by Josie Kerr
“No, not at all! I was just remarking on the shoes because you don’t often see women unpacking moving boxes in four-inch heels.”
“You really haven’t seen Ashley in action then,” laughed Em. “I need to break ‘em in so I can wear ‘em out.”
Mick started as a large ginger cat jumped on the counter to investigate the breakfast offerings.
“Lord love a duck! What is that, a capybara?”
“This is Beauregard. He’s a lot like me, talkative and undertall.”
“Undertall?”
“He’s a bit short for his weight, bless his heart.”
Em removed the cat from the counter. Beauregard promptly rolled to his back and swatted playfully at Mick’s jeans-clad leg.
“Hm, I didn’t think he liked men much, but maybe he just didn’t like Tripp.”
Mick picked the big cat up and scratched his chin. Beauregard responded by chirping and loudly purring.
“He’s just huggable. A lot of people like more to hold on to,” Mick said.
Do you like more to hold on to? was the question Em was dying to ask.
They ate standing at the counter in companionable silence. Em cocked her head and looked at Mick, specifically his thick neck and strong jaw, as he ate a doughnut and drank his coffee and looked around at her apartment with interest.
Mick watched Em absent-mindedly suck the powdered sugar from a beignet off her fingers. He groaned into his coffee, leaning into the counter to adjust his hardening cock. She didn’t look sloppy at all. Dressed in those jeans that highlighted her lush curves and that tight t-shirt that showed off her ample bust, she looked comfortable and casual, and he was dying to take that lush figure in his arms and crush her to him. Really, where did that come from? He cocked an eyebrow at her. Em smiled shyly.
Desperate to cut the tension, she blurted, “You know, I could use a strong, tall man to help me with some of boxes. The movers stacked them too high for me to get at without breaking my neck.” She scurried to the box-packed office.
Mick helped her with the heaviest boxes and then spent the afternoon helping her unpack what seemed like a million books and a thousand pieces of colorful glass.
“Ashley calls my glass and furniture ‘granny chic’,” Em said with a laugh.
“It doesn’t matter if Ashley likes it, right? You’re the one who matters.” Mick placed a piece of glass on the shelf in front of the window. “This is really nice, the shelving in front of the windows? I would have never thought about doing that. Hey, this is purple, not black!” He peered at the small lidded jar.
“That’s one of my favorites. It’s a black amethyst honey jar. See the bees?” She said, pointing to the embossed bee on the side of the jar.
Mick took a deep breath and moved his finger to check the same bee as Em. Their fingers touched briefly, sending sparks through them both. With shaking hands, Em put the honey jar on the shelf.
“So, what do you do, Mick? When you’re not working? Any hobbies that you like?”
“Um, what?” Mick had been mesmerized at the way Em softly stroked the small bee. “What do I do? I read a lot, and I volunteer whenever I can. Come with me tomorrow afternoon and you can see for yourself.”
Chapter 10
Em eyed the five boxes of groceries in the back of Mick’s Charger. He still hadn’t told her where they were going, but he had a mischievous look of excitement in his eyes.
“You’re really not going to tell me where we’re going, are you?” she said.
“Nope, it’s a surprise.”
“Have I told you that I really don’t like surprises?”
“Nope, but I think you might like this one.”
Em huffed good-naturedly and then smiled. Mick grinned back and headed into town, moving from their highly gentrified neighborhood into a much poorer area. He finally pulled into the parking lot of a shabby building with a peeling sign that read “Ec En Er.”
“What is this place?” Em asked.
Mick didn’t answer, but got out of the car and went around the car to open Em’s door for her. “Can I help get anything out of the car?” she asked.
“No, I’ll send some of the guys to retrieve the stuff. Let’s go inside and you’ll see what this place is all about.”
“Oi! I can’t get away from you!” Rory called good-naturedly from where he was sitting on a bench.
“Like I want to see your mug more than I have to,” Em bantered back.
Two teenage boys looked from Em to Rory. “Ooh! Mick’s lady has sass! I like it!” the taller of the two said.
Mick shot him a look. “This is my friend, Em.” He emphasized the word friend. “Em, these two goofs are Andre and Trey.”
“It’s nice to meet y’all.”
Mick directed the boys to get the packages out of the car, then showed her around the shabby but spotlessly clean rec center.
“Rory and I volunteer here every chance we get.”
“What do y’all do? Teach classes?”
“We teach classes, yeah, but we also do some maintenance and are just around if the boys need to talk. And we make sack lunches three days a week, enough for every kid in the program, plus extras for siblings at home.”
Em looked at Mick as he spoke. It was obvious that this program was near and dear to his heart.
“How can I help, Mick? I didn’t even know this was here.”
“A lot of people don’t, and that means a lot of the kids that we could be helping aren’t getting any support. Today, we’re going to make sandwiches. How are you with a butter knife?”
“I’m an expert. I’ve totally got this.”
Andre and Trey were in the kitchen, unloading jars of peanut butter and jelly and bread from the boxes that had been in Mick’s car. Mick quickly showed her the assembly process, and they got to work making sandwiches and putting together box lunches with fruit while chatting about the classes the rec center offered.
“So what do you teach? Music?”
“I work with a drumline and percussion group, and teach and tutor some engineering and physics.”
“And I suppose Rory teaches programming?”
Mick cackled. Em wondered what Mick found so hilarious about Rory teaching computer programming. He was a brilliant programmer who’d been developing cutting-edge programs by the time he was in high school.
“It looks like we’re finished with the lunches. Let’s see what Rory’s up to,” Mick said with a smirk. He led Em down a long hallway. The sounds of stomping and shuffling came from one of the rooms.
“Take a look,” Mick said.
Em peeked through a high window and saw Rory standing in front of a group of elementary school boys, all shuffling and stomping in time to a jaunty tune that warbled from a boom box.
“He teaches dance?” she said incredulously.
“Rory doesn’t talk about it much, but he was an Irish step dance champion back in the day. He tried out for the touring company of Riverdance, and was actually an alternate.”
“I thought he was a boxer? Are you telling me that Rory was basically Billy Elliot?”
“No, he boxed for sure. He won amateur titles, in fact. But he loves dance and it helped him with his footwork, and it turns out that he’s actually an even better dancer than a boxer.”
Em watched Rory and his little troupe work on step-ball-changes and other combinations. He was very patient and encouraging. It was inspirational. They watched for a bit more, and then Mick led Em back to the kitchen so they could start handing out the sack lunches.
As they cleaned up the kitchen after handing out the last lunch, Em grew contemplative.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Mick said.
“How’d you get interested in this, Mick? Not this rec center in particular, but helping the community. Did you grow up doing community service?”
Mick huffed a laugh. “I was actually one of those kids that needed a sack lunch or a pair of shoes or just a little bit of encouragement
. My mother, she was...complicated. She was preoccupied with other things a lot of the time, so my brothers and I were left to fend for ourselves. When I met Rory, his Da’s gym had a program a lot like this, minus the food, and I spent at much time as I could there. Rory’s Mam fed me countless meals from the deli next door. When I found out about this little center and the programs it offered, I knew I had to get involved. I’m in the position now that I can give back, so I do.”
Em surveyed the kitchen, her eyes wandering around the industrial space. “So there’s gas and water? And the range and oven work?”
“Yeah, I’ve boiled water, and when we do the pumpkin carvings at Halloween, we roast the seeds. Not that anyone ever actually eats them,” he laughed.
“What about cooking classes? Have you ever thought about doing those? It seems like the perfect space, and the kids could take a hot meal home as well.”
“I never really thought about it.” Mick looked around the kitchen as well, seeing it in a completely new light. “We’d probably have to get some sort of certifications, but I don’t know why it wouldn’t work, other than finding instructors.”
“Hello, I wouldn’t have brought it up if I wasn’t willing to do the work. I’m fully capable of teaching classes. I used to be a cake decorating instructor. And I’m certified to teach high school as well.”
At that Mick raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
“Don’t sound so shocked,” Em said, rolling her eyes at his incredulity. “What else was I going to do with degrees in English and Irish?”
“So why aren’t you a teacher?” Mick asked as he wiped down the long counter.
Em smirked. “I’m not a teacher because I don’t necessarily play well with administration. I’d be fired for giving out condoms and teaching all the fun, dirty stuff in Shakespeare and telling the administration that they were Doing It Wrong.”
“Doing what wrong?”
“Probably everything,” Em laughed. Mick shook his head and chuckled. Oh boy, she’s a firecracker.
“But seriously, Mick. I would love to teach the classes. Not only cooking, but budgeting, coupon clipping, meal planning, everything. I imagine that these kids grow up sooner rather than later, and cooking is a great skill to have.”
“You’re something else, Em,” Mick said with a tone of admiration.
“No, you’re the one that’s really admirable, Mick. Thank you for showing me this place.” Em squeezed his hand.
“Come on, let’s get this place locked up. If you don’t want peanut butter,” Mick shook a giant jar of the stuff, “there’s a place that I’ve wanted to try for a while. Do you have time to join me?”
“I’d love to, Mick,” Em replied, pleased that he wanted to spend more time with her.
Mick and Em spent the rest of the afternoon talking about music and sharing small plates of food at a tiny Basque restaurant. They talked about everything from their individual tastes in music (very similar—Celtic music of all sorts, ska, ‘80s New Wave, and classic soul) to their choices in reading material (very different—Em was a romance and fiction reader, Mick read mostly non-fiction).
Mick placed his hand on the small of Em’s back on the short walk from the restaurant to the car. Em’s heart raced when he touched her, and Mick’s pants got a little bit tighter when he felt her firm back through the soft material of her t-shirt.
“I had a really lovely time today,” Em said as she and Mick walked through the outer door of their building. “Thank you again for sharing some of your life with me.”
“It was my pleasure,” Mick said with a smile.
They stood, somewhat awkwardly, in the entrance, looking at each other. “Ugh. I’ve got to do laundry and pack again. The life of a road warrior,” Em said.
“I have to do the same. I’m doing a consult on a new home studio next week and I’m actually kind of dreading it. Not the design part, but the dealing-with-an-egomaniac part.”
“Will you share who you’re designing for?”
“No, because you’ll think less of me,” laughed Mick. “Let’s just leave it at more money than talent but more ego than both.”
“Oh dear,” chuckled Em, wincing. “Bless his heart. But it’s a living, right? And you like it, so it’s all good.” Em smiled as she started to go up the stairs that led to her apartment. Mick drifted along with her, putting one foot on the stairs like he was going to follow her. She was three steps up, when she suddenly turned around. “Hey, Mick?”
“Yeah?”
Em reached out to touch Mick’s shirt, then fisted the front in her hands and brought her lips to the side of his mouth. Mick turned his head to meet her lips and brought his hands to the back of her head. Em sighed into Mick’s mouth, opening her lips to accept his tentative tongue. He tasted faintly of tobacco and peppermint and vanilla. How can a seemingly rough man with a giant beard and tattoos all over his hard body have lips so soft?
“I’m a big believer in lip balm,” Mick answered, his breath softly brushing against her face.
Oh my God, I must have said that out loud.
To distract herself and Mick from her embarrassing musings, Em brought her hands up to his face, stroking his thick beard with her fingers. Mick deepened their kiss, thrusting his tongue deeper into Em’s mouth and moving one hand to her lower back, pressing their bodies together. Em moved her hands from Mick’s face, putting her arms around his neck and smiling against his mouth.
He broke away from her mouth, running his nose along her jaw and breathing in her scent. She smelled of oranges and vanilla. Mick placed a soft kiss on her jaw and then on her temple. They stayed like that for a long moment, holding each other on the stairs. Em finally broke the embrace, caressing Mick’s bearded cheek once more, and then, with a little wave and a shy smile, turned and went upstairs.
Now that is what I like, and yeah, it’s all good, Mick said to himself. Whew!
Chapter 11
“Hey girl, where’ve you been all day? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you so I can get my car. Call me back. Maybe we can go get some dinner before you jet off to whatever glamorous locale you’re going to next. Later!” Em grinned at Ashley’s message even as she dialed her best friend’s number.
“Ash, I’ll be there in ten minutes. We have a lot to talk about. The more you ask about what’s going on, the longer it’ll take for me to get there and actually tell you what’s going on. I’m hanging up now and I’ll see you in a few.” Em grabbed Ashley’s car keys from the bar and raced out the door.
Over guacamole and margaritas, Em filled Ashley in on what had happened in the past two days.
“Okay, so you had drinks at his place on Friday night after karaoke, and then he brought you breakfast and helped you unpack all day Saturday, and today you helped him with his community service thing and then y’all shared a meal, and then you kissed him. Confirm?” Ashley should have been an interrogator, not a real estate agent.
“Yes, all that,” Em answered as she took another long sip of her drink.
“I think you’re leaving some details out.”
Em blinked at Ashley in confusion.
“I sense that there’s more to this because you’re drinking a girl drink, and you never drink girl drinks unless you’re dealing with a girl problem, a.k.a. boy problems,” Ashley went on. “And the only boy that I’ve seen you pay attention to in months is a certain tall widower named Mick, so I guess not technically a boy at all, but that’s beside the point. So, spill.” Ashley took a big slurp from her own margarita. “Oh my God, you did more than kiss him, didn’t you? You fucked him!” she exclaimed, eyes wide. “Good for you!”
“Ashley, keep your voice down!” Em saw several of the waiters smirking at Ashley’s outburst. “And for goodness sakes, I didn’t.”
“Damn. I don’t even like tall, dark, and tattooed, but Mick? That man is fine, and he obviously needs someone, so you better hit that.”
“Wait, how do you know he needs someone?”
Em narrowed her eyes. “Is there something you need to tell me? I didn’t hear from you at all day yesterday. Did something happen with Rory after y’all left the pub?”
Ashley flapped her hands at Em. “I plead the fifth, and besides, we’re talking about you, Miss Em, and not me. So, I repeat, spill!”
Em gave Ashley a look that told her that they weren’t finished discussing Ashley’s love life. “He’s pretty intense, Ash. He seems like he’s had a pretty rough time of it. He intimated that he didn’t have a lot growing up and that his mom left something to be desired. I know his family is dead and his wife is dead. I don’t need someone that I have to fix, you know? I spent my twenties trying to heal the emotional baggage of every guy I dated. I’m too old for that shit. Even that idiot Tripp had daddy issues that I tried to fix and look where it got me.”
“Hold it right there, Em,” Ashley said. “Tripp still has daddy issues. And they’re not going to be fixed, because Tripp didn’t and doesn’t want to do the work. He wants everyone to do everything for him. You know this goes deeper. You took care of your parents for years, even before they got really sick. You way overfunction. And face it, we’re in our forties now. Everybody’s going to have emotional baggage, whether it’s from a divorce or kids or aging parents. Look on the bright side, at least Mick won’t have a psycho hose beast of an ex-wife that you have to deal with every day.”
“That’s terrible, Ashley! She’s dead!” exclaimed Em, horrified at her friend’s callousness. Ashley shrugged, but had the decency to wince and mouth ‘sorry’.
“But there’s more to this,” Ashley gently prompted. “I haven’t seen you this wound up about a guy in, well, ever.”
“This just feels really different, Ashley. Like there’s inevitability to it. Desperate, but not desperation. It’s nothing like I’ve felt before, and it really kind of scares me. Actually, it scares the shit out of me.” Em rubbed her face with her hands. “Nice Wayne’s World reference, by the way.”