by Joy, Dani
I always had a pad of paper and a pen in my pocket. I wrote my cell number and my e-mail down. “I’ll be there. I would be honored to be there.” I grabbed Kim’s hand. “I have a friend that plays the guitar. I’ll try to get her there too.”
Jim engulfed me in a hug and let me go. Kim took both my hand before she did the same thing. After they let me go Rand took my hand in his.
I spoke directly to Dakota’s parents. “I know that the doctor is in with him. I would like to get you some names of grief counselors. They really can help.”
Kim’s breath hitched. “We have been seeing one for a few months.” She looked to Jim. “We aren’t okay now but we will be.”
They held each other then turned back towards Dakota’s room. I nodded and let Rand lead me down the hall to my locker.
“So.” Rand started when I walked out of the changing room, “Food, clothes, dance, sex. Let’s go.”
I stared at him and started giggling.
“Woman.” He said to me.
I gigged harder. Then I laughed. “Food first. Sex last. Go, go, go!” I gave a shooing motion with my hands.
Then we left to go to get food, clothes, dance and sex.
What more could a girl ask for?
Chapter Four
I don’t know why it made me uncomfortable to let Rand in my home. Sam had insisted that I move here. She had told me that the ‘Asshole Toad’ wasn’t going to find me here.
Maybe I was leery because it really wasn’t mine. Probably because I felt that it was but I had never had a man inside before. I did let Rand pick me up there after I had changed clothes. I met him out front not going inside. He had a SUV. An older Ford Explorer. Not as old as mine. My dad, Sean, had bought mine for me when I turned sixteen just weeks before he moved out and divorced my mom, Mary.
Mom had never remarried but she had a companion, Shawn that moved in two years after the divorce. Weeks after I graduated from high school.
My dad remarried almost as soon as the ink was dry on the paperwork from my mom to his dental hygienist, Lisa that he had been having an affair with for a year.
Surprise, surprise, to her, when five years later he did the same thing.
I actually like his third wife, Gloria. Glory for short. Well maybe not her, but I adore her three kids. Shyanne, Shelby and Austin. Eleven, fourteen and seventeen respectively. I know them. I even spend a little time with all of them. Not as much as I should but life does get in the way sometimes.
Glory was smarter than the previous two wives and didn’t sleep with my father until the ink was dry on his second divorce. She also kept working in his office as his hygienist. When she wasn’t cleaning teeth she filed papers, answered phones, kept track of patients and my dad. Mostly just keeping tabs on the feel of the office. She also wouldn’t sign a pre-nuptial agreement. If he screwed around on her she was taking him to the cleaners. Her words, not mine. She made no bones about that. Got to admire a woman like that. And I did.
I walked to Rand’s car, climbed in, buckled up while apprising the interior of his car. “Nicer than my ‘Sploder’.” I shared the term for my car.
Rand grinned at me. “Burgers or sandwiches?”
“First drive thru that you come across. I’m starving.” I said on an eye roll. I was wearing a dark pink tank and jeans with dancing shoes. I could slob down the front of it and not care if it left stains. The dark would hide most of it regardless.
“Burger King it is.” He said as he started driving away. It was just outside of the complex. I ate there way too much but I really liked their Chicken Club Sandwich.
Sandwich inhaled, fries decimated then I was on the last slurp of my drink as we pulled in the parking lot. I was rethinking my choice to go dancing. I was now full and extremely tired. Not physically tired just emotionally wrung out. It had been a long day. If my muscles didn’t need to move so badly I would have backed out.
I watched Rand wipe the salt off his hands after he put the car in park. “One set. That’s all I have in me tonight.” I muttered.
He gave his cup the last slurp. “I’ll hold you to that.” He looked at me. “I’m going to ask now just so that I know. Do I take you home and leave you be after you’re done or take you home with me?”
I liked his bluntness. I also stared in his eyes. “I’m gun shy. I’m also scared out of my mind with what I want.” I took a breath. A deep one. “If you are as much as the promise of you, I want to go home with you after.”
Rand nodded. “I’ll never hurt you on purpose. That said, you need to let me know if I do it on accident.”
What he said confused me so much I felt my mouth drop open as my head cocked to the side. “What?”
“There are more ways to hurt a good woman than just to backhand her and send her to the hospital. I have five brothers. I have watched them screw up time and time again with good women, or girls as the case may be. If I say something stupid or do something stupid you need to tell me.”
I stared at him with my mouth still wide open. I closed it and shook my head from side to side. “Way too good to be true.”
He shrugged. “You need me to come open the door for you or will you bite my head off if I do?”
At that I started laughing. “Heels and short dress, I need a body block to help me out. Otherwise I can get myself out of a vehicle all on my own.”
He nodded and opened his door. I did the same and met him at the back of his car. He held out his hand and I took it. When we walked in the beat of the music came to me. My body responded. I was now glad that I had chosen to dance tonight. I needed the release that only came from letting my body go. I needed the flow and the exertion along with my love of all of it.
When I was done Rand was right there. Right in front of me. He lowered me and pulled me close. “I’m gonna kiss you.”
I didn’t give him much of a chance to do that. I leaned up and I kissed him until he didn’t let me kiss him anymore. We were kissing each other. Lips, tongues, hands and lord help me, feelings. At least on my part. When he let me come up for air I pulled in a deep breath. “I have something that I needed to do.” I said softly.
“Kiss me again?” Rand asked with a hopeful grin.
That threw me for a second. I nodded but looked around the room knowing what I was supposed to do. Then Angie bounced to me with one of the other brothers. She bounced on her toes. Literally bounced even though I saw a dark cloud somewhere in her eyes. She was always so full of life. It was one of the reasons she was so good at her day job. She and her sister owned a daycare facility together. Angie and Zoe, A to Z. Their names always made me smile. Then I remembered what I needed to do. “Angie I need your help sometime this week.” I simply blurted out.
“Give it to me girl.” She spurted out as she shifted in the brother’s hold.
“I need to sing at a memorial sometime soon. Probably a few days. Can you play for me?”
“Sure.” She answered immediately. “What song?”
I told her and she nodded. “I’ll get tabs.”
I knew that meant something to her. It meant nothing to me then the brother spoke. “I know that one. I teach music. Mind if I come too?” His hold was already possessive around her as if he was guarding her from the room, or world, at large.
I must have blinked a few too many times because Rand gave me a gentile shake. “He’s good.” Rand supplied on an arm squeeze.
“Are any of you guys for real?” I looked to Rand then the brother.
The brother shrugged. “Live or recorded. I can do acoustic or electric.” He looked at Angie. “You do acoustic right?”
“Anything else sucks.” She said on a smile that looked forced to me.
He smiled back at her. “We’ll give it a go and then call you in for practice. Any idea when?”
“He died today.” I said remotely. Not from emotion of the day just from the shock that I would have that much support that quickly. “I’m thinking Tuesday or Wednesday. I don’
t think that they would hold a memorial until the weekend.”
The brother nodded. “We’ll have it together by Sunday. Angie will give you a call for a run through.”
Rand had curled me up into his side and the brother waved and led my friend away.
“I should probably know his name.” I looked up at Rand.
He quirked a grin. “Brayden. Bray to those of us who can kick his ass.”
“Um,” I started, “I don’t think that I could kiss his ass.”
“Sure you could. Did you see that hair? All you have to do is grab it and give it a good yank. He has a soft head. Took him down every time that way.” He smiled at me. “It’s shorter now though. Might take a bit more,”
Bray’s hair was long compared to the rest of the brothers but it wasn’t as long as mine. It was in messy chunks that fell artfully around his neck and shoulders. I couldn’t help but ask. “How long was it?”
“Middle of his back when he opened his studio.”
I lifted one eyebrow.
“He went on a gig with some buddies. Got screaming drunk and passed out. They thought it would be funny to duct tape him to a pole. They wrapped his hair up in a ponytail as well.” Rand chuckled. “Like I said he has a soft head. Couldn’t take pulling the tape off. He cut it with a pocket knife. Learned his lesson.”
“That lesson would that be exactly?”
“Don’t drink the worm.”
I giggled when I saw him lift Angie over his shoulder. He walked towards the door and the two of them left.
Chapter Five
Rand let us in his condo closing and locking the door. I stood watching him as he leaned against the door. Legs wide, hands loose against his side. I cocked my head to the side. I didn’t know him well enough to understand the posture. I would have tossed my purse to the nearest flat surface if I had just walked in my home but I didn’t have one with me. I didn’t even have my backpack as a security blanket. I wanted to cross my arms over my chest but I didn’t want to take a defensive stance so I stood almost exactly like him except without the leaning against something. To do that I would have to find a vertical flat surface and that was taken. I had one of two choices. Stand there looking like an idiot or walk towards him. I chose the latter of the two. I got about two feet away when Rand closed his eyes.
“Thank God.” He reached out for me and pulled me close. He just held me. He held me tight but he just held me. His arms around my waist and his face in my neck.
I still had no idea what he was about but he felt good. I wrapped my arms around him too. I found my face in his neck and moved it down to his chest. That felt even better. I took a deep breath. Then I took another. Then I took a calming breath and relaxed into him. When I say that I relaxed I mean that all of me relaxed. Not just my body but my mind as well. I breathed in the scent of him feeling him hold me strong. As if he could be the rock that would hold me up and make me strong.
My mom and dad met a few years after dad had started his dental practice. Mom worked as his hygienist until she had me. Then she decided to stay home to raise me. Great for me. Bad for them. When I went to school mom was always at the school. Bake sales, carnivals, reading groups. Everything that she could do, she did. She excelled at all of it. I think that she thrived at it. She was super busy, as in, too busy for me and my dad with all that she did at the school.
I think that dad didn’t sign up for kid duty. He had a kid and left his wife at home to do the raising while he went to work to find his next conquest. He came home after work expecting dinner on the table. Not a wife that was on the telephone doing fundraisers or baking thirty dozen cookies, not dinner.
Mom was surprised to come home and find all of dad’s stuff at his mistress’s house and me with a car to do what I wanted. He gave her child support for two years and me a large allowance to make up for him not being there. His way of atonement, I think.
I signed up for classes and had my CNA before I was eighteen. The day I turned eighteen I was hired at the nursing facility that I had done rotations at. Changing briefs wasn’t my ideal job but it was a start.
American dysfunction at its best was what my family had.
I pressed closer to Rand. He felt so right. Right enough that I felt content for the first time in a long time.
He held me tighter. Then he asked. “You sleep in one of my shirts or naked?”
“Shirt.” I answered to his chest.
“You going to let me go,” He asked my hair, “So I can get you one of my shirts?”
“You keep doing things out of order.” I said with my mouth still against his chest.
“What do you mean?”
“You said when we left the hospital that we were getting food then clothes. We ended up getting clothes then food. Then you said dancing and sex. Now you are saying sleep. That wasn’t even on the list.” I grinned up at him.
He grinned back at me. “We’re young. We got lots of time to get around to sex. I also wanted to make you smile earlier. Talking about sex makes everyone smile.” He got me turned and was leading me further towards his bedroom. “I also saw how much the last couple of days has taken out of you with Dakota. Much less the dancing that you did. Sleep is probably more important right now.”
Unfortunately he was right so I told him that. “You’re right. I feel dead on my feet.”
He walked me to his room then closed the door. He then walked over to his dresser and pulled out one huge shirt and put it in my hands. At one time I’m sure that it was red. Now it wasn’t even close to red it was so faded. It was extremely soft though. He motioned to the open door. “That’s the bathroom. It has a door from the hallway but I always keep that one locked.”
I wanted to ask why he kept that one locked. He seemed to live alone. He barely had enough furnishings to cover one person living there much less two. The whole place screamed rental. White walls, tan carpet, three bar stools at the counter in the kitchen. One couch with a huge flat screen TV in the other room. His bedroom wasn’t much more. Big bed, one dresser, one night stand with shoes lined up against the wall. No pictures. No knick knacks. Nothing that stated that he lived here.
I walked in the bathroom noting more of the same nothingness. More tan but in tile form this time. A toilet, shower stall and hamper that was overflowing with clothes and towels. I used the facilities then washed my face. When I walked out I took my folded clothes with me and put them on top of his four drawer dresser. He walked past me and closed the door. He had changed into a pair of what I assumed was once sweat pants that the legs had been hack off at his thighs. They were faded and frayed so I knew the hack job was done a while ago. His bed was made, sort of. It was made by just tossing the quilt up so that it was messy. It was the first sign that somebody lived here, not just existed in the space.
Maybe I was wrong though. He may not have cared enough to make the bed. Maybe it was just a man thing. You know the kind of thing that says ‘why make it when I just have to unmake it again’. I hadn’t know him long enough to make that call.
I, on the other hand, liked my bed made so that the sheets weren’t crumpled when I climbed back in. So I did what I always do. I made the bed. I was straightening the quilt when he came back out. When he saw what I was doing he burst out laughing. “Babe we’re just going to climb back in it. It’ll be messy again in about two minutes.”
Well that answered that question all on its own.
Which I should have known the answer to when I started making the bed. It only had a fitted sheet and a quilt. The quilt was heavy and looked hand made. The bottom of it was flannel so I guess he did have a top sheet just not in the traditional sense. I shrugged at him. “Habit. If I wanted to keep my mom out of my bedroom I learned to make my bed. I also learned to wash my own clothes, for the same reason, at an early age.”
“Well then that makes you about a hundred times smarter than me. I on the other hand learned how to hide the girly magazines where my mom couldn’t find them when sh
e did come in my room.”
One thing I had learned from my mom was that you didn’t actually hide things from them. They knew what you were up to even if you thought that you were hiding it. I looked at him and raised one eyebrow. “If your mom was anything like mine she knew exactly what you had, where you hid them. And,” I added, “She probably also knew what and where you did, what you did, when you looked at them.”
“Seven men and one woman in the house. I was the youngest. I’m pretty sure she was tired of knowing what and where we did, what we did.”
Again I shared. “You being the youngest made her check on you the most.”
At his horrified expression I shared further. “I just finished a psych class. The professor has four sons. She shared that little bit of knowledge with us about two weeks in to the class.”
Rand visibly shuttered.
“She has a husband and four boys. I’m betting she knows better than most how the male anatomy and psyche works.”
“Okay woman, quit sharing. If you don’t I will have to go back to sex because sleep ain’t going to be happening soon.”
I giggled. “The professor also shared…”
I went down on the bed still giggling but with Rand on top of me. “Quiet.” He said with a smile and he found a way to quiet me. His lips were soft on mine and the moved from lip to lip and back again. I sighed and kissed him the same way. When his tongue touched my lip I opened my mouth to touch mine back to his. He was off to the side of me with one leg between mine. I lifted my one knee that was free and wrapped it around his ass. My foot resting against the back of his thigh. He was on one elbow with his other hand against my hip.
“I’m not so tired now.” I whispered to him. My hands were roaming against his chest. Exploring. He was defined but not overly so. More in a runner or swimmer type of defined muscle rather than body builder type of muscle.
He pulled his head back and searched my face. “We have time Terra. Plenty of it.”
“Yes we do.” I helped him out when I put my hand against his at my hip and pulled the t-shirt out from under his hand. I moved it up my side just under my breast. “I don’t have to be to work for the next three days.” Then I lifted my head and gave him a kiss.