I looked to her. “Hey, blossom.”
“I’m sorry. I stopped because I saw these.” She lifted up a plastic tray, one of several she had in her cart. “I know it isn’t decorating so I’ll use my own money to buy them, but I thought they’d be good to organize my makeup. You know, to get it off my dresser.”
I smiled at her, wishing I could buy them for her and thinking, next time something like this happened, I’d get a budget from Mickey as to how much he’d let me splurge to spoil his girl. Even if it was twenty dollars, I’d get to have fun and I’d get to give her something.
But bottom line, it was brilliant she was interested in what we were doing and going so far as to consider adding organizing to our project.
“Great idea,” I said. “Those’ll be perfect.”
Her lips tipped up and her eyes wandered. “Where’s Mom?”
“Getting the go-ahead from your dad to spoil you with fabulous bed linens.”
Her eyes shot back to me. “Do you think he’ll mind?”
“Not even a little bit,” I told her. “But, they should be on the same page with this project, don’t you think?”
That settled her in a variety of ways. I knew it from the look in her eyes, the expression on her face and even in her body language.
She liked her mom and dad talking. She wanted them on the same page. She wanted more, to go back in time and have what they had before life tore their family apart.
But she’d take this.
“Yeah,” she agreed.
“Okay, help me load this up,” I said. “And you don’t have euros so we’ll have to go to the pillow section. Your mom walked that way. If she’s not back, we’ll meet up with her there.”
“Cool,” she mumbled.
We loaded up. We got euro pillows. Rhiannon met us in that section with the news Mickey okayed Rhiannon’s contribution. After we made our purchases and were headed to Lowe’s for paint, in the car, I texted Mickey and asked if I could have a budget.
He texted back, My heiress has gotta spoil my girl. You got fifty bucks.
Which meant I bought a fabulous lamp for her nightstand at Pier 1.
When we got home and the boys helped us cart the massive stash in, Mickey and Cillian teased Aisling about just how much it took to redo a girl’s bedroom. She gave a lot of “shut ups,” but she did this smiling.
Then Mickey gently laid down the law that if Aisling wanted him to corral his buds to help paint her room while she was at her mom’s, the place had to be picked up, packed up (so they could move things easily) and cleaned.
She’d agreed.
Through this, Rhiannon and I sat at the kitchen bar, sipping tea and chatting.
It wasn’t entirely comfortable, it wasn’t uncomfortable.
What it was, was real.
And good.
For the kids.
And for Mickey.
So it worked for me.
*
I didn’t tell Mickey about Rhiannon’s efforts at recovery. He already sensed she was no longer drinking.
But that was hers to share.
And since we exchanged numbers “just in case,” when I texted her after she left to let her know that was my decision, she’d texted back, Thank you, Amy. I promise I won’t take too long.
I didn’t know if she even knew my name was Amelia.
But I didn’t mind that Rhiannon called me Amy.
She was a part of the family.
*
“You wet?”
I was sitting beside the boxing ring with Alyssa and Josie.
The question was from Alyssa.
The answer was a breathy, “Yeah.”
To which I received, “Season delayed this year. Seemed to take an eternity.”
It was the Saturday night after my foray shopping to decorate Aisling’s room with Rhiannon.
The day had been a success.
Mickey was right. Rhiannon didn’t want me in her crew. But she did want something healthy between all the adults in her children’s lives and obviously, I was all for that too.
In fact, things as a whole were going swimmingly, no longer just for me, but also for Mickey.
The papers had been filed for Mickey’s company. I’d found a graphic designer who was designing his logo. His dad had wired him the money and Arnold Weaver had drafted the papers they were going to sign for their investment agreement. Someone had requested that Mickey put in a bid for a full roof they wanted on before the weather got too crazy. And Mickey, Bobby and Jimbo were going to start interviewing the firefighters for the salaried position next week.
Last, Mickey and I agreed, then took it to our kids and they agreed, that we would start the blending of families on Thanksgiving.
Mickey had said they had a pact to share those days and it was Rhiannon’s turn to have them to her place for Thanksgiving. But before he asked his kids, he’d told her what we wanted to do and she’d agreed to giving up the meal if she got time with them in the evening.
Something I thought was very kind.
So they would be going to Rhiannon’s after dinner to share family time. That meant he and his kids would come over, have dinner, but none of the kids would be forced to spend all day getting used to each other.
And with that, there was cooking and football and Lawr would be there, and he was great with kids. It wouldn’t be going out to dinner, making them converse, the focus being solely on the meet and greet. There’d be tons of distractions.
It was perfect.
As perfect as it was, it scared the heck out of me.
But I did my best to set that aside and turn my attention to glorying in the fact that it was clear my guy was getting more than just flashes of happy.
And I was right then at my first fight of Mickey’s.
No. I was watching Mickey, sweaty and focused, wearing white satin boxing shorts with a green shamrock on the side that really, really did not look even the slightest bit foolish being worn by all that was Mickey.
And he was beating the absolute shit out of some guy in a boxing ring.
Last, I was doing this thinking I was orgasming.
This was inappropriate. Not only were Alyssa and Josie sitting with me, Cillian, Aisling and Ethan were also with us.
But I still was pretty sure it was happening.
“You got back from Junior really quickly after his win.” I heard Josie, sitting to one side of me, note softly to Alyssa, who was on my other side.
“Went back. Blew him real quick. He’s good until I see how our girl here becomes a fight fanatic,” Alyssa replied, also quietly so the kids sitting beyond Josie couldn’t hear. “Once Mickey kicks ass, I’ll hang around and make sure she doesn’t rush the ring and rip his trunks off. Then we’ll hit the motel that does an hourly rate on the way home and he can rock my world.”
I heard these words.
I didn’t tear my eyes away from the ring.
They only fought three rounds and these seemed to last two seconds of sheer exhilaration and goodness before the referee had to stop the fight because Mickey got a technical knockout.