by Kay Harris
Gina tore off a piece of pretzel and dunked it into the tub of mustard. “I don’t know Amy. There may not be anything you can do to keep her from obsessing over that man. It doesn’t matter that he’s already crossed the state lines and is hundreds of miles of away with all kinds of eyes on him. She’s traumatized, Amy, and that’s not going to go away, probably ever.” Gina popped the pretzel into her mouth and gave Amy a sympathetic smile around her full mouth.
Amy sighed and toyed with the half of her pretzel that remained on her paper napkin. “I just wish she could be as cool about it as I am. I wish she could take a page from my book. I don’t know, maybe that sounds stupid, or even arrogant.”
“Or ignorant.”
Amy’s head snapped up and she stared into her cousin’s hazel eyes. “What?”
Gina abandoned her pretzel and leaned back in the plastic chair, folding her arms across her chest. “You have been affected by the kidnapping more than you will ever admit, Amy. I love you. And that’s why I want you to admit it.”
“If you’re talking about the lack of a sex drive thing, I’m pretty sure that’s…um…resolving itself.” Discussing this in the food court over high carb snacks wasn’t exactly high on Amy’s list. But with their family constantly hovering through the Holiday weekend, it was as good a time as any.
Gina leaned forward quickly, planting her elbows on the table between them and causing it to tilt unsteadily to one side. Her long, strawberry blonde hair fell over one shoulder and her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
Amy leaned in to match her cousin’s posture. Foreheads nearly touching, she confessed. “I have a crush on a guy.”
Gina sucked in a hard breath. “Are we talking like a celebrity crush?”
Amy tilted her head to the side. “What?”
“Never mind.” Gina waved her hand dismissively. “Who do you have a crush on?”
“My boss.”
Gina threw her head back and laughed. Amy didn’t think it was funny.
DECEMBER
Chapter 5
Playing racquetball with Carlos had led to this. One moment Amy had been lying in her bed attempting to sleep. The room was dark and warm despite the open window and cool breeze. The soft, high-thread count sheets her mother had gotten her last Christmas slid along her legs as she moved restlessly, finally turning to lie on her back.
She pictured Carlos the way he’d looked that afternoon. Hair, damp with sweat, stuck to his temples. His thin cotton shirt clung to rippling muscles on his chest and abdomen. Exposed biceps winked at her with each rough push of the racket through the air. And long legs, covered in a smooth shading of dark hair, flexed and relaxed as he moved fluidly around the court.
Amy’s hand, of its own accord, settled itself on her stomach, just above that curly shock of hair. In her mind she saw the moment when Carlos, sweaty and overheated, reached behind his head and pulled that white shirt clean off.
Her hand slipped further, down to the tiny nub she’d always known was there but had never had the inclination to touch. She teased it now, her mind floating over that exposed chest.
She kept her imagination focused on Carlos and his body, her fingers remained on that sweet spot between her legs until she felt the unfamiliar sensation of climbing, her body losing its connection to the bed beneath her, her mind unable to pull away from what was happening, her hand incapable of stopping that perfect pressure.
Amy cried out as what she only knew in theory as an orgasm ripped through her, causing her legs to tremble and her breathing to grow deep and heavy. Her brain spun for a long moment, before every muscle in her relaxed.
It was a few minutes before her shout made her worry. She listened hard to see if Marcel would come to investigate. It was after eleven and when she’d gone to bed he’d already been asleep, needing to get up at five to make his commute to work.
Marcel didn’t stir and Amy sat up in bed and switched on the lamp beside her. She remained still for another long moment, staring at the painting of a French girl in an alleyway that her Uncle Clint’s ex-wife, Cecile, had made out of a paint-by-numbers.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she picked up her cell phone and called YaYa.
“Amy? Everything all right?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. Did I wake you?”
“Not really. What’s going on?” YaYa asked, her voice distinctly groggy.
“I just, you know.”
“No. What?”
“I…you know, I took care of myself.”
“Are you trying to tell me you masturbated?”
Amy swallowed hard. “Um…yeah.”
Suddenly, YaYa was very awake. “Really? Oh my God! Did you…?”
“Yes.”
“Holy shit, Amy! This is huge! How did it happen? I mean, why? How?”
“I don’t know. I just felt like doing it and I did it,” Amy said, suddenly unsure why she’d felt the need to share this first.
“Oh my God! Dr. Heel would be doing a fucking happy dance right now.”
Amy laughed at that. Dr. Heel had been her psychologist all through high school and part of college and she’d tried desperately to find Amy’s sexuality.
“Maybe I’ll send her an email.”
“Seriously. What happened? Were you fantasizing?”
“Yes.”
“About a guy or a girl?”
Amy had to acknowledge that it was a little strange that at the age of thirty no one even knew which gender she’d be attracted to if she was attracted to someone.
“A guy. And I’m pretty sure I’m hetero. Yesterday I watched some TV show with Marcel and we talked in detail about how hot the lead actor was, and I wasn’t faking it.”
“Holy shit!” YaYa said again. “Where did this come from? Are you seeing someone?”
Amy knew she didn’t mean a date. She meant a shrink. “No. It was a real man who opened my world.”
“Whoa. Like a man you’ve…”
“No. Not really. I mean, I kind of kissed him. But not really.”
“Who is this guy?” YaYa asked.
“Well, that’s where it gets complicated.”
****
Carlos pulled his car in front of Amy’s apartment building. He parked and shifted in his seat. “I forgot to discuss the one thing I planned to go over with you during this session.”
They’d spent the afternoon shopping for Christmas gifts for his colleagues and employees. And while it sounded trite, it had actually been an exercise in diplomacy and professional relationships.
Carlos examined Amy’s face closely as she turned in her own seat and looked at him expectantly. “How have you liked your time in the finance department?” Before she could answer he added, “I know you are looking for the right career fit for you and I don’t want you to tell me a white lie just so you won’t hurt my feelings. I want to know how it was for you.”
She smiled sweetly at him and he felt it in his gut. “I think you have an amazing department and an amazing team. But you already know that. And I enjoyed the work. In fact, organizing all those numbers in big complicated rows on a spreadsheet was right up my alley. But, there was something missing for me. I can’t really put my finger on it. I only hope that when I find it, I’ll know it.”
He smiled at her. “You will.”
“I hope so. Because I’m running out of time.”
He waved his hand. “Nah. Some people are a lot older than you when they finally find their passion.”
“Maybe. Well, thanks for today.” She reached for the door handle.
“Wait.” Carlos felt desperate to keep her in the car. It made no sense, but he wasn’t done being near her yet. And he hated the feeling he always got when she left. “We should talk about next week.”
Amy settled back into the seat, folding her hands in her lap. “Sure.”
“It will be our last mentoring session.” A sense of loss filled him as he said the words. Their weekly outings had become pr
ecious time to him. He anticipated them as the best part of his week.
Amy stuck out her lower lip in an exaggerated pout. Carlos had to use all his willpower not to lean forward and pull that pink lip between his own. “I know.”
“I think you should pick our outing.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Anything you want.”
“Next Friday…” She pulled out her phone and tapped at it for a few moments while Carlos waited patiently. “I want to go to a hockey game.”
“You like hockey?”
“I love it. Don’t you?”
“Sure…wait…please tell me you’re a Sharks fan.”
Amy grinned and nodded.
“Thank God. I was worried you would show up in a Ducks shirt.”
“Nope,” she said, chuckling. “I will be there in my Thornton jersey. But I do have a requirement.”
“What’s that?”
“We need to take some kids.”
“Kids? Like just rent some for the day?”
“I don’t know. But hockey games are best with kids.”
There was something so deeply right about what she was saying that it hit him square in the chest. “I can get kids.”
“Good.” She pushed the car door open. “See you on Monday.”
And then she was gone, striding up the walk to her door, leaving him with that familiar empty feeling.
Chapter 6
The following Friday Amy waltzed into Carlos’ office mid-afternoon, already changed into a pair of jeans and a Sharks jersey. Her silky blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail that was stuck through the back of a baseball cap. She was cute as hell.
She frowned at him. “You’re not wearing that are you?”
He couldn’t help but laugh as she looked with disapproval at his grey pants and white dress shirt topped off with a dark blue tie.
“Don’t worry.” He stood and pulled his backpack up over one shoulder. “I’ll stop at the restroom on the way out of the building and change. I don’t want the kids to give me a hard time.”
The first part of the ride to his brother’s house in Alameda was occupied with Amy mulling over how different Carlos looked in jeans and a Sharks hoodie. But by the time they were moving through Oakland she switched to asking him about the kids.
“Nieces or nephews?”
“Nieces. My two youngest,” he replied.
“How old are they?”
“Eight.”
“Both of them?”
“Yep. Twins. Identical. So don’t feel bad if you can’t tell them apart. Half the time their own parents can’t tell them apart.”
“So, the youngest ones are eight?” she asked.
“Yeah. I told you I was the youngest of five boys. Well, I’m the youngest by a lot. My next oldest brother is forty and the oldest is fifty-five.”
“So, your parents are kind of…elderly?”
“They would be. Dad died of Cancer almost ten years ago and Mom had heart problems. She passed last year.”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “How many nieces and nephews do you have?”
“Each of my oldest three brothers has two kids and Daniel tried to do the same, but then they had the twins so they accidentally ended up with three.”
“And you? No kids, right?”
He tried not to let the disappointment bleed through in his voice. “No. Thank goodness. I spared any kid the trauma of Kim as a mom.” He bit his lip. “Damn. I did it again. I keep saying shit about her in front of you.”
“Don’t worry. With any luck I’ll never have to work for her again.” She looked ahead at the road for a while, watching the traffic as they wove through Oakland. “How did you end up with her…um, if you don’t mind me asking?”
He often felt as though Amy could get him to say just about anything. “I met Kim when I worked at an up and coming tech company. I was twenty-six and it was the third company whose profits I’d doubled. People expected great things from me. People ‘watched my career.’ It was intense and I felt like I always had to be in control of everything all the time. It was as if the whole world was just waiting for me to screw up at any moment.”
Carlos took a sharp turn to head to the Posey Tube that would take him to Alameda. “And then here came Kim. She was so demanding, so bossy. She kicked my ass every day. There was nothing about her I could control. And it…I don’t know. It was just what I thought I needed at the time. Looking back, I realize I was making a mistake because I couldn’t figure out what was really happening with me.”
Amy’s tone was certain. “I get it.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure. Life can be traumatic sometimes. And when we’re in the middle of something, like a bunch of career stress, like you were, we make choices that almost seem…repressed later. It’s hard, in hindsight, to remember why we did certain things.”
A deep dread settled in his stomach. He remembered in vivid detail their conversation in his office a few weeks ago. Hell, he hadn’t ever forgotten. When I was four years old, I was kidnapped….in the sex offender database…got released today.
Carlos’ mood dropped a thousand degrees and he felt like shit. “My stress at work…it doesn’t even compare to what you—”
“Don’t start, Carlos. You were doing so well,” she said sharply. “I told you before, I don’t have any memories of that time. And I don’t like pity.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
He turned onto his brother’s street. Unable to stop pushing his luck, he asked, “But…do you think maybe it had some effect on you?”
She answered in a confident voice. “Yes. I do. But since it appears that we’re about to pick up two small children, we’ll have to talk about it later.”
He nodded quickly as the car stopped in a steep driveway. Did that mean she was willing to discuss it with him? Before he could get his wheels spinning on that line of thought, Carlos pulled himself out of the car.
By the time he got to Amy’s side she was outside already, standing on the concrete and staring at his brother’s quaint Victorian. “Nice house.”
“It is,” he agreed. “To be honest, I’d trade my condo for a place like this any day.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Doesn’t make sense. Not now.” He knew the statement was cryptic, but he couldn’t explain it to her at this moment any more than she could tell him about her issues.
Instead they both walked up to the door. Before they could even reach the small square porch, the door swung open and two lanky girls flew out of the house.
****
Amy watched as Carlos pulled the squealing girls into his strong arms, one sixty-pound kid balanced easily in each limb.
“Hey there, monsters.” He set them down and gestured to Amy. “Say ‘hi’ to my friend, Amy.”
“Hi,” the girls said in unison.
“Amy, this is Ellie and Phoebe,” Carlos said.
A man, slightly shorter and significantly heavier than Carlos, appeared in the doorway behind the girls and called out to them. “Hey, little brother. Come on in.”
The man stepped back and the girls and Carlos followed automatically. Carlos looked back at Amy. His gentle gaze erased any hesitation she felt, and she allowed him to pull her through the threshold into a small foyer.
“Girls, go put on your shoes and grab your jackets,” the man said, before turning to Carlos.
The girls scampered off and Carlos introduced Amy to his brother, Daniel.
As Amy placed her hand in his, Daniel’s face lit up. His generous smile preceded his greeting. “It is so nice to meet you.”
“Thanks for leaving work early to pick the girls up from school so we can do this,” Carlos told his brother.
“No problem. They’re thrilled. Besides Tracey was happy to get rid of me. I’ve been under foot all day.”
Carlos turned to Amy. “Daniel and his wife own an office supply store here on the island.”
“That’s the one,” Daniel said. “But before you think there’s any nepotism going on, you should know that we’ve been supplying Everett since before Carlos came to work for him. We made a bigger profit back then, too. Then Carlos negotiated lower prices and practically put us in the poor house.” He slapped Carlos’ back in a gesture filled with pride rather than resentment.
The girls ran back into the foyer, both wearing white sneakers, jeans, and Sharks’ jerseys. They each held an identical purple jacket in their arms. “Mateo is going to be so jealous!” one of them cried, looking entirely too delighted.
“Are we leaving someone out?” Amy asked.
“Mateo is their older brother,” Carlos explained. “And he can’t come because he has basketball practice.”
Daniel leaned down and addressed the girls. “We discussed the responsibility he was taking on when he joined his middle school team, including what he might be missing out on.” He straightened up and clapped his hands together. “Okay. Down to business.” He touched one of the little girls on her shoulder and turned her around. “Pavelski sweater is Ellie,” he said, using the old school term for a hockey jersey. Amy could see the name written across the back along with the number 8. When he turned her back around Amy could also see the ‘C’ for captain on her chest. “Couture is Phoebe,” he said turning the other little girl around to reveal the name and a number 39.”
“Perfect,” Carlos said. “Let’s go, girls.” He opened the door and pointed toward the car.
“We don’t need booster seats anymore, Uncle Carlos,” Ellie said.
“I know. I took them out. Go get in the backseat.” The girls ran to the car and he called after them. “And buckle up good!”
“Have fun,” Daniel called as Amy and Carlos followed them out.
Not long after their journey to San Jose began, the girls bombarded Amy with a series of questions. They started with where she was from, if she had brothers and sisters, and what her favorite subject in school had been. Then they moved on to what she did at work and if she was married.