“Gabby?” Jude rasps.
“Hey, yeah, it’s me! Sorry,” I apologize for something.
“Are you okay? You still at the restaurant?” he asks.
I sigh big into the phone listening to his voice, “I’m great, still at Bonefish, just got our last round and, oh, thanks Cody, we’re just getting our bill. Whatcha’ doin’ Jude?” I say as I hand over my Visa to Cody.
“Who’s Cody?” Jude asks tersely.
“He’s our waiter. He’s gotta muscle car and I’m pretty sure he’s hoping to nail some hot chicks with it,” I pause and put my hand up to cup my mouth around my TRD and talk lower, “but I don’t know how well that’s gonna work out for him, if you ya know what I mean!”
“Sugar, how much have you had to drink?”
“I dunno. I’m gonna have to check my bill, but Cody just took it away with my Visa.”
“Gabby, who’s driving?”
“Huh?” he sure is asking a lot of questions and it’s hard to concentrate when his voice is coming through the TRD so close to my ear. It’s like he’s only talking to me.
“Driving, babe, how are you getting home?” he asks again.
“Oh, we’re calling a cab. We’re gonna Google one on the TRD!” I say, really proud of myself!
“Ask him what his tattoo is!” Lilly exclaims, too loudly.
“Shhh, Lilly!” I say into the phone at the same time waving my free arm around to shush her up. “Sorry about that, Lilly doesn’t know what she’s saying!”
“I’m coming to get you, take you all home. Do not call a cab,” he says, back to bossy again.
“No, no! We’re gonna split a cab. Plus you don’t even know where we are!” I say, all uppity-like!
“Sugar, you just told me you’re at Bonefish. If you call a cab, I’m not gonna be happy. I’m leaving your house in five, be ready to go in fifteen minutes,” he bosses me again.
“But, we still have one and one third drinks left! We can’t drink that all in fifteen minutes! We’ll be drunk if we drink that fast!” I say, defending my position as best I can.
“Fifteen minutes, Gabby.”
I can tell he’s getting ready to hang up, so I yell into my TRD quickly, “Wait! Jude?”
“What do you need, sugar?”
“Well, since you’re at my house, will you let Mia come with you? She really likes to go for car rides and it would make her really happy! Please?” I ask, using my best manners.
I barely hear him laugh into the phone in low sexy rasp and all he says to me is, “Sugar. No. I’ll see you in fifteen.” And he hangs up.
I end the call on my TRD, set it on the table. I sigh again and say, “I love his voice. Really, he has the best voice. But he’s not letting Mia come with him.”
“I’ve never heard him say much more than ‘hi’ because after you saw us at church, you drug him into the sanctuary away from us,” Reagan complains.
“At least you’ve seen him, I’ve never even seen him,” Lilly says, clearly feeling sorry for herself.
“Well, tonight’s your lucky night, chickadees! He’s picking us up! He said he’d be here in fifteen minutes, and you heard me, I tried to buy us more time because we are really going to be drunk if we drink these drinks that fast. But I told you he’s bossy, so all he had to say was, ‘Sugar. No. I’ll see you in fifteen!’” I do my best raspy Jude impression.
Lilly and Reagan start laughing their asses off. Lilly says, “He does not sound like that!”
“But he does,” I argue! “It’s low and raspy, I mean, I don’t know how else to describe it!”
“Raspy? Like a smoker raspy?” Reagan asks frowning and super confused now. “Please tell me he doesn’t smoke! He’ll never be able to be around Ben!”
“No he doesn’t smoke! Well, at least I’ve never seen him smoke and he doesn’t taste like smoke,” I say, defending my Jude, whatever he is to me. “It’s just low and sexy. I don’t know how else to describe it,” I say, thinking as hard as I can at the moment for a comparison. “I know!” I say, throwing my hands up because I thought of something good! “Okay, stick with me here,” I look to Lilly and Reagan for verification they are paying attention. “Alright, if he sang everything he said, he would sound a lot like Nickelback!” I slam my hands on the table, proud of my awesome comparison!
“He’s a singer?” Lilly asks, obviously not sticking with me. She looks at Reagan, who looks equally confused.
“No, ding dong! But he sounds like that. That deep voice, ya know?” I take a big slurp of my drink.
“You mean, like Nickelback ‘Rockstar’ or Nickelback ‘Photograph’?” Reagan asks, needing clarification.
“Well,” I think taking yet another big slurp, “I guess all Nickelback, but I’m think more Nickelback ‘Lullaby’ or Nickelback ‘Savin me.’”
“No way,” Reagan says. “No one can talk as good as Nickelback sings.”
“Whatever, you’ll see!” I say all high and mighty.
“Drink up, buttercup,” Lilly announces. “It’s T minus ten until we get to experience the Nickelback talking, mystery tattoo wearing and uber sexy man that gonna get in Gabby’s pants!”
“Lilly!” I yell. Then we all burst into a mass of hysteria!
*****
I pull into the empty parking lot. It’s late, especially for restaurants in this city on a Tuesday, they’ve got to be closed by now. I don’t bother with a parking spot, I just pull up by the curb, park and head to the front door. It’s locked so I rap on the glass door with my fist. Some kid comes up and says through the door, “We’re closed.” I look beyond him into the empty restaurant and see three women, the back of Gabby’s dark blonde hair was to me.
I point beyond him and say through the door, “I’m here for them.”
He turns around and looks at Gabby and her friends, then back to me and says, “They’re calling a cab,” folding his arms over his chest.
I’ve lost my patience. I never do this, but it’s late, Gabby’s drunk and I need to get her home, not stand on a sidewalk arguing with some punk through the fucking door. I pull out my badge and credentials, slam them up against the glass demanding, “Open the door. Now.” The kid looks at my badge then back to me. Shaking his head, he finally decides to throw the lock and opens the door. I don’t say another word as I clear the door with my eyes on Gabby and make my way through the now empty restaurant to her table.
As I near her table, I can hear Gabby and her friends laughing. More like cackling. I recognize one of her friends from church but haven’t met the other. Gabby has one hand in her hair at the back of her head and being animated with the other. I give my head a shake as I come up behind her and her two friends sitting across from her stop laughing as soon as they see me and look up at me with big eyes.
This should be fun. Since Gabby is alone on her side of the booth, I decide to sit down. I haven’t seen her since this morning when I kissed her goodbye and left to get ready for work. She’s definitely getting under my skin. I can’t stop thinking about last night in her basement. Damn if she didn’t feel fucking great and I’ve hardly been able to concentrate on anything today thinking about her.
I slide in next to Gabby. She’s saying something about a hand in her hair, when she senses me and looks over. Her eyes get big for a second and she give me her shocked as shit look she’s perfected but then surprises me when she bursts into laughter. She’s also beautiful when she laughs and I realize this isn’t something she’s done around me very much, but it’s been an intense few days. I watch her as she starts to calm down, throwing her hands up and slaps my shoulder and chest, looks up at me with tears of laughter in her eyes and says, “Ohmygoodness, that was funny!”
I look down at her and she’s wearing another tank top, but this one is pink and has ruffles all down the front. I think she is wearing another little skirt, but black. She has lots of layers of silver beaded necklaces on, one hanging past her tits, matching long earrings with about half a
million thin silver, black and beaded bracelets on one arm that jingled when she hit my chest. She’s wearing a little more makeup than I’ve seen on her and her hair is in in a mass of loose curls long down her back.
I’ve had enough. I haven’t seen her since this morning, so I put my arm around her back and my hand down to the side of her sweet ass and give her a yank into my side and she’s back to surprised again.
“Hi sugar,” I say, and lean in to kiss her. Instinctively she kisses me back. “You look like you’re having fun.”
“Um, yeah, fun,” she says on a sigh and then turns back to her friends, settling into my shoulder.
I look across the table and say, “Hi. I’m Jude.”
Gabby comes alert again and talking quicker than normal, rambles, “Oh sorry! Jude, this is Lilly Sutton. We went to high school together. And you met Reagan Ford at church, well sort of. Lilly, Reagan, this is Jude Ortiz,” annunciating my last name for some reason.
Lilly looks straight at Gabby, and for the second time, I hear, “He’s way hotter than James!”
Gabby, who is obviously appalled, yells, “Lilly!”
“He is Gabby,” Reagan agrees. And now I really want to know more about this James.
Lilly and Reagan give me drunken looking grins and start giggling again like five year old girls. Okay, it’s time to move this along, “Are you all ready?” All three of them nod while giggling. “All right, let’s get you home,” I look over at Gabby’s friends and go on, “if you can remember where you live, that is.”
Gabby raises her hand immediately, and says, “I know where they live! I can lead the way!”
Grinning and shaking my head, I respond, “Good babe. Let’s go.” I stand and grab Gabby’s hand and pull her out after me. She stumbles a bit. I look down and she’s wearing very high sandals that are black that tie with ribbon above her ankle that have to boost her up just shy of six foot. Trying to keep my eyes off Gabby’s legs and ass, I hold out my hand for her friends to go ahead of me. I hold Gabby’s hand to keep her close to me when I hear her friends start yelling out their goodbyes.
Lilly yells across the restaurant, “Bye Cody! Good luck with the car!”
“And nailing some hot chicks!” Reagan yells just as loud.
“See ya ladies, thanks!” the punk kid says from behind the bar. I narrow my eyes to glare at him thinking he must have enjoyed these three drunk women this evening and that pisses me off. I put my arm around Gabby and pull her to my side as we walk out to the car and Gabby starts rambling.
“I’m so sick of summer! I hate the humidity, it makes my hair frizzy. In another few weeks, I’m gonna get to buy pumpkins! And mums! And Halloween candy!” she describes this with great joy like she knows for a fact she is going to win the lottery.
“Gabby loves fall. Like, a lot,” Reagan whispers loudly as if she’s letting me in on a state secret. I get all three women loaded up, buckled in and Gabby directs me to the first destination.
“Jude, can I mess with the radio?” Gabby asks.
“Sure, babe,” she starts flipping through the stations so fast there is no way she can tell what she’s listening to.
“Jude Ortiz,” Lilly starts, “I have a question for you!”
“Shoot.”
“Do you sing?” she asks and I immediately hear a horrified gasp from Gabby and Reagan laughs out loud.
“No,” I answer.
“Not at all?” she goes for clarification.
“No,” I repeat.
“Hmm,” she says. “Just curious, you sound like someone I know, is all.”
This time, Gabby fully turns around from the front seat to stare at her friend with her mouth open.
“What?” Lilly mutters, “Just checking.” Gabby gives her a glare and turns back to the radio.
“Maroon 5!” Gabby yells! “I love Maroon 5!” All three drunkards start singing One More Night, emphasizing the oo, oo’s.
It takes way longer than I would have liked, but we got both Lilly and Reagan home, all three women professing their BFF love for each other.
Now it’s just Gabby and I on our way back to her house. I can tell she’s starting to come down from the crazy drunkenness and is getting tired. She’s leaning her head on her window looking out at the night, so I try and get her talking.
“I’m glad you had fun, Gabby. They seem to good friends,” I start.
“Yeah, they’re the best. I wish Leigh could have come, but her husband is a controlling ass-hole. He never lets her go out with us anymore,” she turns to me and keeps talking. “Can you believe that? I mean, this isn’t nineteen fifty for heaven’s sake! The only time we can get her out is if he’s out of town on business. I do not know why she married that man.”
“So, who’s James?” I ask, changing the subject.
“James?”
“Yeah, James,” I look over at her and she’s got an uncomfortable look on her face.
“Well,” she looks back out her window. “He’s just a guy I dated.”
“Recently?”
“No-no, not recently, years ago.”
“Why do people keep talking about him?” I find myself needing to know more.
“I don’t know,” she says, now looking back at me waving her hand around a bit. “Probably because he’s the last guy I dated and I thought he was the last guy I was ever gonna date.”
Okay, now I really need to know everything there is to know about James. “You haven’t dated anyone since him? How many years Gabby?”
“Mmm…probably like three and a half-ish years. I mean, I’ve been on a couple of dates here and there, but dat-ing anyone? Nope!”
She said she lost her parents about three and a half years ago. “How long did you date this James?”
“One year,” she lets out a big sigh, “and three months. Too long.”
“Too long?”
“Yeah, I probably dodged Leigh’s fate.”
“What do you mean?”
She turns to me and lays it out, “You see James wanted to do what James wanted to do. He wanted me at his side all the time and under his conditions. I’m an easy going person, so I went with it. But he was plain selfish, so in the end when my parents died, I wasn’t so easy going anymore. I apparently didn’t fit into his life as well as I did previously and he broke up with me. Really it’s not that big of a deal, worse things happen to other people. But I do think I avoided the life my friend Leigh is now living because I have a feeling his selfishness could have turned controlling, but who knows.”
What a fucking asshole! I reach over, take her hand and put it on the console to hold. I pull into her driveway and press the button of the garage door opener she gave me this morning. I throw my truck in park, turn to her, pull her close and say, “Gabby, I’m sorry you had that asshole in your life when you lost your parents. He should have fucking turned himself inside out for you, but selfishly I’m glad he broke up with you. Because he was a selfish jackass, I get to be the one to bring you home drunk from a night with your girls and I get to watch you laugh at nothing at all and I get to be the one to make sure your sweet drunk ass gets to bed safe and hopefully you’ll be coherent enough to kiss me first. So I’m sorry you had to deal with him, but I’m feeling fucking grateful right now that he was an asshole.” She stares at me and I hope she remembers this tomorrow.
All of a sudden, she exclaims, “I don’t even know how old you are!”
“What?”
“I don’t know anything about you! How old are you? Where are you from? I feel like you know everything about me, but these last few days have been crazy and I know you but I don’t know you!”
“I’m thirty three. We’ll start with that and if you don’t fall asleep I’ll even tell you where I’m from,” I say, grinning at her.
“You’re thirty three? I thought you were twenty nine or thirty,” she says.
“Am I too old for you, Gabby?” I tease, grinning and slide my hand in her thick hair so I can
pull her closer to me.
“I’m almost twenty eight. So, no, you’re not too old me, Jude,” she answers and I pull her in for a kiss.
“Let’s get you inside, Gabby,” I say against her mouth.
“Okay,” she breathes back. I let her go, get out to go around and make sure she doesn’t fall on her face in her shoes. I get her into the house, she greets Mia quickly and heads straight to her pink childhood room.
“Gabby?” I call. She turns around while yanking her shoes off and tossing them, letting them land where they may. “Where’s your Motrin? I’ll get you some, you’re gonna need it.”
“It’s in my closet off the bathroom, thanks Jude,” now she’s looking really tired.
I head into her master and the bathroom looks top of the line. Two sinks on either side of the room with long counters on each, a freestanding huge bath tub, a walk in shower with a long bench across one side and still enough room to do cartwheels. I find the door to her closet. Shit, she has a lot of clothes and shoes, I’m pretty sure two people are supposed to share this closet. Eyeing the medicine shelf, I find the Motrin and head back to the kitchen for a glass of water. I walk into Gabby’s childhood room and stop dead in my tracks.
I should have knocked. Standing with her back to me, she has ditched her skirt and is standing there in black lace panties and pulling her black bra out from under her armpits through her tank. Not able to move, I watch her take two steps forward and put a knee in the bed and collapse face first.
I try not to get hard just from standing here looking at her lying in front of me in her black panties. Doing my best, I move forward and say, “Sugar? You need to take these. Can you sit up?”
“Hmm?” she answers.
I move closer, put a knee to the bed and lean over her. “Gabby, sit up, babe, take these and drink some water.”
She pushes up to an elbow and rolls over, looks up at me and holds out her hand. I give her the pills, she takes them with a full gulp of water and lays down on her side with her back to me. Putting the water on the nightstand, I lean down, kiss her head and she mumbles, “Jude?”
I lean over, putting a fist in the bed so I can see her face and whisper, “Right here, sugar.”
Overflow: The Carpino Series Page 9
