The Denver Cereal (30 page)

“
I’m going to leave my
car,” Jill said. Sandy’s attention jerked to Jill. “You can go home
whenever you want.”

“
I’ll go with you. I’m
sure Aden would like to be with his kids,” Sandy said.

Jill shook her head and
hugged Sandy.

“
I think he’ll need your
special help,” Jill said in Sandy’s ear. “You know what it’s like
to come home from an awful experience. You could really help. I bet
Aden will need you when the kids get to bed.”

Jill gave Sandy the Lexus
keys.

“
Your car?”

“
Yeah, I just found that
out. I guess Jacob bought it for me for our non-date.” Jill hugged
Sandy again. “I’m going with Sam. Love you, Sandy.”

Sandy stood at the front
door to Aden’s house and waved. When she closed the door, Aden came
running from the back of the house. Seeing Sandy, he slid across
the hardwood floors to a stop.

“
Will you stay? The kids
are exhausted. Noelle’s already asleep. Nash should be out in a
moment. I could really use . . . a
friend.”

Sandy nodded.

“
Good.” Aden kissed her.
“Thanks.”

~~~~~~~~

On the living room couch
of Aden’s Park Hill bungalow, with her leg tucked up under her,
Sandy felt a part of her unwind, or melt. Her soul listened to this
man talk about his life. His eyes and mind turned to her with an
open caring she’d never imagined coming from a man. She craved more
— more connection, more warmth, more of Aden Norsen. With her head
on his shoulder, she fell asleep on the couch. He woke her aand
insisted she stay in his guest bedroom.

Sandy came out of the
small guest bathroom to find Aden asleep on the twin guest bed.
He’d waited for her to say good night. His eyes opened the moment
she was close.

In a rush of emotion, he
reached for her. After six years of longing, his simple gesture
sparked a blaze inside her. She was swept away by her own passion
for this man.

Lips pressed, hips merged,
and they joined in a dance of sensation. Her fingertips burned with
the plush texture of his skin. Her body responded at the nip of his
teeth against her nipples, her neck, and her ears. Her mouth pulled
kiss after kiss from his lips. Each pulse brought deeper waves of
connection. Fast and slow, on top and under him, she felt only her
fervor for this man.

Their final blaze of glory
brought up Sandy’s long-held pain. While his lips kissed her face
and eyes, she wept. His arms held her tight through the passing of
nameless pain and sadness.

When the storm passed,
Sandy attacked. She pulled and pressed at him. She bit at his body
and allowed her fingernails to rake at his flesh. Aden matched her
with sheer animal passion. In this pure, honest physicality,
Sandy’s soul opened to him. Her hands above her head, her body
conquered, she called him to join her. Without hesitation, he
followed her into oblivion.

Sandy’s very being joined
his to dance among the familiar stars. Around and around they
waltzed until, one breath at a time, they rejoined their bodies on
the cramped bed in the guest room of his Park Hill bungalow. They
fell spent to the bed. Wrapped around each other, they
slept.

~~~~~~~~

Mike had asked, but
Valerie didn’t want to go out. In fact, Valerie didn’t want to
leave the bed. She wanted to be tickled, cuddled, and loved. He got
up at some point and brought Brie, strawberries, and champagne back
to bed. With her head in his lap, he fed her the fruit and cheese.
Looking into her hazel eyes, he saw her love for him shining back.
Around midnight, they migrated to the large bathtub.

“
It’s been a week,” Mike
said.

He slipped her hair over
her shoulder to use a sponge on her back. She lay back into his
lap. He kissed her lips and she smiled.

“
Are
you . . . Do you . . . I
mean . . .” Mike scrunched his eyebrows together.
Valerie’s thumb smoothed out the crease between his
eyebrows.

“
There’s only one time in
my life that I’ve felt this right . . .
complete.”

“
In Monterey?”

“
In Monterey.”

He pulled her between his
knees. She tucked her arms over his knees and leaned back against
his chest.

“
Are you going to
start . . .”

“
Our usual argument?”
Valerie finished his statement. “You always start our usual
argument.”

“
I do? How?”

“‘
You’re just going to
leave again,’” Valerie imitated his voice. “‘You may as well just
go.’ Or, my personal favorite, ‘If he’s that great, why don’t you
just marry him?’”

“
Ouch,” Mike said.
“Wes?”

“
The other two were just
for the press,” Valerie said. “Yes, Wes.”

Mike stared at the wavy
glass block window to the Castle garden. The moon hadn’t reached
them yet. The distant streetlights reflected off the glass,
creating a wispy dance of light. He sighed.

“
Sorry. You went on and on
and on and on about him.”

“
I did?” Valerie asked.
“Really?”

“
He was smart and
sophisticated and went to all the cool parties and knew everyone
and wore designer clothing and produced the best films
and . . . I figured you were already fucking him,
so . . . Were you?”

“
Not until you told me to
leave,” she said.

She didn’t dare look at
his face because she knew the pain she would see there. She wasn’t
proud of herself or her actions. She and Mike had danced this dance
so long that she wasn’t really sure what were her decisions and
what were his. Did he make her sleep with Wes? No. But he told her
to. Or did he?

She sighed.

“
What’s wrong?” Mike
asked.

“
Oh, I was thinking about
us.”

“
What about us? Are you
leaving again?”

She hit his leg with her
hand and he laughed. She tipped her head up to kiss the underside
of his chin.

“
I . . .”
Valerie started.

She shook her head. The
thoughts bounced around her head like ping-pong balls until a
single image floated to the surface — Mike’s back as he left for
basic training.

“
I stood at the door for
three hours hoping you would come back. You’d change your mind and
work for my dad. I was sure you’d never, ever, ever leave
me.”

Hoping she would continue,
Mike let the silence lag. She almost never talked about herself,
and never talked about this time in their lives. She took a breath
and let it out before saying anything else.

“
I met the mailman at the
door every day for three months. And when your random and rare
letters came, I’d sit in my room for a day, at least, and read them
over and over again. I was sure you’d be home in time to take me to
prom or homecoming or . . . see me graduate. When
you finally came home, you were so grown up, mature. You’d traveled
all over the world. I could almost taste the women on you. I was
just some stupid little small-town, high school girl, and you were
a man.”

“
Val,
I . . .” Mike started, then stopped. This was her
turn, her story. He could wait. He kissed the top of her head.
Leaning back, he stretched his long arms to reach her brush on the
marble counter. She almost purred when he began brushing her hair.
“I want to hear what you have to say.”

“
When I went to UCLA, I
was going to find someone else . . . someone who’d
stay . . . with me. But I never did.”

Valerie sighed.

“
I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“I was trying to be good enough for you . . . for
you.”

“
Push, pull, push, pull,
push, pull.”

Valerie jerked around in
the bathtub so fast that the hairbrush flew out of Mike’s
hand.

“
Tell me this.” Her index
finger jabbed his chest. “Who have you loved? Who? Who? Tell me.
WHO?”

“
I’ve only ever loved you,
Val.”

“
THEN WHY DID YOU LEAVE
ME?”

Her eyes blazed her anger
and pain. He saw her, at sixteen, standing at the door waiting all
those hours. He saw her clutching his half-assed letters. He saw
her face the last time they made love before he left for basic
training. And the betrayal on that same face when he returned from
his first tour. He’d changed. She hadn’t.

He left and didn’t come
back until long after she stopped waiting for him.

In that moment, her finger
bruising his chest, he saw every twist and turn of their
relationship. His big hand covered her hand and finger. He raised
her hand to his lips and kissed it.

“
I left because of me and
me only. I came back because of you. I’ll never leave again,
Valerie and . . .” Mike stopped talking. His eyes
caressed her face. “I’m sorry.”

“
Please
finish.”

“
I will fight every day to
stay right here . . . by your
side . . .”

Their eyes held. She
leaned forward and their lips touched. Sighing, she leaned against
his chest.

“
But if you want to be
with Wes, fine. Hell, torture has its privileges. I can tolerate
almost anything every once in a while, as long as I don’t have to
fuck him.”

Valerie smiled and shook
her head. This was one of the things she loved about Mike. He could
diffuse any situation with a tangential reference to something
absurd.

“
He can have you on
Wednesday nights.”

“
Wednesday?”

“
While I play hockey. Our
team switched from Saturdays to Wednesdays.”

“
Hockey?”

“
Yeah, he can spend a
couple hours while I’m at hockey, if that’s what you want
but . . .”

Valerie kissed him
quiet.

“
But when we’re in
tournament . . .”

“
Stop,” she said. “I don’t
want to be with Wes. I only want you. I love you.”

He kissed her
lips.

“
Please don’t leave me
again,” she whispered.

“
Never by
choice.”

“
Never by choice,” she
repeated his vow.

Mike retrieved the hair
brush from across the room. Turning on the hot water to warm the
tub, he kissed her head and returned to brushing her
hair.

“
So, no more hockey
tournaments?”

“
Now Val, be
reasonable . . .”

What was that?

Sunday morning, 6:30
a.m.

Jill tapped on Mike and
Val’s door. When no one answered, she knocked. Naked, Mike jerked
open the door just as her hand moved to pounded on it. She thumped
him on his sternum.

“
Sorry.”

Mike nodded and swung the
door closed.

“
Wait
,” Jill said. She held the door open with her foot. “There’s
a bunch of people here for you. They’re in the kitchen. They came
through the tunnels. Alex said she knew the codes because she set
them up?”

“
Alex?”

“
It’s Alex Hargreaves and
her twin, Max, and a bunch of people speaking
French . . .”

“
Crap
. Val! You have to get up!”

Mike moved into the
hallway.

“
Clothing?” Jill
asked.

“
Right,” he
said.

He went back into the
apartment. Jill stood in the doorway until he came out pushing
Valerie in front of him. Valerie was wearing one of his dress
shirts and his boxer shorts. Her hair was tied in a loose knot. In
this unguarded moment, Valerie was stunningly beautiful. Mike
pulled a T-shirt over his head as they started down the
hall.

“
Pants?” Jill
asked.

“
Oh, crap. Keep her
here.”

Mike jogged back into the
apartment for a pair of jeans.

“
Why are they here, Mike?”
Valerie said.

The sleeves of his dress
shirt hung over her hands. She rubbed her large hazel eyes with the
shirt’s cuffs. The moment he was near her, she clung to him. He
lifted her into his arms.

“
Sorry, we just fell
asleep,” Mike said. “She’s like this when she doesn’t sleep. She’ll
snap out of it when she sees people.”

Jill grinned when she
heard them kissing behind her. Jill jogged down the stairs to give
them some privacy. When she entered the main kitchen, Alex was
making coffee. Jill could see a crowd of people laughing and
talking in the main Castle living area.

“
Are they awake?” Alex
asked.

“
Barely. They are a
little . . .”

Alex raised her eyebrows.
She nodded her head toward the stairwell where Mike held Valerie in
his arms. Mike was clearly trying to talk Valerie into meeting
their guests; Valerie was only interested in kissing
him.

“
They’re always like
that,” Alex said.