by H. J. Bellus
“Sooo,” I reply.
“Miles tells us you two have been eating dinner together,” Milly says through her proud momma smile.
“He’s lying. We don’t technically have dinner together. He eats. I eat. We don’t talk much. I hardly consider that dinner.”
“I think he really likes you, Willow. You should have heard him talking about you.”
“Oh my God, Milly. You’re worse than Annie.”
“Well, your brothers really like him and he seems super nice. Give it a chance,” Milly encourages.
“Yeah, they liked Greyson, too, and look where that landed me,” I snip.
There I go. Ruined the moment. Crashed the family dinner with the nasty truth, but the truth is just that nasty—always a reminder of my loss.
“Well, does his carpet match the drapes?” Lacey asks, changing the subject.
“What?” I have no idea why I ask what because I clearly heard what she asked.
“I said, does his carpet match his drapes,” she says, as she points to her crotch and then to her eyebrows.
“Holy shit, Lacey. Seriously, I have no clue.”
“You haven’t seen IT yet, have you?” Lacey asks.
“Of course not. Fuck, no. Not even going there.”
“Well, thank God Tripp still holds the Dick Wars champ title.”
Milly lets out a little giggle, and whispers, “Only by like an eighth of an inch and I still think you’re lying, Lacey.”
“What in the hell are you talking about? Dick wars?”
“Well, you see, one night we were texting each other,” Lacey says, signaling between her and Milly.
“Long story short, we had competition on whose man had the longest boner,” Milly explains.
“It was not a boner competition, for shit sakes, Milly. It was to see who had the longest cock and Tripp won. Oh, yeah, baby! Tripp is the motherfucking champ.”
“Enough. Enough. Enough. Those are my brothers.”
“Well, you see, Lacey is nervous about Miles. She’s sure that he has the ability to take away Tripp’s title because she has a theory on men with long, lean torsos like Miles.”
“What are you ladies whispering about in there?” Tripp asks as he rounds the island.
“Oh you know, baby. Dick wars and the champ.”
Tripp grabs his crotch and smiles with pride, clearly very appreciative of his title after Lacey claimed he had a small package last year.
“Bring that over here, King Kong.”
Clearly with a live porno playing out in front of me, I retreat to the living room.
I’m not sure that the living room will be any safer, but I never want to be caught in the firing rage of dick wars again.
Miles is sitting on the floor cross-legged playing UNO with Annie. Oh yes, she’s definitely breaking him in. Annie is the queen of UNO. I swear that girl could play the game all day. We have bought her other card and board games, but she always goes back to UNO. Mac is squatted down watching their game, as if he’s analyzing each play with careful detail. Poor Mac has learned his lesson about interrupting his sister’s UNO games. Cree is sprawled out on the couch watching some shit on the television.
“Who’s winning?” I ask, scooping up Mac and taking a seat next to Annie.
“Really? You even have to ask, Aunt Wils?” Annie says, rolling her eyes.
“Sheesh, Sheesh,” Mac exclaims, flashing his chubby pointer finger at Annie.
“Hey! Little man, you’re supposed to be on my side. We have to stick together,” Miles says as he roughs up Mac’s dark curls.
Then the asswipe holds out a fortune cookie for Mac. Mac bounces out of my arms and plops right down into Miles’ lap and starts nibbling on his cookie.
“Hey Macster, what’s up with that?” I ask, grabbing at his foot.
Miles looks as if he just won a huge battle with Mac. Pride is covering his face. He handles Mac with such gentle ease that it convinces me has a great deal of experience with young children. He acts as if Mac is a piece of him. This is just one more example of Miles’ easy-going care and lovable aura.
“UNO!” Annie squeals.
“Are you kidding me? You just had five cards,” Miles pleads.
Stretching out, relaxing back on my hands, I watch as this duel plays out, knowing full well that Annie is about to smoke his ass.
“You know the saying, big man, if you can’t run with the big dogs then stay on the porch.”
Miles let out a deep, gruff laugh at Annie’s threat. “You are quite the trash talker, little one,” Miles says with a raised eyebrow.
“Bring it. Betcha ya don’t want to lose the bet, uh?”
Springing to life, I blurt out, “What bet?”
“That’s for us to know, Willow,” Miles replies, deep in thought with a sly smile on his face.
My gut tells me that I want Annie to win, but on the other hand I know how crazy she is. Maybe I want Miles to win.
Annie turns to me in all seriousness and whispers, “Hunter Hayes. You get my drift. I’m helping you out.”
Oh shit! I definitely want Miles to win. Annie has him cornered and ready to take him down and she is clearly proud of the prize. I can only imagine what she put on the line for this bet. Hell, the child probably has my wedding lined out and my first house bought with this little UNO bet.
Miles lays down a WILD card.
“Are you freaking kidding me right now? You have twenty cards in your hand, and not one Draw Four. Look again,” I panic, and jump in his lap, throwing Mac up into mine.
With Miles at the bottom of our impromptu doggie pile, I scour his cards for a Draw Four. He has complete shit in his hand. No Draw Fours and only yellows and reds, the man only has two options to choose from when he changes the color in a couple seconds. My stomach rolls at the thought.
Miles bends down and whispers in my ear, “This little shit came to play. In all honesty, I tried really hard to win, but spending an evening at dance lessons with you and Annie is very tempting. She mentioned something about ice cream after.”
Now my lower tummy is tingling along with other parts.
Milly enters the living room and scoops up Mac from my lap. “Looks like the lovebirds need some space.”
“We’re not lovebirds. Hell, we’re not even friends,” I spit out.
“That’s right, enemies sit in each other’s laps. I forgot,” Milly replies as she sits with Cree on the couch.
I look down and realize I’m sitting right in the middle of Miles’ lap. He has his arms wrapped around me with his cards splayed out in front of us. One hand is holding the cards and the other is dangerously riding low on my inner thigh. This realization makes me flush with need and want. On one hand, this is the most comfortable place that I’ve been in, in a very long time, and on the other hand, it is the scariest place I’ve ever landed.
Miles’ breath silently flirts with sensitive skin on my neck. He leans forward to stare down Annie and his scruff brushes my cheek. I close my eyes and allow myself to dream, hope, and pretend what Miles could make me feel. To be able to feel every piece of this mysterious man. All the what ifs.
“What color, Willow?” Miles whispers in my ear.
I turn my head, letting my lips brush past his scruff, and whisper, “Red.”
“Red,” Miles says.
“Bam, baby, bam!” Annie squeals as she lays down her final card.
“You know Annie always keeps red til the end, Wils,” Cree says with smirk on his face from the couch.
“Really,” Miles murmurs.
Annie continues her victory dance on the coffee table in the middle of the living room, and like always we watch her shake it. It’s only a matter of seconds before Lacey is up there with her.
“You just helped Annie win. What does that mean?” Miles whispers while everyone else is distracted.
Taking advantage of rubbing as much of my skin on his, I slowly turn to him and whisper, “It means I don’t want to bu
y dinner this week and I just found a dumbass to do it.”
Chapter 6
Lip Gloss & Happiness
Monday. Another encounter with Miles. I haven’t seen him since Saturday night at Tripp’s house. It was actually a great night with my family. It was definitely one of those evenings where everything magically fit together and I was happy. Annie begged Miles for a ride in his hot rod and he put on a show of a lifetime making her beg and do silly dances before he eventually caved in to her. Not only did he give her a ride in his car, he let her drive down Tripp’s lane. Her smile was simply priceless. The conversations were easy and comfortable between my brothers and Miles, just like they were old buddies from high school when actually they were the furthest thing from it.
The look on Lacey’s face when she realized how big of an appetite Miles had was hilarious, because of course it played out at the dinner table. Lacey’s crazy theory to dick wars is that a man with a long, lean torso and a huge appetite is always sure to be packing in the groin area. Well, on Miles’ third burger she finally threw a verbal fit and a bag of biscuits at him. The poor guy had no clue what was going on, and the rest of us just laughed, with the exception of Tripp, who looked nervous as hell. I silently thanked God that nobody went into great details about Lacey’s tantrum.
Miles vanished after Saturday. He’s gone yet again on one of his unexpected trips out of town. I’m still convinced he’s off banging Skankzilla in some trashy motel in a nearby town. Miles is a gentleman, so taking her away is just an example. I desperately try to turn off my imagination, because picturing him banging anyone else bedsides me in my dreams is just devastating.
Ding!
Wouldn’t you know it—Miles. In all of his simple glory, he struts over to the counter, but is interrupted by his phone halfway. He glances down at it, and gestures to me with a finger to wait. Watching him answer his phone breaks my heart because I know it’s her. The her he keeps sneaking off with. Miles looks distressed while talking to his lover. He keeps running his hands through his hair and finally slumps down into a chair.
We have to pick Annie up from school in five minutes, so I grab my huge hobo purse and keys and make my way to Miles. Standing in front of him, I can finally see how stressed out he actually looks. All of his carefree simple personality has vanished, and he looks as if the weight of the world rests on his shoulders. He has black lines under his eyes and even yawns a couple times during his conversation.
“Three minutes,” I mouth, and hold up my fingers to enforce it
I dash over to the coffee stand and make him a mocha with a triple shot. This humdinger should do the trick for anyone. As I’m making my way back over to him, he’s completely slumped down resting his elbows on his knees.
“I’ll send the money. Yeah. Same story, different day. Yep, I love you. Bye.”
Miles closes his phone and looks up to see me standing there.
“Here.”
I shove the drink at the fucker. I’m such a fucking fool. Who knew that just allowing a man in your daydreams could be so dangerous? This daydream station is currently closed because Miles may seem sweet, but he has the same potential power to rip my fucking pathetic heart to pieces just like Greyson did.
“Thanks. I’ve slept like two hours in the last couple days.”
“Yeah. I fucking bet. Let’s get this over with.”
I spin around and head to my car. I’m sure Miles assumes that we’ll be taking his panty melting machine. Wrong, motherfucker! We’ll safely seat our asses in my lime green Volkswagon convertible bug.
“I can drive, Willow.”
I throw my purse into the backseat, rip open my door, and slam my fist on the top of my car.
“Yeah, we all know you can fucking drive. However, I prefer to take my niece to her dance lesson in a car free from semen and nasty hoe juice.”
“Fine,” Miles says, and holds his hands up in surrender.
We drive in silence to pick up Annie, and while waiting in front of the school, his phone goes off again. I try to control the huff of disappoint that escapes me. Miles instantly silences his phone.
“Answer the fucker. I’m sure your whore is missing you.”
Miles grabs my arm and makes me face him. “It was my mom in The Shop and this call is my boss.”
“Whatfuckingever. I’ve been used before and clearly know your game now. Don’t worry. You’ll never have to say you love me or give me money because I don’t want to ever see you after this. You can start using the back door at The Shop and stay the fuck away from me and my family.”
I don’t give him a chance to respond before I’m out of the car. Walking over to the spot where I always meet Annie, I start crying. Then I get really pissed off at myself for crying, and cry even harder. Crying means I care, and I had promised myself to never cry again. I don’t even care at this point if it was his mom on the phone. That doesn’t explain away all of his secret trips that happen more often than not. I’m done. I have to be done before it’s more than tears falling from me.
“Willow!” I hear Annie screech. I look up to see my girl running towards me in her swimsuit and tutu with her signature neon flip flops on. She’s enrolled at a six week art school this summer, and loves every minute of it.
“Squirty McSquirster.”
I kneel down and grab her, hugging her tighter than usual. This girl is the one thing that keeps me hanging on. She’s that one thing that keeps me from drinking more, taking pills and completely checking out. Yeah, there’s Rose and Mac, but Annie knows if I’m here or not. She’s that one thing that has saved me so far. I find myself praying that she’s enough.
“Miles.”
Annie peels away and runs towards my car and jumps into Miles’ arms. I grab her bag and walk back to the car. I stop steps away from them and listen to their conversation.
“You came.”
“A bet is a bet, kid. I hear you’re one hell of a dancer.”
“Well, I am kind of a big deal around here,” she replies, gesturing to the parking lot.
“Is that so?”
Miles ruffles her hair and then helps her climb in the back. He fastens her into her booster seat and tells her a corny joke that makes her laugh.
To say watching Annie dance was tense is an understatement. The tension was thick, and I clearly made it stay that way. Miles tried to make small talk a couple of times and I completely ignored him. He was going to stay out of my heart, daydreams, and thoughts for good, and it’s starting now rather than later.
He finally took a call from his phone, which had been going off non-stop. When I asked him to silence the annoying piece of shit, he informed me that he dropped it at work and now he can’t silence it. Perfect. I then asked him very politely to go flush it down the toilet.
“Willow, are you going to be a bitch all night?”
“Yep.”
“I was talking to my fucking mom. She needs money for medicine.”
“Mmm.”
“Jesus Christ. You’re the most irritating fucking person I have ever met. You’re either a seriously spoiled little bitch or you have some serious baggage. Whichever it is, I get your fucking message loud and clear.”
“Go find another little bitch to fuck over.”
“Trust me, Willow, after a night with you I’ll need to find someone to erase the memory of your fucking attitude.”
Done. Broke that off. Just like a band-aid—rip it off fast, less painful. That’s the story, anyway. Fake it til you make it is the only thing I keep repeating over and over in my head.
“Miles,” Annie hollers as she runs up to us after dance.
“Annie,” he shouts right back.
And just like that we go back to putting up with each other for Annie’s sake. Just the one night of ice cream, games, and a movie and then all can go back.
“So, let’s go eat, peeps.”
“Where do you want to go?” I ask.
“Granny’s Diner.”
“Every Monday. Are you serious? Let’s go somewhere else, please?”
“C’mon, Willow. Dad never takes me there. Please?”
“Fine. Get in the car before I change my mind."
If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all. I say that because once again we land a waitress that can’t keep her eyes, hands, boobs or comments to herself. Every chance she gets she’s rubbing on Miles or leaning down to rest her very fake and perky size D titties on Miles’ shoulders because that’s what every good waitress does, right?
At one point while refilling our drinks, Annie asked her if she was having back problems, and I think the tramp finally got the message to keep stepping. Annie ordered her usual chili dog minus the dog. Miles ordered three meals. Yes, three freaking meals and ate every ounce of it. I basically watched the whole time, sipping on my ice tea, fighting my fucking wonky emotions for the man.
“So, Willow, I was thinking,” Annie says, as she climbs up into my lap in the very cramped booth.
When she wraps her arms around my neck, I know things are about to get very serious. “What evil plan have you hatched now, child?”
“Well, I was thinking since all three of us are like practically BFF’s and all, and since we don’t get to spend so much time together, and since you are my most favorite person in the world… I was thinking that we could go swimming!”
“Um, no. Not tonight. We have Miles with us. No.”
“Please. Pretty please?”
“No. I’m going to pay the check, then we’re going home and dropping him off.”
“So, that’s a maybe?”
“No,” I holler over my shoulder as I go to pay the ticket.
When I reach the counter to pay, none other than our shitty ass waitress is there to ring me up. I grab a mint and unwrap it as I analyze just how perfect she is. Flashy is an understatement for this one. Bright pink nails, the perfect fake bake tan, gorgeous silicone boobies, caked on makeup, and the perfect bump going on in her hair, the complete opposite of plain ol’ me. I’m wearing flip flops and she’s wearing bedazzled platforms to waitress in. She’s wearing the tiniest pair of Daisy Dukes to show off all her curves and I’m wearing a sundress. It’s nothing short of a miracle that Miles could finish his dinner while looking at me compared to this beauty.
