At Peace (35 page)

“Good,” he muttered and his head came back
down.

We made out more and it got heavy, mainly
because we both liked it, but the progression was slow, natural,
strangely like we’d fooled around on his couch hundreds of times
before and when we did it, we always knew we had all the time in
the world. This was a change from Joe, a nice one but one that
reminded me of Tim, who also took his time, and I’d liked that
too.

Eventually
Mike’s hand curled around my breast and his thumb
slid over the fabric of my blouse at my nipple.

I sucked in breath against his lips and
arched my back to press into his hand.

“Sweetheart,” Mike called and I realized my
eyes were closed so I opened them.

“Yeah?” I whispered, his eyes got soft, his
lids lowered and his mouth touched mine as his thumb slid back
across my nipple and I inhaled again.

“I wanna fuck you, honey,” he said quietly
and I held my breath, wanting him to and not wanting him to, both
at the same maximum strength.

He went on. “Right here or I take you to my
bed. But before I do that, we gotta talk.”

“Okay,” I whispered, unsure about this talk
because I was pretty sure what this talk was going to be about.

His hand left my breast and he fell to his
side, rolling me to mine with his arm around me and he got up on an
elbow, head in hand and looked down at me while he tangled his long
legs with mine. I decided to get up on my elbow too and I rested my
other hand on his chest.

“You ready for this?” he asked softly and I
closed my eyes, drew breath into my nostrils and remembered he was
a really good guy.

I opened my eyes and replied, “I don’t
know.”

“We can go fast, we can go slow, I’m good
with both. What I’m not good with is us goin’ fast when you wanna
go slow but you not sayin’ anything, yeah?”

I nodded.

Then he spoke again and my entire body went
solid because what he said introduced the part I knew he wanted to
say.

“I’m also not big on sharing.”

“What?” I asked even though I knew exactly
what he meant.

“Cal was at your house today.”

Shitshit
shit!

I tried to be casual. It wasn’t like it was
1890 and I had to make sure no one saw my ankles. These days, women
played the field just like men.

Right?

“Yeah, he was,” I affirmed, even though he
was there, Joe was there and I was there when Mike asked me over
for dinner.

“What was he doin’ there?”

“Fixing my garage door opener.”

“He do a lot a shit around your house?”

“Um… just the alarm system and the
garage.”

“Things still complicated?”

The answer to that question was, more than
ever.

Except, after that afternoon when Mike asked
me to his house right in front of Joe and Joe didn’t blink, he
didn’t freaking care, not even a little bit, maybe they
weren’t.

I just didn’t want to admit it yet, even
though I knew at the back of my mind and at the bottom of my heart,
I knew.

I also knew, when I uncomplicated things,
it would hurt a lot more than it should and more than I could take
right then.

“He’s wound you up,” Mike said on a sigh.

“What?”

“Cal, he’s wound you up. Women get like that
with him.”

“They do?”

“Yeah, the whole history… women love that
shit.”

“What whole history?”

Mike stared at me then he asked, “You don’t
know?”

“Don’t know about what?”

“About Cal, his wife, his Dad and his
kid.”

I felt my body twitch and I whispered, “His
kid?”

Mike stared at me a second then muttered,
“Fuck.”

“Fuck what?”

Mike didn’t answer.

I got up on a hand and looked down at him.
“Fuck what, Mike?”

Mike pushed up too then, with his arm around
me, he pulled me further up the couch to the armrest. He leaned
back against the couch and pulled me to him, into his arms, my
chest pressed to his, his hand in my hair.

Then he said in a way I knew he didn’t want
to say it, “The story is ‘burg lore so someone’s gonna tell you,
might as well be me.”

I waited.

Mike spoke again. “You know Feb and Colt’s
story? How they were the big item in high school, even before,
everyone said they were born to be together?”

I nodded.

“Well, Cal and his ex-wife, Bonnie, they were
that way too.”

I blinked, not believing that, not for a
minute. Not about the emaciated, lank-dirty-haired,
filthy-slutty-clothed Bonnie who crashed to the floor after
offering the tall, huge, strong, amazingly beautiful Joe the
opportunity to take her up the ass if he paid for it.

“That can’t be true, I’ve met Bonnie, she’s
–”

I stopped talking when I saw Mike’s face
register out-and-out shock. “You met Bonnie?”

“Yeah.”

“Cal’s Bonnie?”

I didn’t like to think of her that way but I
still answered, “Yeah.”

“Jesus, how’d you meet her?”

“I was over at his house, she came over.”

“You have got to be shittin’ me.”

I shook my head and said, “No.”

“You sure it was Bonnie?”

I nodded my head and said, “Yes.”

Mike looked away and he muttered, “Jesus
Christ.”

I was confused and I explained why. “It
wasn’t pleasant but I got the impression it happens a lot. She was
asking for money.”

Mike looked back at me and he looked pissed.
I’d never seen him look pissed and it was kind of scary. Not
Joe-pissed-scary but still, pretty freaking scary.

“
She came to Cal’s house and asked
Cal
for money?”

“She was wasted, and high, a total mess.”

“She wanted money for drugs,” Mike
surmised.

“Or booze.”

“
No, Violet, she wanted money for drugs,”
Mike stated firmly and I stared at him.

“Okay,” I replied slowly.

“She’s a junkie,” Mike informed me.

That wasn’t surprising, she definitely looked
and dressed the part, not to mention acted it.

“I guess so.”

“
No, she
is
. Look up junkie in the encyclopedia, sweetheart, Bonnie
Wainwright’s picture is right there. The bitch has been a mess for
years.”

It seemed out of character for Mike to refer
to anyone casually as a bitch so I started to get scared.

“Maybe you should tell me the story,” I
suggested.

“Nab our wine, honey, we’re gonna need it,”
Mike ordered, I didn’t take that as a good sign but I twisted out
of his arms, nabbed our wine off the coffee table and came back,
giving him his and taking a sip from mine.

Mike shifted a leg under me so he had one
foot to the floor, his thigh angled on the seat, me mostly in his
lap, partly between his legs, his other leg the length of the
couch, still tangled with both mine.

This was a comfortable position, one of
safety, togetherness.

It didn’t register on me as I braced for
Mike’s story.

“
Like I said,” he started, “Bonnie and Cal
were an item, like Feb and Colt. But Bonnie’s Dad was an asshole.
Big wig at the church, holier than thou, but not so holy, he didn’t
go home and beat the shit outta his wife and kid.”

I closed my eyes and dropped my head.

“
Yeah, sucks normally but this was bad and
I mean
bad
. Asshole
didn’t try to hide it. Both of ‘em on a regular basis walked around
with their eyes blackened, lips split and swollen, arms in slings,
limpin’, holdin’ themselves funny. Christ, I was a kid, one year
ahead of Cal at school, we went to the same church and I saw ‘em
all the time and even I knew what they caught at home.”

I opened my eyes and looked at him.

Mike kept talking. “Everyone knew but
those two were so cowed, they never called the cops, no one could
do shit about it if they didn’t report it and they didn’t. She was
pretty back then, Bonnie was, God, beautiful. All the boys thought
so, even young, in junior high. But she only had eyes for Cal and
he only had eyes for her. They started it when they were young,
twelve, thirteen, somewhere ‘round there. Never apart. Always
together, Cal and Bonnie, after they hooked up, I never remember
seein’ one without the other.”

Mike paused and I didn’t say anything mainly
because I couldn’t say anything so he went on.

“
Cal was helpless to save her from her Dad,
drove him crazy, he acted out, got trashed, did shit, got into
trouble, lots of it. She wasn’t with him, he was carousin’. But
Bonnie was somethin’ else. Minute she hit high school, she went
wild. Partying, out all the time, missin’ school, drinkin’, smokin’
pot, doin’ anything she could do to forget home. Started with that,
got worse, acid, coke, crack, whatever she could get her hands on.
Cal was her boyfriend and he turned into her bodyguard. He cleaned
up his act, drove her where she wanted to go, looked after her
while she had the time of her life, got her home safely. It was
like he knew she needed that escape, her rebellion, and he was
gonna give it to her but make sure she was safe while doin’ it. The
minute they graduated, they got married. They got married the same
fuckin’ day. Drove straight down to Tennessee and did it. Came
back, moved in with Cal’s Dad, she never went back home, far’s I
knew. Even if she wanted to, Cal wouldn’t let her. Everything he
was was about protectin’ her from that shit and gettin’ her clean,
he acted like it was the only reason for him to
breathe.”

My mouth was dry and I needed to blink but I
couldn’t. I was frozen, staring at Mike but he wasn’t done. Not
even halfway.

“Cal’s Dad was a wreck, lost his wife when
Cal was a kid. When she was gone, he lost his will to live. He held
down a job by some miracle since he was drunk most the time. Loved
her, though, people still talk about it, especially with what
happened with Cal and Bonnie, how ole Joe and Cal are cut from the
same cloth, one-women men. Joe lost Angela and his world caved in,
he didn’t have the strength to dig his way out. Cal lost everything
and he dug himself out, walked away but he’s never goin’ back.”

“Lost everything?” I whispered.

Mike nodded. “Yeah. Cal moved Bonnie into his
Dad’s house, by this time his Dad was sick. Cancer. Been smokin’
two packs a day for years. Cal worked two jobs, maybe three. He was
a bouncer, security at the mall, anything he could do. Especially
when Bonnie seemed to clean herself up and she got pregnant, had
Nicky.”

“Nicky?”

“Their son. Would have been good, except ole
Joe bein’ at home sick, Cal workin’ his ass off for Bonnie and
Nicky and because his Dad’s insurance was shit. Joe was dyin’ in
that house with Bonnie in it and the kid. Bonnie fell off the
wagon, Cal’d drag her back on, she’d fall off again, Cal dragged
her back on. It was relentless but he never gave up.”

“
He did, they’re divorced,” I stated,
though divorced or not, Joe never mentioned a child, his son and
fear had hold of my soul that
she
had
him, that wreck of a woman was raising Joe’s boy.

“Yeah,” Mike clipped. “He got shot of her. He
got shot of her when he came home and found the cops all over his
house. She was out of it, took the Dad’s drugs, don’t even know
what he was on, pain killers probably, got smashed, for some reason
decided to give her baby a bath and then she forgot he was in the
tub –”

Pain shot through me, agonizing pain,
infiltrating every cell in my body. I knew where this was going and
I couldn’t stop it before I cried, “
Don’t!
”

Mike’s arm was around me and it got tight as
his voice got quiet.

“Yeah, sweetheart, Nicky drowned in the
bathtub. Ole Joe found him, saw the state of Bonnie, called the
police but it was such a bad scene, he was so far gone health-wise,
he had a heart attack. He was dead before the cops got to the
house. Cal showed up, his kid dead, his Dad dead and his wife
arrested for involuntary manslaughter.”

I was shaking my head but Mike kept
talking.

“
Colt got the callout. He was the first on
the scene.”

“Please, Mike,” I whispered, turning away,
setting my glass on the coffee table and Mike leaned into me,
setting his glass beside mine and his arms pulled me to him
again.

His arms were strong, this was a better
position of safety and togetherness but after hearing that about
Joe, Bonnie, his son, his Dad, it
totally
didn’t register on me. I was trembling in a way it
felt like I’d never be able to stop.

“It was fucked up. Totally,” Mike’s voice was
almost a whisper. “She did time, not much, criminally negligent.
Cal divorced her while she was inside. I thought it was over, least
for him. I had no idea she ever came back, I can’t imagine why the
fuck she would. Her comin’ back, askin’ for money, that’s not only
fucked up, it’s plain cruel. His Dad was dyin’ but not dead, she
essentially killed him. Her kid, shit. Her kid. Cal’s boy. Totally
fucked.”

I stared at him and whispered the God’s
honest truth, “Women don’t love that shit, Mike.”

He gave me another squeeze of his arms and
replied, “No, sweetheart, that wasn’t what I meant. They love the
broken man, the heart that bleeds, think they can fix it.”

“I had no idea.”

“Now you do, you wanna fix it?”

My eyes slid over Mike’s shoulder and I
looked out his window.

That nightmare had obviously happened
seventeen years ago. I hated it that Joe experienced that, it felt
like acid in my veins, I hated it so much.