No.
“This isn’t funny. I’m serious. I’m a head crackin’ mamma jamma. You’re too handsome for your own good. I’l have to deck most of the single female population of Denver.” Even though I was, indeed, being perfectly serious, his body started moving and it felt a lot like laughter. He twisted and we went down, me on my back, him on top of me. By the time he came over me, I knew it was laughter mainly because it had become audible.
I was offended.
“Excuse me! This is not funny. How come you can make intense, macho man statements and I can’t?” His lips touched mine. He was stil laughing.
“Shut up, Jules,” he said there.
“Do not tel me to shut up,” I snapped.
So he didn’t. Using hands, mouth, tongue and other parts of his anatomy, he shut me up a different way.
*
Vance made love to me, he did it slow, took his time and it was beyond beautiful. We took a quick shower, got dressed and went back into town.
In a morning of significant moments, two more were stil to come.
First, he told me to leave my stuff in the bathroom.
“I can’t, I need it,” I told him.
“Buy more,” he replied then walked into the kitchen to make toast (or, remake toast, I’d had a go and I’d burned it, twice).
I added a trip to the mal on my mental agenda for the day and I had no problem with it whatsoever. In fact my pug had never been to the mal and he was al excited to go (something else about my pug, his fur and face and little wet nose felt like velvet too).
Second, Vance fol owed me on his Harley al the way into Denver. I saw him in my rearview mirror and I didn’t lose sight of him until I turned my car into the garage behind the duplex. I knew this took him out of his way. His offices were in LoDo (lower downtown). He’d gone ten, fifteen minutes out of his way.
I could not explain why this was significant but it was. I’d been on my own a long time and knowing someone had my back as it were, was just, plain nice.
I dropped off Boo and his litter and my bag and went to King’s.
May descended the minute I came through the door.
I took one look at her stormy face and asked, “What?”
“You stil together with Crowe?”
What now?
“Why?” I asked.
“Tel me,” she snapped.
“Yes. Why?” I snapped back.
Her face melted and she was al smiles. “Just checkin’,” she said, storm cloud gone, al bouncy and happy. “You want a pudding cup?”
“May, it’s eight thirty in the morning.”
“There’s no time limit on pudding cups.”
Jeez.
She was grinning at me, pleased as punch that I was getting it regular.
I looked at her.
Home, the word came into my head in Auntie Reba’s voice and a warm shiver ran along my skin.
“Love you, May,” I said softly.
May blinked at me. “What’d you say, hon?”
I walked the step of distance between us, put my hands on either side of her neck, bent at the waist and laid my forehead against hers.
“Love you,” I whispered.
I watched close up as tears fil ed her eyes.
She tried to pul away. It wouldn’t be cool for the kids to see us like this but I didn’t care and I held on tight. Maybe they should see.
“I think Vance loves me,” I whispered as I lifted my forehead from hers but kept looking in her teary eyes. “He looked at me this morning in a way, May, you wouldn’t believe. And he told me he’d never let me go.” May was stil staring at me. She’d never heard me share information about myself freely, certainly not something important, without her having to drag it out of me.
I let her go but put an arm around her shoulders and walked her toward the office. The whole time my head was bent to hers and I told her about my morning.
“Praise be to Jesus!” she shouted right before we disappeared into the hal .
Al the kids (luckily, there weren’t that many of them that early in the morning) stared.
*
The morning was its usual madness. I cal ed my doctor to make an appointment to discuss birth control because I was done with the condom business.
There might be ways to make it fun but Vance and I were kind of active (okay, really active) and spontaneous and enough was enough.
My cel rang mid-morning. The display said “Crowe cal ing”.
I flipped it open. “Hey,” I said.
“Got time for lunch?”
I didn’t and that sucked. “Not real y,” I told him.
“I’l bring something to the Shelter.”
I smiled into the phone. “That’d work.”
“See you around noon.”
My pug gave me a sleepy, puppy cuddle.
“Okay,” I said.
I went in search of Martin and Curtis and hustled them into the yel ow room. It was time to get to the bottom of why they’d run away so I could start fixing it but even though I knew I had their respect, they gave me nothing.
We walked out of the yel ow room and one of the tutors, Stuart, was coming at me. The boys took off. Most of the kids avoided the tutors like the plague.