“After the thrown drink. And the punch.”
Her mother sniffed like it hadn’t been a big deal. “Those are minor details. She’s lucky I didn’t kick her face instead. The way she talks to people like she’s so much better. What? Tell me what is and isn’t classy to serve or eat or wear like I need advice from her raggedy ass.”
Tuesday laughed so hard she had to dot her eyes over and over with a tissue for fear of the tears making her mascara run.
“I’m not going to lie that it is a little thrill when I move too fast and she flinches. I am a little sorry not to be watching your dad mix it up out there. He’s sexy when he gets all het up.”
Tuesday thought of the way Ezra had shoved Mr. Heywood in her defense. How he’d put himself in between them and protected her.
“She said I disrespected Eric’s memory. Do you think that?”
Her mother shook her head. “Heck no. She’s crazy! You can’t listen to crazy people. Honey, what is it you think you need to do? Hide away for the rest of your life because your husband died young? Turn away a chance to love and be loved by a man like Ezra, who adores you? Will that bring Eric back? It won’t. It changes nothing when it comes to whether or not that boy is dead. Five years. I’ve been patient. Daddy’s been patient. Well, no because Daddy has no patience, but we’ve done our best to let you find your way back. This gallery is your next step. It’s your future and you don’t owe anyone an apology much less that bitter old bitch Tina Heywood.”
“You’re the best mom ever.”
Her mother handed her one of the mini cupcakes from the cupcake trees near the door they’d come through. “I smuggled you one.”
Tuesday took it. “I love Ezra. I haven’t seen him in ten days. It was awful. I threw myself into all the details of this party so at least I could keep busy. I’ve only been sleeping three or four hours a night. I’ve been making a lot more inventory with the extra hours so that’s good. When he came in today it was like all my exhaustion faded away and I was recharged. Eric never made me feel that. I felt guilty.” She said it really fast, barely taking a breath, just to get it out.
“Feel better? Baby, you can tell me and you’ll feel better. Don’t you know that yet? Don’t waste your energy on guilt. What does it change? Even if Ezra is better on every level than Eric ever was or would have been, so what? Do you want Eric back so you can see if he’d fit you better now that you’ve gone through all this hardship? Eric was a lovely man, but he was soft. The Tuesday you are today wouldn’t fit him. Surviving changes you right down to your soul. You are a hundred times the woman now than you were before Eric died. Because you had to make the choice every day to keep going. Because you kept getting better even if it was way too slow for my comfort. You did it. You are hard, yes, but like a diamond is hard. You take my meaning?”
Tuesday nodded.
“Your guilt won’t make anything better. It won’t change who you are now. Be glad he makes you feel so wonderful. I’m glad for you.”
“You’re just glad to have a handsome man to jam with.”
Her mother laughed. “Men! It’s plural because I’m claiming Paddy, as well.”
“I’m not sure Dad is going to be down with that.”
“I know I’m not.” Natalie hugged Di. “You can have a kidney but not Paddy. Look all you like, though. Heaven knows I do.”
Sharon came back, calling Tuesday’s name.
“Just a second.” Tuesday reapplied her lipstick and opened the door.
“Sharon Hurley, this is my mother, Diana Easton. Mom, this is Sharon Hurley.”
Sharon hugged Di. “So nice to meet you. Ezra and Paddy have been making me jealous with all this talk of how wonderful you are.”
“What a fine job you’ve done with those boys of yours.”
Sharon laughed. “If you only knew. But they’re all okay now—that’s what counts.”
Ezra came in and his gaze flicked around the space until he finally found her. It was like the snap of a rubber band, their connection. They moved toward one another, meeting up halfway through the room.
He took her hands, kissing her knuckles. “Are you all right?”
“Are you all right? I’m so sorry about that whole mess.”
He frowned. “We sent them packing. Your dad is badass. I think I’ve also been upgraded to a name every time. No more of that boy stuff.”
“Great, you two can get matching jailhouse tattoos.” She grinned and then sobered a little. “Thank you for defending me.”
“All that stuff they said was wrong.”
She shrugged. Even if it hadn’t been, she didn’t want to give them any more of her energy. “Doesn’t matter. Come on with me to unlock the doors. It’s nearly time.”
* * *
HE LOOKED UP at her as she stood at the foot of his bed. Naked but for that necklace and the shoes.
“This is even better than I imagined it would be. Come up here.”
She did and he reached out lightning quick and pulled her under him, kissing her senseless, loving the way she opened to him immediately.
“Do you know how many times tonight a guy looked at your tits?” He kissed her ear, down her neck. “Every time I turned around. Even my brothers. They’re so spectacular I guess I shouldn’t blame them. But I wanted to punch a lot of people tonight.”
She laughed, digging her nails into his shoulders, urging him on. “You said it yourself—they’re spectacular.”
He nipped her neck and then down to her nipples. “They’re also mine.”
She hummed. “Yes. All right, that, too.”
He licked over the curve at the side of her left breast and continued down to settle between her thighs. “It’s been ten days since I’ve been here.”
“I know.”
But he didn’t elaborate. Those ten days had seemed so important and yet he still wanted her so much.
He took a lick. “Damn, you taste so good.” She did. She felt right, like sitting down in your favorite chair after a long day. He felt received by her.
He kept her spread wide as he took his time and when she came, he kept at it, pushing her into a smaller series of follow-up orgasms.
He crawled up to his knees, pausing to roll on a condom.
She nodded and that urgency ramped up between them. He was in her then. Sliding into that hot wet embrace that he seemed to feel all the way down his spine.
“Gorgeous. Perfect. My beauty.”
“Yours.”
Then there was the slide of skin on skin, a sheen of sweat easing the way. The side of her neck was salty as he licked her there, body bent over as he kept to his knees, thrusting deep, lingering and then pulling nearly all the way out before pressing in again. Over and over until it felt like a magic spell binding them together.
One hand held her wrists captive. By this point between them it was just as much to feel her struggle against him, writhing around his cock. The other held her, fingers digging into her ass and thigh hard enough to leave a mark and he loved that idea.
More, he knew she loved it, too, and that’s what made it so potent between them. He loved it hard, but so did she. Though he wondered at times after rehab if it was acceptable that he did. Whether or not he’d broken something and sought darker stuff because everyday sex couldn’t get him off.
He had no such problem right then as orgasm tore through him, shredding him until he could only fall to the bed next to her and draw her close as he caught his breath and could deal with the condom.
* * *
“SO, ALL KIDDING aside and the first round of reunion sex in the bag, tonight had a lot of stuff in it. Do you want to talk about it?” he asked as they settled in their respective places in his bed.
When he’d opened the door to go out to get some water, he’d come back to find all three animals in bed with her. Peanut looked at him like she was going to poop in a shoe if he kept Tuesday away from them any more periods this long.
Loopy moved down to
the tile floor, sprawling on her belly to get all the cool she could.
The cats burrowed between Ezra and Tuesday, purring like little jet engines as she scratched behind ears.
“My favorite part of the night was seeing you when you first got there. I kept telling myself it wasn’t a big deal that I hadn’t seen you in so long. We’d talked on the phone and texted, you had a harvest and I had all this work stuff but I missed you so much. And when I looked up and saw your face it was like every good thing I’d missed from not being with you for that time hit me all at once and made me just sort of drown in happy. The part with you going down on me and making me come for like eight minutes is also a high point. A full house at my opening. Selling so many pieces. Getting new contacts. All of those also hit the highlight reel. My sister and one of my brothers coming in from California was really amazing. I’ll go up to my parents’ house this weekend to hang out with them. Natalie will most likely come along because she and April get along well. I’m happy they got to meet you and your parents, too. I was thinking we could go out to dinner on Saturday so you can get to know them a little better.”
It was then he realized not only that he’d forgotten to mention his trip with Jeremy, but that she knew it anyway.
“Of course, if I knew you were going to be away with your friend this weekend I’d just plan around you. Were you afraid I’d be upset or something?”
“No. I honestly forgot. I’d mean to tell you and then I’d hear your voice and forget everything but you.” He frowned.
She watched him carefully, waiting for him to elaborate and when he didn’t she shrugged. “Have a good time. Bring me back chocolate.”
That she knew he hadn’t told her and that she knew he was holding back and was acting like she wasn’t mad pushed him to finally speak.
“Two things. I had this epiphany that Saturday we went up to your parents’ for your birthday. Jeremy called and we had a real conversation. He and I used to be pretty tight and he suggested he and I head to Vancouver for a few days to have good food and catch up. It was like an underline to this feeling I’ve had that I needed to make more of an effort to reconnect with my friends.”
“I’m so glad to hear that. I think you do, too. I imagine some of your friends have really been hoping you’d reach out again.”
“The second thing is that I don’t want to go because I want to be with you. I want to snatch you up and take you to the mountains for the weekend, where it’s just you and me.”
“We can go up again at another time. I have my stall in the morning and then I’m going to Olympia for the weekend. You’ll go to Vancouver and see Jeremy and when you get back to town I’ll be here.”
He pushed himself out of bed and began to pace. “Is it that easy for you?”
“What?”
“This week I needed to see you so much it nearly made me ache.”
She turned to face him, reaching to turn the lamp on. “I know. I mean, I know you’ve been holding yourself away from me. Avoiding me.”
“It’s not avoiding you.”
She got a sour look. “What is it then? I’m sitting here naked in your bed and I’m telling you the fucking truth. How dare you stand there and act like the truth isn’t the truth and I can’t see it. Fuck you, Ezra.”
Wow. He’d never seen her like this. Not directed at him.
“See, Ezra, you could have come to me. At any time in the ten days since that weekend at my parents’ and today. I’d have come to you. I will always come to you.”
“I don’t know how to want you and for it to be okay!”
She pulled on a robe and he was annoyed at the loss of all that pretty skin bared to his view.
“Stop yelling. You get the dog all upset and then she’ll sleep between us. I’m right here. I can hear you just fine.”
“How can you be so calm? I’m a goddamn junkie who is afraid of love because he doesn’t know how to healthily need someone.”
“I’m not confused.” She shrugged. “See, that’s the thing about tonight. I stood there and the Heywoods said all sorts of stuff and you got between them and me and absorbed all that hate. You defended me. For a long while it felt like anything good that made me happy was an insult to Eric. Tonight I told my mother I feel for you with an intensity I never had with anyone before, even Eric, and she said so what. And she’s got a point. I can feel guilty about the feelings of a dead man or I can be thankful you were thrown in my path when I was ready for you. It’s not right or wrong. It just is. You make me feel like no one ever has. And it freaks me out and I have moments when I wonder if I can really do it and be what you need. If I can be what I need. But the truth of it is the same either way. You can keep on with this talk about how you’re a junkie and this and that. But you’re not and that’s silly so I’m telling you up front that you are the only one who sees Ezra that way. The rest of us clearly know you better.”
“You deserve more than me. I don’t want to disappoint you,” he said quietly.
“I’m sure you’re going to disappoint me. I know I’ll disappoint you. Most of the time I won’t mean it. I’ll let you down. I’ll piss you off. I’ll hurt your feelings. I’m bitchy. I have a life. I don’t need you to complete it. I’m complete already. I don’t need a boyfriend.”
She took a deep breath. “But I need you. Do you understand what I’m saying? It’s not the office you fill in my life. It’s you. Despite the reality that two people will inevitably annoy each other in some way, I like you in my life. I want you to take a chance. Be willing to need me. Why not? This is not the same as craving drugs or alcohol.”
“But the feelings are the same. I’m a bad bet. We talked about this already. I am broken and you deserve way more than I can give you.”
“Are they? I’m not where you are, so this is a real question, Ezra. If you compare what I am to you with what heroin was to you, do you really truly think it’s the same? If it is, I don’t honestly know where to go from there.”
She got up and he watched as she put her clothes back on.
“I’ll still be in love with you when you get back from Vancouver. I’ve never been much for other people deciding what I needed. I need you.”
He paced, needing the rhythm of it. “After I got clean I had to figure out what things that made me feel good were acceptable and what ones weren’t. It means I spent more time focused inward than I had before and looking at some hard truths. So while I could definitely say things like drugs and alcohol were definite noes for me, I had to struggle with exercise and eating right. And sex.”
She nodded.
“I tended to exercise too much, for instance. So I had to be mindful about it for a while until it became routine and not obsession. Sometimes when something feels good I panic.”
“You cleaned up and you turned your life around and you’re indispensible to your family. And me. Can’t you see that? When are you going to accept that it’s okay to feel good? Not everything is shoving a needle in your arm.”
“You have no idea what I was like.”
“Yeah? You think I’d be shocked? I imagine you stole some money. You let people down. I saw the fight you had with your brother onstage. Get online and you can find ten different angles of him punching you and your head slamming into the speaker. Would that help? To watch rock bottom over and over? I bet you have anyway because goddamn it you love to wallow in your mistakes.”
She didn’t know anything about it.
“What’s that going to solve? How do you use that to move on and have a life? Because you can’t possibly spend the rest of your life freaked out by everything that makes you enjoy it enough to want it more than once. Hell, what about pecan-praline ice cream?”
“Don’t downplay it.” He heard the anger in his voice and so did she.
But she pushed on. “I’m not downplaying it. I’m asking you a real question. How much is enough? When will you feel like you’ve finally made your reparations and that it’s okay to want
to see a gorgeous woman who loves to get naked with you? A woman who loves you, Ezra. Who trusts you. Like Paddy trusts you. Like Vaughan trusts you. Like Mary and Damien. Like your pigs and your chickens and three goats all named Marshmallow. Like your dog and your cats and your parents. All the people who know you best, we all trust you. When do you trust you?”
“After the fight I had onstage, they took me to the hospital to stitch up my head. But there were drugs there and all the shame I’d been starting to feel was gone in the face of all those painkillers. I filled my prescription and left when no one was looking. I hadn’t been arrested or anything. So I walked out. My dealer picked me up, handed over a huge amount of heroin and dropped me off at a by-the-hour motel. I hid there for a few days until they found me. I was little more than an animal by that point. I used every single thing I knew to get them to leave. I said things that can’t be taken back.”
The memories of it, the shame seemed to coat his skin like dirt stuck to sweat. He wanted to run away. To clap his hands over his ears and pretend she didn’t make so much sense he wanted to scream.
“You don’t have to take them back, Ezra. You said them and then you sincerely owned it and made yourself into a better person. You can’t constantly hold out the lowest point in your life as the norm. Unless you like feeling like shit. It might have been normal for that Ezra but it hasn’t been for a long time. The only person who can’t forgive you is you. The rest of us know better.”
“My mother locked herself in the room with me. She was crying. In all the time growing up when we fucked up she never cried. Oh, she got pissed and we made her sad. But my mom doesn’t cry like that. She was crying, begging me to get help. She was worried I was going to die. I probably would have but I didn’t care. I started to get sick. I needed to get high and she wouldn’t leave. Then she took my rig and touched the needle to her arm, pressing so I could see a bead of blood. I’d been in there with her for several hours and I needed it. I’d started cramping up. She said she would give me the heroin back if I really wanted it, but that she would use first. Use with me.”