ONCE I HAD learned I’d slept for most of the morning from the time blinding my vision on my alarm clock, I showered and slipped into one of Eric’s shirts—the one that held his scent the strongest.
Following my nose, permeated with the sweet smell of breakfast, I ventured into the kitchen.
I quietly watched Eric work in the kitchen, reminding me of the beginning of our relationship. Every horrible thing that occurred between us within the last few months began to all but disappear. Death surrounded me so much, it became easier to shrug off a person’s death and remain unaffected by it. The lack of value I once saw in my life equaled the value I held for people who hurt us. Preston’s death seemed the easiest to forget.
Eric moved around in the kitchen with a steady focus while donning only pair of fleece pants. I slipped into a daze as I watched the muscles of his back contract and flex while he moved about. My reverie was interrupted by the sight of planting devices neatly lined up on top of the breakfast counter.
He glanced over his shoulder at me and winked.
I gave him a shy smile in return and brought my knees together to quiet the insatiable ache he elicited between my thighs. “Been awhile since I’ve seen you in the kitchen.” I fingered the devices, wondering when he found the time to dismantle them all and what the consequences would be for retrieving the devices and shutting them down. I slipped forward on the stool, resting my chin in my hand. “You’ve been…very occupied.”
“It wasn’t the Feds who bugged the house, so fuck it.” His broad shoulders rolled up before relaxing into their normal position. “I want you to feel like you can speak freely with me tonight after we take a trip somewhere.” He turned down the gas and walked around the counter.
“A trip somewhere? What’s the occasion?”
“Did you forget it was Christmas?”
I blinked. “It is?”
Wrapping his arm around me, he ran his thumb along my bottom lip and sloped forward to give me a tongue-tinged kiss.
“W-where are we going?” I stuttered, attempting to recover from his kiss.
“Her name is Carmen,” he stated with a boyish grin. “She took care of me when my mother had to work, which tended to be a lot of the time.”
The rush of understanding hit me so hard my head throbbed. “I-is…that why you went to school here…came back here? This is the place your mother and you escaped to?”
“It was,” he responded. “I told you I’d been remembering things I didn’t want to.” He shrugged. “I’m embracing the better part of my past. I’m going to show you the house I grew up in and introduce you to the woman who was my second mother. I try to make sure she doesn’t spend Christmas alone if I’m in town. She lost her husband thirty years ago. She never had any children and tends to get lonely.”
I slowly smiled. “Eric,” I choked on his name, touched in a way I couldn’t truly explain. He was letting me in. Finally.
“When you smile like that”—his lips found my ear, his teeth nipped at my earlobe—“you make my cock throb, baby.” His eyes darkened, and I knew within seconds I would be spread-legged and on the counter.
“What happened to wanting to give me the moon?”
“I brought you on a first-class trip to the stars last night…and you already have the moon.” He twisted my hair around his fist and yanked my head back. The touch of his tongue against the sensitive spot on my neck made me shudder. “I’ll give you a break…for now.” Abruptly, he loosened his hold on my hair. Grabbing my hand, he led me to the dining room table and pulled out a chair for me.
“Since I have the next two days off, I’m going to spend them making you feel the way I used to.”
During our late breakfast, it felt like time rewound and we were just Eric and Nikki again. Laughing. Joking. Communicating without snipping or threatening each other. It seemed our semblance of normal for a time. It almost succeeded in wrecking my motivation to do what needed to be done, soon.
“Did you enjoy it, Nikki?” Eric asked from across the table, the smile he once had quickly faded away.
“I did.” Removing my napkin from my lap, I placed it on my plate. My appetite was on par for eating for two. Still, I ate way too much. Eric’s cooking skills were definitely to blame. “You were always a great cook.”
He crossed his arms and sat back in his chair, his eyes never left their locked position. “Another lie you’ve slipped up on.”
I examined him, noting a slight change in his attitude, but nothing severe enough to alarm me. “I didn’t want to feed your overgrown ego when we met.”
Sliding his chair back, he stood upright and circled the table to close in on my position. He pulled my chair out and turned it around. As he spread my legs, he got down on his knees. “I know this question comes up a lot between us, but I need reassurances.” He pinched my chin, forcing me to gaze into his eyes. “How far does your trust extend?”
“I think I’ve proved how far it stretches.”
“Have you?” he asked with a lifted brow. He wrapped his hands around my thighs, holding me firm. “No matter what you’ve done or haven’t done, you can tell me anything, Nikki. You know that, right?”
“I know.”
“See”—he glanced toward the ceiling before leveling his gaze at me—“I can’t fight this notion, Nik. It’s telling me you’re hiding things from me.”
“I’m not—”
Shaking his head, he quietly shushed me by pressing his finger against my lips. “Preston spent a lot of time talking about you with me. I was so goddamn distracted, I didn’t believe him. Was I wrong? Should I have believed him, Nik?”
The pace of my heart quickened. I fought hard to keep my expression light and warm. “How can I answer when I don’t know what he said?”
His neck craned to one side, a sinister smirk spread across his face that made my legs tremble. The grip he held on my legs firmed. “I think I’ve underestimated you because I can’t see behind this”—he gesticulated between him and me with his fingers—“to see the truth.” His grip returned to my legs, firming the pressure, burning into the sensitive flesh on my thighs.
Wincing, I placed my hands over his in an attempt to remove them.
He was immovable. “Trust me, Nikki,” he stated with a quiet indifference. “Tell me everything. Even the dirty little secrets you’re too embarrassed to tell me.” He unattached one hand from my thigh. Reaching up, he moved a wandering hair that fell from my ponytail. “I promise you. Nothing you say will upset me.”
“You know everything about me,” I conceded. “It doesn’t flow both ways.”
He studied me with an increasingly voided expression. “From the way your legs are damn near shaking the floor, I feel like there is something you want to discuss with me.”
“I’m just…cold.”
With his eyes darkening and his features firmed, he rose.
My relieved sigh was discernible; I was afraid he noticed. I looked up at him, unable to decipher if he did.
“Get decent and meet me at the car. We’re going to be late.” He grabbed my dishes from the table and headed into the kitchen.
He stared at the sink while chewing on his lip. The expression of his face was a stark difference to the man he showcased only minutes earlier.
He caught my stare, winked at me, and pointed his gaze toward the stairs.
Shaking off my trepidation and wandering thoughts, I obeyed his directions.
DIRECTLY ACROSS THE STREET—from where Eric parked—stood a gray American foursquare home on Clifford Avenue. A house alongside it was boarded up with curious-looking inhabitants watching us from across the street while they sat on the porch.
When a Lincoln—circa early ‘80s—slowly passed us by, I clung to Eric’s bicep causing him to burst out in laughter. “No one is going to fuck with you here, trust me,” he stated through a smile.
Failing to find what was humorous, I frowned at him. “It’s not funny.”
He cupped my face, trying to temper his smile. “Sometimes I forget how sheltered you were.”
“I wasn’t—I’m not…it’s just…” I looked around, holding my jacket closed from the bitter cold. “This is a really sketchy neighborhood.”
“All right, rich brat,” he mocked me.
I slanted my eyes at him. He linked his hand in mine and tugged me across the street.
The sound of the doorbell, though quiet, seemed to ring inside my ears on a constant loop. I felt indescribably nervous. It would’ve been the closest thing I would have to meeting Eric’s mother.
On the ride here, Eric explained that his mother, Monica, at times held two to three jobs at one time. His Uncle Howard often sent Eric’s mother money; she never once used it or accepted Howard’s help. Carmen and her husband watched him during the times Monica had to work.
Carmen’s husband passed away when Eric was five. He said his memories of the neighborhood became vivid when he allowed himself to recall. According to him, it was the last time he remembered being a child with all that it encompassed. It was his last foray into innocence before his childhood and any promises of happiness were stolen from him.
On the cusp of the sound of the door unlatching, Eric warned me, “Be nice to her, Nikki.”
My mouth gaped in shock. “I’m always nice.”
“Be. Nice. To. Her. Nikki.”
“Okay. Okay.”
The door swung open and a woman with stunning caramel skin and brown hair that fell in waves around her face and back greeted us. Beyond the gleaming smile she cast at Eric, she looked far younger than her sixty-seven years. The emotion spilled from her eyes and onto her cheeks when she embraced him.
Tearing away from him, she looked me over with a warm grin. “My, my. She’s beautiful, Eric.”
“I’m well aware,” Eric said with a wink directed at me.
“Can I hug you, Nikki?” she asked.
I glanced at Eric, who shot me a look demanding I comply. Preempting my ability to fully nod, she threw her arms around me, almost choking me with the pressure of her hold.
She ushered us both inside her home. There was an onslaught of wood paneling on the walls and floors. The furniture was well used and gave the domicile a homey feel. The scent of food should’ve made me salivate, but instead, it made me slightly queasy. For reasons that had nothing to do with desire, today was a bad day for food.
I clutched my stomach, and while Eric didn’t catch it, Carmen did.
Immediately, I looked to her with panic behind my eyes. She answered in kind with a smile.
After Eric took our coats and hung them up on the hook, Carmen extended an invitation. “I’ve set the table,” Carmen shot over her shoulder while walking toward the kitchen. “Why don’t the two of you go and sit down?”
As I made my way through the living room to get to the dining room, a collection of pictures above the fireplace mantle caught my eye. Lifting the picture frame of a particular photograph that drew me, I fingered the glass.
“My mother,” Eric said from behind me, slipping an arm around me and resting his palm on my sternum.
“She could’ve easily modeled. She was…gorgeous.”
“That she was,” he remarked with austerity, loosening his grip on me.
I was entranced by the sight of her wide smile, illuminating through the aged picture. She stood in front of what I knew to be the house next door, holding whom I assumed to be Eric at two years old.
As Eric and Carmen dined on the spread of honey-glazed ham, candied yams, and turnip greens, she reminisced about the kind of little boy Eric was. It was a side of Eric I merely caught glimpses of; Carmen painted the charcoal shaded portrait of the man I knew with bright, optimistic colors. She said he was a precocious boy who wanted to be a football star and tossed balls around with her maintenance man after her husband died. She also said that he was always willing to lend her a helping hand, even as a young man.
She described Ethan before the harsh, dark world got a hold of him, chewed on his heart, and spit it out.
After Eric slipped me into my coat upon our departure, he took Carmen aside, out of my hearing distance. My nosy nature pulled at me, and I peeked in on them in the kitchen.
He handed her a thick envelope. She shook her head and waved her hands out in front of her. “I won’t take it, Eric. I never do.”
“Carmen, don’t be stubborn. You’re on a fixed income. I know social security pays next to nothing. Take it.”
“You know what I’ve done with all the money you’ve sent me?” Carmen folded her arms in defiance. “I keep it in a shoe box.”
A relaxed smile fixed itself on his face. It was a smile I didn’t get to see very often. “They have banks for a reason, you know?”
She laughed and playfully hit him on the shoulder. “It’s going to charity when I die. I’m not charity. ‘Sides, you’re going to have a family someday. Save it for your future children.” She grabbed his shoulders, looking up at him with a prideful smile. “It’s so good to see you this way, Eric. It’s been so long since I’ve seen your eyes full of life again. Don’t be a stranger now.”
“Never.” He kissed her on the cheek.
“It was nice meeting you, Nikki.” She said to me from the kitchen, letting on that she knew I’d been standing there the whole time. “I won’t hold it against you that you didn’t like my food.”
Before I could give her a reason, she winked at me, touched her stomach, and mouthed. “Congratulations.”
During the walk on the way to Eric’s car, my legs disobeyed me and didn’t seem to have the will to move. My posture bowed. My breath caught. I placed my hands on the top of my thighs and attempted to catch my bearings.
“Nikki?” he asked with concern. “What the fuck happened?”
“This…” I swallowed it back, trying to regain the will to speak. “Was all I wanted from you, Eric. To know I had the man in the picture above the mantle. I never cared about what you did or had to do. I only wanted to know if what we have is real.”
“And I told you never to doubt me.” His arms weaved around me, helping me to properly stand upright. “But…I understand why you did. I did this to show you, you have that part of me. You always did. I did this to make sure you felt it.” His palms clasped my jaw. “Do you feel it now?”
“Definitely.” I glanced back at the derelict home. “Is this place the whole reason you came back here to go to med school? Did you think you would feel what you felt when you were a child?”
We collectively stared at the condemned house, standing in violation of several building codes. “I can’t answer that, Nik. If it was my reason, it wasn’t fulfilled until the second time I came back here.”
I swooned visibly before the intemperate tears began to flow.
He bit into the corner of his skewed smile while blinking rapidly at me. “Not that I’m not glad you’re feeling what I want you to, but what is up with the constant supply of tears?”
I quickly swiped the moisture from my cheeks. “I’m due to get my period,” I said quickly and walked past him.