Smoke and Mirrors

by M. Mabie

  We were interested because she was trying this at home ovulation kit and we were all eagerly waiting to see if it worked.

  “I don’t think for a few more days at least,” she answered. “I’m kind of nervous to do it.”

  “Why?” Abbey asked sympathetically, the first to jump in. She was the only one of us who had two kids. The only one of us who’d gone through pregnancy twice.

  “I don’t know. If it says we’re not, I’ll be disappointed, and I just have a feeling I’m not.”

  I couldn’t imagine what that was even like—trying to have a baby.

  “It’ll be fine,” Noel said. “You guys are doing it all the time. Odds are it’ll happen. The stress won’t help though.”

  “Yeah, don’t worry yet,” I added.

  “I know. I know.” She waved us off, taking another sip. She was drinking out of a coffee mug that had the words This is Wine written on the side—her wine mug.

  Abbey pulled the earbuds out and covered the speaker, shouting something at someone. Then blurted, “Hey, I’ll be right back.” A second later, she was out of sight.

  “What is going on with her?” Noel leaned forward, asking what all of us were thinking. “I think Scott has been going out a lot again.”

  Of course, Emma and I had already talked about it, but having a third person mention it only meant soon all of us would be asking Abbey about it together.

  “Yeah, she’s been quiet lately. I feel awful for her. He’s a jerk sometimes,” Emma said.

  The three of us leaned into our screens like we were discussing a top-secret conspiracy or something. We were so dumb, but when it came to one of us really being upset we always came together.

  “Let’s wait and see if she brings it up before we say anything. I don’t want her to feel like we’re attacking her,” I suggested. I’d been there before. Been the one who wouldn’t listen. It’s scary when things are so out of control, yet everyone thinks they have all the answers.

  Emma nodded. “Yeah, sounds good.”

  “I want to throat punch him. He doesn’t know how good he has it.” Noel wasn’t as subtle as us. Then again, she didn’t know what it was like to work at a relationship. She and her baby’s daddy, Nick, had a very amicable fifty-fifty arrangement with their son, and it seemed to make them both happy. It also allowed her alone time, and time to date casually, which she did now and then. She also had close friends where she lived and her lifestyle was still that of any normal, single twenty-five-year-old.

  Well, every other week.

  We moved on to other topics, and after a while Abbey finally came back, only to tell us she had to go. We didn’t give her any shit though. Sometimes life was hard, and the group was our retreat from the many crazy things we’d been through.

  Shortly after that, Emma disconnected. Lying about having to load the dishwasher or some bullshit after her husband came up behind her and said hello to Noel and me. They were going to get it on, and we all knew it.

  “Isn’t it weird that the married one of us gets laid the most? I thought marriage killed your sex life,” Noel joked when it was just the two of us left.

  “How in the hell should I know? It’s been almost five years since I’ve been laid.”

  My friend made a gagging face and shook her head. “I cannot wait until you have sex with this Aaron guy. You guys really never messed around in high school or anything?”

  I’d been over it dozens of times with them, but I was still dying to talk about it. About him.

  “Nothing. We’d never even kissed until last night.” Thinking about how intense it was, how tightly he held onto me, how attracted I was to him even after all this time, it was like I was in high school all over again. Not the awkward parts, but the young and adventurous ones. Okay, I was still awkward as fuck. “I don’t even know when I’m going to see him again. He works just as much as I do, if not more. How will that even work?”

  “You’ll figure it out. Back to this make out sesh—so what else did you do? You can tell me.” She settled into her patio chair and held her wine glass in front of her mouth with two hands, as if she was prepared to hear some juicy story.

  “Nothing. We just kissed.” Well, a few kisses actually. The Slow and Steady—as I was calling it in my mind—one in the truck, and The Hot and Heavy version in my house. They’d been completely different, but equally possessing.

  “Come on. You didn’t feel it?” Noel wagged her perfectly shaped eyebrows hoping for details. “Is it big?”

  “I didn’t feel it. I mean, not with my hand or anything. I felt it pressed against me, though, when I was on his lap and when he picked me up.” Being in his arms was better than I’d ever imagined. I snuck a look into the living room and Del was passed out on the couch. “No under the clothes stuff or anything.”

  She shook her head. “You disappoint me.” Her quiet laugh made me giggle. It was fun talking like that with someone, having stories they wanted to hear.

  I came clean. “Not that I wouldn’t ...” I’d be lying if I told her I hadn’t thought about it ... because I had. A lot. I’d wanted Aaron for as long as I could remember, and knowing how he kissed and how it felt when he touched me had only made it harder to get him off my mind.

  “All right. Fine, but you have to tell me as soon as it happens. I’m a needy bitch.”

  “Deal. If anything happens, you’ll be the third to know.”

  “That’s right.” She sat forward. “Hey, we didn’t even work on your resume.”

  It was getting late and the Madame needed to get in bed. I had a full day off the next day and I didn’t want to waste it. I had plans to get up early, clean, and maybe a trip to the park. “That’s okay. I’ll let you know if I need help. I’ll get it done this week. The guy is on vacation anyway, and I’m tired.”

  She sat up and smiled. “I’m so excited for you. New job. New man. It’s like my baby’s all grown up.” Her hand fell over her heart.

  She was getting way ahead of herself, but I liked her optimism.

  “Good night, Noel.”

  “Good night, bitch.

  I turned off the iPad, removed the books I’d piled behind it so that it sat up without having to hold it the whole time, and then placed my glass in the sink, flipping off the kitchen light as I left.

  Delaney was already drooling and sweaty by the time I carried her to her room. I sat on the edge of her bed and tucked her in really tight, the way she liked. Her hair still smelled sweet from her bath, and I kissed her.

  Her eyes fluttered open.

  “Shhh. Good night, baby. I love you.”

  “Love you, Mom. You’re the peanut butter.” God, I loved that girl.

  “You’re the jelly.”

  She rolled over and I wondered if she was too sleepy to remember the last part, but we’d said the same thing almost every night. “Yeah, I’m grape.”

  I replied, “I’m chunky.”

  She didn’t laugh like usual, but it still warmed my heart.

  SURPRISINGLY, I SLEPT like the dead. Then again, I probably had Barefoot Moscato to thank for the peaceful night’s rest. It was probably also to blame for the sinful dreams I had about a certain fireman.

  If he was half as skilled in real life as he was in my dreams, I wasn’t sure if I could handle it. One thing was certain, though: Noel would eat it up.

  On mornings when Delaney was up first, usually she wandered into my room and turned on cartoons, but my television wasn’t on, and there wasn’t a four-year-old lying sideways in my bed, so I knew it had to be early.

  My phone said it was only six, but for some reason I was okay with that. I’d wanted to get up early anyway, and I felt great. After slipping my bathrobe over my nightshirt, I wandered into the kitchen to start coffee. I stretched as water filled the decanter, noticing something yellow out of the corner of my eye. I turned off the faucet and leaned over the sink to get a better look.

  There was a sticky note stuck to my window. On the sid
e facing into the house there were two words, Good Morning, and an arrow pointing down. Even on my tippy toes I couldn’t see what it was pointing to, but my heart hammered as I bound to the door for my flip-flops so I could go out and investigate.

  I walked around the back of the house to the kitchen window and saw an envelope sitting on the rocks below with Fay written on the outside. I was smiling so hard it hurt.

  Inside, there was a piece of paper wrapped around a plastic card.

  I wasn’t sure if you had my number or not. So, just in case, here it is.

  555-6703

  One minute at a time.

  Aaron

  The card was ninety prepaid minutes for my cell phone. How did he make such everyday things so special?

  Naturally, I did what any other normal woman would. I did a humiliating dance, in my bathrobe, in the backyard. Then I snapped a picture of it and sent it to my friends. It took those hos thirty minutes to wake up and celebrate with me.

  Coffee tasted better than it ever had. I didn’t mind doing laundry. Cleaning didn’t seem like such a chore, and not only did Delaney and I go to the park, but we stopped for ice cream on the way home.

  For once, I wasn’t thinking about what I was missing out on. Instead, I just enjoyed everything I had.

  Things were looking up.

  Chapter Thirteen

  AARON

  It was taking everything inside of me to not go to her place and make sure she’d found my note. I’d left it there early the morning before, but what if it fell off and landed in the grass. It could take days, maybe weeks, before she found it.

  Monday had dragged on and on at the station, and I was on a crazy schedule that week, a seventy-two hour shift that I was only halfway through when Tuesday evening finally hit.

  I sat under the open garage door in my lawn chair, work done, just waiting for something to happen, when my phone finally rang.

  “Hello,” I answered.

  “Vaughn says you’re coming here Thursday. Yay!” Hannah squealed over the line. “What do you need me to do? Just clean everything out? I’m so ready for this to get done. Thank you so much. You have no idea.”

  I had some time off Thursday and Friday, and had messaged Vaughn earlier to see if it would be a good time to start on their bathroom.

  Her excitement about the renovation was contagious, and I was glad to help. “That would be perfect.”

  “Did you see the new tub?”

  “Yeah, at the lumberyard when it came in. They delivered it then?”

  “It’s in the garage.”

  My phone beeped and I pulled it away to see why. The settings on my phone were such that if a sheepherder halfway across the world took a shit, I was getting notified about it. But, to my surprise, it was Faith on the other line. I hated being rude, but I refused to miss the one call I’d actually been waiting on.

  “Hannah, I gotta go.”

  “Shit, you’re probably working. Okay. See you Thursday.”

  I accepted the incoming call without another word to my friend.

  “Oh my God. Hello.”

  “Hi.” She chuckled on the other end. “Did I catch you at a bad time? Is it too late?”

  I could have probably left the Holy Father out of my greeting, but I was happy to finally hear from her. “No. Call me anytime.”

  The line was quiet a few seconds before she began rambling. “This is so awkward. I can’t remember the last time I called a guy. I have no idea what to talk about, but Delaney just went to bed and...” She took a breath and continued, speaking slower. “And I just thought I’d call and say hi.” She was smiling; I heard it in the lilt of her cheerful voice.

  I crossed my legs and relaxed for the first time since I’d kissed her good night three damn days earlier. I was patient, but fuck, it had been killing me.

  “So you did get my note. I was beginning to wonder.”

  “Were you always this thoughtful? Tires. Notes. Phone cards.”

  I added, “Gutters. Weed eating. I’m nothing if not romantic.”

  “You’re something all right.”

  I bit the side of my grin, enjoying the banter, but didn’t want to talk about me. “How was your day?”

  “My day? I worked at the diner, ran a few errands after that, made dinner, and lost three games of Candyland. Exciting, huh?”

  Smokie emerged from the station, stretched, and wandered the yard.

  “Doesn’t sound too bad.”

  “It wasn’t bad at all. What about yours? Are you at the firehouse?”

  “Yep, last night, tonight, and tomorrow night.” One more, then I’d be off a few days.

  “Doesn’t it get boring when there aren’t any fires?”

  I got that question a lot, but I liked that she was curious. There was no way she’d been thinking about me like I’d been obsessing over her, but it was possible I’d crossed her mind.

  “It’s a lot of cleaning and checking equipment, but yeah, there’s some down time.” My Dalmatian came back and sprawled out at my feet, soaking up the last bit of the day’s heat from the cooling pavement.

  “Do you have to stay there the whole time? How does that work?”

  “Mostly, but we can leave for a while. Run to the store. Here and there. Our station isn’t too strict.”

  “Not like the Air Force?”

  I was rarely asked about my service anymore, but I enjoyed having her attention. She was interested and if I expected her to tell me about herself, I had to do the same. “It was a lot faster paced, but the same stuff, just on a much bigger scale.”

  “Were you ever scared?”

  While I was away there were a few times I was terrified. Like when Mom told me Faith was seeing Chad. Then how they were moving in together, both back from school. When I found out she was pregnant. Those fears were more frightening than any combat I could have been faced with because I thought I’d lost her.

  Forever.

  I told her a stripped down version of that truth. “It was hard being so far away.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t anything like what you were going through, but it was hard here too.”

  The conversation flowed easily, which I shouldn’t have been surprised about because back in the day we talked non-stop.

  Sure, we danced around from topic to topic, keeping it light, but it was nice. Comfortable. She told me how her mom was moving in with Darrell soon, and how, at the end of the summer, Delaney was starting Pre-K.

  It was unbelievable how fast the years had gone.

  Faith asked what I’d done when I had time off in the Air Force, and I told her about the beaches I’d been to. I told her about Qatar and my uneventful deployment. She confessed she always worried about where I was and what I was doing. Hearing that meant a fucking lot. Often, I wondered if anyone back home thought about me at all, aside from my family.

  Soon it wasn’t awkward anymore and we were just old friends finally catching up.

  “Isn’t it funny how it’s almost like we haven’t talked in years? But, I’ve seen you like every day since you came home.”

  I replied, “We’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for.”

  “Holy crap. It’s already eleven. We’ve been on the phone for over an hour.”

  Nearly two, and I’d be buying her more minutes. As far as I was concerned, it was money well-spent.

  “So you’re off this weekend then?” she asked.

  “Well, kind of. I’m off Thursday and Friday, but I have shifts Saturday and Sunday. And I have a construction job that might take me a few days.”

  “Oh,” she said softly. “Well, I’m working afternoon and dinner shifts for Mom on Friday, so I won’t be at the bar that night. They’re taking Delaney to the fair in Spring Valley to watch the derby.”

  Was she telling me she was free Friday night? I wasn’t sure when I’d be done at Vaughn’s, but the possibility of spending time with her was motivation to work my ass off. However, I didn’t want to mak
e a promise I couldn’t keep.

  I sat up in the lawn chair and stretched my back. “I want to see you Friday,” I admitted. “I’m not sure what time I’ll finish up, but if you’re free...” There was no way I was going to ask her to sit around and wait for me on one of her few nights off.

  Her reply came almost instantly. “I want to see you too.”

  That was all I needed.

  “Call me tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Maybe.” She stretched the word out, playful and sweet, but sounded easy enough to persuade.

  “I’ve missed this.” Packing up to head in myself, I collapsed the chair and stood looking down the road with it in my free hand. She was inside her house and I couldn’t see her, but it was still a comfort knowing she was down the street. Somehow she felt closer. “I know you have a lot going on, and I don’t want you to feel any pressure, but this feels so damn good.”

  She sighed, and it reminded me of a sound she’d made Saturday when I kissed her neck. “Fine. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Okay, good night.”

  “Very good night,” she contended and hung up.

  I strolled inside and shut the overhead door. Her voice and her words swam around in my head. The tone she’d used. Her relaxed laughter.

  It was juvenile how easily she turned me on, and I’d never jacked off at the fire station—ever—but that didn’t mean I couldn’t run home for a couple minutes and take care of a few things.

  So I did.

  Twice.

  SHE CALLED THE NEXT night, and I called her Thursday when I got home from the Renfros’ house. I loved listening to her talk about Delaney and her day. Honestly, she could’ve talked about overseas exchange rates, and I’d still hang on her every word.

  The bathroom project was going so smoothly that it almost scared me. It was only day one and we’d gotten everything torn out, new drywall hung, floors down, and the tub, toilet, and sink switched. Mostly, I worked alone for the better part of the day, but I’d had help with the heavy lifting.