FG 3 - The Wedding Blitz (10 page)

“You know, Riley was the one who saved me,” I explained to Hawkins as I striped out of my dirty clothes desperate for an overdue shower. “He’s the one who caught the guy in the restroom with me.”

“And Harlow?”

“Was just covering for Riley.”

“Wow,” he ran a hand over his face and then rested them on his hips. “I really made a mess of things.”

“You were just scared.”

“And what about you, Joie?” he seemed to look right through me. “How are you?”

“I think I’ll be better once I get a shower,” I gave a weak smile before turning to head into the bathroom. I didn’t even glance at my reflection in the mirror because I was afraid of what I’d see. I pulled back the door for the shower and turned the water all the way to the hot side until it was almost scolding and stepped inside. I couldn’t actually see where the soiled mess had been now that I had stripped off my clothes but it was the touch I could still feel along my skin that I needed to scrub away along with my memory. I didn’t know if it was because of the horrific encounter or what could have happened in the encounter, but I began to scrub my skin until it turned pink as the hot watered poured down my back. By the time I had made my way up to my face, I practically scoured off a layer of skin where he had licked me. I was repulsed just thinking about it.

I didn’t realize that I wasn’t alone any longer until Hawkins grabbed my hand to stop me from continuing to fiercely exfoliate away what was left of my face. I flinched with the realization of his presence when he gave a heartbreaking sigh, “Oh Joie, what did he do to you?”

I dropped my head with shame as a body wracking cry built inside me long before the tears formed in my eyes. “I didn’t fight back,” I gasped. “He kissed me and he licked me and I didn’t fight back because I knew he could hurt the baby if I did.” I began to sob uncontrollably and just when I thought my knees were about to buckle, Hawkins caught me and held me in place as the tears poured out of me like the water from the shower.

“Shush,
it’s
okay,” he said soothingly as took the wash cloth and gently ran it along my back and down my arms. “He can’t touch you now. I’m here.”

Chapter
Five

The next morning we stayed in bed with me snuggled against Hawkins warm chest dressed in only his flannel shirt that smelled faintly like his spicy aftershave.

“Open up,” Hawkins placed the bit of cracker up to my lips.

“What if the baby doesn’t like saltine crackers?” I reminded him of green M&M incident. 

“We’ll have to take our chances. You need to eat something, Joie,” he fixed me with a parental glare. “That actually stays down.”

“Fine,” I huffed as I opened my mouth and let Hawkins feed me a half of a cracker.

“Well what’s the verdict?” he asked after I had chewed and swallowed it.

“I think Gregg liked it,” I nodded with surprise.

“Good, here’s another,” he placed the cracker up to my lips.

“Let’s not get over zealous, now.”

“What if we make a deal?” his smoldering eyes suddenly lit up.

“I’m listening,” I turned on my back to smile up at him.

“For every cracker you eat, I promise to repay you with a favor in return.”

“What kind of favor?” my smile grew wide at the possibilities.

“You find out,
after
you eat the cracker,” he ticked. “How else am I going to know that you’ll make good on your promise?”

“How do I know you will?” I challenged.

“You’re just going to have to take a leap of faith.”

             
“Well you did jump for me once,” I smiled causing him to snicker as he fed me another cracker. “Just remember you didn’t say anything about keeping it down,” I pointed up at him. “Now where’s my favor?” I
batted
my eyelashes with anticipation. 

He sat back on his knees revealing his defined pecks as he braced one of my legs in his hands. He then began to squeeze and lift my swollen right foot releasing tension I didn’t fully realize was there until now. As he continued to work his way from my heel up to my toes, a moan escaped my lips from the overwhelming sensation. 

“Feels good, huh?” his lip curled up with the question.

“You have no idea,” I groaned.

Five minutes later, he gently released my foot back onto the bed and said, “Well I’m glad that you liked your surprise.”

“What about my other foot?” I cried, lifting my head off the bed.

“That’s
another
cracker,” he shrugged like the rules are the rules.

“Fine,” I practically growled as I took a cracker from the package and began to nibble on it. “What?” I asked when he didn’t start to work on the next swollen foot.

“This isn’t a half off clearance sale. When you finish the cracker, you get your foot massaged.”

“Unbelievable,” I huffed, pretending to be overly bothered by his demands. Once I had finally swallowed it, I stuck out my tongue to show him the evidence. Hawkins then made good on his promise and I fell back onto the pillow in ecstasy again. 

“Another cracker for a favor?” he asked when he was done with the other foot.

“I don’t know if you can top that,” I sat up on my elbows and examined him skeptically.

“Trust me, you’re going want eat another cracker,” he glanced down at the package.

A lot of dirty thoughts were running through my mind as I gladly opened my mouth and popped the cracker inside. What I didn’t fully understand was that he had something completely different in mind. He grabbed a balled up sheet in his hand and began to stroke it up and down the side of my leg where the patch of poison ivy was; causing a rug burn sensation along my itchy skin that felt deliriously good. Without being asked, I grabbed up another cracker from the plastic package and shoved it in my mouth and then another until we were both laughing hard.

“I’m serious mister, keep going,” I insisted until my skin felt warm to the touch. “God—

you
have no idea how good that felt.”

             
“Why don’t you try showing
me
?” he winked.

             
“First, you’re going to have to eat a cracker, I run a tight shop mister. Now open up,” I held one up to his lips. “
Trust
me
,
you’re going to want eat this cracker.” I waggled my eyebrows until he dropped open his mouth and I fed him the cracker.

             
An hour later we were all out of crackers but Hawkins had this brilliant plan to drag me over his shoulder in the direction of the kitchen to raid the cabinets for another box. Halfway down the aisle with my butt in the air and my hands busy snapping the waist band of Hawkins’ boxers to get him to put me down, he came to an abrupt stop when we heard a scream.

“Mom?!”

Oh hell.

Hawkins quickly set me down so I could straighten out his button down shirt. I couldn’t even look in her direction as she braced her chest like she had the fright of her life and sat down next to Riley in the front of the bus. 

“What are you doing here mom?” Hawkins asked.

“I thought I’d pay you a surprise visit. I’ll never make that mistake again,” she huffed.

I nodded at the ceiling thinking, I had to face her eventually but when I turned toward the front of the bus I stepped on one of Warren’s empty beer cans and would have fallen if Hawkins hadn’t been there to steady me.

“So this is how you live on the road?” his mother droned with a glance down at the pile of littered beer cans.

“Joie why don’t you go get changed?” Hawkins offered.

“No,” his mom stopped me. “I think we’re all good, good friends now. There’s really no point.”

I felt my face burn with embarrassment and if it wasn’t bad enough, Warren, decided that now was the time to rip back the curtain to Lizzie’s bunk bed on his way to make a dive to the bathroom to visit the porcelain god.

“Oh my and I thought it couldn’t get any more interesting,” his mother sighed overtop of the heaving sound in the background. “Do you have anything fascinating you’d like to add to this conversation?” she turned to Riley next.

“No ma’am,” Riley, who looked like he was about to eat his fist to stop himself from laughing, suddenly cleared his throat and went back to doodling on his notepad.   

“Where’s dad?”

“Back at home in bed, thank goodness—

“Okay mom, you’ve made your point.” he came to sit down across from her. “What’s up?”

“I came to talk to you about the Campbell
’s
p
roperty,” she explained. “You know Lauren, down the street. You used to date her in high school.”

“Yeah, I know Lauren,” Hawkins nodded.

“Her uncle
just put their house up for sale.” 

“The house across from the lake?” he asked. 

“Yes, and I was thinking that it would make a great place for you and your,” she struggled with the wording like it was literally stuck to her tongue, “future wife to settle down in. That is unless you plan to live on this tour bus for the rest of your life.”

“The cabin with the really nice spread of land?” he looked interested but the thought of living so close to his mother horrified me. 

“I’m not exactly down with the kid lingo you guys use today but yes, it’s a nice
spread
.”

Hawkins turned to look at me and shrugged, “I’m sure we can take a look at it sometime.”

“The open house is tomorrow,” she got up to leave. “And I think you should know, for all intense and purposes, that you’ve already made a bid on it.”

“But mom,
we
haven’t even talked about it yet,” he pointed from me to him.

“If you don’t like it, you can just buy it for me. Your father will thank you,” she patted his shoulder. “It’s been…
charming
but I really must go,” she went to leave down the steps but Hawkins quickly got up and chased after her. “Mom wait, I need to talk to you—

I sunk down beside Riley on the couch and groaned, “I can’t look, are they fighting over…a ring perhaps?”

Riley glanced over his shoulder and murmured, “I can’t tell, does slapping him in the shoulder with her purse count?”

“Yes, unfortunately” I threw my head back and then turned to look down at a drawing on his notepad. “
Whatcha
got there?”

“I’m trying to incorporate these tall sticks of stained glass grass in your ceremony,” he retraced a part of the drawing that was filled with tall marsh like plants. “They’ll be at the opening of the lake when you…come…across…wait a minute, Hawkins
lives
by a lake?”

“Oh no Riley,” I tried to quickly stop the wheels from turning in his head. “There’s got to be over a hundred lakes in Seattle. It’s practically surrounded by water so please
any
lake but that one.”

“We can revisit this at less sensitive time,” he assured me.

“I don’t think it’s ever going to be—

“Is the wicked witch finally gone?” Lizzie stumbled forward looking like a hot mess with one fake eyelash plastered halfway down her cheek and her face a nice ashen color like she might puke herself.  

“I take it someone partied hard last night,” I smiled as she reached for the pot of coffee to pour herself a drink.

“Not any harder than I normally do, thank you very much.
Now Warren on the other hand
,” she bellowed loud enough for him to overhear in the bathroom, where he still had his head hung in the toilet. “Must have had one hell of a good time,” she pulled the cup of coffee up to her lips when a sudden heaving sound in the back caused her to bark,
“I can see that talk went in one ear and out the mouth!”
 

“Lizzie, I told you that that was my last beer,” Warren ran the back of his hand over his mouth as he staggered down the aisle for the bunk bed again.