Warders, Volume Two

by Mary Calmes

  I looked over at her.

  “Mike pays half the rent, and—”

  “I’ll take care of his half until you find someone else to live with.”

  “But I can’t—”

  “And if you don’t, you don’t, and then you’ll owe me, right?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to owe any—”

  “Just let him take care of it, Tina,” Dylan snapped at her. “Don’t screw with your knight in shining armor, all right?”

  No one made a sound.

  Tina finally took a breath. “Thank you, Malic. I accept.”

  I looked down at Dylan as his hands went up under my shirt, sliding over my hips to trace bare skin. “Maybe you should go to bed, huh?”

  “Come with me and I will. You can watch TV, and I’ll take a nap beside you. It’s one of my favorite things.”

  “What is?”

  “I like it when it’s raining outside and we’re in bed and you’re watching football or whatever and Fu is sleeping next to my back and I’m halfway—”

  “Who’s Fu?” Jackson asked suddenly.

  It was jarring, but it was good for Dylan to have to answer the question because he went from being sentimental to alert, as he had to answer a stupid question about our cat.

  “He’s a Siamese,” Dylan answered.

  “Fu’s a cat.” Jackson nodded. “Got it.”

  “And he leaps at stuff all the time.” Dylan was smiling now, straightening up, stepping away from me, and I was glad. I liked seeing him get his bearings. “But he doesn’t just pounce, you know? He does like all these weird mid-air acrobatics, and sometimes it’s like he freezes in these positions, and it’s just hysterical. He goes all Cirque du Soleil on me. That cat cracks me up, so….” He shrugged. “Fu. Stupid cat named himself.”

  I had to smile thinking of the damn cat. First I thought he had a death wish, the way he kept jumping off things like the bookcase, and then I’d thought he needed antipsychotic drugs, and now, having never had a pet before, I realized he was pretty much just a normal cat, if that word could even be applied to such mysterious creatures. I had no idea why he had to sit on Dylan’s laptop only when Dylan wanted to use it. Why he had to take naps in the reusable grocery bags, and why my lap—not Dylan’s—was his favorite place to curl up on the couch, but why he slept under the covers on Dylan’s side and never mine.

  “He’s a freak,” I told Dylan even though I loved opening the front door and having the little hairball come running to greet me, followed by my beautiful boy. I was a very lucky man.

  “He’s our freak,” my hearth reminded me.

  “Well, yeah.”

  “I hope Julian’s taking good care of him.”

  “Of everyone you know,” I told him, “think of anyone you’d rather be on cat duty than Julian.”

  Dylan nodded. “You’re right, Raph thought I was gonna eat him,” he said pointedly to Jackson, scowling, speaking of the man’s hearth, who also happened to be a kyrie.

  “Well, yeah, Raph doesn’t get the whole ‘animal that you feed that you don’t end up eating’ thing.” Jackson chuckled. “But I kind of understand; there are no such things as pets in purgatory.”

  “What?” Tina asked.

  Jackson was still chuckling when Mr. Shaw cleared his throat.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “I think you need a drink, sir,” Leith offered.

  “I think you’re right,” he agreed but turned to cup his daughter’s face in his hands. “Now listen, all of us together will help you make up Mike’s end of the rent. It’s gracious of Malic to offer to do it alone, but we’ll do it as a family.” He turned to Leith then. “And you two don’t have to get involved in our—”

  “It’s our pleasure, sir,” Leith assured him.

  “It’s kind of our gig.” Jackson’s smile was soothing and warm. “So we’re good.”

  I had no pity for Mike, who had hurt someone he was supposed to love and someone weaker than him as well. He was in for a shocker, and I was certain that after he saw Leith and Jackson, he would never bother Tina again.

  “Here we are,” Lily said as she returned and passed an index card to Leith. “Now what are you going to—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he told her, smiling gently. “We’ll take care of everything, ma’am.”

  She turned to Tina. “Honey, we should press charges and—”

  “I just want him to go away, Mom.” Tina sucked in a breath. “I mean, I’m the idiot who’s been letting it go on, letting it get worse and worse every time… I have no one to blame but myself.”

  “No,” Jackson assured her. “You have the man who’s been beating you to blame.”

  “And we’ll make sure he never wants to come near you again,” Leith said flatly.

  She nodded and her bottom lip quivered, and Lily made a face and was suddenly crying along with her daughter. “Oh baby,” she cooed, and Tina pulled away from her dad to reach for her mom.

  “Christmas is awesome,” I muttered under my breath.

  “Stop,” Dylan warned me.

  “Let’s go,” Jackson said before he turned away. “I’ll call you when we get there.”

  “We’ll send before and after pictures.” Leith snickered.

  “No, we won’t.” Jackson shook his head. “Hello, evidence.”

  Leith nodded. “Yeah, okay, no pictures. How about just sound?”

  Jackson started laughing as he shoved Leith forward.

  “Are they leaving already?” Tina sniffled, looking at me. “God, Malic, I’m so sorry. What your friends must think of me.”

  “They’re only thinking about what happened to you and what they’re going to do to Mike once they find him.”

  “Oh, now wait a minute,” Mr. Shaw said quickly, having not been listening to their earlier banter but catching what I said loud and clear. He rose up out of his seat like he was going to go after Jackson and Leith. “Malic, your friends can’t just—”

  “Yes, they can,” I assured Mr. Shaw, getting him to look at me to give Jackson and Leith more time to get out the front door. Once they were outside, they were gone. They just had to get there without being called back.

  “No, they can’t.” His voice rose. “We don’t just take the law into our own hands, Malic.”

  “Sometimes you have to.”

  “That’s it?” Lily asked. “I can’t even feed them?”

  “They don’t need to be fed,” I told her. “They came because I asked them to, and now they’re taking care of Tina because of me and Dylan and because that’s what friends do. And for your information, Mr. Shaw—”

  “Jeff, Malic. Call me Jeff.”

  “Jeff.” I sighed. “Jackson Tybalt is a licensed, bonded private investigator, and he owns his own security company called Guardian Limited. You can Google him and you’ll see he’s legitimate. He won’t do anything that will hurt Mike unless Mike is uncooperative. If he’s on his best behavior with Jackson, everything will be settled quickly and quietly. It’s only if he creates a problem that he’ll have one.”

  Jeff thought about that a minute, mulling it over.

  “Sir?” I prompted.

  “Well, that seems reasonable,” he told me.

  And it was, except that Leith was there too. Jackson was the least of Mike’s problems.

  “Jesus, Malic.” Lily Shaw sighed heavily. “You’re like a guardian angel, aren’t you?”

  “No, ma’am.” I smiled, reaching for Dylan, drawing him closer, enjoying the way he molded himself to my side. “He’s the angel.”

  “No, Malic,” she said sincerely, “I’m pretty sure it’s you.”

  And I would have argued, but Dylan kissed under my jaw, and I forgot all about what we were talking about. It was more important just to hold him.

  V

  I HAD never been for a walk through a neighborhood at night just to look at the lights. I had never been on a block where everyone opened
up their homes to everyone else, and it was like a circuit Christmas party. Dylan’s whole family got swaddled up—cousins, too, friends, aunts and uncles, and stray guests—and went for a tour of homes. We passed other people strolling, and the Shaw family, the small one and the extended one, stopped and chatted. I was introduced as Dylan’s boyfriend and shook a lot of hands. There was a big Thermos of hot chocolate passed around, much discussion about how some people had just gone nuts with the decorations and how Mr. Erickson had again managed to get the entire gingerbread family up on his roof. It was an impressive feat, and when the man himself came out of his house to say hello, he was greeted with a round of applause. He looked very pleased even though he gave a dismissive wave like it was nothing.

  It was nice. It was normal and warm and suburbia at its finest. Everyone liked each other on the street; everyone waved and invited us in for hot spiced cider. People were pleased that Dylan had made it home for the holidays, and they were glad he had brought me. They were all thrilled, they said, that he had met someone nice. He deserved to have someone in his life just as great as he was.

  “What?” Dylan asked as we sauntered along with the others, making the trip home so Lily could open up her house to others and return the hospitality they had been shown. Apparently it was the annual Christmas Crawl on Somerset Lane, and the end of the block families, down by the cul-de-sac where Dylan’s folks lived, were supposed to be ready for visitors by nine.

  “I had no idea that you grew up on the Beaver’s street.”

  “Very funny.” He smiled up at me. “You’re just so used to killing bad things you forgot about all the good that life has to offer.”

  There was some truth in that.

  “Tina looks better,” he said, gazing over at his older sister.

  “Yes, she does.”

  “You were great with her.”

  “She just needed a shoulder to cry on.”

  “More like a big, strong muscular chest and washboard abs.”

  I shook my head, and he leaned hard, surrendered up all his weight, and just fell toward me, confident that I would catch him and tuck him up against me, which was exactly what I did.

  “Hey, do you like Christmas cookies?”

  I squinted at him. “How should I know?”

  He stopped walking and just stared up at me.

  “What?”

  “Didn’t you make Christmas cookies with your mom when you were a little boy?”

  “No.”

  “Are you telling me you’ve never made Christmas cookies?”

  “It wasn’t something we did in my family.”

  “You didn’t make Christmas cookies and then leave them out for Santa on Christmas Eve?”

  “Santa,” I scoffed.

  “No?”

  “No.”

  Dylan turned and yelled at his mother. “Mom, you’re not gonna believe this!”

  I WAS smiling at Dylan’s father, who was shaking his head as he made me a hot toddy.

  “The secret is the honey,” he told me as he coated the bottom of an Irish coffee glass with it.

  It was going to be good, I was sure, and I could smell the brandy he was using. But however many drinks he and I had, we would not be able to catch up to Lily, Tina, and Dylan. Hours after the crawl was over and people had returned to their homes, ages after Lance, Jason, and Cole had left to hit house parties, and just an hour before midnight, what was passing for cookie making was still going on in the Shaw kitchen.

  What had started out as a warm family undertaking had degraded into the cookies doing terrible, nasty things to each other. There were no adorable gumdrop buttons; these cookies were decorated pornographically with too much icing and sprinkles. Dylan had used the silver candy decorations to show his mother what a Prince Albert was, and Tina had been making bondage cookies when someone dropped the flour and a white cloud covered everything. Mr. Shaw and I had been watching from a safe distance, observing the Kahlúa and Baileys that had washed down the sugar cookies. Lily, Dylan, and Tina had also consumed all the rum balls that had been made earlier in the day.

  “They are drunk off their asses,” I assured Mr. Shaw.

  “Yes.” He sighed, smiling at his family. “And I couldn’t be happier.” He turned to me then. “Forgive me for being an ass.”

  “Forgive me for being a judgmental prick.”

  He nodded, passing me the hot brandy and honey concoction. “Agreed.”

  It was really good, and sipping it, watching Lily laugh so hard she was crying, seeing Tina dissolve into a fit of giggling and telling her mother and brother that she was going to pee, and listening to Dylan heave for breath, I was content. I could see myself in that kitchen for many years to come.

  “Please make sure you come next year, Malic,” Jeff prodded. “It wouldn’t be as good for Dylan if you stayed away, and we would miss you.”

  A day ago, I hadn’t been able to see myself there for another minute. A day ago, I had wanted to run. Now I had a family beyond the one I shared with my fellow warders, and I was amazed at the turn my life had taken.

  When my phone rang, I got up to answer it, taking my drink with me. The call from Leith took longer than I expected, and by the time I got back, I was smiling. I was surprised to find the cookie-making station deserted and only Mr. Shaw waiting for me in the living room.

  “It looks like World War Three in there,” I said about the dismantled kitchen.

  “Yes, but that’s all right. They had a good time, and I enjoyed watching them.”

  So had I.

  “I’ll get in there in a little while and clean it up,” he continued.

  “I can help you.”

  “No, you’ve done enough work around here for a while; you can have the night off.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said, taking a seat on the couch across from where he was on a recliner.

  “Who was on the phone?”

  I explained that it had been a very disappointed Leith.

  “Disappointed how?”

  “Tina’s boyfriend, Mike, had already moved all his things out of the apartment.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  “I guess Tina has an upstairs neighbor named Gabe, and he and Mike had already had words the day after Tina left to come home.”

  Mr. Shaw leaned forward on his chair to look at me. “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning that I’m not Tina’s guardian angel because I’m too late,” I told him. “She already has one.”

  “Gabe, you say?”

  I nodded.

  “She’s never mentioned him.”

  “He might just be a friend,” I said, “but whoever he is, he scared the holy hell out of Mike, because Leith says that there are no men’s clothes left at the apartment and this Gabe gave him and Jackson the third degree until they explained that they were friends of Tina’s who had come to check on her. Leith said he was very protective. He liked him a lot.”

  “I like him a lot, too, and I’ve never even met the man.”

  “And Jackson ran a background check on him already, and he came back clean. He’s a crane operator at a construction site, and—”

  “Ran a background check on him?”

  “Yeah, remember me telling you he was a private investigator?”

  “Oh yes, that’s right. Go on.”

  “Yeah, so he’s in construction and—”

  “I’m a foreman. Did you know that?” he asked, cutting me off again.

  “No, sir, I didn’t.” I smiled.

  “So you’re saying my girl is being looked after by a solid, stable guy who lives upstairs from her.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s what I’m saying.”

  “Well, that’s not too terrible, is it?”

  I shook my head. No, it wasn’t.

  “Your friends were disappointed that they didn’t get to beat Mike up, weren’t they?”

  “Leith was. Jackson likes it when things work out. He believes there’s a divine order in ever
ything, and he enjoys the occasional demonstration of that.”

  “Jackson was the one with the beard?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I liked them both, Malic. They came when you called, and they were all on board to help Tina. You can tell a lot about a man by the company he keeps.”

  I agreed wholeheartedly.

  “Tell me a little about yourself, Malic. My son tells me you own a strip club where only women take off their clothes. How come?”

  It made sense that Mr. Shaw and I were finally getting around to having “the talk.” He wanted to know all about me and who I was and what I did for a living. He had not given me the third degree as was his fatherly prerogative, and it was time. I was asked what my intentions were toward his son, and I answered honestly… I wanted to keep him. He thought that sounded outstanding, especially since Dylan had told him the exact same thing with a little bit of a twist. His son, it seemed, wanted to make an honest man out of me. He wanted us to get married.

  We had been going around and around about marriage. I thought it was dumb. He wanted to do it. We were, as of now, at an impasse. But that he had voiced his desire to his father filled me with happiness. I couldn’t stop smiling, which annoyed me to no end.

  We drank some more brandy after that, no hot toddy needed, and I got upstairs a little after one. I didn’t realize until I heard the giggling from Tina’s bedroom that Dylan and his sister were still up. I left them alone, not wanting to disturb them, and went to my room—Dylan’s bedroom—and flopped down on the mattress. Minutes later, the door swung open, bringing Dylan with it. I couldn’t stifle my chuckle at seeing him lean on the door, not able to correct himself with all the alcohol coursing through his system. It took him a long moment to recover, to straighten up, and when he did, he slammed and locked the door behind him, unsteady on his feet. He was very cute, very drunk, and he looked just decadent in… whatever it was he had on.

  “What are you wearing?” I asked before I could help myself.

  “You like it?” he asked, grinning playfully, his eyes sparkling with mischief and heat as he came toward me.

  It looked like a nightshirt out of some Victorian romance novel, complete with a ruffled neckline. It was made out of some sheer material. It fell to his knees, showing off his long, lean, muscled legs, and with the light behind him, I could see right through it.