by Sidney Bell
It was Miller’s fault that Shelby was so vitriolic about the whole thing with Church. After all, he’d never told her what happened that night, so she didn’t know that Miller had deserved those punches. Not that she’d agree if she’d known. Miller could set fire to his hair and she’d be pissed at the lighter company. But even now, he couldn’t bring himself to explain. He was too ashamed of his behavior. The very thought had his gut in knots.
“You’re making the face again,” she said. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” Miller turned to go. Well, he tried to—she caught his arm at the elbow with a grip like a lobster. She studied his expression with narrowed eyes.
“What does he want?”
“A couch to sleep on.”
Her mouth flattened. “And you said yes.”
“He needs help.” Miller looked away and went for a tiny fib. “It’s just until he can find another place.” In six months, he added silently.
“Why are you doing this? I’m bewildered, Miller. You’re so damn dug into your routine that I have to give you two days’ notice for dinner at my house even though you eat with us almost every week, but a three-minute conversation with that bastard has you ready to drop everything.”
“That two days’ notice is so I can try to find something better to do,” he said, in a last, desperate stab at changing the subject. “One of these days, with any luck, I’m going to be too busy.”
“Like you’re too busy to call Grover back? Or you’re too busy to date? Or do you mean you’ll be too busy with all of the many friends you go out with?”
“Wow,” he managed. That was not the change in subject he’d been going for. “Don’t hold back on my account.”
She didn’t soften. His sister had rebar where everyone else had been born with a spine. She was so strong, in fact, that she was incapable of comprehending weakness, let alone handling it in her little brother.
“And yet,” she went on, “for him, you throw the doors wide open. Why is that, do you think?”
He really wanted to get out of here before Shelby said something that pissed him off. He might end up yelling, and he hated that. “I don’t know.” When she raised her eyebrows, he shrugged, feeling helpless. “I don’t.”
“Do you even know why you let him glom on to you in the first place?”
“He had it rough at home and he needed a safe place. And I liked him. He was a good kid.”
She harrumphed.
“He was. You thought so too, before everything went to hell. He...” Miller rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “He made me laugh.”
“That’s why God made comedy clubs.” Shelby sighed. “If you’d start dating again, you could meet a girl who makes you laugh without also punching you in the face, and then finding an idiot sixteen-year-old to tell you jokes wouldn’t be such a life changer.”
He decided to ignore the whole dating thing, because that was a thornier issue than he was up to dealing with right now, and instead touched her arm. “Please? I’ve got to put my mind at ease where he’s concerned. Don’t make me fight you on it.”
“You wouldn’t have to if you’d do what I want,” she retorted, only half joking.
“I need to do this,” he said. “The way I left things with him drives me crazy. Can we be all right? Please?”
“Maybe.” She bared her teeth at him, but it was sullen rather than mean, and then wrapped him in a hug. “But only if you call Grover back. You’re sending him mixed messages and it’s freaking him out. At this rate he’ll be offering to put out to keep our interest, and it’s going to crush him when I tell him we only want him for his financial prowess. So today, right? You’ll call him—”
“Jesus.” Miller disentangled himself, but she grabbed his hand before he could escape. He yanked but it did him zero good. He’d have to hurt her to get away, and he could never, ever do that. He wouldn’t mind poking her with a sharp stick sometimes, though. “I told you I would.”
“The property isn’t going to be available forever. We have to move on it soon if we’re going to do this.”
“I know.”
“A second store is good. It means more money. It means you’ll have more freedom to make changes, too. You’re always complaining that nothing changes around here—well, if we expand, you can stock all those ugly paint colors that I hate.”
“I know.”
She gritted her teeth. “You’re being an asshole.”
He knew that too, but didn’t admit it, because then she’d ask why. She wanted reasons for why he was dragging his heels on the expansion plans, and the truth was that he didn’t have any. No good ones, anyway. He didn’t have anything beyond I really, really don’t want to.
“This is going to be good for me and Em,” Shelby said. She propped her hands on her hips like a superhero about to crush scumbags beneath her red rubber boot heel. Miller did not care for the image or his place in it. “She’s talking about MIT now, Mill. You know how much MIT charges for a year’s tuition? An arm and a leg. Which they then beat you over the head with until you give them your other limbs too. I only have a few years to rake in those bucks, so we need this.”
She wasn’t wrong. They were doing more than well enough to justify a second location, and all of Grover’s numbers suggested that the newer store would be impressively profitable. Shelby would manage the other property and Miller would stay with this one, and that meant growth and money for college and success, and that was all good.
It should’ve been good anyway, except that it also meant that this store, their father’s flagship store, was officially Miller’s. It meant that everything he’d always told himself was temporary was permanent, and the thought of still more countless, interminable days spent haunting these aisles exhausted him.
He told himself to man up. People did things they didn’t want to do every day. His sister was the poster child for single-motherhood, and that was pretty much the definition of working your flesh from your bones and living in misery in the meantime. She was good Quinn stock, which meant it was second nature to her to suck it up, to dig deep, to do all the things that defined strength and goodness and rightness. All those traits that would’ve sounded like platitudes coming from anyone besides their father. Coming from Gus Quinn, they’d been commandments.
Miller wanted to be the kind of man who didn’t let his family down. He just wished with all his might there was a different way to do it.
“My daughter is going to college,” Shelby added, giving him that demented-mom look that always made him want to cringe. “I want better for her.”
And that killed all his resistance.
“I’ll call Grover,” Miller promised, though the words fought him until his throat felt like he’d swallowed sandpaper, because he wanted better for Em, too. He’d have given anything to go to college, and he wasn’t half as smart or talented as his niece. If she could get into MIT, she’d be set, and she deserved it.
He must’ve sounded pathetic, because Shelby glared. Not at him, really, so much as at the world in general. “If I knew how to keep you from being miserable, I’d do it. You know that, right?”
“I’m not miserable,” Miller lied automatically.
As if she hadn’t heard him, she said, “Of course, for that to happen you’d have to tell me the source of your misery. Using sentences. Although that’s probably asking too much. Grunting and pointing are a bit beyond you, too, now that I think about it. Maybe a smoke signal or two wouldn’t be out of your reach, though.”
“Getting mean,” he pointed out mildly.
“I can’t help you if you won’t let me.”
“Don’t need help.”
She laughed at him, but she did that a lot, so he couldn’t work up any steam about it. “I swear, sometimes you’re so much like Dad that I get t
his Pavlovian urge to punch you right in the nose. I love you more than anything in the world except for that brat at the front counter, Miller, and it is completely impossible not to want to crush your face like a sand castle when you say shit like that.”
Miller frowned, trying to picture his face turning into a sand castle, but Shelby was going on, “So if letting that asshole sleep on your couch will make you feel better, then I’m done complaining. For now, anyway.”
“Really? You’ll be nice about Church staying with me?”
“If you’re gonna call Grover, the least I can do is get off your back about your need to take in stray rabid dogs. If he steps a toe out of line, though, I’ll take a crowbar to his stupid fat head. And if he even looks at Em—”
“He won’t.”
“She had a crush on him when she was younger. Lots of girls fall prey to—”
“He’s gay, Shel,” Miller said quietly.
“Oh.” Her brow furrowed. “Well. Whatever. I hope for your sake that he’s not going to be bringing anyone back to your place.”
Miller jerked one shoulder in a shrug and looked away.
“When does he get here?”
“Next Friday. I’ll have to pick him up. Can you cover for me?”
“It starts,” Shelby said darkly. “Yes. I’ll cover. This time.”
“Hey, adults!” Em called from up front. “How much are the vinyl-armored straight cord end plugs?”
In unison, Miller and Shelby called back, “Two eighteen!”
“Okay!”
Shelby pursed her lips. “If you’re looking for someone to make you laugh, there’s this woman with the PTA—”
“And on that note, I’ve got work to do.” He started walking away.
“Her name’s Linda,” Shelby replied, following him.
“That’s nice.”
“She’s brunette.”
“Okay.”
“You like brunettes.”
“True.”
“And she likes hockey.”
“Hockey’s nice,” he agreed.
“She said the Sabres are gonna win the Cup this year.”
Miller winced. “That’s not a point in her favor.”
“Maybe she meant last year.”
“Doesn’t help.”
“So you’ll call her?”
“Nope.”
They got to the front of the store, where Em was putting a credit-card slip in the register and thanking an older guy for his business. The phone rang, and Shelby headed to the far counter to answer it, calling back, “You’ll like her if you give her a chance!”
When Em’s customer left, she smiled sympathetically at Miller. “Is she trying to get you to call Ms. Hallian?”
“Is that Linda from the PTA?”
“Yeah. Don’t go there.”
“You know her?”
“Ms. Hallian coached my volleyball team last year.” Em gave him a doubtful glance. “Look, I totally don’t want to undermine a fellow female by implying that only traditionally male modes of communication have value, but she’s a woo girl.”
Miller frowned. “What’s a woo girl?”
Em suddenly shrieked, throwing her hands up in the air and hooting, making him jump. “Oh my God, all of you teenage girls are so powerful and beautiful and we’re going to reinforce your self-esteem with sports sooo much! Woo!”
“Jesus.” Miller’s throat tightened.
The enthusiasm vanished, replaced by Em’s natural teenage ennui as she lowered her arms. “Yep. She’s awesome, but the likes of Ms. Hallian are not for you, Uncle Mill.”
Feeling like he’d dodged a bullet, Miller patted her on the shoulder.
* * *
Between all the arguing with Shelby and the painful conversation with Grover (not to mention the phone call from Church, but he’d think about that later), Miller ended up taking a rare trip to Davey’s.
It was the only bar he ever went to. Miller had plebian tastes, and a six-pack from the grocery store was a lot cheaper, but Davey’s had something that the local Safeway didn’t—half-drunk women. The mere idea of which had Miller’s shoulders slumping.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested. He was only thirty. He had oats to sow and then some, and he jerked off every morning in the shower. It was more that the idea of going out to a bar and making small talk and buying drinks in the hopes that one of those polished, pretty women would give him a chance was exhausting.
It was a blue-collar place, and his jeans, work boots and rough button-down with the sleeves rolled up fit right in. It helped that half the folks in here had known his father, so even if months went by in between his visits, he never lacked for company. Not that he was interested in conversation tonight.
The woman sitting on a stool near the juke was pretty. Her skirt went almost to her knees, and she wore flats. More makeup than he liked, but at least she wasn’t wearing lipstick. He took the seat next to her, which was a statement of intent all its own, considering that Davey’s was never particularly hopping, even on a Saturday evening. She looked over at him, one eyebrow lifted, and he nodded.
It was too warm in here.
He ordered a draft and pretended to watch the basketball game on the TV bolted to the wall, but it wasn’t his sport, and honestly, it wasn’t what he was there for. He glanced at the woman again, and waited until she met his eyes.
“Hard day?” he asked. Not remotely original, but she was sitting alone in the kind of bar that catered to workingmen and cops and the like. She’d have to be an idiot to have higher expectations.
“Nightmarish.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a pharmaceutical sales rep. Well, as of this week, anyway. Does that count?” She smiled, self-conscious and wry, and he smiled back.
“It counts. I’d say congratulations, but it seems like you’re not too thrilled about it.”
“I’ve been in sales for years, but this is...” She twisted her fingers together. “Well, it’s more manipulative than I’d expected, that’s all. Let’s just say it’s a little creepy to think about how influenced doctors are by a rep’s spiel.”
“Wow. That does sound nightmarish.” He tipped his head toward the shelves of liquor behind the bar. “I’d like to hear more about it. Can I buy you another martini?”
She nodded, her cheeks turning pink, and he decided this wouldn’t be a hardship after all.
“I’m Miller.” He offered her his hand. She shook it, amused.
“Allison.”
* * *
By the time they got to her place, he’d had enough to drink that most of his tension was gone. She hesitated before she unlocked her door, peeking up at him through her eyelashes.
“We can go back to the bar if you want,” he said gently.
Her eyes softened. “No, it’s—I’m fine. Come on in.”
Her apartment was nice, if cluttered. Lots of silky fabric draped over stuff, guttered candles on the windowsills. “Don’t let Screwball out,” she said, and he had a half-second to think Screwball? right before a streak of gray came out of nowhere and darted for the door. He barely managed to close it in time, and the cat ran into his leg. He bent and stroked the furry head, pleased when the cat purred.
“You’re not allergic, are you?” she asked.
“Nope. Have one of my own.”
“Good. Um...” She stepped out of her shoes and wiggled her toes, then stood there with her lip caught between her teeth. “I don’t know how this works.”
She was blushing again, which was a good look on her, and he took her hand. He pulled her with him to the sofa, where he coaxed her into sitting sideways on his lap. “Why don’t you let me lead, then? And if we go in a direction you’re not c
omfortable with, all you have to do is say so, okay?”
When he cupped her cheek, she turned into his palm. “You’re good at making a girl feel safe, Miller.”
“Well, a happy girl’s half the fun of being here,” he replied, and kissed her.
It was awkward at first, but her smile was easygoing. By the time she squirmed one leg across his knees so she was straddling him, they’d found their rhythm, and he waited until she was making soft, breathy sounds in the back of her throat before he cupped her breast.
When he moved to unclasp her bra, though, she caught his hand. “No, don’t.”
“Sorry.” His chest tightened. He hoped he hadn’t scared her. “Too fast? I can slow down.”
Her face turned red. “No, it’s fine. Can we leave this on, though? I... My boobs aren’t, uh, exactly even.”
“I don’t care about that,” he said truthfully, but the relief of knowing he hadn’t messed up had him smiling at her. “But if it makes you feel better, we can leave it on.”
She nodded.
So he kissed and teased her through the fabric, the lace drying out his mouth. It had her moaning, though, and she was a warm, pleasant weight rocking against his cock. He started to get hard. He wondered if she’d be offended if he aimed them toward oral instead of fucking—it was easier to shut his brain off when he was receiving, and he didn’t mind going down on women. But he worried she’d take it as a sign that he didn’t want her, so he decided not to say anything. He nudged the fabric of her skirt higher instead, tracing small circles on her skin with his thumbs.
She touched his collarbone. “All these freckles across your chest are so pretty.”
He tried not to wince. “The bane of my existence as a teenager.” He wasn’t a redhead exactly—his hair color was best termed red-brown, which might not be poetic, but had the benefit of being accurate—but he had the freckles all the same.
She made a soft humming sound of disagreement. “I like them.”
He kissed her again, stroking and touching and licking until she lost her self-consciousness. She was the one who led the way into the bedroom, stripping off clothes as she went until she was naked except for her bra. He pulled the condom from his wallet before he removed his jeans. It wasn’t presumptuous at this point, he was relatively sure, so she probably wouldn’t kick him out for daring to put it on the nightstand.
