by A. E. Murphy
Sylvia: Amelia says she’s staying here tonight. I’ll take her to school in the morning.
Lucas: Okay then. Have you got her uniform?
Sylvia: Marie is dropping it off in an hour or so. After their cake thing.
Lucas: Tell Marie I said thanks. And thanks for having her Sylvia.
Now what am I supposed to do? Everyone’s busy doing something! I won’t go home, not whilst that stupid ass low calorie cake party is going on. Who actually throws an event like this? I’ve never heard of it before… not that I’ve ever been in the right kind of social standing to have an invite to one before.
James’ it is.
“Hey,” James says a little breathlessly as I enter his apartment. “Welcome to hell.”
What? “What?”
“I dunno, she has colic or something. She hasn’t stopped screaming,” my ears twitch at the sound of the high pitched wail coming from the child in his arms. Evelyn wriggles and squirms trying to get away. “I’ve tried hugging her, playing with her, winding her, feeding her, etc. I’m going crazy here.”
“Have you tried putting her down?” I chuckle and snatch the little squealer from his arms. I carry her into the room like one would carry a football, she loves it. See? Giggling already. In a couple of minutes I have a play mat on the floor for her and a bunch of toys for her age scattered around. Once I sit her down, she instantly starts gnawing on my finger. “She’s teething.”
“She’s not crying!” he gasps in disbelief.
“You cuddle her too much. We get it, you don’t want to let her out of your sight but give the poor kid some freedom.”
“I let her play in the bouncer,” he grumbles.
“Dude, she’s confined in the bouncer. She’s Maya’s kid… freedom is something that runs through her blood… ouch. She just bit me,” and then she laughs, and by god she looks like her mother. “Dear god. What have you spawned?”
James rolls his eyes and sits beside his daughter on the floor. She completely ignores him. He’s obsessed, just like he is with Maya. She’s indifferent, just like Maya. It’s the funniest relationship I’ve ever seen between parents and their child. This kid has mischief written all over her, hiding behind innocent beauty.
“James,” I grab him by his arm and lift him up. Grunt. Dude’s heavy. “Let’s go do some grownup shit and leave the baby to do her baby shit. Okay?”
“DADADADADA,” screams the chubby little girl happily from the floor as if saying goodbye in her own language. Damn she’s clever.
“Told you so,” I snort and pull a dejected James from the room. It’s rare he gets her all to himself and she’s a Mommy’s girl so when Maya is home she wants her mommy all the time. He hates it, it makes him jealous. Evelyn apparently doesn’t let him tuck her in after her mom, he has to kiss her goodnight before so Maya is the last person she sees before sleeping. She doesn’t let him feed her, or change her or even play with her if Maya is there and even when she’s not there the kid just makes it difficult. I feel bad for the guy but it’s still as funny as a dancing dog in a tutu. Or maybe that kitten with tubes on its legs making it walk like a robot. I’m trailing off…
“Hungry?” James asks around a yawn, he’s stood in the doorway, one eye on his daughter at all times.
“Just eaten.”
“So, what do you need?”
Straight to the point. “Actually, I just came to visit. Your Wife is trashing my house. Sylvia has Amelia at a charity function. You have Evelyn on your own so I figured you’d be the best bet.”
“Cool,” his eyes are still on the baby. We head back through to the room, I force him to sit on the sofa and watch instead of interacting with her. She rolls a few times, grabs a teething ring from the ground and starts chewing. She rolls back, her chunky little legs are stuck out poker straight, and starts hitting her teddy on the head with the same teething ring. “She gets more and more like her mother every effing day.”
“You married her.”
“I love her, and I love Evelyn. I’m just praying she doesn’t grow up to be as devious and cunning and as damn beautiful as her mother… I’ll never have a moment’s peace.”
I give him a wry smile, “Why not have another? A little brother to protect her.” His eyes light up, shit. Maya’s going to kill me. I’m only joking. I don’t say this though as he’s already texting… what a fucking sap. “You’re a strange man James.”
“Whatever.” We share a moment of silence, the only noise that can be heard is the babbling and gurgling noises coming from the kid. Then he suddenly blurts, “I need to get Maya back.”
“What?” They have no way split up again have they? “What do you mean?”
“I mean revenge!” he throws his hands up in the air and lets them drop onto his thighs. “I said something… I can’t remember what it was. It annoyed her… so she hid all of my socks. Every single fucking pair. I had to go to work with no socks on.” Oh, the horror. “And then she handcuffed me to the bed and put a spider on my chest for calling her a crazy bitch!” Snort. “She’s going too far. It’s driving me mad. I have to sleep with one eye open.”
“If you retaliate, she’ll only bite back.” Which is true, and the ideas that go through her devious mind frighten even me. “And it will be worse.”
“I don’t know,” he sighs and we both watch Evelyn start chewing on the corner of her play mat, then she rolls and traps herself inside. James panics and jumps up, even though she’s laughing like it’s the funniest thing ever, he helps her out.
“Put cling wrap in the middle of the hall, right after the desk so when she drops her keys on the desk she’ll turn around and walk straight into it,” I suggest, it’s not original but it’s funny. “And film it.” Because I have to see it.
He grins devilishly and nods eagerly. Then his face falls and he looks down, “Are you…? (Pause) It doesn’t matter.”
Wait, you can’t tease me like that! “What? Now you have to tell me.”
“Honestly, it’s not important.”
The look he gives me is pleading, he’s begging me not to ask. I don’t. It’s then I notice two large, full garbage bags stood in the corner. “What’s that?”
James looks, blinks and curses under his breath. “Shit. I completely forgot. I was supposed to take these down to Carey’s store an hour ago.”
“Okay. Take them now.” He looks at me and attempts to do a pleading smile. Fucking idiot looks constipated. “No.”
“Please.”
With a shake of the head I say firmly, “Nope.”
“Come on Bro.”
“Fine,” I relent like I always pissing do. “Not like I actually have anything to do. Write down the address.” Who you gonna call? Call Lucas! “What’s in them anyway?”
“All of Maya’s unworn clothes from pregnancy, all but three tops have the tags on them. She has a fucking problem.”
“Right, I’ll set off then. I’ll take those with me. Good luck with the cling wrap.” I pick up my niece and pretend to bite her chubby neck, she giggles and bites me back, right on my lip. It fucking hurts. She then gives me the biggest smile and opens her mouth for me to kiss… definitely her mother’s daughter. A kid that loves freedom, loves kisses, loves biting and beating things over the head and laughs at anything that is even slightly funny. Poor, poor James.
“Oh and James,” I smirk as I place her back on the ground. “If you really want to get her back, you could always get her pregnant again. She left you alone last time.”
He flips me off as I laugh myself out of their home, taking the bags with me. So, I now have to go to a place called, Carey’s clothing. Okay. Never heard of it.
CHAPTER TWO
Lustful Lucas
Whilst climbing out of my car the sky starts to spit. That’s just brilliant. I head along the damaged sidewalk and stop outside the flaky, white door to Carey’s store. It really isn’t much to look at, I’m sure I’ve seen it before, although I tend to avoid this par
t of the city. Gripping the handle firmly, I open said door and I’m greeted by the smell of clean linen and bleach. The owner or cleaner has issues with bleach. It’s burning my nose, the scent is that strong.
Shifting the bags over to my right hand I step inside and shut the door behind me. The little bell above it rings annoyingly.
“Can I help you?” comes a female voice from across the store. I head over and stop when I get to the desk. Then I look up. Fuck. “I said can I help you?”
“I brought these,” I say blankly and place the bags on the counter. She narrows her eyes on me, her large, sexy, brown eyes shadowed by a thick brown sweeping fringe. My mouth feels suddenly dry. I can only see her from the waist up due to the counter separating us. She starts going through the bags, my eyes zoom in on her waist and holy fuck… tits.
“These still have the price tags on.” Let’s pretend that tone isn’t accusatory.
“Yeah, my sister in law didn’t use them through her pregnancy,” I clear my dry throat. She places the bags on the floor and bends right over them to dig through and start placing things on the counter behind her. I watch her back arch and her legs open slightly. Blood rushes straight to my… heads. What an ass… her real ass I mean, not the insult.
What am I thirteen? Get a hold of yourself Lucas! She’s just another female… a really fucking hot and sexy female with tits, hips and an ass to match. Even her face matches her body in beauty.
I hate it when you notice a great body, look up and the face is something your mother would put over a fireplace to keep you from treading near.
“I said you don’t recognize me do you?” shit, she was talking? I was too busy staring at her chest and neck, such a long, perfect neck. I blink a few times and meet her chocolate brown eyes, they hold little flecks of honey colors around the pupil. “Hello?” She waves her hand in front of my face, an even deeper scowl on her face. Her eyes now nothing but tiny slits.
“I was just thinking, give me a chance will you woman?” I grin at her, the grin Maya and Marie say reeks of sex. Whatever the fuck that means. “No, I apologize but I don’t.”
“You know my cousin.” I do? “Dana.” Ah fuck. “You still see her?”
I shake my head, “Not since she entered moldy rehab.”
She flips her shoulder length brown hair back and quirks a brow at me, “She what?”
“Nothing. Are you doing anything later?” Oh… fuck! Why the hell did I say that?
“Wow, you really don’t remember me do you? Because if you did, you wouldn’t be asking me out.” She says, actually, it’s more of a snarl. I wrack my brain trying to find her in my memories, yeah she looks vaguely familiar but she never hung around with us I don’t think. “Christ, you’re still as big of an idiot as you were then. Don’t worry I don’t expect you to remember me!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” why’s she being so bitchy. Can’t she understand the only things running through my mind right now are, fuck, shit, fuck and boobs? “What’s your name?”
“It’s Loryn Carey… as in Scary Carey,” what… the… fuck. “Yeah. Remember me now?” Gulp. Uh-huh. “Yeah, well thanks for the clothes from your sister.” Actually it’s sister In-law. “Now go away.”
Well… that went well. “Come on Sc… Loryn,” yep, she noticed my slip up, I can tell this by the now even deeper scowl on her face. Shit.
How can this be Dana’s cousin? She was a little, buck toothed kid with bad head lice and an alcoholic for a mom who ran… this store. As if I didn’t recognize this store, although I was certain I felt it to be familiar. We used to toilet paper it and egg it on the weekends during our junior year of High School, although the door used to be yellow not white and the windows had a huge sign on them in a clear gray, whereas now, they’re just clear glass. The sign reading: Carey’s Clothing is above the windows. “I’m sorry about High School.”
“I’d accept your apology if we shared the same high school which we didn’t,” She’s two or three years younger than me, I think, so by the time she started I’d graduated. Okay, so Dana and Crystal used to be mean to her. How can this be her? Fucking Scary Carey? She’s fucking gorgeous! “Bye, bye.”
Dana was a real bitch to her, used to call her and her mother an embarrassment to their family. Look how the tables have turned, talk about a bad dose of karma. “I’m sorry Loryn. That was years ago. I was a dick in High School!”
“Yep, you were. Bye, bye.” What the hell? I still don’t really remember her that well. I do remember something… oh shit… Crystal tipped a beer over her head at a party once, I remember laughing, but I was pretty toasted. Not that being drunk is an excuse to be a dick. “Why aren’t you leaving?”
“What time do you finish?”
“Quarter past never,” she flutters her thick long eye lashes and smirks angrily. “Bye, bye.”
“Fine, fine, I get it. I am sorry though. Even though I never did anything to you directly I shouldn’t have let anyone else either,” I give her an honest smile. My eyes catch the broken shelf behind the counter. “That needs fixing.”
She follows the direction in which my eyes are looking and shrugs, “Everything needs fixing in here.” I can’t help but watch her lips as she talks, so pouty and full. She must have had braces at some point because her teeth are rather straight in comparison to how I remember them being. “You can come back and collect your percentage of the profits…”
“They’re a donation. Keep the profits…”
“That’s not how it’s done here. We don’t take charity.” She sounds just like me, I can finally see how infuriating it is… not that I give a fuck.
“My sister in law is loaded, she won’t miss it. Trust me.” How can I see her again? To make it up to her for being such a dick in the past.
Yeah, let’s pretend that’s the reason you want to see her again.
“See you later!” I call as I turn to leave, making sure to burn her very image onto my mind. My cock is fucking killing me, it’s going to have a zipper imprint on it at this rate. I need a shower. A cold one.
I leave her open mouthed… groan… and shocked, possibly annoyed and a little pissed off. Have you ever met someone for even the briefest amount of time and for some reason there’s a pounding thought in your… ‘heads’… that you just have to get to know them? Well, fuck, because this is happening to me and I don’t like it one bit.
There’s a reason people say a dick has a head… it does.
It tends to be the ruling head more often than I’d like too.
So many hours later, my place is empty, I spent my afternoon shopping for movies and games and other shit to pass the time. When I finally made it home my kitchen was clean and tidy. My apartment didn’t look like it had even hosted an event as hectic as whatever the fuck kind of event they hosted. Yet even though my entire afternoon has flitted by faster than expected my mind has been full of unshakeable thoughts of a certain fucking woman.
How can she be Scary Carey? It’s stupid. They look nothing alike.
I turn in bed.
Maybe she had a lot of surgery, nah, she doesn’t look fake at all. There’s a reason she was called Scary Carey. From what I can remember, her mom was an alcoholic and really negligent which made Scary Carey really withdrawn and quiet. The way she looked at you would freak you out, like she wanted to kill you. Or so I heard…
I think she got the nickname because of the way she looked, I don’t really remember but what I do recall in my fucked up memory is her always having her hair over her face and her eyes always seemed wide and frightened. This is probably where she got the nickname from. I would ask but I don’t think she’d appreciate that much.
I turn again. Sigh.
It’s all really dramatic bullshit now and of course I feel like crap. She was a quiet and nice girl. I remember she loaned me a pencil once during a football game, she was sat with Dana on one of the rare occasions Dana was kind to her. I don’t think I ever gave it back.
>
I turn again. Huff.
It’s just a little bit of lust. It will pass. I’ll have forgotten about her by next week. I’m hungry. I’m also horny. I haven’t been this horny since the night I… let’s not think about that. Shit. Such a creep, I’m such a god damn creep! Crystal will be flipping me off from wherever she’s perched, I guarantee it.
Man I miss her. I miss her soft skin and nibbling on her thin upper lip, I miss the way she always smelled of green apples, because of that stupid fucking shampoo she insisted on using. I even miss the stench of her cigarettes, she used to enjoy a smoke on occasion. She quit whilst pregnant with Annie and started smoking casually until Amelia and then started again after she had her.
I wish I’d never moaned about that smell. It’s so stupid and trivial now. Of course, my intentions were good, I didn’t want her to die of cancer. I remember her response, “I enjoy it. You only live once.”
“And what a life that will be, coughing and wheezing your way through, with that foul lingering scent all over you.”
She just shrugged me off, how right she was. Not about smoking, but about enjoying life. You do only live once, and sometimes that once is cut far too short.
I’m getting morbid again. I should really try to sleep. I turn again.
I don’t understand why she feels so much animosity towards me. Loryn I mean… I never bullied her or said anything bad to her at all. Sure I didn’t stop the others but I hardly joined in with more than a slight laugh and chuckle. She can’t honestly blame me for the actions of others?
