by Edie Danford
“Did you track him down?” Pete asks. “I mean, did you go to the police, or…”
“Honestly, I didn’t want to deal with any of it. I wanted to retreat to my lab and never come out again. But my uncle tracked him down. He took him to court. Of course Jakub was unhappy with me because I didn’t say the right things to the attorneys. Luckily the intellectual property was easy to track and recover as mine. But I didn’t want to go for punitive damages. The damage had already been done, you know? I figured if he wanted the money that bad—fuck, let him have it. I just wanted to move on. My uncle would have made a bigger deal about it, but toward the end of the whole business, I um…”
“What?”
“It is very embarrassing. But you wouldn’t be surprised. I got very sick. I ate something that I hadn’t cooked properly, or that perhaps had spoiled. Got food poisoning and ended up in the hospital. It was bad enough that I almost died. Scared my family. They came to the States to see me. My mother…she freaked out when she discovered I’d been sleeping in my lab. I hadn’t bothered to find a new place after being evicted from the old one.” I heave a big sigh. I hate thinking about this shit. “After that, I went along with my family’s wishes about not living alone for a time, about taking help from my uncle and letting him deal with things as I established a new life in Chicago.”
“I’m really fucking sorry, Marek.” Pete presses his lips into a thin white line. He nods and says, “I’m glad you’re okay. And thanks for explaining. I know it can be hard to talk about the past. I understand.”
But I’m not sure he understands completely. Pete tackles messes, goes to battle with them. I keep showing and telling him all the ways I avoid dealing with them.
He stands and picks up our coffee mugs. When I begin to help with clearing, he gives me one of his “oh no, you don’t” looks.
I know better than to tell him to save the dishes for later, so I say, “If we both clean up, then we can get back to studying faster.”
He opens the dishwasher and starts loading. “My brain can’t handle more studying. After I take care of this, I’m going to take one of those power naps you were talking about. And you are going to go to work to help Lia and be a genius.”
I try not to be too blatant about the way I’m watching him bend and stretch over the washer. I say, “And when I get home, we will celebrate a job well done on your test.”
He doesn’t respond. He walks to the sink and begins fiddling with the faucet.
I approach slowly and carefully put my hands on his shoulders. He goes still but he doesn’t step away. I flex my fingers against the tightness of his muscles. I take his stillness as encouragement and begin to massage his neck gently. I love touching him, but I hate that his body is so tense.
“You are nervous about the test and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Nerves can help sometimes. It’s only bad when they take over.” I continue to rub the knotted muscle.
His head bows and he releases a sigh that makes his shoulders shake. My mouth is watering at the scent of him. And my dick thickens at the feel of him. I need to step away, but I can’t.
“Hey,” he says after a few moments.
“Yes?”
“When you’re at the lab being a genius today, can you invent a shrink-ray machine?”
“Shrink…ray?”
“Yes. I need to make you very small. So I can fit you in my backpack and take you to my test. When I get nervous, you can unshrink and rub my shoulders. And tell me nice things in that sexy voice of yours.”
I make a sound of doubt. “My voice is sexy?”
“Oh, hell yes. And you know it.”
“I do not know it.”
He turns to face me. And to my great pleasure, he puts his hands on my hips. “See? Right there. The way you said that… ‘I do not know it.’”
I smile down at him. “It sounded sexy right then because you were saying it.”
He laughs. “My voice is squeaky. Mickey Mousian.”
“I love your voice. Love. It. And mousian is not a word.”
“It’s an invented word. Like glag.”
“Glag is better than mousian.”
“Agreed.” He rises to his toes. My heart feels as though it’s been zapped with a love ray when he presses his lips to mine. It’s fast, but it’s a kiss. Initiated by him.
“Pete,” I say, slowly licking his taste away. Too little. I need more.
“What?”
“Can I give you a kiss? I mean…that one was good. But I’d like another. Before I go.”
I think he’ll shake his head, step away, refuse me. My heart leaps when he raises his arms and grasps my neck. I kiss him. Mine is longer and involves a little bit of tongue, but it’s still not entirely satisfying. I’m starving and need many helpings of Pete.
“You did a good job with hair product this morning.” His gaze fixes on the new haircut.
“Thank you. I paid very close attention to what Ro did. I’m a fast learner, and he was good with his lessons.”
“He was, huh?” The edge in his tone amuses me. His fingers tighten and he gives my neck a tug. He rises again and I hunch. Our mouths meet.
This kiss is much better than the last two. The taste of him is the most delicious thing in the world, and that he’s sharing it, letting me consume it with my tongue and my lips and my breath is fucking awesome.
My hands cup his ass, drawing him up and closer, going for better angles to appease my swelling dick. My mouth goes for better angles too—my lips mashing and nibbling, my tongue delving, stabbing.
I want inside him and I want him inside me. Because it’s total foolishness to be two bodies when we can be one. We only need to move in a certain way, try a little bit harder—
Pete wrenches his mouth away. Before I can get it back, he smashes his forehead into my chest. “Gah,” he breathes. “We have to stop.”
“Why?” I ask the obvious question, sliding my hands from his ass to his shoulders and back to his ass again.
His back is shaking with laughter. When he looks up at me, his eyes are dark, his pupils wide. “Because work.”
“Work,” I scoff. “So ridiculous.”
“Yes. But necessary.”
Fucking seems way more necessary at the moment. The tiny distance between us is buzzing with power, energy, waiting to be tapped, to be used, to explode in glorious color. I spend a lot of my life learning about how to create energy—it’s a shame to waste what we’re generating.
“It’s my job to make sure your life goes smoothly. Not to get you into trouble.”
“Well…”
“Go.” He puts his hands on my torso and gives me a push.
I give him a look.
He says, “You like bossy, remember?”
“No. I don’t remember. At all. It has totally escaped me. What are you talking about?”
He turns back to the sink. The pink skin on the back of his neck is a fine sight. As is the small smile I see creep across one side of his mouth when he turns to retrieve a pan from the stove.
Feeling bold, I step in to press a kiss to his cheek, running my hand over the fine curve of his ass. Before he can scold, I hop away. As I leave the room to search for my parka and bag, I say over my shoulder, “You’ll kick ass on your test. I know it.”
“Thanks,” he says, turning to glance at me with unsure eyes. “And thanks for your help.”
“You’re welcome. Promise you’ll text the second you finish?”
He nods.
As I head toward the entryway, there are many things I should be considering regarding the busy day ahead of me at work. Shrink-rays should not have be on my mind, but I think of them and their possibilities (very, very remote) all the way to the physics building.
Pete
The nap doesn’t work. I keep thinking about that asshole who played out Marek in Palo Alto. Instead of relaxing, I think of scenarios where I’d find the dude and show his ass what being truly played feels like.
Yeah. Big, bad-ass Pete Schulz, whose fiercest moves are dabbing, the Dougie, and wielding a Miele canister vac.
Well, if thoughts were weapons, the dude would’ve been broke and dead-dicked the second Mar had told me the tale.
Anyway, I don’t exactly sleep, but I manage to lie down and close my eyes.
I’m checking my daily to-do list when my phone buzzes. My mom. I bite my lip, staring at the screen. Talking to her will likely ruin any chill vibes I’ve managed to grab while lying down. I love my mom. But she is not…relaxing. If I don’t answer, I’ll likely make more trouble for myself in the long run. Mom doesn’t like to be ignored. A quality I’d inherited and am slooooowly (and impatiently) trying to quash.
I pick up. “Hey.”
“Hi, honey. Glad I caught you. How’s your day looking?”
“Um, I have an exam at six. For my stats class. I’m hoping to study some more right now—”
“Oh good. If you don’t have to be anywhere until six, that gives us plenty of time for lunch. I have things to discuss.”
“I don’t think that’s plenty of time, actually. Could you come here? I might be able to swing it if I didn’t have to head north.”
“Let’s meet halfway for lunch. Greektown? That’s close to your classes. You could study on campus after a good meal.”
I close my eyes and perform a quick, silent debate. It’s a big deal she’s agreeing to meet somewhere instead of begging me to go up to Lake Woods. It’s a big deal that she’s asking me to have lunch, instead of sending a text that demands I show up, pronto.
I’m making progress when it comes to showing her I won’t tolerate what I used to tolerate. Of course, I’d gotten a big head start when she’d picked me up at O’Hare two years ago, with everything I owned stuffed into four suitcases and two boxes riding a carousel at Baggage Claim 9.
I’d felt two steps from death after my one-way flight from LAX, and probably looked like I’d been two steps beyond death. She’d immediately driven me to the hospital, where I’d been treated for dehydration and walking pneumonia. And where they’d given me a referral to a therapist to see about my depression. I’d seen the dude twice and had bailed. Yeah, another reason why talking with my mom stressed me out. She hadn’t liked that I’d bailed on therapy and let me know her feelings. Frequently.
“Okay,” I say. “It will have to be early, though.”
“Santorini in an hour? We need to talk.”
I glance at the clock. I have to eat, right? And if what she has to say is important, it’s better to get it out of the way sooner rather than later.
I take the bus so I can study on the way downtown and not have to worry about parking or paying for a valet. After a quick hike from the bus stop, a very hot waiter at my mom’s fave Greek restaurant leads me to a window table. All the waiters at this place are hot. Once upon a time it had been a selling point, but now all the dark-haired gods carrying trays of flaming cheese and flashing white smiles at everyone seem…
Okay, yeah, they still seem like gods. I just don’t care about checking them out in quite the same way.
My mom has a glass of wine and her phone in front of her. Her two favorite things. Besides me, of course.
I approach the table, ignore her two-second, head-to-toe sweep of my appearance, and bend to kiss her. “Hi.”
“Hi, honey. Have you not been getting enough—”
I hold up my hand. “Nope. If we go there, then I’m not sitting down.”
“Oh jeez.” She rolls her eyes. “I’ve heard of parents giving their kids the tough-love treatment. But since when do kids give it to their parents?”
I give her a look, like, Do you really want to ask that question?
“Fine,” she says. “I won’t comment.”
“Thanks.” I give her my best smile and sit.
She, of course, looks divine. Twenty years younger than fifty-one. Her perfectly tousled hair is a new shade—honey and caramel tones instead of her old fave ash-blond—and the rose-colored cashmere sweater she wears does great things for her blue eyes. The pink-tone rose-cut diamonds in her ears add sparkle, while faded jeans and Frye boots lend classy earthiness. Delaney Schulz is a knockout. Always has been. And living, breathing proof that looking fab doesn’t make someone’s life fab. Doesn’t make someone feel fab.
I’ve spent many words, many sighs, and so many wishes on trying to get her to make some changes in her life. I’m coming to peace with the idea that maybe she doesn’t want to change, and, if I want her to accept me for who I am, I need to accept her.
We chat a little about the menu and food. What I’ve been cooking for Mar. Whether she should switch yoga studios. Clothes come up. Right when I think I’ll have to shut down yet another round of “You had such an instinct for what to buy; you used to look soooooo good, Petey!” the waiter approaches.
After he takes our order, I ask Mom, “So what’s up? Why the urgency?”
“Well…” She taps a fingernail on her phone. Her nail polish is a really good shade of periwinkle.
“Well?” I prompt, curling my toes in my boots. I don’t have all day and sometimes my mom takes all day.
“Your father and Tracy are moving.”
My chin jerks. Her eyes are serious. She isn’t joking.
I talk to my dad maybe once every couple of months. My mom talks to him—and his second wife, Tracy—often. They’re all friends. Sort of. My mom lives in the guest cottage on Dad and Tracy’s property. I had lived there with my mom until I’d graduated high school and had run like the wind for Los Angeles.
“For real?” I ask. “They’re selling?”
“Yes. Your dad is taking early retirement.” She smiles ruefully and says, “If you count all the hours he’s worked over the years, he could’ve retired at thirty and still been due overtime.”
I nod. My dad is a workaholic. When he isn’t working, he’s doing work-related things.
Mom continues, “If you can believe it, he says he wants to start a foundation. And now that the twins have families of their own, Tracy wants to downsize and get a place where the grandkids will really enjoy themselves. They’re buying a beach place on the Georgia coast. Down where Tracy’s sister lives. So they’re getting rid of the place here and the place in Vail.”
I reach for my water glass and knock it into a plate. I steady it before it goes over. Have to wonder which would’ve been a bigger shock: a goblet of ice water in my lap or my mom’s news.
Dad and Tracy’s posh compound in posh Lake Woods has always been such a symbol for me. Of poshness, yes. And family. Of good times I’d had with my mom. And my friends—who had saved me from going over the edge dozens of times in middle school and high school. And, yes, it was also a symbol of that feeling of never fitting in. That feeling of knowing everyone around me had different priorities, values, politics.
“So.” I pick up the glass and sip. “Does that mean you’re moving?”
She nudges my cold fingers. “C’mon, honey. You don’t think they’ll be able to find a buyer who’ll agree to letting a crazy blonde live in the little house between the pool and the tennis courts?”
We both laugh. Hers is a good laugh, like ice cubes tinkling in a delicious cocktail. Mine tends to sound like the same cocktail being crushed with ice in a malfunctioning blender. She takes another sip of wine and says, “I assume any buyer would use the cottage the way it was supposed to be used. For a caretaker or guests or in-laws or whatever. I’m sure it will be a perk for the sale.”
“I should hope so.” But, wow. It’s impossible to think of my mom living anywhere else but the lushly appointed cottage that we’d both spent years decorating to perfection. My mom has the artistic eye, mine is more…organizational. “So where will you go? Another place in Lake Woods?”
“I’m thinking of a couple options,” she says. “But I wanted to get your opinion before I narrow them down.”
“My opinion.”
“Yes. You’
ll visit me, right? Even it’s far away.”
“Of course.”
“I was thinking about Austin.”
“Austin…Texas?”
She smiles. “It’s where I’m from originally, you know. I was thinking somewhere close to where Grandma and Grandpa live. The housing market is crazy there, but there would be plenty to do. Lots going on in the arts scene there. And no more cold weather.”
“Um. Wow.” That’s the word that keeps popping into my head. Wow. My family—a group of people who had never seemed interested in changing—seem to be making a lot of changes.
“My other option is a place down here. The Loop. A condo or something in one of the high-rises. I’d love a view of the water.”
“That might be cool. Of course, you wouldn’t be able to garden. And it would be hard to walk Coco.”
“Those are definitely considerations. But the more I think about it…” Her slender shoulders move gracefully under pink cashmere. “I’d like to try something new.”
“I think that sounds like a really good thing.” I resist the urge to stand on my chair and cheer.
My dad had given her a very generous divorce settlement and she’s invested it wisely, but she’d stayed in Lake Woods because she and my dad had agreed it would be best to provide me with a “solid foundation.” I’d appreciated it, but after a while—when she hadn’t moved on right away—it had started to make me feel guilty. Especially when I’d come home from my first adventure outside Lake Woods with my raggedy-ass tail between my legs.
“I’m glad you think so,” she says, smiling. “I was thinking that if I moved on, maybe you’d be inspired to move on too.”
I shake my head. “I’ve got a job I like right now. And, even though I’m not exactly speeding my way toward a degree, I’m making progress.” She knows these things. But repeating them every couple weeks seems necessary.
“But I’m not really sure you’re happy, sweetie.” She tips her head and gives me a total mom look. “Honestly, I think you’re selling yourself short. Again. If you spent time making a home for yourself instead of someone else, it would be rewarding and the payoff would be amazing. You’d have free time to work on your interests, not someone else’s. We could give this jewelry business idea of ours more effort too.”
