In the Mix (39 page)

“Why the fuck are you whispering?”

“I don’t know.” I say at regular volume. “Listen! A letter came in the mail today for CiCi.” I wait.

“I know this is the age of technology but there’s no need to panic when you receive mail the old-fashioned way.”

“Knock it off, Maddie! It’s from
him!
”

“What?” I can hear her stop in her tracks.

“What should I do?”

“Don’t hide it from her, Kyle,” she says secretively.

“Are you around her?”

“No.”

“So, I should give it to her? I don’t know, Maddie. She’s been doing so well, like she’s finally able to move on. Don’t you think this will undo all of her hard work?” I run my free hand through my hair. I’m not going to lie; this all makes me very nervous.

“Yes. Please give it to her. Let me explain something to you.” I hear her take in a deep breath. “CiCi has not come out and told me a thing about what happened fifteen years ago until you came along. Suddenly, she’s allowing herself to recognize her behavior as sometimes being a direct result of what happened to her in the past. That’s huge, Kyle. She’s in a great place now, thanks to you. She’s ready to face this. If you weren’t in her life, if she hadn’t made the recent progress she has made; my answer would be different. However, I recommend that you be right by her side when she reads it. Don’t allow her to do it alone. I don’t care if you stand on the opposite side of the room—she needs you, whether she wants to believe it or not. You have become her rock, Kyle. I don’t know how you did it, dude, but kudos to you and we all love you for it. She’s a great person; she deserves to be happy.” I can hear her getting choked up. This right here is why I love these girls so much . . . what I respect about them—they truly love each other. It’s an amazing thing to witness. Oh, they’re all bat shit crazy, but that’s part of their charm.

“I’m not her only rock, Maddie. You girls are the wind beneath her wings,” I say with a smile. I’m mastering “GEG talk.”

“You’re a dork. Love you, too. Gotta go—incoming!” she says urgently. We say quick goodbyes and hang up.

It’s a thick fucking letter. I fight off the last urge to open it for myself and place it on the counter. Man, I wish I knew how long it was going to sit there for. These girls have been shopping since three in the morning. It’s now eleven. I mean—what is there left to buy at this point? I’m just glad I went back to sleep this morning. I wouldn’t be able to take a nap once she’s opened that letter. As a matter of fact, I should keep the letter from her until she has, at least, had a nap. I grab it and place it on top of the fridge. I head into the media room to watch
A Christmas Story
—classic.

Before I know it, my mind is wandering to last night. God, last night was
amazing.
I close my eyes to get the full visual. Ok, I got a little carried away with the spanking; her ass was pretty red. I couldn’t help it. I was feeling a little insecure. Do you think I missed how she was staring at Maddie’s boyfriend? No, I didn’t and I can tell you right now, I wasn’t and am still not happy about it. What the fuck was that about anyway? I don’t like how she was looking at Blake, either. I don’t like her looking at any other guy that’s not me—not in that way. I kept it to myself, though, just in case I was overreacting. Besides, feeling insecure is one thing, acting out because of that insecurity is another. Anyways . . . there she was, on her knees, ass up. It was red and she was soaked. I swear to Christ she’s going to turn me into a two-pump-chump. I can barely keep it together around her.

She was trembling.

I was nervous.

We were about to have a first—together.

Oh, you thought I’ve done that before? Nope. I’ve never even had the desire; truth be told. With CiCi . . . I desire everything. She was so wet. I made sure to pull most of it to lubricate her naturally. And then, I sunk into her, plunging several times to relax her and thoroughly coat myself. I pulled out and slowly slid my cock up to her other opening. We both panted in anticipation. I pushed against her opening. Her breaths became more rapid. “Take in a deep breath, Ceese then exhale and try to relax.” I know; easier said than done. But she did as I said and as soon as she fully exhaled, I pushed all the way in—maybe a little too quickly. She gasped and whimpered. Oh fuck, how she whimpered. You know what her whimpering does to me. It took every ounce of my strength to contain myself. I focused on the newer sensation. How tight it felt. But mostly, it felt like taking a bite of forbidden fruit, and I can’t even begin to tell you how much more erotic that thought made it feel. Every time I pulled back and dove in again, I felt myself getting harder from her response. I’m not even going to go there about the visual. I’m sad that Ceese couldn’t see the way my cock slid in and out of her ass. She’s a visual fucker like me and I love that about her; it’s hot as hell. I made sure to describe it to her, though. Let’s just say that not only did she acclimate herself quickly, but that dirty fucking mouth of hers was open for business. God, I love her! She had me shattered within minutes. I, of course, shattered her this morning with her favorite alarm clock.

“Wow, Rosie palm and her five sisters are really giving it to you good!” CiCi bellows out of nowhere!

“Shit!” I open my eyes, jumping at her voice. She’s eyeing my crotch while biting back her smile. I pull my hand out of my pants. “I don’t even know how it got in there.” I try to act shocked.

“Funny how that shit happens, huh?” She giggles as she walks around from the back of the couch, pulling her scarf off.

“Is it snowing?”

“No. I have really bad dandruff.” She rolls her eyes and shakes out her hair before pulling her coat off. She struggles with her boots but manages to pull them off. “Scooch, I’m freezing my ass off; I need a snuggle.” She smacks my leg. I get on my side and push my back against the couch. She lies next to me. I pull the blanket over us and we spoon. Not even five minutes goes by and I can hear the tempo in her breathing change.
Poor baby.
I snuggle closer and breathe her hair in. This is the best place in the world.

“Kyle?”

“Yes?”

“Your dick is poking me,” she says around a yawn.

“Poking you is his favorite thing to do.”

“Tell him nobody’s home.”

“He can hear lady boom boom’s faucet running. Drip. Drip. Drip.” I whisper into her ear.

She laughs lightly, “Dipshit.”

“C’mon, you’ve been sleeping for two hours anyway; you should be getting up now otherwise, you’ll be awake all night.” I pat her hip.

“I’m sure I could come up with a way to tire myself out.” She grinds her bottom into me.

“I could help . . . I’m useful like that,” I murmur between kisses to her neck.

“Ugh . . . you’re right; let’s get up.” She stretches then sits up.

“I’ve been up for the past few hours and it’s done nothing but cause me pain.”

“Shut-up.” She slaps my stomach.

“You’re very aggressive this morning.” I sit up, as well.

“Hmm. I’m hungry.”

“Let’s have some lunch and you can show me everything you bought.” I stand up and reach my hand out to her. We walk out to the kitchen hand in hand without a care in the world. And then I remember.
Shit.
I’m going to let her eat first. Then,
I swear,
I’ll give her the letter.

We quickly fix ourselves some Thanksgiving sandwiches—my favorite—and head back into the media room to see what Christmas movie we can find. I love that she loves Christmas. I’m the same way. My mom always played Christmas music while prepping for Thanksgiving, and for me, that was the start of the season. I guess things were the same way for Ceese in her family.

“Kyle, if you shake your leg one more time, I’m going to fucking break it,” she snaps and slams her hand down on my leg. That makes it the third time she’s yelled at me for that. We’re on movie number two and my anxiety over this letter has been going through the roof.

“Sorry,” I sigh and rub my face.

“What is the matter with you? You’ve had nothing but nervous energy the past two hours.”

“Fuck it, I’ve procrastinated long enough.” I get up. “Wait here, I’ll be right back,” I say before heading out to the kitchen. I grab the infamous letter and head back . . . slowly. “Ceese, this came for you today.” I hold it out to her.

“Today? But it’s a holiday.” She furrows her brows.

“Only to the crazy people, who get up at two a.m. to stand in lines for the best deals.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I know; it’s hard to believe.”

She grabs the letter from me, skimming it until she sees what I know she sees—the sender’s information. She drops the letter and stands up; moving away from it like it’s going to explode. “Why didn’t you just throw that out? Why would you subject me to anything that bastard has to say?” she yells.

“I think you should read it. It might help you to have some closure on whatever he did.” I lift the envelope and hold it out to her again.

“I don’t want to read an apology from him. That won’t bring me closure! Seeing him burn in hell will give me closure!”

“You just might be getting your wish, Ceese.” I look down.

“What do you mean?” she asks. I ignore. “Kyle!
What do you mean?!
”

“Don’t get mad,” I start. Brilliant way to go about it, right? “I did a little digging on Drew.”

“What? Why?!”

“I just needed to know where the son of bitch was, what he was up to, and if there was any criminal record on him. That’s all—I wasn’t going to do anything with it. Not at the moment, at least.” I close the gap she caused between us. “I think you should read that letter. Look, I don’t know what he did and I’m not going to force you to tell me. I don’t want you to tell me until you are ready. However, this letter might have the answers to the questions you’ve been asking yourself for fifteen years. Don’t wait another day, baby. It’s time to heal fully from this—if you can.”

“Why would you call me ‘baby’? I’ve asked you time and time again
not
to call me that!” she screams, her eyes welling up.

“Ceese, it’s time. Open the letter.” I put it in her hands, ignoring her misplaced anger.

“I don’t want to. There’s nothing important enough in there for me to do this to myself. Is that what you want, Kyle? You want me to read this letter so I can freak out and start pushing you away again? Are you done with me—looking for a way out that won’t make
you
look like the jerk?!” She pushes me.

“Stop it.” Push. “Stop it, Ceese.” Push. “Stop! It!” I yell in her face.

Slap.

I no sooner bounce back from that and she’s pounding on my chest with her fists. I grab her by the wrists. “Goddamn it, Ceese,
stop!
” I pin them behind her back. She hocks back.
Oh, hell no!
My left hand lets go of her wrist and I grab her face from underneath her chin. “Don’t you fucking
dare
spit in my face! You can beat the shit out of me, but you
will not
spit in
my
face. We
will
be through. Do you understand me?!” I hate to admit this, but I have such a hold on her face that she couldn’t spit at this moment if she wanted to. I’m not proud of this, you must know, but I will not tolerate being so disrespected. Slowly, the tension leaves her body and she starts crying. Her right hand comes up to my left arm and she grasps it gently; she pats it. “You good, now?” I ask. She nods and I let go of my hold. She falls forward, into my chest, and sobs her beautiful little heart out. All I can do is just stand here and hold her . . . be her rock.

I take in a deep breath. “He’s dying, Ceese.”

Her head jerks up, “What?” her voice cracks.

“He’s dying. He has Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Treatment was unsuccessful for him.”

“No, Kyle. How could you even get that information?” She shakes her head in what seems like disbelief.

“You hire people who know people, beautiful. It’s not as difficult as they would like it to be.” I push her tears away with my thumbs.

“I don’t . . . I don’t think I can do this.” She takes in a shaky breath. “Can you read it to me?”

“If that’s what you need, I have no problem doing that for you.” I tilt my head, studying her to get the final ok. She nods slightly then points to the couch. We head over and sit. She takes in another deep breath.

I wait.

“Okay,” she says after a few minutes have gone by.

“Okay.” I copy her and open the letter. “Wow. He writes like a girl,” I chuckle to ease the tension of this moment.

“I know. I used to tease him all the time.” She laughs then, as if she remembers, her chin quivers. Christ, it’s like everything that happened is still so fresh for her after all these years.

“Ready?

“Yes.”

I look down.

Dear CiCi,

If you are reading this letter, it’s safe to say that I am no longer in this world. My lawyer had explicit instructions not to mail this till after my passing.

“Wait—what?” CiCi cries.

“He’s gone, Birkita.” I repeat then watch as she falls apart, sobbing for someone that once held her heart in the palm of his hands. I’m a little shocked at her response and at the same time, not so much. CiCi loves fiercely and gathering from her response, she’s the type who will always love you no matter what happens. I have mixed emotions, myself, about her response. She waves me on. I look back down.