by Lila Felix
Mad returned and Nixon exchanged me for the phone and I was placed in the care of my husband.
“I’m going to bring you to school every day and Rex is going to bring you home every afternoon. He said he stays at school a lot anyway. He’s also going to walk you from class to class.”
I whined, “Come on Mad, it’s not that bad. I’m not a child.”
He closed his eyes and his nostrils flared, he was getting ahold of himself. “Storey, please don’t fight me on this. I will not tolerate anything happening to you. I will not be moved on this Storey.”
I grabbed the sides of his shirt and nodded. I really loved it when he was protective of me, but my inner derby girl had to protest just a little.
Nixon got off the phone and handed it back to Mad. He would have to do some damage control with Scout. She was very particular about me picking her up from school—either me or Sylvia.
“Ok, we’re all set. Falcon’s gonna tell her tonight.”
All of our phones beeped then and we laughed knowing exactly who it was. I checked mine anyway, just for verification.
You’re all late.
It was from Sylvia.
“We’re late. Let’s go.”
“I wanna ride with Honey!” Scout yelled, hopping down from the couch.
It broke my heart that somehow Simon had managed to infiltrate my life again and was already altering my happiness.
“Why don’t you ride with Daddy tonight? I need to talk to Uncle Mad about something.”
“Ok!” She latched on to Nixon’s neck as he picked her up. We all got in our respective cars and took off towards the restaurant. Sylvia had the table set. The number of place settings had grown over the years and Sylvia couldn’t be happier. Chase kissed the top of my head before I sat down.
As hugged me he whispered, “Don’t fret. My boys have got you all covered. They do it because they love you.”
I nodded. I knew they would all be overprotective from now on, but I actually didn’t mind. I was still terrified of Simon because I knew what he was capable of. And I’d heard from Renee that he was still pretty bitter about me leaving the way I did. I didn’t trust him one bit.
Sylvia had put a new honey apple cheesecake on the menu for Scout and Reed. I didn’t think it was possible for anything to be more delicious than her lemon cheesecake but this one was equally good.
We all went back to our homes after helping clean up. I walked into our bedroom, opened the closet and reached for my zipper.
“Let me, sweetheart.” Mad was behind me and he unzipped my dress and let it fall to the floor.
“The hearts drive me insane. And you wonder why I can never get enough of you?” He kissed my neck and his hands explored my hips. “I’m sorry if I overreacted today. But he won’t get near you. He won’t get near any of you. I don’t want you to worry.”
“I’m not worried, Mad. He just freaked me out. And I don’t want him anywhere near Scout.”
“I can make you forget Simon, at least for a little while.”
“Can you?” I turned and took the hem of his shirt in my hands and lifted it over his head.
“Yes, Storey Black, I can.”
Chapter 8
Journey
I used to kiss his scruffy chin goodbye.
I almost fainted when a new person came to get Scout on Wednesday. He said his name was Rex Macon and I checked the list. He was on Scout’s pick up list, and his I.D. matched, but that’s not what stumped me. What had me frozen was the fact that her name was listed as Scout Alessandra Black and her father was listed as Nixon Black. And then the next of kin was written in as Storey Black. That must be his wife. But who was this guy?
I called Scout from the bench where the kids sat to wait for their rides and from the look on her face she knew who he was but was less than pleased with the lack of the woman she called Honey.
“Why are you picking me up Uncle Rex?” She asked him as she latched onto his neck and he patted her back.
“Remember your Dad had this talk with you Scouty. Honey can’t pick you up for a while. You’re stuck with me.” He tickled her. “And I totally do not have a strawberry milkshake in my car, so don’t even think about asking.”
“Did they put the cherry on top?” Her hands popped up to her hips as she asked him.
“Nope—they put two!” It was clear he wasn’t really comfortable dealing with kids, but he was great with her, regardless.
And I couldn’t help but wonder if Honey was her mother. And if she was, then she was obviously very close to her and I felt like a potential homewrecker already. Scout waved goodbye to me.
“Bye Ms. Journey, have a good night!” She yelled and the guy named Rex turned around and looked at me quizzically for a few seconds before turning around.
I helped clean again and got home around eight o’clock. It was pouring rain outside and the thunder scared me every single time it clapped. I took a warm shower, needing to take the chill off from the rain. I sat on the couch and before I realized it, I’d sat there blankly staring at the wall for an hour. My sanity demanded that I find out what was going on now.
I slipped a hoodie on, trying to keep somewhat warm, and some flip flops. Not the best rain attire but what I was about to do didn’t require specific clothing. Apparently, it didn’t require a great number of brain cells either.
I had written his address on a pink Post-it note and stuck it in the cup holder of my car. I was thirteen different kinds of wrong for taking the information from Scout’s file, but I excused it using my desperate heart as the reason. I drove to the address and looked up to a lighted window. It was well past nine now and I hoped I didn’t wake Scout up in my frenzy to get answers.
I got out, the rain pummeled me and tapped on my shoulder, warning me not to do what I was about to do. But I couldn’t stand the not knowing anymore. I knocked on the door and I could hear the thumping of feet coming towards the door. My stomach clenched and revolted. I could hear my heartbeat, much louder than the thunder above me.
The door opened and I was suddenly the audience to a modern Norman Rockwell-esque picture of marriage and family. Nixon stood before me, scruffed out beard and black rimmed glasses but this was no teenaged boy—this was a man. And Storey, the woman Scout so fondly referred to as Honey held her on her hip. They were the portrait of what I’d wanted with him. I could see their kitchen behind him, yellow and so homey. Nixon’s face, as handsome as it had ever been, smiling when he opened the door had now sobered.
“I just came to…I didn’t want to disturb…I’m so sorry!” I shouted and took off without waiting for him to respond. I tramped down the stairs and barely looked both ways before crossing the street.
“Journey!” I heard him yell after me, but I kept running.
“Journey,” he yelled one more time and caught my arm.
“I’m so sorry Nixon. But I had to know. And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt your evening. And I’m sorry if I woke Scout. I’m just all kinds of sorry.” He’d turned me around now and I was yelling at him over the downpour.
“What did you have to know? And how do you know Scout?” He shouted back.
“I work at her school. I didn’t know she was yours until I had to look at her approved pick-up list. And I saw her father listed as Nixon Black.”
“She’s been talking about someone with red hair who works at her school.”
There were rain drops cascading down his nose and some of the droplets were taking shelter in his beard. He looked so much older, but there was still a spark of mischief in him. Like he was keeping it at bay.
“Oh,” I said, still in a trance over actually being in front of him, looking at his face again.
“Wait, you didn’t tell me—what did you have to know?” His hands were wrapped around my wrists now and the rest of my body let them have all the glory, reveling in his warmth.
“If you had someone else. If you had moved on. If you were married. And you a
re. She’s so pretty and Scout loves her. I saw her at the school. I’m so happy for you.”
He grabbed me then, hugging me against his chest, still warm despite the chilled downpour. He kissed the top of my head and rubbed my back. Then I pushed away from him, regardless of how amazing it felt to be in his arms again. He was married. He must’ve seen the question on my face.
“I’m not married. That’s Mad’s wife, Storey. She’s just over visiting. She and Scout are really close. Come in.”
“No, I can’t. I’m soaked now. I just got freaked out and I had to find out.”
“Don’t leave me hanging like this Journey. After all this time, you owe me.” He smiled, joking with me. “Can I call you?”
I nodded, “Yeah, I still have the same number.”
“Ok, I’m gonna call you tomorrow.” He stepped forward and placed his lips on my forehead. “You just got here, I’m not ready to let you go.” He embraced me again. “Please be careful going home. I’m gonna call you.” He said with a little more force.
I climbed back in my car. He came to the window and made me roll it down. “Journey, I’ve waited so freakin’ long for you to come back. You have no idea.”
He walked back to the curb in front of his apartment building and watched me pull away. And he was smiling just as wide as I was. I didn’t know the whole story, but at least I knew the answer to the question that plagued me most. He wasn’t married. And if he allowed me back in his life, I wouldn’t be a homewrecker at all.
I worked the next couple of days on cloud nine. Nixon called me the next night after Scout was asleep. She said Scout never missed a beat and would repeat everything she heard. I didn’t doubt it, the kid was brilliant.
“When can I see you?” he asked.
“I work until eight Monday through Friday.” I answered.
“And Scout has a birthday party Saturday morning and I have a bout Saturday night.”
“A bout?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m a roller derby ref. It’s a long story.”
“Sunday?” I asked.
“Yeah, maybe Sunday morning. I will text you and let you know.”
“Ok, I’m sorry for all the dramatics the other night. I just couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Journey, don’t ever apologize for coming to see me. My week has been better just because of that night. I’ll see you soon.”
We hung up and I cried. I ugly face cried one last time, mourning for what I’d lost. But the last of the tears, they were shed for what I thought I could now have.
He called me again Saturday night after his roller derby thing and said he had to pick up Scout early in the morning so our planned meeting was out. I was so disappointed. I needed face time with him.
Two hours later, I was jonesing hard to see him. I drove over to his house. I knew in my gut he’d be awake. He answered the door, hair disheveled and wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and those black rimmed glasses I’d always loved.
“I just keep showing up at your house, unannounced. I have to stop doing this,” I explained to him. I’d been in this situation so many times, turning up without an invitation, but somehow this seemed like the first.
“I’m glad you did. Come in,” He looked around briefly before shutting and locking the door behind me.
“Oh God, I’m sorry, did I wake her up? I didn’t mean to.”
He shook his head, “No, she spends Saturday nights with Storey and Mad. It’s their thing.”
I nodded, “Oh, I forgot—you told me that earlier. I guess I should’ve thought this through.”
He cleared his throat.
“Do you want some coffee?” He asked me.
“Um, yes, thank you.”
He filled the filter with coffee grounds, put the water in and flicked the power on. When he turned around there were tears running down my face. This was so familiar that I didn’t hesitate. He opened his arms for me and I crashed into them and the real shoulder quaking sobs began.
I’d been here so many times; he was the base to my hide and seek game when we were kids. But we weren’t kids anymore. He had his own kid for God’s sake. I had to make this confession if it killed me. If it was the last time I ever saw him, let him hold me like this, it had to be done.
“What happened? Talk to me.” He pulled me back to look me in the eyes.
“I need to tell you some things…what the hell? When did you get so many tattoos? And your…Nixon, your nipples are pierced!”
His face flushed red and he moved, I guessed to grab a shirt to escape my inspection. “Oh no, let me look.” I stopped him with my hand on his chest.
“Ok,” He breathed out, relenting.
I traced the lines of the Cypress tree on his chest but the branches were a little off. I turned this way and that trying to figure out the puzzle before he chuckled a little and grabbed my finger and placed it on his chest. He used it to begin tracing something hidden within the branches, “J—O—U—R—N…” and a finished it for him as he continued to show me. “E—Y.”
I lifted my eyes to meet his. “How long?”
“How long what?” his breathing was labored, his chest heaved in shallow huffs underneath my hand.
“How long have you had this?”
“Oh,” he looked back down at the tattoo. “I got it the summer after graduation.” I gasped at his admittance. How long he’d carried my name against his heart—it broke mine.
I ran my hand down his bicep, taking in the ink displayed there. A date and a name, Scout Allesandra Black. “When she was born?” I asked, though I already knew. He nodded.
“And these?” I flicked one of his barbells and he sucked in a breath through clenched teeth.
“Well, those I got when I was drunk.” He laughed and then shrugged.
“Nixon Black, irresponsible and drunk?”
He grabbed my hand to get my attention, “I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of.”
“So have I.” I whispered to him.
The beeping of the coffee machine broke our trance and while he was pulling down coffee cups from the cabinets, I watched the planes of his sinewy back muscles strain and shift. And I read the quote across his shoulders and somehow I knew it was drilled into his skin on my account.
“so I wait for you like a lonely house
till you will see me again and live in me.
Till then my windows ache.”
He turned and handed me a cup and I took a sip, smiling because he knew how I liked my coffee.
“Tell me about Scout.”
He creased his eyebrows momentarily and then nodded his head sideways for me to follow him into the living room.
He sat and waited for me to sit down beside him.
“She’s amazing…” he started and then didn’t stop for two hours. It was good to know him like this, to see him happy and proud of something in his life, not anything like the boy I’d once ran to, but a solid, confident man that I’d like to stay with.
“Tell me about you,” He said.
“I dropped out of college after two semesters and came home. I worked at a restaurant for a long time and I work at the school now. But you know that.”
“Scout talked about you from the beginning. She kept telling me that there was a lady at school with hair just like hers,” He took a strand of my hair in his hand, “But I just thought it was an older lady. I never dreamed it could be you.”
“She’s really brilliant Nixon. You’ve done well. I have no right to, but I have to ask, where’s her mother?”
He gave me a half smile, “You can ask me anything Journey, anything. Her name is Brandy. She moved to Tennessee about two years ago, but I haven’t seen her since Scout was born. She left the hospital the next day without ever laying eyes on her. We keep in touch, talking maybe every six months simply for emergency sakes, in case anything were ever to happen to her, or she found out something medically important that I would need to know. Other than that, I’m the mom a
nd the dad.”
“So, you’ve never been married? I thought maybe you’d married and divorced or something.”
He laughed a little, “No, I was an idiot who went around screwing anything with… never mind.”
I scooted closer to him, “No, tell me. Come on, it’s just me.”
He blew out a great breath and rubbed the back of his neck, “Well, I went around drinking, smoking pot and screwing any girl that bared resemblance to you. I’m sorry; it’s not the most romantic way to put it. I was really a grade A for asshole.” He got up and took my cup with him.
I couldn’t believe this. I wouldn’t let myself believe that there was an actual chance that he still loved me. There was no way, it had been too long.
He returned with a fresh, hot cup for me and him, then sat down again. A roll of want pooled in me. I knew I loved him, but this instant, grinding lust was all new.
“So what about now, should I be worried about a girlfriend popping in?”
He rolled his eyes, “No, it’s hard to date with Scout. Not that I’ve really wanted to. I’ve only ever been in love with one girl—but clearly she’s a woman now.”
How could he do that to me? Tell me he was in love with me and yet, he didn’t date? It was sweet and sour, cold and hot, salt and caramel at once—it all left a bitter taste in my mouth.
“So there’s no chance for you and I. I knew I was too late. I’ve been so stupid Nixon.” It came out higher pitched when I said you and I. though I’d intended it to be a statement. I looked for a way to bolt. I’d made all these strides to be a better person. But I should’ve known that the thing I wanted most was just out of reach.
“Is that what you want? You want a shot with me?” He set his cup down and took mine from me, then held both of my hands. His eyes were the clearest green I’d ever seen, more like emeralds than irises.
“Yes. That’s what I want. I want a chance to get you to fall in love with me again, this me. I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember but I was too stupid and selfish to see it. I’d do anything for a shot with you.”
He was quiet for a minute and it scared me to death. He was thinking of a way to let me down. An icy hand gripped my esophagus and drilled the knowledge into me. This was it. It was over before it began.