by Holley Trent
She thought she’d even miss Gary and his ever-running mouth a little.
“Just had to be married, didn’t you?” he said.
“Th-there you go,” she said in a breathy tone. “Running that mouth.”
“Good ones are always taken. You and Dean…it’s not even fair. How’d you get so lucky, Lo?”
Me?
She craned her neck up to see his face, and that sight of his eager, earnest face pulled her trigger.
“I love your fucking dick,” she shouted and pounded the bed, and as always, Dean gripped her hips tight as she wriggled against him, and he kept thrusting until her thighs were slick not only with her arousal, but his.
Gary slid his fingers out of her and gave her ass one last squeeze. “Better than porn.”
Dean let her hips down slowly, kissed the backs of her shoulders, and moved off the bed.
Gary was obviously about to follow, but she grabbed his wrist before he could get far. He paused at the edge of the bed.
“What’d you mean by that?” she asked him.
“By what?”
“When you asked how I got so lucky.”
“You are.”
“Do you have the hots for my husband?”
He shifted a bit and then looked away.
“Answer me. Don’t clam up.”
“You’re going to yell at me.”
She took a deep breath and convinced herself that, no matter what he said, she wouldn’t. After all, she was a rational woman on most days. “Tell me. I’m not going to yell, Gary.”
“Fuck, I can’t help it, Lo. Folks aren’t nice to me, and when they are…”
“Are you kidding me? Are you enamored by every person who doesn’t treat you like garbage?”
“No. I have to be attracted to them, too.”
She was assuming that he was attracted to Dean. She could understand why anyone would be—after all, she’d married the hunk—but hearing Gary so freely confess his proclivities stunned her. He was an equal-opportunity player, apparently, and one Dean seemingly got along just fine with.
“Can I even leave him here with you?” She stole a glance toward the bathroom. She could hardly see the light, so Dean must have had the door closed. “You’re supposed to be chaperoned by him, not be lusting after him.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“I—” She tamped down the quick retort, because she actually didn’t think mad was the right word.
She needed to think of what fit better. Anger didn’t come into the picture at all. There was more apprehension than anything else. Fear.
She let go of Gary’s wrist and pushed up onto her elbows. “Do you think he likes you more?”
“What? Hell no. Why would you even ask that?”
“I…” She shook her head. Shrugged. “I mean, you two seem to click. Maybe he understands you better.”
“That’s not that hard. I’m an open book, and I think he feels sorry for me being the way I am. That’s all.”
“I wouldn’t know what to do if he left me.”
Gary’s eyes damn near goggled. “What the hell are you talking about? He’s not leaving you.”
“I think I come on too strong for him.”
“And I think that’s the way he likes things.”
“You’re just saying that so I won’t be mad at you.”
“No, I’m not. I swear, you two need to get your shit together. Every time he looks at you, he has a stupid grin on his face. I think he’s more afraid that he’s not enough for you than the other way around.”
Dean had turned on the shower, so Lo said at her usual volume, “That’s ridiculous.”
“I’m telling the truth. Shit, I don’t understand why you married each other if you were both so damned afraid of each other.”
“Because he makes me feel safe.”
“Oh.” Gary put his head back and closed his eyes. “Yeah, I could see how that would happen. You’d think that’d be an easier thing to find in a guy, huh?”
“So, I guess I don’t need to tell you, then, that if you try to take him from me, I’ll kill you.”
Gary let out a breath and rubbed his eyes. “I really don’t think that’ll be a problem, Lo.”
“Why not?”
“Because if you ask me not to poke at him, I won’t.”
“I’m not going to ask you that.”
“Why not? Hell, I would. I’ve got a jealous personality that way, though.”
“He seems more open around you. Less…reserved. If you can bring that out of him for good, I would feel less self-conscious about how much I talk.”
“He likes hearing you talk.”
“Sure, you say that, but hearing those words doesn’t stop me from worrying.”
“Jesus Christ.”
She plucked him hard.
“Ow!” He rubbed his bruised elbow and scowled at her. “Shit. I’ll admit I was trying to put the moves on you a few days ago, but I’m not trying to break up anyone’s marriage. I get lonely, yeah, and I wish I had someone, but I don’t want that kind of shit on my conscience to obsess over.”
“You’d fuck both of us if you had the chance, wouldn’t you?”
Gary shrugged. “Duh.”
Lo rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling, thinking.
Olivia, Ken, and Clint made their nontraditional arrangement work shockingly well. Lo had never imagined herself dabbling in such a scenario, but the pieces were coming together in her head. The possibilities weren’t all that outlandish.
When Gary leaned in and looked down at her, she asked, “Do you like me as a person or are you just entranced by my fat ass?”
His grin actually reached his eyes.
“What’s that smile mean? I can never tell with you.”
“Aw, I like you, Lo, even though you yell at me all the time. Or maybe because you yell at me. I’m a sick puppy.”
She nodded at that. She certainly wasn’t going to disagree, knowing what she did about him.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I’m just wondering if I have the patience to foster a needy puppy right now.”
“Wait. You mean—”
“Don’t get your hopes up. I need to think this through. You’re unpredictable, and I don’t like that.”
“I’m a wildcard. Dean said that could be the most valuable card in the deck.”
“Did he, now?” Lo narrowed her eyes and rubbed her chin. “Well, we’ll see, then.”
CHAPTER TEN
Just before dawn on Saturday morning, Lo sat in the driver’s seat of her rental car, clutching the wheel and staring ahead at the closed motel room door.
Gary leaned into the window, trying to pick the right words to tell her. He didn’t usually try to be so careful, but she was already keyed up, and he wanted her to understand.
“He’ll be just the same the next time you see him,” Gary said.
Lo let out a long, ragged exhalation and fiddled with the air conditioner controls. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You think I don’t know what you were doing with all that talking?”
She shrugged.
“Why were you trying to push him?” Lo had been running her mouth pretty much nonstop whenever she was around Dean, and Gary had done his best not to interfere once he figured out what she was up to. She’d been trying to break the man—to needle him until he demanded she be quiet, but he never did.
When she talked more, he smiled more. Laughed more. Blushed more. He didn’t always talk back more, and perhaps she needed to get over that.
Gary drummed his fingers against the windowsill and glanced at the curtained window of their room. Dean was in the shower getting ready for the day, but Gary didn’t want to risk him jumping out prematurely and catching him in a pitiful little conference about Dean with Lo. He’d already had his long goodbye with Lo, and probably thought she’d left.
“You know,” Gary said, “when I get stu
ck on things and can’t let them drop, you and Dean tag-team and beat the compulsion out of me.”
She snorted. “We haven’t beat you yet.”
“I’m being figurative. Maybe you don’t realize you’re doing it, but you both seem to notice when I’ve gotten myself jammed up. Dean redirects me. You yell at me.”
“I don’t yell. I scold in a firm voice.”
Chuckling, Gary fixed the tilt of her Reedsville baseball cap and then straightened up. “Maybe you’re right. Works, though. The two of you are paying attention and you’re giving me a lot of feedback. I’m wondering if you need the same thing to get off your annoying little fixation.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m serious. How long have you had it? How long have you been chewing on the lie that your words aren’t valuable to someone?”
She clenched the steering wheel again and shifted her gaze slowly to the left.
“Tell me.”
“Don’t try to analyze me, Gary.”
“I’m not trying to. I just don’t know what else to do or say to convince you that that guy likes you the way you are.”
“Maybe it was too easy.”
“What was?”
She gave her head a slight shake. “The whole thing. The whirlwind courtship and marriage. Maybe if the coming together had been rockier, I’d be more willing to believe he knows what he’s got.”
“He knows.”
“Okay.”
“Really, Lo. I swear it.”
“I’m trying to accept that, but maybe you’re right. I’m stuck on the belief that this won’t last, and I need it to last. Do you understand me?”
“I understand.”
“Good.” She turned on the backlight behind the console’s clock and sighed. “I gotta go. Cutting things close already.” She waved him down into the window, and he leaned in.
She gave him a tender kiss on the forehead, and he clenched his teeth and held his tongue so he didn’t state the obvious—that she was crying. He doubted she wanted to be reminded.
“Take care of him,” she said.
“I think that’s supposed to be the other way around.”
“When I’m not here, it goes both ways, okay foster puppy?”
He hung his head and laughed. “Okay. I’ll do my best, but you know I can barely manage taking care of myself.”
“Buddy up like you did in kindergarten, and I want status reports. This thing between us right now is weird. Don’t freak him out.”
“All right. I promise.”
She backed out of the parking spot, and then the lot, and he watched the car until the taillights disappeared down the road.
“Dammit, Lo.” He gave his damp hair a tug and went back into the room to dress. In the past couple of days, Gary’s contribution to the weird thing between the three of them had been to sit back and wait for an invitation to engage. But Lo had given him the tacit go-ahead to engage Dean on a level that was more than collegial. Gary was a man in desperate need of clear boundaries, and in the matter regarding Dean, he wasn’t so sure what they were. He needed Lo there to tell him.
“Fuck.”
___
An hour later, Gary was outside again, fully dressed with his duffel at his feet.
Dean stepped out of the room, scanning both ways as was his custom.
“Cameron’s not out here,” Gary said. “He’s waiting near the office for the bus.”
“Ah.” Dean locked the door. “Wallace called me this morning.”
“You? Why?”
“Just giving me a little heads-up that Cameron gets a little…” Dean cringed and tossed the room key back and forth between his hands. “Uh, intense before away games.”
Gary blew a raspberry and fidgeted with the knot in his cleat lace. “Yeah, I remember that about him. With Lo gone, though, and there not being girl in my room anymore, maybe he’ll just be his usual level of unbearable and not excessively so.”
“Are you sure you’ve never stolen a girlfriend from him or anything like that?”
Gary put up a hand to make that oath as Charles tottered out of his room with his dress clothes mussed and his mouth opened in a yawn.
“What the hell happened to you?” Gary asked.
Charles blinked for a very long moment and then fixed his bloodshot eyes on him. “You didn’t hear that, all damn night long? The pounding against that fucking wall?” He pointed to a wall, ostensibly inside his room.
“You mean the one between your room and Cameron’s?” Dean asked.
“Uh-huh. Clap-clap-clap against that damn wall, all night long. I was sure you heard.”
“Wait,” Gary said, “you mean like headboard clapping?”
“That’s what the noise sounded like to me, but for all I know, that asshole could have had his feet against the wall, pounding just make me suffer.”
“I don’t know, man. Cameron might be a dick, but I don’t think he’d fuck with you at the expense of his own performance today. Not when he’s still holding out hope he’ll get some attention by a major league team.”
Charles heaved his duffel bag up by the handle. “So, if he wasn’t tap-dancing on the wall, he was doing the horizontal flamenco. That bastard.”
Dean shook his head and rubbed the week-old scruff on his chin. “That explains some things. One of my brothers used to do that kind of shit.”
“What?” Gary asked. “Throwing the rest of you under the bus to hide his dirty dealings?”
“Exactly. Once I figured out what he was doing, I didn’t say anything. Given the authoritarian bent my dad had, he would have turned the mess all around and made it everyone’s fault.”
“Spreading the misery around,” Charles said. He used his free hand to tuck his shirt into his slacks.
“Yep.”
The three men started moving toward the bus as the driver made the tight turn into the motel parking lot. Gary gave Dean a nudge with his elbow. “Better text Lo and see if she made her plane.”
“Text, not call?”
“Yeah, I know. The rules of contact are confusing, but I think a text message is perfectly acceptable when the other person knows that you know they’re busy. She won’t get mad.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Pretty sure. If she gets mad, tell her it was my fault.”
“I plan to.”
“Happy to help,” Gary muttered. His place in the relationship was becoming increasingly clear: scapegoat.
He wasn’t sure he cared. He was glad of the idea of even having a place.
Cameron was at the front of the line, and Gary waited back on the curb until seeing that Cameron had found a seat in the back of the bus. Gary wanted to be at least five rows ahead of him, even if he had to bribe some folks out of their seats.
“She’s there,” Dean said, smiling. “She’s at her gate telling the agent how to do her job, apparently. The lady’s new.”
“Typical Lo.”
“Yeah, I love her for how she takes charge sometimes. She says to tell you good luck and to keep your mouth shut.”
“Damn.” Gary tossed his duffel bag to the driver to pile under the bus and stepped up into the coach. “She’s even bossy from a distance.”
“Her very first words to me were an order.”
Gary spotted Cameron on the right side almost all the way in the back, and happily slipped into a row near the front on the left. “Where was that and what’d she say?”
“I met her at a barbecue Ken threw. I think Ken had forgotten to put in a salad order and Lo was running around like a chicken with her head cut off trying to help Olivia prep food. She thrust a bag of potatoes at me and gave me a paring knife and told me to start peeling. She didn’t think to ask whether I knew how to do that.”
“Did you?”
“Nope. She figured that out after looking at the first couple of potatoes I jacked up.”
“She had to give you a lesson in potato-peeling? For real?”
De
an shrugged. “I’m not much of a cook, and growing up, my mother preferred that we all just stayed out of the kitchen.”
“Sounds like my mother,” Marcus said from the row in front of them.
The driver pulled the door closed and got the conveyance moving. They had a long drive ahead of them up to the middle of the state.
“But I think my ma was just afraid we’d tell all her secrets,” Marcus said. He turned around and leaned onto the top of his seat. “Owned a tiny restaurant in Philly, and her claim to local fame was these giant meatballs. Seriously, they were the size of baseballs, and she’d serve them covered in this sauce that was half gravy and half marinara or something. Folks kept trying, unsuccessfully, to reverse engineer what she was putting into them, and she never would tell them. She’s out of the business now, and she still won’t tell us. I guess she’s afraid we’ll blab the recipe all over town and my grandma will start spinning in her grave.”
“I don’t think my mother has any special recipes to guard,” Dean said. “I think by the time the fourth son came along, her nerves were just shot and the kitchen was the only place she could keep us out of. She was happy Lo took me off her hands.”
“I don’t believe that,” Gary said.
Dean was probably the most low-maintenance individual he’d ever crossed paths with. Physically, he might have taken up a lot of room, but conversationally and personality-wise, he was generally unobtrusive. Undemanding. His bearing probably contributed a great deal to Lo’s easy comfort around him. Gary felt the same way.
“It’s true,” Dean said. “When Lo came along, I guess my mother gave herself permission to stop worrying about me. I try not to feel too offended.”
“Well, you’ve got plenty of folks who care about you.” Gary hoped that Dean understood that he counted himself in that number. He’d have to tell him at some point if he didn’t—when there weren’t a bunch of nosy Roosters leaning in to catch snatches of the conversation. They wouldn’t understand, and Gary really didn’t expect them to.
“All right, you lazy sacks,” Wallace called back. “I want silence from every one of you until we get to the field, and then maybe even after that. I want you all to think long and hard about that abominable practice you had yesterday, and while you’re at it, figure out what you can do to suck less, all right? That is, assuming you guys actually want to keep the team sponsors. You’re certainly not gonna land any more with the sloppy plays you’re acting out on the field, so shut your mouths and think about how you’ll get your act together. Silence starts…now.”