“Hey, I thought this was supposed to be you needing friendly faces and all.” I protested.
“Oh right. Jeremy was married.”
“But he moved his couch into your place.”
She waved a hand dismissively in the air. “That fucker was married the entire time. His wife was getting new furniture. I got the old crap. Now the best way to cheer me up right now is tell me about you getting laid.”
I blushed and grinned. “Okay. It’s the guy I met at the bar that night. Ran into him a few days later when Lydia and I were at lunch, and met him again at a club that night.” As I began describing meeting Ares, I realized I didn’t want to share him. He was mine.
“Tell Trish who he is Lizzie. I can’t believe you are not shouting it from rooftops,” Lydia prompted.
Trish looked like she was at a tennis match with her head swiveling between Lydia and myself.
“He’s a musician,” I said reluctantly.
“Are you dating a country singer? That’s so not you Lizzie. I thought you didn’t like country music.”
“Not country, he’s in a rock band.” I paused while the waitress delivered our food.
Trish was looking at me expectantly. Her eyes wide, prompting me to continue.
“AudioVox,” I said.
“Oh, I love them,” the waitress chimed in. “I used to listen to them when I was in high school.” I just smiled at her as she finished setting out our plates.
Trish waited until she left. “Excuse me? You’re sleeping with one of the guys from AudioVox? How the hell did that happen?” Her tone was one of awe and incredulity all at once.
“I don’t know, it just did. Anyway, he’s the bass player. I don’t know if you’ve seen their pictures, but he’s the really big guy with all the black hair. His name is Ares.” I pulled up a picture of him on my phone. Not one that I had taken, but one of my favorites from the internet. He was beautiful. The picture was from an outdoors performance. His lips were parted, his hair loose and ruffled in the breeze. His shirt open to the navel exposing his yummy chest. His bulging biceps strained against the sleeve fabric
“And” Lydia interjected between bites, “he is totally smitten with our Lizzie here.”
“Seriously? Oh, this is too good. You don’t have sex for what? Five years, and the next thing I know you are getting laid by a musician. An actual famous musician.” Trish handed back the phone.
“Well, when you put it that way.” I shoveled a large bite of salad into my mouth. It did sound ridiculous. I had been so sexually unappealing to my ex-husband. And yet here I was having my own personal sex-god porn-show with Ares whenever possible.
“Then why are you so sad? The sex isn’t horrible is it? He’s got a little dick? What gives?” Trish asked between bites of her hamburger.
“I believe Lizzie said ‘anaconda.’ Besides, Trish, she isn’t kidding when she says he’s really big. I thought he had lifters in. He’s huge. Unless he’s a freak, I’m just assuming anatomy is proportional to height.” Lydia defended him.
“It is.” I giggled. “I’m mopey because I haven’t seen him since the night after the tornado, and I don’t know when I’ll get to see him again. And he goes home just after Easter. And he makes me feel amazing. And I’m not just talking the sex, which by the way is mind blowing. Let’s just say he knows how to strum a G-string, and I’m not talking about the one on his bass.”
“Oh my god, Lizzie you are so totally falling for this guy, aren’t you?”
“Shut up, Trish.” I glared as I took another bite of salad.
Lydia nodded.
I had to agree. But I wasn’t falling. I had fallen for the man, and I didn’t want to get up.
It was another few days before I got to see him again. He clearly had been having a frustrating week. He and Steve, the drummer, were getting on each other’s last nerve. Steve wanted to be done and get out of town. Ares had been motivated to stay here, but he also wanted the recording done so he could spend time with me. This particular issue had nothing to do with me. Ares wanted several tracks re-recorded. Something about the rhythms not meshing. This is when I figured out he may not be the front man, and he may not even write all of their songs, but he was in charge of their musical sound and style. I guess you could say he was the group’s musical director. He preferred Steve to play the tracks instead of programming a drum machine. I hadn’t yet met Steve, but to me he seemed rather selfish and unprofessional. I understood he was a great drummer, but that didn’t make him a great person. Ares was also being totally bull headed and unprofessional, they were running out of studio time.
After a very argumentative and non-productive morning in the studio, Ares stormed out and drove to the house. Bree and I were home, watching TV and folding laundry— I’m not joking when I say laundry was a constant. He was fuming. He complained about the show we were watching. He complained that I didn’t have any beer in the fridge, and that I was out of soda. I was out of cookies. The house was too hot. He was just cranky. He flopped in the side chair and glowered.
We stared at him as he sat there. He didn’t know what to do. He started to tell us about his morning, but stopped and caught himself each time a cuss word slipped or was about to.
Bree whispered to me, “He needs a nap.”
I chuckled. I thought he needed a bath. “Bree, will you go start the tub in my bathroom?”
She started to whine, “Not for you, for him.”
She jumped down with an “okay,” and disappeared down the hall.
“I don’t need a bath,” Ares growled.
“You are cross and don’t know what to do with yourself. I don’t know what to do with you, and this is what I do with cranky kids.”
I pointed and said, “Go.”
He plodded off to the bathroom, and Bree reappeared in a hurry.
Cassidy’s friend Lily’s mother picked the girls up from school and brought them home. Lily was spending the evening with us while her parents went to some meeting. They arrived while Ares was in the tub.
The three girls vanished into Cassidy’s room with occasional appearances as they ran through the TV room.
I hadn’t exactly forgotten Ares was in the tub, I just figured it was a non-event.
I cycled another load of laundry into the dryer. When Ares asked, “Hey babe, do I have any pants here?”
I turned to see a wet Ares filling my bedroom doorway, wrapped in just a towel. Good thing I had an armful of towels because I’m sure I started drooling. No, it’s not the first time I had seen him like that, it was maybe the second or third. It had a powerful effect on me. I honestly wondered how I could even find a voice to talk to someone that gorgeous, and yet, there he was calling me “babe.” Wet hair dripped down his back, broad shoulders narrowed like a triangle to that ridge of muscle at his hips. His chest hairs were just starting to dry, but were still in wavy lines down his chest tapering to a thin line of hairs that disappeared into the towel. I silently prayed it wasn’t the last time I saw this beautiful sight.
“What?” I hadn’t really heard him, I was too distracted.
“I flooded the floor and my clothes are soaked.” One hand grasped the towel closed at his hips.
I placed the towels into a basket and turned to head toward him, a parade of princesses stormed past me. Each girl had on a dress-up dress, a tiara or a crown and a wand. Lily was in front, and had not yet met Ares. He loomed well over her not quite four feet of height. She came to a dead stop in front of him. Her little head tilted back as she looked up, and up, and up.
He was not quite laughing as he said, “Hi.”
And then she screamed. Cassidy and Bree screamed too, and all three clamored to get past me and back to Cassidy’s bedroom. Screaming and giggling the entire way.
I couldn’t help but laugh. Ares ducked back into the bedroom, apparently, he was laughing so hard he dropped his towel once he stepped back into my room, and closed the door. Too bad I missed that.
&
nbsp; I found him some of my shorts, and was relieved he wasn’t going to pitch a fit about wearing girl’s shorts. They were men’s clothing anyway. Since they were shorts, length wasn’t going to be an issue. I was not going to make an issue of them being too big if he wasn’t. Inwardly, I was miserable my pants were big on him.
Ten
On Easter morning, Ares arrived for an early breakfast since the girls would be leaving by nine to go to church with their father, then spend the day with him and his mother. Ares wore a beautiful suit in a pale silvery blue with an iridescent shimmer to it. It was custom tailored to emphasize his build and accommodate his height. He wore a bright white shirt with a skinny black tie. His shoes were long and pointy. He slicked back his hair into a ponytail. He really knew how to put himself together.
Lydia had to take me shopping for a church appropriate dress. Nothing in my closet fit properly, or more realistically, I wasn’t willing to wear what I had in my closet. I need to clean that thing out. My dress was a pale sky blue with tiny red bows printed as a pattern. It had a sweetheart neckline, cap sleeves, and a full skirt. At the time, I thought the dress was overly retro, too nineteen fifties. Standing next to Ares it seemed more like we organized our outfits than the happy stylish accident it was.
The girls were fluff balls of pink. Miss Angie had gotten them matching tutu dresses. With their blonde hair in pigtails, they were little pixies darting around. In typical Richard fashion, he called to change plans, usually he was late, this time it was to let me know he would be picking the girls up even earlier. He knew we had plans to have breakfast with Ares, this was just a power play to mess with me. Basically, he made it so that I had just enough time to give the girls cereal for breakfast before we should expect him.
The girls and I waited outside for their father when Ares pulled in.
“Waiting for me?” he asked as he slid from behind the wheel.
I shook my head. The frown I had for my ex disappeared as soon as Ares arrived. “Their father decided the Easter Bunny would arrive early this year. He’s picking the girls up for an egg hunt before they go to church with Miss Angie.” I failed at keeping the bitter tone at bay.
“Oh.” A flash of anger danced across his features and he let out a heavy exhale through his nose. He returned to his car and came back with two boxes wrapped with bows.
“Hey girls,” he called out. “I have something I want to give you before your father picks you up.”
They clamored up to him without regard to their fancy dresses. I bit my mouth shut and offered up a prayer the dresses would survive until Miss Angie got them to church to show off.
Ares squatted down to their level and handed them each a box. They opened the boxes with ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs.’
The special gifts he had were elaborately painted eggs his sister send him. Each egg was slightly bigger than a chicken egg— maybe goose eggs. They were covered in fine geometric designs in green, red, and orange, with lines in yellow and white dots. The designs on each egg were intricate, lace-like, and delicate against a black background.
He described what the eggs were as they opened their boxes. “These are called pysanka. My sister Maria made them.”
“You don’t have a sister,” Bree said. She was at the age where if she couldn’t see a person, she didn’t believe they were real, unless it was Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, or mermaids. But real people, like sisters or aunts, they didn’t exist.
“I have two sisters. Would you believe I’m the baby brother?” Ares laughed. He pulled the girls into his arms so he could show them their eggs.
“Pysanka are a special Ukrainian Easter Egg my sister learned to make when she got married. They are very special, so I asked her to please make two special ones for two special little girls.”
This made the girls giggle in delight.
I couldn’t tell who was more taken, Ares with my children, or my children with him. I thought my heart would burst watching the three of them. The girls asked questions that anyone else would brush off. But there he was, crouched down in a good suit in my front yard with them leaning on him just too talk. I should have taken a picture.
They asked what Ukrainian was. He explained how it used to be part of Russia. They asked if his sister was in Russia. He said no, she was in Seattle. They asked where Seattle was. They asked how his sister painted the eggs. He explained everything calmly, and said he really didn’t know how she made the eggs so pretty. She had shown him once, and it involved a strange looking pen and painting with wax and dipping the egg in dye.
“Just like making eggs for the Easter Bunny?”
He agreed, “Just like making eggs for the Easter Bunny but fancier.”
The eggs were strung on gossamer ribbon, to be hung like ornaments. Bree wanted to wear hers as a necklace, but I nixed that idea. I said they were too special and too fragile to be worn. I quickly retrieved the eggs when Richard pulled in.
I didn’t want to give him any reason to talk to me beyond what time I could expect the girls home this afternoon. And he really didn’t need a reason to talk to Ares. He already owed Ares money for doing the yard work, and that irritated Richard no end. Richard felt he could comment on the state of the yard every chance he got. Even though Ares had only mowed the yard twice so far, he did other little things that made the yard so much better.
Richard’s animosity toward me and direct hostility toward Ares were palpable once he got out of his car. I saw Ares tighten his shoulders in reaction to Richard. I knew Ares had a temper. He told me of some instances he was not proud of. Some he had gotten into serious trouble for. More than just a bar fight or two. He didn’t want to hide them from me, he said I needed to know certain things about him. Richard just wanted to be considered a bad-ass. In reality he was just an ass, and a bully. I had no idea if I could really trust the two of them not to come to blows for the brief moment, I went to put the eggs inside. Yes, I was that paranoid. It was a nice day. I wanted it to stay a nice day, that usually meant something would go wrong.
Ares was still hunkered down in front of the girls when I came back out. Richard was bridling. His barbs fell on def ears, his bolstering was ignored. Richard’s ego was being severely bruised since the girls paid more attention to Ares than himself. He would have to get over it. And he needed to shut up.
Ares’s eyes were closed, it looked like he focused on his breathing. I could see tension held in his shoulders. Richard was looking to pick a fight. Ares was working on making sure that didn’t happen.
Richard would have his daughter’s attention as long as he stayed with them today. Richard’s problem was he didn’t spend time with his children when it was his time to do so. I knew Richard could be charming and charismatic if he wanted to, he just chose not to be with his children. Ares on the other hand was naturally charming, and spent time with the girls whenever he was over, and they were home. As a result, they fawned on him in return.
Richard never really had “daddy magic.” That unidentifiable essence that makes everything right because daddy was there. Richard really hadn’t been present as a daddy even before the divorce. He certainly seemed okay enough to being a father when it came to making the babies, he just never engaged once he had.
Ares was completely engaged with my children, and was building some serious daddy quality magic with both girls, and with me.
After the girls left, we ate our breakfast then Ares drove into town and pulled into Centennial Park. He found a semi-secluded area under a lot of trees, and away from the duck pond and path. He led me into the small open area.
“Ares, this isn’t church, this is the park.”
He held his arms out and turned in a circle. “This is my church. Nature.”
“Oh, I thought you meant church-church. If you meant communing with nature, why are we dressed up?” I was confused.
“I dressed up for breakfast with you and Cassidy and Bree. I usually work late Saturday nights, church and playing gigs
don’t mix well.”
“You mean church and your hedonistic lifestyle don’t mix well?”
“That too,” he grinned at me. “I haven’t been to church in years, since,” he paused thinking. “Since Ryan’s christening. We should totally go.”
“What?” He clearly surprised me.
“We should go to church. It’s something neither of us do, we could do it together. As you said we are all dressed up for it.” He pulled out his phone and began searching for a church.
Service was long and hot and full of opulence. I never was much of a church goer, and never to anything as ornate as this, and this wasn’t even a Catholic Mass. Originally I thought we were going to a Catholic Mass, but it turned out the Cathedral wasn’t Catholic. It was Episcopalian. Mom and Dad are Lutheran, and Miss Angie is Southern Baptist, the big-box church kind, jumbo-trons and stage shows. Neither had services that lasted so long, well maybe Miss Angie’s church did but they always had light shows and smoke machines. Richard and I had gone to the big Baptist church for a bit, but I stopped just before Cassidy was born. It was too big for me. I grew up in small congregations without lights and projector screens. I currently didn’t do church. I just didn’t feel the need to go to church for that spiritual connection.
I followed Ares, who seemed to know when to stand, when to sit, when to kneel and when to pray out loud. He either grew up doing this, or he read the cues from those around us better than I did. I found my mind drifting and during the sermon I played compare and contrast daddy skills. In the end I decided that Richard had none. Of course, Richard was the girls’ biological father, their sperm donor. The girls called him ‘Father,’ and not ‘Daddy.’ Ares would make a great daddy. That thought took me down the path to the can of worms called love. Was I ready to open that can and admit I was in love with him? Was I? I was totally smitten, completely infatuated. That was his goal wasn’t it? To see if we could fall in love and be companionable and compatible. Could I admit it to myself? Did he love me? Did he love my girls? Was he more in love with them than with me? Would he still have his daddy quality magic if… I couldn’t even think about the possibility of the M word. I had just fully realized I could accept the L word.
Ballad Ares Page 9