Huntress (9 page)

“What’s up chicken butt?”

“Nothin’. I was just talking to Dad. He wants me to spend next weekend with him.”

“Ok,” I replied, squelching down emotions I couldn’t put a name to. “Are you done with your homework? Do you need any help?”

“Yes annnnnd nope. Drew helped me with my math earlier.”

“Cool! Want to play some Halo before dinner?”

“Uh, heck yeah!” He exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air.

“Race ya!” I yelled and dodged around the island running for the couch.

He squealed in delight before cutting me off, hip bumping me out of the way and dashing into the living room. I bounced off the wall laughing.

Hopping over the side of the couch I landed next to him, and then flopped on top of him. “My bones are so heavy! I don’t think I can move.” I groaned.

“Ack!” he grunted. “I can’t breathe.”

“Oh noes! However will I get up so that my bubby can breathe?”

He started giggling and then his little fingers dug into my ribs, tickling me until I rolled off onto the floor shaking with laughter.

“Schneh!” he yelled.

“Schneh on you buddy. I’m about to kick your ass.”

He had the game loaded up on the screen before I even sat up. I grabbed the controller and leaned back against his legs. We sat like that, playing and trash talking for a while.  It was these moments that I treasured. I was horrible at this game, but spending the time with him made it fun.  The best part was listening to his grunts, oomphs and dialogue as he “became” the character on the screen.

“Hey, you two. Dinner’s up.”

I looked back and smiled at Drew. “Thanks for taking care of that. I appreciate it.”

“Hey lady, it’s why you pay me the big bucks.”

I raised an eyebrow at him and he just smiled back at me.

“Ok kiddo, turn off the Xbox and let’s get some grub.”

“Awww Mom!”

“Don’t you aww Mom me. You need to eat a decent meal, mister. However will you rule the world if you’re malnourished? People aren’t going to follow a skinny guy with patchy hair and no teeth, buddy. It’s just not DONE.”

“Har,” he grumbled at me and preceded us into the dining room. My eyebrows shot up in surprise. There were serving dishes on what was once the dumping ground for all things miscellaneous.

The table was set for three on china that I hadn’t seen since my wedding day and in the center was a rosemary encrusted roast beef surrounded by roasted baby reds. Steamed broccoli and carrots sat in small serving dishes flanking the main course, with crusty bread topping the entire thing off as the perfect meal.

I honestly couldn’t remember the last time we’d eaten at this table - much less used the good dishes.

“Nice,” I said in awe.

“Thanks. I figured from the state of the table that you guys didn’t do much eating here, so I thought that it would be nice.”

He looked a little nervous - like he thought I was going to bite his head off.

I let my eyes fill with the gratitude I was feeling. This was nice and I let him know with my smile that I appreciated it.

“Well it is nice. I forgot that this was actually a table and not a dumping ground. We should use it more often.”

“Think of it as a last meal. Tomorrow we start the personal training portion of our agreement.” He smiled and took a bite of carrots.

“Ugh.” I groaned. Then, remembering that Rose was coming home I smiled.

“I can’t train tomorrow. Rose is coming home. I have to go see her.”

“You guys should totally get married.” Dylan rolled his eyes and then giggled at himself.

“Can’t dork, same sex marriage isn’t allowed in Colorado.” I stuck my tongue out. “Plus you know, her husband would probably fight me over her and I’m terribly out of shape.” I sighed dramatically and flung my arm up to my forehead. “However would I be able to make cookies for your Class field trip if I were to get my butt kicked by a jealous husband?”

He giggled some more and groaned, “Mooom.”

“Sorry Grace, you’ll have to settle for a phone call. We have to start training tomorrow. We have a goal set remember?” He shot a pointed look at me, which I chose to ignore.

It had been two weeks. I needed to catch my Bestie up on gossip and life. I wasn’t budging.

Neither was he.

I felt my temper rising and the table started shaking violently before the ground followed. This one had come on so quickly that I didn’t have time to react. Picture frames fell to the ground, exploding in a shower of glass and broken wood.

“Holy Crap!” Dylan exclaimed. “Another earthquake Mom!” He leapt up and ran for the doorframe.

His reaction startled me and the shaking stopped immediately. Drew looked at me with a frown and then stood up abruptly.

“I’m going to check and see if there is any damage. Dylan why don’t you come with me? Your mom can clear the table.”

I was going to say something, but I stopped myself at his warning look. Right, I needed to keep it cool. I hadn’t exhibited any further signs of my power since that day with Diana. I think I was as surprised as much as I was scared.

I needed to get a handle on why my power seemed to flare up when I was angry or scared. I only hoped that nothing bad had happened with this one.

Drew stormed back into the dining room his face a mask of anger. “You’re not twelve years old anymore Grace. You have to keep a lid on your emotions. You could have leveled this city,” he hissed looking behind him for signs of Dylan.

“You don’t tell me to keep a lid on my emotions!” I angrily spat back. “You’re changing my damned life, taking control and I’ll bloody well get angry if I want to!”

He casually leaned back against the wall and raised his eyebrows at me. “So you want to decimate a city?”

I closed my eyes, taking a deep cleansing breath. He was right. It was something to be careful of. I just didn’t like him reminding me. I hated that he could boss me around. Too many people had taken control of my life, spinning it into a chaos that left me reeling. Enough was enough.

My face was an empty mask when I finally looked up into his eyes. It was hard to control the inner rage, the anxiety and the frustration but I gave him dead eyes as I quietly responded, “Push me and we’ll see.”

I pushed past him and stalked down the hall and slammed my bedroom door. The violence of the action didn’t make me feel better, but the noise did, until I heard a faint – “Jeez Mom” down the hall.

Zen. I could be Zen. Opening the door, I poked my head out and called, “Sorry! You ok?”

“Yeah,” was the muffled reply.

“Don’t forget to pack your backpack for the morning.”

“Kay!” This word was backed up by a healthy dose of exasperation.

Not tired, but too chicken to leave my room, I settled under the covers and forced myself to go to sleep. Everything would be fine tomorrow.

I was woken up the following morning by a pounding at my front door, accompanied by an insistent ringing of the doorbell.  Arms and legs flailing, I tried to untangle myself from the blankets but only succeeded in falling out of bed.  The floor met my ass and I growled at the unpleasant jolt of pain.  I scrambled to my feet and pulled on a robe, ignoring the rat’s nest my hair had turned into during the night and a few minutes later, I opened the door with a snarl.

The man - who had been smiling pleasantly before I opened my mouth - was now backing away slowly.

"I-I’m sorry, I’m here with a delivery," he stammered.

Who could say what he saw when the door flew open. By the look on his face, it couldn’t be pretty. I knew I was scowling and the lack of my morning coffee wasn’t helping my mood

 "You better not be at the wrong damned house." I growled at him, cocking my head and staring balefully out of eyes that felt like someone had taken sandpaper to them. I pulled my robe tighter across my chest and frowned harder. My brain seemed to think that if I was enough of an asshole, this guy would go away and let me go back to sleep.

He glanced down at his clipboard, craned his neck to look at my house number again and then nodded. "Yep this is the place. I have three crates for you. Do you want me to put them in your garage or will the driveway suffice?"

I looked around him to a huge Semi that had what looked like 3 moving crates on the bed.

"Those can’t be for me." I blinked at him and tried to peer at his clipboard.

"You’re Grace Murphy?"

He took my nod as an affirmative and flipped his clipboard around to show me the details. Sure enough, they were for me. It took me a few minutes to register this information. Why would someone send me three crates - each as big as an SUV? Where the hell was I going to put them?

"No, I don’t have room in my garage. Can you bring them around into the back yard?"

He probably dealt with halfwits on a daily basis and I was no different this morning. He shot me a relieved smile and nodded.

"Yes ma’am. Just show me where to bring them around."

"Hold on, let me get my slippers and I’ll open the gate."

Brandon had wanted a boat, so he'd installed a gate large enough to pull a semi through and a gravel drive.  At the time I'd been pretty sure he was pissing away the cash, and since this was the first time the gate had been used for anything larger than the lawnmower, it looked like I'd been right.

I shoved my feet into my slippers and lead him to the gate. "You can put them right here, I guess."

"Will do. I was told to deliver these before 7:15. I’m sorry if I woke you."

I smiled halfheartedly and waved him off. "No worries man. Sorry about the growly stuff," I apologized with a grimace.

He chuckled, shook his head slightly and went back to the truck to get down to business.

I wandered back inside and started the coffee pot before going to wake up Dylan. He was such a grouch-ass in the morning but if I started now, maybe we wouldn’t be late today. We were generally late every morning, much to my eternal embarrassment. It’s hard to play the perfect mom when you can’t even manage to get your kid to school on time.

I poked my head around the door and called out. "Good morning sunshine!"

"Grawmrph... mrph," was the reply.

I tip-toed up to his bed, slid my hand under his blankets and attacked his feet in a tickling frenzy. He squirmed and I was pretty sure that I heard a giggle but the blanket didn’t budge from over his head.

"Oh noes! Where did my kid go? I was sure that I’d left him here last night. Maybe he got kidnapped by the Booger Monster while he was stealing kids, one hobgoblin at a time."

"Moooom," he groaned. "It’s the boogie man. Not the booger monster. Sheesh."

"Aha! I got you! Now get your skinny butt out of bed and hop into the shower. Maybe we can actually get you to school on time this morning." I smacked his bottom and pushed off the bed.

I left him to do his thing.   Now that he was taken care of, my addictive personality took over and let me know that
coffee
was top priority.  I could smell the brewed ambrosia and let my nose lead me to the source. Ahhh, sweet heaven. I inhaled the steam and dumped in three tablespoons of sugar. Just a touch of vanilla cream and it would be perfect.

The cream was just hitting the coffee when the doorbell rang again. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, stirred the coffee and brought the cup with me to the door.

Swinging the door open, I took a sip. All of the coffee in the world wouldn’t help if more visitors showed up at my door this early in the morning but the caffeine fortification was a bonus. The delivery man pushed his clipboard at me. I held up my cup and raised my eyebrows.

We had an entire conversation in the next seven seconds with our eyes and eyebrows.

I told him that I wasn’t giving up my coffee for his delivery. He told me that if I’d sign on the damned dotted line he could get the hell out of here.

I replied in return that if he’d hold the clipboard instead of shoving it at me (I threw in a nod here for good measure), I’d sign the damned line.

He finally sighed, turned the clipboard around and held the pen out.

I braced the door with my hip, grabbed the pen and scrawled Wilma Flintstone on the paper.

He checked my signature and nodded. I told him to have a great day with a cheerful smile and slammed the door in his face. Who delivered anything at seven in the morning? Ugh.

I padded back through the house - sipping coffee - and called into Dylan’s room. "How ya doin’ in there?"

"Doin’ good," was the weak reply.

"Doin’ good, meaning that you’re almost in the shower or doin’ good as in you have already gotten out?"

"Doin’… Mom! I’m getting into the shower!"

"You have 5 seconds and then I’m coming in there with a bucket of ice."

His grumbling drifted down the hallway and I smiled into my coffee cup. Man, I loved being a mom.