“Fine, but could you let go of me now? I’m going to take a shower,” My heart speeds up and quickly calms down all in a span of a few seconds. I remind myself that she’s not going anywhere; she wouldn’t do that to me. But a small part of me still fears it.
I watch her take her leave of me, closing the door gently behind her. My parents are still downstairs somewhere, probably ordering takeout for tonight and discussing my new girlfriend. The cellphone in my hand buzzes and I look down at it. Carl’s face pops up onto the screen with a goofy grin, and I can’t help but grin back. I slide the phone to answer it and put it up to my ear.
“What’s up?” I greet him, sitting down on my bed with an arm slung across my leg.
“Just wanted to know when you were going to get back in here, I’ve got clients lining up wanting to see their drawings and new ones who want to know where you’re at.” Carl sounds flustered, and I imagine it’s because his best apprentice and receptionist are both MIA.
“Carl, I’m at my parents,” I try to tell him in explanation. There’s a silence on the other end of the phone.
“Do you need me to come get you? Are they holding you hostage in the basement? Say my last name for yes, do you remember my last name? You can answer yes or no to that.” I chuckle at his joking, at least, I hope he’s joking.
“No, Carl, I’m here of my own free will. For now,” I glance at the door and up at my ceiling. There’s a poster of a voluptuous girl covered in tattoos up there. I’d better take that down before Daisy comes back in.
“So what you’re telling me is that two of my employees are an hour away from work,” he trails off and I sigh on my end of the phone, pinching the bridge of my nose as I close my eyes.
“Yeah, and we’re not coming back for at least a week.” I listen to the silence greeting me again and wonder if Carl has hung up. “I’ll understand if you have to find a few more employees, Carl.” I explain to him, meaning it. I might fire some of my employees too if they told me they were going to take a week’s vacation without notice.
“Fire you? I didn’t fire you when you broke the rule of humping the clients. From what I recall there’re several occasions that happened with one particular client. I didn’t fire you when you broke the dating an employee rule, although I guess you were dating her before you got her a job. So part of that’s my fault. I didn’t fire you-”
“Alright, alright, I get it. I’m not fired. Look, I can redo some of the drawings and e-mail you the pictures when I’m finished. I just can’t reach my hand through the computer and do the actual tattoos yet,” Carl is silent again, and I wonder if it’s going to be like this entire conversation.
“Good, do that, and I’ll just hold the vultures off until you get back, kid.” There’s his usual term of endearment for me. It actually makes me feel relaxed to hear him say that. “Just take care of your girl and try to stay out of trouble for a while.”
“Thanks,” There’s a lot more in that word than what is actually said, but Carl knows that. He hangs up the phone and I hang up mine, leaving the device on my old dresser. I stand up on the bed and reach for the ceiling. It’s not hard, I’m not exactly short.
My fingertips brush the edges of the poster and I pull it down, rolling it up neatly and stuffing it into my small closet. When I open up the closet I find paraphernalia from when I was a kid into dirt bikes, and my hands shake as I pull out the tool kit that Ronnie and I would use to work on his dirt bike. I sit down with it on the bed, unsure of what I’m really doing with it. It would be best if I just put it back into the dark depths of my closet again, but I find myself flicking open the little latch and lifting the lid.
It squeaks as I lift it from not being opened in over six years. Taped to the inside of the lid are several baseball cards, but it’s what’s underneath those baseball cards that was important to Ronnie and me. I pull one off to see if it’s still there, and sure enough, there’s the pair of earrings that Ronnie stole from a department store. He was going to give them to his first girl, but never did.
I lift up the level in the box and stare down at the bottom, it’s all still here. My face splits into a smile as I pick up the screwdriver set that is like a Russian nesting doll set, and open up the largest one. Instead of screwdrivers inside there’s a little baggie of weed. It doesn’t look like anyone’s gotten into it, but it’s years old and I’m sure it’s not as potent as before. I stuff the bag back inside, it would feel wrong to get rid of it.
By the time Daisy comes back in with wet hair from her shower, I have the tool box stuffed underneath the bed and I’m lying back on my bed staring at a plain ceiling. She settles next to me and stares up at the clean spot on the ceiling, her lips curving up into a grin. “Took the picture of that sexy woman down, huh?” So she did notice.
I roll over and grab her around the waist, burying my face into her stomach. Daisy lays back and strokes my hair idly as she closes her eyes. If I could have it my way, we’d never have to leave this spot. Me with my ear plastered to her abdomen and her rhythmically running her hands through my hair. It’s soothing and arousing all at the same time.
There’s a quiet knock on the door that interrupts my oasis of peace. Daisy sits up and I run a hand over my hair to flatten it, but the flushed spots on Daisy’s cheeks say it all. She was enjoying giving the scalp massage as much as I was receiving.
“Come in,” I call out as I sling an arm around Daisy’s shoulders. My mother doesn’t flinch at the scene of Daisy with her flushed cheeks and me with my mussed hair. She takes it like a pro.
“I just wanted to let you kids know that dinner is here.” She goes for a smile, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
“We’ll be down in a sec, Mrs. Jacobs.” Daisy peels my arm off her shoulders, but my mother doesn’t close the door.
“If you’re going to be seeing my son, it’s Tracy. Mrs. Jacobs makes me sound old or something!” I know my shoulders stiffen at the statement because Daisy gives me a sideways glance. If she only knew, my mother never allowed a girlfriend of mine to call her Tracy. It was always Mrs. Jacobs because she never approved of the ladies I kept company with.
My mother disappears before Daisy can respond. I hear her footsteps trailing down the hall with a steady rhythm. It’s the same rhythm I used to hear as a kid.
“Well, I’m starving.” Daisy surprises me by hauling me to my feet immediately, and then she drags me down the hallway towards the stairs.
I’m not sure what I expected to find downstairs, but it definitely is not the scene that I walk into. My sister is actually sitting at the dining room table, and my father is sitting at the head of it. I watch with suspicion as my mother plops potato salad onto five plates set out on the table. Two pizza boxes sit in the middle of the table on a linen cloth.
Daisy thinks nothing of it as she sits down at the dinner table with my family. I have not sat down and had dinner with my parents at the dining room table since I was below ten years of age. I wonder if my sister has ever eaten dinner at the dining room table. She looks almost as confused as me, but she’s taking it a lot better than me. I’m the only one left standing.
At the sound of my mother’s throat clearing, I actually come back to reality long enough to sit down next to Daisy. She piles on three slices of pizza onto my plate next to my potato salad, and then she proceeds to chow down on her own slice. I watch her with shock as she devours two slices of pizza before I actually manage to bite into my first slice. My family does not seem to notice the fact that I’ve joined the living dead.
“So Daisy, how long have you and Caleb been seeing each other?” My sister probably has no idea about our actual relationship and why Daisy and I are here. I’d like to keep it that way. My little sister should not have to deal with the realities of this world too soon. She’s already dealt with death.
“Around three weeks now I guess,” Daisy sits back in her chair, and I see a small flush creeping up her cheeks. It’s as if she just realized s
he was eating like an entire army in front of my family at the dining room table. I feel a grin creeping across my face when she glances at me.
“Three weeks? Wow, it’s been-” Jessie cuts off mid-sentence when she realizes what she was about to say. I understand exactly what she was going to say, and I don’t want anyone tiptoeing around me about it anymore. I have larger problems ahead now.
“It’s been three weeks since Ronnie’s death. It’s alright, Jessie.” I reach a hand across the table to brush my fingers over the back of my sister’s knuckles to let her know that I mean it. She’s struggling with tears, but manages to pull them under control.
“So what do you do for a living, Mr. Jacobs?” Daisy immediately tries to change the subject, and for that I’m grateful. My father jumps on the opportunity to get away from any more awkward talk of Ronnie’s death.
“I’m a carpenter.” Daisy looks genuinely interested when my father starts discussing the techniques he uses on wood and how to build a dining room chair. Then he gets to the part where he actually built this dining room table and these chairs, and the cabinet my mother keeps her dishes in along the wall.
My sister rolls her eyes as she delves into her pizza, and my mother picks at her potato salad. I can tell by the swirling of the potato across the plate that she is upset about something, and I have a few ideas. She does not approve of the fact that Daisy and I are living together. I’m sure that she’s upset about the fact that I was recently arrested for almost beating a man to death, even if it was in self-defense. To make a long story short, I have not grown up to be the man she thought I would be.
I grit my teeth as I put down the half-finished slice of pizza. My sister is too engrossed in Dad’s story about the time a man cut off his finger with the saw to notice the awkward silence between me and my mother. I clear my throat quietly to have something to do so I don’t seem like a zombie at the dinner table. As soon as Daisy is done with her plate, I grab it and take my own out to the kitchen. My mother follows after me silently with her own, my sister’s, and my father’s.
This is something we used to do together when I was much younger. When I hit my rebellious teenage years, I refused to wash the dishes with my mother. I scrape off the scraps into the trash, pile the dishes on the counter, and grab a towel to dry. We work in silence until the last of the plates is away.
“Do you love her Caleb?” I almost shatter the plate in my grip when she actually asks me. Is this what has been bothering her all night? My throat works as I try to formulate an answer to that question. I’ve made love to Daisy on more than one occasion, and I’ve grown to care about her life more than my own. Does that mean that I love her?
“Yeah, more than anything.” I finally admit to my mother. Saying it out loud to someone other than Daisy feels more right than anything has in my life for a long time. “I love her more than life itself.” At those words it really hits me how much I care about Daisy. I put the plate up in its proper place and when I look back down at my mother I see tears in her eyes. “Why are you crying?”
I haven’t seen my mother crying on my behalf for years. She sniffles once and rolls her eyes to the ceiling to keep the tears from actually falling. When she’s regained her composure, she sniffs once and runs her hands down her shirt as if it’s wrinkled.
“I’m not,” she finally tells me firmly. Hugging my mother was never something I would do since I hit twelve, but in this moment I think I understand why she’s crying. I pull her into my embrace and try to forget all the wrongs between us for the moment. She’s my mother, and nothing will ever change that.
“I love you, don’t cry.” She fidgets in my embrace and I let her go reluctantly, but I keep my hands on her frail shoulders.
“I’m not crying because I don’t think you love me, I’m crying because I never thought I’d see the day where you’d actually love someone as much as I love you.” My chest feels tight, as if my heart is swelling. My mother smiles at me, and I give her a sideways grin back. It’s my trademark look for my mother, one that I’ve given her since I was able to actually smile.
“Is everything alright in here?” My father pokes his head through the kitchen doorway, takes one look at my mother, and takes a few steps into the room. I can hear Daisy and Jessie chatting in the dining room yet.
“Everything is fine, Tom.” My mother rolls her brown eyes and pushes a stray, graying hair out of her face. It’s at that moment I realize how much my parents have aged in the past month. I was not the only one in grieving. No matter how much of a trouble maker and bad influence my mother thought Ronnie was, she cared.
I suddenly feel selfish for ever doubting that.
Daisy and Jessie choose that moment to come into the kitchen, asking what is going on. I look at the love of my life in her jeans and a sweater, and I tell her the truth. “Everything’s fine, we’re just going to make some coffee.”
Contrary to my words, my mother makes the coffee while I root around in the freezer for some ice cream to go with her chocolate forest cake. After dessert, Daisy and I manage to make it upstairs before we actually start peeling off each other’s clothes. I feel a little dirty for sleeping with her in my old bedroom at my parent’s house, but we make sure to be quiet. Well, as quiet as we can be when we’re giggling like teenagers.
Chapter Fourteen
The next morning, my sister knocks on my door like she used to every morning when I lived at home. The smell of chocolate chip pancakes, eggs, and bacon wafts upstairs. It’s as if the scent alone has Daisy rising out of bed. Her nose is in the air and a smile blooms across her face before she even opens her eyes. I pull her back down into bed and bury my nose in her brunette hair, relishing in the smell of her shampoo.
“I’m hungry,” she tells me just as my sister calls out that breakfast is ready. I close my eyes tighter and find the flesh of her neck, kissing a trail down her spine.
“So am I,” I growl at her. Daisy giggles when I try to pull her closer to me, but she manages to wriggle free before I can convince her to stay.
“No really, I’m hungry for food Caleb.” Her cheeks are beautifully flushed, and the way her eyes glint in the morning sun makes my insides tighten.
“You’re awfully hungry lately,” I accuse her. The both of us look at one another in an awkward silence as the thought slips through both our minds.
“I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you’re worried about!” Daisy looks down at her stomach with insecurity on her face. “I’m not getting fat, am I?” I can’t help it, I laugh loudly at her question and fling my legs over the side of my childhood bed. Daisy gives me a narrow eyed glare and turns on her heel. Before she can make it to the door, I scoop her up and fist my hand in her hair as I kiss her. She’s breathless and her cheeks are rosy for an entirely different reason now.
“You’re not getting fat, and as long as you’re sure then I won’t worry.” I think about what I just said and kiss the tip of her nose. “Not that I don’t want kids later on in life, but right now doesn’t seem like a good time.” Before she can comment on my statement, I slip out of the room and whistle as I walk down the hallway.
Daisy joins me at the kitchen table about five minutes later. Her hair is up in a neat bun and she’s wearing one of my t-shirts. I’m about to tell her that she looks hot in that shirt when my cellphone buzzes at my hip. Curious, I pull the device out of my pocket and furrow my brows when I see Carl’s face on the screen. I slide the bar across so that I can answer it.
“Hello?” I ask curiously, and then I hear the breathing on the other end of the phone. Even before he speaks, I know who it is. I also know what is going to happen next.
“Caleb Jacobs?” It’s a deep voice, masculine. I glance at Daisy, but she’s occupied with getting herself pancakes. I back out of the room and head for the front door.
“Hang on, I need to get outside for better reception.” I say it loud enough that Daisy will hear me, and then I step onto the front porch and stare at
the neighbor’s house across the street. My palms become sweaty.
“Outside now?” The man on the other end of the phone asks tersely. I grit my teeth together to keep from letting a smart ass comment come out. Instead, I decide to play nice, for now.
“I’m outside. Who is this, and where is Carl?” My heart is pounding in my chest.
“Carl is fine, he’s just indisposed as the moment, kid.” I flinch at the nickname Carl has for me. “If you want him to remain alive, you’ll bring Daisy to the tattoo shop, no cops.” So this punk thinks I’ll trade Daisy for Carl? He has another thing coming.
“No, make another deal.” My nostrils don’t seem wide enough to intake the amount of air I need, and I have to bring through my mouth because of it. My free hand is clinched into a fist so tight at my side that my fingernails are digging into my flesh.
“Another deal? There is no other deal. You either bring Daisy here by six this evening, or Carl will be indisposed forever. Do you want someone else’s death on your hands?” At the sound of my sharp inhale, he laughs. “I didn’t think so. Look, you’re reasonable, I’m reasonable, let’s just get this over with without any more blood spilled. I want my property back.” I hate myself for it, but a thought pops into my mind. This man considers Daisy property, and all property has a price.
“How much is your property worth to you?” My voice is cold and calculating as I ask the question. Something inside of me grows icy, is that my heart?
“Worth? You’re smarter than I thought kid. She’s worth ten grand. And your buddy here is worth another five.” I grit my teeth as I look up at the rising sun. It hurts my eyes, but right now I need something to distract me from the enraged scream building up.
“Work with me here, fifteen grand is too much. I’ll give you eight.” There’s a snort on the other end of the line and the man actually laughs. It’s a crazed, loud noise that reminds me of a killer Santa Clause.
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