“Remember Luci’s party?” he asked.
Like I’d ever forget.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Remember when I told you he took something precious from you?”
I nodded.
“I know, Kia, and I’ve known since the beginning, even before I knew he took his hands to you, that he’d broken something in you that, if I took the shot, I’d have to fix. And, baby, you sittin’ across from me, shy and cute and open and funny, I did not give one shit that he’d broken you. I knew the minute I saw you laugh, no…” he shook his head once, “before, that I wanted in there and I’d do anything to get what I wanted.”
I felt my lips part but just like Sam, he was not done but this time he was far from done.
“That didn’t have fuck all to do with my mother, my father and what happened to me as a kid. And you might not like hearin’ this but what it had to do with was watchin’ you walk across that dining room in those sexy as hell shoes and that hot, little dress with your long legs and your great tits and all that fantastic fuckin’ hair and mostly a face I knew I wanted to see starin’ up at me when my cock was buried inside you. Straight up, you are one fine piece of tail but now you’re my piece of tail. When you sat across from me and ignored me and I saw that shit you carry in your eyes even when your mind is consumed with something else then you sat with me and I watched you laugh, I knew that shit would not deter me, no matter how deep it ran. And I can promise you that has not one thing to do with my mother. The precious thing he took from you is that you have no fuckin’ clue that it wasn’t only me in that room who watched you walk across it wishin’ he was a man who could be buried inside you. And that precious thing also includes the fact that you think for one second this bullshit is your responsibility. He saddled you with that too, Kia. This mess is his making, not yours. I don’t know how to get that outta your head. The only thing I know is it’s gonna be me who cleans up that mess and, like it or not, it partly has to do with you turning out in reality to be one seriously fine piece of ass. But also it has to do with you not likin’ euro-trash cars, not rappin’ with your posse about what I do for you in bed, you demonstrating you have my back and you bein’ able to make me laugh when I’m mildly pissed at you.”
He stopped speaking and I stared at him.
He had noticed me walk across that dining room.
He wanted me when I walked across that dining room.
Ohmigod!
Sam interrupted my mental freak out with, “Now, we past this?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
He studied me.
Then he stated, “Look of you, honey, you’re gonna search for some other fucked up reason I’m with you and I gotta say now, I don’t know how much more straight I can be about that.”
I didn’t either.
“Uh… yeah. You were pretty straight,” I agreed quietly.
“Did what I say penetrate?”
“I might, uh… need coffee and to get over jetlag and then, um… maybe it’ll sink in,” I told him honestly.
His lips twitched.
Then he muttered, “I’ll be here when it does.”
Then he turned around and disappeared in my bedroom.
Memphis yapped then bounced down the hall and disappeared after him.
Sam was going to have company in the bathroom while he showered. This was Memphis’s way.
I kept still and staring.
I’ll be here when it does.
Okay. All right.
Wow.
Wow.
I forced myself to turn and lurch to the coffee discovering Mom or Paula had made sure we had fresh milk for which I decided to buy them both a yacht that was how grateful I was.
I was leaning with my hips to the counter when Sam came in wearing another long-sleeves rolled up near to his elbow, button up the front shirt (this one chambray), jeans and boots. He was followed by Memphis who I was getting thought Sam was the shit even more than she thought everyone was the shit. She didn’t even follow Cooter around with that kind of devotion. Then again, Cooter didn’t do pull ups and pushups that she could misconstrue as playing with her.
He came right to me, touched his mouth to mine and I smelled his aftershave. Then I decided that he smelled so good, the second Vanessa smelled him she’d spill all of her secrets. Then he told me he’d be back as soon as he could and he left.
The second the door closed behind him, his words repeated in my brain.
I’ll be here when it does.
He watched me walk through that dining room and he wanted me.
Thomas had said, I’ll remind you of this moment, when the beautiful Kia doubted her power over a powerful man…
That intensity Sam had was partly about his history but it was mostly about me.
Me.