Law Man

by Kristen Ashley

  * * * * *

  The police freed my apartment for clean up which I was dreading not only because it was going to be a big job but also I didn’t want to get elbow deep in the proof that all that I’d worked so hard to build had been destroyed.

  Mitch, being Mitch, dealt with this too.

  When I had a day off, he sorted his mother getting the kids from school then he sorted it so LaTanya, Tess, Penny and the women of two other buddies he had on The Force, Jet and Roxie, came over.

  I was kind of in awe of Jet and Roxie, seeing as their stories had hit the paper then they’d had books written about their love affairs with their current husbands. But they were really cool, a little crazy and with the five of us working, it didn’t take very long at all regardless of the fact that, upon getting into it, it was worse than I thought and there was very little that could be salvaged.

  But those five being the five they were actually made it kind of fun. This was especially considering Penny had brought along brochures and catalogues and spent a liberal amount of time explaining her “vision” which was a vision I liked a whole lot.

  Therefore, Penny ordered needed furniture and a variety of other trimmings the next day. She, Sue Ellen and I went shopping twice (once with LaTanya) to sort out the rest (dishes, sheets, etc.) and Mitch (once with Derek) watched the kids while we were out so Billie wouldn’t be let in on what had happened. Then Mitch took Billy to do what I decreed was the “man stuff”, in other words, they bought my new TV, DVD player, PS3 and stereo while Billie and I stayed home which meant she got her finger and toenails polished and I got to watch Finding Nemo.

  We stored the purchases at my place but stayed at Mitch’s until Penny’s order fully arrived a week and a half ago. Mr. Pierson scheduled the delivery of the new mattresses the same day. While I was at work, Penny (with Sue Ellen’s help) had come in and personally “styled” it, furniture, lamps, pictures on the walls. They’d even put the sheets on the beds, the dishes in the cupboards and Billie’s teddy bear on her made up bed.

  It looked awesome.

  That night after school, the kids and I moved back in.

  Billie had totally bought the story that we were with Mitch because my apartment was getting redecorated. Billy knew better but, as usual, to protect his sister, he kept her in the dark.

  * * * * *

  When we moved back to my place, so did Mitch (kind of). Without asking (but I was not going to argue), he put a toothbrush in my (new) toothbrush holder, shave cream, razors and deodorant in my medicine cabinet and a variety of sports jackets, shirts and jeans in my closet, shoving my stuff aside to put underwear, tees, pajamas and socks in my drawers.

  After he did this, I rearranged my drawers so he had two of his own. I did this while fighting back tears. Not tears caused by Mitch being invasive but tears caused by Mitch making a statement I liked and that was, he was in my life, my kids’ lives and he intended to stay there even if there was now a breezeway separating us.

  Mitch walked into the bedroom with me mid-rearrange and mid-sniffle.

  And this was when Mitch finally tore away the last hints of my cocoon at the same time he managed the heretofore impossible task of convincing me I was at least an Eight.

  He unwittingly started on this mission when he heard the sniffle, walked to me, straightened me away from a drawer, wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close.

  Then he dipped his head and locked his eyes with my brimming with wet ones.

  He studied the wet then he spoke quietly.

  “Kids need stability. The stability necessity pushed us to is them having two homes that are across a breezeway. So our play is, the stability Bud and Billie are gonna keep havin’ is home is here and my place. Circumstances mean you’re in my bed, they’re in theirs in the second bedroom and I’ll deal with decent beds for them soon as I have a chance. Most of the time, though, I’m in your bed so they’re in theirs here. I moved some of my shit in here. I want you to double up on what you and the kids need and move some of your shit to my place. Wherever they are and you are, home will just be home, not runnin’ back and forth to get shampoo and clean t-shirts.” His arms gave me a squeeze, his face dipped closer and his voice dipped lower. “My thinkin’ is, they should ride this right along with us, baby, they’re used to an us that’s together and I don’t think we should shake that up now seein’ as there’s a physical reason to be apart. They’re comfortable both places and we’ll go all out to keep them that way. Bud is clued into what’s goin’ on with you and me and Billie doesn’t care as long as the people she loves are happy. It’s all good.” His eyes held mine, his arms tightened and he asked gently, “You with me?”

  “Yeah,” I whispered.

  “Baby,” his arms gave me another squeeze, “this is a big decision to make for those kids. You sayin’ ‘yeah’ means you’re expecting to stay in my life so I’ll be stayin’ in theirs. You can suggest another play and, this soon with what we got, I swear, I’ll be cool with that. I’m tellin’ you what I think but askin’ you if you’re with me and I’m not expecting a quick ‘yeah’.”

  “Mitch, honey,” I gave him a squeeze back, “the answer is…yeah.”

  “Sweetheart –”

  I pressed closer, he stopped talking, I slid my hand to curl around the side of his neck and I whispered, “Kids need stability, sure, but it’s not the where that needs to be stable it’s the who. I know that. I lived in the same trailer all my life and it wasn’t a healthy place to be. They lived in the same place with Bill all their lives and that wasn’t a healthy place to be either. I don’t think they care where they sleep as long as you and I are there and since you and I will be there then the answer to the play you’re suggesting is yeah.”

  He held my eyes then slowly closed his, drew in a deep breath, let it out and opened them again. It was then I realized my answer was both important and the one Mitch wanted to hear. The former, I knew and the latter meant everything to me.

  And, incidentally, that was the first time I felt my soul sigh and it felt freaking great.

  As I was experiencing just how great that felt, Mitch went on, “Right, then, you’re cool with that, we’ll talk about the rest.”

  Oh boy.

  I was pretty happy right then, happier than I’d been my whole life. I wasn’t sure about “the rest”.

  Then Mitch gave me the rest.

  “I talked to the office and they got two three bedroom units opening up. One in August, one in September. My lease is up in November. They told me yours is up next January. They also told me, we move into a unit in this complex and give them plenty of advance notice, they’ll waive the penalty for jumping one of our leases.”

  We move?

  We move?

  I was nowhere near coping with that when Mitch kept talking.

  “I’m not thinking that’s our play.”

  I didn’t know if that was a relief or a disappointment.

  I didn’t get the time to decide, Mitch wasn’t done.

  “It’s a buyer’s market,” he announced. I sucked in breath at these words and he kept speaking, “I’ve been considering finding a place. The time has come for me to quit pissin’ away my money on rent and I’ve had enough for a down payment for awhile. The kids already need to move to a different school, it’d be good they made a move, any move, those moves are permanent ones. I’m thinkin’ about buyin’ a place and I’ll want your input ‘cause, come January, all stays this good, you, Bud and Billie will be movin’ in it with me. We find someplace, we get them in a school close to it.”

  My chest was moving rapidly and this was because I was near to hyperventilating.

  Mitch continued, “Not big on Bud and Billie sharin’ a room for another six months but they’re used to it, they’re both still kids and, one way or another, on the horizon they’ll have their own space.”

  I was hearing him but I was stuck on what he said earlier.

  “You want us to move in with you?�
�

  “Yeah.”

  “You want us to move in with you.” I repeated but not in question form this time.

  His brows drew together and he repeated too, “Yeah.”

  “But…uh…Mitch,” I started. “We’ve been together just over a month.”

  “I look like a man who doesn’t know what he wants?” Mitch asked and I blinked.

  No, he not only didn’t look like that kind of man, he didn’t act like that kind of man and this was because he wasn’t that kind of man.

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Okay, then do I look like a man who wouldn’t recognize he’s got what he wants when he finds it?”

  Ohmigod!

  My chest started burning and I forced out another, “No.”

  Mitch held my eyes and drew in a short breath.

  Then he said, “I’m not talkin’ about tomorrow. I’m talkin’ about January. I was already thinkin’, come November, it was time for me to make a move. That wasn’t about you but now you and those kids are in my life, it’s become about you so you’ll need to be in on this. Shit goes down between us that’s not good, which, baby,” he gave me another squeeze, “is not gonna happen, then you all still have your place. But if it doesn’t, six months from now or before, if we’re ready, you either jump your lease or give it up and we keep on keepin’ on but in a house we own where we got privacy and those kids do too.”

  I stared at him.

  Mitch allowed this for two seconds then prompted, “You with me?”

  “You think I’m a Ten Point Five,” I blurted on a whisper.

  His brows drew together again and he asked, “What?”

  “Or, at the very least, an Eight,” I blathered on.

  “Uh, baby…what?”

  I stared at him some more.

  I felt his arms around me while we were standing in my bedroom. A bedroom his sister helped me decorate. A bedroom where his kickass sports jackets and shirts were in my closet, his boxers and socks in my drawers and our conversation was about moving in together even though we’d semi-kinda-already moved in together.

  So I let it all hang out.

  “You’re a Ten Point Five,” I informed him.

  “Baby…what?” he asked, slightly confused, slightly impatient, slightly annoyed because, I figured, he knew what I was saying.

  “Mara’s World has zones, Ones to Threes, Fours to Sixes and Sevens to Tens,” I told him quietly, his face registered less confusion more annoyance but I powered on. “You’re a Ten Point Five.”

  “Mara –”

  “Mom convinced me I was a Two Point Five.”

  Mitch fell silent but he did this while his face darkened ominously.

  I studied his face before I felt tears stinging my nose again and I whispered, “I’m not a Two Point Five, am I?”

  “No,” he stated, firmly and immediately.

  My eyes went unfocused as my mouth breathed, “I’m not a Two Point Five.”

  Then I felt his hand glide up my neck into my hair and I refocused to see his face super close.

  “First, honey, people are people and every single one of them is different. You wanna classify them, okay, but in the real world people do what they do, each one making their own decisions which define their lives. Some are good, some are bad, some are a combination of both but every single one is different and they’re subject to change. So, second, the decisions you’ve made in your life define you and if you can’t look inside and see who you’ve created then you need to open your eyes, baby, and look around at the people who care about you and see through them who you’ve created. If I need to make my point by talking about this bullshit classification you’ve come up with then, no, you are absolutely not a Two Point Five. You are nowhere near a Two Point Five and to say it pisses me off even more that your bitch of a Mom and those assholes in that town you grew up in twisted your head to make you think your whole life you are is putting it mildly.”

  He was right. Lynette said it. Mr. Pierson acted it. Roberta did too. LaTanya, Derek, Bradon, Brent…even Billy and Billie loved me, trusted me, liked being with me and weren’t afraid to show it.

  And neither was Mitch. In fact, from the minute he walked into my house to look at my faucet, he gave no indication whatsoever he thought I was a Two Point Five, just that he not only didn’t mind being there but he wanted to come back for pizza.

  Oh God! I was such a dork!

  Therefore, I replied, “I’m a dork.”

  Mitch shook his head while looking at the ceiling, his arms going way tight then he looked at me and stated irritably, “Jesus, Mara, you are not a Two Point Five and you are also not a fuckin’ dork. Somethin’ else, it does not make me happy to hear you talk about yourself that way. And, last, you gotta look out for two kids and they gotta learn to have confidence in themselves, to make the right decisions in order to define their lives the right way and the person who needs to teach them that is you. You can’t do that, baby, if you don’t see who you are and how beautiful that woman is.”

  “You’re annoyed with me,” I pointed out the obvious.

  “Uh…yeah,” he confirmed the obvious. “But I’ve also had more than my fair share of experience with people and with women…”

  Hmm. He could say that again, especially the latter.

  Mitch kept talking.

  “And I’m clued into the fact that no matter how hard I can make you come, no really good orgasm is gonna erase your perceptions of yourself and replace them with how I see you. I know what I got on my hands. I also know that most women who look like you have their heads up their asses in a different, far more annoying way. So the bright side is, what happened to you, even though you’re as beautiful as you are, you’ll never think your shit doesn’t stink. And I gotta say, sweetheart, I get your sweet, I get your attitude, I get your mouth and I get all that without conceit and you thinkin’ you can lead me around by my dick, so this is not a bad thing at all.”

  “Well, it’s good you can look on the bright side,” I muttered, my eyes sliding to his shoulder and then they flew back to his face when he burst out laughing, his arms closing around me so tight the breath went out of me.

  Then he quit laughing, his arms loosened (slightly) and his face got in mine. “Been seein’ a lot of the bright side for a little over a month now,” he whispered and I got a belly whoosh.

  “Mitch –” I whispered back.

  He cut me off saying, “We got kids to feed. So, gettin’ back to the matter at hand, me buyin’ a house, you and the kids in on that, are you with me?”

  I stared into his gentle, soulful eyes, eyes I’d woken up to every morning for over a month, eyes I wanted to wake up to every day for the rest of my life and I knew I was with him. I was with him then, I’d been with him since the first time I told him I was weeks ago and if I could manage it, I would be with him until I took my last breath on that earth.

  “Baby, are you with me?” he prompted.

  “Yeah,” I agreed softly.

  “Good,” he whispered, I smiled then he asked, “Ready?”

  “Yeah,” I repeated.

  “Break,” he murmured, touched his mouth to mine then let me go and walked into the bathroom.

  I turned and finished rearranging my drawers but I didn’t do it crying.

  I did it smiling.

  * * * * *

  Although things had settled down and…well, just plain settled in huge and significant ways, there was one cloud over our literal and figurative sunny days and this was Billy.

  Mitch was right; Billie didn’t care where she was or what she was doing just as long as the people around her that she loved were happy. She didn’t need to blossom, her Teflon-coated delight in the world was invincible.

  But something was up with Billy.

  He stuck to one, the other or both of us like glue. He was often asking Mitch to toss a ball with him (and Mitch did). He asked Mitch or me to help him with his homework every night. He asked me to
teach him how to do the laundry. He did the dishes. He helped make dinner. He kept his room tidy. He dragged out the vacuum and vacuumed the entire house. He inventoried the cupboards and wrote stuff on the grocery list. If you were at the store, he’d dash through the aisles to grab stuff so you wouldn’t have to push the cart down each one. If Billie started to get tired and irritable, he fawned over her. If I was tired, he offered to read her to sleep.

  If he was with me and Mitch wasn’t around, he asked about Mitch all the time. Where was he? What was he doing? When was he coming home? Didn’t I think Mitch’s hamburgers were the best? Wasn’t it cool how Mitch could do multiplication questions in his head without writing anything down?

  After our first date, four times in one day he asked when he and Billie could go back to Penny’s house to spend the night. Then, two weeks later, when Mitch and I had another night on our own with Sue Ellen looking after the kids, when he got home the next afternoon he asked twice when they were again going to Sue Ellen’s.

  Then, three days ago, Mitch and I were having an inconsequential tiff in his SUV, about what, I didn’t even remember. The kids were with us and I felt something rolling through the truck that made me feel weird. I turned to look into the backseat and I saw Billy staring out the side window, his profile hard, his teeth clenched, his hands in fists, his shoulders bunched but his lip was trembling. He looked terrified and near tears.

  It alarmed me and I immediately quit having terse words with Mitch, gave him a look and jerked my head toward the back. Mitch’s eyes went to the rearview mirror then they went to the road and his jaw got so tight, a muscle jumped there.

  Later, in bed, Mitch pulled me on top of him and stated, “You get pissed, I get pissed, we have our words private, not in front of the kids.”

  “You saw it then,” I whispered.

  “Yeah, I saw it.”

  I told him something I guessed he already knew considering he was a cop and very insightful, “He’s not right, Mitch, something is wrong with him.”

  “You live bad, sweetheart, you taste good, you’d do anything to keep it. You know that.”