reason to dig deeper and drag this confrontation between us out further than it needed to go. She was already having too much fun making me squirm. Whatever I didn’t know, she was about to have the distinct pleasure of telling me. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction and taking the bull by the horns, I moved to push past her and reach for the door.
“Uh, uh. You ain’t getting away that easy. And you sure as hell ain’t going to take this away from me. Believe me when I say you wanna hear this, Miki.”
“Don’t call me that.” I snarled, stepping back from her. The retreat was more for her safety than mine now because I was losing my temper. “Unless you want those unnaturally white caps knocked out of your mouth, say what you have to say and get the hell out of my way.”
“Congratulations on being the only other person besides me to fuck both of the Hill brothers.”
My ears started ringing in a deafening tintinnabulation, and the world shuddered to a halt around me as her words penetrated the haze of anger that had been protecting me from her callousness. All of the heat in my body seemed to drain away until a cold sweat broke out on my forehead and a shudder of horror danced down my spine. My knees buckled, and I stumbled, landing hard on the cheap tiles, my fingers locked on the counters that held the sink as though it were my only lifeline.
“Garrett?”
“Rett?” She laughed, shaking her head at me. “That’s right, sweetie. You’re fucking Dustin’s big brother, and boy is he gonna flip his shit when he finds out. The bitch who killed his brother, now warming his sheets. This is some soap opera shit, right here.”
I pushed from my position on the tile, barely making it to my feet before I hurtled toward the stall and emptied all the contents of my stomach into the bowl. All of it was somehow in tune with Libby’s cackle of laughter and glee. I crouched in front of the bowl and leaned back against the stall wall, panting for breath, but Libby wasn’t through with me yet. She was just getting started.
“Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it, Miki? Dustin would still be alive today if you’d stayed the fuck away. You’re the reason he’s laid up in a box with no future. You took all that away from him because you’re a selfish bitch. I bet that little bastard you lost wasn’t even his, was it?”
Before I was even aware that I’d moved, I was standing. Libby was on her ass, and my hand was throbbing in pain. I could take her bullshit, I could take her names and insults and lick my wounds later when I was alone, but insulting Holly—even not knowing she existed—was a huge no in my book. I was done listening to this woman. I
was done with this town. Childress just wasn’t big enough for the two of us. I knew that now.
“When I tell him,” Libby said, her voice muffled as her hand cradled her jaw. “He won’t want anything to do with you. He blames you, you know? For Dustin dying—for being at your house that night, for sneaking him in. For luring him away from where he should have been.”
“And where was that?”
“With me.”
“After you fucked the baseball team and his brother?”
“He might have ended up hating me, sure, but he would still be alive.”
That was like a punch to the gut. Pain blossomed from my chest and spread out over me because the truth really did hurt. Dustin would still be alive if he hadn’t have met me. He would have been miserable with Libby, but he wouldn’t have stayed with her forever. He was dead because he loved me.
Pushing away from the sinks that I’d been using to center my balance, I slipped toward the door, stepping over Libby as I did. She rolled to her knees and used the sinks to help her to her feet, watching me as I moved to the door on shaky legs, hating myself more than she could ever hate me.
“Run away again, Miki. No one wants you here anyway.”
“Go to hell, Libby.”
“I’ve been there for the last fourteen years, bitch.”
I pushed out of the bathrooms and into the main room, cringing at the music as I was jostled through the crowd. Walled in by dancers two-stepping around the small dance floor, I couldn’t breathe anymore. My lungs seemed to have closed over as I pushed people aside and forced my way toward the doors. I needed to get out of there, preferably before Garrett spotted me.
Rett.
Oh, God.
My stomach lurched again, and the hand over my mouth had the bar patrons scattering out of my path in fear I would empty what was left in my stomach all over them. When I finally made it through the doors to the humidity of the night, I gulped down as much air as I could manage, but never felt the benefits as I stumbled down the few steps to the solid ground below. I searched for my keys as I moved, half running and half tripping across the lot toward my car and some iota of salvation. How could I have not known?