Complicated

by Kristen Ashley

  “Which neighbor?” I asked.

  “Man named Ned Cheever.”

  I was totally baking Ned some cookies.

  “Who you are to me, I gotta stay removed,” Hix shared. “Called Larry to work with Hal. EMT came to look over the guy. He got his head conked and good, was holdin’ himself delicate, but he was cleared for processing. So they took him to the department.”

  Holding himself delicate.

  I couldn’t stop my smirk.

  Hix must have caught it because he squeezed my hand and asked, “How’d you get away?”

  “Punched him in the throat and then kneed him in the . . .” I didn’t finish that because Mamie was probably asleep, but just in case she wasn’t.

  “Good girl,” Hix murmured on another hand squeeze. “Asked, they said they took pictures at the hospital.”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled, and they did. Both of me bloodied before they cleaned me up and me taped and the blood wiped away.

  I knew those photos would be useful in case that creepy creep did something stupid and tried to fight the charges I was oh-so-totally going to file, but I hoped I never saw them.

  “We have him on breaking and entering, criminal trespass, criminal stalking and assault. State of you, witness hearing you scream and fleeing the scene, catching the guy comin’ out of your house, none of that will go good for him, sweetheart,” Hix informed me.

  I didn’t want to say what I said next but I had to say it because Hix was sheriff.

  So I said it.

  “I, uh . . . well, you need to know that I’d just come in. I didn’t have a chance to lock the door. I’d closed it so he entered, but he didn’t do any breaking.”

  “Can’t enter any property, intent to do the occupant harm in any way, door is locked or not, baby,” he replied gently, not ticked in the slightest, even after he’d repeatedly told me to keep my doors locked (and that was the first thing I’d do from then on for sure).

  He’d also told me to keep my phone out, something else I didn’t do (and was totally doing from that point on). Saying that, as it went down, it wouldn’t have mattered.

  “Even so, all the charges might not stick if he makes a deal,” Hix continued. “And Hal told me first thing the asshole did when Hal showed was ask for his attorney. Not sure we got enough on him to pin criminal stalking, either. But we’re gonna charge him with it.”

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  “That said, Greta, it’s known from his attendance at the Dew he knew your schedule and it was clear he either followed you or was lyin’ in wait,” he told me. “This was premeditated. That’s a very bad thing. He’s dumb enough with all we got on this to fight it, deals will come off the table and he’ll be screwed.”

  That sounded better so my next, “Okay,” was a lot stronger.

  After it, Hix’s hand gave mine another squeeze.

  He’d nabbed my purse when he was at my house. And Mamie had woken up close to Glossop, so when we arrived at Hix’s, she offered to carry it up for me like my broken nose was two broken arms.

  However, I had the feeling she offered because she felt left out in the variety of duties there’d been to look out for me and it was something she could do.

  I was learning Hix’s kids were good kids. Thoughtful. Sweet.

  Not surprising.

  Hope being their mother notwithstanding.

  Up we went with Mamie carrying my purse, Hix holding my hand, and then his kids maneuvered me into his bed.

  The pill was working and I was nearly asleep when I felt the bed move as Hix got in it and I felt his warmth shift into my back, melding with the curve that was me.

  “Baby?” I mumbled just as his hand rounded my waist.

  It found mine and he laced his fingers through.

  “Right here,” he replied.

  That was it before I fell asleep.

  Now I was awake, the effects of the pill hadn’t quite left me, the pain was dull but there, and I was in Hix’s apartment with Hix and his kids there too, somewhere.

  I pushed up, looked around, noted the sun was coming through the windows, and from Hix’s bedside clock, it was just after nine thirty.

  I’d had under five hours of sleep.

  Whatever.

  I threw the covers back and looked to the club chair to see my sandals were still on the floor in front of it but my dress and jacket were gone.

  Regardless, I couldn’t exactly put on a bloody dress.

  I also couldn’t exactly walk out only in Hix’s tee.

  In fact, I didn’t exactly know what the immediate future held for me.

  The problem was, I also couldn’t think on any of this because I had to go to the bathroom.

  Really.

  I went to the door, opened it a bit, peered through, heard a TV playing low and some quiet conversation that didn’t seem close, but I didn’t see anybody.

  I did see the bathroom door open.

  So I scooted out, hurried there and ducked in.

  I closed the door behind me, did my business, washed my hands and was carefully pulling the bloody gauze out of my nostrils when a knock came at the door.

  Tossing the gauze in the toilet, I turned to the door, and when the knock came again, I called, “Uh . . . yeah?”

  “You decent?” Corinne called back.

  “Yeah, darlin’.”

  The door opened, she scooted through and closed it behind her.

  Her gaze glanced off my eyes before she walked past me at my back, closed the lid of the toilet and dumped a stack of folded clothes there.

  She then passed me again, moved to the doors of the narrow cupboard just in from the closed bathroom door and did it talking.

  “Those are mine. You’re, um . . .” she turned to me and gestured awkwardly with her hands around her hips then up to her chest, “like, a little bigger than me but that’s some of my loose stuff.”

  Her eyes skimmed through mine again, I saw her cheeks were flushed, it was pretty, and she opened one of the cupboard doors.

  It was full of stacks of folded towels and washcloths in the odd color combination of the darkest of blues and bright pink (this, I realized, was boys and girls, of which there was an equal number in that household with the boy part of that probably not real hip on using pink towels and the girl part of that equally not hip on using the darkest of blue). There was also a shelf of such things as bottles of pain reliever, Band-Aids, ointments, cold medicine, and other health and first-aid supplies.

  The rest of it was shoved full of girl stuff, some of it Corinne was collecting.

  She turned to me with her hands full and didn’t quite look at me when she stated, “This is my eye makeup remover. You can use these cotton wipes. And my all-around makeup remover. You can use a washcloth for that if you don’t want to get your bandage wet rinsing it off. And my moisturizer, because sometimes my face feels all tight if I don’t put on moisturizer after I cleanse. I also have a scrub in there, if you’re feeling like a deep clean. You can use it if you want. I don’t mind. And my comb. And my brush. And whatever you want.”

  She did this handing me bottles, tubes and a sleeve of cotton wipes, all of which I took.

  “Thanks, sweetheart,” I said softly.

  There was another knock on the door and neither Corinne nor I said a word before it opened and Mamie scooted through, squeezing by her sister, who was blocking her entry, as she closed the door and grinned at me.

  “Hey, Miss Greta.”

  I grinned back. “Hey, Mamie.”

  Her nose scrunched. “Does that hurt?”

  I didn’t have to ask what she was talking about. I’d seen myself in the mirror. And an elbow to the eye might buy you a shiner that took days to come up dark but a broken nose shadowed the skin under both eyes deep purple the day after.

  My raccoon eyes from not taking my makeup off last night didn’t help matters much.

  “It isn’t that bad,” I told her.

  “Cool,” she
replied then asked, “What kinda donuts do you like?”

  “Uh . . .”

  “Dad’s gettin’ ’em,” she shared and looked to Corinne. “Says we’re goin’ with him.”

  “’Kay,” Corinne agreed.

  Mamie turned back to me. “I like chocolate-covered raised. And chocolate-covered cake with sprinkles. And cinnamon twists.”

  “I like glazed yeast,” Corinne informed me. “And cinnamon swirls.”

  They both stared at me.

  Apparently my immediate future included donuts with the Drake family.

  “I like . . . well, donuts,” I told them.

  Mamie smiled big.

  Corinne’s lips twitched.

  Then I jumped as Mamie shouted, doing it putting her hand to the wall, her other one out to her side and rounded, executing a graceful plié, “Miss Greta likes anything!”

  She did another plié as we heard Hix shout back. “Great! Let’s go!”

  “We should go,” Mamie told me but did it doing another plié.

  Corinne turned to the cupboard and pulled out one of the approximately seventeen new toothbrushes in their packages that was stacked in a pile on the first-aid shelf and handed it to me.

  I juggled the bottles and tubes to take it, noting, “It’s good you all take care of your teeth.”

  I did this remembering how hard Hixon had kissed me after I gave him a toothbrush and wondering if this was a Drake family thing.

  “Mom’s weird about body stuff,” Mamie shared with me and I felt awkwardness coming from Corinne at the mention of their mother, none coming from Mamie, but I still felt that awkwardness also start coming from me in sympathy with Corinne’s. “Says we gotta take care of them. Even our teeth. Daddy and Mom aren’t together anymore but she still gets on him a lot if we don’t eat peas and brush day and night and floss and blah blah blah.” Another plié. “And Dad’s a dad, so he’s not like,” she faked a low voice that had me not quite suppressing a giggle, “‘Do whatever, kids.’ I mean, we have Junk Sundays, which today is, thankfully. But he’d make us eat peas even if Mom wasn’t big on things like that. Fortunately we like peas.”

  “Girls!” Hixon shouted.

  “We should go,” Corinne stated instantly.

  “Yeah,” Mamie replied on another plié.

  “Thanks for all this stuff, darlin’,” I said to Corinne, lifting my hands filled with stuff. “And the clothes.”

  “Not a problem,” she returned, closed the cupboard and shot out of the room, again closing the door behind her.

  Mamie did another plié then declared, “Don’t worry. Dad’ll like you even with your face like that. Corinne took a header going for the volleyball last year during a game, bam! face-plant on the basketball court. It was all swollen and bruised, I mean, like, for days. And Daddy was all snuggly and kissy like he didn’t notice at all.”

  Yep.

  So.

  Totally.

  Unblocking Hixon Drake.

  “Good to know,” I murmured, grinning at her.

  “Mamie!” Hix yelled.

  “I better go,” she said swiftly, executing another plié before she shot me a grin, turned, and took off, also closing the door behind her.

  I looked to the mirror only to have another knock come at the door.

  I turned again that way. “Yeah?”

  It opened and only Hixon’s head came in.

  My stomach flipped.

  “Hey, baby. Gonna get donuts. Girls take care of you? You good?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  He smiled and said, “Good. Make yourself at home. Shaw’ll look after you, you need anything while we’re gone.”

  I nodded.

  He kept smiling as he murmured, “Be back.”

  “Okay, Hix.”

  He gave me a top to toe look I couldn’t decipher but it left my toes curling into the fluffy rug he had in front of the sink before he caught my eyes, his went soft (or softer) then he disappeared behind the closed door.

  I sighed.

  Then I carefully cleaned off my makeup, brushed my teeth, moisturized and put on Corinne’s clothes.

  I returned her stuff to the cupboard and walked out the door.

  I went back to Hix’s room, dumped the tee on the clothes-covered chair, struggled my bra on under the shirt without fully taking it off and went to the bed.

  I made it and walked back out in a pair of Corinne’s loose-fitting, light-gray yoga pants and an equally loose-fitting pale-pink, cowl yoga top that had a long hem that came down over my hips and openings at the cuffs that hooked over my thumbs.

  The pants fit a little snug at my butt but the whole outfit was cute.

  I came out and found Shaw lounged on the couch.

  He knifed up the second he saw me.

  “Hey,” he greeted, looking at me closely.

  “Mornin’, Shaw.”

  “How you doin’?” he asked.

  “In need of coffee, but otherwise good.”

  He started moving in the direction of the kitchen. “I’ll get you some.”

  “You just show me where things are,” I replied, following him, “I can make it.”

  “I got it,” he returned, and I halted at the edge of the counter, which abruptly stopped and opened to the small dining area that had a handsome table in it, but one I could see had leaves, just in that small space, they couldn’t be in it.

  Seeing that, I glanced into the living room with its huge, slouchy, impossible-to-be-anything-but-comfortable-looking couch that had already had the pullout pushed back in and matching armchair, a big denim-covered beanbag that hadn’t been there the night before, all of it not fitting that space. All of it was also such I had no idea how they actually got it up those stairs and in that door.

  And taking that in, the weight of Hix’s need to get his kids out of there and the sadness of Hix’s need to restart his life after Hope ended the one they’d led bore down on me.

  “How do you take it?” Shaw asked, and I looked to him happy to have my mind turned.

  “Little creamer.”

  “Gotcha.” He went to the fridge and opened it offering, “You need to charge your phone, we got every charger known to man, so just let me know what kind you need and I’ll set you up.”

  “Okay.”

  He sloshed in creamer, stirred my coffee, tossed the dripping spoon on the counter while I bit my lip at that act and came to hand it to me.

  I took it.

  He asked, “You need aspirin or Tylenol or anything?”

  “You’re sweet, and yeah, actually. Whatever you got.”

  “’Kay. Go get you some,” he muttered, rounding me.

  I took a sip of my coffee, turned, saw my purse on the table and went to it.

  I sipped again and opened the clutch, pulling out my phone.

  I looked to the screen, and outside some Facebook notices, there was nothing, and I found it weird I was attacked in my kitchen last night and this morning there was nothing.

  Then again, it wasn’t yet ten o’clock. Maybe news hadn’t made the rounds.

  But I should call Lou and share things with her before she heard anything from anyone else.

  Shaw returned with some pills, two white ones (I didn’t tell him four would be better, I didn’t want to concern him).

  I juggled phone and mug, he dropped them in my upturned hand, and I expressed my gratitude before I said, “I should probably call Lou. If she hears before I tell her, she might not like that much.”

  He nodded. “I get that. But just to say, I heard Dad talkin’ to Hal last night and he said he wanted a lid on this. Lotta stuff got ’round about that Calloway thing and he knows his deputies talk to their husbands, wives, girlfriends, whatever. It’s inevitable, but he wasn’t a big fan of it.”

  I could guess that since he hadn’t shared even a single detail with me.

  “It’s mostly Hal, who can be a douche,” Shaw informed me. “But it can sometimes be Larry. He�
�s a good guy. But that Calloway thing was big and he was, like, I don’t know . . . I guess frustrated they haven’t nailed him yet. Anyway, they had to ask for the public’s help because they have to find him. I mean, everyone knows the guy was insane just shootin’ somebody, but he’s like a drifter, and they have to find him before he drifts away for, like, ever.”

  “Yeah,” I said softly.

  “Dad wasn’t mean about Hal and Larry,” Shaw assured me quickly. “He didn’t bitch . . . I mean, complain or anything. I can just tell when he gets quiet and into his head, and his mouth gets tight when folks ask him about stuff they’re not supposed to know. But he gets that this situation is, you know, extreme.”

  “It’s definitely extreme, honey,” I whispered.

  He nodded. “Well, you should call Lou and I need to call Wendy. She was comin’ over to hang with us today but Dad asked me if I could ask her if she wouldn’t so, you know, you could be comfortable after what happened, and since you’re gettin’ to know us all at the same time.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” I told him. “I can . . . go to Lou’s or something.”

  Shaw grinned big. “No way Dad’ll let that happen. He didn’t say anything but I can tell he’s super-miffed some guy slammed your face into your kitchen island, but he’s still real happy you’re here and gettin’ the chance to get to know all the Drakes. And anyway, Greta, he said I can go for a few hours over to Wendy’s this afternoon so it’s all cool.”

  He’s still real happy you’re here and gettin’ the chance to get to know all the Drakes.

  God.

  Sweet.

  “Just as long as you’re not disappointed you don’t get to spend a day with your girl,” I replied.