Slow Dances Under an Orange Moon (Colors of Love Book 4)

by V. L. Locey

  Lost in my daydreams of cohabitation, I looked down from my key fob as I stepped around a glob of bubble gum melted on the blacktop then went right back to trying to find the right button. I pushed the tiny red circle to unlock the doors and was nearly run over by a big blue Ford F-150 being driven by a woman screaming out the window about motherfucking faggots. The bumper of the truck snagged my thigh, sending me flying to the ground. I landed on my side, my hip and arm taking the brunt of the fall, skin peeling off as I skidded across the blacktop. I didn’t see the impact of the F-150 into the side of my Tesla, but I sure as hell heard it. The crunch of metal meeting metal is unmistakable.

  “What the fuck? Oh no…fucking A,” I groaned, peeling myself off the parking lot to stand and gape at the destruction Kyle Markson’s stupid witch of a wife had inflicted to my car, not to mention my body. My thigh was torn open and bleeding as was my hip and arm from the elbow to the wrist. Head spinning, I took a step and then fell back to the hardtop, my ass meeting the ground jarring me soundly as my leg folded. “Jesus I…holy fuck.”

  The insane blonde scrambled out of the truck. Her head gashed open. Blood running into her eyes she came for me, screaming about me and my fag boyfriend destroying her life. She would have leaped on me had Mike and several other men not subdued her. No shit, it took eight men to wrestle her to the ground. And then they had all they could do to keep her pinned. I just sat there, watching antifreeze and water streaming from my mangled car, my head unable to wrap around what had just happened. She’d missed hitting me by no more than a prayer. If I’d not stepped to the left to avoid that wad of pink gum…

  People were gathered around me, women and kids, some giving me towels to hold over the nasty abrasions and gash on my thigh. Sirens wailed in the distance. Things were blurry. People moving too quickly, talking too speedily, asking me questions that I couldn’t answer.

  “She totaled my damn car,” I finally managed to tell one of the paramedics working on my leg. “That bitch totaled my fucking Tesla.”

  “She’s being taken into custody as we speak. There’s a strong possibility she’s high,” he confided, wrapping the ten inch rip in my thigh.

  “Damn women drivers,” I tossed out then kind of faded away from the whole mess for a little while.

  When I came to, I was in the emergency room, some skinny guy was blabbering into my face. My whole body hurt like Thor had whipped me with his hammer then tossed me to Hulk so that he mauled on me. Maul. Hammer. God I was funny. I coughed out a barking laugh and nearly passed out from the pain. Dr. Someone asked me questions and then gave me some happy juice via the IV that had somehow appeared in my arm. It was good happy juice.

  The first inkling of the good stuff wearing off was when I slowly blinked awake, the room I was in quiet with subdued lighting and a worried game warden and grandfather sitting beside me, one napping and the other staring at me.

  “Hard not to look at me. I’m such a…handsome bastard, huh?” I enquired, and Davy’s gaze flickered from my arm to my face. Fifteen years of stress fell from him in an instant.

  “Hi,” he whispered, scooting to the edge of his chair to reach out and run his hand over my cheek. I liked that. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like Wanda Markson tried to run me over,” I replied, my eyelids growing heavy again. “Did that cow really wreck my car or was that a bad dream?”

  “No, the Tesla is totaled. I’m sorry.” He cupped my cheek. I wanted to cry. A tear may have escaped because he used his thumb to wipe something from my face. “The important thing is that you’re going to be okay.”

  “I don’t feel okay. I feel like the Jolly Green Giant body-checked me. Ho, ho, ow…”

  He removed his hand. I missed the contact as soon as his fingers left my cheek. “She’s been arrested on several counts, including attempted vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence, just to name a few. Her blood-alcohol level was only slightly lower than the amount of opioids in her bloodstream. So now she and Kyle can sit in prison because she copped to plotting with him and his brother, Joey, on taking out you and me. Which links them to the shooting at your place. Joey made a run for it and got into Massachusetts but was stopped for having a brake light out. The jackass got into a fight with the state police officer who pulled him over and now his ass is sitting in jail outside of Plymouth awaiting extradition.”

  “A family of fuckwits,” Dunny mumbled then poked my hand. “You feeling okay?”

  “Yeah, fine. Good as gumdrops,” I joked, easing my leg to the side then wishing I’d not. “This thigh…how fucked is it?”

  “You’re not going to be dancing the macarena any time soon. Eighty some stitches, deep contusions, thankfully no broken bones anywhere. You are really lucky, Kye,” Davy whispered, slipping his hand into mine. “I am so sorry for all of this. My job—”

  “Did not make the Markson’s do what they did. Don’t go there.” My leg throbbed steadily now. “Can I get another shot of happy juice in my baggie up there? Or maybe a milkshake?”

  “I want a milkshake too,” I heard Dunny say when a nurse slipped into the room. I don’t know if either Dunny or I ever got a milkshake, but I did get another shot of happy juice, which was probably much better for my waistline. Who needs boys in the yard when you can have singing rabbits and psychedelic butterflies? Not Kye!

  Crutches suck.

  They did back when I’d had knee surgery my fourth year in Pittsburgh, and they did now.

  “When we get home, just roll my ass out at the top of the hill and let me go. The goose coop will catch me,” I complained after the ‘Get Kye into the SUV’ show was over.

  “Or you could roll into the pond and drown,” Davy pointed out as he shimmied behind the steering wheel.

  “Right now that’s an option that glows in comparison to trying to crutch my ass down that hill.”

  “You’re a whiner,” he chuckled, cranked the engine over and eased away from the wide double glass doors of the Chicory County Memorial Hospital.

  “I’m not a whiner, I’m just stating facts.”

  “Okay, you’re a factor then. I would have never added that up.” He broke up. We had to wait for him to stop laughing so we could proceed out of the parking lot. “And you think you’re the only one who can be funny.”

  “Yep, you’re hysterical, babe.”

  He nodded enthusiastically. His eyes still wet with mirth tears. Two days after the Quentin Tarantino Kill Kye moment, the only tears in my eyes were tears of pain. I hated being sick or hurt. It made me cranky, which totally killed my upbeat and fun-loving daily personality. My leg ached. The tenth degree road burns on my arm were sore and tight, and my boyfriend thought he was Rodney Dangerfield or something.

  “I would have never thought that a hockey player would be such a terrible patient,” Davy pointed out when we’d pulled up by Dunny’s house, and I’d cursed a blue streak trying to get from the ugly green SUV to the top of the hill. I’d still be cursing and making life generally miserable because I was, it seemed, a whiner after all, but my gaze now rested on the mangled heap of metal that used to be my Tesla.

  “My poor baby,” I groaned. He rubbed my back softly while Dunny shuffled over to us standing in the yard.

  “We sprung it from the evidence yard after they released it,” Dunny informed me, his gaze roaming up and down his wobbly, whining grandson. “Didn’t know if you wanted to try to sell it for parts or anything.”

  “No, it’s totaled, even the insurance company said so. Let’s just call Pinky’s Salvage and have them come get her.” I was heartbroken. That car and I had shared so much. Road trips with the guys from the team, toting the Cup, secretive romantic getaways with old boyfriends, the grind and grit of driving in a large city. I’d not gotten a ding on her when I’d lived in Pittsburgh. I move out here to the boonies and some bigoted old heifer totals her. “I’m ready to be rolled down to the studio now.”

  I caught Davy’s eye roll but said not
hing. He slid an arm around me and took one crutch, leaving the other under my right arm. Slowly, we made our way down the lumpy, uneven yard and eased into my home a little awkwardly.

  “Oh, hey the new door looks nice,” I said, taking the other crutch from Davy and fumbling my way over to the sliding door the insurance company had replaced yesterday. My premiums were going to go through the roof. I’d never been shot at in Pittsburgh either. Come on out to the country they said, it’ll be peaceful and serene they said. Sure, no one actually said that, but I was feeling pissy and whiny. Yes, whiny. Sue me.

  “They did a nice job. You want to lay down?” Davy asked, dropping my small bag of dirty laundry to the floor.

  “No, I want to sit outside and see the geese. Will you come sit with me?” I craned my head to look back at him. He looked bushed. The past few weeks had been nonstop for him.

  “I’d really like that. I have something I want to talk to you about.”

  Uh-oh. Was it my whining? Was he packing up his…well, he didn’t have anything here other than a spare toothbrush I’d tossed into the toothbrush holder for him but was he grabbing his toothbrush and hitting the road?

  “Okay.” There that was a wealth of emotion and groveling. I managed to get the door open and my awkward big ass outside.

  “I’m grabbing us some raspberry lemonade. You need to take a pill.”

  I grimaced at his shout from inside. Then I sat with a sigh of relief, propping the crutches against the clapboard siding. It needed to be made into something more modern, more energy efficient, but I hated to slap up boring old siding. I’d have to talk to someone, a local craftsman or something. A sigh escaped. One more thing on a long list of updates and fixes for my new house.

  “Here.” Davy appeared on my right with a glass of pink, pulpy lemonade and a tiny white pill. “It’s not that bad.”

  “They make me sleepy,” I grumbled before washing down the pain pill with a gulp of tart lemonade. “This is good.”

  “Yeah, I like it. I got a couple of cartons when I did the grocery shopping last night.” He pulled the other chair around so he was beside me and not blocking my view in any way. “Mom’s been tending to the geese. They like her.”

  “Glad they like someone. A pair of assholes they are.” I eased my right leg out, winced at the pull of stitches and slowly mending flesh, and tried not to say bad words or complain. It wasn’t easy.

  “She calls them Sam and Obie. Says she cannot see herself standing by the coop shouting, “Time for bed, Orifice!” We both laughed at that. “I couldn’t see her doing that either.”

  “Nope, not your mom. She’s too refined.” I sipped my drink. Being home was easing my crabbiness a bit as was having his elbow resting beside mine and the hum of the bees looking for a flower to visit. The flowers were getting thin this time of year. The geese were snoozing beside the pond with their heads tucked under their wings, enjoying the warmth of a lovely September day. “So, what do we have to talk about?”

  He poked at the slice of lemon in his glass with his finger. That fact he had to arrange his words worried me. Was he trying to find the kindest way to dump me?

  “I think I should move in with you,” he finally blurted out. I nearly wet my pants in relief.

  “That’s not at all what I thought you were going to say,” I chuckled as a huge worry was quickly mitigated. He cocked an eyebrow. “I thought you were going to dump me.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because I’m a whiner.” His eye roll was stellar. “I broke your heart.”

  “True, you did and you are, but I’ve worked through our past. I understand why you stayed away, that fear of being outed is crippling. I wish you would have told me, called or written, something! Some sort of explanation but we were young. I could have reached out to you as well instead of letting you dictate the terms of our relationship. That’s a fault of mine I had to work really hard to overcome. We were both at blame.”

  He took my hand in his, sliding his fingers between mine.

  “And the whining part?”

  “That might be harder to deal with, but I’m sure I’ll manage.” He gave me a wink. He was so sexy. “I love you. I do, so damn much. I don’t think I ever really stopped, but I was scared to let you back in. Every time you’d wiggle in a bit, I’d throw up another wall. Then I nearly lost you twice in the matter of what, a month?”

  “It’s been a hectic thirty days.” I was starting to feel mushy. Maybe it was the pill, but I suspected it was knowing that maybe possibly Davy was coming home to me.

  His fingers rolled into a ball, taking mine with them. “When I got the call that you’d been hit by Patty Markson in the Ice Palace parking lot my whole damn world came crashing down around me. There I was with an opossum in a cage that I’d just crawled under a mobile home to catch, covered in spider shit and cat piss, and dispatch is telling me that you’ve been badly hurt, but they had no idea as to how severe your injuries were…the earth opened up under me, and my entire world was black. The thought of losing you jarred me so badly…I just…” He paused to clear his throat, his grip growing tighter as he spoke. “Sitting there beside your bed, watching you sleep after avoiding death by a hairsbreadth woke me up. It brought home the fact that we missed twenty years together because of homophobia. And now we were facing the same damn thing but this time, Kye, we’re not hiding. We’re facing it head on together. Which is how I want to face everything from now on, together, with you at my side.”

  He lifted our joined hands and kissed my knuckles. I cried. Great big racking sobs that made it hard to breathe or talk or do anything other than suck air in and cry harder.

  “Oh, my God,” I gasped when the worst of the crying jag was over. “I’m mushy. My insides are like mashed potatoes with gravy.”

  “Is it the meds?” His brow was wrinkled in concern.

  “I should say yes to save face, but it’s not the meds. It’s because I love you so fucking much, and I would love it if you moved in here with me. We could have mashed potatoes for dinner as a couple. Oh God, can we? Nothing but mashed potatoes for the meal. And we’ll feed each other spuds and kiss the gravy dribbling off each other’s chests. Then we can go to bed and make wild love. Day made. Perfect ending.”

  “You’re a simple man, Kye McLeod. Give you sex and potatoes and you’re happy.” He kissed my scraped-up knuckles again. “I think we can do taters but the sex part might have to wait until you’re healed up.”

  “Pfft. My leg is miles away from my dick.” I smiled at him then waved at the geese flying overhead in a deep V. “Gooses! Hey come visit! We have foose good!”

  “I think the pain pills are kicking in. Let’s get you into bed so you can nap.” He stood then hoisted me up. I leaned into him, pressing my lips to his neck right under his ear.

  “I love you,” I whispered as we weaved our way to the big lacy bed with the floosy pillows.

  “I love you too.” He lowered me into the bed, took the crutches, slid my sneakers off, and pulled a light throw over me. “Get some sleep. If you get up, and I’m not right here, don’t try to walk without a crutch. You’ll pull the stitches. Just shout when you wake up. I have some calls to make, but I’ll be right here. Kye?”

  “Sleep with me,” I begged as sleep became harder and harder to fight off. He stretched out beside me, his arm lying over my stomach, his head on my shoulder. “Perfect,” I said on a raspy exhale then dropped off to sleep and dreamed of flying with migrating geese down to San Juan where Davy and I had sloppy sex on a white beach. Where my wings went during the beach nookie scene I couldn’t say. Didn’t matter. Who needed wings as long as your cock was there doing what it needed to do?

  “Kye, hey, wake up.”

  I blinked awake, fell back asleep, and then came awake again to Davy leaning over me. “Goose lover.” I sighed dreamily and threw my arms ‘round his neck then pulled him down for a wet, rather sloppy kiss.

  Davy coughed and sputte
red, wiggling free from my tongue, which was now slathering a path over his nose. “Where did you get all that spit?” He swiped at his face as I hugged myself back to sleep. I loved hugs and naps. “Kye, hey, babe, wake up. Ralph Georges is here to talk to you.”

  I clawed through the gauzy loveliness of sleep. The sun was much lower than it had been when I’d laid down. Davy looked nice, sexy, soggy around the hairline. Had I licked him there as well? Well, I was an oral son-of-a-gun. Best he recalled that now before he moved in.

  “We’ll need a bigger closet,” I stated as he pulled me up to a sitting position. The jolt of pain from my thigh erased all the lethargy from my druggy nap. “Ouch, fucking mother fuckers.”

  “Let me get your crutches, stop trying to put your foot on the floor.”

  Five minutes and one trip to the can later, I thumped out to find Mayor Ralph seated on the back porch, looking out over the pond, hands clasped behind his rather wide back. Mayor Ralph was a large man.

  “What does he want?” I asked on a whisper. Davy shrugged as he poured coffee into three mugs. Curious about this visit, I crutched to the door then wiggled through the slider sideways.

  “Afternoon, Kye, you look well-rested!” Ralph said, pulling a chair out for me to drop my ass into. I did and without delay. Must be my hair was sticking up and I had pillow tracks and dried spit on my face. That was what well-rested meant in polite political speak. “Ah, coffee! Thank you, Office Aguirre. Please, won’t you sit down, David”?”

  Davy insisted the mayor sit, so he did, but it was rather gingerly. Davy slid over to stand behind me, his left hand resting on my left shoulder.

  “I imagine you’re wondering why I’m here?” Ralph asked and we both nodded. He took a sip of his coffee, sighed, and then placed it on the table. “My reason for visiting is two-fold. First, I wanted to check in on Dunlop. I’ve not seen him around much, and we miss his wit at the barbershop.”

  “He’s pretty much confined to the estate here unless I take him out,” I clarified, my fingers moving up and down over the handle of my mug. A lazy carpenter bee buzzed around us then moved on. Probably he’d made a hole in the wooden clapboards. That wasn’t good either.