Between the Sheets

by Molly O'Keefe

  “Casey, it’s just a party. Nothing will get out of hand—”

  “I said it’s fine, Ty. Whatever.”

  Casey stomped around to the passenger side of the truck and Ty guessed that was the end of the conversation.

  There was a lot of work to do before the guys started showing up around seven. Cliff the auctioneer was coming at nine. Ty had polished up the bike last night after another phone call with Shelby. Christ, that woman. She was no end of surprising. Twice he’d called her over the week, just to check up on her, see how she was doing, and twice he’d ended up with his hands down his pants listening to her gasp and groan her way through an orgasm.

  The impulse to call her, to hear her voice, was getting larger every day and Ty wasn’t very good at ignoring his impulses.

  “Hey,” he said, digging his phone out of his back pocket and handing it over to Casey. “Call Ms. Monroe and ask her to come on over tonight.”

  “Yeah?” Casey lit up like a Fourth of July firework.

  “Yeah.”

  Fuck it, he thought. He wanted to see her and whatever was happening between them, she might as well experience this part of his life. Maybe she’d like it. Maybe she’d sit down with some of these men and women, look past the surface tattoos and hair and leathers and attitude, and see what he saw—good guys who’d found a place in the world that accepted them for who they were. Trouble and all.

  “It’s her answering machine,” Casey whispered.

  “Leave her a message. Tell her to come by at eight and she should be hungry.”

  “Hey, uh … Ms. Monroe. This is Casey. From school. And … you know … across the street.” Ty smiled at his son. “Anyway, it looks like we’re having a party and Ty says you should come. At eight and you should be hungry. You can bring your mom. See you.” Casey ended the call.

  “Her mom?”

  “Yeah.” Casey shrugged and settled against the door with Ty’s phone. The familiar Plants vs. Zombies song filled the cab. “Why not?”

  He could think of a couple of big reasons why not, but he said nothing.

  “Your room clean?” Ty asked, turning the corner onto the old highway heading out to their house.

  “Why?”

  “People might spend the night.”

  “In my room?” Casey cried.

  “Yeah, you can bunk in with me.”

  “I’m not sleeping with you just because your friends get so drunk they can’t drive home.”

  They pulled into the driveway and Ty turned off the truck. Casey made a move to jump out of the car, but Ty stopped him. “Tell me, Casey, what’s bothering you about this?”

  “Nothing.” Casey hurled himself out of the truck and headed into the house, leaving Ty to unpack the truck.

  Ty was going to chalk up Casey’s attitude to … attitude. To the fact that they’d been together 24/7 for a few days and both of them needed to just blow off some steam. He hoped Jimmy and his wife brought their kids so Casey would have someone he could hang with.

  He ran through the house making sure things were clean. He got out Nana’s big pot and set it on the stove full of water. Potatoes were chopped. Onions and corn. The shrimp was already peeled, so he kept that in the fridge. He put big buckets of ice outside and dumped the beers inside to get cold. He wedged a few bottles of white wine in there as well.

  Ah … what the hell, he thought, and took his phone out of his pocket and called Shelby himself.

  “Hey,” he said to her machine. “Not sure if you got Casey’s message, but we’re having a party over here tonight. It’s casual. Lots of food and drink. It’s …” He stopped and then just decided to hell with it, he wasn’t interested in playing games by seeming less involved than he was, because he was totally involved with Shelby. “I’d love to see you.”

  Shaking his head at himself, he hung up and got back to work.

  Outside he cleaned up the garbage that one of the wild dogs or a pack of raccoons kept getting into; honest to God, he was going to have to put bungee locks on these cans. From the front of the house he heard the roar of twin cam engines and he felt a leap of excitement.

  He circled the house just as Jimmy and Rita pulled in on a Harley Dyna Super Glide.

  “Hey man,” Ty said, stepping forward to shake Jimmy’s hand. Jimmy had been one of Pop’s mechanics for a few years before he got married and moved to Indianapolis. Now he was a pastor. The head of the Bikers for Jesus, Indianapolis chapter.

  He was also the most badass motherfucker Ty had ever known. And he looked it. Heavy leather, some of it studded. Heavy ink, some of it left over from his Hells Angels and prison days; heavy facial hair, including a long Fu Manchu. But if you could look past all that and get to the man’s eyes, you saw everything that mattered.

  “My brother!” Jimmy yelled, pulling Ty into his arms, slapping his back. “So good to see you, Ty. It’s been too long.”

  “Obviously,” Ty laughed, reaching forward to help Rita off the back of the bike. “When did this happen?”

  Rita, normally thin as a rail, looked like she’d swallowed a beach ball. “About six months ago,” she answered, kissing Ty’s cheek. “And you’re not supposed to notice.”

  “I’m not sure that’s possible,” he laughed. “Congrats. I had no idea you guys were going for more kids.”

  “Neither did we,” Rita said with a wry smile. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and while always beautiful, she looked tired.

  “God works in mysterious ways,” Jimmy said.

  “Not when you forget to wear a condom.” Rita scowled at her husband but he only smiled and kissed her cheek, his hand curving over her belly.

  “Let’s get you something cold to drink,” Ty said.

  “And food! This baby is hungry.”

  “Well, we’ve got food and cold drinks—come on back.”

  “Where’s your son?” Rita asked, her arm tucked in Ty’s elbow. “I haven’t seen him since he was little.”

  He stopped in his tracks. “When did you meet Casey?”

  “Shit,” Rita breathed, and she and her husband shared a telling look.

  “You let the cat out of the bag,” Jimmy said. “You better finish it.”

  “Yeah, you better,” Ty agreed, stunned by the knowledge that Jimmy and Rita had met Casey before and not bothered to tell him when he’d called Jimmy with the news about the boy.

  “My brother got involved with the Outlaws,” Rita said with a big sigh, her hand flattening over her belly. “Jimmy and me were in Memphis trying to convince him to come stay with us in Indianapolis, to get himself cleaned up. Out of trouble. We were at a party and Vanessa had Casey there. He was probably five. Six. We didn’t know he was yours. Had no idea. Until you called to tell us everything that happened with Vanessa and the custody stuff, and we figured it out.”

  “We didn’t tell you about seeing him at the party,” Jimmy said. “We figured you already had to be feeling terrible and had enough reasons to be pissed off at Vanessa and didn’t need to know she was hauling her kid around to some pretty fucked-up scenes.”

  Great. No wonder Casey was having problems with the idea of this kind of party. Guilt that he hadn’t been there, that he hadn’t been able to protect his son from that situation, bit deep into his chest and he had to tip back his head in order to get a breath.

  “You got nothing to feel guilty about,” Jimmy said, reading Ty so well, because that was what the man was genius at. “Nothing.”

  “But—”

  “You didn’t know.” Jimmy put a hand on Ty’s shoulder. “And if you had, it would have been a different story.”

  “That’s what I feel guilty about. If I had just known. If I had reached out to Vanessa at some point during those years. If I’d stayed put in Memphis and given her a chance to find me. I could have stopped Casey from seeing …” He stopped, having been down this road a thousand times. He hadn’t known about his son and that was the end of it. Beating himself up over how
things would have been different didn’t do anyone any good.

  “I’m sorry, Ty. I really am,” Rita said. “We weren’t going to say anything but I had to open my big mouth.”

  “No. It’s fine. I’m glad you told me.”

  “How are things working out between you and Casey?” Rita asked.

  “Other than Casey being suspended from school for fighting—great.”

  “Fighting?” she asked.

  “Wrong thing for the right reason,” he said. “Trust me. But it’s actually going pretty good. He’s got a teacher he really likes and is doing some art classes with her on the side.”

  “Our Oscar likes art,” Rita said. “He gets bullied at school a little, and the teacher says art helps him.”

  “Breaks my heart what that kid can draw,” Jimmy said.

  “I feel like everything Casey does breaks my heart.”

  “Welcome to parenthood.”

  Rita plopped down on the couch and put her feet up while Jimmy and Ty went out to the garage and looked at the bike. “Oh, man, she’s beautiful,” Jimmy said, running his fingers through the fringe on the seat. “I don’t think I have the bones to buy her, though.”

  “I think Gordon is coming up from New Orleans,” Ty said.

  Jimmy blew out a breath. “Then I definitely won’t.”

  Gordon McNeill was a classic collector with a deep pocket. When he was involved in the auction there was a good chance that no one would outbid him. Bad news for Jimmy. Good news for Ty.

  “How are you guys settling in out here in the sticks?”

  Ty blew out a breath. “I feel like maybe it was too much all at once, you know. Not for Casey, he’s digging it. But maybe … for me. Being a dad, figuring out school and teachers, and then being away from friends and trying to figure out how to just stay put, you know. It’s like every time we hit a bump I get this itch to just pick Casey up and start over.”

  “That boy needs some stability.”

  “I know. That’s what I keep telling myself. Hey.” Ty smacked Jimmy’s shoulder, changing the subject. “It’s good to see you. I’ve forgotten how nice it is to have friends around.”

  “Well, you’ll have some friends here tonight. I’ve called some of the old boys and told them to meet us here.”

  Ty opened his eyes wide, thinking about beer and food and just how many old boys Jimmy was talking about. “Calm down, Ty,” Jimmy laughed, slapping him on the shoulder. “Five guys and their ladies, tops.”

  The door from the house into the garage opened and Casey stood there in one of his oversized tee shirts and baggy jeans, looking so old and so little all at the same time.

  “Well, there’s the little man,” Jimmy said, pushing his shades up onto his face.

  “Hey, Casey, this is my friend Jimmy.”

  Casey nodded at Jimmy, watching the old biker out of the corner of his eyes.

  “We met once a long time ago,” Jimmy said. “You might not remember.”

  “At a party, right?” Casey asked.

  Jimmy and Ty shared a quick surprised look. “Yeah.”

  “You played cards with me,” Casey said, staring at his feet and at Jimmy in turns.

  “That’s right. Go Fish.”

  “You cheated.”

  “I can’t believe you remember that!” Jimmy laughed, but when Casey raised his eyes to Ty’s he felt a jolt through his chest, like getting kicked off a bike going forty miles an hour. Casey remembered that party. He probably remembered every party Vanessa took him to that he shouldn’t have been at. He remembered because he’d been scared. Because even if everyone at that party had been as decent as Jimmy, it didn’t matter—Vanessa never helped him feel safe.

  “There’s a woman asleep on the couch,” Casey said.

  “That’s Rita. She does that,” Jimmy said. “She’s pretty tired these days.”

  Casey nodded and then stepped backward as if to head back inside, and in a heartbeat Ty knew what to do. He could tell Casey that no one here would hurt him, that no one would be out of control and that he was safe with Ty, or he could show Casey that he understood. And that even though he was a kid, this was his house, too, and Ty could respect that.

  Pop used to say, I could tell you or I could show you.

  “We’re not doing the auction here,” he said.

  “What?” Jimmy asked.

  “Yeah. There’s a great bar and barbecue place in town; they’ve got a big lot. We’ll do it there.”

  “Really?” Casey asked, looking as if a weight had been rolled off his back.

  “Yep. You can stay here if you like or come with us—your choice.”

  “I’ll stay.”

  “I imagine Rita might want to stay, too. That all right with you?” Jimmy asked. “She’ll sleep and then wake up and eat every chip you’ve got in the house.”

  Casey smiled quickly. “We’ve got a lot.”

  “She’ll dig that.”

  “I’ll call my people, you call yours, and we’ll meet at The Pour House on Main Street,” Ty said to Jimmy.

  Casey went back inside and Jimmy started laughing. “Man,” he said. “You’re a natural.”

  “I’m glad you think so, because I have no idea what I’m doing.”

  Shelby was a little drunk. Just a little. Just slightly more than she liked to be in public. Being drunk in the Art Barn with Ty was one thing, but here at The Pour House surrounded by teachers she worked with it seemed … unwise. In fact, the whole thing seemed a little unwise.

  Deena had come over to be with Mom, but she still felt as though leaving was a bad idea. It had been a rough week. Which was why, frankly, she’d needed to get out and blow off some steam.

  Apparently she wasn’t alone. All the other teachers were hammered. Just plain blotto.

  But what was really making her nervous was that what she’d wanted from Joe Phillips seemed to be happening now. Right now.

  He was sitting so close to her at the tables that Maureen Jones, the kindergarten teacher, had pushed together that his knee kept brushing up against hers. And instead of delicious, instead of wonderful, it felt awful.

  Because she couldn’t stop thinking about Ty.

  And not in an I’m betraying this man I have no actual commitment to kind of way. In the way that she couldn’t stop wishing that it was Ty’s leg brushing against hers. That it was Ty going to the bar to get her more white wine spritzers.

  “Another?” he asked, stretching his arm across the back of her chair in a gesture so … date-like, so overtly masculine, that she actually cringed away from it. Which was hilarious and slightly troubling when she thought about the overtly masculine things she liked from Ty.

  There were times she had the real sense of herself as a lie, a dual personality.

  “No,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  “You having a good time?” he asked, lifting his beer glass to his mouth. Across the table Mrs. Jordal was laughing at something Maureen was telling her, and both of them set their glasses down so hard that the drinks sloshed out of them.

  “I am,” she said. “Though it’s a little weird to see everyone so loose like this.”

  “They do it once a month.”

  “Why haven’t I ever been asked?” She’d had no idea that she cared until the question was out of her mouth. He blinked in reaction, probably astonished that she’d asked. She had a habit of asking the things no one ever asked.

  “I don’t think anyone thought you would want to come.”

  “Why?”

  He laughed. “You know your reputation, Ms. Monroe.” He leaned in close, his voice pitched somewhere between teasing and seductive, and she was so shocked she could only stare at the bubbles fizzing in her wineglass. This was happening. She wasn’t imagining it. He’d invited her here to hit on her. To flirt. For a woman who hadn’t had a date in years, or a lover almost ever, there were now two men interested in her.

  She didn’t know how to handle this. What did other wome
n do? Well, they probably didn’t put down their glass and go running home to their mother, like she was planning. Nor did they run off to the bathroom just to break the sudden tension.

  “What is my reputation?” She leaned away from him, but was turning toward him at the same time.

  “Prim.” His glasses had slid down on his nose and they were slightly cockeyed, a sweet disheveled man. “Proper.”

  “I’m not,” she said, suddenly and oddly angry. “No one ever sees that, though.”

  “I’ll see whatever you want me to.”

  But you didn’t, she thought. And I know part of that is my fault, because I’m cowardly and odd. And perhaps not unlike some kind of tin woman, frozen from the years of inattention. Rusted over by a childhood warped with fear and worship. But for years I’ve been waiting and you never saw me.

  Outside there was the far-off roar of motorcycles getting louder, one of those clubs, perhaps, that followed the Mississippi River. Sometimes, on beautiful mornings, there would be a dozen bikes outside Cora’s as the riders grabbed coffee and eggs on their way through town.

  The sound made her think of Ty.

  Ty, who saw her, or wanted to see her because of what she showed him. And when she showed him more he wasn’t scared of it. The more she showed him, the more he seemed to want.

  She grabbed her purse, slung over the back of her chair. “I think I should go home.”

  “Really?” He looked astonished. After years he’d finally worked up the courage to come on to her and she was leaving.

  Served him right. Or her right. She didn’t know anymore; she just knew she wanted to leave.

  “You shouldn’t drive,” Joe said, reaching into his pocket for his keys. She put a hand to his arm, because she could. Because thoughts of Ty somehow freed up some of her rusty joints and made her feel more human.

  “Well, neither should you. I can walk.”

  Joe said something, but it was drowned out by the roar of the motorcycles getting very close indeed and then stopping all together. Shelby glanced behind the bar, where Sean shared a look with Jim, his weekend bartender.

  The front door opened and as if she’d summoned him, as if all the things she’d grown so used to denying herself—all the big and small pleasures, the guilty ones and the innocent ones, the ones rated X and the far more pedestrian—had coalesced into living, breathing flesh, Wyatt Svenson walked into The Pour House.