“Thank you. They think…. Well, no, that’s not right. They’re under the assumption that I’m working up a large bill and making it so that they’ll have to foot it. Same with my mother’s hospital bill.” They ended up sitting in the chapel together after all the flowers were taken in and set up. “They also think that I’m dirt poor, and will suck them dry now that my mom is no longer around supporting me. I’ve never needed their help, nor have I asked for it, so I’m not sure where they’re getting that from.”
“I’ve heard around town that your family has tried their best to give you a bad name since you were born.” She realized what she said and told him she was sorry. “Sometimes, my mouth gets ahead of my manners. I’m truly sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’ve been keeping my mouth shut since I was little. Mom told me that she didn’t want them to have any reason to treat us badly. I think they were set on that since the day she was kidnapped and raped. They positively hated that she was an unmarried Wilkerson with a bastard son.” She told him how her uncle had told her about it. “I figured the entire town knew. At least some version of what happened. The truth, according to them, is far different than what really happened when she was taken and ended up with me.”
“I’m sure it is. Uncle Lance, he doesn’t miss a moment around here. I suppose people talk around him and don’t think he can hear any better than the bodies that he cares for.” They both laughed. “He said that no one helped to find her. That your mom was left to her own fate.”
“That’s true. My grandfather visited her in the hospital the night after she was found. Mom told me that she wanted to come home, begged him to let her. The police were bothering her about how she’d gotten caught and where she’d been found. He told her that she was no longer his child. That since she’d allowed herself to be kidnapped and raped by those men, she was spoilt now.” Shaking her head, she asked him what he’d said about him. “Nothing that I know of. I mean, he probably said plenty to the others. But since he’d wiped my mom out of his life, there was no reason to have anything to do with me either.”
“That’s about the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.” They both looked up when Uncle Lance brought in more flowers. Offering to help him, he said that was it, but if they could keep an eye on the place, he was going to have lunch. “Yes, all right. I should be getting my laundry finished up anyway.”
Both she and Mars stood up. “I’ve enjoyed this. I mean, it’s painful to go over old memories, but it was nice to talk to you. I’d like to do it again.” She asked him if he was asking her out on a date. “I guess I am. For some reason, it doesn’t feel like I’m asking you out so much as I’m hoping to get to know you better.”
“I’d like that. However, you should know that I’m not the quiet type. If I feel like someone is being treated poorly or abused, I have no trouble whatsoever in standing up to a bully.” He smiled at her. “Do you think I’m kidding?”
“No. Far from it. I think I might like it if some of your boldness rubbed off on me. I’ve been…well, trying to be more assertive about what I want with my aunts. But after I have a conflict with them, I feel ill about it. Not that they don’t deserve it, but I feel like I’m failing my mom in some way.” He looked at the area that had been opened up where her casket would be on display tomorrow. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without her. She was my rock and my heart. It’s so painful for me to think that she’ll never be there again.”
Not thinking about what she was doing, just going on instinct, Abby wrapped her arms around Mars. When he wrapped himself around her, too, she could feel his body shaking with sorrow. It tugged at something so deep inside of her that she joined him in his tears, sobbing out her hurt that this big man had been reduced to tears because he was going to miss his mom.
“I’m so sorry.” Shaking her head at him when he lifted his head from her shoulder, Abby told him that it was all right. “I’m not prone to falling over myself around a pretty girl and soaking her with my tears without a first date.”
“I like you, Mars.” He nodded, then took a step back from her. “Did I say something wrong? If I did, I don’t care. I wanted you to know—”
“It’s not that at all. I was thinking that if I held onto you much longer, I’d want to wrap you up and take you home with me. For some reason, I don’t think you’re the wrapping up and taking home sort of girl, are you?” She said she didn’t understand what he meant. “I don’t want to go home to my lonely home tonight knowing what tomorrow brings. I’d like to spend the night with you, talking. Talking, not anything else. I was just— Maybe I should just shut up now and get out while I can.”
“I’ll come over tonight. About six?” He nodded. “I’ll pick up something to eat since I doubt very much either of us would want to cook anything. Then we’ll hang out until one of us is too exhausted to go on. If that’s all right with you?”
“It is. But don’t be surprised if the rest of my cousins are there. They’ve been showing up at odd hours of the day and night. I think they’re babysitting me as well as avoiding going home. I think that they only just realized that they’re grown men and don’t have to do what their parents say anymore.” Abby told him it was about time. “Yeah, well, when you’re being oppressed as badly as they have been, then you forget that you have a mind, let alone a thinking one.”
“You know what? I’m going to bring the fixings for dinner for all seven of us. You tell them if they want to eat then they’ll be there on time. Also, I can make a good clobber, and I’ll even spring for ice cream. If they don’t piss me off too much. They’re men, not children, and they need to start putting down their foot with their parents, or they’ll be there for the rest of their days. Tell them to grow a pair. Or I’ll tell them. They need to be aware of what they’re doing to their own health. “ Mars laughed, then reached for her hand as they exited the chapel. “Mars, I could seriously like you a great deal if you keep laughing at my bad manners.”
“I’d very much like to kiss that mouth of yours.”
Abby didn’t know if he was more surprised than she was. But when he pulled her to him, she let him take the lead on what she hoped turned out to be a wonderful, soft kiss.
It was anything but soft. Wonderful? Oh yes. But if his intentions were to just kiss her, that went right out the door as soon as their mouths touched. The stirring of their mouths brought on such heat, so much need, that she leaned into him when he pulled her body tightly to his.
His tongue dueled with hers, so much so that when he lifted her up a little more so that they were groin to groin, Abby moaned long and loud. It was like they were fighting for supremacy, exploring every dark rich part of each other. When he finally ripped his mouth from hers, Abby stared up at him as they both panted hard.
“That was—that was fantastic.” Nodding, unsure if she could have spoken at that moment, she took another step back so that she could lean on the wall behind her. Mars leaned heavily on the one behind him as well. “We might need them all to come over tonight, just to keep us level headed. I mean, I know that I’ve gone back to a first date thing twice now, but I’d like nothing more than to take you home and show you how much passion I felt in your kiss.”
“We need to slow down.” He nodded while reaching for her hand. Giving it to him didn’t seem like she was giving in to something powerful. More like she needed the security of him right there while her head and heart tried to come to terms with how amazing that kiss was. “We’ll slow down. Check out where this will lead, if anywhere. All right?”
“Yes. I’m not going to tell you that I’d like that too, but I believe you’re right. We don’t know each other that well, so we need to.... Christ, I still want you.” Nodding, she moved from the wall to the hallway where they were. “I have to go. I have nothing to do, but I should get out of here before I try to change your mind.”
Abby was tossing her dirty clothes into the w
asher ten minutes later and had to shake herself several times to keep focused on what she was doing. It was just a kiss, she told herself over and over. Just a simple kiss between two people that were very emotionally charged.
“Yeah. Sure it was simple. As simple as the last set of photographs I took two weeks ago.” She remembered other pictures that she’d taken and decided to find them after making a list of what she needed to make dinner. Mars had better not change his mind about her cooking for them all. She needed this as much as she did him. No, not him, her breath. She needed her breath.
“You are so fucked, Gabriella Farley. And you know it.”
~*~
Mars didn’t think he could be more nervous. Abby was coming to his home tonight. Not really thinking too hard on what he was doing, he changed the sheets on his bed and put two more pillows on it. Then as he was leaving the room, his arms full of dirty sheets, Mars leaned his head against the door jam and asked himself several times what he was doing.
“It was just a kiss.” He knew that it was more than that. Mars had a feeling that Abby had thought so too. Or so he hoped. “Just a kiss. She’s going to come over because she’s a very nice lady, and cook us all dinner. That’s all it is.”
“All what is?” He smiled at North and told him, not mentioning the kiss, that Abby Farley was coming to fix them dinner. “Really? That’s great. No offense, but I was sort of getting sick of subs and pizzas. I don’t even care if she makes us one of each for dinner. It didn’t come out of a box, and someone isn’t waiting on a tip for bringing it to us. Just you and me, or are the rest coming too?”
“Everyone, she said. She knows all of us, I guess.” North said that he and she had become good friends while she lived in the neighborhood. “I didn’t know her, I don’t think. Mom and her were friends. She told me that Mom got her out of a couple of jams before. I don’t know what that means, do you?”
“No. I know that for a while, she lived with someone on the north side of town. I think they might have been her parents. Then in about third grade, she was living with Lance. I remember that because it was the year I was sent to boarding school. She’s about a year older than I am, I think.” Mars said he’d not thought to ask her how old she was. “It’s not something men are allowed to do anymore, I don’t think. Men are just supposed to assume that they’re old enough to drink or make decisions on their own. Or so I’ve been told. When did you meet up with her?”
Mars told him about the day and how the flowers came into the funeral home while he’d been there. “We sat in the chapel and talked for a few hours. It was nice. She didn’t try and adjust her balls or make any fart noises either. It was civilized.”
“If you wanted civilized here, you should have invited my parents. They’re so civil that they suck the life right how of others around them. By the way, don’t mention parents to Shawn if you can help it. His mom slapped him earlier after yelling at him for buying items from the locals. They were standing outside the clothing store across from the funeral home. Quite a crowd had gathered. That wasn’t what he was doing, but she made an ass of herself. Shawn and Booker were helping take bags out for Mrs. Frank. You know her, don’t you?” He said that he did. “I guess Shawn told his mom that if she hit him, he’d never go home again, nor would he speak to her. You know Shawn as well as I do, that when he says he’s going to do something; you can bet the bank on him doing it. It might be fun to watch her get pissed off more at him when he won’t answer her.”
“They’re digging a hole that they’re not going to be able to get out of if they keep this up. Now that your parents know you’re home, are you going to stay here? I have to admit, I don’t want you to leave me. I need you guys here. You’ve made this much easier.” North told him that he wasn’t going anywhere near his home. “Abby said something to me today. She said that it was about time you guys grew some. Just like that, when I told her that you would be here for dinner. She told me that she thought that all of you have been oppressed for a while and that she’s worried for your health. Do you think you’ve let your parents run your life too much, North?”
“Yes. There is no doubt at all that all of us have. Not you, just the rest of us. Mostly it’s our mothers. I was going to bring that up after the funeral, but I can talk to you about it now. Mars, they’re killing us with stress.” North sat down on the couch while Mars was fussing around with the washer. Why his mom hadn’t gotten her a new one after all these years was beyond him. “Two months ago, I thought I was having a heart attack.”
Mars turned to his cousin, shocked at his news. “What happened? I mean, I know that you only became an attorney because your parents forced you to. Is that it? You’re having trouble at work?”
“No. No trouble at all now that I’ve…well, grown some, as Abby told me to, and gotten myself a lesser paying job with a great deal less stress. I was never going to be happy as a partner, and the way my mom was pressing me to get an offer was making me sick. Like literally ill.” Mars sat down across from him and told him to tell him. “I know that I was screwing up. I felt that was the only way that I could get on with my life. While I was lying in the hospital with all this shit attached to me, it occurred to me that I was nothing more than a pawn in my parents’ life. I went to the college they made me go to. I got the degree that they wanted. I even got the grades that she demanded I get simply because it was easier. Easier on who? I had to ask myself. That was when I decided that I’d had enough. Seeing you here, having you around, it gave me the strength to tell my mother no for the first time.”
“That must have gone over well.” They both laughed, and that was when Mars could see that North was getting prematurely gray. That he had stress lines under his eyes. “You have been through hell, haven’t you? I’m so sorry about that, North. I wish that I could have been there for you.”
“You were. Always. I was forever caving to their demands. Then, after the heart attack scare—because it did scare the shit out of me—I started asking myself, ‘What would Mars do? What would his mom say to me if she was right here with me?’ I have to tell you, Mars, it’s made such a huge difference in my life. I can sleep better at night. I have put on some of the weight I lost from being stressed. Hell, I’m even dating more.” Mars must have looked shocked again because North laughed. “I was working much too hard for me to even think about dating. Not even the women that my mom was throwing at my bed. I think she was hoping that I’d get one of the deb’s knocked up so that I’d have to marry one of them and settle down. Now I only date women that have no idea who my mother is. It’s working out well for me.”
“I’m so glad.” He looked around the condo that he and his mother had shared all his life. “I need to get myself a house. Also, I’m not going back to my job. I’ll still work with chemicals and what I was doing before, but I want to open my own compound pharmacy. It’s been my dream for a very long time.”
“You should do it.” He said he would if North did. “Deal. I want a house of my own too. Around here. I don’t care if my parents live in the same town because, as your girlfriend has pointed out, we’re grown men, not toddlers.”
“I don’t think that is what she said. Nor is she my girlfriend. We’re just two people that have come together in the time of need.” North looked around the place, then back at him. “What was that look for? I mean it, we’re just friends.”
“Is that why you’ve dusted this room three times since I’ve been here? And changed the sheets on your bed? I bet if I went to look, there are condoms in the drawer on your side of the bed.” Mars told him that he had forgotten about condoms. When he realized that he’d been trapped into admitting what he had planned, he tossed a pillow at his best friend and cousin. “Getting laid might make things easier to deal with tomorrow, Mars. I’m not saying that you have to do it with this girl, but if she’s willing, then I’d say go for it.”
“I don’t think that is a go
od idea.” He asked him why not. “Two things come to mind. I’m not sure what her plans are, and that is important to me. Also, and this is really having to do with our family, I don’t want to drag her name down with my own. If we chose to live here, which I plan on doing, then she’d be just as much a target as I am through your family. I can’t do that to someone else.”
“You need to grow some balls yourself.” Perhaps, Mars thought. But Abby was nice, and even after what they’d said and done to each other earlier, it wasn’t a smart move on her part to be lumped in with him. “Mars, you’re never going to get married or have a family of your own if you don’t start telling our family to fuck off. I’m going to do it starting the next time I see them. I am not going to be something they want me to be. I have opinions too, and I plan on using them. For me.”
“All right. I’ll think about it. And for the love of my mom, please do not mention this conversation we’ve had to Abby.” North asked him if she’d be pissed. “No. I don’t know why, but I don’t think she’d be upset. She’d be telling me what she wanted or not, of that, I have no doubt. But, I don’t think I’m at that step right now, even if she is. I don’t want her hurt. That means a great deal to me. I’m not sure why, I just met her, but I don’t want her hurt.”
He thought of the steps that the two of them had already taken. The kiss, for one thing. And where his thoughts had been for most of the day. When the others showed up with bottles of wine, roses, and other flowers for Abby, he felt bad that he’d not gotten her anything. As he made his way into the hallway to let Abby in when she knocked, Mars yelled for the rest of them to come help him.
There in the front of his condo was his aunt Eita, screaming at Abby not to go into the condo, and that her son was to be sent out right now. Of course, Abby ignored the demands and tossed words back over her shoulder to Eita. Mars wanted the others to see this.
Marsden (Wilkerson Dynasty Book 1) Page 4
