by Kira Graham
This is one of those times, and I know that for a fact because, as I rise from my seat at the adjournment and turn around, I am staring into the old, dead, gray eyes of a man that scared me with just his photo. He’s even scarier in person, making my knees wobble, and it takes everything in me to keep my expression bland and even when he smiles at me.
I don’t acknowledge Lucky Parker past the few seconds that it takes me to catalogue everything I can about him. He’s wearing a dark t-shirt, a pair of worn jeans, and boots that have scuff marks on the outer soles, as if the sides have been scraped against asphalt. Just ask my Loubs what a curb can do to fine craftsmanship.
“Babe?” Zeus asks when I walk closer, hating the rail that separates us because I need to use him as a human shield in case that freak has anything planned.
It’s nothing against the man I love. I was just born with survival instincts and a twisted reasoning process. He’s bigger. His body can take a bullet and survive.
“Don’t react. Behind you, eleven o’clock, beside the old lady who looks like Cloris Leachman. You see him?” I whisper, keeping my face buried in his chest while Z slowly and casually looks around before nodding to Chilli in greeting.
I feel him stiffen and don’t need to hear his answer, not when I hear him curse softly.
“Stay behind me, baby, and reach into my inside pocket for my phone. Speed-dial three, and tell Heath that Parker is here, and to keep a tail on him if he leaves. Tell him, ‘Back, front, and roof,’” Zeus whispers, keeping our body language that of a couple sharing an emotional moment.
Right about now, the only emotion I feel is the desire to run, plus a little regret at not bringing my backup gun. Like the cops would find a hidden safe within a hidden room. Pfft.
Dialing with a shaking hand, I hear Heath answer, and whisper the instructions to him, staying on the line long enough to hear him start barking orders at whoever is with him. Then there’s a scramble of feet that ends when the line goes dead.
“He left; you can relax,” Zeus whispers, hugging me tightly enough that it hurts—but God, it feels so good at the same time that I don’t want to pull away.
I’m no scaredy-cat, and never have been, and I honestly can’t say that I think I ever will be. I once stayed at home by myself during high school, the year that my mom, my dad, and Cleo went to Italy on vacation because I had a meeting with the university dean about early admission that I couldn’t miss. That first night, I heard something downstairs, and I swear to you, there was someone there. Did that scare me?
Of course not. I got my baseball bat and the pepper spray that I’ve had since I was twelve and started growing boobs, because my dad’s insane and insisted on giving it to me, and I went down there to confront the burglar. He fled, of course, because come on—I was a rock star that night, although unfortunately a rock star who never got to stay at home alone again once Dad heard about it.
That’s me. I am never afraid. And yet, standing here after a brutal morning of evidence submission, and watching the jury eyeball me, I can honestly say that I am scared. The trial is going to be a killer for sure, which I knew it from the start, but this…
Lucky Parker showing up here—that terrifies me. Not because I didn’t expect it, because I did. I put out the bait, after all, so I knew that something would happen. But for him to be so blatant and out in the open—that scares the hell out of me. He’s sending me a message in response to the one that I sent him, and the wording is clear: he’ll kill me, and anyone around me, if he needs to.
And he can. After Dad showed up at the apartment this morning and called his contact Albert, things moved really swiftly. Nothing in this life is better than having a CIA contact—don’t ask; I don’t know how Dad did it, either. But the guy read the file, made a few calls, and, within ten minutes, we had so much information that it was hard to comprehend.
The only reason that I am here right now, and the only reason that Zeus didn’t drug me—I felt the syringe in his shorts pocket—is what we got this morning. The US government—unofficially, at least—wants Lucky Parker apprehended and brought in, and, under that umbrella, I have a verbal guarantee that they will make this case go away.
Simple. Easy. A quid pro quo that will clear my name, and see Lucky—or Sergeant Major Barnes Hilan—taken in and charged with a murder that they can pin on him, thanks to some help from the nifty CIA analysts who not only caught the guy on camera coming out of my building, but also skipped the camera trail all the way from my place to the neighborhoods where Donald, Donaldson, and Perez all lived.
It’s really scary what these people can do when motivated, and even scarier that I am relieved that we’re all being watched so closely. Without that footage, they wouldn’t have a case against him, and I need them to. The problem now is catching him—and keeping him caught—until they can arrest him.
As a master of his trade, Hilan can disappear without a trace if he wants to, and that cannot happen. If it does, then the CIA will withdraw their help, I’ll go back to square one, and I will end up standing trial without that footage. That’s where the security guys come in. As ex-military, they know how to track him without being seen, and that is exactly what I need them to do until the net closes. Channels have to be followed, plans have to be put in place, and, as Director Messing explained, the cops can’t just come out and say that they’ve found another suspect without explaining how it happened.
Proof has to be manufactured that doesn’t just put Hilan in the neighborhood, but puts him at every scene, including my own apartment. That is what they’re doing now—setting it all up.
So here I am, playing along, just waiting and praying that this works.
“It’ll be okay, Rosie. They’ll keep an eye on him and let Messing know when to move in. At this time tomorrow, we’ll be in Greece, sipping cocktails and sunning ourselves.”
“I can’t wait.”
And I really can’t. I feel as if I’ve aged ten years in the last month, and maybe, if I am really lucky, I’ll be able to get my hands on that huge rock that Z tried to give me last night. I mean, I could crack his safe and steal the thing if I wanted to, but I want another shot at his romantic side, and dammit, I want to get it without having to ask for it or apologize for the mistake I made.
I’m a freaking lawyer, guys; we don’t accept blame until proven completely guilty!
“Good. Now, come on. There’s a room open down the hall, where they said that we could wait and have lunch. Ma brought baskets for us all.”
And by “us all,” he means every single member of my family, including Mindy Marcy, the fucking bane of my existence. Not to mention the president of the Rosetta Is Innocent Fan Club. Fuck my life.
Hey, it could be worse, I guess. I could be Cleo and get stuck with her, because Tee is just barely keeping her teeth behind her lips, and Sin is so glassy-eyed that all it would take is one word for her to clock that little Catholic busy bee right in the face.
“Thank God. I don’t know what you did with Mom’s eggs this morning—”
“Christ, Rosetta, you make that sound so disgusting. Don’t say ‘Mom’ and ‘eggs’ in the same sentence,” Zeus mutters, keeping me behind him as we exit the courtroom, and security falls in around us.
There are people milling about, but no one seems too suspicious, thanks to the large police presence here at Director Messing’s request.
“I didn’t mean for it to sound dirty,” I giggle, throwing a wink at Larson, who is flanking me and has his hand on his weapon.
The guy grins, and we keep walking, listening to Zeus complain about my dirty mouth.
“I didn’t hear you complaining in the shower this morning!” I taunt, biting my lip when he spins around and blushes.
“You were being a good girl this morning, darling, so of course I wouldn’t complain. As for the rest, if you don’t stop making sexual innuendoes about your mother, I will seriously lose my will to ever attain an erection. Think about that,” he
crows, his chuckles filling my ears when I gasp and gape at him.
Have I mentioned that Zeus has a cock the size of—
“I am completely zipping my lips. Mom? Mom who?” I ask, giggling when he pulls me against his side, a huge smile lining his mouth.
“That’s the spirit, baby. That’s the spirit. Now, let’s talk about the next step,” he murmurs, nodding at the security guys when we come to a door.
He opens it and ushers me into an empty room, shaking his head and closing the portal behind him.
“Where is—”
“Next door. I wanted a moment alone with you first. Just a little time to talk to you without Chilli injecting a clumsy moment that distracts us, or Jack bursting into another spate of tears,” Z mutters ruefully, his derisive smirk bringing forth a spark of amusement from me.
“Weeell,” I muse, stepping closer to stroke my hands up his chest and over his shoulders, “here I am. All yours.”
“Mmm, that’s awesome. Come here,” he murmurs, bending down to kiss me, his touch thorough, slow, and deep.
I love sex with Zeus, and I love spending hours just kissing him passionately as a precursor to the sex, but these moments have got to be my absolute favorite. It’s kissing for the sake of connecting and sharing intimacy, not as a lead-up to desire and passion. I like that, too—don’t get me wrong—but this side of Zeus is what I love best. The soft touches and deep kisses that are filled with easy…love, I guess. Yeah, that’s what it is, I think, as I kiss him softly and pull away to look up at him. He loves me, and it’s not just in the things that he does for me, or in the words that he says; it’s the way that he’s looking at me right now, his eyes all soft and sweet as if just standing here with me is the best thing in the world to him.
It’s a little ironic, really. I stalked Chilli for months, believing wholeheartedly that I loved him and that we belonged together, but what I didn’t see was that Zeus was there the whole time. Stalking me. Watching me. Noting my every move, all my likes and dislikes, and even the strange little quirks I have that make me, me. He knows that I like milky, sweet coffee, but that I take an extra shot of espresso because I don’t like it weak. He knows that I love donuts but hate the sugary powdered ones because they tend to stick to my teeth. He knows that my period is a time of utter misery for me, and that I have to sleep with two maxi pads and a towel under my ass because sometimes shit happens. Heck, he changed the linens when shit happened to me last week, and then he rubbed my back and didn’t make mention of the fact that when shit happened, my ass and bloody parts were plastered to his groin.
Everything about me, even the parts that I consider gross, are things that he accepts and seems to like, as if just having all those ugly parts is good because it means that he also gets to have the good parts. And I feel the same way about him.
Not to get too personal, and not that I’m saying this to dis my man, but Zeus—and, according to Cleo, all Hart men—have nighttime flatulence. I think it’s because they eat the way they do, and because every dish that Lovey makes is basically loaded with onions, but whatever. The thing is, he has a fart session in bed for at least two minutes in the dead of night while he’s fast asleep, as if a plug has suddenly been popped. And I don’t even mind. I kicked my high school boyfriend in the balls once because he dared to fart next to me, a little game he and his infantile buddies thought was hilarious. But with Z, it’s just…life. Neither one of us is perfect, and if he can wake up with his crotch bloody, thanks to my cycle, then I can deal with a few ass-belches.
I guess that Mom was right—though I mentally cross myself, because just thinking that gives me the chills—and love is a strange and wonderful thing that finds its best rhythms when you aren’t looking. Those rhythms are what I enjoy most about our relationship, I think. I like knowing that I can take a number two, walk out of the bathroom, and not hide for an hour because, contrary to popular belief, my crap stinks, too, just like everyone else’s does. I like that I can wake up with a zit and still get hammered to death because he doesn’t seem to see it, or doesn’t care. Mostly, I like how safe I feel just being me around Zeus—being the Rosetta Sweet who is by no means perfect and never will be.
It’s a freeing realization, and I surmise—I mean, I’m not a love guru, obviously, but I think that having a man accept me just as I am, and love me not despite, but because of, all my imperfections, allows me to be open and honest and unhindered by all my little faults.
“You know something, Zeus Hart? I love you very, very much, and I have never been more grateful that a man stalked me, than I am right now,” I say, a smile blooming when he flushes and grins back.
“Yeah?”
“Absolutely. I mean, granted, it’s a little creepy to think that you paid someone to live next door and watch me, and it’s even weirder that you used to sit outside the building for hours watching my windows, but you know, I think I sort of like knowing that you love me enough to be a lunatic,” I muse, giggling when he grunts and scowls.
“You stalked Chilli—”
“Because he’s like an eye orgasm,” I scoff, shaking my head with a laugh when his lip curls.
“Fucking pretty boy.”
“Nope. There is nothing pretty or even cute about that man, and we all know it. He was born with the face of an angel and the personality of a lovable prankster, and I like that. Hang on, before you start sulking. What I want to elucidate on now is not how awesomely freaking beautiful Chilli is—”
“Then stop saying it! You know I get jealous and irrationally hurt when you like other people,” he whines, his own grin falling when I sigh and roll my eyes, asking God for help with this man.
Honestly, it doesn’t make it at all cool, or cute, that he shamelessly admits to being green with envy and low on self-esteem. Sure, it’s sort of adorable—oh, all right! I admit it; it’s cute that he pouts unashamedly and admits to flaws that most people would deny with their dying breath.
“My point,” I stress, slapping a hand over his mouth when he tries to cut in, “is that as gorgeous as Chilli is, he isn’t nearly as great as you. You’re handsome and smart and weird and so not the kind of guy that I thought I would want.”
“That isn’t exactly complimentary.”
“Shut up! Just listen. You’re a history dork who enjoys watching documentaries and arguing about the historical progression of the social structure of our society. I enjoy watching Swamp People and perving out over Jay, even though there isn’t much to perv out over. We’re opposites, Zeus, complete opposites, and yet, it just works, even though it shouldn’t. Chilli and I are what most people would call perfect for each other. He’s social and easygoing and quirky, exactly the kind of guy I would have seen myself with.”
“This isn’t exactly sounding good for me,” Zeus grouches, his scowl returning when I giggle and loop my arms around his neck to pull him down for a kiss.
“But it should. I’m trying to tell you, Hart, that I love you despite all odds and despite this crazy mind of mine. It’s not about what I thought I wanted, or where I thought I should be going. This whole love thing was a nuclear bomb that hit me from out of the blue. One day, I didn’t like anything about you, and then…boom! I couldn’t not want you.”
“So, you’re saying that I grew on you like a fucking fungus?” he growls, not looking too impressed by my romantic spirit.
“No, you boob! I’m saying that I had this dream of who I was and what I wanted, and then you woke me up. Sort of like Sleeping Beauty,” I giggle, squealing when he leans down to bite my neck, pulling away with a smacking kiss.
“That would make me the prince, then. Fitting,” he preens, chuckling when I slap his chest and huff.
“You’re willfully missing the point and killing my romance. I love you—do you hear me? I love you. Not because I should, or because it was some natural progression, but because it was just meant to be. Can you imagine if I’d never started stalking Chilli? Your mom and mine wouldn’t have met,
and then Addy and Cleo wouldn’t have been set up on a date, and then us—we wouldn’t have happened, because honestly, we just wouldn’t have gotten along. You’re serious, while I enjoy the more…amusing moments in life. You like tomato juice, and I find it revolting. You watch football and spend two hours a day working out for fun, while I got slapped with a restraining order for threatening a personal trainer at gunpoint for daring to remind me that I should be working out. We just don’t fit on paper,” I mutter, a frown pulling at my brow.
“I dunno, babe. I seem to remember a certain shower session…” he purrs, pulling my groin flush to his, where I feel him harden a little.
“That, we do. Physically and emotionally, we just fit. And I like that. In a lot of ways, we are actually perfect for each other, so I guess what I have been trying to say is, I’m glad you didn’t just walk away when I told you to get lost. You make my world a better place to live in, a happy place that I hope I get to live in for the rest of my life.”
Zeus goes still, his smile slipping to be replaced by a solemn look that makes his face seem hard. Knowing him, though, I don’t see the scary harshness, only the serious, deep emotion that he’s feeling.
“Rosetta Sweet, are you saying that you want to spend your life with me?” he asks, his voice hoarse.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” I whisper, giving him a teary smile that turns to shock when he grins, lets out a wolf whistle, and turns to face the door that bursts open, letting in our families, one “friend,” and a smiling judge.
“Awesome. Let’s do this thing! She just proposed!” he yells, looking so happy with himself that all I can do is gape, while I am bombarded by screams of joy and a hundred voices all talking at once.
I could go into a whole recounting of what happens next, and some of you would probably swoon with delight and gush about how romantic and absolutely wonderful Zeus Hart is. What I feel, however, as the judge starts to ask questions, and as a ring is slid onto my finger, is bamboozled, as well as strangely unable to protest.
