Erin: My mother is mad over last night. I just thought I should get out of here before she breaks every dish in our house.
Me: K. I’ll be there soon.
Erin: KK
She wants to hang with me again even after the shit-storm at the fights. I try not to read too much into it.
*****
I take the fastest shower of my life and practically race over to her house. I ring the doorbell, and Patrick answers. Immediately, I say, “She asked me. Last night, today…” I whisper. He nods.
“Tomorrow, meet me at the house,” he says in a low voice. “Erin!” he calls out towards the stairs.
I step inside, and Erin’s mother is standing in the kitchen doorway. Her lips are tight, forming a jagged line. She’s probably pissed because I’m here. I smirk internally, enjoying the pleasant effect I have on people.
Erin comes bouncing down the stairs and my eyes lock on her, fixated. I stare as if the world has stopped. It’s like someone turned a light on behind her eyes. She glows. My heart thumps in my chest like it never has before. My eyes are glued to her.
“I’m going out. I’ll be back later,” Erin tells her parents, smiling at me. We walk out her front door together. She is so short that I have to tip my head down to glance at her. I’m like a kid in a candy store being this close. I want to reach out and touch her. I open the car door for her.
“Thanks,” she says.
I get in the driver’s seat. There’s a weird tension consuming the tight space of my Cadillac. I glance at her and she’s looking straight ahead.
“Do you want to grab some breakfast?” I offer.
“Sure. Sounds good.”
At the end of town, near the college, I know a small place. They only serve breakfast and lunch, and they close at two. I start to head that way, but when I glance in the rearview mirror I notice that the car behind us has followed my change of direction. I keep my eye on it.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
I take the long way around and the car finally turns off on a side street. I relax.
“So. You’re all right after last night?” she asks me. Erin’s tone searches through my feelings as she attempts to make small talk.
“Yup.”
“Did you work on the Comp. assignment?”
I shoot her an are you crazy? look and snort. “No.”
She giggles. “I’m not sure what else I expected.”
“Hey, don’t insult my academic skills.” I look at her like I’m serious. She turns towards me a raises an eyebrow, concerned.
I crack a smile, and we both laugh.
*****
The restaurant is packed. I get a parking space across the street in front of a bunch of stores, so we have to walk a ways. Outside of the car, I take a step forward and Erin slips her arm under mine. I look down at it, surprised.
“Your strides are way bigger than mine. This will help me keep up,” Erin comments.
“Well, what do you expect when you have short legs like an oompa-loompa?”
“Hey,” she says, laughing, and hits my arm playfully. “That’s not funny.”
“Yes it is.” I grin back at her.
We walk into the tiny restaurant, and I ask the closest waitress how long the wait is.
“Forty-five minutes,” she says.
“Do you want to go somewhere else?” I ask Erin.
“I don’t mind waiting,” she says.
Normally, I do mind waiting. I don’t wait for shit, but with her, I don’t give a fuck. I’d wait three hours just to have her hold my arm like she’s doing now.
“We can go hang out in the stores.”
I shrug my shoulders in an okay gesture and we walk back out. The sky is gray - winter is trying to push its way in.
“Let’s go in here.” Erin directs me towards a small used DVD store crushed between the restaurant and a grocery store. I follow her inside.
The place is lined with movies. Erin browses down the aisle in front of us and I follow. She doesn’t walk far before she stops and picks up a movie in the section marked C. I look over her shoulder. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
“Hell no,” I say.
“Hell yes!” she says with some sass. “It’s punishment for the comment about my height.”
“Fine. If I have to watch that, you have to watch this.” I reach behind her and pull out Blair Witch Project from the B section.
“That’s a horror movie!”
“Better than a kid’s movie. And it’s not even all that old.”
Her angelic eyes narrow at me as she attempts to look evil and tough with her thick black eyeliner and black hair. She doesn’t fool me.
“What’s the matter?” she asks as we stare each other down. “My Mafia-Death-Glare isn’t working on you?”
“Um, no, sweetheart, you don’t have it,” I say smugly. “You’ve got other things.” I look up and down her body. “But a death-glare? No, you don’t got it.”
I take the movie from her and head to the check out. A tall geeky guy rings out the two movies. I pull out one of the hundreds from Baby.
“Do you have anything smaller?” Shit!
“No, dude.”
“I do,” Erin says, going into her purse for her wallet. “How much?”
“Twenty-one fifty,” he tells her. She hands the guy twenty-five. He counts out her change, and I shove the hundred in her wallet while it’s open.
“What are you doing?” she gasps.
“You’re not fuckin’ payin’,” I say.
“Why?” she asks, pulling the hundred out of the slot in her wallet. She looks at me for a minute, considering her next move, then thinks better of arguing and shakes her head at me. “Let’s see if a table is ready.”
The restaurant has emptied out a bit and there are a few open tables. I signal that there are two of us and the waitress puts us at a table for two in the back. We settle into the booth and pick up our menus.
“What are you getting?” Erin asks.
“Omelet.”
“I think I’m going for the pancakes.” She gently bites her lip as she ponders her choices. It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. And the sexiest.
The waitress stands over us with a tiny pad of paper in her hands. “Are you ready to order?”
I motion for Erin to go first.
“I’ll have the stack of three chocolate chip pancakes.”
“Anything to drink?”
“Orange juice.”
“And for you?” The waitress asks me.
“Ham and cheese omelet and a black coffee.”
“Thank you,” the waitress says and walks away towards the kitchen.
“We’re watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory first,” Erin tells me.
“Where?”
“I figured your apartment.”
I remember Antonio’s orders that he doesn’t want her there. I rationalize with myself that he said that before I spoke to her dad. Shit, I have to meet with him tomorrow. I better not do anything stupid.
The waitress puts down a mug of hot coffee for me and a glass of juice for Erin. I pick it up and take a drink.
“All right,” I concede, but part of me is reluctant to take her there. It’s tough for me to keep my self-control around her. The more time I spend with her, the more difficult it gets. I want her. It’s as simple as that.
*****
We get to the apartment around one. The plan is to spend the afternoon watching movies. The two movies are like oil and water, total opposites, kind of like Erin and me.
Erin makes herself at home by tossing her coat on a chair and heading to the bathroom. I watch her walk, contemplating her tiny ass. Shit! Alone with her for two movies - I don’t know if I can do it.
I go into the kitchen and throw my keys on the counter. I run cold water into a glass, hoping it’ll cool me off. I hear her in the hallway. She comes into the kitchen and takes the movies out of the bag.<
br />
“I haven’t seen this since I was a kid,” Erin reminisces, checking out the DVD case of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Hmm… kid. She is a kid, isn’t she?
I gulp my water, hard, realizing that everything changes. I observe the tiny angelic girl putting a movie made for children in my DVD player. The last thing that was watched on it was a porn movie Ronnie rented.
“Where’s the remote for this?” she asks, looking around the room for it.
“It’s probably stuck in the couch.”
The two of us jam our hands in between cushions, trying to locate it. It’s too much trouble for Ronnie to put the remote on the coffee table. I’m constantly looking for this fucking thing. I see her move out of the corner of my eye.
“Found it!” she shouts in triumph.
I take it from her and press play. The long drawn out credits of the 1960’s movie roll slowly. The Lawrence Welk like music comes out of the surround sound speakers, making me feel like I’m at some stupid Broadway musical.
I sit down on the couch and put my feet up. Erin takes her shoes off and neatly lines them up in front of her. She sits down too and curls her legs under herself.
“Have you ever seen this?” she asks.
“Bits and pieces over the years. Enough to know what an oompa loopa looks like.”
We watch the movie quietly together for awhile. Suddenly, Erin shifts and rubs her leg just as the kid in the movie finds money in a sewer. She moans.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Yeah. Cramp.”
I move over to her and close the small space between us. I reach out and rub the area on the back of her calf.
“Turn this way,” I tell her. I take her small leg in my hand and gently massage it. I can feel the knot. “This is tight.”
Erin gives me a shy look, like what I said or am doing is affecting her. I’m hard as a rock, but just looking at her can do that to me. The impulse to rub my hand up her thigh is strong. “Better?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” I notice her eyelids are heavy. Is she tired?
“Why don’t you lay down?” I suggest.
Erin scoots down and lays her head on the arm of the couch. I grab her legs and place them in my lap. I rub the cramped leg again. Within a few minutes, her breathing slows, and she falls asleep on me.
A trembling travels through her body. She must be cold. Getting her a blanket would be the best thing to do, but I don’t want to get up and disturb her. Instead, I shift and wedge my body between her and the back of the couch and cover her with my left arm and leg, keeping her warm. Erin snuggles into me subconsciously and I freeze.
This was a bad idea because my erection is now painfully pressing against my jeans and her ass. Shit. Calm down. Calm down. I repeat in my head, attempting to think of other things. My breathing slows, my focus gets fuzzy, and I eventually get sleepy too.
What feels like moments later, I glance at the T.V. and a huge chocolate bar is on a floor of a white room. The movie is still on, but I’ve been out for a little while. Erin’s still asleep. She must’ve really needed the rest. I stay where I am. It feels good to hold her.
The nights we spent in South Bend were amazing for me. I found it difficult to believe that just lying next to a girl could be so awesome, but it was. For me, being in bed with someone else usually involves hard sex and parting ways. But I’ve missed this. Many mornings I would wake up and find her curled up against me, just like she is now.
The crazy nights of yelling and thrashing scared the hell out of me, but I could always calm Erin down. I would hold her even though she hit and kicked. I would talk to her to try and ease her out of whatever place sleep had sent her.
I shut my eyes again. The next thing I know, there’s a weird looking glass thing floating over London with 1960’s special effects and the credits roll. I rub the sleep from my eyes. We’ve changed our positions on the couch. I’m flush against the back lying down but Erin’s ass is in my chest. She has shifted and curled up more. I glance down at it and want to bite it. Shit. I have to get away and stretch before I shred her jeans to pieces.
Erin stirs and yawns. “Is it over?”
“Yeah, you missed it.”
“Aw, I wanted to see Charlie win the factory,” she says, disappointed.
What? Oh, the movie.
I go into the kitchen and grab her a soda. I walk back to the couch and sit on the edge of it in front of her.
“Here.” She sits up.
“Thanks.” Erin drinks it down and watches me over the rim of the glass. “Did you like the movie?” she asks between gulps.
“I fell asleep too.” She giggles. It sounds magical.
“So much for making you watch the movie.”
Ronnie comes through the door.
“Hey!” he says. “How you doin’ Kid?” He pats Erin on the head as he passes by the couch.
“Good.”
Ronnie goes to the kitchen and grabs himself a beer. Erin stands up, stretches, and walks towards the bathroom.
“I thought she wasn’t supposed to come here?”
“Nah, I talked to her dad,” I tell him.
“Wow, fuckin’ brave man!” Ronnie says.
I check the fridge. I’m always hungry after I nap. Erin comes back and sits at the counter. Her hair is messed up from sleeping. It’s fucking cute. Ronnie sees the case for the DVD on the table and picks it up.
“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? What are you, five?” he jokes.
“We’re watching Blair Witch next,” Erin notes.
“What is it, movie Saturday? You need an action movie like Iron Man or The Avengers, something good.” Ronnie is a huge Marvel comics fan.
“Vito picked Blair Witch.” Ronnie shoots me a disbelieving smirk. He throws the case back on the table.
“Have fun,” he says and goes to his room. I can tell he doesn’t really mean it. He thinks Erin is cool but doesn’t think I should be getting involved with her. It’s not his fucking life.
Erin switches the movie in the DVD player. I go back to the kitchen.
“You hungry?” I ask.
“You cooking?”
“Do you want me to?”
“Yeah. I miss it. You’re a good cook.” I don’t like compliments. They make me feel uncomfortable. But I don’t say anything against her – I don’t think I ever could. “Where did you learn?” Erin asks eagerly. I pull out some homemade frozen cavatelli out of the freezer and put water on the stove to boil.
“My mom and dad. They both like to cook.”
“My dad doesn’t make much besides peanut butter and jelly.”
I shrug. “Maybe he doesn’t enjoy it.”
“You like it?” She’s eager to know.
“Yeah, it relaxes me.”
She watches me cook. I make a quick tomato gravy and fill two plates with the pasta. I put one in front of Erin.
“What do you want to drink?”
“Water is fine.” I fill a glass for her and she takes a bite of the pasta. “This is delicious.”
“It’s nothing.”
“No. It’s good.” I sit down next to her and push the pasta around on my plate, making sure it’s totally covered in red.
“Thank you,” she says.
I glance at her, and I look into her eyes. There’s something there that wasn’t there before. Admiration. Erin gazes back at me. I look back down at my pasta, not wanting to read too much into it.
Erin
My day with Vito was unbelievable. The fact that I was asleep for a lot of it is concerning, but I feel so rested and relaxed. My phone rings with a text. I say a little prayer and get my hopes up that it’s from Vito, but it’s from Connor. Damn!
Connor: Hi. I saw a funny show yesterday. I thought of you…
Ass! I toss the phone down, disappointed. I don’t even click on the text to read the rest. When is he going to give up?
I get out my homework to finish it up. My phone buzzes again. I have half a mind
not to even look at it because it’s probably Connor again. I do anyway because there’s always a chance it could be who I want to talk to, Vito. Instead, it’s Clarissa. Yay! I miss her.
Clarissa: What are u doing?
Me: Homework
Clarissa: Yuck
Me: But today I spent all day with Vito
Clarissa: U saw him again????
Me: Yup
Clarissa: U like him!!!!
Me: Of course I do, he’s a friend.
Clarissa: NO! U like him, like him
Me: What does that even mean??? Yeah, I like him. So?
Clarissa: Holy Crap! Erin n Vito
Me: What? No! WE R NOT TOGETHER!
Clarissa: U will be <3 ;)
Me: I’m not talking to u anymore
Clarissa: Hehehehe Did u talk to ur dad?
Me: All set. See u Thanksgiving.
Clarissa: Awesome
Erin and Vito… I hadn’t thought about that before. It didn’t sound all that bad.
Chapter 13
Vito
Patrick hasn’t arrived yet. I grab a beer out of the refrigerator. Since coming here last week, a bunch of shit has changed. I think Erin does want me, but my insides turn black when I think of becoming the cleaner. Will she hate me? Not want to be around me? I pace the kitchen, thinking about the consequences of my new job. I tip my head back and take a swig of beer. It’s become piss warm from me holding it my hand, but I don’t let the temperature bother me. Suddenly, I hear someone at the door and Patrick walks in.
“Hey,” I say.
“You ready?” he asks.
“Yup,” I respond, guessing that the pleasantries are over.
“Come on.”
Patrick drives. He takes us to the other side of town where suburban houses line up street after street. They’re mainly small sized ranches with one-car garages, all built in the same era. Some are kept neat and tidy: perfect representations of the America dream. Others are decayed and abandoned. Color and condition are the only things that set each one apart from the others.
He pulls down a side street off the main drag and into a driveway. He rides up on the grass next to the garage in the backyard.
“This is a sweep and clean. In and out.”
I don’t know what the fuck I’m walking into. This has to be some fuckin’ raid gone bad. We exit the mini-van. I look in the back and see that Patrick has brought some industrial strength cleaning supplies and plastic sheeting. I flick my eyes to the houses around me. I don’t see anyone, but that doesn’t mean no one sees us.
Mobster's Angel (Mobster Series) Page 11