“Thanks, sweetheart,” I said softly.
There was another knock on the door and neither Corinne nor I said a word before it opened and Mamie scooted through, squeezing by her sister, who was blocking her entry, as she closed the door and grinned at me.
“Hey, Miss Greta.”
I grinned back. “Hey, Mamie.”
Her nose scrunched. “Does that hurt?”
I didn’t have to ask what she was talking about. I’d seen myself in the mirror. And an elbow to the eye might buy you a shiner that took days to come up dark but a broken nose shadowed the skin under both eyes deep purple the day after.
My raccoon eyes from not taking my makeup off last night didn’t help matters much.
“It isn’t that bad,” I told her.
“Cool,” she replied then asked, “What kinda donuts do you like?”
“Uh . . .”
“Dad’s gettin’ ’em,” she shared and looked to Corinne. “Says we’re goin’ with him.”
“’Kay,” Corinne agreed.
Mamie turned back to me. “I like chocolate-covered raised. And chocolate-covered cake with sprinkles. And cinnamon twists.”
“I like glazed yeast,” Corinne informed me. “And cinnamon swirls.”
They both stared at me.
Apparently my immediate future included donuts with the Drake family.
“I like . . . well, donuts,” I told them.
Mamie smiled big.
Corinne’s lips twitched.
Then I jumped as Mamie shouted, doing it putting her hand to the wall, her other one out to her side and rounded, executing a graceful plié, “Miss Greta likes anything!”
She did another plié as we heard Hix shout back. “Great! Let’s go!”
“We should go,” Mamie told me but did it doing another plié.
Corinne turned to the cupboard and pulled out one of the approximately seventeen new toothbrushes in their packages that was stacked in a pile on the first-aid shelf and handed it to me.
I juggled the bottles and tubes to take it, noting, “It’s good you all take care of your teeth.”
I did this remembering how hard Hixon had kissed me after I gave him a toothbrush and wondering if this was a Drake family thing.
“Mom’s weird about body stuff,” Mamie shared with me and I felt awkwardness coming from Corinne at the mention of their mother, none coming from Mamie, but I still felt that awkwardness also start coming from me in sympathy with Corinne’s. “Says we gotta take care of them. Even our teeth. Daddy and Mom aren’t together anymore but she still gets on him a lot if we don’t eat peas and brush day and night and floss and blah blah blah.” Another plié. “And Dad’s a dad, so he’s not like,” she faked a low voice that had me not quite suppressing a giggle, “‘Do whatever, kids.’ I mean, we have Junk Sundays, which today is, thankfully. But he’d make us eat peas even if Mom wasn’t big on things like that. Fortunately we like peas.”
“Girls!” Hixon shouted.
“We should go,” Corinne stated instantly.
“Yeah,” Mamie replied on another plié.
“Thanks for all this stuff, darlin’,” I said to Corinne, lifting my hands filled with stuff. “And the clothes.”
“Not a problem,” she returned, closed the cupboard and shot out of the room, again closing the door behind her.
Mamie did another plié then declared, “Don’t worry. Dad’ll like you even with your face like that. Corinne took a header going for the volleyball last year during a game, bam! face-plant on the basketball court. It was all swollen and bruised, I mean, like, for days. And Daddy was all snuggly and kissy like he didn’t notice at all.”
Yep.
So.
Totally.
Unblocking Hixon Drake.
“Good to know,” I murmured, grinning at her.
“Mamie!” Hix yelled.
“I better go,” she said swiftly, executing another plié before she shot me a grin, turned, and took off, also closing the door behind her.
I looked to the mirror only to have another knock come at the door.
I turned again that way. “Yeah?”
It opened and only Hixon’s head came in.
My stomach flipped.
“Hey, baby. Gonna get donuts. Girls take care of you? You good?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
He smiled and said, “Good. Make yourself at home. Shaw’ll look after you, you need anything while we’re gone.”
I nodded.
He kept smiling as he murmured, “Be back.”
“Okay, Hix.”
He gave me a top to toe look I couldn’t decipher but it left my toes curling into the fluffy rug he had in front of the sink before he caught my eyes, his went soft (or softer) then he disappeared behind the closed door.
I sighed.
Then I carefully cleaned off my makeup, brushed my teeth, moisturized and put on Corinne’s clothes.
I returned her stuff to the cupboard and walked out the door.
I went back to Hix’s room, dumped the tee on the clothes-covered chair, struggled my bra on under the shirt without fully taking it off and went to the bed.
I made it and walked back out in a pair of Corinne’s loose-fitting, light-gray yoga pants and an equally loose-fitting pale-pink, cowl yoga top that had a long hem that came down over my hips and openings at the cuffs that hooked over my thumbs.
The pants fit a little snug at my butt but the whole outfit was cute.
I came out and found Shaw lounged on the couch.
He knifed up the second he saw me.
“Hey,” he greeted, looking at me closely.
“Mornin’, Shaw.”
“How you doin’?” he asked.
“In need of coffee, but otherwise good.”
He started moving in the direction of the kitchen. “I’ll get you some.”
“You just show me where things are,” I replied, following him, “I can make it.”
“I got it,” he returned, and I halted at the edge of the counter, which abruptly stopped and opened to the small dining area that had a handsome table in it, but one I could see had leaves, just in that small space, they couldn’t be in it.
Seeing that, I glanced into the living room with its huge, slouchy, impossible-to-be-anything-but-comfortable-looking couch that had already had the pullout pushed back in and matching armchair, a big denim-covered beanbag that hadn’t been there the night before, all of it not fitting that space. All of it was also such I had no idea how they actually got it up those stairs and in that door.
And taking that in, the weight of Hix’s need to get his kids out of there and the sadness of Hix’s need to restart his life after Hope ended the one they’d led bore down on me.
“How do you take it?” Shaw asked, and I looked to him happy to have my mind turned.
“Little creamer.”
“Gotcha.” He went to the fridge and opened it offering, “You need to charge your phone, we got every charger known to man, so just let me know what kind you need and I’ll set you up.”
“Okay.”
He sloshed in creamer, stirred my coffee, tossed the dripping spoon on the counter while I bit my lip at that act and came to hand it to me.
I took it.
He asked, “You need aspirin or Tylenol or anything?”
“You’re sweet, and yeah, actually. Whatever you got.”
“’Kay. Go get you some,” he muttered, rounding me.
I took a sip of my coffee, turned, saw my purse on the table and went to it.