I turned on my phone, went to All Photos and found a picture of Brooks that I took. I turned it around to show Margot.
“That’s him a few months ago. I’ll have to pull up Addie’s texts to get one that’s more recent. But I love that photo. It’s my favorite of him. He’s been a goof since birth and he’s being a goof in that picture.”
He was, giggling so much his chubby pink cheeks took over his eyes so all he looked like was pink cheeks, pink mouth, pink gums and blond baby fuzz.
Her shimmery-bronze tipped fingers came out and snatched my phone out of my hand.
“My, oh my, look at this child. He’s adorable.” Her head turned to Dave. “David, my love, find a waiter and get me a martini. I don’t know what’s taking them so long but Izzy is going to get a bad impression of The Star if they don’t sort themselves out.” She looked back to my phone and went on like she hadn’t interrupted her compliments to my nephew by giving her husband another order. “You could just eat him up with a spoon,” she cooed.
I started giggling.
I stopped giggling when Johnny rested an arm behind us on the booth.
Uninvited, Margot started flipping through the photos on my phone by sliding her finger across the screen.
“I see your horses. They’re gorgeous. And this cat is so sweet. Now who’s this? Is this your sister’s husband?”
She turned the phone around and showed me a picture of Kent.
I instantly tensed.
Johnny instantly tensed beside me.
“No,” I forced out.
“So, your brother?” she asked, shaking my phone side to side in front of me. “Do you have a brother?”
“No,” I pushed out.
“Margot,” Johnny rumbled at the same time Dave said the same thing.
Her face changed, her hand with my phone moved back slowly, and she whispered a disappointed, “Oh.”
I didn’t like her disappointment or her face falling so I stated quickly, “That’s Kent. My ex.”
This was not a good move.
Not in the slightest.
And it was only going to get worse.
She brightened but looked to me and asked, “If he’s your ex, darlin’, why do you keep his picture? I always say, if you’re movin’ on, move ’em out, leave ’em in your dust and start with a blank slate.”
This seemed not only directed at me, but even if her eyes didn’t slide to Johnny like they had when I talked about my animals, it was not lost on anyone it was mostly directed at someone else.
“Margot,” Dave growled, and Johnny shifted uncomfortably beside me.
But in order to comfort me, he wrapped his hand around the back of my neck.
Which did not comfort me at all.
“Well, I—” I began.
“Do you want me to delete it?” she asked helpfully, finger poised.
“Margot,” Dave clipped.
“No!” I cried.
A death pall spread over the table.
“I can’t delete it. It’s evidence,” I said swiftly and felt something else spreading over the table, coming from all directions, but especially Johnny.
I’d started it and from the avid attention I was getting from all quarters, I had no choice but to carry on with it.
“The police told me to save it. That milk glass he’s holding was my mother’s. Actually my grandmother’s. He broke in, stole it, sent me that picture and then sent me the next one where he’d smashed it.”
Woodenly, Margot shifted the picture to the next one and I watched her face pale.
“I should have put it on my cloud but I haven’t gotten around to it. But, um . . . he’s a big reason I moved to Matlock,” I finished weakly.
As I spoke, all the time I spoke, Johnny’s hand on my neck got tighter and tighter . . .
And tighter.
“Evidence,” Margot whispered, staring at my phone.
“He kind of didn’t want me to break up with him,” I told her.
“Oh, child,” Dave murmured.
But Margot’s eyes narrowed.
On me.
“What else did he do to you?” she snapped.
“Excuse us,” Johnny growled.
And they had no choice but to excuse us because Johnny was out of the booth and his hand capturing mine and dragging me meant I had to get out of the booth too.
Once I made my feet, he twisted our hands so they were held tucked to the side of his chest, which meant I had no choice but to be tucked tight to his side as he marched me out of the restaurant, straight out the front door, down the walk to the far side of the front where he whipped me around. He let my hand go, put his to my belly, shoved me against the clapboard and moved in so the rest of the world disappeared and the whole of mine became Johnny.
He then made a noise that I’d never heard come from any human before, a low, rolling, reverberating, hushed—what could only be described as—roar.
My eyes drifted up his throat to his just as he bit out, “Kent?”
“Did you just drag me out of a restaurant?” I whispered.
“Your ex broke into your house to steal something that meant something to you just so he could destroy it?”
I turned my head to look down the path and ascertained for myself that he did, indeed, just drag me out of a restaurant because there I was.
Outside the restaurant.
“Look at me, Izzy.”
My eyes snapped back to his at the unerring command in his tone.
“Why didn’t you tell me that shit?” he demanded.
“I—”
“Are you safe now?”
“Well—”
“You said the cops know. Did they do something about this fuck?”
“It’s a little—”
“Do these friends know? The ones you say live close to you.”
He was in such a state, I couldn’t stop myself.
I arched into him, putting the fingers of both my hands to both of his bristly cheeks, and whispered, “Johnny.”
A blaze of black fire continued to sear me for a moment before his eyes closed.
They opened and he asked a lot less terse now, “Did he hurt you?”
I dropped my hands from his face.
“He was just a nuisance.”
“A nuisance doesn’t break into your house and steal shit from you. A psycho does that.”
I decided against telling him he’d broken down my door to steal Dempsey.
Or any of the other stuff.
“The cops know. I have a restraining order against him. Deanna and Charlie also know. The last time I saw him, Charlie was in my doorway with a baseball bat explaining that if I saw him again, Charlie would cave his head in with that bat. I think he took Charlie at his word, which is good because I have a feeling Charlie was serious and I don’t want him in trouble. But I haven’t seen or heard from Kent since. I’m not even sure he knows where I live. It’s been months. It’s over.”
Johnny stared into my eyes before he looked at the clapboard over my head.
“It’s very sweet you’re concerned but—”
His gaze cut down to mine and he interrupted me.
Shockingly.
And breathtakingly.
“You look good. You smell good. That dress is so fucking hot I want to haul you around to the back, shove the skirt up, rip your panties off and fuck you against The Star.”
My mouth dropped open.
Johnny wasn’t done.
“Eat dinner beside you knowin’ you can’t put on your torn, useless fucking panties and I’ll keep them in my pocket while you eat steak that isn’t half as good as the one I made you, sitting beside me feeling thoroughly fucked.”
“Johnny,” I breathed, not right then feeling thoroughly fucked, alas, but definitely suddenly thoroughly wet.
“I thought I’d give it some time and come back, build something different with you, but I’m not thinking this friend thing is gonna work, Iz.”
“Please don’t say that,” I begged.
His forehead came to mine, one hand went high on the wall beside me and his other hand slid down my side over the ruched, soft, stretchy white fabric of my dress that skimmed my figure from neck to knee, had no sleeves and even I had wondered if it was too sexy to wear to work (guess I had my answer).
“He comes back, you call the cops then your next call is me,” he ordered.
“I can’t promise that. Charlie already made me promise my next call would be him.”
“Then you call this Charlie guy and then you call me.”
“He won’t come back, Johnny,” I assured.
“You call the cops, Charlie and me. Say it, Izzy.”
I stared up close into his eyes.
“I call the cops, Charlie then you, Johnny.”
He didn’t move.
I didn’t either.
But eventually my mouth did.
“Is she back?”
“Oh no. Hell no.” His forehead rolled on mine as he underlined a negative I thought I understood, but when he went on I would find I did not. “She doesn’t get this. She doesn’t get us. We’ve talked about her all we’re ever gonna talk about her. She doesn’t get to be a part of whatever it is that’s gonna be the me and you we become.”
My breath caught.
What did that mean?
“How’re the dogs?” he asked.
“They’re good,” I forced out.
“The horses?”
“Good.”
“Wesley still singing?”
He was killing me.
I nodded.
“Good, baby,” he whispered, his gaze no longer focused on mine.
It had dropped to my mouth.
Oh God, he was going to kiss me.
Oh God, I was going to kiss him!
This couldn’t happen.
I wanted it, boy did I want it.
But it took a huge effort of will to survive it ending after two breakfasts, two dinners, one telephone conversation, one text exchange and lots of sex.
If there was kissing, more sex or more anything like that, I might not.
We needed to be friends.
We could not be lovers.
“Oh shit, son, sorry.” Both our heads turned (and I will note they did this without our foreheads disconnecting) to see Dave walking backward, hands up. “Could see you were shaken up at gettin’ that news about Izzy. Margot could too. She sent me out to check on you but now I’ve done that and you two look like you’re, um . . . good. You, uh . . . just get back to what you were doing.”
Johnny made another noise, kind of like his subdued roar of earlier, but this one was not indication of enraged fury but instead indication of enraged frustration.
After making it, he lifted his forehead from mine and called, “We’re coming back in, Dave. Tell Margot it’s good and I hope you all ordered the mushrooms.”
“Got you a beer, boy, mushrooms ordered, just take your time,” Dave replied, moving sprightly back to the front doors and through them.
There was a couple standing outside the doors, both looking our way.
“Hey, uh . . . Johnny,” the man called.
“Trev,” Johnny returned and it sounded like a grunt, a loud one that carried, but a grunt nonetheless.
The woman Trev was with gave a hesitant wave.
Johnny ignored her.
I waved hesitantly back.
That got me a hesitant smile.
I hesitantly smiled back.
“Babe,” Johnny clipped.
I looked back to him to see that he might have lifted his forehead but he was still close.
“That’s Francine and she’s the biggest mouth in Matlock,” he shared.
“Oh dear,” I murmured.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “She’s good people but good people with a big damned mouth.”
“Hmm,” I mumbled not wanting to be the talk of the town linked with Johnny when Shandra came back (if she wasn’t already).
“I’m thinking we need another conversation about where shit’s at with us,” he declared.
Oh my.
“Johnny, it’s the man you are to be protective but don’t let what happened with Kent color where we—”
“Kent is whatever the fuck Kent is. That dress is why we need another conversation.”
It really should be noted that I liked how much he liked my dress.
Even noted, I shouldn’t and furthermore, couldn’t.
I needed to tell him where I was with this.
“I’m not sure I can do just sex,” I whispered.
“Right,” he muttered.
I kept whispering. “I could do just friends.”
“Right,” he repeated.
“So maybe you can unpin me from the wall and we can go have dinner with Margot and Dave,” I suggested.
His hand that was resting on my hip slid up and I thought it would slide up but it only got to my waist before he squeezed in, let me go and moved away.
I guessed he was going to make a stab at being friends.
That devastated me.
It shouldn’t.
That didn’t change the fact that it did.
But he caught my hand and held it as he led me back to the table, and I found it odd as just friends that Johnny held my hand and when we were lovers, he hadn’t.
He stood solicitous to the side as he let me scoot in and he followed me immediately, but Margot wasn’t wasting a second.
“Do you have the situation with this unsavory ex-boyfriend of Izzy’s in hand, Johnathon?”
“It’s in hand, Margot. Izzy has it sorted and we have an arrangement if something comes up. So you can chill,” Johnny replied.
Her irate eyes turned to me. “I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve shared with Johnathon and his brother Tobias that I have not, do not, and never will chill. If a woman is upset they should listen and assure her and do whatever they can to sort the situation that’s troubling her. Not simply tell her to chill.”
“I do kind of have it sorted, Margot,” I shared.
“Kind of is not sorted, Eliza,” she retorted in a tone that made me fight back laughter, because she sounded like she’d known me all my life, not maybe twenty minutes, and she had the right to boss me around.
“Well, Kent’s proved to be a guy who does what he’s going to do but now I’m calling Johnny should he do more of it, so I think I’ll be all right, don’t you?” I assured her, not adding the cops and Charlie because I got the impression she thought Johnny could handle just about anything and that would help her to chill.
“Well then,” she huffed, reaching to her martini glass that was nearly frosted the liquid was so chilled and had three big fat olives in it, making me wish I wasn’t driving so I could have a martini. In that moment I sure the heck needed one. “I see it’s actually sorted so fine.”
“Is that vodka or gin?” I asked, reaching for my wine.
“Vodka,” she answered.
“If you like flavored vodkas, I make them and they’re really yummy. If you want to try them, I’ll bottle some and get them to you.”
She took a sip with her eyes on me the entire time I talked, and when I was done she slid my phone across the table to me with one hand, the other hand swinging her martini to the side like I would imagine a sultry bombshell from the sixties would do the same thing.
Except cooler.
“Then it’s good I already programmed myself into your phone. I also called myself so I have your number. So there’ll be no delay in you phoning me to invite me over for a vodka tasting.”
I hadn’t invited her for a vodka tasting but I didn’t share that because I loved the idea of doing that. Deanna would too. And she’d think Margot was a hoot.
“I’ll set that up right away,” I said.
“Excellent,” she answered, lifting her glass to me.
I lifted mine to her and we both took a sip.
“That
right there, Johnny boy, you witnessed it. Your girl here accidentally just participated in the ritual that enters her right into the coven,” Dave declared.
Johnny chuckled.
Margot sliced narrowed eyes to her husband. “I wish you’d stop referring to my circle as ‘the coven,’” she stated.
He bent his face to hers with a smile on his. “The voodoo that you do, sweetheart, I’ve been addicted to for forty-eight years. That wasn’t an insult. But I’ve been a man bewitched for nearly five decades. Johnny here hasn’t even lived that long, so it was a warning. And you and me both know that when that voodoo you do spreads to your acolytes, he needs that.”
Johnny draped his arm across the booth again.
I felt a tingle again.
I also sighed.
Margot’s face softened as she looked into her husband’s eyes.
The waiter arrived at our table with the mushrooms.
Margot looked to him. “Well, finally.”
I giggled.
Johnny’s hand curled around the back of my neck again.
I let out another sigh.
Margot looked to me. “Now, Eliza, do tell me where you got that dress and those shoes, because I’m thinking we’ll go shopping at these places first and then return to your home to taste vodkas. Don’t worry. Dave is a very experienced designated driver. He comes to pick me up after a lot of coven activities, his way of referencing them, not mine. So we can be thorough in our sampling.”
I grinned at her.
She grinned back, her blue eyes sparkling.
Johnny reached for the mushrooms and served me first, pushing four of them on my appetizer plate, before he handed them to Dave who pushed four of them on Margot’s, and only then did he take some for himself then hand the remainder to Johnny.
I reached for my fork.
And made plans to go shopping and drink vodka with the only woman who’d been a mother to Johnny Gamble.
More Importantly
Izzy
“LET ME GET this straight,” Deanna said.
It was the next morning at work, and I wasn’t certain I wanted to let her get this straight. Whenever Deanna performed the lengthy process of “getting something straight,” that something emerged in logical clarity your illogical mind refused to allow it to have until she’d straightened it out, and sometimes that wasn’t a good thing.
I had the feeling if she got this particular thing straight, that being what happened the night before with Johnny, it would absolutely not be a good thing.
The Hookup Page 12