by Mysti Parker
“Hey! Look, don’t call the cops. My brother is –”
Speak of the devil. Jesse comes round the corner, averting his eyes from the lights. He turns to the employee, his voice raised over the shrill din of the alarm. “Have you got a timer on this thing?”
She shrugs, but it shuts off a second later. “Yeah, I guess we do.”
Once the alarm’s off, we all migrate to the front counter, where Leigh waits by a carousel of flavored massage oils.
As soon as she sees Jack and me, her jaw drops. Then she laughs. “Hey, Ave! Doing some shopping or shoplifting?”
“Shopping, just like you, I presume.”
“You know it. It’s one of our favorite stores.” She grins at Jesse, who sheepishly rubs the back of his flushed neck.
“Okay, are we good here?” Jesse asks.
Even though he’s off duty, it’s like déjà vu. I’d called him into my shop to investigate what I thought was a theft last summer, when I still hated his guts.
Jesse listens stone-faced as the sleepy employee tries to explain how she caught us stealing a pink dildo.
“They were all nervous looking, especially her.” Jenifor points at me. “And then the alarm went off, and they had a bunch of stuff, so I think they were stealing it. Wait, so like, are you a cop?”
“Deputy Sheriff, ma’am. I’m pretty sure it’s all a misunderstanding. My brother’s not a thief. He doesn’t need to be.”
Jack answers with a laugh. “I can buy the whole damn store. I was just here with my…um…”
“Girlfriend,” I say as matter-of-factly as I can, even though my cheeks are searing.
Leigh’s covering her mouth, trying to contain her laugh, so it’s rather hard not to blush.
“Yes, my girlfriend and I were shopping. I’m claustrophobic and felt trapped back there in that cramped space – you should really rearrange it, you know – so I went for the exit. She couldn’t stop me in time, so the alarm went off. Jesse, if you’d like to arrest us”—Jack grins down at me for a moment—“no cheap handcuffs, okay?”
Jesse’s lip is turned up like he’s picturing me and his brother doing the nasty. He rapidly shakes his head and squares his shoulders. “Ma’am, I don’t think there’s any attempted theft here. I’m sure they’d be happy to pay for any items they’re, um, holding.” He glances at Jack’s arm, where the pink body suit thing is still draped.
“Yep, and how about a tip for your discretion?” Jack says. He takes his wallet from his pocket, removes a one-hundred-dollar bill, and hands it to Jenifor.
She looks down at it, then up at him before tentatively taking it. She whispers, “Mm’kay, but we’ll have to go in the storage room for that. No cameras in there.”
Leigh bursts into laughter, pressing her face into Jesse’s arm. She will never let me live this down.
I close my eyes and slap a hand to my face. “Just pay for whatever so we can go.”
Leigh texts me a few minutes later when Jack and I are headed back to my place.
Sorry Ave. I couldn’t help myself.
It’s fine.
Ok, but don’t be mad at me. I’m not the one who tried to steal a dildo. ;)
My eye twitches, and I lock the phone. This freaking dildo better be worth the trouble.
Chapter Nine
Jack
In my experience, women are either completely inhibited or uninhibited. Admittedly, my experience is limited to women I dated at UK and Purdue and within a fifty-mile radius of Beach Pointe. But it’s held true.
Until Avery. At the sex toy store, you’d have thought she was a nun or a virgin, but tonight, she let loose and wasn’t afraid to try most anything. We showered afterwards, grinning like fools at each other, and lay in her bed watching the nightly news like two old people.
This tiny apartment of hers is furnished with little more than the basics, with boxes of wedding supplies and fabric stacked against some of the walls. Sketches she’s made of gown designs are strewn about the dining and coffee table. Photographs she took herself hang throughout her apartment, and they’re good – the angles and lighting are perfect. There are nature shots, kids, animals, brides, and shots from different places around town.
I could buy her all the photography equipment she wanted and a new shop if she’d let me. Most women I’ve dated would snatch up any offer to buy them something like that, but there’s something about Avery’s stubborn independence that turns me on.
She’s asleep now, stretched out against me. My arm is nearly numb from her head lying on it. I should go home because we both have work tomorrow, but I don’t want to disturb her. I like her face when she sleeps. It’s totally relaxed, no worry creases on her forehead, no tight jaw, no fear in her eyes. It’s almost as though she trusts me to not hurt her.
Not that I ever want to hurt her, but…this can’t last. I can’t be anything beyond a fake groom. If I truly were her husband, and God forbid, father to her children, I’d hurt her eventually. Not physically, but with my selfishness, my workaholic nature, my roving eye. My father should have never married my mother. The only reason he did so was because she got pregnant with me.
They call it a shotgun wedding here. Only thing is, their wedding had no gun involved, but a gun is what ended it. No one should get married just because of a pregnancy, despite all good intentions. I’m sure they meant well, meant to provide a stable home for me and Jesse, but in the end, we became a wedge of resentment between them. That’s why they turned to drugs and alcohol, why my dad ended up dead and my mother ended up abandoning us.
And that’s why I can’t be anyone’s husband or father.
But as I lie here, listening to Avery’s deep breaths, her face calm and serene beside me, I can almost imagine it. Almost.
I forget going home and set my phone alarm for six a.m., an hour earlier than I usually get up, so I won’t be late. Tomorrow is spay and neuter day for the local shelter, and I’m their guy. It’s tiring volunteer work, and my hands usually cramp for a couple days afterward, but it’s worth it. If I didn’t have a lot of loyal clients and employees who need to get paid, I’d be happy to work at the shelter pro bono full-time.
Conan O’Brien is interviewing some actress from something I’ve never seen. Their voices drone on and on. Besides sex, it’s the perfect sleeping pill.
∞∞∞
A banging noise jars me awake. Avery shoots straight up in bed, a deer-in-headlights look in her eyes. “Oh my God.”
She throws back the covers and hauls ass to the bathroom.
Sitting up, I rub my eyes and stretch. “I didn’t bring Earl with me, I swear.”
“It’s not that.”
“Are you sick?”
“No!” She comes running out a second later, wrestling her arms into her robe. Sliding to a stop beside the bed, she ties the belt into an uneven knot. “They’re here! Shit!”
“Who’s here?” I yawn, not yet convinced this isn’t a nightmare Avery’s woken up to. People do weird things when they sleepwalk.
But she’s right. Someone’s banging on the apartment door.
From the other side, a muffled woman’s voice calls out, “Avery Alice Price, I know you’re in there!”
“Alice?” It occurs to me I’ve never heard her middle name before, or if I did, it hadn’t registered. There’s a lot I don’t know about Avery, but that’s for the best. The more you know about someone, the harder it is to cut ties.
“Yeah, I’m named after my grandmother.” She clenches her robe and stares out the bedroom door as though whoever’s there will come crashing through at any moment.
“I’ve been all up in your wonderland, Alice,” I say, waggling my brows to lighten the mood, but it doesn’t work.
She turns her panicked eyes on me. “The bathroom – go to the bathroom. Hide behind the shower curtain.”
“What?” I climb out of bed, gleaning a moment’s satisfaction from Avery admiring my ass. “If it’s Jehovah’s Witnesses, I can g
o to the door like this. Guarantee they won’t come back.”
I start toward the bedroom door, but Avery grabs my arm.
“Please.”
Another series of knocks and another younger-sounding voice calls out, “Wake up, Ave! We’ll be late.”
“It’s my mom and sister,” Avery says, hand to her forehead. “I forgot we’re supposed to have breakfast at Cracker Barrel this morning for National Potato Day.”
“You’re just making shit up now.”
“No, I’m serious. Mom loves to celebrate obscure holidays. But if she finds you here, it’s game over. She’ll totally flip. She’s like if Martha Stewart had a baby with Carrie – the scary one’s – mother.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Okay, she’s not that bad, but…”
Avery’s phone buzzes.
“Shit, hang on.” She flies over to her bedside table and picks up the phone, pretends to yawn. “Oh…hey Mom, what time is it?”
She winces as though her mama has given her an auditory slap.
“Okay, just give me a few minutes to get dressed, and I’ll be right out… Okay, okay I’ll let you in.”
Flapping her hand, she motions me toward the bathroom, but I’m thinking why hide in a bathroom when there’s a perfectly good bed to hide under? I raise up the quilt, realizing it’s one of those solid-framed ones with drawers. I head for her bedroom closet.
“No, Mom, I’m not sick… No, I’m not in trouble… No, no one’s here.”
As I’m opening the closet door, I see Avery frantically waving at me and mouthing something, but it’s too late. An avalanche of random crap comes falling out. I manage to step out of the way of the tennis racket, mismatched shoes, boxes of CDs, plastic flowers, and God knows what else.
Not so much with the clothes iron. It tumbles from somewhere in the onslaught and falls.
Right on my foot.
“Shit!” It comes out before I can stop it, but then I grit my teeth and commence the one-footed, stubbed toe dance.
If Avery’s eyes get any bigger, they’ll pop right out of their sockets. She covers the bottom of the phone with her hand and retreats to the living room. But her voice carries on the way. “No, Mom, I’m fine. It’s the TV… Yeah, I know, I know, it’s the devil’s toy box.”
She’s going to have to open the door, or Mommy Dearest might break it down and perform an exorcism. I hop to the bedroom door, where I see her pacing, head down, free arm hugging her waist. One of her breasts plays peekaboo every time she turns, which resurrects my tired dick.
But now’s clearly not the time to think about what else I can do with it. Avery’s eyes scream desperation. Please, she mouths at me and points down the hall.
Bathroom it is. I hobble the short distance from Avery’s bedroom to the bathroom just across from it. It’s tiny like the rest of the apartment. It reminds me of the bathroom in Pa’s trailer. At the time, that one had seemed luxurious to a nine-year-old boy who had grown up in a trashed trailer where the water didn’t work half the time since his parents spent all their money on booze and drugs.
Though I’m tempted to try the linen closet, I can’t afford to put both feet out of commission in case it’s just as bad as the bedroom closet. I pull back the hot pink shower curtain – how can she shower in here every day and not go blind? – and carefully step into the small tub. My foot is throbbing from the contusion, which is turning a scary shade of purple.
Avery’s mother’s voice echoes down the short hall. “For goodness sakes, Avery Alice, what’s going on? Are you feverish?”
“No, Mom.”
Another voice I’m assuming is her sister replies, “Seriously, Mom, she was probably taking a dump or something. Chill.”
“Language!”
“Yeah, yeah, language. Maybe she was defecating. Is that better? Was that what you were doing, Ave? Were you defecating?”
I chuckle quietly. Her sister seems fun at least.
“Yes, thank you, Astraea,” Avery answers. “I was in the bathroom, just doing my business. Now if you’ll just wait here, I’ll go get dressed and be right out. Okay?”
“Okay,” her mother says, “but don’t be long. Last time they ran out of hash brown casserole.”
I hear someone running down the hall – Avery going to get dressed, I suppose. I’ll have to wait until her company’s gone before I make my escape.
“Hey, Ave?” her sister calls, but it’s louder than before, like she’s right by the bathroom.
“Yes?” Avery replies from the bedroom, sounding out of breath.
“I’m going to use the bathroom real quick, okay?”
“What?! Can’t you wait? Don’t –”
But her voice is cut off. The bathroom door clicks.
Shit. There’s a window over the tub with another shower curtain over it letting in the natural morning light. I’m not standing in front of it, so she shouldn’t see my silhouette. All I have to do is stand statue still and pretend my foot isn’t possibly broken.
The toilet lid clinks against the tank. A zipper unzips. Some rustling. A sigh. Pee splashing into the bowl. Some toilet paper rolling.
Good, it shouldn’t take long. I’ll be out of here and back home to shower in time for work.
Then there’s a grunt and a long, rumbling fart. Oh no…
The smell rushes past the curtain like a torpedo that’s acquired its target and blasts my face with a stench I can only describe as dear-God-what-crawled-in-you-and-died. Fist to my mouth, I hold my breath and stifle a cough. In my years of vet school and in my practice, I’ve smelled some horrific things, things that would make most men hurl involuntarily. This reminds me of the dead, rotting cow I had to autopsy as part of my internship with Dr. Bradshaw. I vomited twice during the autopsy and dry heaved for an hour after.
Though my tolerance for disgusting odors has increased, I’m going to need a breath of fresh air soon.
Another grunt. More wet gas. Solids splashing into the toilet bowl. Music plays from what I assume is a mobile phone. Avery’s sister is singing softly to “Sounds of Silence,” while her other end is anything but silent.
What the fuck did this girl eat?
The window is blocked with a damn shower curtain. I lift the curtain away from the window, being careful not to slide it on the rod. Good. Now I can open the window, but of course, when I push up on it, it won’t move. Locked.
Astraea launches into a slightly louder chorus: “to the soundssss of silence.” She seems oblivious to the toxic waste she’s producing.
Carefully, back pressed against the tile, I reach for the window latch and manage to ease it open. Then I push gently up on the window. It’s stuck. The humidity in the bathroom has probably caused the wood to expand over time. So much for fresh air.
I look around for another option. There’s a dry washrag hanging on the faucet. I ease over, grab it, and press it to my face, finally taking a much needed breath. It’s not much better, toxic fumes filtered through perfumed soap. At least it smells like Avery. I like how she smells.
Her sister on the other hand… Let’s just say it’s not a good first impression.
Toilet paper rolling. More rustling. Zipping. Then a flush. I use that noise distraction to give the window the force it needs to open just a crack. Thank God. Fresh air at last.
Water running.
Something smacks into the window screen. It startles me, though I realize it’s just a bird, but I flinch enough to hit one of the many bottles of shampoo or whatever the hell the stuff is, sitting on the corner of the tub. It falls, and you guessed it, lands right on my damn foot with a dull thud.
“Fu-fu-fu-fu.” I hold back enough to keep it at a series of breaths through my teeth.
The water stops. I freeze, though my foot feels like an elephant did the hokey-pokey on it.
Silence. Then a swish, a flash of hot pink, and I’m face-to-face with Astraea Price. She’s very similar to Avery in her features, except taller with a
larger frame and probably a couple years older. Her eyes get wider the longer she stares at me, and they slowly drift down my body. Good God, why didn’t I just throw on my clothes before I hid? Or a towel at least. Idiot.
I hurriedly cover my junk with the washcloth and wince, expecting an ear-piercing scream.
Instead, she bursts into laughter, covers her mouth, and points at me. Then she yanks open the door, still laughing, and of course Avery’s standing there, dressed but pale as a cloud.
“This explains a lot,” Astraea says between the laughs. “Sorry about the, uh, defecation.”
Another woman joins them. She’s older – short and petite like Avery, with bobbed, light brown hair. Avery’s mom, I think. She wrinkles her nose and waves her hand in front of her face to ward off the toxic poo fumes that have escaped the bathroom. At least I’m not choking on that anymore.
Her shock-filled eyes lock on mine and then drift down like her daughter’s. I grab the hot pink shower curtain and hold it toga-style around me while trying to balance on my uninjured foot. I’m wobbling like I’m drunk, which they likely suspect anyway.
She turns to Avery. “Either this man is an intruder, or you have some serious explaining to do.”
“He’s not an intruder, Mom,” Avery says, a silent apology in her eyes. Her hair is disheveled, and she’s missed a button on her blouse. Dressed in a hurry, I assume, to intervene before I was discovered.
“If he was an intruder, he wouldn’t be hiding in the tub naked…unless he’s a real psycho.” Astraea narrows her eyes, though she’s still wearing a wry smile. “Wait a minute. You’re Dr. Maddox, aren’t you?”
“Uh…yes,” I manage. “Nice to meet you?”
“I’d hardly call this nice,” their mom says, giving me the once-over while crossing her arms. “Avery, why is he in your tub?”
Avery goes stiff, glances between me and the two other women. Her jaw works up and down as though warming up to form an explanation.
I’m going to have to say something or they’ll keep staring at the naked guy with the hot pink pseudo-toga in the tub. “We’re just –”