by S. E. Hall
He laughs into his pillow. “I can’t believe you just did that.”
“Yes, you can, that’s exactly something I would do.” I crawl up him and straddle his back, massaging his shoulders. “I love your booty.”
He rolls over beneath me and grins up at me, eyes brighter than the sun through the window. “And I love you. And your booty also.” He winks. “So we have eight days until Conner’s home. Let’s go get my car and drive to Richmond. Population 36,000—”
“You already gave me the stats, Mr. Salesman.” I snicker.
“Schools test in top 10% in the state, lots of nature and a historic district, average price of house $150K.” He just keeps right on going, adding a few new facts, really wanting to sell me on Richmond.
“That was quite the pitch,” I tickle his sides, “again. You should apply at the City Welcome Center. I’d buy.”
“No,” he reaches up and taps my chin, “I’ll buy. But you pick it out.”
I gulp loudly, parched and panicking, hastily making to dismount him.
“Nu uh, better twitch that nose, Witchy. It’s only way you’re escaping this conversation,” he taunts. “In for me,” his eyes flare, brooking no argument, “now out for you.” He runs both hands up and down my thighs in satiny caress. “Better or you need another?”
“Better,” I mumble, his happy trail my focal point.
“I’m almost twenty-eight years old, Lizzie. I want a house. I want to re-paint the fence and change light bulbs and decorate nurseries and host Thanksgiving and hide Easter eggs.”
“What about the band?”
He traces a circle around my navel. “You tell me.”
“I was actually already thinking.” I bear down on my bottom lip, searching out my nerve. Saying it aloud makes it real. “Conner could use some stability and he seems to like spending time with Richard and his new family. There’s kids, and living fish,” I titter, swiping away a lone tear.
Oh, you didn’t get the memo? Bus fish=all floaters, flushed to the ocean in the sky.
“And my uncle’s back can’t take much more. And Jarrett, if he’s actually serious, for once, about a girl, he needs to see it through. And Rhett—”
“Baby,” he jostles me, “breathe. Our life, figuring it out…it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. Okay, now you were saying?”
“Rhett. The only thing missing between Rhett and I was smushy love. I found it and he needs to as well. Which he may not do if I’m around.”
He strains not to laugh, which produces a sneeze through only your nose type thing. “Smushy love?”
I impishly slap his abs, all eight packs of them. “You know, romantic, not friend love. You and me love.”
“Come ‘ere to me,” he beckons, crooking his finger, and I lean down over him, hands braced on either side of his head while he tangles his in my hair and pivots my head. “What’s smushy love taste like? Show me.”
I kiss him softly at first, each corner of his mouth, then roll my eyes and get up. “I will be at the curb, getting in a cab, in ten minutes. Hope to see you there, Scary Sex Drive.”
I jump away from his reaching hands and run, locking the bathroom door behind me.
Chapter 29
Once in the cab, Cannon assures me that the drive is about forty minutes. Now, I’m no mathematician, but I still slept in a Holiday Inn last night…so no way can that be right and be a halfway point.
“Forty minutes to Richmond?” I ask for clarification.
“No, to Lawrence, where I lived. We gotta grab my car.”
Keep breathing.
“Is your car at your parents’ house?” The hopeful optimism in my voice is a farce, but worth a try all the same.
He sighs, so of course I shudder, braced before I even asked. “Love, my car’s at the house I lived in with Ruthie. I need to get it.” He shrugs. “It’s mine and we’re here.”
“So we’re going, me and you, to the house you shared with your ex-fiancé, to gather your things? And you planned on telling me this when?” Now my voice is raised and unattractively nasal.
“Lizzie,” don’t you condescend me, mister, “where’d you think my car was?”
“I don’t know, your parents’ maybe? Cannon, I don’t want to do this.” Shaking my head adamantly, I let go of his hand and scoot across the seat.
“I’ve got the keys with me. We’ll hop in and drive off. She won’t know we’re there, if she’s even home.” He slides across the vinyl, refusing to allow space between us.
“I’m not going in and dividing assets.” I mock gag.
“Not a thing there I want or need, except my car.” He forcibly raises my hand and kisses each knuckle, then my palm. “Five minutes and we’re home free.”
Still not happy and about thirty minutes left to burn, I ask some simmering questions. “If you lived together and were engaged, why’s it only her house?”
He laughs, head tossed back. “Wait until you see it. I couldn’t afford her lifestyle, so Daddy bought her a show castle.”
“But you have money to buy yourself a house in Richmond?” I perk a curious brow.
“No, but I’ve got flawless credit and a good down payment saved, plus a degree with five years of experience under my belt. I can take care of us comfortably.” He lays an arm around my shoulders and leans in to kiss me on the cheek. “I want to take care of us.”
“I have money, Cannon. I don’t need taken care of. I need a partner, 50/50. The troubles are ours, the good times are ours, and chores are most definitely ours.”
“That sounds like,” he gazes off, to where or at what I’m lost, but he’s back soon, “everything I’ve ever wanted. Imma need a nibble for that one,” he grunts, taking his fill in the crook of my neck.
The cab driver shifts loudly in his seat at my squeal, so I push Cannon off.
“So does this mean you’ll live with me? I mean, somewhere other than a tour bus?” He smirks, knowing it’s his power card, most valid argument.
The truth is, we have cohabitated, a hell of a lot closer than in a house, for quite a while, with not one fight. No, our one disagreement was in public, and ended very well, if I do say so myself.
So myself.
“We’ll see. A house seems premature, a big investment to split unmarried,” I naysay, despite the mental reasoning I only just finished.
“If you just proposed, my little Siren, the answer is yes!” He dive bombs me, crushing his arms around me, smothering my face and neck in kisses.
“You’re scaring people in public again.” I giggle. “Heel. And no, I was not proposing, I was thinking apartment, maybe a condo?”
He falls dramatically across my lap, looking up. Please don’t let me have any boogers in my nose. “Hey, how’d you get that?” He touches the scar under my chin.
“It’s a pretty gnarly story, think you can stomach it?” I tease, my smile devious.
“Try me.”
“I fell down our stairs, running late for school, and went splat on the floor…and my pencil. Jabbed it straight up and through.”
“Damn,” he shudders, “ouch. I bet you—”
“Mom’s in Heaven now, Bubs, watching over us.”
“But she was careful on the stairs. Not me.”
“Lizzie? Come back to me, love, breathe. Lizzie, it’s Cannon, look at me, gorgeous. “
I blink, then blink again, my heart’s pumping blood deafening in my ears.
“Lizzie? Where are you?” He’s sitting up, shaking me by the shoulders, but his voice sounds like it’s in a bottle.
“C-call my dad. He’s in my phone, under ‘Die Dick.’ Call him! Call him!” I scream, the cab stopping so abruptly my head flies into the seat in front of me.
“Hey, motherfucker! What the fuck are you doing? Lizzie, right here,” he yanks his shirt over his head and off, “hold this tight on your nose, head back, pinch it hard.” I can hear Cannon’s frantic, loud threats of physical violence to the cabbie, while I blindly, wi
th one hand, dig out my phone. Maneuvering it to where I can actually see it, I pull up my father’s contact.
“Here, babe, I got it.” Cannon takes the phone from me. “Lean back and apply pressure.”
After several minutes of the cab driver grumbling in Idon’tknowwhatyou’resayingnese, Cannon speaks. “Mr. Carmichael, hello, sir. I’m sor—no, she’s fine. Well, the cab driver busted her nose. No, no, she flew into the back of the seat when he slammed on—I don’t know, hold on.”
He moves the phone from his mouth and leans forward. “What’s your cab number?” he snarls at the driver, then talks into the phone again. “Huh, yeah it’s a Yellow Cab. Hey, you, driver, what’s your fucking cab number?” The man, now an ashen color, hands back a card. “Ha!” Cannon rings out, “it’s 5810666. Go figure. Don’t worry; I’ll kick his ass in about ten minutes. No, no, I don’t agree, I think he needs a good gowlering. A gowler? A hit, like ‘fuck, I didn’t see that coming.’ Hang on.”
Well, if that wasn’t the most confusing bout of incoherent rambling, some to the cab driver, some to my father, I don’t know what the hell was. My head’s throbbing as bad as my nose from it.
“Lizzie?”
I glance over at him out my good eye; is he talking to me or about me? One look confirms, he’s worried, angry and doesn’t know which problem to tackle first.
“Are you okay, sweet girl? Pull back my shirt and lemme see.”
“Good news or bad new first?” He strives to grin for me. “Not you,” he chastises in the phone, “uh, sir,” he recovers. “Her. Lizzie, baby?”
“Good,” I mumble.
He does a cursory examination and gives me a wink. “It’s stopped bleeding and I’m confident you’ll live.”
“Bad?”
“You look like you face planted a car seat. But in the prettiest way possible,” he gushes in hindsight.
I roll my eyes and groan, throwing my head back. “Hey, Evil Knievel, why aren’t we moving? Andale!” I say, though he’s no more Hispanic than I am. Oh well. I know what I mean….so do it. “Gimme that phone,” I growl, yanking it away. I’m about to gowler (I also had no idea what it meant) the hell outta every one of these disorganized, hazardous men.
“Conner fell down the stairs,” I state into the phone.
“Elizabeth, are you all right? Do you need to go to the hospital?” my father asks, with what sounds suspiciously like concern.
“Yes. No. Conner fell down the stairs. You put up rails and changed the flooring below. I’m right, aren’t I?”
There’s an extensive silence and finally he sighs, a painful, agonized sound. “Yes, he did.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me that?” I’m screeching—no sudden movements, cabbie.
“Like I said, you were young. Your mother was despondent. Your brother suffered a major, life changing injury, your father stayed gone like a coward, and then your mother died. As your father, however miserable of one, I thought your adolescent psyche’d had enough. I couldn’t ruin the last beautiful, healthy, strong one of us left.”
“He fell and hit the front of his head?”
“Yes.”
“Were you there?”
“Yes.”
“You said you weren’t. Why’d you lie?”
“Elizabeth, we will sit down and talk when I get back, I promise you. Right when we get back. Please, go spend this last week of ignorant freedom with that fine young man. Don’t hesitate to have your nose looked at. And for God’s sake, make sure you have Conner’s fish ready when we get back.” He chuckles lightly. “I’ll send you a list of the ones he expects to be there.”
Chuckles. My father. Wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it firsthand.
“How’s your band, daughter?”
“Do you care?”
“Very much.”
“Disbanded for now.”
“Ah, prayers do get answered. See you in eight days.”
***
“We’re here.” He looks out the window anxiously, rubbing what I assume are sweaty, nervous palms on his thighs. “Hey, driver, here’s the deal. You apologize to my girl and hang for a few, call 911 if there’s trouble, and we’ll call it even. Or, I report you and kick the shit out of you now. Whatcha think?”
“I very sorry, miss. Ball roll in street, child might follow. And I wait, ten minute.”
“Agreed,” Cannon says, opening the door, giving me a hand, and digging out his keys. “Go around, babe, hurry,” he almost whispers, pressing the unlock button. Fun fact—they beep. We both look at each other with wide, worried eyes, realizing the mistake, then scramble frantically into the car.
Don’t even try to deny you’d do the same thing, even amongst panic…I take inventory. Pictures on the dash—nope. Pull down visor like I own it—nope. Backseat glance—nothing. Big whiff—all man, my man. Glove box—nada.
This car…is clean. No signs of her anywhere.
He starts it and throws it in to reverse, then slams on the brakes and jolts me forward, knee slamming into the glove box. WHAT. THE. HELL?!
I’m gonna invest in a top of the line, fully padded bodysuit. I mean, come on!
I really should have caught on sooner, and I would’ve if it wasn’t for my recent head injury, but one look at Cannon’s face in the rearview and I know.
Chancing a glance behind us, there she stands, Grandma Scorned. Hands on hips, pursed lips, eyes shooting daggers…blocking our path.
Oh, and shocker…cab dude bolted like lightning, long gone.
“Want me to call the po?” I ask.
“Nope.” He exhales dejectedly. “Her dad would paint it like Picasso and make it our fault. Somehow, I’d end up in jail and you’d be a home wrecker. Just stay in the car.”
“What?”
“Please, Lizzie, for me. Stay in the damn car. This isn’t a fight of who’s scrappier or has the sharper tongue, this is a battle of power. She has it.”
He affords me one long, last glance, like he’s off to war and never coming back, and gets out. His shoulders are slumped, his head down, his steps sluggish, and all I want to do is jump out and love him back to better.
Chapter 30
We’ve established, through Cannon’s extensive “shock me with your love and understanding” therapy, that my bark is worse than my bite. I’m his favorite candy—hard on the outside, smushy on the inside, and I love far fiercer than I hate.
But even the fucking Easter Bunny couldn’t just sit back and watch discreetly thorough her side mirror as the man she loves gets scratched¸ slapped, pushed, and screamed at. And since I’d used his shirt for the nosebleed, he’s totally unprotected from her nails…which I’ve decided need ripped from the nail bed and shoved square up her ass.
Nope. Miss Priss ‘bout to learn how “ladies” (especially those who wear pearls) should act.
She hears my door slam and jerks her head my way for a split second, before she’s back at him, arms flying and screeching like the dirtiest sailor on the ship.
Cannon keeps her in one eye line and me the other, tight, tense lines of worry around his mouth and eyes. “Siren love, get back in the car,” he grits pleadingly.
“Nah, got my dog for the bunny fight,” I spit, staring at her. As I wave to her, she circles the other way and runs a key through the paint of his car, one endless scratch down the entire side. A nice car at that, one of those extended, luxury BMWs, the only thing he asked to take with him, and she just keyed the sumbitch.
“Was she always psycho?” I ask him as though she’s not even within earshot.
His mouth curls up adorably. “Little bit. Easier to stay, I told ya,” he shrugs.
“You buy this car with your own money?” I lift a brow in some sickening way, a tingle with anticipation, sort of flirting with him.
“Every cent.”
“The house?”
“Her daddy.”
“Her clothes?”
“Daddy.”
“She
work?”
“Not a day in her life.”
“I’m right here! I can hear you, you dykey bitch!” she screams at me in the voice of a debutante who lost her tiara and can’t handle it.
“Babe?” I ask and I think he knows what’s coming.
“Yeah?” He lights up, the smirk I covet in his expression, from being called babe. I’m not sure if he’s more pleased about the upcoming main attraction or the fact I’m “fighting for us” most, but it doesn’t matter, pick one.
“You go wait in the car,” I tell him now.
He salutes me, gives Ruthie a snarky finger-roll wave, and slides into the driver’s seat.
“Now, Miss Ruthie.” I make my way to her leisurely, biding my time, thinking of the most untraceable causes of death. Arsenic or air embolism—and me without the poison or a needle, dammit! “Why you backing up, badass? You were all yelling and shouting and keying cars like a prize fighter, so why you backing up?” I keep my voice deceptively calm, toying with her, stalking her like the scary flaming dyke she thinks I am.
“This isn’t any of your business. This is between me and Cannon, my fiancé!”
So sneaky, my man, I hear him slide open the electronic window; he wants to hear his witch—I mean me, the good witch without a house on her—go to work.
P.S. I’m suddenly embracing the nickname with pride.
“Here’s the thing. He’s not your fiancé anymore, at all, not even a little bit, ever again. You used and tricked him then dumped him off like trash. I scooped up your trash, and it’s my treasure. And nothing, comes between me and Cannon. He’s mine. So it is my business. Now, you can either hand me your phone so I can block and erase his number and write me a check for the damage to his car,” I roll my shoulders and suck in a calming breath for him, “or, I can change his number and put him on my plan,” should of thought of that a lot sooner, really, “and take the damage out of your ass.” I spread out my feet, cross my arms and cock my head to the side. “What’s it gonna be, Princess?”
“C-Cannon! Do you hear the way she’s talking to me?”
“Why’d you key my car, Ruthie?” he yells through the crack in the window.