Andy had started about a month after Shaw left for the marines at J&K’s Electrics. He did cleanup and stock work.
That was, he did that until he’d been caught talking to some customers about a TV and he’d surprised the owners with his knowledge and enthusiasm. It surprised the owners further when the customers took Andy’s recommendations and bought the expensive TV Andy recommended.
That had earned him a polo shirt with the store name stitched on it and a salesperson’s position. He had heavy supervision. But he even surprised Greta with the fact that he was a savant at all things with a plug.
The owners used what made Andy special to their advantage.
Andy didn’t mind so Greta didn’t mind, which meant Hix didn’t mind.
He’d had three seizures there and got flustered once, enough to bump into a display of thumb drives, knocking it over and making a mess, which flustered him even more.
They’d just called Hix, he’d come, calmed him down, took him home and they said no more. They just called “hey” when Hix walked him in the next day.
He didn’t remember a quarter of the sales he made but he didn’t have to remember what he’d done to sell more.
It worked and it might not have changed Andy, but it made him happy.
Hix drove them to the church, helped his wife out of the Bronco and got her ass to a pew.
It was when he was sitting next to her, staring at the front when he felt her fingers curl around his.
“Hey,” she called.
He turned to her.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he lied.
Her smile was soft and her head tipped to the side.
“Don’t lie to me, smokey,” she said quietly.
“Not sure I should be here,” he told her.
“She asked you as well as me.”
“I’m a remin—”
Greta squeezed his hand, got close and whispered, “She asked you. It means something you’re here. And you’re you. You know that. So you’re here.”
He swallowed.
He then nodded.
She gave him another soft smile, turned to face forward but did it dropping her head to rest it on his shoulder.
Only then did Hix relax.
He watched the groom come in with his groomsmen.
Then, with Greta and the rest of the congregation, he twisted in his seat to watch the bridesmaids walk down the aisle.
The wedding party was small.
The attendance at the wedding wasn’t.
So when the wedding march started, there was a lot of noise of shuffling feet when they all stood to watch the bride walk in.
Her kids walked in front of her.
Her father was at her side.
And after she arrived at the front and they all sat down, Hix allowed his wife to cry for the third time since they got together.
The first was when he asked her to marry him.
The second was while she was getting married to him.
And that was the third and he hoped the last.
Then they sat in a church and watched Faith Calloway standing with her kids, her hair perfect, her dress pretty, the smile on her face luminous, as she married a man named Owen.
THE END
Thank you for reading Complicated.
Discover the Magdalene Series.
It begins with The Will.
Early in her life, Josephine Malone learned the hard way that there was only one person she could love and trust: her grandmother, Lydia Malone. Out of necessity, unconsciously and very successfully, Josephine donned a disguise to keep all others at bay. She led a globetrotting lifestyle on the fringes of the fashion and music elite, but she kept herself distant.
While Josephine was trotting the globe, retired boxer Jake Spear was living in the same small town as Lydia. There was nothing disguised about Jake. Including the fact he made a habit of making very bad decisions about who to give his love.
But for Josephine and Jake, there was one person who adored them. One person who knew how to lead them to happiness. And one person who was intent on doing it.
Even if she had to do it as her final wish on this earth.
Turn the page to read Chapter One now!
THE WILL
The Safest Place I Could Be
“ASHES TO ASHES, DUST TO dust.”
My mouth filled with saliva when I heard these words, my eyes—shaded by both sunglasses and a big black hat—moving from the shining casket covered in a massive spray of deep red roses to the preacher standing at its side.
I wanted to rise up from my chair, snatch the words from the air and shove them down his throat.
This was an unusual reaction for me. I wasn’t like that.
But he was talking about Gran.
Gran, my Gran, the Gran whose body was in that casket.
She wasn’t exactly young, this was true. I knew it was coming, seeing as she was ninety-three.
That didn’t mean I wanted her to be gone. I never wanted her to be gone.
Outside of Henry, she was the only person I had. The only person in this whole world.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Gran wasn’t dust.
My Gran was everything.
On this thought, I felt them coming and I couldn’t stop them. Fortunately, when they spilled over, they were silent. Then again, they always were. The last time I let loose that kind of emotion was decades ago.
I never let it happen again.
I felt the wet crawling down my cheeks from under my sunglasses as I moved my eyes back to the casket. I felt them drip off my jaw but I didn’t lift a hand. I wanted no one to notice the tears so I wouldn’t give them any reason to do so, not even movement.
On that thought, I felt something else—a strange prickling sensation of awareness gliding over my skin. My eyes behind my sunglasses lifted and slid through the crowd standing around the casket.
They stopped when my sunglasses hit his.
And when they did, my breath also stopped.
This was because in all my life, and I’d had a long one, and in all my wandering, and I’d wandered far, I’d never seen a man like him.
Not once.
He was wearing a dark blue suit, monochromatic shirt and monochromatic tie. His clothes fit him well and suited him even better. I knew this from experience not just liking clothes but also being on the fringe of the fashion world for the last twenty-two years.
With a practiced eye, I saw his suit was Hugo Boss, which was a little surprising. The small town where Gran lived had some money in it and apparently that man was one of the people who had it.
The surprising part was the rest of him didn’t look Hugo Boss. It definitely didn’t look moneyed.
His black hair had a hint of silvery-gray in it. It was thick and clipped well but in a way that was not a nod to style, instead it was apparent he didn’t want to spend time on it so his style was wash and go.
Even so, it looked good on him.
He also had lines on his forehead and around his hard mouth, that even hard still had lips that were so full, they were almost puffy, especially the lower one. His sunglasses, I was certain, hid lines around his eyes.
These told me he was not a stranger to sun.
They also told me he wasn’t a stranger to emotion.
He was tall, broad and very big. I’d been around a variety of men and women who had commanding presences, Henry being one of them, but this man’s wasn’t that. It wasn’t commanding.