Hendrix simply smiles at me. “Let’s clean you up, Livi. Fuckin’ crazy.”
He gets up and leads me to the bathroom for me to shower again. When I come out, Hendrix has moved us to the other, clean bed in our hotel room and is waiting for me to join him. I climb in without hesitation.
Thoroughly satisfied yet unable to sleep, I decide to ask Hendrix about his parents.
“Your mom, you say she has a good heart. So, you’re close with her? I know you’re close with your brothers, but I’ve never seen her around.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Hendrix
“We can talk about that later. Get some sleep, so we can get to the hospital early.”
“I’m not tired, and all I’ve done is talk about me. I want to know you better.” She lays her head on my chest and starts tracing ink.
“She passed away over a year ago.”
“What?” She springs up in the bed and takes my hand. “When?”
“January twenty-fourth, but I really don’t want to talk about it.”
She looks at me sadly. “Okay.” Her hand drops from mine, and then she grabs my face. “I’m here for you, just like you are for me.”
She straddles me again and buries her face in my neck as her fingernails massage my scalp. I feel relaxed immediately.
“Cancer. Started with HPV,” I finally whisper, opening up to her.
“Cancer sucks,” she whispers back.
“Died at the hospital you work at.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I hadn’t been back until I went to see you.”
“That must have been hard,” she says soothingly.
“No, I knew what I was going for. Didn’t have to get off on the second floor.”
“For me.”
“She’d love you, Livi.”
“I’d love her.”
I feel tears on my skin and pull her to me a little tighter. “She’d be damn proud that I found someone like you.”
“What was her name?”
“Janis.” I smile.
“Like Janis Joplin?” She looks up, lays her hand on my chest, and rests her chin on it.
“Yeah, babe.” I push her hair out of her eyes and look at her.
“She kept the musical theme going.”
“Sure did. Music was her thing.”
She smiles and nods.
“She sang like a raspy, little bird.”
“And your dad?”
“He’s a drunk who banged her while she was working for him, got her knocked up, moved her in, cheated on her, started pushing her around, then pushed us around, and then he fucked around on her some more. That ended up being what killed her—his dirty ass dick.”
She doesn’t say anything, but I know she is seeing a theme here.
“I would never do that to you.”
She nods then shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “I can’t imagine someone hurting you. I wasn’t thinking about you and me, but wow. Wow, Hendrix, is that why you were so…?”
“I never wanted to be like him, and it was a little familiar. Sins of the father, you know.”
She leans up and kisses me. “I can’t even sing.”
“Yeah, you can. I heard you in the bathtub.”
“Not very well.” She blushes.
“Sounded beautiful to me.” I run my hand up her back then fist her hair, pulling her into a kiss. “Mom used to sing that song all the time. If she wasn’t singing it, she was humming it. Her way of telling us she would always be here for us. I swear to God, she sent you to me.”
Her eyes pool immediately, and I can feel mine threatening to do the same. I hold her tight against me as we fall asleep, wrapped up in each other.
...
I wake up with her on me and morning wood. I know that period shit flows lighter in water. I also know this will be the last time I’ll be bare back until she is on the pill or some shit.
I sit up, holding her, and she wake ups. “Hendrix?”
“I’m fucking you in the shower.”
“Is that so?” She laughs and hangs on tight as I stalk to the bathroom.
“You have a problem with that?”
“I don’t suppose it would stop you if I did.” She laughs again, and I stop immediately.
“Babe, I’m not him. You don’t want—”
“I wasn’t thinking like that. I know who you are. You’re the man who has completely changed my life, the man who loves me, the man I love, and you can consider this the last time we have this conversation. I don’t ask for your thingy; you don’t ask for mine.”
“Communal property?”
She bites her bottom lip, smiles, and then nods.
“Thank fuck!”
I pull her shirt off and start stripping. I see her going for the toilet, so I give her some privacy while she takes care of whatever it is she needs to take care of.
“You want it hot, right?” I ask after I hear the toilet flush and turn around to see her butt-ass naked, staring at my cock.
She nods.
I grab my cock, giving it a few strokes. “Not this, babe, the water.”
“You are so dang, mmm…”
“Get my * over here, Livi. It’s been too damn long.”