Games of the Heart (7 page)

“Wouldn’t do that anyway,” he muttered and I suspected he wouldn’t. His eyes captured mine and he asked, “How long you stayin’?”

“Well, since Debbie’s here for a couple of days, tomorrow I’m having brunch with the family
sans
my bitchface sister and if I’m happy with their pulse, my plane leaves tomorrow afternoon. I’m not, my plans are up in the air.”

He nodded right before he leaned in, twisted and took me to my back and when he settled, torso on me and hips between my legs, he asked quietly, “Your medium-sized vases sell for two hundred a go, that mean you can afford to get your ass on a plane to visit The ‘Burg frequently?”

My heart skipped and it hadn’t done that in a long time. Beau never made it do that, not even in the beginning. It had been so long, I didn’t know which moron had made it skip last.

But it skipped then. Definitely.

“Yes,” I whispered.

His eyes looked deep in mine.

Then he whispered back, “Good.”

“I’m glad you came to ream my ass and sort my shit out, Mike,” I shared.

He grinned and returned, “Not as glad as me.”

“No, I’m pretty sure I’m more glad.”

His grin turned to a smile and he conceded, “All right, honey, you can be more glad than me.”

“Thanks,” I said quietly.

“Now, you gonna shut up and kiss me or what?”

“Seriously?” I asked. “I think I already explained you’re good with your mouth. Do you think I’m gonna answer ‘or what’?”

“You’re not shutting up,” he informed me.

“Oh,” I whispered. “Right.”

His smile got bigger right before I lifted my head to kiss him.

Mike met me halfway.

The Food of Your People

A
cell phone ringing woke Mike up.

It wasn’t his ring but he opened his eyes and looked across the empty bed. Dusty and her warm, soft body were gone.

She’d slept snuggled close to him all night. As he usually did, starting when No was born, he woke several times. He did this just to scan the vibe of the house. Sometimes, even if his senses told him nothing was wrong, he’d get up and do a walkthrough. He didn’t do this frequently but he did it. Paranoid, maybe, but he’d seen enough shit, heard a fuckload more, he loved his kids, it didn’t take long and he fell back to sleep easily so he did it.

And habit woke him three times in the night and each time Dusty was pressed close.

She felt good there.

Audrey didn’t press close. She did in the beginning but as things turned bad, he retreated. She got pissy and they ended their relationship with a yard of space between them in their bed. His back turned to her, hers turned to him.

Fuck, their bed itself was an example of the reason why their marriage deteriorated. She’d bought a six thousand dollar bed and very shortly after he’d discovered it couldn’t be returned. So they had a huge-ass bed in which they could have a yard of space between them, her buying that damned bed being why the space was there.

Since he’d got quit of her, he’d taken a number of women to bed but not his bed.

Except for Vi.

He hadn’t even invited any of the women he’d seen to his home. Although some of them he’d seen more than once, one he’d dated for five months. And he’d spent the night at their places but none of them he’d let snuggle him while he slept.

He knew why this was. He was seeking distance. He was keeping them at arm’s length.

Audrey did a number on his head, striking a blow to his ability to trust. Then came Violet who didn’t mean to strike her blow but she did it all the same. This made him wary. He wasn’t going to get too close. Especially not too close too fast.

That was the mistake he made with Vi. He ignored the signs and allowed himself to start falling for her too damned soon. He knew he was in a game of hearts, his opponent her now husband and the father of her youngest daughter, Joe Callahan. Fuck, he even knew he had no hope of winning.

He still went for it anyway.

But that shit stung, losing her. He had her weeks and Audrey years and losing Vi marked him whereas getting quit of Audrey freed him.

So he told himself, not again.

But Dusty was something else. When he woke and found her pressed to him, he didn’t gently roll Dusty away. He left Dusty right where she was.

The phone stopped ringing and he turned in bed. Then he looked through the room seeing nothing. It was early, the room was dark.

Then he looked to the alarm clock.

It was ten after six.

He reached out an arm and turned on the light, his eyes going to the mirrored doors on the closet opposite the bathroom. The door to the bathroom was open, the room dark, no one inside.

He looked to the floor and saw his clothes tangled with Dusty’s jeans, tee and panties and the closed pizza box.

Fuck, it was ten after six. Where was she?

He pushed up in bed, his eyes going to his nightstand and he saw it. A piece of hotel note paper.

He reached out an arm and tagged it.

Bringing it to him, he read:

Gorgeous,

Off to procure the food of your people.

Back soon,

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

-D

He felt his lips curve as he stared at the note.

The food of his people. He hoped she meant Hilligoss donuts.

His eyes moved over the note and he felt his face go soft. This was because he knew she probably dashed it off but still, the fucking thing could be framed. Her penmanship was artistic and interesting. But it was the hugs and kisses with her initial that were stunning. The x’s and o’s were done on a slant with a bunch of flourishes that attached them to the elaborately drawn “-D”.

Staring at the note, he remembered another thing that was Dusty. As a kid, she was always busy. She might hang out in front of the TV but only when people she cared about were hanging out in front of the TV. All other times, she had an abundance of energy and creativity. When she did her chores, she sang and even danced, filling the house with her sweet, pure voice and her exuberant kid happy vibe. She was also often at the kitchen table or on her belly in her bed drawing. Her Mom put these pictures up on the fridge and rightfully bragged about them frequently. Others, Dusty hung on the wall on her side of the bedroom in a way that looked good but appeared haphazard.

Debbie hated it, thought it looked a mess and bitchily said it was a fire hazard when it wasn’t. But Mike, even as a teenage boy, could look at Dusty’s pictures for hours. They were of everything. Flowers, fantastical shit she imagined in her head, landscapes of their farm, sketches of her family and Mike. The detail, the skill, the imagination, it was captivating.

He wasn’t surprised she’d chosen to do something artistic for a living.

He was equally unsurprised she was good at it.

And he was further unsurprised that people spent a fortune on it.

The phone ringing again took him out of his thoughts and his eyes went from the note to Dusty’s cell next to his on the nightstand. He threw the note on the nightstand and picked up her phone, thinking, at this hour, it might be a member of her family.

But on the display there was a picture of a man and it said, “Beau Calling”.

Mike’s neck got tight as he stared at the display. The man was dark-haired and good-looking. He was wearing a beat up denim shirt and beat up jeans. His hands were shoved in his front pockets, his eyes off to the side and he’d been caught laughing.

Jesus. What was this guy doing phoning at that hour? In Texas, where the guy undoubtedly lived considering his clothes in the shot, it was even earlier.

But she’d said she was free and not one thing about Dusty had given Mike the impression she’d lie. In fact, the opposite. He’d never met anyone that was more of a straight shooter.

And Mike liked that a fuckuva lot.

The phone stopped ringing and Mike threw it on the nightstand. It wasn’t his place to answer so he didn’t.

Instead, he threw back the covers, found his boxers and tugged them on. Dusty’s phone beeped with a voicemail while he was pulling on his jeans. He ignored it, went to the bathroom, took care of business, washed his hands, splashed water on his face, wiped it dry and sauntered out.

When he did and he was nearly back to the bed, the phone was ringing again.

He stared at the man’s picture on the display, thought of the time and wondered if there was an emergency. He didn’t know if the first call was from this Beau guy but Mike hadn’t been awake for even ten minutes and, if it was, he’d called three times in that time.

“Fuck,” he muttered, tagged the phone, slid his finger on the screen and put it to his ear. “Hello,” he greeted.

Silence.

“Anyone there?” he asked when this silence stretched.

“Who’s this?” a man’s voice asked back and he sounded ticked.

Fuck.

“You called, man, who’re you?” Mike returned.

“Who I am is the owner of this phone’s man,
man,
” Beau shot back, definitely ticked. So ticked, he’d gone straight to belligerent.

But Mike was frozen.

“Yo! What the fuck?” Beau asked. “Is Dusty there?”

“No,” Mike forced from between his teeth.

“Where is she at six twenty in the fuckin’ morning?” he demanded to know.

Mike didn’t like his tone and he just simply didn’t like the fact he was talking to Dusty’s man, a man she told him she didn’t have, so he didn’t bother to answer.

Beau didn’t care that Mike didn’t answer.

“Right, you wanna tell me why it’s twenty after six in the fuckin’ mornin’ and you’re answerin’ my woman’s phone?” Beau kept up his interrogation.

“No,” Mike ground out.

“Fuck me,” the man clipped.

“You got a message or did you call just to swear?” Mike asked.

“Yeah, I got a message,
man.
Tell my woman to call me.
Immediately
. You got that?”

“Got it,” Mike replied shortly.

Then he got dead air.

He stared at the phone. Then he tossed it to the nightstand instead of hurling it across the room.

Since Audrey, he’d played the field and, taking care around his kids, he’d done this pretty extensively. This was partly due to the fact that Mike was a man. And it was partly due to the fact that the last seven months of his marriage their sex life was non-existent. This was because Mike found he couldn’t stomach fucking a woman who lied to him daily, handed him shit frequently and still had no problem spending his money, as well as money he hadn’t yet earned, freely. It was the last of many times when Audrey turned to him and he felt the nausea roil that he knew he was done. And it was when he set her off him that he told her that, straight out. She had then flown into a rage, screaming and swearing and he knew their kids could hear but, as always with Audrey, he had no choice. No matter how often he told her to shut the fuck up or keep her voice down, she ignored him or got louder and her language got fouler.

At the time, watching her red-faced and infuriated at learning she was bearing the consequences of her own behavior, it became crystal clear Mike’s decision to divorce her ass was the right one.

He’d spent years doing everything he could to sort their shit. At first, young, stupid and in love with her, he’d knocked himself out to get her everything she wanted. But even when he laid it at her feet, she just wanted more. Then he’d done everything he could think to do to find out what drove her to these needs so he could guide her to understanding them and she could work through them. This didn’t work either. No matter how many talks they had, or, in the end, fights, her behavior didn’t change. Often, she promised it would, swore she’d “do better” and she might, for a week, a month. But then she’d lapse right back into it. At the start, she didn’t hide her spending. In the end, she did. How the fuck she thought he wouldn’t figure it out since he paid their bills, they had a joint account and she didn’t work, he had no clue. She just didn’t.

The pressure built. For his part, it built along with his frustration at being in debt and having a wife who lied to him consistently. For Audrey’s part, even though she never admitted it, it had to do with feelings of guilt that mingled with anger at herself that she couldn’t control her addiction.

And since she couldn’t, he got free of her. And, free of her, he enjoyed himself.

Of all the women he enjoyed himself with, Dusty was the one he’d enjoyed the most. Not only in bed, and she was by far the best he’d had since Audrey, before Audrey and including Audrey, but also out of it. Funny, engaging and open, Dusty let it all hang out. She didn’t hide shit. Not her pain. Not her humor. Not her anger at her sister. Not her thoughts about the world.

And he liked that. Too much. And with her being Dusty, their history, the special bond that they had when they were younger that seemed to snap right into place and tighten exponentially nearly the instant they were back together, he let himself be reeled in. Just like Vi who had done the same, straight off the bat giving him that open sharing, having the opposite for years with Audrey, he let himself get caught up in it.

But apparently, unlike Vi, who was going through some serious shit too when he met her, Dusty’s openness was bullshit. She had a night in a hotel room with her family close but her anger at her sister wouldn’t allow her to be with them. He walked right up to her room and gave her an opportunity not to spend that time alone. So she took it and, doing it, used him.

And Jesus, he hadn’t even been with her an entire fucking day and that shit stung too.

“Fuck,” he whispered as he heard the lock click on the door.

He turned and watched her walk in. Her masses of hair was down and tumbling around her shoulders and over her chest. Her face was free of makeup and the pallor he noticed yesterday was gone, her cheeks pink from the cold. She was wearing the black turtleneck from yesterday and the black boots but she’d added the faded jeans. She wasn’t wearing the denim blazer but instead a gray suede jacket that hung long on her hips and had fringe along the arms. Any other woman, fuck, anyone, female or male, wore a suede jacket with fringe, Mike, a small town Indiana man through and through and not a cowboy by a long shot, would find that amusing.

It looked fucking great on Dusty.

She had her black also fringed purse dangling from her shoulder, a big, white baker’s box in her hands and balanced visibly precariously on top were two large, white paper cups he knew by their plastic lids and cardboard sleeves were coffee.

Her eyes hit his, she smiled and said, “Awesome, you’re up.” Then he lost her attention as she moved through the room toward him, eyes on the box she was balancing and she muttered, “Grab the coffees, babe. We do not need tragedy in the form of the genius of Hilligoss consumed without coffee to wash it down.”