Joe also seemed at ease. Not talkative, Joe wasn’t talkative but, in his mostly non-verbal way, he encouraged the girls to do it.
Keira I knew had designs on Joe for me because she liked him and she wanted him to know she liked him. Therefore she chatted enthusiastically with Joe about every subject under the sun. None of these subjects Joe had even a hint of interest in, he couldn’t, it was teenage girl stuff, but he never let on that he didn’t.
It was Kate who surprised me. When she got to talking about some of the bands she liked, Joe told her he knew their music, he hadn’t met them like The Buckley Boys, but he listened to the bands she liked. I could tell he liked Kate’s taste and I could tell Kate liked this music, more than I expected. She was really into it and she enjoyed sharing that with Joe since he liked their music too. But it was more, she seemed to take his approval of her taste as praise and she blossomed under it, I saw her do it right over pancakes.
Joe left, we did the dishes and, as the girls got ready for their day, I searched for the key to the sliding glass door. I found it in the junk drawer in the kitchen, having no clue how it got there since keys went on the hook by the side door, but I suspected Keira was the culprit mostly because she always was.
Before I went to work, I took it over to Joe’s.
I knocked on his front door, wanting to give the impression, should anyone be watching, that this was a friendly neighborly visit, rather than getting caught by someone while I snuck around the back which would indicate a very friendly neighborly visit.
When Joe opened the door he was wearing nothing but loose athletic shorts and expensive looking running shoes and he was sweating a lot. He destroyed my neighborly visit ploy by grabbing my hand, yanking me into the house and slamming the door.
I saw a bunch of weights in the living room I hadn’t noticed before, a weight bench pulled into the center of the room. He was working out.
Um… yum.
I looked from the bench to him and, holding the key up between us, I said, “Key.”
His hand closed on the key, his other hand nabbed me around the back of my neck, his head came down and he kissed me, hard and long.
I was breathing heavily, my hands on his sweat slicked chest when his head came up.
“Great pancakes, buddy,” he murmured then let me go, turned away and walked to the kitchen like he hadn’t just laid a huge kiss on me, one that made my knees weak and my breath heavy.
I tried to get my head together and my body under control as I heard the key hit his kitchen counter, he went back to the weight bench and grabbed a bottle of water. He tipped his head back to take a long swallow and I walked to his kitchen, washed his sweat from my hands and then walked to the front door.
“Bye, Joe,” I called, my hand at the door and his eyes hit me.
“Tonight, buddy,” was his farewell.
I nodded and walked to my car.
I was getting in deep and I knew it. I liked him and I liked him more every time I was with him. Now I liked that my girls obviously liked him.
But that wasn’t where it could go, not for Joe who was happy with me sleeping in his bed after I’d been out on a date with another guy, something I wasn’t happy with, something that hurt.
And I knew it would never go there unless I fixed him and I had no idea how to fix him but I had the strong suspicion that trying would be even more heartbreaking because I suspected, no matter what I tried, I’d fail. It might even be devastating when I failed, not only for me, but for my girls who’d said a lot when they cooked Joe bacon.
I looked at my purse, reached out and pulled out my cell.
Then I continued on my path of doing stupid, crazy, selfish shit that made me a bad person.
I slid it open, scrolled down to “Mike’s cell”, a number I’d programmed into my phone after he called me the first time. Then I hit go.
It rang once, only once, when Mike answered.
“You all right?” he asked as a greeting.
He knew about the box.
“You know about the box,” I said just to confirm.
“Colt called. I’m at the Station now. They’re goin’ over it for prints.”
Shit. He’d gone into the Station on his day off because he heard about my box.
“They find anything?” I asked.
“They’ve lifted a few, gotta put them in the system.”
“Okay.”
“You all right?” Mike repeated.
“No.”
His voice was gentle when he said, “Sweetheart.”
I sighed into the phone.
“Where are you now?” he asked.
“What?” I asked back.
“I’ll come get you. We’ll go get lunch or a coffee at Mimi’s or somethin’.”
He didn’t want me to be alone and freaked, more clear cut evidence he was a nice guy, a good guy, maybe a great guy. More clear cut evidence that I was a terrible person, keeping him on a string instead of cutting him loose until I figured out where my head was at and could give him what Joe called “a clear run”.
“I’m at the garden center, I have an afternoon shift,” I told him.
“I’ll come over tonight,” he told me.
I closed my eyes and sighed again.
I didn’t need Joe at the breakfast table and Mike at the dinner table. Further, my girls didn’t need that.
“As far’s I know, both girls are home tonight, Mike, and I’m not sure they’re ready for that,” I said softly.
“Your call, sweetheart, but you want company or need to talk, you know how to find me.”
“Thanks, um… actually, that’s why I’m calling.”
“Yeah?”
“Well,” I started, “see, I haven’t told the girls about the box and I don’t know if I should. They saw the flowers but they don’t know about the box. They acted okay after the initial freak out of the flowers but I know it bothered them. Nothing’s happened in awhile and back home in Chicago, the flowers, gifts and visits were regular. They might think it’s tailing off and, well…” I closed my eyes tight again then opened them and finished, “I’m a Mom, Mike, I don’t want them to have to worry about this but I don’t want them to forget to be vigilant or to be angry with me that I kept this from them. They’re not adults but they’re not young anymore. I don’t know what to do.”
“Don’t tell them,” Mike advised immediately and I blinked at this advice, which was contradictory to Joe’s.
“You think?”
“This shit was goin’ down with Audrey, I’d tell Jonas, but no way in hell I’d tell Clarisse.”
“Why not?”
“Know you’re strong, figure you got strong girls, you’ve all been through a lot. But girls are girls, boys are boys. Jonas would want to do his bit, even if it couldn’t be much, to take care of his Mom. He’s gotta learn to be a man and, you’re unlucky enough that shit like this comes up, that’s the way you learn. Clarisse needs her head filled with thoughts about butterflies and teenage vampires for as long as she can think about butterflies and teenage vampires.”
Like Kate and Keira were to Tim, Clarisse was Daddy’s Little Girl.
I felt my stomach flutter.
But I said, “That’s kinda sexist, Mike.”
He didn’t take offense, mainly because he didn’t agree with me and he thought he was right.
I knew this because he said firmly, “That’s the way it is, honey.”
I didn’t reply as it hit me. I’d asked him because he was Mike, he was a parent but I also asked him because his opinion would likely be the same as what Tim’s opinion would be if he’d been alive. He might not know my girls like Joe did, but it was important to me to know what Tim would do and Mike just told me. It was good to know, except now I was more confused than ever at what to do with the girls because, even knowing, I wasn’t certain I agreed. It wasn’t like I agreed with everything Tim thought either.