Between the Sheets

by Molly O'Keefe

  Was it Dean Jennings all over again?

  Her body went cold in a heartbeat.

  “Sorry,” she muttered, and let Casey grab the pencil she’d dropped. Over the boy’s bent back she met Wyatt’s eyes and stared back at him.

  Pastor Mike told them to all rise and slowly everyone around them stood, leaving them caught in a terrible world of her own making.

  As a rule, women kind of made sense to Ty. With some women the drama got intense and he quickly found a way to bail. But for the most part he understood women. He liked them. They liked him. Some of them were better matches than others, but he had a pretty good sense that he knew what made each of the women he’d ever been involved with tick.

  But Shelby Monroe was like no woman he’d ever known. Ever. Certainly not like any woman he’d been involved with. Though he wasn’t sure what he’d had with Shelby—fucking the shit out of each other and then being kicked to the curb—could be considered “involved.”

  And after she’d caught him staring at her neck and remembering how she’d shuddered, trapped between his body and the hard floor, she’d been glaring at him. The small tension of familiarity and kindness between them had been severed by her icy indifference.

  Man, she had that indifference shit down pat, and it was withering. Confusing.

  As soon as the benediction was over, he got Casey and hightailed it out of the pew and the balcony.

  “Coffee hour,” Casey protested, pulling away from the heavy hand Ty had on the kid’s shoulder.

  “Case—”

  “You promised.”

  Yes, he did. He’d promised all the donuts the boy could stuff in his pockets, because it was the only way to get him to go to church without literally dragging his feet.

  It would be nice if they could find the right church, but so far they’d had two big strikeouts. He’d had high hopes for the Baptist church, he’d had luck with Baptist churches in other towns, but the minister started talking about the sins of homosexuality and he’d gotten Casey out of there pretty fast. He didn’t like churches that preached hate.

  This laid-back Methodist church had been nice. So far no hate, lots of kids.

  Shelby, however, might be a problem.

  “Go,” he said, lifting his hand off his son’s shoulder, and the kid took off like a rocket toward the banquet hall in the church basement.

  “Wyatt?” His name—his grandfather’s name—in Shelby’s no-nonsense voice had the ability to stop the blood in his veins. Perhaps it was the phone call from Vanessa, but he felt utterly incapable of handling Shelby at the moment.

  So he kept walking, pretending he hadn’t heard her.

  The church basement was filled with people drinking coffee out of little Styrofoam cups and he caught sight of Casey, waiting his turn in line for the Sara Lee coffee cake and donuts.

  After the phone call from Vanessa, Casey had been nearly electric with his anxiety and Ty had thought for a few minutes in the church parking lot that the boy would run. Just take off.

  The more Ty tried to talk to him about anything but his mother, the worse it had gotten.

  But as soon as they sat down next to Shelby, it had vanished.

  Which, because he was pissed off and miserly, bugged the shit out of him.

  He watched as one of the older women in charge of the spread put a hand on Casey’s shoulder and asked what he would like. Casey shrugged away from her touch and filled up the plate by himself. Over his son’s bent head, the woman shared a knowing glance with the woman filling up coffee cups.

  Trouble, that look said. This one is nothing but trouble.

  Ty had to keep himself from tearing over there and explaining that the kid’s life, fragile and barely stable, had just been torn apart by a phone call from his mother in jail so a little fucking Christian kindness from the coffee-hour crowd wouldn’t go unappreciated!

  “Wyatt?”

  Shelby. Now he felt so on the edge of himself, he knew it would be impossible to deal with her in any reasonable way.

  “I know you can hear me,” she said.

  Not smiling, he turned to face her. “Shelby,” he said. He took her in with one quick glance. The dark skirt and the boots she wore last night. The thin red sweater over the white tank top.

  “What are you doing here?” She wrapped her arms over her chest. He very painfully remembered how naked he’d been in front of her—in so many ways. And how she’d been dressed and armored and locked away someplace inside her body. At the time, when it was all happening, it had been hotter than hell, biting her nipple through her clothing, the sight of his hand between her legs under the hem of that dress.

  Now it just made him feel like a fool.

  “It’s church, Shelby. What do you think I’m doing here?”

  “Are you following me?” she whispered, not quite able to look him in the eyes, which was weird. She’d looked him right in the eye last night when she’d all but told him not to let the door hit him on the ass.

  “What … following …?” He laughed. “Watch yourself, Shelby. Your crazy is showing.”

  She lifted her eyes to his and he saw the absence of crazy. He saw something very nervous. Very honest. It was the most naked he’d ever seen her.

  “Casey and I are looking around for a church that fits. This week just happened to be the Methodist church’s turn to feed Casey all the donuts he could eat.”

  She glanced over at Casey crossing the room toward them with a paper plate piled high with Danish and donuts. A small flicker of a smile illuminated her face, which he wasn’t going to be moved by.

  She owed him an apology for all but accusing him of stalking her.

  Following her? To church? What the hell?

  His past was checkered with women who wore so much of their damage like clothing. Like accessories. He was beginning to understand that Shelby’s was deep and there was a good chance she had buckets of it, hidden under those still waters of hers.

  Run, man, run while you can, said the cynic in him, who’d had more than his share of relationships implode. You clearly dodged a bullet.

  “Hey, Ms. Monroe,” Casey said, giving her one of his rare smiles.

  “Hey, Casey,” she said. “You leave any Danish for me?”

  “There’s something with apricots in it. You can have that.” Casey shuddered. Ty leaned over and swiped one of the chocolate mini-donuts that tasted so comfortingly like church coffee hour, no matter the church. Or state. Or decade.

  Casey gave him a dirty look and then started gobbling things down as though Ty had designs on the whole plate.

  “You’re like a feral badger, Casey,” he laughed. “We’d better get going before they ask us to leave.”

  Anxious to leave Shelby and the way she made him feel insufficient and at the same time outrageously horny, he turned away only to nearly run into a small older woman with steel-gray hair pulled back into a tight bun. Her unsmiling mouth was thin and while not stern, neither was it very kind. Everything about her seemed to scream unforgiving.

  “Mom,” Shelby said. “This is our new neighbor. Wyatt Svenson and his son, Casey.”

  Brown eyes very much like Shelby’s looked him over top to bottom and then did the same with Casey. It was so bold, so strange, that Casey stepped closer to Ty. Though he’d never done it, Ty put his hand on Casey’s shoulder and pulled him a little closer still.

  “How do you do, ma’am,” Ty said, polishing up his church manners. Under his hand he could feel Casey laughing. He gave him a little of the Dr. Spock squeeze and the boy stepped away.

  “You moved into the O’Halloran place?” she asked.

  “Ah, the farmhouse, across the street from you? It was Simone Appleby’s before it was mine.”

  “Before that it was the O’Halloran place,” Mrs. Monroe said. She wore a thick coat, and he wondered if she was hot with all the sunlight coming through the basement’s high windows.

  “All right, then yes, I’m in the old O’Ha
lloran place.”

  “You’re the one chopping down trees all the time?”

  “What trees?” Casey asked.

  “Who are you?” the woman turned glittering brown eyes back to Casey. Ty gave Casey a nudge.

  “I’m Casey Svenson,” he said slowly and loudly.

  “I’m not deaf. You don’t need to shout,” Mrs. Monroe said. “The O’Hallorans didn’t have kids.”

  “Mom, these aren’t the O’Hallorans,” Shelby explained.

  “I know. They didn’t have kids. You must be the people chopping down trees all the time.”

  “We’re not chopping down trees.” Ty shared a startled look with Casey.

  “My husband is going to walk across the street next time you do that and give you a piece of his mind. It’s disrespectful cutting down those trees all hours of the night and my husband doesn’t like it.”

  “Mom.” Shelby’s voice was a hard, sharp crack and Mrs. Monroe looked up. Slowly, that pinched look relaxed from her face. She was younger than he’d thought. Prettier. Her daughter’s lush lips were revealed without the stern hold she’d had on them.

  Shelby shook her head, her eyes absolutely full to the brim with a resigned kind of grief. A silent and thorny conversation was had in the silence between the two women.

  Ty felt one of those lightning strikes of empathy, deep right into the heart of him.

  Whatever this situation was between Shelby and her mother, it wasn’t easy. And he could so relate to that.

  “We should go, Mom,” Shelby said.

  Shelby’s mother blinked and looked around, suddenly older. Suddenly ancient and sad. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Shelby put a hand to her stomach, as if putting back together pieces of herself that had fallen apart.

  “Have we had cake?” Mrs. Monroe asked, confused.

  “Here.” Casey handed Mrs. Monroe his plate, still full of fruit Danish and coffee cake.

  “Is this yours?” She looked down at Casey as if he’d just arrived.

  “Nope,” he said. “It’s yours.”

  Mrs. Monroe smiled and she had her daughter’s smile. That revealed a side of her unseen before. A hidden gracious warmth. “You should wear a coat, son,” she said. “You’re going to catch a cold.”

  “Let’s go, Mom,” Shelby said, holding out her arm, herding her mother into motion. Casey and Ty watched them cross the room toward the big double doors that opened onto the stairs leading up to the parking lot.

  Shelby turned around at the last minute and looked right at Ty.

  She didn’t smile and neither did he. But when she lifted her hand in a strange little wave, he lifted his, too. And he realized he’d seen more of her right now, in this church basement, than she’d let him see while fucking him in the Art Barn.

  “What’s the deal with her?” Casey asked.

  “Shelby’s mom?”

  “Yeah. That was weird, right?”

  Ty didn’t say anything for a long time and Casey turned to look up at him. Ty, since the moment Casey stepped into his shop, had been braced for disaster. Diligent against the constant, numbing sense of his failure with this kid. And he’d been so scared. So worried he realized he’d never taken the time to show him the kindness that Casey had shown that total stranger.

  “I’m proud of you,” Ty said, and Casey’s big blue eyes opened wide, confirming the worst of his suspicions. He’d been stern. Unforgiving. Dismissive. Exasperated. But never very kind. “You handled all of that really well.”

  Under his freckles his pale skin turned pink. “Does that mean I can go get some more donuts?”

  “Nope, let’s go get something better,” he said.

  “Nothing’s better than donuts.”

  “Have I taken you to Cora’s for breakfast?”

  “What’s Cora’s?”

  Oh, man. “Brace yourself, kid. Your life is about to change.”

  Chapter 10

  At lunch recess, Casey sat with his back against the school’s brick wall. He’d found himself a little corner between the entrance to the gym and the second-grade classrooms. The wind wasn’t bad and no one bothered him here. A couple of the second-grade girls came over, but after a few rounds of him pretending to be a monster who tried to grab them without ever moving and them shrieking and running away, they got bored and left.

  From his coat pocket he grabbed the little bit of clay he’d swiped from Ms. Monroe’s Art Barn last week. He told himself that if he’d asked, she would have let him have it, but he was just so used to not asking. And she never would have let him have Scott’s elf, which he’d also taken, and the diamond/crystal chandelier thing.

  He’d taken the red and white clay and he was trying to make a miniature version of the Indian Chief motorcycle Ty had just finished refurbishing.

  Ty said he was going to sell it soon, and Casey thought it would be cool to give him a miniature version. But only if he could figure out how to make the handlebars.

  “Hey!”

  Casey tried to put the clay back in his pocket, but it was too late. Scott and John were already around the corner.

  “Hey guys,” he said, jumping to his feet.

  “You working on something for Ms. Monroe?” John asked. No matter what John said, his tone of voice always said “you’re a total pussy.”

  “No.” There was no way he was talking about Ms. Monroe with John. No. Way.

  “No?” John looked back at Scott like he was confused. “Scott said you were in his little art class after school.”

  Casey didn’t say anything, but his hands curled into fists. John was such a jerk.

  “You like Ms. Monroe?” John asked, stepping closer. He shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his camouflage hoodie. John went hunting every weekend with his dad and he bragged about it every Monday. Casey didn’t want to admit it, but that sounded pretty cool. Cooler than church, that was for sure.

  “She’s cool,” Casey said.

  John grinned, showing off his two big front teeth that were probably going to need braces real soon, and Casey couldn’t wait for that day. “Yeah, but do you like her?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you think she’s pretty?”

  Casey thought Ms. Monroe was the most beautiful woman on the planet, but he wasn’t going to breathe a word of that to John.

  Pull up the bridges, he heard that counselor’s voice in his head. Become an island; do not let these guys get to you.

  But it was too late. They were here and they were getting to him, and the counselor had never told him how to get all the bad thoughts and all the people who wanted to do him harm off the island once they were on.

  “Come on, man, this is stupid,” Scott said, still standing at the corner, close to the tether balls that the second graders were using as Tarzan ropes.

  John ignored Scott and pulled an iPhone from his pocket.

  “You aren’t supposed to have that on school grounds,” Casey said, because he was getting kind of scared and because he was totally jealous that his own iPod had been confiscated practically his first day at school.

  “The teachers don’t care, not if you don’t use it in class,” he said and turned it on. “So what’s Ms. Monroe like at the Art Barn? Scott won’t tell me anything.”

  Casey blinked and stepped back as John stepped forward. “She’s just like she is in class. Cool. Nice.”

  “Has she sucked your dick?”

  Blood roared through his ears and he felt himself go super hot and then freezing cold. “What!” he cried, too loud, probably.

  “Has she sucked your dick?” John shrugged, his arms out wide. “You know what sucking dick is, don’t you?”

  “Why do you let him talk like this about her?” Casey yelled to Scott.

  Scott shook his head and looked away.

  “Hey, hey,” John said, playing around with his phone. Casey could barely hear him because his heart was pounding so hard. “Let me show you something, it’s on Yo
uTube. There was a TV show this summer and Ms. Monroe totally sucked this guy’s—”

  “Shut up, John!” Casey didn’t want to see anything like that. He didn’t want to hear any more about it. He felt like crying. He felt so angry and so scared and so freaked out by all this bullshit that he just wanted to go into the boy’s bathroom and hide until it was time to go home. And then he wanted to hide at home.

  But Mom had called. Mom had called and now that house with the weird fridge and the overgrown weeds and the stray dog—that house wasn’t safe anymore because she had gotten in.

  He turned to run, but John grabbed the pocket of his hoodie.

  “She’s a slut—”

  Casey jerked away and his pocket ripped, and the sound of the heavy cotton tearing away at the seams ripped away something in him.

  Casey punched John. It only got him in the arm and shoulder, but John dropped the phone and lurched back and sideways.

  “Shut up about Ms. Monroe!” Casey could feel himself spit as he yelled, but he didn’t care.

  “Look on YouTube, Casey. Everyone in town knows what she’s like.” John’s face screwed up good and ugly and he opened his mouth to let more of his filthy garbage out into the world.

  Casey pushed John against the wall, where he punched him again and again. Hitting John’s face, his chest. He felt the cut of John’s teeth across his knuckles. John was yelling and crying a little and Casey felt like there might be blood on his hand somewhere and he knew this was bad, all of this was really, really bad, but he couldn’t stop.

  Mom had found him.

  “Casey!” Scott yelled. “Casey, stop!”

  Casey took a deep breath, so deep he nearly fell backward.

  Suddenly Scott was there, pulling Casey back, holding onto his arms. Casey felt like there was a swarm of bees in his head. His hands hurt, the knuckles stung. His palms where his fingernails had been digging into the skin throbbed with his heartbeat.

  John stood up and faced him. He was bleeding from his lip and his eye looked red and puffy. He was rubbing his shoulder where he’d landed when Casey shoved him to the ground. “What the hell is wrong with you, Casey? You’re a freak. You get that, right? A total freak. Everyone knows your mom is in jail. Ms. Monroe is only nice to you because she feels bad for you.”