by A. E. Murphy
“Why do you need to find her?” I ask out of curiosity.
“Dan is looking for her,” who? “She owes him… a lot.”
“Well, good luck.”
I hang up and head to the closest Subway, shit… what do I get her?
After purchasing an array of subs I head back to her store, it’s quite busy when I get there. There are a few people wandering the aisles. I notice Amelia’s clothes already set up at the front of the kids section. I head over to the counter and stand to the side as Loryn runs some dudes items through the checkout. This gives me a great time to scan her from head to toe. She glances at me and falters a little, I watch her nervously tuck her hair behind her ears.
“Have a nice day,” she says to the man with his hands full of purchases as he leaves. I hold up the bag of food in my own hand.
“I brought lunch.”
Her eyes narrow on me and a smirk touches her lips, “I’m a vegetarian.”
I smirk back and place the bag of food on the counter, “I anticipated you lying about that, so I got a vegetarian one too.”
Her mouth falls open. “Why are you doing this?” a woman comes to the checkout, she gives me the fuck-me eyes and peruses me without shame. Then she smiles and winks. “Sorry, let me just bag these for you.” Loryn gets on with her job.
“I’ll have lunch with you, I love meat,” the forty something woman drawls, sure she’s attractive but not my type. Hell, I’ll play along.
“I love women who love meat.”
Her smile broadens, “Oh, you do, do you?”
“Uh-huh.”
Loryn watches our exchange with a gaping mouth. Yeah, she likes me really. Is that jealousy I see in her eyes? Or am I just being hopeful?
“Maybe, we could go to lunch instead?” she suggests with a wink.
Loryn’s jaw hits the floor. I run my hand through my hair and shrug, “My girlfriend here wouldn’t like that I don’t think.”
“Oh my,” the woman giggles. “You go girl.” Hell yeah.
Loryn opens and closes her mouth like a fish before blurting, “I’m not his girlfriend.” She looks at me angrily, “I am not your girlfriend.”
Don’t laugh. Do not laugh. “Baby, I told you I was sorry.” I look at the woman. “I bought her yellow roses, she only likes red.” With a dramatic exhale of air I continue. “I can’t do anything right.”
“He has never brought me roses,” Loryn scoffs in disbelief and practically shoves the bags in the woman’s hands. “Lucas! Tell her!”
“Oh Loryn honey, I can’t believe you haven’t told us about this piece of man cake. He’s tasty. It’s rude not to share.”
I lean over the counter and feign hurt, “Baby, are you ashamed of me?”
“You are not my boyfriend,” she points at me and looks at the woman. “He is not my boyfriend!”
The woman just laughs and walks away, “Call me with the details! It’s about time you got laid!”
I like this woman.
“So, Italian BMT or turkey and ham?” I shake the bag at a fuming Loryn. She’s so angry her normally brown eyes look almost black. “Or the vegetarian. Personally I think you’d prefer the meatball sub. You choose.”
“I’m not having lunch with you!” she practically shrieks and all eyes turn towards us. She takes a deep breath, her tits come up, she exhales, her tits stay up. Nice. “And I do not need to get laid.”
Okay. “Really? Because you know… being the opposite sex and all I could help with…” something warm, wet and floppy hits me in the face. Bitch can throw. “Did you just throw a dishrag at me?” I look at the damp, white cloth on the floor by my boot clad feet. “You just threw a dishrag at me.”
“You told her you’re my boyfriend!” she hisses and comes around the counter to pick up the dishrag. I step forward, I can’t resist, she gulps and steps back. “What are you doing you creep?”
I lean around her, caging her against the counter with my arms. My dick instantly swells as I feel her body heat on mine, only an inch of air between us. Our eyes lock. She gulps. With a smile I pull a wrapped sandwich out of the bag on the counter behind her making sure my cheek brushes against hers.
“Meatball sub?” I hold the sandwich up.
“You… you pig!” she gasps and slams her hands against my chest and even lets them linger there a minute. My eyes zoom in on the tiny pebbles poking from her chest. If I wasn’t hard before I certainly am now. Christ that’s a fucking turn on, I’m obviously having an effect on her. “God. What do you want with me?”
I shake the sandwich at her, my eyes snapping back to hers, “Lunch.”
“And then you’ll go?”
I nod, “And then I’ll go.” Maybe. I grab a large blue sweater from a rack of clothes beside the counter. “Put this on.”
“What? Why? It’s two sizes too big.”
I narrow my eyes on her chest, “Unless you want me to kick the asses of all your male customers currently staring at your chest, I suggest you put it on.”
She flushes and quickly pulls the large sweater on, it buries her as expected yet she still looks fucking gorgeous. “I’ll just take it off after you’ve gone.”
“No you won’t.”
She grunts but says nothing. I smile a satisfactory smile and take a huge bite out of my meatball sub. Her eyebrows come together in a frown.
“I wanted the meatball one,” and then it’s gone from my hand.
I really, really like this girl.
“So, you were married?” she asks after a few minutes of silence. I’m sat on an uncomfortable plastic chair behind the counter, she’s sat on one only two feet away, slightly facing me with her legs crossed.
“Let’s not talk about that,” I clear my throat and take another bite out of my vegetarian sub. Did I mention the fact she took all of the others…? Being a gentleman I couldn’t say no to her demand for all of the meat sandwiches. This is fucking gross. “So, why are you working here now?”
“Let’s not talk about that.” Touché. She finishes her meatball sub and throws me the others. Thank god. I hastily unwrap one and bite into it. Fuck, that’s good. My eyes are instantly drawn to her lips as she wipes her mouth on a napkin. So full and pink and perfect. Her lower lip has a tiny dent or groove in the middle, I want to trace it with my tongue. Why’s her mouth moving so much?
Click, click.
“Hello?” she snaps. I blink a few times and look up to her eyes. “Did you not hear anything I just said?”
“No.”
Her mouth falls open again, that’s hot. “I said, if you’re trying to sleep with me. Don’t bother. I’m not going to have intercourse with you. So you may as well take back your invitation to dinner on Saturday.”
I take another bite and chew, effectively ignoring her.
Click, click, click. She’s clicking her fingers, in case you were wondering.
“Hello!”
“Sup?” I respond and throw my empty sub wrapper in the bag.
“Why aren’t you listening to me?”
“Because you aren’t saying anything I want to hear,” I wink at her and tap her on the nose. “And you’re talking shit.”
“You’re such a pig!”
I chuckle, this girl is fun to wind up. “You’ve said that.”
“I mean it too.”
“That’s nice.” I glance at the door, the bell just rang, signifying the fact it just opened. Just a customer leaving empty handed. “So. Dress casual Saturday. I figured we could go to dinner and then maybe watch a movie.”
“I’m not going out with you! I don’t even like you!”
Ouch. “Then I guess we’ll have to rectify that.” I glance at my watch. “Fuck! Time flies when you’re having fun. I’ve gotta go.”
“Finally.” I can see she doesn’t mean it by the way she shifts a little and her body tenses. “Where are you going?”
“To pick up my brother’s, mom’s dry cleaning.” I place my hand on the counter a
nd jump over. Fuck that was awesome.
“There is an opening here,” she swings the counter up at the side.
“But then I wouldn’t have been able to show off my awesome moves.” She snorts in response, I’ve made her smile. Score! “See, I knew you weren’t constantly a moody bitch.” I duck out of the door before the dishrag hits me in the face again. HA! Missed.
I pick up the dry cleaning only an hour late and head to Amelia’s school. I’m early but it’ll give me chance to catch up on my emails on my cell and catch up on music via the radio. I need some new tunes.
Emails… Work, work, spam, junk, work, work, don’t know him, delete, delete, delete, junk, spam. Boring. A text comes through, from an unidentified number, this looks interesting.
I need a favor… really bad. I got into some shit. Real bad shit. It’s Dana. Daniel is my old dealer. He’s looking for me. Smashed up Peanut last week. I don’t know what to do. I need somewhere to hide until I can get his money. Please Lucas. I’m fucked here. I’m clean I swear! I can’t afford a motel let alone any of that shit.
Who you gonna call?
Lucas: Are you crazy? What if they get to my daughter? I can’t help you Dana! Not this time. This is messed up! Sorry. But no.
Not Lucas!
Fuck. Why me? Why the fuck does she ask me? Why didn’t Patch tell me about Peanut unless… my name has already been fucking dropped and that psycho Daniel guy was there with him when he called? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I slam my head on the steering wheel a few times and switch my cell off as if that will suddenly erase everything bad in my life.
The loud ringing bell sounds, signifying the end of a school day. I climb out of my car and follow other parents to the side entrance that Amelia exits from. As soon as she sees me she frowns. Okay, that sucks.
“Hi daddy,” I lift her into my arms and kiss her on the cheek. “Put me down.” Okay, okay. Calm down.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I thought Maya was coming to get me!” she sighs and allows me to strap her into her booster seat in the back of the car.
I shrug, “Sorry kid. Want to go get pizza?”
“No.” she crosses her arms across her chest. Lucas style.
“Bacon?”
She rolls her eyes… she’s five. What the fuck? “No.”
“Ice cream?”
“No.”
“Whatever then. Mac ‘n’ cheese it is,” she knows I can’t cook.
“Can we go to Auntie Maya’s for dinner?” she sticks out her lower lip. God she’s starting to look so much like her mom. “Please?”
“But, I really want to go relax at home. Just me and you. Yeah?”
“PLEEEEEEASE!” fine, fine.
With a sigh I turn my cell back on. I have no messages or calls. Wow, I’m so damn popular it should be illegal.
Lucas: Apparently I’m not cool enough to have dinner with. Expect two more people.
Maya: Yay! I’ll make chicken! See you soon!
She’ll make chicken. Let me say that out loud. “Auntie Maya says she’ll… make… chicken.”
“YAY!” squeals Amelia and fist pumps. She got that from James. He tends to do the victory fist pump. “I like chicken.”
How on earth do you make chicken? Maya is a strange one.
CHAPTER FOUR
Dejected Daddies
“Auntie Maya!” Amelia squeals and rushes straight into Maya’s waiting arms. “We having chicken?”
“Yes we are, are you coming to help me?” Maya gives me a quick peck on the cheek after releasing Amelia and heads to the kitchen.
James is closing the door behind me at present, with Evelyn in his arms. I take the baby and hold her like a football, she loves it. “No hug for Uncle James then?” James sighs dramatically.
Amelia huffs and rushes over to give him a kiss on the cheek before catching up with Maya again. Then Evelyn starts crying in my arms, I lift her up to my chest just as Maya comes back through to the hall and opens her arms, Evelyn gurgles and smiles whilst holding up her own chunky little arms, her mommy grabs her from me. The three of them head into the kitchen, leaving both James and I stood with lowered ears and our tails between our legs feeling like dogs that got sent outside for begging. What the fuck?
“Welcome to my world buddy,” James sighs and slaps me on the back. “Let’s watch man shit.” Meaning football I assume… no… wrestling? Ok. This just got weird. Since when does James watch wrestling?
“What the fuck just happened?” I’m referring to the girls and their lack of… love for us.
“What always happens when Maya enters or leaves the room,” James snorts and takes a pull of his beer. “Want one?”
“Nah, I’m driving,” I cross my ankle over my knee and rest back into the sofa. “So… you never did tell me what happened with the cling wrap.”
James glances behind him to make sure the coast is clear and starts tapping away on his cell. He thrusts it at me and starts laughing silently.
The camera is pointed through a small gap in the door, aiming straight down the hall towards the entrance to their apartment. Maya walks in humming to herself, she kicks off her shoes, places her bag on the desk, drops her keys in the little bowl and turns. Wham. Straight into the cling wrap!
“JAMES!” she screams and starts tearing through the plastic frantically, it only wraps around her more. “I’m going to kill you, you fucking bastard!” She trips and falls over, effectively face planting. Then James starts running, you can hear him laughing as he goes, the camera is pointed at the floor and moving around a lot. Not aimed at anything yet. Then the video finishes.
I try to keep my laughter silent but I can’t do it. It’s too fucking funny. “What did she do back?”
He shudders, “Nothing yet.” I throw his cell to him, he catches it one handed. “She’s biding her time, I just know it. She keeps giving me this look with a tiny evil smile on her face.” He gives me a wide eyed look. “I’m actually shitting myself.”
I laugh even louder, “Fucking pussy.”
He leans his elbows on his knees and laces his fingers under his chin, “You’ve heard all the shit she’s done. I still have to sleep with one eye open but it’s even worse now.” Told you so.
“Yeah,” I glance behind me, suddenly feeling paranoid. The room is empty. “She’s definitely plotting something. She would never in a million years let that one go.”
“I need to get her again before she gets me.” He whispers. A sudden thought enters my mind.
“Fill her shampoo bottles with something, like syrup or BBQ sauce.”
“Nice,” he nods, clearly impressed. “Anything else?”
I shrug, “I’m out of devious ideas for the day.” I’m not Maya, I don’t wake up with sadistic thoughts.
We watch wrestling whilst the girls squeal and laugh and bang around in the kitchen. It’s not long before we can smell the warm scent of BBQ sauce and chicken cooking. Followed by the scent of garlic bread which has my mouth watering. James has a huge smile on his face.
“What?” I ask, oblivious to why he’s so damn happy.
His smile doesn’t falter as he replies, “I love this. I could actually be the happiest guy on earth right now.” Christ, will I ever feel that way again?
We sit to dinner, Maya has made, chicken breast in a barbecue marinade with salted couscous followed by baby potatoes soaked in butter and a huge baguette of homemade garlic bread. I didn’t realize she could bake or cook non-American foods. Ask questions later, eat now.
“Oh my god,” I can’t help it. I moan out loud. “This is fucking fantastic.”
“Yeah, it’s fucking fantastic,” Amelia agrees and we all look at her. I’m about to chastise her but Maya gets there first. She narrows her eyes on Amelia. Uh-oh.
“What did I say?” she says sternly. Wow, I’ve never heard Maya’s mommy voice before. Amelia’s eyes go wide, she has heard it apparently. “What did I say about those words?”
&n
bsp; “That I can’t say them until I are eighteen.” Amelia responds robotically.
James taps her on the hand, “It’s I am, not I are, sweetie.”
“That’s what I said.”
“You are not allowed to say those types of words. Ever!” I choke out. “Are you two nuts?”
“Just realistic Lucas,” Maya smiles. “My dad used to say the same to me. On my eighteenth birthday we had a swearing contest. It was really fun.” They what?
“Your dad was crazy.”
She raises an eyebrow and giggles, “Honey… you’ve met me, and he made me. What did you expect?” Touché. “She’s going to swear one day whether we permit her to or not. Sometimes promising them a little freedom does wonders.” She chews on the food in her mouth and swallows, a finger poised in the air. “After that, swearing didn’t seem so naughty and random so I very rarely swear out loud.” James snorts along with me at this. “I swear a lot more in my head.” We both start laughing. “You two are mean.”
I watch as Maya switches between feeding herself and feeding her daughter who is in one of those baby chairs that clips to the edge of table. I notice the brown and orange mess in the baby bowl.
“What’s she eating?”
Maya points at her plate, “Same as us, just purified without salt and such.”
“Can you do that?”
She shrugs, “It says so in the baby books. Gives you a list too.”
James hands his daughter her juice cup, I watch as she smacks it away. Maya absentmindedly picks it up whilst chatting about random foods that babies can eat and hands it to Evelyn. The little monster takes the juice and starts drinking. James stands there open mouthed with his hands in his hair looking seriously dejected.
“What the eff?” he snaps and slumps back into his seat.