“Friends do what I did for friends,” Tate returned.
“No they don’t, Tate. You did what you did for me because you’re you. That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”
Tate was silent a moment then he said, “Well then, you guessed right. Words are enough.”
Ty nodded.
Tate tipped his head to the side and asked jokingly, “We done with the near-midnight in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere heart-to-heart?”
Ty didn’t feel like joking and answered, “No.”
“Then what –?”
“Love you, man,” Ty interrupted quietly. “Learned the hard way not to delay in expressing that sentiment so I’m not gonna delay. You call me brother and I got one who’s blood who don’t mean shit to me and today, all this shit done, rejoicing and reflecting, it hit me that I got two who aren’t blood but who do mean something. And you’re one of those two.”
“Ty –” Tate murmured.
“I will never forget, until I die, what you did for me and my wife and until that day I will never stop bein’ grateful.”
“Fuck, man,” Tate whispered.
“Now, do those words work so you get what what you did means to me?”
Silence then, “Yeah, they work.”
“Good, then now we’re done with our near-midnight, middle of fuckin’ nowhere heart-to-heart,” Ty declared, turned, opened the door to the Viper and started folding in.
He stopped with his ass nearly to the seat and looked up over the door when Tate called his name.
“I don’t have a blood brother,” Tate said. “But you should know there’s a reason I call you that.”
Ty nodded.
But Tate didn’t need to tell him that. He already knew. His actions said it all.
Then he sat his ass in the car.
Then he got that ass home to his wife.
* * * * *
Lexie
Half an hour later…
I woke when I felt my man slide in behind me, his arm curled around me and pulled me close.
I snuggled closer.
I wanted to ask where he went but I figured he’d tell me if he wanted me to know.
Then I fell back asleep.
And I was so exhausted by a day of celebration and an evening of more energetic celebration with my husband and me alone, I didn’t notice the AC wasn’t jacked up.
* * * * *
The next day…
4:15 p.m.
I drove through our development with Ty following me and my teeth clenched when I saw them hanging out, some cars but mostly vans with big aerials and dishes on top parked everywhere but in our drive. I hit the garage door opener with the timing I’d perfected from experience, knowing right when the signal caught so that I could roll up and not have to wait for the door to open and glide right in.
I usually glided right in. My journey right then was slowed by the reporters and cameramen converging on my baby just outside our drive and if one of them put a scratch in her, I was going to have to break my promise to Ty and lose my mind.
I kept my eyes straight and my car moved at a crawl, I hit driveway and they fell back but I couldn’t exactly gun it and screech in as much as I wanted to.
Nina had warned that, regardless of the fact that she had made a statement to reporters outside her office in Gnaw Bone yesterday afternoon after the Governor of California issued his apology and pardoned Ty, and she also made another one late this morning after Ty and I woke up to a media maelstrom right outside our house, they wouldn’t listen to her when she ended both saying, first, “This will be the only statement made on behalf of Mr. Tyrell Walker. Mr. Walker and his wife are relieved justice has finally been served and would now like to put this revolting episode behind them. They ask that you respect their wishes to move forward with their life in peace,” and at the end of the second statement, “As I said yesterday, Mr. Walker and his wife do not wish to speak to the media. I ask again on their behalf that you please allow them to put this grueling event behind so they can carry on with their rightful but delayed freedom to enjoy their future unimpeded by further upheaval.”
Obviously, they didn’t listen to her.
It was okay when we were at work and when I say that, I mean it was okay for Ty. Wood, Pop and three mechanics made it clear that the forecourt was private property and unless they were getting work done on their cars, they were not to leave the sidewalk. The garage was set back a whack from the street and had some outbuildings in front of it. So Ty worked in peace.
I didn’t even though Dominic called Daniel and Daniel, who had four inches and sixty pounds on his boyfriend and was also a serious mountain man, just a gay one, informed the reporters they were not invited in the Spa. Luckily, the clients coming in that day found walking through a river of reporters shouting questions very exciting.
I did not. The constant buzz from outside and the shouted questions anytime a client came through the door were nerve-wracking and a total let-down from the jubilation of the day before. I was high on relief and belated justice and they were cutting into my happy trip which was super uncool.
Nina assured us this would go away, it would take awhile but it would and we just needed to stay quiet and be patient.
Ty informed me that we were doing what Nina said we were doing, exercising the freedom to enjoy our future unimpeded by further upheaval and that included me not losing control on my sass and throwing any at annoying reporters.
I was thinking that to do this, I needed to evacuate the state of Colorado. I figured both Wood and Dominic would not balk at Ty and I taking a vacation however I was only back at work for a few weeks and I couldn’t do that to Dominic after taking off on him once. Not even doing it to celebrate something as miraculous (albeit deserved) as what had happened to Ty or to escape the media onslaught.
So, it was put a clamp on my sass, something I promised my husband I would do.
Which was hard normally but now it was taking superhuman powers.
Ty glided the Snake in beside me and hit the garage door opener before he’d switched her off. I waited in my car and watched in the rearview mirror as the door fell, not getting out in order that they wouldn’t get a shot of me coming out of my car like they did when I walked into and out of the salon that day, both times escorted by my husband who left work that morning in order to drive up and trail me down then walk me into the salon and then who showed at the salon when we were both off in order to escort me out to the Charger and trail me home. We should have taken one car but he wanted to go to the gym after work, a plan thwarted when the news people didn’t go away all day.
As the door went down and settled, the shouts and cries of questions and requests for statements were drowned but not gone.
I got out, stood in my door and glared over the roof of the Charger at Ty as he folded out. He caught the look on my face, stopped dead and burst out laughing.
I didn’t find anything funny therefore I slammed my door and stomped out of the garage, into the utility room and up the steps.
I’d crashed my purse down on the side counter and was listening to Ty coming up the stairs when something caught my eye and I froze, staring out the backdoor.
“No fucking way!” I shouted.
“What?” Ty asked.
I lifted an arm, pointed at a wide but flat-ish cardboard box leaning against the glass at the backdoor, turned to my husband and proclaimed, “If that’s a box full of sick-ass sex tapes, I don’t wanna know.”
Ty’s eyes were glued to the box, he moved through the kitchen, opened the door, tagged it, closed the door, locked it, swung the blinds closed, wound them shut and walked the box to the island all the while I stood there and glared.
His head turned to me and he muttered, “Peña.”
I blinked, not prepared for that word to come out of his mouth. Then I asked, “What?”
The fingers of Ty’s big, strong hands were already shoving through an opening at the side as he answe
red, “Express from Peña.”
Great. This could mean anything and that included more sick-ass sex tapes.
I stomped to Ty as he tore the box open with his Mr. Humongo strength then he set it down, pulling out something inside that was wrapped in layers of bubble wrap. He tore that free and my breath stuck in my throat at what he unveiled.
It was a shining sun with wavy rays expanding out made of chips of Mexican tile artfully arranged and embedded in terracotta. It was unusual and extraordinary. I’d never seen anything like it.
It was magnificent.
Ty set it back on the pile of bubble wrap he’d shoved in the box and pulled out an envelope, slit it open with a finger and yanked out a card.
Then he whispered, “Fuck.”
I got close and read the card held in his fingers.
On it, it said simply, “Welcome to sunshine, esé.”
What should have been a happy day destroyed by annoying reporters melted instantly.
Just as instantly as I melted into tears.
And an instant later, I was in my husband’s arms.
* * * * *
The sunshine Angel sent us was made to decorate the outside of a house.
Without me asking him to, Ty mounted it in the kitchen so we were sure to see it every day.
* * * * *
One day later…
We came home to another box. This was a bottle of champagne from Samuel Sterling. Nothing on the note except a scrawled, black “SS” which was super cool.
I looked up the label on the internet and found that bottle of champagne cost four hundred and fifty dollars.
Samuel Sterling was hot, rich and had class.
I got his number from Ty and phoned him to ask him to dinner that weekend. Considering he was in Paris, he couldn’t make it but said he’d take a rain check.
Paris.
Totally, the dude had class.
* * * * *
Ty
A week and a half later…
Ty’s phone rang, he stepped away from the bike he was working on and pulled it out of his back pocket.
The number on the screen said it was withheld, he hesitated, opened it and put it to his ear.
“Yo.”
“Is this Mr. Tyrell Walker?”
“You first,” Ty ordered.
“Angela Buttner, California Attorney General’s office.”
“Restitution discussion goes through my attorney, Nina Maxwell.”
“Mr. Walker, I’m not calling about restitution. I’m calling you to explain we’ve had a request from Mrs. Jolinda Hayes. She’d like your contact information.”
“Who’s Jolinda Hayes?” Ty asked.
“She’s the mother of Shaun Hayes, the other man framed by Detectives Fuller and Palmer. The man who committed suicide three days prior to going to trial.”
Fuck.
Ty pulled in breath. Then he asked, “Why does she wanna talk to me?”
“She hasn’t explained that, sir. She just requested your contact number. Obviously, we can’t give her that information unless you agree.”
“Give it,” Ty stated.
“Sorry?”
“Give it to her.”
Pause then, “Oh. Okay, well thank you –”
Ty flipped his phone shut.
An hour and a half later, it rang again. He pulled it out of his pocket, looked at the display and saw an LA area code.
He sucked in breath.
Then he flipped it open and put it to his ear.
“Walker.”
“Tyrell Walker?”
“Yep.”
Pause then, “This is Jolinda Hayes, I’m –”
“Know who you are.”
Silence from Jolinda Hayes.
Ty wasn’t silent. “Know what he lived through, all of it, bein’ inside and not wantin’ to go back, bein’ framed, knowin’ he was goin’ down and why. Don’t know you; don’t know the kind of life you’ve lived but I do know it’s doubtful you lived through somethin’ like that. I know why he did what he did too. It was his choice. It was him takin’ his power back. It was him doin’ what he could to save you from livin’ through that hell with him. It was not the right choice but it was a compassionate one.”
When he stopped speaking, he heard quiet tears and he silently listened to them for a fuck of a long time.
Then he was done listening so he called, “Mrs. Hayes.”
I tearful hiccough then, “Yes, Mr. Walker?”
“Ty,” he corrected then didn’t hesitate and continued. “It’s too late but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there to savor. Your son got his shit together and died a good man and everyone in the country knows it. That’s worth somethin’ so savor it.”
“Rah… rah… right.”
“Right. Now, get a piece of paper and a pen. I’m gonna give you my wife’s number. You wanna talk, she’ll listen. You wanna laugh, she’s fuckin’ funny. You never call her, that’s your choice. But way I see it, we’re family and my wife does the welcoming.”
Another hiccough, some noise then, “I, um… Ty, I have a piece of paper.”
Ty gave her Lexie’s phone number and name.
Then Jolinda Hayes pulled it together and said quietly, “Thank you, Ty, for taking my call.”
“Lady Luck finally saw fit to shine her light on me but life taught me to share. Welcome to the light.” That got him a quiet sob into which he said quietly, “Mrs. Hayes, call my wife.”
“Rah… rah… right.”
“Take care.”
“You… you too, Ty.”
He flipped his phone shut, opened it, called his woman and told her she might get a call from Jolinda Hayes and why at the same time he hoped to fuck she wouldn’t burst into tears again.
She didn’t. She asked him what he wanted for dinner.
He told her he’d eat whatever she made and flipped the phone shut after hearing her tell him she loved him and returning the sentiment and then he got back to work.
* * * * *
Four weeks later…
Ty stood at the basin brushing his teeth wondering where the fuck his wife was.
It was time to shower.
Unusually, as in, for the first time ever, when they got up, he went to their bathroom, she wandered down the stairs.
He was about to bend, spit, rinse and go find her when he saw her in the mirror, wandering in the door behind him, her eyes on him, her body in a pair of loose drawstring shorts and a tight little tee, her arms behind her back, her face wearing an expression he couldn’t read.
He continued to brush as through the mirror he watched her slowly make her way across the bathroom to him then he lost sight of her when she fitted herself to his back.
Then he felt her lips move on his skin and he knew she was tracing his tat.
He put a hand to the edge of the vanity counter, bent his neck, spit, rinsed, shoved his toothbrush in the holder, looked at himself in the mirror and rumbled, “Lexie.”
Her hand appeared, coming around his side and his eyes dropped to see she was holding a white stick. She placed it on the counter by the sink.
There was a little window in the stick.
And there was a little, pink plus sign in the window.
His body went still.
He felt her lips move against the skin of his back as she whispered, “I’m pregnant, honey.”
Ty Walker closed his eyes because he couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t even see her and her light was shining so bright, it seared his retinas, beat through his skin, his tissue, warming him straight to the marrow of his bones.
When he felt her movement, his eyes opened and Ty watched as her other arm snaked around his waist, her fingers light on the skin of his abs when he felt her lips go away and her chin rest gentle on his back and she called, “Ty?”
“Boy, Julius Tatum. Girl, Ella Alexi,” Ty declared and felt his wife still at his back.
Then she asked, “Did you just name our fut
ure child?”
“Yep.”
“Uh, honey lumpkins, that’s the kinda thing that’s discussed.”
“You get the next one.”
Silence.
Then, “All right, baby, I can live with that.”
His gaze moved to his eyes in the mirror.
Then he smiled.
Then he moved and he moved in order to take a shower with his wife.
* * * * *
Lexie
Two weeks later…
I walked into the diner, already knowing what I was going to order.
And it was a miracle when my step didn’t stutter when I saw Detective Chace Keaton sitting at the booth at the back.
It was the first time I’d seen him since that day in my closet except once when he was on television, caught by the news reporters walking into Carnal Police Department.
The media circus had died down, the reporters moving on to feed on fresher meat.
But things in Carnal were still shifting and hopefully this was in order to settle and not to rock again.
There were four police officers who kept their jobs at CPD. Chace and Frank were two of those four. Three had been indicted as had a clerk and the secretary who worked for Fuller and the detective pool. The rest of the Carnal Police Force had been discharged. Detective Darren Newcomb was one who’d been discharged but he bought this rather than an indictment because he made a deal and was turning evidence.
Arnold Fuller had been stripped of his position due to multiple counts of corruption and mishandling the investigation of a local serial killer including delayed responses to dispatch his officers when two of his female citizens were reported missing as well as his pending indictments for corruption, conspiracy and providing false evidence during an out-of-state murder investigation.
Officers from other Stations around the county were covering as the City Council went through a massive hiring process.
Lady Luck Page 49
