by Liz Crowe
“Goddamn it,” she yelped, jumping up and jerking him into her arms so he wouldn’t step into the mess of glass. “Shit,” she muttered, as he struggled to get down, parroting her curse words in a way only he could, guaranteed to piss her off. “Hush, Cole. Just hush. I’m gonna put you in the shower so I can clean this up.”
She carried him as he flailed and protested, knowing the shower would calm him, even though he’d be without his beloved tub toys now that they were packed away for the move. He hollered when she stripped him out of his filthy Batman costume and lifted him into the tub—their last time having this particular confrontation in this space, she mused.
When she wrenched on the shower water, he kept up his protests until she got the water temp correct, then he stood there, glowering at her, the water sluicing off his skin. His tone was so perfect—darker than hers, a bit lighter than his father’s. Somewhere between a rich nutty brown and light mocha. She used to love to kiss it when he was a baby, to press her nose into the fold of his arm or behind his knee, taking in the amazing purity of his existence.
“Don’t like Mama,” he said, snapping her out of her haze.
“Really, well, that’s cool with me. Stay here,” she warned. “I’ve gotta clean up that mess.”
“Sorry,” he muttered, looking down, letting the water hit his tightly curled hair. She crouched down and met his eyes.
“This is going to be fine, Cole. You’ll make new friends. We’ll have a bigger apartment. Mama will have her real job.”
He smiled. Her heart lifted as it always did. “Singing?” he asked. “Mama gets to sing like on the TV?”
“No, sweetie. Not like that. I’m going to teach kids to sing. Big kids, in high school.”
“Oh,” he said, losing interest. “Okay.”
She handed him the thin sliver of soap she’d left out for the purposes of their last showers here then jerked the shower curtain closed. The place she’d found had actual doors on the shower in the bathroom Cole would use. It was twice the size of this dump. A condo, actually, rented to her by a doctor somehow related to her new boss, Kieran Love, Principal. Rented to her for half its real value, as she learned after researching prices.
It took her a while to clean up, since she’d packed away the vacuum somewhere and didn’t feel like rooting around to find it. But it got done and she bagged up the garbage, setting it by the door so she could run it to the dumpster before bed. She flopped onto the couch and looked around, appraising her looming major life change. She’d rented this place while married to Cole’s father and could recall their first nights here, screwing their way through every room.
She shivered, recalling him, reluctantly—his lips and hands and body, the way he’d made her feel loved and treasured in his arms. Until she’d discovered he liked doing that for plenty of other women as well, even while she’d been recovering from Cole’s delivery.
Closing her eyes, she let herself have the good parts of those memories—the sweet kisses, the urgent groping, and the never-ending urge to get at him, to have him on her, inside her, all over her. Her skin tingled as she shifted on the couch, legit horny for the first time in what felt like years. Her nipples hardened painfully under the ragged sports bra she’d had on for two straight days of packing. The familiar, melty sensation in her lower belly made her sigh and drop back, too tired to try to alleviate it herself.
She must have fallen asleep because the next thing she knew, Cole was beside her, already in the PJs they’d left out for him, clutching a book and poking her arm to wake her. She smiled and stretched then pulled him close, burying her face in his damp hair a few seconds before opening the book and reciting one of his favorite stories from memory as he turned the pages for her.
Chapter Six
Terry let his bike idle at a large intersection he didn’t recall, studying the traffic to-ing and fro-ing between two large strip malls, one anchored by a Target store, the other by a Best Buy.
Lord what he wouldn’t have given for this kind of shopping when he’d been growing up in this two-bit town, he mused, noting the many expensive SUVs and minivans, and the almost as many attractive young women, most of them hauling little kids around.
A light beep of a horn behind him made him startle. He waved an apology before roaring on through the light, headed for the heart of downtown Lucasville. His hometown, where his father managed the hometown bank and his mother had died of hometown cancer thanks to her addiction to cigs. Where he and his brother had grown up—happy, well-funded, oblivious to the tragedy that was lying in wait.
No. Terry, drop it. Don’t go there.
He gritted his teeth, and his heart sped up ever so slightly as he rounded the big curve and drove down the hill onto Main Street. The familiar sight of the downtown grid gave him a surprising jolt of happiness. He took comfort in the contours of the old streets even though over half of the stores and businesses he recalled were gone, replaced with—he squinted as he drove slowly past—a wine and quiche joint? A kombucha bar? Seriously?
Seriously.
He spotted trendy-looking bookstores, coffee shops, expensive-looking clothing stores. There were a few familiars—his father’s bank hadn’t changed a lick. The Love Pub, the original brewery location where he’d hung out with two or three of the Love brothers growing up, stealing beer and generally raising hell like only those boys could. Sug’s, the ice cream parlor looked to be as sticky and perfect as ever.
When he spotted half a block allocated to a place called “Renee’s,” he grinned. He’d read about Renee Reese opening up her own place which, thanks to the massive influx of rich suburbanites with nothing better to do with their money than blow it on facials, massages, pussy waxing and hair coloring, had made her regionally famous.
He had to acknowledge a thrill of teenaged erotic memory with regard to Renee. She’d been in the class behind his, and before she’d gotten tangled up with first one, then another of the annoyingly attentive Love brothers, he’d popped her cherry, while alleviating himself of his own, pretty early in the game, he realized.
It had been messy and embarrassing until they got the hang of it. And they’d engaged in a lot of practice, getting better at it, mostly in her mother’s basement, sometimes at the Love’s pool parties.
Renee Reese.
He chuckled and zoomed past, figuring he’d have to look her up, rekindle a little fun. He hoped she hadn’t married one of the new money rich guys and now presided over a passel of kids in a McMansion built on one of the many former horse farms around the town. Or maybe she had, and that wouldn’t matter to her once she saw him again.
The sidewalks were busy, busier than he’d imagined they would be on a random late summer Tuesday mid-day. When he was growing up, most families who could manage it decamped to the lake for the summer. God knows they had, at least until it became clear that his and Quentin’s love for soccer and their abilities at the game would dominate the summer months between camps and training and travel, trying to get seen by the right college coaches.
As he puttered along, taking in all the memories that bombarded him at the sight of his many old haunts, he had to acknowledge that he was glad to be back. A shocking admission considering how he’d left—halfway through his college degree, starting on the Akron Zips top-ranked team—furious, confused, miserable and vowing never to return.
He waved at a couple of the hotter suburban ladies waiting to cross at the light, relishing their double-take at the sight of him on his Harley, complete with leather jacket, dark Ray bans, and stubbly jaw. Then he kept going, figuring he shouldn’t have the big father-son reconciliation moment at the bank, hoping there hadn’t been a lock change at his childhood house, all the while wondering if he could stand going back into the place.
Wondering if the man even still lived there, rattling around in its too-large interior all alone.
He found himself experiencing a pinch of actual nostalgia as he turned onto the dark asphalt drive in front
of the large, Georgian-style house. He should have stayed in touch. Let his father know more about his whereabouts and general condition. They were all each of them had left, after all.
He parked the Harley around the side of the house so as to perpetuate the surprise. When he put the kickstand down and hauled his duffel out of the storage compartment, he fought the urge to bolt again. Something about this place tugged at him, yet repelled him at the same time. So many memories, split fifty-fifty good and bad, although the “bad” were more like “God awful,” despite the fact of his family’s ultra-secure financial and social position.
Something he couldn’t really say for over half his friends, including his best buddy, Kieran Love. The two of them had been thick as thieves from first grade forward. But Kieran’s parents’ fortunes were dependent on the whims of the drinking and eating public, which could hardly ever be relied upon.
He’d lost touch with Kieran completely, the year his life fell apart and he’d run as fast as he could away from this place. He’d stayed that way—out of touch—which had made him a near perfect fit for Delta Force on some levels. Even though the Army preferred their Operators to be anchored by wives, kids, and stable home lives, he figured his father had made him sound good when he’d been interviewed by the assessment committee. He had minimal connections—a lone ranger, a rock, an island.
Squaring his shoulders and mentally tugging up his big boy pants even though the very sight of this house made him regress into his teenager mind on reflex, he headed up the short flight of steps. As always, the ever-present, huge concrete planters flanked the double-doored entrance. He stuck his finger down into the dirt of the one on the right, under the mailbox, smiling when he touched metal. The spare key spot, invented by his mother. Some things never change, he mused as he shook the dirt off it and replaced the tasteful summer flower arrangement he’d dislodged.
The sun came out from behind threatening gray clouds, hitting the back of his neck, making him gasp and sway, the memory of sun and heat, sand and pain, slamming into him almost as hard. He closed his eyes and put a shaking hand on the dark wood door, praying he could skip the daily migraine punishment. The world shimmered in front of him, morphing from the green of his boyhood lawn to the dull beige, the dusty browns and yellows of his years spent as a trained killer.
He’d literally left everything behind when he bolted after the funeral, heading blindly south, ending up in Georgia, crashing with an old friend, then getting up one morning and enlisting without a thought in his head as to the consequences.
“See a therapist,” Ghost had commanded him as he threw his kit into a duffel, realizing that everything he owned in the entire universe would fit into it now.
“Fuck that,” he’d quipped, tossing the bag over one shoulder, ignoring the clanging pain in his brain pan, the ache in his chest over leaving the one family he’d come to love and value—the family that had loved and valued him back.
Ghost had grabbed his arm, digging his fingertips in deep, making his point clear. Terry had ignored him. He could do that now. Ghost was no longer the boss of him.
He swallowed past the lump in his throat, and moved slowly as if to evade the twin monsters of migraine and memory, when he slid the key into the lock. After a few seconds, he realized that the thing wouldn’t turn. That the key he’d found still buried in his mother’s hidey hole, all these years after her ugly death from lung cancer, no longer fit the door of this house.
He pulled the key out, glared at it a second, then hurled it across the front yard with a curse. Dropping to his butt on the top step, he gave in to the onrushing fury, which never failed to drag the crushing head pain along for the party. Terry groaned and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, his mouth watering at the thought of his recently favored remedy for this—the warm comfort of a fifth of whiskey.
“Excuse me,” a female voice said from behind him yet from very, very far away. “Can I help…oh my God. Terry.”
Moving at glacial speed, as if his entire body was mired in quicksand, he rose, turned, and felt the muscles and tendons in his legs, hips, shoulders, and neck creak and flex even as his vision narrowed to a pinprick in self-defense against the horrific, gut churning pain in his brain.
A woman stood in the open door. A stranger, to him. But yet, familiar.
“Renee,” he grunted. “What the fuck are you…move,” he barked, shoving her aside and thundering into the cool tile foyer, past the dining room through the kitchen and to the back hall half-bath. He made it right before his stomach surrendered its contents.
Chapter Seven
When he came to, it took him a few seconds to sort out what he was staring at. But once he did, he scrambled back, wiping his dry lips and trying to wrap his aching head around how he’d managed to end up in the downstairs bathroom of his house in Kentucky.
The vivid dreams of sand, and sweat and Operator camaraderie; of heat and familiar, rough, loud voices had been so realistic he’d honestly figured on waking up back in that damn tent. His last assignment.
Delta Force didn’t live on a base. They scattered when they weren’t drilling, training, working out, surveilling bad asses, or freeing hostages in some far-flung hellhole. It was a wholly different life than the one he’d imagined for himself as a boy. Even the one he’d envisioned as a young man, in the throes of early success as a soccer stud. But he’d grown used to it in the years he’d spent as an Operator.
He missed it, badly.
He wanted it back even worse. It had a proscribed rhythm, a regimen, a set of tasks to be done every day, regardless. Not too far off his life as a star athlete being looked at by teams in Europe—real teams, plus all those hopped up nobodies in the MLS. The life he had turned away from, left voluntarily, in a fit of horrified agony.
But here he was, back home now. The last place on the planet he’d imagined for himself, a thirty-two-year-old grown-ass man, with a few thousand bucks in his pocket, an overpriced Harley in the driveway, the entire contents of his life zipped into an olive green duffle bag. Sitting on the floor of the bathroom of his house in fucking Lucasville.
He groaned, but the pain had retreated into its cage, growling and grumbling, promising a re-appearance if he didn’t keep his temper and blood pressure steady. Focusing on the toilet seat, then up to the sink, he noted that the place had been divested of his mother’s somewhat overwrought decorating style.
Gone were the lace curtains at the small window overlooking the backyard. Same for the little chair that had held goofy “Bathroom Reading” books, copies of Road and Track, and Sports Illustrated. The line of smelly candles on the windowsill was missing, as was the tall floor vase that had held a varying array of eucalyptus stalks and other dried or fake flowers. He blinked fast, clearing his vision further, taking in the cool, gray-green paint with bright white trim—sans the floral wallpaper border.
Where in the hell was he, really? He slumped against the wall, refocusing his attention on keeping his head from lurching into pain mode again. A light knock on the door forced his eyes open.
“Terry? You all right?”
Holy step-mama, he thought. That’s right. That’s what had torn it, he realized. A quick glance at his phone’s cracked screen revealed he’d been in here almost an hour.
“No,” he said, his voice croaky and dry. “I’m absolutely not. Please tell me you’re here to drop off food, or do someone’s hair, Renee. Please?”
There was no answer for a few minutes. He closed his eyes again, letting himself drift, appreciating every second of the central air conditioning hissing in through the vents.
Finally, the door opened, revealing her again. Terry stared at her feet, clad in flat, utilitarian sandals, her toenails a bright candy pink, her smooth tanned thighs uncovered up to what looked like a tennis skirt, her flat stomach, trim waist, and her full, high tits.
He rolled over to his hands and knees, attempting not to hyperventilate. By the time he’d made
it to his feet, she still stood there, chewing on her lower lip, her eyes snapping with worry and a dash of disbelief. Those lips, he thought, hauling himself up and putting a hand on the door frame. He touched her cheek. She flinched away, rubbing one bare arm.
“What are you doing here,” she whispered, putting what he saw as a purely proprietary hand on the counter—no longer dark, generic granite anymore, but a bright white manufactured-looking substance that glinted in the sunlight streaming through the large window.
“I’d ask you the same thing,” he said, shoving past her. Rude, he knew but at that moment he didn’t care. “If I didn’t know what a horny old bastard my father is.” He jerked open the door of a massive stainless steel fridge, found an expensive bottle of water lined up with a bunch of others in the aggressively tidy interior and grabbed it. He knocked back over half of it, letting some of the liquid trickle down the side of his mouth, relaxing as the hydration eased the pounding between his ears one gulp at a time.
“Terry,” she said, her elegant looking hand on her long, tanned throat. “Listen, we were going to tell—”
“No, no need. You’re grown-ups. Free to do whatever you want.” He set the bottle on the island and glanced around. “You really spruced up the old homestead. Nice work.” He grabbed her left hand and glared at the obnoxious double rings on her finger. “Landed the big one, didn’t you?”
Terry hated himself then, despised the words dropping out of his stupid mouth. But he couldn’t stop them. “Guess all those blow jobs you gave me, Dominic and Aiden Love were great practice.” He winked at her. She frowned. They stood, glaring at each other a solid minute.
“Does Mike…does your father know you’re back?”
“Nope. Thought I’d surprise the old fucker. But he won the surprise contest, no doubt about it.” He turned and started rummaging in the humongous fridge again, pulling out lunch meat, cheese, lettuce, and a bottle of mustard. After dumping everything on the island, he turned to where his mother used to store the bread, stopping when he realized that space was now occupied by a set of wall ovens. “Bread?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral.