I knew this because when I entered the bar Morrie shouted, “You got a Meems’s carrot cake and didn’t bring one for me?”
Morrie liked Meems’s carrot cake. It was his favorite. I didn’t get him one because the piece I had was the last slice of the day. Even though my favorite goodie in Meems’s inventory was her chocolate zucchini cake, I felt zero guilt about taking the last piece of carrot cake. Mainly because I had a psycho hacking up my ex-boyfriends and I was in a carrot cake mood. I figured the former meant I got dibs on the latter.
“It was the last piece,” I told Morrie after I’d licked my lip clean and while I walked down the bar.
“She have any chocolate zucchini left?” Morrie asked astutely.
“Nope,” I lied.
“Bullshit,” Morrie muttered and, as ever, I found it annoying I could never lie to my brother.
Colt followed me to the office where I stowed my purse in a drawer in the desk, sucked back the last of my Meems’s and tossed it in the trash.
When I straightened, I said to him, “Next time I have frosting on my mouth, tell me, will you?”
His arm shot out, hooked around my waist and he hauled me forward. Then he bent his head and licked my lip where the icing was.
My fingers curled into his thermal and they did this in an effort for me to remain standing because Colt’s tongue felt so nice it had a direct effect on the ability of my legs to keep me upright.
“Morrie ruined it,” Colt said when he lifted his head, “I was savin’ it for later.”
“Yeah, and I was walkin’ down the street with cream cheese on my lip,” I returned.
“How much you care about that?” he asked and he sounded weirdly curious.
Because he sounded curious, my eyes slid to the side as I mulled over his question.
Then my eyes came back and I answered, “Not much.”
He grinned.
I continued, “Then again, no one was on the street to see me and it’s only two doors down.”
“About fifteen cars passed us, baby.”
“Yeah, but they don’t count seein’ as I didn’t really notice them so in my head they don’t actually exist.”
He was still grinning when the door opened and Dad stood there. His expression was not good in a way that was really not good and both Colt and I got stiff simultaneously.
“Colt,” Dad said, “fuck, son, I’m sorry but I think you need to get out here.”
“What?” Colt asked and I watched Dad twist his neck, extending it in a way I’d seen before, not often but he did it when something happened he didn’t like, something that upset him or something that worried him.
His eyes hit Colt and he said, “Your Ma’s here.”
This was such a shock I felt my head move forward with a jerk as my eyes grew wide.
“His mother?” I asked.
Dad shook his head but said, “Yeah, darlin’.” Then he looked at Colt. “She’s askin’ for you and Jackie’s circlin’. Morrie and Dee’re tryin’ to get her to move on but she’s resistant and it’s workin’ Jackie up, I can see it, she’s gonna blow. We can’t get rid of Mary and we’re losin’ hold on keepin’ Jackie from goin’ ballistic. Sorry, Colt, wouldn’t ask you this if I didn’t have to, you know that, but I need you to come deal with your mother.”
I looked up at Colt and saw his face was blank but stony.
Although most things about Colt had been shielded from me by pretty much everyone, I knew a lot about what had happened with Ted and Mary Colton the last twenty-odd years. One of those things I knew was that Colt hadn’t seen his mother in years and never spoke to her.
Colt had attended my wedding to Pete because he was that kind of person, responsible, doing the right thing, even though I hated him being there as much as it was obvious he hated it and he left the reception before we cut the cake.
I hadn’t attended his wedding to Melanie even though Melanie sent me an invitation. This was because I was irresponsible and rarely did the right thing but also because I was weak and I knew deep down there was no way I could handle it. I sent them a wedding gift from their registry that cost more than I could afford at the time but I did it anyway thinking I was making some kind of idiot point that was probably lost on them.
I’d also heard from Mom, who was furious about it, that Mary Colton had showed at the wedding. She’d been trashed out of her gourd and started to make a scene, blathering on, apparently (this I heard not from Mom but from Jessie) about how the wedding was a farce and Colt was meant to marry me. She luckily didn’t make it into the church, she did this outside and then Colt, Dad, Morrie and Sully got rid of her with Jimbo driving her home. Colt had somehow shielded Melanie from it and, as far as I knew, she never heard a word about it happening. Even back then, thinking I had no right, when Mom called to tell me this happened, and Jessie augmented the information, the knowledge pissed me off to such an extreme that I was glad I wasn’t there because I knew there was no telling what I’d do if I was.
Before Colt and I broke up, but long after he’d moved out of his Mom and Dad’s house, Ted Colton hit two kids while drunk driving and killed them both. Colt and I knew the kids. They were good kids, never got into trouble. The girl was named Jenny and she won the Spirit of Junior Miss at the Junior Miss Pageant the fall before. The boy was named Mike and he was an ace shortstop for the high school team. They’d been dating for ages and were on their way back from a late movie at the mall. They were seniors in high school but I’d been in school with them both for two years before I graduated. Colt and I didn’t know them well, but we knew them.