The Maid

by Sidney Halston

  Roses started piling up Monday morning and continued the rest of the week. Gun texted every day and they spoke daily, and even though there was still some uncertainty within her, she could see how hard he was trying. He'd never treated her like the hired help. That wasn't even the kind of person that he was. Judging him by the sins of his father (and mother) made her just as bad as them. Maybe it was time she took a real leap of faith, since she'd been holding back so much since they'd reconnected. It was, after all, not all Gunther's fault that things had ended between them all those years ago. She was just as guilty as he'd been. Gun was scheduled to fly back Friday, and she was looking forward to it. She was going to have a real talk with him and let him know she was ready to try. Really try.

  As she was leaving work on Friday afternoon an email notification came in advising her that Gun had tried to charge something higher than his limit allowed. She pulled up the information but all she was able to ascertain was that it was done from a bank in Miami, which was concerning because he was supposed to still be in New York.

  She was about to call him and ask, when he sent her a text.

  GUN: Hey baby, something came up and I’m not going to be able to fly back until tomorrow morning. Miss you.

  He was lying. Plain and simple. Just when she had been prepared to tell him how she felt about him, he lied to her. She was so upset, she shut her phone off and put it in her purse refusing to talk to him until she processed everything. Had even left for New York, at all? And the amount he had tried to retrieve was so great it had been declined. What the hell? Was he back to partying? Was he with another woman? She had so many questions she refused to think about it because it hurt too much to think.

  Addie wore an emerald green dress that flowed to the floor and tied around her neck like a halter top. Her hair was up in a messy chignon. She had more make- up on than usual. She had floundered all day between going to the event and ditching it. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. She wasn’t even sure if Gun would be there, especially since she had yet to turn her phone on. At the end, she had decided that if there was one thing she could rely on, it was her job and she needed to go to the event with a smile on her face and do her work. If Gun was there, she’d confront him, if he wasn’t…well, she’d had to wait until she saw him to give him a piece of her mind.

  She grabbed her keys and as she opened her front door to step out, Gun, in a full tuxedo, walked in, forcing her back inside, and closed the door behind him.

  "Gun? I don't want to see you."

  “Your phone?” He looked around. “Is it broken?”

  “No.”

  “So, what, you’re just not answering my calls?”

  “It’s off. Didn’t know you called.”

  He growled deep in his chest. "What. The. Fuck., Addie. We're going to talk."

  "We’re going to be late. Plus, I don’t think we have anything to talk about. "

  "Babe, we have so much shit to talk about, we may never leave your house!"

  "Gun…"

  He pushed her further into her house.

  “Gun, look. I know you were in Miami yesterday. You’ve been lying to me. I knew it was just a matter of— –”

  “I was in Miami.” He admitted without missing a beat. “I had to buy something.”

  “Yeah,” she rolled her eyes. “I saw that. What? You bought the whole damn club?”

  “If I didn’t fucking love you so much, I swear to God, I would put you over my lap and spank you right now.”

  “Yyy-y—ou, what?”

  "Was going to do this at the gala. But this needed to be done in private."

  "What?”

  He dropped down on his knee.

  "Gunther!" Her hand went on her mouth.

  "I screwed up back then and let you go, Adalyn Finney. I won't do that again. You may not want to label it. You may not even understand it. But that's okay, I understand it enough for us both. You love me and I love you."

  "You do?"

  "Yeah I do. Addie, I've loved you for a long time. I'm not letting you go. Not now. Not ever. And you don't want me to let you go. You want to be mine as much as I want to be yours."

  "I do?"

  "Yeah baby, you do. And I’ll say it again, even with all your fucking baggage, I love you.”

  He kissed the top of her hand. "I'd walk away from the Tornados, from NIKE, from everything except you. I want to have kids with you. I want those kids to have your parents as their grandparents. I want a life with you." He reached into his pocket and took out a box and opened it.

  Her hands shook and she covered her mouth. "Oh God, Gun."

  “The money that I tried to get out of my account yesterday was for this. Last week when I was with George it was because he came with me to go shopping for the rings and his girlfriend found out and gave him shit for it. Apparently, she was under the impression the ring shopping was for her. I designed it and it was ready yesterday and then I went to pay…”

  “And it was declined.”

  “Yes. George paid for it. I owe him money.”

  She laughed.

  "So now, that you know everything, Adalyn Finny, will you marry me?"

  Tears formed in her eyes and began to run down her face. "Yes," she nodded up and down. "Yes, I'll marry you."

  He took the ring out and tossed the box away and slid the ring in her finer. "You love me, baby?" He asked.

  "So much. I love you so much. I'm sorry I haven't said it before. I just didn't know how to handle it. And I don't want you to give anything up. I'll talk to Kellerman on Monday and if he doesn't accept it, I'll resign."

  "I already talked to him. That day, the same day I was gone with George, that was the first thing I did. I went and spoke with him. He wasn’t happy at first but then I told him it wasn’t just a fling and that I was going to propose and I'd give you all my accounts, which would make him very rich too. He gave us his blessing.”

  “Oh wow.” She said looking at her ring. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “Believe it baby. And, I don’t want to wait long. So unless you need a big wedding, I want to get married next weekend. We can fly to Vegas.”

  “Can we take my parents and aunt?”

  “Off course.”

  “And yours? What do they say?”

  “Don’t’ know, don’t care. Everything I want is right here in front of me.”

  “It’s so fast?”

  “Not really. I knew the moment I saw you again.”

  "Promise one thing. When we move in together, I need one promise from you."

  "Anything."

  "We can't hire a maid."

  * * *

  THE END

  Excerpt from DILF

  LILY

  Shittiest. Day. Ever.

  I failed my chemistry midterm. Failed! I’ve never failed anything in my life. Penn State offered me a full-ride, and what do I do? Fail my midterm, my first F, and my first meltdown, and, to make matters worse, I don’t even get to wallow in my first F and get blackout drunk for the first time—no, I have to drive home and pack up my room. My parents are now retired and have decided that they’d like to move down to Florida because my mom has severe asthma, so it makes sense that they would want to move, but choosing my first Spring Break to move also sucks.

  Almost everyone else is heading somewhere warm and fun for their break while I’m headed home to pack up my room before (the) closing next week.

  My childhood home, full of memories. These would be the last moments I’d spend there.

  My phone rings, momentarily taking me out of my funk, and I press the button on my steering wheel. “Hey, sweet pea!” my best friend, Charlotte, chirps over the Bluetooth speakers in my car.

  “Hey, Charlie. What’s up?”

  “Nothing much, can’t wait to see you!” I hadn’t seen Charlotte for almost four months, the longest we’ve been apart since meeting in the first grade. She is (was) also my neighbor. Unlike me, she stayed
home after high school, deciding to go to community college, home being a few miles out of Hershey, PA. We live in an idyllic little community, two-story brick homes, white picket fences, and beautiful green lawns. Nothing very eventful happens in our little town, though we do have some very nosy neighbors and annoying local gossips, but that’s what you get when everyone knows everyone in town.

  “I should be home in about thirty minutes. How’re you doing? You okay?” Her parents had recently divorced, and it had been hard for her. Charlotte had a picture-perfect upbringing-- at least that’s the way it looked from the outside. Her mother came from money and never worked, instead choosing to spend all her time and money at the mall or socializing with other women at the country club. Her father, on the other hand, was always working. He was some sort of businessman, coming home late in the evenings and leaving early in the morning. Rarely did I see him in anything other than a suit and tie.

  Ms. Edwards wasn’t the most pleasant of women. She was stuck-up, and I don’t think she ever really liked me or my parents much. Even though they seemed like a good, solid family, I knew from Charlotte that her mother and father didn’t get along all that well. Once in a while, Charlotte would climb out of her window, walk across her lawn to mine, and crawl through the window into my bedroom, where she’d sleep until her father would realize she was missing. Even though Mr. Edwards was a man of few words, he always seemed sad when he’d come get her.

  “I’m good, Lil. Dad’s been keeping busy and Mom’s been doing a lot of traveling. Now that the dust has settled, we can see it really was for the best.”

  “I’m so glad to hear— Ah shit!” I yelp as I feel the thump thump of a flat tire. “No, no, NO!”

  “What is it? What happened?” Charlotte yells from the phone. Charlotte is the best and doesn’t have a mean bone in her body, but to say that Charlotte is dramatic is an understatement. The girl can make any situation seem dire.

  “I think I have a flat tire. Hold on, let me pull over to the side. Call you back.” I disconnect before she can reply and pull over to the side of the road. After checking that it’s safe, I get out of my car and go around. And yes, my back passenger-side tire is completely flat.

  Of course.

  Life hates me today.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” I yell to no one in particular and stomp my foot on the ground like a bratty toddler. My father taught me how to change a tire, but hell if I remember. I’m not a damsel-in-distress or anything. Normally, I’m a firm believer in women’s independence but right now, I wish I had a man —or hell, a competent woman —to change this damn tire. I get back in the car, and as I’m about to call my father for help, my phone rings. Charlotte again.

  “Hey, Charlie, gotta call you back. I need to call my dad to come—”

  “No. My dad and I will meet you. He was here when we were talking and overheard.”

  “Charlie, I don’t want to be a bother.”

  “No bother. It’ll get me away from watching football, which is all Daddy’s been doing all day. Plus, your dad’s been packing the U-Haul all week, he’s probably beat.”

  “If you’re sure.”

  “Yep. Stay put and text me exactly where you’re at.” I hang up and send her a quick text.

  It’s a hot day out. Really hot, and I’m low on gas. I’m scared I’ll run out if I leave my car on with the AC as I wait for Charlie and her father. So I tie my shirt in a knot behind me and attempt to pick up my wild black hair over my head with the hair tie I always seem to have around my wrist. But of course, since the universe is out to get me today, it snaps as I’m twisting it around my hair. Ow! Annoyed, I make a half-ass attempt to tie the broken ends together and then I tie back my hair and sit down on the hood of my car with my Kindle to wait out the thirty minutes it’ll take them to get here. There’s no one out. I think two cars have passed, and it’s the middle of the day. It’s completely safe, therefore I don’t hesitate.

  I hear them before I see them.

  I close my Kindle and sit up. The familiar noise of a loud truck slows down, and I hop off the hood just as Charlotte’s dad passes my car, pulls up in front of me, and backs up until he’s parked in front of my car. Charlotte hops out first and runs to me. “Lilybear!”

  “Charlie!” We hug, jumping up and down as if it had been years, not months, since we’d last seen each other.

  “Lily.” A deep, somber voice reverberates. I let go of Charlie and look around her and—whoa!

  It’s as if I’ve been hit with a two-by-four. When did Charlie’s dad get so fucking hot? My heart speeds up and my hands get clammy.

  Luckily, Charlotte is looking down at her phone and doesn’t notice my shock. Also, I thank God I’m wearing mirrored glasses—they obscure the fact that I’m totally checking out my best friend’s father. He looks so different than the last time I saw him. He used to have a perpetually scruffy face, but now he’s grown out a full beard. It’s more salt than pepper, but he can definitely pull it off. He must have put on twenty pounds of muscle and is sporting a shit-ton of tattoos on his arms. One time, years ago, I remember Charlotte inviting me to her house for a barbecue. Her father had been wearing a t-shirt as he manned the grill, and I’d noticed that he’d had a lot of tattoos then. It had surprised the shit out of me, since he was always wearing suits and seemed so straight-laced. Professional businessmen did not go around with full sleeves. Apparently, Mr. Edwards was the exception. But now there were more, his arms inked to his knuckles.

  He was always intimidating. The one dad you were more polite with than you were with your own parents. Always a serious man, he rarely smiled and hardly spoke. At least that’s what I’d always thought. But then again, he had all the cool tats and a kickass Harley Fat Boy hidden in his garage, something that, according to Charlotte, Ms. Edwards detested. Also, he never ever missed any of Charlie’s tennis matches or a parent-teacher conferences, which was one of the reasons my parents liked him so much. They were not tattoos -and -motorcycle kind of people, like Lily’s father was, but they loved him anyway.

  He always pulled our garbage to the curb when my father forgot, or mowed our lawn if he was mowing his. My dad was the same way—minus the tattoos and biker badassery. So, my parents saw that under all the ink was the quiet, sometimes broody, Mr. Edwards. But that was then. Now, any softness he had is gone, replaced by a wall of muscles. He is a fucking bear of a man. The more I stare the faster my heart beats. He has this wide, confident gait when he walks, the loose-fitting jeans screaming: I am who I am, and I don’t give a shit what other people think. Yet, he looks fucking fantastic, so of course he doesn’t give a shit. God, the man oozes sex and a little bit of danger, and I can’t stop staring.

  I clear my throat. “Mr. Edwards.” I try to smile, but he looks so serious. He always does, but more so today.

  He sidesteps me and walks directly to my car, giving me an unobstructed view of his ass.

  Has his ass always looked so good? The black tee he’s wearing is tight around the arms and shoulders. Jesus, what the hell has the man been doing for the last three months? “Keys,” he grunts and holds out his palm. I toss them in his hand and avert my eyes. The last thing I need is for Charlie or Mr. Edwards to catch on to my sudden attraction. Suddenly, the sun feels like it’s scorching my skin, yet I erupt in goose bumps. I shake my head and turn my attention to Charlie.

  While Mr. Edwards does his thing and changes my tire, Charlie and I sit on the bed of his truck and catch up. She tells me how her mother moved out and how her father seems happier (even though there’s nothing about the man that screams happy). Because her mother’s job was to spend money, not earn it, Mr. Edwards was always working. Now Char says he is dedicating more time to fixing up old bikes, something he’d always loved to do.

  As Lily talks, my eyes wander to Mr. Edwards, even though I’m trying not to look. He lifts his shirt and uses the bottom to swipe sweat off his forehead. And damn, he has abs. I thought that they were reserved for mo
dels under thirty, but, boy, was I wrong. He’s also hairy. Not in a gross sort of way, but in a manly-man way. I’ve only ever been with guys my age and, for the most part, they’re not at all hairy, and if they are, they wax. It’s just the cool thing to do. Work out, wax, and take selfies. I bet you my right boob that Mr. Edwards has never taken a selfie in his life. And the hair across his chest and arrowing down his abs makes my stomach clench.

  “…oh and guess what?” Here’s the thing with Charlie: she gets excited. About everything. It’s part of the drama thing I was talking about.

  “What?”

  “Randy invited me to go with him and his family to the Hamptons for the weekend.” She claps in excitement. “My dad’s having a conniption, but I’m a grown woman. I can go with my boyfriend and he shouldn’t get a say, right?”

  Charlie doesn’t work, she goes to school full-time, her father pays for her car (which she just got, BTW), and she lives at home. I’d say he is entitled to some say, but I don’t voice this. “Yeah, you’re a grown-ass woman. When do you leave?”

  “Next weekend. I’m so excited, Lily! You gotta help me pack. His parents are super conservative and I want to make a good impression.”

  “They’ll love you, Charlie.” And it’s true—she’s the girl all parents would want their son to date. She’s beautiful and wholesome, sweet and proper, and always says the right thing. Basically, my opposite. She takes after her mother in that regard. Her parents were an odd couple, come to think of it.

  “All done,” Mr. Edwards says, tossing my flat tire into the bed of his truck.

  “Shouldn’t you put it in my trunk so I can go get it fixed?”

  “It’s stripped. No fixing this,” he says, seemingly mad. All he’s done is bark short sentences at me. It’s not as if we’ve ever sat down and had a conversation, but he was always cordial. Lily, would you like chocolate milk? Lily, please thank your mother for the apple pie. Lily, did you have a nice time at the zoo?

  “Let’s go, Charlie. Lily, back in the car,” he snaps. “Straight home. That’s a shit spare.”