They were the same noises she always made, so it shouldn’t have rankled. It’s just that so many things about Stacia were carefully calibrated to reflect an image — her hair color, her lingerie, her voice. She’d once told me that she was taught to always smile while saying “goodbye” at the end of a phone call, because the other person could hear the smile, and they’d feel validated.
And this is what I was thinking about while my dick was in her mouth. Distracted now, I could tell that it was going to take awhile. The urgency was gone, and Stacia was going to need to use some Division One jaw action to get this done. God, I really was an asshole.
But then her phone rang, trilling out the theme to Beethoven’s ninth, the ringtone which Stacia used for her mother. For a moment, I thought she was going to ignore it. So I reached down and gently cupped her head, her silky hair falling through my fingers. “You’d better get that,” I whispered.
“Sorry,” she said, straightening up, then whipping out her phone. “Hello? I’m upstairs, just waking Hartley up.” She shot me a look full of innuendo. (And yes, Stacia’s house was really that large. Her mother didn’t bother looking around for her. It was easier to call her cell.)
The mood was officially broken, and it wasn’t even my fault. Giddyup. With Stacia still on the phone, I hopped out of bed and into the bathroom, closed the door and started the shower.
A minute later, as the hot water rained down on my back, Stacia came into the bathroom. “The caterers are downstairs already, and my mom wants my help deciding where to put everything. There’s breakfast in the dining room today, because the sun room furniture has to be moved for the party.”
I stuck my head out of the shower and smiled at her. “I’ll see you down there?” Reaching out, I tagged one of her hands and pulled her in for a quick kiss. She gave me a Stacia grin, and then left the bathroom in a hurry, before her hair could be kinked by the steam. (Say what you will about me, but I paid attention to my girl’s little habits. Much more than she ever paid to mine.)
After the world’s fastest shower, I dressed. Stacia had bought me clothes for Christmas. Since clothes and jewelry were about the only things she was interested in, she was awfully good at picking them out. The shirt I threw on now was a shamelessly expensive thing from Thomas Pink. I turned up the cuffs to keep it casual, because that’s how I roll. But the girl had really good taste. The jeans were some brand I’d never heard of, and could only be purchased in France. Whatever.
Wearing my Stacia-approved threads, I went downstairs to the dining room. Henry — Stacia’s father — sat alone at the head of a giant table. “Good morning, Mr. Beacon,” I said when he looked up. There were three newspapers stacked in front of him. Someone had taken the time to line the edges up perfectly.
“Morning, son,” he said. It always gave me a weird jolt to hear Mr. B. Call me that. No other man ever did. “The coffee’s hot, and I just asked Anna to make me an omelet. If you catch her now, she’d be happy to make one for you.” He slid the top newspaper across the gleaming wood surface.
“That sounds like a plan.” I passed through the room and walked into the commercial-sized kitchen beyond. There, amid more burnished wood and stainless steel, the personal chef stood swirling butter into a pan.
“Hola, Hartley!” Anna chirped. “Qué quieres para el desayuno?”
If I tried to answer her in Spanish, I’d disgrace myself. “I’d love an omelet, if you’re doing those today.”
She switched to English, pointing a finger at my chest. “Cheese, onions and ham, well-browned?”
“You always remember.” Anna was awesome. I hoped the Beacons paid her a big fat salary, because she sure as hell deserved it.
“El café está allí,” she added.
“Gracias. Did Stacia get hers yet?” I asked.
“Haven’t seen her.” Anna leaned over the cutting board and began to dice chunks of onions into a tidy pile.
“That’s not good,” I said, heading for the coffee service. “We can’t have Stacia under-caffeinated.”
“You know what to do.” Anna punctuated that sentence with the sizzle of my onions hitting the pan.
I poured two cups of coffee and then went to find my girlfriend. She and her mother were in deep conversation with a woman in a Katie’s Catering apron. I’ve noticed that the big, fancy outfits the Beacons hired to work at their home always had homey little names. Tommy’s Taxi. Frankie’s Forestry. But it was such a ruse. There were probably seventeen Katie’s Catering vans driving around Fairfield County right now, sucking money out of the mansions with a fire hose.
“God, thank you,” Stacia breathed into my ear when I handed her the mug. She put a warm hand on my back. And while her mother and the caterer went on and on about passed hors d’oeuvres, Stacia gave me a honeyed smile over the rim of her cup. It was a smile that belonged in a Victoria’s secret catalog, and it was aimed at me and me alone.