Complicated

by Kristen Ashley

  Mamie had been so little, and the girls up there were all over the place, some of them just standing and waving to their parents.

  But Hope had been feeling so deeply, it spilled out on her face.

  Pride, probably (because Mamie went through the routine, badly, but she was one of the few who did it).

  Though he figured Hope was also realizing that was an indication that their baby was growing up and the next recital would be different, and the next, and the next, until Mamie was driving herself to dance class right before the time she drove away to meet life, and, like Hix, she loved that future for their daughter at the same time she dreaded it.

  He also thought about the fact she’d never bitched that she did all the cooking.

  He hated cooking, she knew that. She liked to do it up once in a while, but most of the time it was a chore.

  He (and then Shaw) never gave her reason to have to take out the trash and he saw to the tending of the cars, the lawn, or if something was broken, he fixed it. But Hix knew none of that made up for her having to be in the kitchen every night. Even after she’d started working part-time for her dad when Mamie went into second grade, going full-time when their baby hit middle school, she did all the cooking.

  But she never did any bitching.

  Then there were their Christmas mornings.

  Hope never opened her presents until the very end. Not to manipulate attention to herself, but because she was so enthralled by watching her family enjoy what they got, the holiday she always took pains to do up big for all of them, she forgot people wanted her to know she was loved too.

  And there was how close she was with her mom. How she managed to still be the little girl her dad needed without making that nauseating. How she razzed her older brothers but was the first to show when someone was needed.

  That had been his wife.

  That had been the woman he loved.

  That had been her part in the life they’d had.

  He didn’t know who she was now.

  But that was the woman he needed to hold on to so his kids didn’t have to negotiate awkward times at graduations, weddings, family gatherings.

  He just didn’t know if she kept up with the shit she was dishing out, if he’d be able to hold on to that.

  And this was no longer about what she’d done to him and their family for reasons still unknown.

  It was about the fact she had no problem dragging Greta into it.

  I am, Greta had said, asserting her idiocy.

  Like it wasn’t his to know why she missed church, it wasn’t his to understand what change came over her in the back room of Lou’s salon, no matter how much it disturbed him.

  He’d already picked her up, taken her home, slept with her, and left before he’d even walked to the bathroom to get rid of the condom she’d given him to use.

  He was not that guy.

  And she was not that girl.

  She didn’t need any more of his shit.

  He didn’t have the right to get up in hers.

  But damn, on his couch, his kids under his roof, trying to get to sleep, he’d think of her mouth on him. Her hands. The feel of her hair. The hot, tight slick that had closed around him when he’d slid inside. The noises she’d made. The look on her beautiful face, her eyes staring right into his as he moved inside her.

  He’d think of it and go hard.

  On his couch.

  His kids under his roof.

  And not a day passed when not once, not a few times, but dozens of them, he’d think about her. How bad he’d wanted to laugh when she’d been so hilarious in her tizzy. How she let him in on everything just looking at him. How much it sucked things weren’t different and he couldn’t ask her out on a date, ask her about herself that time, be able to laugh when she was funny, get her to smile at him again.

  And what her parting shot had meant to him.

  She’s a fool.

  Hope had thrown him away. Their family. Their life. He’d taken that hit, and at the time thought he’d never recover because that hit had landed in his heart. Absolutely.

  But it had also shaken his manhood.

  She’s a fool.

  And with that, like a miracle worker, he’d recovered.

  He was a trained investigator and he had been a loving husband. As both, in his mind for months he’d torn through everything with Hope to try and figure out where it’d gone wrong.

  There was no evidence, no trail to follow, not one fucking thing.

  She’s a fool.

  Except that.

  Because that was the only thing the minimal evidence there was, was leading him to.

  They’d had a good life.

  She’d thrown it away without fighting for it, finding some way to make whatever was going wrong, go right.

  Like a fool.

  So maybe that was where he was now. Where Greta had put him. Pissed he didn’t understand but no longer torn up about it.

  And more, beginning to feel unsure he gave a shit anymore.

  On that thought, the door opened and Shaw came through it.

  “Hey, Dad,” he greeted quietly.

  “Hey, kid. Fun date?” Hix asked.

  “Yeah,” Shaw answered, walking in and stopping at the end of the coffee table. “Girls asleep?”

  “Yup.”

  “You want me to help you pull out the couch?”

  “Nope.”

  He watched in the light from the TV, the only light in the room, as his son’s head turned to the set then back to his dad.

  “You’re watching Smokey and the Bandit?” Shaw asked.

  Hix grinned up at him. “Your sister reminded me I haven’t seen it in a while.”

  Shaw grinned back. “You should start using your middle initial like Sheriff Buford T. Justice. You can be Sheriff Hixon T. Drake.”

  “Actually has a ring to it,” Hix joked.

  Shaw chuckled, noting, “Good your middle name is Timothy and not William. Sheriff Hixon W. Drake would sound stupid.”

  “Son, I called myself Sheriff Hixon T. Drake, the stupid would start there.”

  Shaw chuckled again and began to move past the coffee table.

  “You goin’ to bed?” Hix asked.

  “Yeah,” Shaw answered.

  “Right. Sleep good. See you in the morning.”

  “Junk Sunday,” Shaw mumbled.

  Hix took his gaze off his son and grinned at his TV.

  “Dad?”

  Hix looked back to his boy, now standing in the mouth of the hall, turned again to face him.

  “Yeah, kid?”

  “I’m here.”

  He felt his brows draw together. “See that, Shaw.”

  “I mean, I’m home. Nothin’ will happen, but if one of the girls needs anything, I’m home, you wanna go to her.”

  Hix felt a burning in his chest.

  “Sorry?” he forced out.

  Shaw stepped one step from his place into the room.

  “Wendy and her mom go to her at the salon. Her mom heard from someone, and Wendy heard her mom talking to a friend about it. I don’t think the girls know, but Wendy told me just in case someone said something to me about it.”

  Shit.

  “Shaw—”

  That was all he got out before his boy hurried on.

  “Wendy says she’s super cool, Dad. Says she’s funny, and she’s like you, she’s old, but not old old. And she wears really cool clothes that Wendy says a lot of girls at school try to copy. But her clothes aren’t like trying-too-hard cool. Like she’s old but she doesn’t get that she’s old so she still tries to be young.”

  “She isn’t old,” Hix said low.

  “I know, I mean she’s older, like you,” Shaw said quickly.

  So maybe things with Greta had filtered down to at least one of his kids.

  That was unfortunate.

  But thank Christ the one it filtered down to was the oldest and his boy.

  He still wasn�
��t going to have this conversation with Shaw.

  So Hix shook his head. “Shaw, I don’t think we should—”

  “I went by the salon. Stood across the street so she wouldn’t see me. Looked at her. Dad, she’s real pretty.” He paused then whispered, “Even prettier than Mom.”

  That sent Hix to his feet and he slowly walked to his son, stood close and put a hand on his shoulder.

  “I know you’re angry with your mom—”

  “It’s not that.”

  “It probably is, kid.”

  “I just . . . just . . .” Shaw couldn’t finish.

  “You just what, buddy?” Hix asked quietly.

  “I just . . . well, I like Wendy. She’s cool too. But I think . . . well, what I think is, I like who I am when I’m around her.”

  Oh yeah.

  He had to have another look at this Wendy.

  “And you are . . . I’m you,” he went on.

  “You’re me,” Hix stated, not quite getting it.

  “You’re better if you have a woman to look after.”

  Hix drew in a breath and took his hand from Shaw’s shoulder.

  “It’s like, well, like . . . like . . .” Shaw kept on. “Like you’re a little lost, not havin’ that.”

  Yeah.

  He was.

  He was not that guy who got off and took off.

  He was also not that guy who built a life with a woman and a family but did it always wondering if the grass would be greener with some other woman, living some other life. And he was not that guy who was about making his woman look after him, take care of his needs.

  He’d never been any of those guys.

  He’d been what his father had taught him to be.

  A man whose reason for being was to look after his woman and his family.

  He’d lost half of that and he didn’t know how to be that guy—the guy who didn’t have that half.

  He just hated that his boy had noticed it.

  “Son—”

  “Wendy’s dad is sick, Dad.”

  “Shit,” Hix whispered.

  “She doesn’t want anybody to know. There’s some treatment he’s gonna try. They don’t know how it’s gonna go but they think maybe it’ll be okay. But she doesn’t talk about it. Not to anybody. Not to any of her crew. But she does talk about it to me. And I like that.”

  “You should, Shaw. Says a lot about the trust she’s got in you. And you should take care of that, son. It’s maybe the most important thing you’ve ever had to do.”

  “I know.”

  After his boy gave him the weight of that, Hix felt Shaw’s attention intensify.

  “Should I not have told you?” he asked, sounding concerned.

  “No. It’s between you and me and it’ll stay that way.”

  “Right,” Shaw whispered. Then he said, “I know she sings at the Dew Drop and I’m just sayin’, you should go.”

  Hix beat back a sigh. “I’m not gonna go.”

  “You should.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Okay, but you should, and you shouldn’t not do it because you think you’re protecting us or something. We get it.” He lifted his shoulders and when they fell, they fell farther than he normally held them. “It’s the way it’s gonna be now.”

  Hix didn’t like the look of that shoulder droop.

  But he couldn’t cure that. That was one of the many things only time could cure.

  So he had to focus on what else was on his boy’s mind.

  “I hope you understand that I’m not showing you disrespect because I don’t wanna share with my son what happened between me and Greta,” Hix said. “But what I will share is that I think what you think happened is not what happened.”

  “Okay.”

  “So you can stop thinking about it.”

  “Right.”

  The way Shaw said that made a slither of something unpleasant drift down his spine.

  So he asked, “What?”

  “Nothin’,” Shaw muttered, looking like he was going to make a turn back down the hall.

  “Shaw, we share honesty, remember?” Hix pushed.

  He stopped moving and looked to his dad.

  “You hooked up with her,” he stated.

  “Again, kid, I’m not gonna share—”

  “And that’s it?” Shaw cut him off to ask.

  “Sorry?” Hix asked back.

  “So, you . . . what? You meet a pretty lady and get yourself some then scrape her off?”

  That burning sensation came back to his chest.

  “Shaw,” he growled, thinking the way he said his son’s name said it all.

  He thought wrong.

  “So, like, Corinne, Mamie when she gets old enough . . . Mom when she starts dating again, it’s okay some guy hooks up with them and then just blows ’em off?”

  “We’re adults, and I’m sorry, Shaw, but this is something you don’t know about.”

  “Everyone says that. But then everyone says you learn all you need to know about life in high school. I get that. I get that it’s all real concentrated, all the cliques and unfair teachers doing crap that’s not cool and you gotta put up with it, and losing at football games and learning how to live with that, and breaking up with girls or having them break up with you and beginning to have to worry about your future. I’m almost through all that and you don’t think I get how it is?”

  He had a point.

  “It’s more complicated than that,” Hix informed him.

  “People say that when they’re trying not to see how simple stuff really is.”

  Shit.

  He had a point there too.

  “Greta understands how it is,” he told his son.

  “Really?”

  Hix’s body locked.

  “God, you’re the sheriff, Dad,” Shaw said low. “You’re like, the president of McCook County or somethin’. People, they . . .” He hesitated then forced out, “Know about you. About us. They pay attention and would even if you weren’t the sheriff. But it’s more because you’re sheriff. And her? You just . . .” He did a quick shake of his head. “Whatever and then scrape her off? Folks think you’re like a god or something. And you’re a dude and dudes get away with that crap. But her? She does hair. She’s pretty and dresses cool, but she does hair. It isn’t nice, the way it is, people givin’ guys a pass on stuff like that, but it’s not the same for girls. It’s still the way it is. Wendy’s hair is awesome so I know she’s good at what she does. People are still only gonna think she does hair and Mom is who she is ’cause a’ Gramps and Gran and Uncle Cook and Reed and you. And you’re the sheriff. So they’ll think you work, bein’ with Mom. They’ll also think, you hook up with her and scrape her off, she’s nobody. She just does hair.”

  “I’m not sure it would help matters, and it wouldn’t be cool to her if I made her or anyone else think what happened was something it wasn’t,” Hix explained.

  “Okay, so . . . go listen to her sing. You don’t have to take her home and bone her. Just be her friend. You’re her friend, folks’ll get how it is and everyone will just settle into that. Not think she’s just a hairdresser but also some slut or something that maybe other guys can have a go with and treat her the same way.”

  Hix drew in breath through his nose slowly and let it out just as slow, wondering if he was more troubled about the conversation he was having with his son or the fact his son somehow got to be so damned smart it was a little scary.

  “You should take care of her, Dad. I know it’s totally not fair, but girls at school that put out . . .” He again hesitated before he muttered, “I hope Mom’s up in Corinne’s face about not putting out. It isn’t pretty.”

  “You hear other boys saying shit about girls, you shut that down,” Hix ordered.

  And he himself would have a word with his girl, no matter that he was looking forward to that a lot less than he was enjoying his current conversation, and he’d pretty much rather be anywhere t
han right there talking about what he was talking about with Shaw.

  “Uh, duh, Dad.”

  And his son had respect.

  He was glad of that but he wasn’t surprised.

  He’d learned that from his dad.

  But now what was Hix teaching him?

  Shit.

  “I’ll go. Have a drink with her between sets. But then I’ll be right back, Shaw.”

  “Okay, or you can stay. I’m here. It’ll all be cool you wanna go out and do something for yourself for once. I’ve got it covered.”

  “You’re lucky you’re such a good kid,” Hix muttered. “If you weren’t, I’d probably be more ticked at whatever your geography grade is gonna be.”

  “Brains come in a lot more forms than being able to call out the country when you see the flag for every team that comes out in the opening of the Olympic ceremonies,” Shaw replied glibly.

  “Whatever,” Hix murmured, feeling his lips twitch. “Go to bed.”

  Shaw, obviously relieved at how their conversation had gone, faked a salute then turned down the hall.

  He didn’t get to his room before he called quietly, “Have fun, Dad.”

  Hix wasn’t going to the Dew Drop to have fun.

  He was going because his son was right, and Greta was too about Hope being on the warpath and he had a statement to make that should be declared to a larger audience than just Greta in the back room of the salon.

  She was not a piece of ass. She was not open to be played with and speculated about.

  She’d had his cock but she also had his regard.

  He was not going to try to make her his friend. It had been a long time but he knew enough about his reaction to her, and had already had a taste of her he knew he wanted more of, that that would last about a second before he’d be trying to find ways to get her back into bed.

  But people didn’t need to know that.

  They just needed to know he thought she was what she was.

  A beautiful, funny lady who could sing really freaking great and could make jeans into a fashion statement and should be shown respect.

  “Go to bed,” he said to his son who was hesitating in his doorway.

  “’Night, Dad,” Shaw replied.

  “’Night, kid,” Hix returned.

  His boy’s door closed behind him.

  Hix turned and rested his shoulders against the wall.

  Then he pushed from it and walked down the hall to his room in hopes of getting a change of clothes and not waking his girls.