So Wicked

by Melissa Marino

  I turned to Marshall and almost told him to send Aaron away. My eyes pleaded with him because I couldn’t do this, but as soon as I started to process it, it turned. I would do this. I could do this.

  Marshall pressed his hand into mine and gripped it tightly. “You’ve been waiting six years for this, Al.”

  “I’ve been waiting my whole life for this,” I said.

  I squeezed his hand before releasing it and went to the door. As I peeked from the side of it to get a look at Delilah before seeing her face-to-face, I didn’t see her.

  I swung the screen door open, holding it open for Aaron. “Hey,” I said, my eyes scanning the area.

  “Hey. How are you?” he asked. “I’m a nervous wreck, and I don’t even really know why. I mean, I know why, but if I am, I can’t imagine what you must be feeling. I just hope that I’m, we, are making the right decision, and all of this is a good thing. I can’t imagine it’s not. I think it’s something we all need, right?”

  I smiled. “Yes, Aaron. All of that.”

  His head turned, and he waved his hand over his head. “Come on, Delilah,” he called.

  Without hesitation, I stretched out my neck into the direction he was calling.

  And there she was.

  And I almost crumpled to the ground.

  She was sitting on my porch swing, her little legs dangling over the edge, and smiling so brightly that the sun was no match for her.

  Her hair was longer than any pictures I’d recently seen. Well past her shoulders, it was still that same white blond, with a gorgeous halo of curls.

  I couldn’t help but imagine that it’s what Sadie would’ve looked like at her age.

  And she was dressed so pretty in a white eyelet sundress and matching sandals.

  I think Aaron called to her again, but I couldn’t hear a thing because I was too busy watching her. She hopped off the swing and smoothed her skirt down before skipping across my porch toward me.

  She was more beautiful than any picture or any dream I ever had.

  She reached Aaron and leaned against him. “Hi!” she said.

  “Hi there,” I said, my voice cracking.

  Marshall cleared his throat behind me, and I turned to look at him.

  “You got this,” he mouthed to me. “I love you, gorgeous.”

  “Delilah,” Aaron said, taking in a deep breath. “This is…my friend Alexis I told you about.”

  “You’re a baker with a real bakery?” she asked.

  “I am. Do you want to come in?”

  “Yes!” She turned to Aaron. “You can go now, Dad.”

  She stepped inside as Aaron and I laughed at her boldness.

  “A little spitfire, huh?” I whispered to him.

  “Just like someone else I know, Lex,” he said.

  “Uncle Marshall!” she screamed. “You’re here, too!”

  She ran right to him, and he picked her up like she was a rag doll, her legs swinging about before he wrapped her in a tight hug. “I missed you, Nutter Butter.”

  “I missed you more,” she said.

  My past.

  My present.

  My future.

  It was all right there in front of me.

  The man who I loved, who saw all my scars and ugly truths and loved me back. If I spent of the rest of my lifetime trying, I could never give him back half of what he’s given me.

  The little girl who had made me a mother and made me make the most profoundly difficult decision a mother’s love could ever know, was in my kitchen.

  She was in my life.

  And she was hugging the man I loved.

  It was all right there because a girl and a boy met on a hot summer day at the beach, flirted their way into a relationship, and formed a real friendship. It wasn’t a marriage. It wasn’t love. He was my friend then, my very best friend.

  But we created a person that was. She was pure love.

  I looked at Aaron, and he had the same expression I was probably sporting, tears in his eyes with a small smile, while taking it all in. It was an overwhelming moment. His head turned toward me, and it was then I knew.

  He forgave me.

  And I’d found my peace.

  “Are you going to stay and help us bake?” Delilah asked Marshall as he set her down.

  “Nah. Me and your dad are going to head out for a while and let you girls do your thing, but we’ll be back in a while, okay?” he said.

  Delilah shrugged. “Okay.” She turned to me. “Miss Alexis, what are we going to make?”

  “What do you think about doughnuts?” I asked.

  “Cool!” she said. “I’ve never made those before!”

  “Perfect. Okay. Do you know what is the first thing you do before you start baking?”

  “Wash your hands,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Yes. So, let’s do that over here,” I said, heading over to the basin sink.

  We washed our hands together, and by the time we turned around, the boys were gone.

  Time stood still during those two hours as I got to know Delilah.

  Her voice and humor.

  Her love of comic books and fear of spiders.

  How she bit down on her bottom lip when she concentrated on measuring, and the delight in her smile when she dipped the warm doughnuts in the chocolate glaze.

  How I knew she loved her dad endlessly by the way she talked about him, and how sometimes she called Callie “Mom” in conversation.

  She was all I hoped she’d be.

  We were just beginning to clean up when I heard the screen door slam shut. “Hello!” Marshall called.

  “Hi,” I said, as the boys began to enter the kitchen. “How was—?”

  “Hi, Mom,” Delilah said, licking frosting from her fingers. “Look what we did.”

  Mom.

  A brief moment of a burst of sadness and grief washed over me, but then a familiar emotion followed…relief.

  A strikingly beautiful woman with long auburn hair and green eyes trailed a step behind Aaron. She held his hand tight as she smiled nervously at me. “Hi,” she said in a soft voice to me.

  She turned her attention to Delilah. “Those look great, sweetie. You’re going to have to teach me now because I’ve never made doughnuts.”

  “Sure,” Delilah said. “It wasn’t hard, and Miss Alexis said I’m a pro, but I told her I already knew that.”

  There was laughter all around my kitchen at Delilah’s modesty, but when it settled, I felt a pull to do something that would seal the day with gratefulness.

  I approached Callie and extended my hand. “I’m Alexis Bell.”

  She took my hand in hers, tears forming in her eyes. “I’m Callie.”

  We stood holding onto each other’s hands before I opened my arms a bit, and she stepped into them. I hugged her, the mother to my child, and didn’t know if my heart could even take it.

  “Thank you,” I whispered into her ear. “Thank you.”

  “No,” she sniffled. She ran her hand down my hair. It was a gentle touch from a girl years my junior, but it was something I hadn’t known in years. A mother’s touch. “Thank you.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Marshall—

  Out of

  Darkness

  And sin

  Radiates

  Beauty

  Deep within

  Her words

  Push you

  To see

  When you’ve

  Never seen

  Touch what

  You’ve never

  Felt

  Live when

  You’ve never

  Lived.

  —R. A. Knipe

  The poppies came and everything was different. I didn’t know until it happened, but it seemed everyone in town knew they were coming. Never one to pay much attention to the wildflower patterns of any area, I brushed it off.

  But then they happened, seemingly overnight.

  Funny how things wo
rked out that way.

  The green lush hills of San Luis Obispo sprout an array of wildflowers in March, and it’s specifically when the poppies came. You could see the poppies along Shell Creek Road, with vineyards surrounding them, turning the landscape this fucking insane color orange, like the color of orange soda or the tips of the fall leaves in Chicago. The hills were covered in them, leaving people only a glimpse of the green that was usually there.

  There was something about those poppies, though.

  Maybe it was the whole Wizard of Oz thing, and Dorothy attempting to get to the Great and Powerful Oz. It was such a long-ass journey for her. She had to face her fears, loneliness, and regret, but she never stopped. Even with an evil watch after her, she pushed on and even made some friends along the way. Then she finally gets there, the Emerald City appears like a mirage, and you can see the elation in her expression when she realizes how close she is.

  So, she runs, excited, through the poppies to get there faster, but what she doesn’t know is that the evil witch made those poppies some sort of sleep time. It was always my opinion that this was one of the most brilliant parts of the movie. I was an older teen before I realized that opium, used for a variety of fucked-up drug uses, was derived from poppies. Now, no one said running through a field of them would get you knocked on your ass. However, the correlation was there.

  And there was so much fucking more to it.

  Dorothy didn’t know about it. Most readers of the book or movie watchers didn’t, either, but like real life, there were always obstacles. So goddamn close to the finish line or whatever you worked so hard for, and a field of powerful poppies knocks you on your ass.

  It was metaphoric as shit, and I bought into every piece of it.

  The poppies came in March, two months after the visit from Aaron.

  They were the reminder I needed that things wouldn’t always be easy. In fact, life could throw some seriously fucked-up shit at you, like falling in love with, and now living with, your best friend’s ex-wife. How does that even happen?

  Aaron finding out and the hysteria it brought was the field of poppies. Al and I were so close to having it all figured out, but there was one last obstacle, one more field of poppies to get through, before we reached our Emerald City.

  But we made it through, and looking back, the journey was like walking through fire. Looking back a little closer? It was really fucking beautiful at times. A field of poppies was always going to be beautiful in the end.

  I flipped open my laptop atop Al’s, or rather our, kitchen counter to wait for the Skype call that was to be coming through soon. A rare Sunday when there was no crap work for us to do regarding business, and we could be us.

  Clark Kent, the golden retriever puppy I got for Al, and well, me too, came bolting into the kitchen. He stopped abruptly and slid across the hardwood floors, bumping himself into the leg of one of the stools.

  No doubt Al was on her way downstairs. Clark would always race her down and wait for her in the kitchen to make sure he got a treat. He was spoiled fucking rotten by her, and well, by me, too, I guess. I turned and reached up to the cabinet above the sink, pulling down his box of treats. After retrieving one, I knelt down on the floor.

  “Hey there, buddy. How’s my little nugget?”

  He trotted over on his still uneasy, new legs. I held out my hand with the treat on it, and he wagged his fluffy tail with delight. In the end, I’d gotten my way with the dog issue. It was a tough sell, but when I brought him home, there was no way she could say no.

  Alexis entered the kitchen, her hair done, wearing a bright pink T-shirt that read, “I’m a Baker—What’s Your Superpower?” on it in black lettering. She stepped over to the coffeemaker and poured herself a cup as I continued to stare at her.

  It eased me to see her without nerves anymore regarding the impending Skype call. She had found her peace. There was no greater fucking joy then seeing the girl you loved happy.

  “What are you staring at?” she snapped.

  Or seeing all sides of her, including the high-spirited attitude that kept me on my toes.

  “You, baby,” I said. “I was looking at you. Do you have a problem with that?”

  She smiled, lifting her coffee cup to her mouth. “I love you,” she said.

  She had said it before so many times, and it only started after she met Delilah. I knew that wasn’t an accident. It was what she needed. It was what her heart needed to let go of that pain.

  Telling me about Sadie was the first step. It was what cracked her open, leaving her room finally to make peace with Aaron and Delilah. The entire situation could’ve gone, and almost did, an entirely different direction. I often thought, in most cases, it would have—it probably should have.

  But most cases weren’t us.

  They weren’t Aaron and I.

  They weren’t Al and I.

  They weren’t Callie and Delilah and fucking all of us together.

  And I’d never try to fucking explain it to outsiders, our beautifully dysfunctional “family,” because it wasn’t up to others’ interpretation. It was only about us, and I could give a flying fuck if anyone got that. There was no room in my heart for it because it was too full of gratitude, that the allegiance and devotion of our circle had surpassed any kind of rational explanation.

  None it and all of it fucking mattered.

  Every time she spoke those three words, “I love you,” it was like I’d never heard them before. There was such a sincerity, such truth, behind the term, and it was a massive comfort to know I never needed to question it, question her, because of it.

  A ring from the laptop alerted us that the Skype call was coming through. I rushed over and pressed the button to connect.

  Delilah’s face popped up, all smiles and wild hair. “Hi!” she said, waving.

  “Hey there, Nutter Butter! What’s shakin’?” I asked.

  “Is Miss Alexis ready for me? I have the apron on she sent me.” She stepped back, modeling the red-and-white polka-dot apron Al had sent her.

  “It looks perfect on you,” I said.

  I turned to Al, who was waiting until I finished up before stepping in.

  “You heard the girl,” I said. “She wants to know if Miss Alexis is ready?”

  I moved out of the way, and Al took my place, grinning at the screen…at Delilah. “Hey there! Are you ready to get to work?” she asked.

  “I am! I got all the ingredients ready that you told me to,” Delilah said. “And Callie is here, too, in case I need help with something, even though I told her I wouldn’t.”

  “Hi Callie,” Al called.

  “Hi!” she responded, a wave of a hand in the background notifying us she was, in fact, close by.

  Al looked at me and gave me nod, letting me know to scram. She took these real-time baking lessons with Delilah seriously, and we both agreed that aside from Callie being nearby to help in case, it was something the two of them should do together alone.

  The best part? It was Aaron’s idea.

  So I left them to get to business as I took care of some work stuff in the office and then took Clark Kent for a walk.

  A few clouds in the sky when I left the house quickly turned to several, and it wasn’t until I was far enough away from home that I realized it was going to rain.

  Shit. Rain.

  Oh. Rain!

  I took to a jog to try and get back before it started, but Clark was still not up to my speed. The rain began to fall, and I had no choice but to eventually pick him up, so we could run home. Of course, as we neared the final stretch, the rain ceased, and the sun was already trying to make an appearance.

  The girls were just finishing up when I returned home and entered the kitchen. I’d neglected to ask what they were making, but judging by the mess on Al and at a glance at Delilah, it was a tad messy.

  And so was I, soaked to the skin with rain and muddy paw prints from Clark Kent all over my clothes.

  The crazy t
hing was I didn’t even give a shit.

  I was too mesmerized by the vision in front of me.

  “My Nutter Butter and my baby. Both covered in sugar,” I said.

  They both giggled, and I left them to wrap things up and say their good-byes. After a change of clothes, I returned downstairs to find Al standing in front of the kitchen sink, looking out the window.

  “Oh my God,” Al said, staring out the window. “Did you see this?”

  “What?”

  Her head turned slowly, a smile brighter than the sun that had just emerged. “It’s a rainbow.”

  About the Author

  Melissa Marino is a full-time writer and part-time Stormtrooper collector. When she’s not writing, you can find her watching Friends reruns, mastering her cupcake frosting swirl, and hunting for the perfect red lipstick. Melissa lives in Chicago with her husband, son, and very opinionated dachshund.

  Learn more at:

  Melissa-Marino.com

  Twitter, @MelissaWrites2

  Facebook.com/MelissaMarinoBooks

  Also by Melissa Marino

  So Screwed

  So Twisted

  Please turn the page for an excerpt from the first book in the Bad Behavior series

  So Twisted.

  Available now!

  Chapter One

  Callie—

  Is anyone else getting a wedgie from these damn things?” I shouted to the other females I was working with. I hurried to the other end of the bar as I adjusted my hot-pink bloomers that were under my extra short patent leather skirt. Our new uniforms were about as functional as wet toilet paper.

  “Hey beautiful, how long does a guy have to wait to get a drink around here?” I turned and saw a barely legal guy at the other end of the bar, clearly not needing another cocktail.

  Luckily, the DJ had decided that was the perfect time to crank the music, and like that, the cries of the drunken were silenced.

  It was eleven o’clock and the night was young. The bar was packed, which was good for my bank account, but bad for my dignity. Every hour that went by at Venom, the downtown Chicago club I bartended at that catered to the newly twenty-one crowd, lowered the IQ of my customers.