by KT Morrison
Now they were out in Aurora and it was already past five. She didn’t have to work past five he’d said. She was free to go if she liked, of course her car was all the way back in Etobicoke. So she was stranded. Stranded with a big bully who she wouldn’t dare present with the problem of needing to go home at five, especially on her first day of work.
They were at another million dollar home, this one with a tennis court and two Porsches in the driveway. The husband was kind of soft looking but he had this air about him, like he was a negotiator, some sort of executive probably. When Rocco would stand next to him, he’d bump his glasses up his face with his finger and raise his chin up so he could look at him. You could tell he thought Rocco was intimidating and you could tell he was making an effort to confront him and not appear weak. But he looked weak. Every time he pushed those glasses up he did it with his pinky finger sticking up like he was drinking tea the way Geoff’s nana used to.
When the guy took a break for a phone call, walking around with his iPhone in his driveway in his slippers with his back to them, Rocco got up close to her. He asked her what she thought. She panicked for a second. Thought to back away from the question but knew that would make her sound stupid. She said they could shave some off the bid if it made this guy happy. They could save money if they hauled the materials all at the same time, combine it with the last job they bid on in Newmarket—they’d just have to get this guy to agree on the first customer’s schedule. She didn’t know if it made any sense at all or if she just made a fool of herself. He nodded, smiled at her, held her gaze a little long again, those black eyes boring through her and not giving anything away what he was thinking or feeling. Just like Dino. He agreed.
He acted then like he already knew to do what she said, maybe he did, but the important thing was she showed him she got it. She was a quick study. End of her first day and she could show her boss that she saw how it all worked and if she was this good on day one she was going to be valuable. She hoped he saw that she was going to be valuable. The job paid pretty darn good. It was really hard work, the early morning, the pace, the travel, but she liked it. It was fun being out of the house. She missed Geoff. Missed him bad. But those easy days with Geoff were just a gift. She had them, enjoyed them, but now it was time to get serious. Maybe this could be a career. Maybe this could be a real thing for her. A double income would be flat out fucking awesome. They weren’t in trouble—Geoff did pretty well, and was doing better, like big things for Geoff were on the horizon. But maybe if they both worked they could do some great things. It would be nice if Geoff didn't work practically seven days a week though, truthfully, he liked it. If he could slow it down, not have to produce so much just to get paid, then they could travel, maybe. Get a cottage or something.
She texted him.
Nia: Home late. Out in Aurora, on way back to office.
G-Force: NP Baby need a fat girl night?
Nia: ha ha ha oh my god I forgot about those! baby please!
GEOFF
“Fat girl night?”
“Yeah. We’d eat chips, ice cream...I’d bake her some warm sugar treats.”
“Fat girl, Dad? That’s mean.”
“Odie, it’s not supposed to be mean. It’s like...camaraderie. With fat girls. Like, we get it, you know?”
“No.”
“Like we get sometimes you just wanna eat sweets til your tummy bursts,” he said and poked her soft little girl middle. She flinched, didn’t laugh. She smirked. She was sitting on a stool at the kitchen island, helping him mix batter from the Betty Crocker Brownie mix.
She said, “But you’re not fat.”
“I know. Odie, maybe it’s mean, we didn’t mean it like that. You wanna make a new name for it for Mommy and me?”
“Okay.”
He put his hands over hers, one on the bowl and one on her grip on the rubber spatula. They stirred the chocolate batter together.
“Brownie Night?”
“Boring. Plus, it’s not always brownies...”
She watched her hands on the bowl, watched the handle stuck in the brown mix, twirl around and around, folding and plopping, sweet sugar smell wafting up to them. He put his chin on the top of her head.
“Sugar Poops Night?” she giggled.
“Oh my God,” he gasped, “that’s fuc—that’s so perfect, sweetheart. Sugar Poops Night.”
She laughed and squirmed in his arms and he hugged her.
“If I got fat, Dad, would you make fun of me?”
“Odie,” he groaned, squeezed her so tight a grunt came out of her, “baby, I’m not making fun of fat girls and if you got big and fat I’d love you even more...just mathematically, because there’s literally more to love.”
“Dad, I’m joking.”
“Oh. Whatever, I will love you forever no matter what.”
“I know,” she chastised him, and she raised the spatula and he backed away knowing she would try and tap his nose with it. He went to the oven and got the baking pan, said, “As I was saying, they were Fat Girl Nights, now forever known as Sugar Poops Nights, and I would meet your Mom at her apartment or she would come to mine—”
“It doesn’t sound very...romantic.”
“We were just friends, Odie. I told you that. Before I married your Mom, before we dated, she and I were best friends.”
“So you would get together and bake brownies?”
“I’d bake them for her. If she was feeling down, or overwhelmed... with, uh, school or whatever.”
“Weak, Dad.”
“Weak?” he laughed. Pretty intuitive for a seven-year-old. It was, in retrospect, weak.
NIA
Nia couldn’t wait to get home.
They’d got back to the yard at just after 7:30 P.M. and she was more than twenty minutes from home probably in the traffic. She was starving and Rocco had offered to stop at a drive-thru in Concord but she declined. Geoff was texting saying he and O were cooking dinner for her. So they got back to the yard and he said she did great on her first day and that he liked having her with him in the truck and she said that she had a good time too and that she liked the job. She tried to hide it but she knew her face was showing the exhaustion. Her smile was more difficult, her eyes were struggling to stay lively and open. But she felt peaceful. She felt proud of herself. This was a big step. It was tough but she’d done it and she felt like she’d done it well. He said he’d see her tomorrow and he pat her on her butt as she walked away and she stumbled a bit getting to the Volvo.
Now she was on the Gardiner, the lights of the city just ahead of her and a lit billboard told her Matilda was coming to Ed Mirvish and she wondered if she could take Geoff and Odie, do it as her treat now that she was working. It would be nice to, all three of them, go out one of the nights and see it as a family.
She got off at Parkside, so glad to see her neighbourhood, the hospital ahead where Odie first emerged onto this planet. Then she blinked and pow! she was creeping down her alley and she worried she might have dozed off somewhere there but that was impossible because there were so many people out tonight, looking to get a good head start on the nice weather finally. She would have run one of them over. She pulled into the drive, brought the Volvo’s bumper up so it almost touched the wall of Geoff’s studio, then she shut it down and for a moment she leaned her forehead against the steering wheel but she bolted upright against the sleepy pull, so strong now that she felt a dizzy vertigo like she was falling backwards and it made her just a bit nauseous.
She clicked up the concrete walk, her back and her legs aching from mostly sitting all day hunched over a laptop, being used in ways they just weren’t used to. When she got to the top of the stairs she saw what they’d done through the kitchen window. The two of them, in metallic paper party hats, were waiting for her. There was a banner made of silvery tinfoil that hung in a fringe, on each flat sheet tooth was a letter, put together they’d spelled out YAAAY MOM! She saw they had dinner ready and there were candl
es lit on the kitchen table in the booth. Fucking guys. They made her cry. She was not a cryer. Not at happy things. It was brief but she felt her eyes well up like they were going to burst and a tear plopped down her cheek and she wiped it away quickly. They waited with beaming faces and she stepped through the door so happy to be home with her family.
She opened the door laughing, then when they said, suuurpriii-ise, her eyes squinted up.
“You jerks,” she laughed, wiping at her eyes again, laughing out loud, sniffing and hiding her face from them in her hair.
GEOFF
She was even a little too tired for a real fat girl night, the binge watching part, but they tried it anyway. He let her know of the name change—that Fat Girl Night would be now called Sugar Poops Night according to Odele. Nia laughed. She ate two brownies after her dinner, she’d worked up a real appetite today.
He sat on the couch with her now but she was not staying awake at all and he said she should go to bed. That was what he wanted too. He told her he’d run her a bath and rub her back for her and that made her very tired face smile. She leaned back on the couch and kissed him. “Geoff, you’re the best.”
“I know.”
“I like my thermos.”
“See. I knew you would.”
“Rocco has the same one.”
“Guy knows his thermoses apparently.”
It was late, Odie in bed for an hour. He’d already shut down the kitchen, puttered around doing laundry. The dishwasher gurgled away.
“Okay,” he said and stood up, held his hand out to her. “Let’s get you put away for the night. Gotta get up and do it all over again tomorrow.”
She groaned and frowned, her lips pouting, surly like Odele. He took her hand and helped her up and walked with her down the hall, his palm pressed across the top of her back.
“Hey, we got any chicken?” she said, over her shoulder to him
“No.”
“Can you pick me up some things tomorrow? I want to make a chicken parm.”
“Sure.”
Once they were upstairs he got ahead of her in the hall and held the bedroom door open for her, gestured her in with his hand, said, “M’Lady,” and curtly bowed as she passed.
He’d snuck up and lit the candles he’d prepared, ruffled the sheets in an inviting manner. the room was warm and lit by the amber flickering light of a dozen scented candles in jars.
“Oh, Geoff,” she laughed. Thinking he was trying to set her up for a night of sex. He’d show her he meant it: he was going to rub her back and her feet and just wanted to make her feel good. He did want to have sex though, if she was up for it.
“Go on, Nia, get yourself ready for bed.”
She laughed, said, “Geoff, I’m so tired.” She stumbled herself into the bathroom, making it funny for him, bumbling like their tired daughter would, also kind of telling him sex was not going to happen tonight.
She went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth. She’d already dressed for bed shortly after dinner. She’d come up and changed into a night shirt. She was making a soft cotton nightshirt look way sexier than it should. Her shoulders were a bit hunched but he had been watching the soft sway of her breasts behind that cotton all evening. Her toned legs were bare below the white cotton with the floral print. He watched her as she stood in their bathroom, scrubbing her teeth, her untamed black hair shaking. He was so proud of her. This had to have been a big day for her and she’d come through it. He wanted her to relax now so he could show her how well cared for she was and what a great home she’d always have to come home to after a long day at her new job.
“Hey, Nia, come here, working girl,” he said, and he patted the bed next to him. “Come on up here and let me make you feel good.”
She flicked off the light in the bathroom and padded over to the bed. “You know what working girl means, right?” she smiled as she climbed up the bed and walked to him on all fours. She kissed him with her cold toothpaste mouth.
“Not what I meant,” he laughed.
“I know, Geoff.” She flopped down on the bed heavily next to him and he put an arm around her and cuddled her.
“Nia, let me rub your back for you. I told you I was going to work those tootsies.”
“Yes, you did, didn’t you?” she said, rolling onto her stomach and folding her arms up under her pillow.
“Come on, keep it together for a minute,” he said to her sleeping face, her eyes closed. “Really, you can fall asleep while I rub.”
“Okay,” she said, eyes still closed. She flopped around on her belly and turned her sweet face sideways on her pillow, bumped her hands under it to plump it up against her.
“Can we get you naked?” he said, getting to his knees and reaching to the night table to get the patchouli scented hemp massage oil he’d bought at the store today.
“You can get me naked,” she said and she rocked her hips and made her rump sway. “Just hike it up, Geoff.”
“Okay,” he laughed, she was really out of it tonight. He took the soft hem of her nightshirt and shimmied it up over her bare ass, bent and gave it a kiss and she giggled, swayed it some more. He kissed it again. He bunched the cotton up under her waist, told her she had to get up because it was stuck under her. She laughed and sighed then got to her knees and he scurried her nightdress up past her hanging breasts. He wanted to grab those things suddenly, then thought that wouldn’t be very nice considering all the signals she was sending him. Then also a conflicting thought how she’d told him he had to take what he wanted. That she wanted a man who knew what to do and would do it right. Technically while he wanted to shove his cock in her pussy from behind right now, he also technically didn’t want it because he thought she’d be against it. Kind of a nice guy loophole. Animal instinct versus higher-minded manners led to a troubled conception of what in his heart he really wanted. His cock would be happy buried in her right now but his heart only wanted the things that made her happy. He’d never be that fuck-machine she seemed to enjoy. Too much going on upstairs maybe. “Come on, baby,” he said, and he helped her up off the pillow for a moment so she could get the nightdress right off. He kept it tucked near her so it could keep her body heat so when she put it back on it wouldn’t be cold.
He straddled her thighs and squirted some of the oil into his palm. “I went out today and got a few things,” he said rubbing his hands together and warming the oil.
“You did? What do you mean?”
“I went and bought a few things, you know, that couples use.”
“What?” she laughed, her back shaking, her head still to the side on her pillow.
“Yeah, like this oil, you know, and some other things.”
“Other things, Geoff?”
“Other things, Nia, reserved for a more receptive time and for now which will remain a secret.”
“I like it, baby,” she murmured.
“You do?”
“Yeah. Take me next time.”
He put his palms on her back, spread them both out like angel wings against her and he put his weight behind it, let his thumbs dig into her muscle and gently push up against her, going up either side of her spine and up between her shoulders. She moaned. His hands glided across her skin, warm and slick. Her soft flesh bunched and smoothed underneath his effort.
“Oh, Geoff,” that feels so good.
“You go to seep if you want. I’ll just keep rubbing.”
He kept up the pressure, working his hands across her back, working out from the centre of her, moving from the spot on her back where her heart would beat and then moving across her shoulders and down her arms. He had her moaning softly, grunting sometimes with his fiercest effort. It felt wonderful to be this man for her. To take care of her. It put such pleasure in him, made some part of him almost sing inside. A high monotone note that lifted his eyebrows and put a dopey smile on his face. He had the most beautiful woman in the world underneath him right now. She was healthy and happy, she was warm and lo
ving. She was his best friend. He got to spend every day with this beautiful female—which he literally could not find a superior to. There was no supermodel that was prettier, no Victoria Secret lingerie girl that did a thing to him more than his Nia did. He didn’t know how he ended up so lucky but he was thankful every day, really, every day that she was in his life. Her happiness, her satisfaction was the thing that was utmost in his mind. Not his art. Because it wasn’t art really in that it didn’t nourish his soul in any way. He drew with serious intent and he let the smart parts of him dictate what ended up on the finished page but, shit, at the end of the day it was all work-for-hire. He did it because that was what he could do for money, that was where his abilities lay and it was a way for him to provide a home for his family.
He watched her oily skin shine in the candle light. He worked lower, knowing this was where it was getting tricky. He’d rubbed her back for more than half an hour now and she was still awake. He wanted to get down low, do the small of her back, do the crest of her buttocks. There was even a chance that she might be getting aroused. He worked her narrow waist, felt her giggle a little and struggle as he went over some of her ticklish bits. He moved away from them, moved away from her sides and rubbed down to her rump. He got into those tight muscles there under her soft woman flesh, dug the points of his thumbs into the hardened strips under her softness that were strong and toned from her yoga three days a week...
“Hey, baby?”
“Yeah, Geoff?”
“How you going to do yoga now?”
“I don’t know. I guess I can’t anymore. Not during summer.”
“Think every night’s going to be as late as this one?”