Vice

by L. M. Pruitt

  “Honey, I don’t have the slightest clue what you’re talking about but okay.” He set my foot down and picked up the other, his touch hesitant, as if I’d suddenly become fragile. “And while that’s nice, you don’t have to go.”

  “Oh.” I was pretty sure what I was feeling was puzzlement and not hurt. After all, I hadn’t wanted to go in the first place so why would I be hurt that he was giving me an out? “Well. If you think that’s for the best.”

  “Jeannie.” He stopped, taking a deep breath and holding it until my own lungs started to ache in sympathy, exhaling slowly. “I know I pushed you in to saying ‘yes’ and I did it because where my parents are concerned I’m a coward. I always have been.”

  “Don’t say that.” I straightened, leaning over and resting my hand on his cheek. “You were a child. Every child wants to make their parents happy, to make them proud.”

  “You didn’t.” He kept his gaze on my foot, still cradled in his hands. “Do you remember eleventh grade, you got in trouble for forging your dad’s signature on the permission form to be on the yearbook staff?”

  “No.” I laughed. “But if you say I did—.”

  “The English teacher, hell if I can remember her name, called your dad down to the school to verify the signature and he said there was no way he would have signed anything because all women were good for was making babies and keeping house and if he had his way you wouldn’t even be in school.” He scraped his thumbnail over the ball of my foot but absently, as if he couldn’t quite seem to keep his hands still but he didn’t know what to do with them, either. “And you were embarrassed, I know, because your face was so red, but you just took his arm and led him back outside and then came in and apologized for him—you said something about how he was never at his best before his noon drink—and went back to your desk and nobody ever questioned any of the signatures on your forms ever again.”

  “Now I remember.” It was a hazy memory, one of those that had faded over time the way most memories about my father had faded, but it became cleared the longer he’d talked. I pressed my thumb to his lower lip, smiling when he kissed the digit. “That wasn’t some act of rebellion or bravery, Abraham. That was just the reality of my life. It’s a lot easier to shrug off benign neglect than to stand up to outright abuse.”

  “Jeannie—.”

  “Your parents were abusive. Mine were just... gone.” I shrugged. I’d come to some kind of peace with them long ago. I’d taken classes in college and had a roommate who liked to psychoanalyze me when she was drunk, the way all budding psychology majors do. I wouldn’t say it was a perfect peace but it was better than nothing. “It’s a lot easier to find closure for a situation when you find a way to remove yourself from the situation.”

  “Jeannie—.”

  “You don’t want me to go because you don’t want me to go, that’s fine.” I shifted until I was sitting firmly in his lap, twining one arm around his neck and pressing my forehead to his. “But if you don’t want me to go because you’re trying to save me from dealing with people who are, by all accounts, in the top ten of worst parents ever, then we have a problem because no way am I letting you spend an afternoon with monsters just to save your pride.”

  “Now who’s being all bossy and authoritative?” His voice was a little lighter—not a lot, not even close to his normal tone, but it was enough to loosen the tiny knot of worry in my stomach. He wrapped his arms around me, squeezing me tight, rocking slightly. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet.” I laughed when he dipped me toward the sofa, my hair slipping out of my topknot and spilling over the cushions. “For all you know, one of your parents will say something which will send me off on a rant and we’ll all wind up yelling at each other.”

  “That would make for a far more entertaining lunch than I’m used to having there.” He braced one elbow on the cushion next to my head, brushing my hair out of my eyes with his free hand. “I hope you don’t think it’s presumptuous but I have my clothes and stuff in the car.”

  “Are you asking if you can stay the night?”

  “Maybe.” His smile faded, a hint of worry creeping in to his eyes. “Unless you’re going to tell me ‘no’, in which case we can pretend this conversation didn’t happen.”

  It was probably stupid, letting him spend the night. This wasn’t a hotel room. We weren’t drunk. We couldn’t explain this away as anything other than what it was.

  But I couldn’t send him away when he looked so sad and lost and tired.

  “I’m going to go soak in my brand new bathtub which, by the way, has multiple jets.” I sat up, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. “Make sure you lock up when you come back inside. And turn off all the lights except for the one at the foot of the stairs. I don’t want my first utility bill to send me in to a swoon.”

  “Okay.” He stood, pulling me with him, some of the misery in his face slipping away. “I get the left side of the bed.”

  “I know.” I nudged him toward the front door. “Go on, now. And don’t forget about the locks.”

  I watched him leave, wondering if I could remember to do the same thing with my heart.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  The next morning, I woke slowly, drifting between sleep and wakefulness, for some reason not bothered by Abraham’s breath ruffling the hairs on the nape of my neck. We’d started out on our separate halves of the bed but at some point in the night he’d turned to me, draping himself around me and cuddling me tight like a favorite stuffed animal. Instead of wiggling away or elbowing him, I’d simply adjusted to a more comfortable position and slipped back in to dreams.

  One more thing for me to ponder at a later date. Right now, I had other things to worry about. Like church. And lunch with Abraham’s parents.

  While I was still trying to think of the best way to slip out of bed without waking him up—because I was already well aware of his preferred method of clearing out the cobwebs, so to speak—the bedroom door flew open and Dolly sprinted in, Conway hard on her heels. Before I had time to prepare myself, they both climbed on the bed and pounced on me, the combination doing nothing to help my bladder. Grasping my face between her hands, Dolly leaned down and half yelled, “Wake up, Aunt Jeannie!”

  “I’m awake, I’m awake.” Considering the volume at which she’d uttered her command, there was a good chance half the neighborhood was awake now, too. When my lips started to twitch, I pressed them in to a thin line and attempted a scowl. “Didn’t we have a discussion about knocking?”

  “No?” She beamed at me but I wasn’t fooled. All four of the kids had tells when they were lying—well, two of them did, anyway. Conway barely spoke so when he did I always assumed he was telling the truth and Kitty was so grateful to be out of her parents’ house she’d probably bite her tongue before lying. Tammy, though... she got flustered and indignant and even more uppity than usual and Dolly just smiled and acted as if she didn’t have a clue what you meant. My younger niece bounced a few more times and said, “It’s already seven thirty and we have to eat breakfast and take a bath and get dressed and go so we aren’t late because it’s bad if you’re late and—.”

  “Dolly, breathe.” Abraham’s voice was thick with sleep and his aim when he lifted his hand to pat her head was a little off but Dolly stopped talking. “We’re awake. We’re getting up. Take your brother, go downstairs, and figure out what we’re having for breakfast. You’re in charge of the menu.”

  “Me?” You would have thought he offered her the moon and the stars. She scrambled off the bed, tugging the still silent Conway after her, already chattering to him—or herself, since God only knew if her brother was paying attention to her—out of the room and down the hall, her voice fading away after a few seconds.

  “You’re going to regret giving her so much authority when she wants crepes or eggs Benedict or something else fancy schmancy.”

  “Is ‘fancy schmancy’ the official terminology for such things or are you taki
ng pity on a poor, uneducated yokel like myself?” Instead of following the kids’ example and getting out of bed, he pulled me closer, resting his chin on my shoulder and sighing. “Do we have to go to church?”

  “Given the choice between listening to the pastor talk about hellfire and brimstone and listening to Tammy complain, which would you choose?”

  “I see your point.” And yet neither one of us moved, the only sound in the room for long minutes the incessant chirping of some bird in the tree outside the bank of windows running along one wall. Finally, he cleared his throat and said, “Last chance to get out of lunch this afternoon.”

  “You’re going to annoy me if you keep doing that.” I sat up, somewhat disappointed when he let me, his arm falling away. Shoving my hair out of my face, I turned and glanced down at him, frowning at the picture he made stretched out on my bed, all piercings and tattoos and sleepy-eyed, looking as at home there as he did behind his bar. “I said we were going. We’re going. At this point, I’m going just because you keep trying to convince me to not go.”

  “You are something of a perverse creature.” He reached over and squeezed my thigh but in a soft, companionable sort of way, not a way to get the blood going. “I know you think you can handle pretty much anything because of how you grew up and how people in town are but my parents—my father, really—are a different kind of breed.”

  “Duly noted but it doesn’t change my mind.” I leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek before sliding off the bed. “I’m going to grab a quick shower before seeing what ridiculousness Dolly has dreamed up for breakfast.” I snapped my fingers and shook my head when he flashed me a grin. “That’s not an invitation to join me. We don’t have time for sex this morning.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  GOOD THING I didn’t take the bet.

  I would have lost.

  My face was still flushed from the rapid fire trio of orgasms he’d treated me to in the shower when I walked in to the kitchen to find Dolly and Conway on stools at the island, the once pristine countertop covered in what looked like flour and egg yolks and God only knew what else. I drew up short and blurted out, “What the hell is going on here?”

  “We’re making pancakes.” Dolly had something—I was choosing to believe batter—smeared over one cheek and what might have been egg in her hair. She wiggled on her stool, turning to her brother for support. “Special pancakes, right, Conway?”

  Conway nodded, his normally placid face set in stern lines. He pointed at one of the small canisters sitting between them on the counter and then held up two fingers separated by a half inch of air. I might not have known what he meant but Dolly apparently did, reaching for the container and popping open the lid with the sort of one-handed efficiency some cooks spent their entire careers trying to achieve. She gave the batter a few quick whisks before glancing at him again. When he nodded, she turned to me and said, “Okay, we’re finished. You have to cook them.”

  “Oh, do I?” Resigning myself to whatever monstrosity they’d concocted, I crossed the room, pulling the large cast iron skillet out of the under-the-counter cabinet and setting it on the stove. “Tell me, if you did the prep work and I’m doing the cooking, who has to do the cleaning?”

  “Tammy.” They both answered at the same time, pausing for a moment before erupting in to big belly laughs which brought a reluctant smile to my face. Dolly continued, “I have to take another bath.”

  “Having seen you eat, you should probably wait until after you finish breakfast—no point in taking two baths before the day gets good and started.” Walking over to the island, I wiggled between them, frowning as I studied the batter. It had been years since I’d made pancakes from scratch but it looked, for lack of a better word, normal. “Do I want to know what the two of you put in here?”

  “Awesomeness.” Conway enunciated the word carefully, his eyes big as he nodded solemnly. “All the awesomeness.”

  “Okay, then.” I kissed the top of his head before doing the same to Dolly, taking the bowl and moving to the fridge, opening the shiny new appliance I’d blown way too much money on and pulling out a stick of butter. “One of you go make sure your sister is up and let her know she’s on cleanup duty. The other one needs to go check on Kitty.”

  They clambered out as Abraham strolled in, a pair of pajama pants low on his hips. He drew up short, sweeping his gaze over the destruction before saying, “How did they manage to do so much damage in such a short amount of time?”

  “To be fair, I think most of it was Dolly.” I dropped a pat of butter in the skillet, smiling when it sizzled and started to melt. “Although Conway was the one doing the directing, so to speak, so I guess he deserves a fair share of the blame, too.”

  “Not to be rude but do either of them know how to cook?”

  I laughed as I poured the batter in the pan. “We’re going to find out, aren’t we?”

  IT TURNED OUT the kids did know how to cook—or at least how to prep. Tammy had grumbled about having to clean up, something I couldn’t blame her for considering how much of a mess the other two had made, but she didn’t complain about the food. If I hadn’t had to remind him we were on a schedule, Abraham would have gone back for thirds.

  So when the five of us rolled up to church—Kitty having bowed out, claiming exhaustion from the day before and I was inclined to believe her after one look at the circles under her eyes—we were all in relatively good moods.

  I should have known the Baptists would take care of bursting that little bubble.

  If I was being fair—which I didn’t want to be because who were they to judge?—we did make something of a spectacle. As I’d suspected, there was egg in Dolly’s hair, which meant it had to be washed and since it would have been the height of impropriety to go to church with wet hair, I’d had to blow dry it, something which should have been easy but the wiggly nature of my niece had turned in to a major chore. The result was a somewhat frizzy mass of waves she’d refused to let me attempt to control with a braid or bobby pins or anything, saying she looked like a poodle and she loved poodles and that—as far as she was concerned—was that.

  Then there was Conway, who’d decided he was in the mood to wear one of the dresses we’d bought in Savannah. I didn’t care, honestly—at least not until he’d insisted on making sure it matched my dress and that both of those matched his doll’s dress. When Abraham had pointed out we should be thankful he wasn’t as picky about shoes, it had taken every ounce of patience I had left to not punch him in his dick.

  Mostly because I really, really liked his dick.

  Tammy, surprisingly, had simply sat in the living room and read her Bible without any comments about hurrying up or being late or how inappropriate either of her siblings looked. She’d frowned some at my dress, which was odd considering it covered everything from my knees to my throat, including my arms, but since we were pressed for time I didn’t ask what her problem was. I had no doubt she’d tell me at some point, probably in a withering, lecturing tone.

  Still, it was a clear, sunny, not too hot day, and Abraham had let the kids listen to Taylor Swift all the way to church. It was hard to be in a bad mood when you had three kids sing-yelling at the top of their lungs and it was even harder when the quintessential pierced and tattooed bad boy joined in, singing about the beauty of being twenty-two. So we might have looked odd and out of place but we were happy.

  It lasted about ten minutes in to the service.

  That was how long it took for people to start turning and staring at us, all of them trying to be subtle and all of them failing miserably. At first I tried to ignore them, more for Tammy’s sake than my own. I might not have given two fucks about causing a scene but my oldest niece would no doubt melt in to the floor in embarrassment so I bit my tongue. Even when one or two of the older women clucked their tongues and shook their heads, I kept quiet, even though I was sure there were tread marks on my tongue.

  But when someone I vaguely recog
nized as being a year or two ahead of me in high school nudged the woman sitting next to her, both of them glancing at Conway and giggling, I couldn’t hold back any longer.

  “I’m sorry, is there something I can do for you?” I hadn’t planned on being quite so loud but the pianist chose that moment to play the last note in the hymn she’d been torturing for the last five minutes so my voice seemed to boom through the suddenly quiet room. Even as Abraham rested one hand on my knee, squeezing in warning, I said, “Because if you’re wondering where I bought my dress, I should warn you it really wouldn’t be the most flattering style for either of you.”

  One of the women had the decency to flush and look away while the other, the one I couldn’t quite place, lifted her chin and said, “Oh, we were wondering where your nephew got his.”

  “Again, I don’t think the style would suit you and I’m sure the color wouldn’t.” I cocked my head and narrowed my eyes, pursing my lips as I pretended to study her, doing my best to make sure my gaze was as insulting as possible. “No, I don’t think you have the skin tone for pastels.”

  “Well.” She broke off, straightening her spine and attempting to look down her nose at me, managing to look constipated more than anything else. “He doesn’t have the body type for dresses.”

  “He has a body, doesn’t he? That mean he has the right type.” I waited until she broke eye contact, dropping her gaze to her lap, before shifting in my seat, raising my voice to address the entire congregation. “Any of you have a problem, you can come say something to me directly. In the meantime, I’d suggest listening to the sermon and trying to find some of that Christian spirit you’re so proud of showing off.”

  Apparently taking that as his cue, Pastor Neal hurried over to the pulpit, opening his Bible and starting to drone on about the Sermon on the Mount. Next to me, Tammy sighed, her rigid frame relaxing the tiniest bit. Leaning over, she pressed her mouth to my ear and whispered, “Thank you for not causing a scene, Aunt Jeannie.”