"The crash," I found my mouth whispering and I watched him blink.
"What?" he bit out.
"During... when Agent Calhoun... when I..." I stopped and licked my lips. "There was a crash outside the interrogation room. That was you."
"Yeah, babe, that was me throwing a chair against the wall."
That was him throwing a chair against the wall.
That was him.
That was him.
That was him throwing a chair against the wall.
I closed my eyes and did a face plant in his chest as my body relaxed in his arms.
That was Brock throwing a chair against the wall when he heard me admit to being raped.
As this knowledge flowed through me, it did it like a warm gush of clean water wiping away years of filth.
Oh my.
"Tess," he called as his hand at my head tensed and his arm around me gave me a squeeze.
I opened my eyes and saw tee.
"Is this really your favorite tee?" I whispered against the fabric.
I felt his body still for a brief moment before I felt his whiskers pull at my hair as he slid his jaw down the side of my head.
Then he whispered in my ear, "Yeah."
"It's old and ratty-assed," I informed him.
"Exactly," he informed me.
I closed my eyes again. Then I smiled. Then the smile faded from my lips as I opened my eyes and tilted my head back, his came up with mine and I looked into his quicksilver eyes.
"Do you want me to stop by the store and pick up some Bud on the way home from the shower?" I asked softly and the mood shifted in the room again. It got warm and heavy, sultry, sweet.
My favorite mood of his. Bar none.
Damn, I missed that too.
"Yeah, baby," he answered softly.
"Okay," I whispered.
He closed his eyes then he opened them and dipped his head.
Then he kissed me, light and gentle at first then warm, heavy, sultry and sweet.
My toes curled and my fingers did too, right into his ratty-assed tee at his back.
Okay, okay. Seriously.
I missed this most of all.
He lifted his head and his hand at mine shifted around to the side of my neck, taking my hair with it, his thumb moving out to catch me under the chin and keep me facing him.
"Where you movin', darlin'?"
"Kentucky."
He did a slow blink. Then he asked, "Kentucky?"
I shrugged.
He grinned.
Then he said quietly, "All right, baby, we'll talk about that later too."
"Okay," I said quietly back.
His eyes moved over my face then his hand shifted up so his thumb could glide over my cheek then my lips then he dipped his head and put his lips where his thumb was for a brief touch then he pulled away.
"Later, babe," he whispered.
"Later, Slim."
That got me a full blown, striking, white smile.
My toes curled again.
Then he was gone.
Chapter Four.
Committed to His Job
"This cake is so beautiful, it's a shame to cut it!" Ada cried right before she dug right into the huge cake I made for her shower.
I smiled a polite smile as the abundance of women tittered around me excitedly at the thought of getting their free slice of a Tessa O'Hara cake. Not to brag or anything but my cakes and cupcakes had been written up in the local papers because they looked as good as they tasted and my bakery was shoulder to shoulder from open to close, ten to seven, seven days a week. That cake was homemade yellow cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. Simple but a winner. Even I knew they were in for a treat.
Then that titter changed as they watched Ada cut miniscule slivers and put them on the paper plates with the big blue teddy bear on them.
There you go.
That was Ada.
She told me how many people were coming so I made a fourteen inch, four layer cake, plenty for everyone to have a nice, thick slice. But Ada was cutting slivers so she could have half a cake as leftovers for her and Vic.
I sighed, wondering what the heck I was doing there at all since three years ago when Ada met Vic and, because she was thirty-six and her biological clock was ticking so loud the personnel at NORAD were tracking it, she immediately dedicated herself to the sacred quest of making him her fiance then her husband and now the man who was the father of her unborn child, Ada pretty much checked out of my life. She called me to make the cake for her engagement party then for her bridal shower, her wedding and now this. Only two of those cakes she paid me for and she asked for (and stupid me, I gave her) a discount on both. I'd only seen her on those occasions and all of them required me bringing a present. Other than that, Ada was all about sculpting (with chisel and hammer if she had to) Vic into the perfect suburban husband, wedding planning, house hunting, house decorating and baby making. She didn't have time to be a friend unless it was to call on all of us to buy her presents and celebrate milestones of her life.
I didn't even think she sent me a Christmas card last year.
And I had my own milestone to think about, I didn't need to be here.
Okay, maybe it wasn't a milestone. But whatever it was it was a big, huge stinking deal because no way that scene with Brock "Slim" Lucas in my kitchen was not a big, huge stinking deal.
I knew it.
I started thinking about how and when I could get out of there while handing around plates with slivers of cake and baby blue plastic forks on them but when I gave one to the woman sitting beside me and she muttered an annoyed, "Muthafucka."
As it would, this surprised me so I looked at her to see her staring down at her nearly transparent slice of cake and I was right, she appeared annoyed.
I didn't know her but had met her that day. Her name was Elvira, mocha skin, hair in stylish crop with blonde highlights at the long bangs, fabulous tangerine top that showed even more fabulous cleavage, skintight skirt that showed this baby had back and she would have been shorter than me if she wasn't wearing four inch, killer, stiletto-heeled sandals. She came to the party with a cadre of beauties, all of whom I'd met in passing before at Ada's milestone "celebrate me" celebrations, a knockout blonde named Gwen, a tall, svelte, modelesque blonde named Tracy and another modelesque, tall, svelte African American named Camille.
But I'd never met Elvira.
"How do you know Ada?" I asked and her eyes came to me.
"Don't know the bitch and don't wanna know a bitch who puts out bowls of peanuts, no honey roast, no salt, just motherfuckin' peanuts with the motherfuckin' skins still on them and some corn chips for a party and then she gives me a sliver of cake. Shit. What? Crazy,"
she replied and I stared at her mainly because her answer was crazy. Honest, but crazy.
Then I asked, "You crashed a baby shower?"
"No. Got dragged here by Beanpole," she jerked her head at the tall, svelte, modelesque Tracy. "She didn't wanna come alone. Gwen and Cam didn't wanna come at all. I'm seein'
now why. Trace has got a heart of gold but no capacity to get it when people walk all over her, even when they're doin' it in high heels. She talked us into it with promises of employee discounts at her store. She works at Neiman's."
"Mm hmm," I mumbled, thinking that would do it. There was a time in my life when I'd go to a really bad baby shower with the promise of an employee discount at Neiman's. That time was over, though. As I had done frequently through the years, starting at around age six, I'd entered a new phase in my life. This one was one where Christian Louboutin didn't factor but Harley Davidson did.
As I was thinking this, she suddenly and bizarrely announced, "Done with this shit. Let's have cocktails."
Then before I could open my mouth, she shot up to standing, grabbed her enormous purse that clunked and clinked when she did, hefted it up on her shoulder, grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the couch.
Then she declared loudly, "Smoke break!" and everyone's eyes came to us, some of them shocked seeing as these days you could light up a doobie and no one would blink but if you lit up a smoke, you courted being publicly stoned to death. But most of the eyes were envious and probably not because they smoked, probably because they, like me and obviously Elvira, wanted to escape.
"Smoke break?" Ada asked, her face twisted in revulsion.
"Yeah, back deck okay?" Elvira asked but didn't wait for an answer. She started tugging me to the sliding glass doors at the back of Ada's picture perfect suburban home while jerking her chin at her posse.
I had no choice but to go but I did manage to bug my eyes out at Martha as I went; my nonverbal invitation for her to get her ass up and follow. I'd known Martha since we were in fifth grade. I moved out to Denver to be with Martha. Before marrying Damian, I lived with Martha. After leaving Damian I again lived with Martha. Therefore Martha read my nonverbal invitation and got her ass up.
"Ice," I heard Elvira order, Tracy nodded and peeled off as Elvira tugged me out the door.
Then she let my hand go and sashayed to the picture perfect lawn furniture on the deck, folded then shoved my slice of cake in her mouth all in one go (though, it was so small, this wasn't hard). Then she dropped the plate to the table, plonked down her massive purse which again clinked and clunked and, as I watched in unconcealed astonishment, she started unearthing the ingredients for cosmopolitans (including stainless steel cocktail shaker) from her purse as Martha, Gwen, Camille and I rounded the table.
"Ohmigod, I'm so gonna kill Tracy for this. I didn't like Ada even before that bitch hooked up with Vic. But this party is so bad, if ex-prisoners of war attended it, they'd reminisce nostalgically about the days shit was shoved up their fingernails," Camille muttered.
"Have you seen Vic?" Gwen asked Camille and got a head shake to her question so she continued, "Shadow of his former self. He used to live and breathe Broncos, Nuggets, Rockies and his vintage Chevy Chevelle. Now he's wearing button-downs instead of Elway jerseys and driving a minivan and Ada hasn't even popped that kid out yet."
"Poor Vic," Martha muttered.
"Poor Vic, my ass," Elvira stated while pouring vodka in her shaker. "Needs to man up, take charge of his woman." Her eyes sliced through Camille and Gwen and she proclaimed, "You bitches know what I'm sayin'."
Both "bitches" nodded in a way I found interesting since they clearly did know what she was saying and I did not and wanted to know more but before I could ask I heard the sliding glass door open. I twisted to look as it closed and saw the gorgeous, glamorous Tracy carrying two big glasses filled with ice strutting out like she was on a catwalk and not on a picture perfect back deck.
"Okay, just gotta say, I'm glad we're out here because I wanna know what the frig is up with you." I heard Martha say and I looked to her to see she was looking at me and therefore talking to me.
This was probably not good.
Martha was Elvira's height which was to say five foot four. She was also now taller than me for I was wearing a pair of flip-flops with a black base and glittery silver on the straps and she was wearing a pair of platform pumps with a six inch heel and two inch platform. She was rounded just right, had curly dark brown hair that looked fabulous against her pale skin and bright blue eyes. She also knew me better than anyone in this world (or, at least, the parts I let her know). She was always late, she was always in a tizzy, her life was always filled with drama but I loved her and she loved me, always and forever, no matter what. I'd been through the thick and the thin with her, all of it, and there was a lot of it, riding her killer waves, holding her hand the whole time and she was grateful for it and didn't have a problem with letting that show.
That said, although she could be immensely gentle, insightful and thoughtful, that didn't mean when she had something to say, even if that something might be uncomfortable, she didn't say it.
Which I was getting the sense she was gearing up to do now.
So I asked a fake innocent, "What?"
"What?" she asked back, not buying my fake innocent for a second and I knew this when her eyebrows shot up and she kept speaking. "Girl, I walked into your house and you had a face... a face..." She shook her head. "I don't even know what was up with your face and you still got that face." Then, as if I didn't know what a face was, she lifted a finger and jabbed it toward mine going on as she dropped it. "All I know is, three months you've been hell on wheels, no one could keep up with you and now you look all foggy like you're living in a dreamworld."
Damn.
I really needed to remember that even as Martha lived out her ever-present drama, that didn't mean she didn't pay attention.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I lied.
"Sure you do," Elvira stated, dumping ice into her cocktail shaker.
"Uh..." I mumbled to Elvira, a little surprised since I'd met her an hour before and she couldn't know anything about me especially not about this.
"I got the gift," Elvira informed me, answering my unasked question. "Can read people's faces." She topped the cocktail shaker and started shaking. "And yours is sayin' you know exactly what your homegirl is talkin' about."