His Every Move (6 page)

Meanwhile, Kallie and Nicole were busy prepping dinner.

“Where’s Chef Roland when you need him?” Nicole said, as she breaded the chicken breasts beside Kallie.

“Nicole, why don’t you go sit and relax in the living room? I’ve got this covered.”

“No way,” Nicole said, shaking her head side to side. “I’m making this dinner.

I’m not going to let you do this all on your own. Besides, there’s nothing I’d rather do than cook an amazing meal for the woman who sent me my husband’s sex tape.”

Kallie cringed and looked around. Luckily, Red and Ray were nowhere in sight.

“Isn’t Erica a little suspicious that you’ve invited her to the house after she sent you that DVD?”

“I’m pretty sure she thinks I kept it to myself, and now I’m trying to win her over because I’m terrified of her,” she confided.

Not long after, the doorbell rang, signaling Erica Jameson’s arrival.

“Oh, who could it be now?” Nicole called out in a singsong voice.

“I’ll get it,” Kallie replied. “You tend to the chicken cutlets.”

“Aye aye, captain,” Nicole said, pretending to salute.

Kallie looked back at her, wondering if Nicole was getting loopy from the stress of everything.

This was turning into a disaster of epic proportions.

When she finally opened the front door, Kallie found Erica Jameson was standing there with three chic pieces of luggage sitting beside her. “Well, hello,” she said, her cold eyes piercing Kallie with a total lack of warmth. “I didn’t expect to be greeted by the maid.”

“I’m not the maid, I’m the nanny.”

Erica waved her off, walking inside. “Could you attend to my bags, please? I’ve had a long and exhausting flight and drive.”

“Oh, of course, ma’am,” Kallie replied, trying keep herself from being overtly rude.

Nicole was right, Kallie thought. Erica believed she’d beaten Nicole into submission with that sex tape threat.

“Where’s my son?” Erica demanded.

“I believe he’s with…” Kallie caught herself, as she reached down to grab Erica’s luggage. The last thing she wanted to do was blow the “surprise” that Erica’s ex-husband was currently on the premises.

“I believe Red’s in the game room,” was all she said.

“No matter how mature he supposedly becomes, Red is still a little boy at heart.

All men are the same.” Erica glanced at her, as Kallie hefted the bags. “You should keep that in mind if you intend on marrying,” Erica continued.

“I will, ma’am.”

Erica snorted, walking through the foyer. “No you won’t. Nobody ever listens to their elders anymore.”

“Would you like me to bring these to your room?”

“Please do. And I’d like my room to be one furthest away from any noise. I don’t enjoy being woken up by any frivolities or hanky-panky that goes on around here.”

She eventually made it to Erica’s room with all her baggage. By this time, Kallie was sweating and disheveled. Erica glanced around as Kallie dropped the suitcases to the floor. “It’s amazing,” Erica said, her eyes narrowed with critical disapproval. “With all of that money they can’t do more to make this feel like something other than a Holiday Inn.”

“Well, I love the Holiday Inn,” Kallie said.

Erica gave her a glance of dismay. “Good for you, dear. When is dinner going to be served?”

“I’m not sure, but probably within the hour.”

Erica nodded. “Have my son come and see me as soon as possible. Run along now.”

Kallie smiled, feeling as though Erica expected her to curtsy before she took her leave. Red’s mother seemed to be under the impression that they had gone back to the times of kings and queens and aristocracy. Clearly, the woman fancied herself a noblewoman and Kallie was simply another peasant to order around.

She left the room, feeling relieved to be out of the witch’s presence. After all, that was the word that best described Erica Jameson.

Witch.

Kallie found Red and his father playing a game of pool. Ray had already been drinking, and seemed strangely excited to be reunited with his ex-wife.

He kept joking that the last time they’d spoken, Erica had threatened to jump out her fourth story window.

“But that was at least fifteen years ago,” Ray chuckled, “so she’s probably mellowed some.”

They all left the game room together and headed to see Erica.

As they were walking, Kallie felt another buzz in her pocket. She knew that it was probably another funny text from Levi. Smiling in advance, Kallie pulled out her cell and looked at it.

But the text message wasn’t from Levi—it was from Hunter.

We need to talk.

She stopped walking momentarily and stared at her phone. Her hands began to shake.

Part of her desperately wanted to respond, to tell him that she wanted to talk, too.

But no—that would undo all her hard work and effort to get on a new path.

And what about Levi? Sure, they’d just met, but he seemed nice and genuinely interested in her.

In any case, she didn’t have time to deal with this right now. Kallie put her phone away again.

She ran and caught up to Red and his dad, just as they arrived at the guest room which had been given over to Red’s mother.

Red knocked lightly on the door.

“Who is it?” came the voice from inside.

“It’s me, Red,” Red said loudly.

And then the door swung open and Ray and Erica came face to face with one another. All the color drained out of Erica’s face in that instant, and her jaw seemed to come almost unhinged. “Ray?”

“Erica,” Ray said. “Been a while. Surprise, I guess.”

Kallie didn’t know whether Erica was just going to slam the door in their faces.

In that quiet moment after Red’s dad spoke, anything could have happened. And then, shockingly, Erica smiled more genuinely than Kallie would have thought possible.

“How are you, Ray?”

Ray opened his arms and Erica came forward, and the two of them embraced warmly. “I’m great, Erica. I’m just great.”

They hugged for a long time.

Red gave Kallie an impenetrable look. Was he happy at their reunion—had he hoped for his mother to slap his father and run for the hills?

She couldn’t tell.

“I think dinner should be ready any minute,” Red announced. “We can talk over some food.”

They broke off their hug, still looking at one another and smiling. Erica reached out and touched Ray’s hair. “You’ve got some gray there, Mister.”

He laughed. “That’s what happens when you get old, Misses.”

“Shall we?” Red asked, and started walking.

“Oh, I guess we’re on a schedule,” Erica said, and Ray chuckled loudly. “Looks like the boy means to keep us on track. Well lead on, Gunga Din!”

Red glanced back, but kept walking, and now they were all heading back to the kitchen area.

They arrived in the kitchen, where Nicole was sweating away beside the stove.

Kallie ran over to assist her. “Sorry I left you. What can I help with?”

“Could you grab the dressing from the refrigerator? It’s in the right compartment next to the milk.”

“Sure.” Kallie went to the fridge.

Everyone was chatting now, although Erica and Nicole had pointedly not greeted each other yet.

“If you want to wait in the dining room, dinner will be served in just a few minutes,” Nicole said.

As Ray and Erica followed Red out of the kitchen, Nicole turned to Kallie. “They seem to be getting along like old college friends.”

Kallie placed the dressing next to the tossed salad in the large wooden bowl. “It was pretty strange. Erica was shocked to see him, but there didn’t appear to be any hard feelings between them as far as I could tell.”

Nicole shook her head. “I don’t know what the point of all this is.”

“Do you think he’s going to do something rash?”

Nicole shrugged. “He won’t tell me anything, other than the fact that by keeping an eye on Erica, at least he knows she’s not stabbing him in the back.”

Eventually, they brought the food to the table, and then everyone began to eat.

The mood at dinner was odd to say the least, Kallie thought.

For the most part, Ray and Erica had taken over and were immersed in their own little world. They talked about the past, mostly.

“Remember that little car you used to drive around in when I first met you?” Erica asked Ray, giggling like a schoolgirl.

“I do. It was a little beat up Volkswagen Bug. Yellow as piss. I picked you up in that on our first date and you nearly walked away and pretended you didn’t know who I was.”

Erica laughed. “I loved that Bug as much as you did.”

Ray shook his head. “Nobody loved that car as much as I did, Erica.”

“Eventually the doors were falling off and you started holding it together with duct tape.” Erica turned to Red. Her eyes were bright and shining, and she looked truly happy. “Remember that, Red?”

Red nodded as he cut a piece of chicken. “Sure I do. Dad used to pick me and Jeb up in that car for weekends.”

Ray nodded, but some of the smile had left his face. “Weekends. That’s all he remembers. It’s too bad, aint it, Erica?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t kick you out, Ray.”

He smiled and chewed some of his food before responding. “You didn’t have to.”

Erica leaned forward suddenly. “Didn’t the door eventually fall off right on the highway? You nearly killed someone with that crazy thing!”

“That’s true,” Ray said, somewhat bashfully. And then the two of them were laughing so hard, that neither could speak for a minute for two.

It was the Ray and Erica show, Kallie thought, and they positively loved it.

After dinner, Nicole fed Riley and then brought her downstairs to the living room, so Erica and Ray could hold the baby.

Kallie worked on cleaning up the dining room and kitchen. As she worked, she wondered why Hunter had suddenly texted her out of nowhere.

You can’t text him back. You have to stay strong, no matter what. He’s no good
for you.

Still, there was a feeling that wouldn’t quite subside—a feeling of pain, a deep and unrelenting sense of loss. Maybe it was just the loss of “what might have been.”

But if Hunter had wanted a real relationship, he would have attempted to create one instead of undermining every opportunity Kallie had given him.

It was that simple, wasn’t it? Kallie thought about Ray and Erica, two people who still clearly had feelings for one another, even after all these years apart. Maybe whatever chemistry two people had, it never really died. Maybe it was like a fire where embers still glowed, just needing to be stoked.

Maybe the idea that she could just put Hunter behind her was a farce, and he would always be there, haunting her thoughts and dreams.

***

The next morning, Kallie was up early. She hadn’t slept great, and the thought of spending another day watching the Erica and Ray show was making her feel more tired than she already was.

When she checked her phone in the morning, there were three texts.

One was from Levi.

It said:
Will u be at the gym tomorrow? Coffee after?

The other two were from Hunter.

Kallie please talk to me.

That one had come in at just before two a.m. Around four o’clock in the morning, another text had been sent from his number.

I have some things I need to say to you.

She almost sent him a reply. Her fingers literally hovered over her cell phone, and she almost typed that first letter which surely would have cascaded into a response.

But then she swore under her breath and left the phone on the bed, walking out of the room faster than if there’d been a ghost in it.

As she leaving her room, she caught sight of something interesting.

At first, she just heard noises from down the hall.

A door opening and then low murmuring voices. It sounded like Red’s mother and father speaking softly, but she couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying.

Kallie stood by her door, straining to listen.

A few seconds later, the door shut and then she heard footsteps. Kallie went back into her own room but peeked out into the hallway. Ray Jameson was coming down the hall, dressed in nothing but boxers and a t-shirt. His hair was disheveled. He was carrying his previous night’s clothing in one hand, as he opened the door to his own room and stepped inside.

He hadn’t seen Kallie watching him.

It certainly appeared as though he’d spent the night in Erica’s room, Kallie thought. Two old lovers reconnecting could be sweet and romantic, or it could be a recipe for trouble.

Kallie had a notion which kind of situation this was.

A little while later, Kallie helped Nicole cook breakfast. They made omelets to order.

Erica had emerged from her room wearing a beautiful dressed that showed off a pretty decent figure for someone her age. She’d put on some makeup and she was positively glowing.

It was as if she’d become a totally different person, Kallie marveled. Gone was the biting, caustic sarcasm from the previous day. Now she was almost comically polite.

The smile glued to Erica’s face seemed as though it had been painted on, and yet, she must have been happy in some way.

That’s how a witch looks when she thinks she’s won, Kallie thought.

Ray, in his own way, also seemed content, though he was more understated about it. Dressed in denim again, he drank his coffee sitting beside Erica and making small talk, but he was at ease.

After breakfast, Red, Nicole and his parents decided to take a trip into New York for the day. Kallie stayed home with Riley and was thankful to have some time away from the madness.

***

Sometime just before noon, the security phone rang.

She got up and answered it.

“I have a Hunter Reardon at the front gate, ma’am,” the security guard told her.

“Should I let him through?”

Kallie hesitated. Her throat was tight and her breath came in short little gasps.

Why was he here? What could he possibly want?

Maybe it had something to do with Terrence. Maybe she was actually in some kind of danger. The thought frightened her.