But when he married Audrey, his life changed.
He worked his ass off to pay the bills she accumulated. He didn’t have time for basketball with buddies or to hit the gym since, until he made detective, he worked two jobs. When he made detective and the hours meant he had to let go of the other job then, later, when he got quit of Audrey, he took it up again. One-on-ones with Colt or Mike’s partner Garrett “Merry” Merrick. Or two-on-twos, Merry and him against Colt and his friend Morrie. And he played with his son, Jonas. He also hit the gym. But after the divorce, when Audrey didn’t look after their kids during her part of their joint custody, he fought her and got them full. They were teenagers and busy, social but still, they managed to take a lot of time. This meant his four-weekly visits to the gym and once weekly one-on-ones or two-on-twos got cut back to twice-weekly gym visits if he was lucky and once or twice a month basketball games.
So if he had the chance to do something physical, he did it as a matter of course.
This time he did it also in hopes of cooling his temper.
It didn’t work.
He hit the fourth floor, moved through the door and followed the signs to her room number.
Without delay, he knocked.
Then he waited.
It couldn’t have taken more than a minute but that minute was too fucking long and he was about to knock again when the door was open.
And there she was right in front of him.
Her hair was no longer down but in a messy knot with thick, spiky locks shooting out of it everywhere at the top back of her head. She was no longer dripping silver and wearing black but wearing very faded jeans and an equally faded and beat up once burgundy now washed out tee. The deteriorating white decal on front had a cowboy in chaps and spurs being thrown from a bronco with western-style words that demanded you, “Eat it, cowboy!” underneath and in an arch over it, it said, “Schub’s Texas Saloon and Hoedown”. Her feet were bare, toes tipped in the same wine as her fingernails and he registered she couldn’t be more than five foot seven but was probably closer to five foot six. He knew this because, at six one, he had quite a ways to look down at her.
She still had on her makeup and silver bracelets on both wrists.
And she was staring up at him, eyes wide, lips parted, visibly shocked.
“Mike,” she whispered.
And that, again irrationally and again he didn’t give a fuck, pissed him off.
Dusty, comfortable, removed, sitting in her hotel room relaxing.
Yeah, it pissed him off.
So he pushed past her and walked in her room.
It was nice, clean, well-decorated. He’d been in one of these rooms once when someone had OD’ed in one two years ago. Other than that, never.
There was a beat up but stylish tan leather satchel on the luggage stand. A scattering of her jewelry with a cell phone and a keycard were on the nightstand. Her blazer, skirt and turtleneck were tossed, clearly without thought, on the chair. Her cowboy boots both on their sides were in front of the chair where they’d been dropped and forgotten. Her big, fringed, black suede purse looked like it had exploded on the desk. There was an MP3 player on the bed, the covers not smooth, the pillows piled against the headboard and depressed. She’d been lying there, enjoying music.
This, he saw, hadn’t changed. Not ever. She’d shared a room with Debbie who was obsessively tidy. Dusty had always been…not. In any way. She did her chores as given to her by her mother but her side of the room always looked like a tornado had been through it. Mrs. Holliday used to nag her about it but had given up. Debbie fought with her all the time about it. Dusty never gave a shit. Dusty had better things to do and she made this point clear when she found a plaque in a gift shop, bought it with her allowance and put it on her side of the room. It stated, “Boring women have immaculate homes.” It was a daily “fuck you” to her sister. Mike had always secretly thought it was hilarious. Debbie hated that fucking plaque, it drove her insane. And no matter how many times Mike explained that her getting angry about it was feeding Dusty’s glee, she just kept right on getting angry about it.
“What are you doing here?”
He heard her voice, soft, musical and he turned to face her.
She’d sung in the children’s choir at church in addition to both the junior high and high school choirs. She’d had a lot of solos. Her voice was pure and sweet, reminiscent of Karen Carpenter. Even when she had her turn, she never quit singing. She went to competitions with the choir all over the state, won ribbons and trophies and led the choir to county, sectional, regional and, in her senior year, state victories. She cleaned away the grunge for that, he’d heard since Darrin had told him about it, again proudly. She loved singing so much she gave up the grunge to do it. Her speaking voice, even when she was younger, was nearly as beautiful as her singing voice. He’d always thought so.