King of Hearts

by Stevenson, Jennifer

  He watched Nadine’s face fall. He knew what she must be thinking.

  Worse, though, was seeing Davy Junior say, “Bye, Daddy.” At the time he’d been moving too fast to think about it. Now he realized how disappointed the kid had been. And how resigned.

  He remembered, too, for no reason at all, his glove box full of uncashed paychecks. What the hell, his own mortgage was paid. Tammy’s would be paid off in two years. What did he have to spend it on? Besides sending Davy Junior to college. Always assuming the kid was smarter than his Daddy.

  Each time he got to this thought, he heard himself mutter aloud, “You dumb fuck.”

  And back to stubbornly replaying the whole scene in his head. It couldn’t have been that bad.

  Yes, it could.

  It was while this carousel was ruining his first day of work in three weeks that he heard an unwelcome voice sputter behind him.

  “Whut—goddam—you worthless punk!”

  No. It couldn’t be. His luck couldn’t be that bad.

  King Dave put the cable coil down. FX had been known to punch people who didn’t pay attention.

  “You’re suspended and you know it and that moron Bobbyjay Morton knows it.” The old man was keeping his voice down, but he was dark red with fury.

  All over the Arena, guys’ heads came up and ducked again.

  “I come out here to check cards and I find you prancin’ around like it don’t mean nothin’ I tell you to stay home.”

  On and on and on. King Dave felt every word like a fist to the head. The entire stagehouse was silent. Guys were downing tools and watching from every corner. This was forty times worse than Day-Glo Dick could ever be. His thoughts fled to a better place.

  I could be sitting at the Pier with Nadine, getting ralphed on by my little boy.

  He noticed Bobbyjay moseying up behind FX. Brave of him. This wouldn’t be a pleasant conversation for Bobbyjay either way.

  Unless King Dave short-circuited it.

  “Yo, Bobbyjay,” he said, as if the old man was background noise. “My kid is sick. I’m gonna have to go.” He glanced at his father, going purple between them. “Sorry to leave you short-handed.”

  “We’ll manage,” Bobbyjay said faintly.

  The stream of curses and dressing-down stopped. The old man watched King Dave fetch his tool bag from the front row seat where he’d dumped it.

  “Hope the little guy feels better,” Bobbyjay called after him. God bless Bobbyjay. Saving his face. Again.

  King Dave waved and left by the dock.

  He was getting into his car when he saw the old man standing on the dock, now empty of trailers, lizard eyes narrowed. King Dave one-eightied the car so he could lean out the driver’s window.

  “And don’t come back’til I tell you!” FX yelled.

  King Dave looked at him dispassionately, feeling as if he floated in a moment outside time.

  “My son is sick. He needs me.”

  He waited for a response. There wasn’t any.

  King Dave found Nadine watching Davy Junior dig for dinosaur bones at the children’s museum. He’d been gone exactly an hour.

  Her face lit up. “I knew you’d be back.”

  He walked smash up to her and wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair. “I almost wasn’t.”

  She clutched him tightly. All his self-blame and misery melted away. She kissed his ear. “You didn’t know, but I knew.”

  His knees went weak.

  Davy Junior looked up from the dinosaur bones and shrieked, “Daddy!” and hurtled over to slam into his knees and hug him.

  He stooped to kiss the kid, and then Davy Junior rocketed back to the dig. “Guess he’s feeling better.”

  “I called his grandmother after he threw up,” Nadine said. “She said not to worry.”

  King Dave’s heart stopped dead in his chest. If Mom knew what he’d done, he’d never get a visit with Davy Junior again.

  “Are you okay?” Nadine looked at him with concern. “Oh. I didn’t tell on you. I said you were in the bathroom.”

  His eyes closed with relief. “Thanks.”

  “She says it was probably excitement and the yogurt after a bad tummy night. When his tummy’s been upset, he doesn’t digest milk products well.”

  King Dave got down on his knees. “You are the least vengeful waitress I’ve ever met.” From here he could almost see up that little blue dress. “I’m sorry. I’m a ratfink stagehand. I don’t deserve you.”

  Nadine’s eyes danced. “Your mother asked specifically if you were being good, and I said you were.”

  “I threw cab fare at you and ran out on you. I left you with a sick kid. You should be crucifying me.”

  She smoothed his hair with one hand. “I knew you’d be back.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “King Dave, I know you better than you know yourself.” She glowed at him. “I’m proud of you.”

  Now he felt worse. “It’s not what you think. I knew I had to come back. But I didn’t actually go until FX showed up and threw me off the call.”

  “I thought he didn’t go out on jobs.”

  “He don’t. He came to check people’s cards, making sure they’re all union or permit per contract. Prob’ly suspected Bobbyjay would try to shoehorn me onto the call.”

  “Oh, dear. Was he mean?”

  King Dave laughed out loud at this description of his father’s temper tantrum. “You could say that.”

  “Is Bobbyjay in trouble?”

  “Nah. I think I ran an intercept on that. The old man will be too mad at me to bite him.”

  He became aware that Nadine was still touching his hair. This close, all that warm, soft waitress would normally make him hard as a baseball bat.

  He searched her face. “I’m no hero, Nadine.”

  She smiled down into his eyes. “Oh, I knew you’d be back.”

  He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “What would you have done if I hadn’t come back?”

  “I guess we’ll never know,” she said.

  He flinched. Only a PK could forgive you in a way that made you dread ever needing her to forgive you like that again.

  Nadine was well-pleased with her strategy. King Dave had returned, as she’d realized he must, once she started thinking with her moral suasion cap on. She knew how to deliver praise that worked better than a scold.

  He responded beautifully.

  His penitence broke down the last of her resistance.

  Next time he touched her, he would definitely get lucky.

  Lucky for her, King Dave insisted on taking the little boy back to Linda Flaherty, even though he hadn’t vomited in over an hour. “I’m sorry, Mom,” he told her. Nadine heard anxiety in his tone. “Kid seemed fine until lunch. Then bleah.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” his mother said.

  Linda looked toward Nadine and her expression changed. Oh-oh, Nadine thought. It’s the blue dress. Now she thinks I look like a slut. She slouched to minimize her bust.

  “David,” Linda Flaherty said in a warning voice. Her eyes told Nadine that she saw straight through her soul to her wicked intentions. “You remember what I said this morning.”

  King Dave shot Nadine a look. He hunched his shoulder. “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Well, remember.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Can we have him tomorrow?”

  “Mmm, might be a little soon.” His mother’s eyes lit up. “You can come over and fix my screen door.”

  “Uh,” he said. “Sure.”

  Linda Flaherty sent Nadine a glance and walked into the back of the house carrying Davy Junior.

  “Bye, Daddy,” the boy called sleepily.

  “Sleep tight, sport,” King Dave said. He said to Nadine, “Let’s beat it before she makes me promise to tear off the roof.”

  In the car, Nadine let herself relax. “She thinks I’m a slut. Why would she ask you to tear off the roof?”
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br />   “She thinks you’re a saint,” King Dave said, peeling out of the parking space. “She asks me to do stuff in front of you because she knows I have to say yes.”

  I’m his chaperone. He has to say yes because he’s trying to impress his mother.

  No. He has to say yes because he wants to impress me! A smug smile touched her lips.

  “Want some lunch?”

  “Sure.” Her plan was working beautifully.

  “I know a place that’ll let me in with ralph on my jeans.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  In the car, his cell vibrated on his hip again. King Dave checked the number. Yup. The office. The old man would be back there by now. Feeling lightheaded with daring, he returned the still-buzzing phone to its holster.

  Nadine, of course, hadn’t missed a thing. “Important call?”

  “My old man.” She didn’t speak, but she had that Ah-hah look again. He felt a wave of shame. “Listen, about that day by the beach. I never wanted to scare the kid. I’m not a violent person.”

  “I know.” She sounded thoughtful.

  He turned to look at her. “I hate that ‘Ah-hah’ look.”

  “I was thinking about how much alike we are. You and me.”

  This was so unexpected, he laughed. “You and me? Sure. I bet you’ve punched guys for busting your chops lots of times.”

  “No, but I’ve busted their chops back,” she said.

  He twitched a smile. “What, by doing the God Squad at ’em?”

  “Yes.”

  After a moment he said, “That doesn’t make us alike.”

  She crossed her legs, then uncrossed them, looking out the front window. “I couldn’t have got away with it if my Daddy hadn’t been Pastor Fisher. You couldn’t get away with it if your Daddy wasn’t FX Flaherty.”

  He pulled into Ivan’s lot. The phone vibrated on his hip again. He heard his own voice screaming, Do you know who I am?

  “The thing that got me? The last straw?” he said.

  “Weasel hitting him in the eye for you.”

  “Yeah,” he said, surprised. So she did understand. “He was protecting the moron from me kicking his ass later.” He chuckled without humor. “Moron didn’t look grateful.”

  “He was protecting you from getting into trouble later.”

  King Dave stared at her. Shit. That was it. No wonder he felt awful. “Because I’m King Dave Flaherty and they gotta keep me wrapped up in cotton wool for the old man’s sake.”

  “Because Weasel loves you enough to watch out for you.”

  He swung to face her, glaring against the sting in his eyes. “You don’t think they’re just sick and tired of cleaning up after me ’cause my shit don’t stink? King Dave,” he said with scorn.

  “No.”

  The simplicity of her answer annoyed him. “Ah, what do you know,” he growled.

  “They’d call you something worse if they didn’t like you.”

  A laugh fell out of him. This was true. If he had another nickname, the guys wouldn’t hide it from him. He laughed again. “Let me feed you. You deserve combat pay after today.”

  Nadine was impressed with the Russian restaurant. The waiter was a bowing, elderly man with an enormous white moustache, and white tie and tails like Fred Astaire’s. Nadine felt both like royalty and like day-old cottage cheese, thinking of her tight, short waitress uniform and her checkpad and her Hiya, honey.

  King Dave ordered caviar with sour cream and black bread and wedges of lemon and a bitty silver spoon to dip the bright beads of caviar out of their dish-on-ice. He told the waiter that this was a very special date. The waiter suggested champagne.

  “I don’t drink very much,” she admitted.

  “I’m a cheap date, myself,” King Dave said.

  They clinked their glasses together. Champagne was not as sweet as she’d expected, and it was refreshingly fizzy. She got light-headed after the first long drink.

  The waiter refilled her glass. King Dave’s eyes gleamed at her over the candle and the bowl of white roses on their table.

  Cautiously she put her glass down. “Strong.”

  “Naw, you’re just easy,” King Dave said.

  He sure knew how to make a date special. He gave the waiter their order and sat back, looking at her over his wineglass.

  Nadine felt her cheeks get hot. She got busy with the bitty silver spoon. Caviar was too wonderful to eat fast. She popped each bead of flavor on her tongue, then tasted the champagne.

  “Monsieur and mademoiselle celebrate a special occasion?” said the waiter, pouring yet more champagne into her glass.

  Holding her gaze, King Dave said, “Yes.” He smiled at her. “Our first date without the kid along.”

  As the waiter left, she hissed, “I thought you were trying to get into my underwear.”

  He looked affronted. “Of course I am. I wouldn’t insult you by pretending you aren’t gorgeous.”

  A laugh bubbled out of her tummy. In a funny way he was being a real gentleman. Making her feel gorgeous.

  “You are such a stagehand, King Dave. Does it ever occur to you to, I don’t know, do stuff with women without trying to—”

  “Make a pass? Princess, no red-blooded stagehand can afford to miss a chance. Not if he wants to get lucky in this lifetime.”

  “And this is why you locked me in your dungeon.” Which had been their real first date, but who was counting.

  “Well, yeah.” He smiled, but the tips of his ears were red.

  “Libertine.” She smiled. She should always drink champagne. All the things she wanted to say to him were tripping off her tongue. “Kidnapper.”

  “Not at all. Put yourself in my shoes. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. You’re kissing me. You’re, uh, really hot. I have one evening, one shot at this incredible woman, and Corky calls. Do I pat you on the fanny, send you home, ‘thanks, babe, but you’re just not worth it?’ Absolutely not.”

  “I wasn’t worth turning Corky down.” She regretted it as soon as she said it. He thought she was beautiful and hot and incredible and then she had to rub the bloom off the compliment.

  His gaze licked her face and her strappy little dress. “Sure you were,” he said huskily. “I was too stupid to see it.”

  “If Corky calls you tonight, will you leave?”

  “He can’t. I’m suspended.”

  “By the office. What the office suspendeth, the office can unsuspendeth.” Not only was she talking more easily, she was wittier, too.

  He reached across the table and grasped her hand tilting the champagne glass. She watched with interest as he righted her glass, clasped her fingers more firmly around it, and then stroked one finger down inside her palm. Her palm tingled as if a faint electrical current were running through his finger into it.

  I’m getting charged up. Bee-like noises came from the back of her brain.

  “So are you telling me you don’t want me going to work tonight?” he said in a low voice.

  “On this hypothetical call.”

  “On a purely hypothetical call.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. “I guess I am.” She squeezed the stem of the champagne glass and his finger.

  He sent her a hot look. “Thanks for taking a chance on me, Nadine.”

  She licked her lips. “Sure.”

  The waiter showed up and she had to stop thinking about sex for a while. They had beef stroganoff with thick noodles and a rich, pale gravy to die for, and hot tea out of a glass in a silver filigree holder, and another whole bottle of champagne. Nadine realized with shock, as King Dave was paying the bill, that she’d had most of those two bottles herself.

  “Are you trying to get me drunk?” she said and cringed at her loud voice. “Because,” she said softly, “you don’t have to.”

  “Thank goodness,” he said. He steered her outside and opened her car door. “Don’t ralph on my knees.”

  She waved airily and clonked her hand on th
e car roof. “I feel grand. Did I thank you for that wonderful lunch, King Dave? Because it was wonderful. Thank you.”

  “You’re a cheaper date than me,” he muttered.

  She laughed out loud. “I heard that.”

  They drove back into the city, and he opened the convertible top and let the cool, sharp lake breeze blow through the car. The breeze cleared her head. Way above the city, thunderheads piled up. The sun made mountains out of them.

  Nadine had a plan. The bucket seat wrapped lovingly around her and the seat belt protected her from second thoughts. King Dave sat beside her, driving one-handed with his free arm across her back. All she had to do was stay awake and she would have everything she had come to Chicago for.

  She curled a little closer toward him. His warm, strong arm wrapped around her. He smelled wonderful, like caviar and champagne and beef stroganoff. He didn’t even cop a feel.

  He said to her hair, “What do you say we go to my place and get out of these clothes?”

  She said, “I was hoping you would ask.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  King Dave’s heart sang as he steered the Camaro off Foster Avenue into his leafy neighborhood. She leaned toward him, her knees primly aligned, her little purse clutched in her lap, giving off a smell like lunch and wildflowers.

  Now that he was on the brink of getting this woman into bed, he understood why it had taken so long. No way she would have done it with him on the piston room couch. Not twice anyway. It would have been fun for that hour, but next day at Liz Otter’s she might have pretended she didn’t know him, maybe hated him.

  This way...this way she might be more available. They could go out with Davy Junior on a nice day, buy ice cream, have some laughs, get ralphed on, and then he could take her home.

  He could see a whole month of this kind of thing.

  No more than that, of course.

  He got out of the car and went around to open her door. The shy ones liked these little touches. She let him hand her out of the car, keeping one hand on her purse, and smiled up at him.

  “Is this your house?”

  “Yup.” He ushered her up the front steps of his bungalow with the lightest touch on the back of her blue dress.