Bottom drawer: heating pad and socks.
Middle drawer: books and my lost electronic Yahtzee game. As I pocketed it, my head grazed the big guy's giant hand and I froze. Dal peered over Music Man and made a face at me, daring me to laugh. My father swatted at me in his dreams and sawed on.
Top drawer: a layer of magazines over a large stash of candy. I carefully pulled out the magazines around his outstretched arm, eased in a hand and felt around gently under the various chocolate bars and bits. Nothing metal. As I started to close it, something tapped my shoulder and I jumped again. It was just Dal, handing me a huge magnet.
I held it over the open drawer. Worth a shot, but no luck attracting a key. Another poke came from behind me, and I lurched up in surprise, my head missing Dad’s hand, but hitting the drawer, making the ancient drawer pull clink loudly.
The snoring stopped and I dove for the floor. Music Man reached over, peered at the clock, and sniffed. "Chocolate?"
Oh man. Given away by chocolate breath. I became one with the carpet, my nose embedded in shag, my shoulder squished under the bed. The rest of me didn't fit.
Music Man sat up and stepped painfully on my arm, but then rocked back and reached across the bed. "God damn cane. Never stays where I put it."
Like lightning, I used this break to scuttle back behind the dresser before he got up and shuffled off to the bathroom.
Dal came out of the closet. "How long do we have?"
"Either two minutes or two hours," I said.
We dashed around the room, running our hands over all open surfaces. Five minutes later, I struck gold in the toe of a giant sock. But Music Man was back. This time Dal hid behind the door, and I dropped down by the far side of the bed. The old guy lay back down and fought the covers. The springs shrieked and the bed frame shook violently under his weight. Finally, his breathing evened out.
I was about to head on out when something poked me hard in the leg from under the bed. A rat? I squealed and hopped up.
Music Man snored on.
Across the bed, Dal's eyes glittered from above the sleeping giant's feet, and the evil four-pronged cane appeared and shot right over Music Man's legs to poke me in the chest.
That did it. I plucked up the grabber my father used to pick things up off the floor since his hip surgery and lunged over the bed straight at the Indian's sternum. Unfortunately, my weapon was shorter than his and he got me right in the stomach.
Why do men always get the longer weapon? Their arms, noses, feet, and of course ... In the sword fight that ensued around the room, I only got him once on the arm or leg for every four or five good pokes he got on my torso. As his pokes got increasingly accurate and intimate, I got crafty. I waited for him to lunge, then dodged, and nipped in low, going for his belly.
"Ouch!" he cried, doubling over.
Key in pocket, I ran from the room. My snickers swelled to howls as I bounded out the back door to the yard and plopped down laughing on a swing in the sturdy swing set the folks had bought for Monica's kids. Hmm. Tight fit. My butt had certainly widened since the age of six. But swinging was still blissful under the few visible stars here in suburbia. The tall, black silhouettes of trees in the neighbors' yards showed lacy against the orange glow of the city at night. Was that Ursa Major, or seven airplanes? The swing creaked and I sailed up and down. And slowed and yawned. Bed time.
Two hands came to rest on my shoulders. "You got it?"
"Yeah. Where you been?"
He cleared his throat, the hands massaging me again. "I—um—needed a little ice in a sensitive area."
"Serves you right. Why are you so worried about him anyway?"
He gave my swing a big push. "He's a lot like my grandmother.”
"But she had Alzheimer's."
"Exactly." He sat in the swing next to me and pushed off, ponytail flapping.
"You think he does, too?" I pumped my legs to keep the swing going.
"I'm not a doctor. All I know is Grandma kept leaving the house, usually on foot. Once she took a bike and twice she took the car." He swung forward as I swung back. Swing scissors.
"But Music Man beats me at hearts. And he always comes back from his walks.”
Dal stopped and looked at his hands, his earring glowing in the light from Arlene's yard. "So did Grandma. Until late one fall. She went off in the middle of the night in a new direction. By the time we found her, she'd died from overexposure."
It was fall now.
"Oh. Sorry." I slowed the swing and kicked up dust. "Why didn't you put her in a care home?"
"Is that your solution to everything? Shove them away, out of sight?"
"No, I—you said she escaped all the time, so I thought—oh, never mind." I got up to leave.
He caught my hand. "Sorry, Rhonda." His eyes were dark. "Maybe now it seems like we should have done so, but the nearest assisted living for Alzheimer's was forty miles away in town. Too far for my mother to visit every day.”
"You could have moved closer." Warily, I sat back down.
"No. Mom lives on the reservation." He reached out and pushed my swing hard sideways. It went all crazy and bumped into his, and I yanked on his chain. "Plus, that's just not how we do things."
"Right. The boy named Sioux." Glad for a lighter topic, I giggled and wobbled the swing around, bumping his knee. Despite the hour, we were soon in a swing fight, yanking each other’s swing chains, crashing into each other.
"So why are you Ed and Dal?" I said, "Why two names? Multiple personality? Favorite cartoon character? No. Let me guess. Some teacher thought you were a Doll?" I finally slowed the swing.
"Hint: My birthday's May 15, 1970. Figure it out, Booty Girl." He stood up in front of me, pulling my swing chains way high until I was nose to nose with him, those intense eyes boring right through all the masks I showed the world, seeing the inner me.
He let go and I sailed off low, high, low, then back up to his face for the barest second. He ran around behind me and pushed me hard. I gulped in cool air and flew, exhilarated. Back and forth, high and low. Ah, the pleasures of childhood. Which had included … It wasn't until after I jumped out and landed on my left side in the grass that I remembered my recent rink fall. "Ow!"
He rushed up to my prone form looking worried and delighted at the same time. "My God. You okay? Why’d you jump?" He took my hand.
“Used to be fun.” I lay back on the cool grass, glad of my sweatshirt. Arms. Check. Legs. Check. Fingers. They wiggled in his warm hand. "It was easier when I was six. Ouch." I grunted. "Fresh bruise from the rink."
"You sure?" He lay down next to me, his head propped on an elbow, and held up three fingers. "How many?"
"Twelve." I sat up. "I'm okay."
"Whew. Never knew swinging was so dangerous." His thumb caressed my shoulder.
"I should get back to bed. I'm tired." I started to rise.
"Oh, not yet. Please?"
Hah! I had him. "Fine. Tell me about your names and I'll stay five minutes."
"Guess.”
I sat down. "Okay, May 1970. You were conceived on the moon July 20, 1969. Your mom stowed away with Neil Armstrong in that moon suit and the real news was that they took one small shtup for man and one giant conception for mankind that day."
He laughed. "You're warm."
"Okay. You're Nixon's love child by Buffy Saint Marie?"
"May 1970 is nine months after Woodstock." He grinned and stroked my arm. "Mom went as a flower child, a Who groupie."
"What?"
"No, Who. She really, I mean really liked The Who."
"Why? Which one?" The hand moved to my neck and I lay down to give it more access. "Uh, Roger Daltrey? Peter Townsend? Oh, magic hands."
He sighed. "My full name is Entwhistle Daltrey Townsend Moon Greenweed Baker.”
My eyes popped. "So one of them had blue eyes. Which one?"
"Who knows?" he said.
I groan
ed. "No puns." God, the man's hands were genius, gliding around where I least expected them.
"So, Booty-Ka, aren't you self-conscious when everyone watches your—" He put a hand on my hip and swooped in for another of those surprise kisses, like an eagle swooping down for the kill.
I felt like Sally Field at the Oscars. You like me. You really like me. You're so good with Music Man, and I'm such a flake. That kiss got away from both of us, getting warm and deep and making little explosions behind my eyeballs. My backside, being caressed, ignited and sent a chain reaction of warm lava flows all over, to parts of me that had been pretty solid for a long time.
He stopped. "Whoops. I may be contagious."
"Nope. You're not. I checked." I dove back in, and this kiss went all velvety black and merged with the dark trees, forever changing the implications of those four innocent letters in my mind. The black K became Dal's long hair that felt like silk to my fingers. The white I was the new moon and the silver S's were his two vampire-like eyes flashing silver in that instant before all-consuming contact. Not too bad, until I realized that the melting parts at my inner core were multi-colored and had little paper labels sticking up from the molten wax proclaiming: Crayola.
My soul was made of crayons.
A while later, he was on top of me in the grass, still demonstrating that consummate eagle kissing skill and caressing parts of me farther and farther south, to which I responded as any desperate woman who hadn't had sex in a looong time would.
I giggled.
"What?" Men hate giggling during passion.
"Um, I was just thinking how I'd write this. I'm sort of new in the—um—erotica genre, and I haven't written that many straight love scenes." My finger traced his jaw line.
He frowned. "Straight? As opposed to—?"
"Between a werewolf and a ghost, of course."
"Oh. Well, maybe you'd say I caught you and had my way with you on the grass after you leaped for freedom from the swing." He nibbled my neck.
Melt, melt. "No. That'd make me a victim. It'd be better if I caught you, and bit your neck and turned you into a—wait, do vampires take girls' shirts off?"
My shirt now flew to the damp grass and an eager mouth traced paths around my abundant gifts. That tongue was fantastic. Oh bliss. My inner tattooed skate slut genie had squeezed out of her bottle and was belly-dancing with abandon.
"Do you write fantasy or erotica?" he murmured.
"Yeah," I said.
"Are you taking notes?"
"Mm-hmm. I'm an innocent skate slut, stripped and thrown on the damp grass by an evil, leering vampire with a sinister plan.”
"Damp?" The vampire grabbed my sweatshirt and tucked it between me and the damp ground.
"That's too nice. Vampires aren't nice," I said.
"Okay." He kissed a trail up of the mountains of my physique, reached a peak, and tortured it. My back arched, I clutched his hair, and tingles shot all over the place from his lips to all my highest and lowest elevations, heating my inner crayon puddle into multi-colored molten magma.
"Delete Dracula. Type in Vulcan," I squeaked.
His hands took over appreciating my breasts while his lips did wild things to my neck.
"Oh, dear God. More. More."
"Booty Lady." He pinned me against his whole length and kissed me like a sailor on leave. His fingers went to the button on my jeans. Boy, Harley would be so proud of my spontaneity.
Oops. Harley had dibs. And I had James. I was such a slut.
Abruptly, I broke the kiss and sat up just as two big drops of water plopped on my arms. The weather had gone from hot and dry to cool and wet in just hours. "Raining!" I snagged my shirt. "So why are you Ed?"
He flopped back, eyes still on my naked chest. "Well, my mom called me Moon, which kinda suits you better than me.”
The rain got serious as I put my shirt back on and stood. "And?"
He sighed. "My first two initials. E. D. Mom married Jim Baker when I was four. He adopted me. And when she went back to Minnesota, I stayed here to finish high school, where I was Ed. Now I prefer Daltrey." Then he looked gleeful. "Oh. Guess what I found in your dad's drawer."
"A condom?"
His brows went up. "No, these." He pulled an envelope of pictures from his sweats pocket. I reached for them, but his arms were longer. Somehow, he pulled me back down and we rolled around in the damp grass again. I ended up on top, with some urgent things pulsing beneath me and rain soaking my shirt. His eyes grew dark and serious.
Shit! The dibs. Oh, man. I grabbed the wet envelope and escaped to the covered patio, with Dal close behind. The pictures were of me as a kid with no front teeth and skinned knees. The way I'd look again soon if Harley knew I'd kissed her guy.
Stomach sinking for so many reasons, I said, "What did you think of Wonder Woman at the rink tonight?"
"She's cute.”
Crap. "Let's go in," I said.
"Your room or mine?" He grinned.
I sighed. "(A) I barely know you. And (B) we've never even had a date. So (C) how do I know you're not rude or arrogant or a con man?"
He pulled me close again. "I thought you were pretty sure I was all three."
God, his hands felt so good around my waist. Actually, they felt pretty marvelous anywhere on me. "And (D) there's James.”
He nodded, massaging my back. "Your pet slug?"
"I'm sort of seeing him." I dodged a kiss, resting my head on his chest.
"When you're not sleeping with me in cars." He folded me into a hug.
"And (E) Harley," I said to his shirt.
"Geez. Another guy? Wow, you do get around."
"No, Harley's my best friend, Wonder Woman. She's been in a funk about guys for over a year now. Seriously depressed. Zoloft and everything. But when she saw you tonight, she perked right up."
"So …" He tilted up my chin, a glint in his eyes. "I'm her romantic image of a noble savage? You didn't tell her I'm the brave from hell?"
I smiled. "It doesn't matter. She dibsed you tonight."
His lips pursed under laughing eyes. "Is that like voodoo?"
"No, like 'I saw him first.' She's going to say, though I swear I'd never do such a thing, she'll say I seduced you the minute she dibsed you. And boy will she be pissed. She might break my head, or go jump off something. She jumped off her car once." I tried to push away, but his arms stayed steady and warm around me.
"All this jumping—her out of cars, you out of the swing to get my attention. You're both nuts, right?" He smiled.
"I was jumping for fun! And excuse me. You grabbed me."
"I thought it was mutual." He squeezed me.
"That's a stale excuse as far as Harley’s concerned. See, it was mutual the other times, when we were seventeen, nineteen, and, let's see, twenty-eight."
"You stole three guys from her?" His eyes widened.
"I didn't steal them! They'd already left her. And they weren't really interested in her or me. I dated the first two for two weeks each, and the last one thought he was my soul-mate for a whole ten minutes."
He laughed. "But she still thinks you stole them. Why?"
I shrugged.
He said, "Aww. She's so cute. Why's she worried? Aren't there lots of guys running after her?"
"Enough of this 'cute' talk about Harley. She's average-looking at best, Dal Baker. And I didn't even want her old boyfriends." I fingered the neck of his sweatshirt. "They were boring. But Harley sees a pretty face and pounces head first, trying to lay long-term foundations with short-term guys.”
"Me included?"
"When she starts pouring concrete around your feet, you'll run, too."
He walked me toward the house.
I said, "Trust me. Men are like house flies. One toe hits Harley's wet cement and they fly right off to me. I must smell like a mango."
"Yeah. One tasty piece of fruit." He backed me up against the patio door and
trapped me there. "Do my dibs on you count? I saw you first. Can't we—mmm—make a little fruit salad?"
"Don't touch the produce or Harley will kill me." I ducked out from under his arms and sat on a lounge chair.
He sat on the chaise by me, an arm around my shoulders. "What if I actually prefer mangos? What if we don't tell her?"
But what if I don't want to be just a piece of fruit anymore?
I turned, and he zoomed in and planted another long, hard kiss on me, leaning us both back onto the chair. Whoa momma. I didn't seem able to let go. But I had to. After what seemed like an hour of bliss, I pulled away, jumped up, and ran for the back door. Damn. Locked. The front door was, too. And the garage was tight as a drum. Music Man had made the rounds again, and we'd missed him.
"What's in your pocket?" I asked, shivering on the front porch step, our last stop.
He leered. "What do you think?"
My resolve was slipping. "No cash? Credit card? Hotel key?"
"No. I sleep in these pants. When I'm alone.”
Boy. Why did those ratty old sweats look so good?
"Same here. Wait. Dad's car key. You think his bench seats recline?"
We laughed and ran through the downpour for the old clunker. But the key I’d just found in his room didn't fit that car.
"The neighbors?" he said, leaning on the wet car.
"It's 3:00 in the morning. Can you see Arlene's face when I wake her to ask for a double bed? Wait this car key looks familiar."
So we spent another chilly night tossing on narrow bucket seats in my car, rain clunking on the fiberglass roof this time, our budding lust thwarted by a steering wheel and a dibs.
CHAPTER 23
Tuesday morning, I woke up alone in the Honda's back seat with a headache and permanent seat belt latch indentations on my kidneys. A sweet memory made my mouth curl at the corners and my body tingle before I remembered The Dibs. I went inside and saw Dal on the back patio, stretched out on a lounge chair, an arm flung across his eyes against the rising sun. He must have needed sleep too badly to stay in the car.
I helped Music Man start his bacon and eggs. Then Violeta Diaz, a short, hefty lady with a monster mole on her forehead, showed up for the day shift with Dad. I gave her the nickel tour and left without waking Dal since his class didn't start until afternoon.
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