Safe With Me, Special Edition

by Shaina Richmond

  Her face lit up. “I go on the Internet a lot. And just a few weeks ago, Ernie,” she grabbed his forearm when she said his name, “found an app for me to take care of my Bonita Bliss makeup business.”

  “Oh really? I haven't heard of that in a long time,” I said. And suddenly I remembered how I knew Leona’s perfume.

  I felt Tyler's eyes burning into me. I turned slightly to look at him. His head was still in the same position, intent on the iPad. But his eyes were fixed on me.

  “Do you want a catalog?” Leona asked. “I have some with me.”

  “Yes.” I said.

  Tyler’s glare dashed from me to Leona. “Mom, don’t try to sell her makeup.”

  “What? She just wants a catalog.” Leona reached into her purse.

  “I really do want a catalog.” Honestly, I loved Bonita Bliss. It was big in Oregon when I was in high school but I hadn’t heard of it in years. Some of their makeup was really flashy but I needed some new eye shadow with a lot of color.

  Leona gave me a huge smile and handed me the catalog. “Have you heard of our new ‘Glowing Goddess’ collection?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “No, I haven’t. Do you guys still have that really glittery eye shadow in a roll-on tube?”

  “Yes!” Her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened. She touched Ernie’s arm and looked at me. “I could bring it to your house and let you try it if you like. I brought a whole suitcase full of samples.”

  “Yes.” I nodded.

  In my peripheral vision I saw Tyler’s head turn sharply to look at me. “Really, you don’t have to do that,” he said.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I wanna try some samples.”

  “You know,” Leona said, “We could have a Bonita Bliss party while I’m here. We’d have so much fun.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I have friends who’d...”

  “No,” Tyler said. “Mom, she’s busy with school.”

  “It’s alright,” I said. “I haven’t seen this makeup in a long time.”

  “What about Saturday?” Leona asked. “Ernie has that seminar all day and I’m sure my son here will be sick of me by then.” She gave Tyler a narrowed, sideways glance.

  Right then, the waiter came by with coffee and pie. He started to walk away when Tyler got his attention and ordered another beer.

  Ernie and Leona started giggling and eating pie. Ernie quietly made a pie joke to Leona that sounded like a double entendre.

  As they laughed and talked to each other, Tyler turned to me and hid his mouth with his mom’s iPad. He whispered, with a stern expression on his face. “I hate that fucking makeup.”

  I had no idea what to say. “Okay. I’m sorry. What should I do?”

  He looked across the table at his mom, who was smiling and talking with her fiance. His eyes were weary. “Too late now.”

  “So,” Leona said, “what about ten o’clock on Saturday morning? Do you have a dining table at your house?”

  “Ten o’clock’s fine. And yes, I have a big dining table. How many people should I invite?” I asked.

  “As many as you want. Do you have roommates?”

  “No, I live alone. Let me send a text message to some people,” I said.

  “I need that back.” Leona reached forward and took her iPad out of Tyler's hands. “Let me set up a new party.”

  I sent a text message to twelve people about coming to my house for a makeup party. When I looked at Tyler, he simply guzzled from his beer without making eye contact with me.

  I wasn’t sure what to do. Tyler seemed kind of pissed that I was having his mom over to my house to play with makeup. I knew we’d have a lot to talk about after leaving the restaurant.

  The sternness in Tyler’s voice turned me on. On one hand, I didn’t want him mad at me. But on the other hand, I wondered if I could get him to punish me later. It had been a few weeks since the day he spanked me. I got wet thinking about it.

  Damn it, if we have sex later tonight, does that count as our second time for the week, according to Tyler’s new rules?

  “Hey.” I put my hand on Tyler’s knee. Ernie was helping Leona with her iPad. “You alright?” I asked.

  He finished off his beer and sat the bottle down. Then he put his left elbow on the table and propped his chin in his hand, presumably to block his mouth as he whispered. “I just wish you hadn’t done that.”

  “I’m really sorry. Don’t be mad at me.” I cupped his knee, hesitantly.

  Tyler took his elbow off the table and turned his body to face me, grinning. He put his hand back on top of mine as it rested on his knee. “I’ll try to get over it.”

  And then a flash went off.

  I blinked, trying to get the spots to go away.

  “Mom!” Tyler said. “You could at least warn people first.”

  Leona cackled, holding a small digital camera. “I need some new pictures. You two get closer together.”

  I heard Tyler grunt. Then he looked down at me and smiled as he put his arm around me.

  I got as close to him as possible and looked into the camera to smile for Leona. The flash went off a few seconds later, adding brand new bright spots to my line of vision.

  “Now let me put these on Facebook really quickly.” Leona hit a few buttons. Ernie peered over her shoulder. “Everybody at home wants to know how you’re doing. It’s good that you’ve made a new friend.”

  Her face lit up on the word ‘friend.’ Tyler kept his arm around me.

  “Actually, he’s made a lot of friends,” I said.

  “Can I meet them?” she asked. “What about Saturday?”

  Tyler groaned and withdrew his arm from my shoulders. “They’re all busy.”

  Leona smiled and gave me a quick glance. “We’ll see.” Then she picked up her iPad and clicked a few buttons. “Susie, can I add you as a friend? I don’t see you on Tyler’s list.”

  “I’m hidden right now,” I said.

  “Oh, that’s a shame. I wanted to tag you.” She frowned slightly.

  Then something slipped out of my mouth that was completely against my better judgment. “I’ll make myself active when I get home.”

  She nodded, then looked at her iPad with Ernie.

  I felt Tyler’s breath against my ear for a second before he whispered, “See why I hate Facebook?”

  I turned to whisper in his ear. The smell of his cologne got me more excited than the feel of his warm breath had a moment earlier. “Yes. My family’s even worse. You have no idea.”

  Tyler’s arm went around my shoulders again. He pulled me close.

  I wish I could’ve frozen that moment. It felt like we were a couple. And in that moment, that’s what I wanted. I wanted to belong to Tyler, to be the woman he turned to when he needed comfort. I wanted to have more dinners where I’d get to sit next to him and hold his hand. Inside, I felt warm and mushy all over. I was turned on, for sure, but I was also in the mood to sit in his lap and kiss him for hours.

  It was something I hadn’t felt for any guy since I was 14.

  Live in the moment, Susie. Don’t worry about the future, or what he’d think if he knew everything about you. Just be here with him right now.

  Ernie asked for the check a few minutes later. He and Tyler got into a friendly argument about who was paying. Tyler finally backed down.

  “You two look darling in these pictures.” Leona handed her iPad to Tyler.

  The first picture showed us looking at each other in a way that made my heart skip a beat. We didn’t know she was going to take a picture, and I was apologizing for the makeup party. But we looked at each other with a longing I can only describe as 'painfully intense'. Tyler stared at the picture for a few seconds with no expression. Then he quietly said, “Whoa.”

  He flipped to the next picture of us smiling for the camera. “You’re so beautiful.” He stared at the picture.

  “You both look good in pictures,” Leona said. “I'll bet people have already commented,
asking who your new friend is. Your Uncle Alvin’s on there all the time.”

  For only a moment, an image popped inside my head - a wall full of framed photos of me and Tyler. Pictures of a wedding, then pictures of children. Lots of children.

  Fuck, where did that come from?

  Then he flipped to the next picture. “What?” His mouth dropped open as he went to the next one, then quickly through a few more. “These are really old.”

  There were old pictures of people I didn’t recognize, obviously scanned in. He went through them so fast I couldn’t get a good look at any of them.

  “Yes, Ernie did that. Here let me see.” She reached forward and took the iPad from Tyler. Then she hit a few buttons and handed it to me. “You should see these. He was such a cute boy.”

  I took the iPad.

  “Wait a minute,” Tyler said. “Let me sensor those.” I could hear anxiety in his tone.

  “Let me look.” I faced him and smiled. He stared at me with tight lips. I knew I shouldn’t look at more than a few pictures. I’d already upset him with the makeup party. If anybody knew about sensitive family issues, it was me. I had no desire to take advantage of the situation, but I wanted to see a few pictures.

  I looked down at the first one. There were three smiling kids sitting at a table, eating cereal. “Awww.. how old were you here?”

  “I don’t know, ten maybe?” he said.

  “I love this picture. You all look really happy. How old are your brother and sister?”

  “If I was ten, Aaron was probably seven, and Daisy was four or five,” he said.

  “He was a good big brother. Always very protective,” Leona said.

  I flipped to the next picture. It looked like an older version of Tyler standing next to very young Tyler. They wore flannel jackets and had big smiles on their faces. The older Tyler held a fishing pole. “This is you and your dad?”

  “Yeah.” Tyler got closer to me and stared down at the picture.

  “You look exactly like him,” I said. “I mean, exactly like him. Only he looks a tiny bit older than you do now.”

  “Yes,” Leona said. “Looking at him right now is like having his father right here in front of me.”

  “Do you look like anyone in your family, Susie?” Ernie asked.

  I kept looking at the picture of Tyler’s dad with little Tyler. He was obviously a bit younger in this picture than he was in the one of him and his siblings eating cereal. It made me want to cry for some reason.

  “Umm,” I said. “Not really. I kind of look like I was switched at birth or something.”

  “Really? No resemblance?” Ernie asked.

  I already liked Ernie, so I didn’t get angry with him poking so many sensitive areas. I knew he was just being naturally inquisitive. “There’s a slight resemblance with my mom’s side of the family, I’m told. We all kind of got the same eyes and jawline.” Everything else came from my biological father, a man I didn’t meet or know about until I was 20.

  The picture of Tyler and his dad was so precious, I had to stay on it for a while longer before flipping to the next one. It showed a young, maybe 12 year old Tyler wearing full Native American Indian garb, smiling.

  “Shit,” Tyler said. “Give me that.”

  “What’s this?”

  “It was for a festival. I had to do it every year,” he said.

  “You loved it!” Leona said.

  “I didn’t say I didn’t love it, Mom. I’m just scared of what else you might have here.” Tyler went through the pictures quickly.

  “Slow down. I wanna see these,” I said.

  “These are so old. Feels like a lifetime ago,” he said.

  “Whoa! Stop!” I said. I saw a picture of Tyler wearing a football jersey. “You played football?”

  “Yes,” Leona said. “He was very good. He played all kinds of sports. Baseball, basketball, football.”

  “Really?” I asked. “You were a jock?”

  Tyler glared at me for a few seconds, then went back to flipping through pictures. “I don’t know.”

  “He was always good at everything he did,” Leona said. “And I’m not just saying that because I’m his mother. He was so smart. He got a full academic scholarship to go anywhere in the state but he stayed at community college until just this year.”

  “Mom!” Tyler said.

  “Oh, sweetie, why are you ashamed? I’m so proud of you. Your father was proud of you,” she said. “Lots of kids wish they had what you had.”

  Tyler's head shook. He flipped past another picture that made me curious. “Hold on, are you playing a guitar? Is that you?” I asked.

  Tyler sighed and handed the iPad back to his mom. “Please put this away.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Oh, I don’t know why you do this,” Leona said. “He’s always been too humble. He could’ve done so much more with himself.”

  “Look,” he said, “I just like to fix cars. What’s so bad about that?”

  Ernie chuckled. “I like that about you, Tyler. You should do what you like. There’s no shame in fixing cars. As long as people drive cars, you’ll have steady work. And people aren’t exactly using jet packs yet.”

  “Thank you, Ernie.” He turned to his mom. “I don’t wanna hear it, okay?”

  “That’s fine.” Leona unzipped her huge gold purse and put her iPad back inside. “I just want the best for my children, that’s all.”

  “Well, we need to get going,” Tyler said. “It’s late and we have class in the morning.”

  The four of us got up and walked to the lobby. They planned to meet up with Tyler again the next evening for dinner and possibly go shopping for clothes. Tyler looked really irritated with that idea, but I could tell Leona just wanted to take care of him.

  They asked me to come with them the next evening but I already had other plans. Leona made sure to take all of my information so she could reach me before Saturday morning.

  She also made me promise to drive Tyler home, since he’d had three beers at dinner. We hugged Leona and Ernie goodbye. They stood there to make sure I was the one in the driver’s seat.

  As soon as I backed the car out, Leona and Ernie waved goodbye and walked inside the hotel.

  “Okay, pull over and let me drive,” Tyler said.

  “Why can’t I drive?”

  “It’s my car. It was only three beers. I’m driving.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Cops love to hand out DUI’s around here, especially to students. Just let me drive.” I hit the gas and pulled out of the parking lot.

  “Fine. Whatever.”

  I looked at him sitting next to me. His eyes were closed. His body slumped back against the seat in possibly the worst posture I had ever seen.

  “Are you alright?” I gave him a quick glance.

  “Hmm? Yeah.”

  We road along silently for a few minutes. Every time I looked at him, his eyes were closed and he was still sitting in the same awkward position.

  I came to an intersection. If I went to the right, I’d go to Tyler’s house. The left went to mine. “So, do you wanna stay with me tonight?” I asked.

  His eyes opened. “What?” He looked around. “Sorry, I think I went to sleep.”

  “Do you wanna stay at my house tonight? Otherwise I’ll have to drop you off and keep your car overnight.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Umm, yeah, I guess I could do that.”

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m sorry about this whole makeup party thing. I didn’t mean to upset you.” I pressed the gas and took a left turn.

  Tyler rubbed his eyes. “I should’ve warned you about her.”

  “But I really do like the makeup.”

  “Susie, I really hate that makeup. I fucking hate that makeup.”

  “I’m so sorry, Tyler. I wish I’d known that.”

  “I know, like I said, I should've warned you.”

  “You d
idn't prepare me at all. She was nothing like the nonexistent image I had in my head.”

  Tyler chuckled. “Really? What did you expect?”

  “Not her, that’s for sure. She reminds me of some of the flashy Southern women I knew when I was young.”

  He laughed. “Flashy? Yeah, you got that right.”