Dee

I park my car in the driveway to Jack’s house, eyeing the thing because now that she’s living with Cord, maybe I could hit her up for this place, if she doesn’t sell it that is.

I am still very aware that my lease is up next week and without a clue as to where I’ll go. Of course, I could move back home with my folks, but a park bench would look sweet compared to living with mama again.

I love her, but the woman is a lunatic who wakes up every morning at four, no matter what day it is. And she hates being alone, just like me, so she wakes everyone as well.

Daddy used to distract her and leave us to sleep, his methods not something I really want to think about, no matter how grateful I am. So that leaves me still homeless and very much aware that I have to do something before I end up on that park bench.

Sighing, I leave the car and sneak over the fence to Kim’s. Bay lives on the other side, I shit you not. My sisters are neighbors, and now that Jack isn’t here I know that Bay is not watching as closely from her upstairs window.

Using as much stealth as I can, I hop the fence and come up from a crouch, hot-footing it past the pool to the back door. I knock, almost gasping when it opens and I see a grinning Ky staring down at me.

Lord have mercy, the man is just…

So handsome. He’s got this really nice shade of dark blond, almost light brown hair and brown eyes that make me want to melt into a puddle of goo and–

Bad Dee! Bad girl. Focus.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask, pushing past him to enter the kitchen.

The white and black room is empty but I take a minute to give the place a once-over, wishing I had a kitchen this nice to bake in. What I could do with a countertop that spacious…and the double ovens…

“Kim and Mel went to the store with Sully. The baby needs formula since Mel took out two doubles of whiskey earlier and Kim didn’t want us to risk going back to Felix’s place in case he convinced Mel to stay,” Ky says, coming up behind me when I stop and lean against the counter.

“Makes sense. He should sweat a little for being such a bastard,” I mumble, moving to grab a bottled water from the fridge to put more space between us.

I’m so aware of him, alone, with a solid counter behind us that I have to distract myself because I’m already getting aroused and all he’s done is look at me.

Oh, that hard body, I think, swallowing while my eyes roam, taking in his jeans, tight white tee and the way those jeans mold to his perfect ass. I can’t help checking him out. By now it’s habit, one I can’t break myself of because I’ve been doing it since I was in school.

You should have seen him when he was on the football team. It’s one of the reasons I quit drama and tried out for the cheer squad. I made it two months before his girlfriend beat the tar out of me.

“Like what you see?” he drawls, snapping me out of my ogle job and making me blush.

I swallow, deciding to go for brazen in place of the embarrassment that wants to hit me.

“You know the package is good, Ky,” I say, pretending that my nipples aren’t hard and my sex isn’t slick just thinking about his package.

Ky smirks, leaning back against a counter with his arms crossed over his broad chest, giving me free rein to look my fill. I do, not because I want to or because it’s smart but because I’ve never been all that smart and sometimes a girl’s just gotta look.

“What I know is that you won’t even consider going out with me because you have some stupid idea that I fuck anything I see.”

“No, I just know that I couldn’t handle being with a guy who smiles and flirts with every woman who crosses his path. Sorry, I’m not trying to be a bitch, but it’s true. You like to be nice but that nice translates into interest for most women, and I don’t have it in me to date a guy every bitch in heat is after,” I admit, walking towards the bedroom because I want to see all the baby stuff.

Ky follows me, standing in the doorway as I take in the crib with its giraffe mobile and the yellow bed linen. It’s so…perfect I feel my womb clench and have to stifle a whine of regret.

I’m twenty-six, almost twenty-seven since Kim and I are Irish twins and share the same year, eleven months apart, and I thought that by now I would have at least the hope of a family. I don’t want to be in my thirties and push a baby out of my ‘tang while my bones are degrading.

I’d probably fall a-fucking-part if I had to give birth at anything older than the thirty-four mark.

Plus, well I just want a family so that I can have some happiness and love and a family like the one I had. I want a guy who will spoil the girls like my dad did and I want to be a mama who’ll teach them to bake like mama taught me.

I want that, family life, I guess you could call it because I like big crowds of my loved ones in one place with laughter and fighting and kids making noise.

I want all that, and the truth is that at one time, I could have seen my little ones looking like Ky Hollis. Now, I can see them looking like Ky Hollis. But I also see years of ignoring him ‘being nice’ to women and I don’t like that part of the picture one bit.

I’m not obtuse. I know he’d be on me like white on a snowman if I gave him one look. Part of me wants to give that look and say to hell with the consequences, but another part just doesn’t want the pain that could follow.

“You know, has it ever occurred to you, that I’m not what you think I am?” he asks quietly, startling me out of my reverie.

I turn, taking in the picture he makes standing in the doorway, and I force myself to shrug instead of open myself to him. That road is a rocky one and I do not want to in be the place where the boulders eventually land.

“Yeah, and then you started dating Janice, and I realized that it didn’t matter what I thought, Ky. The end will still be me becoming some shrew who has a fit every time you look away from me. I don’t want to be that person,” I tell him, honestly not knowing what else to say.

He sighs closing his eyes and opens them to look at me, his gaze filled with serious intent.

“I broke up with Jan.”

“What? When? Why?”

“If I have to answer the why then you’re blinder than I thought you were, Dee. As for the when, this afternoon. It’s been coming for a while now, but I was having trouble breaking it to her gently. She didn’t want to let go.”

I snort, yeah, I get that. What I also get is the man was with her for months, and he’s telling me he broke things off as if it didn’t–no, that’s not fair Dee. Didn’t you just hear him say it hurt him to do it?

“I’m sorry. It must have been hard for you. You’re not the kinda guy who likes to cause anyone pain.”

In high school he went out with Marcia Bligh for three months just because he didn’t know how to break up with her. It eventually got so bad Kim took pity on him and told the idiot she had to let him down gently and call it quits, or she’d dye her hair purple. Again.

It still makes me wonder how she snuck into Marcia’s house and did all that without anyone waking up and catching her. Kim has never told, just smiled and warned us never to cross her.

“It wasn’t easy, but she understood that hanging onto something that isn’t working won’t be good for either of us. Besides, I think she has a thing for preacher Ashton’s son,” he laughs, making me gape.

“Janice? The same woman who ran through the store topless on a dare?”

“She was drunk. And they bet her a hundred bucks. She used it to pay for new tires so I can’t judge. Road safety is a must.”

I giggle, liking that he’s this nice about something most men would throw a fit over. It makes me want to just let go and jump him like a rabid rabbit.

I remember what he said to me in the diner and just that fast I feel my sex go hot and wet, the empty ache inside me calling out to be filled.

“I’ll make you a deal, Dee Brady. You give me a chance, just something casual to start and I’ll show you I can be trusted,” he says, so out of the blue I go still and let out a hard breath.

“Ky–”

“We can do whatever you’re comfortable with. If you want to start with dating, I’ll do that. If you want sex, just casual, no strings, I’ll do that. If you want me to shave my fucking balls, I’ll do it. All I need is a chance,” he states, not begging, just putting himself out there.

His courage, after the way I’ve blown him off for so long, makes me stop and consider that he’s been chasing me for so long, maybe he is sincere. Maybe he can change, just that one part of himself that makes me insane.

Or maybe we’ll have some casual sex, and I’ll realize that he won’t, and then we just go our separate ways.

I don’t know. What I do know is that I want him. Badly. With an intensity that has my body going hot and tight and my sex crying out for him.

“I’ll think about it?” I venture, wanting to really give this a little time and consideration before it goes too far.

Ky bites his lip, looks away and then meets my eyes, nodding silently.

“Think hard, Dee. Don’t make me pull out the big guns,” he warns.

I should know, after years of seeing Ky Hollis go at everything with sheer grit and determination, that he’s serious.

 

*****

 

“Time to pay that debt, bitch.”

I look up from the paperwork on my desk, hoping that Kim can help me figure out where it all belongs and silently railing at Bay for not doing any filing, when Kim walks into my office, her yellow dress and red shoes giving me vertigo when I see them.

Sitting back in my chair completely drained and exhausted after a week of thinking, and then sending Ky a text to let him know that I can’t see him, I regard Kim and wonder what the hell she’s going to make me do now. If it’s anything like the time I had to sneak into the sheriff’s office to get back a bag of pot that had her prints on it, I am so passing.

She can beat me up, I don’t care, but no one knows what it feels like to get caught by the sheriff with a bag of pot in one hand and a bag of cookies in the other.

I don’t feel bad about the pot. It’s the cookies. They were his. Don’t roll your eyes, I was prepping for the munchies.

“Kim, I’m swamped right now. I don’t have time to sneak into anyone’s house and shave their crotches or whatever nefarious scheme you have in mind for me today. I have to file all this paperwork before it gets lost because you know Jack will check, and the last time I didn’t do it, she egged my car,” I huff, looking at the stacks of paperwork with a tearful glance.

Kim sits, smiling easily and shakes her head.

“You know the forfeit if you don’t.”

“Kimmy, come on, be reasonable. I can’t run through Jimbo’s trailer naked. Aunt Luanne almost got me with her shotgun,” I whine.

Actually, she did get me. Technically. Her shot hit the picnic table I was running past and the wood splintered and lodged in my naked ass. I still have to sit gingerly on one spot because I swear one shard is still in there.

“Oh pooh! That was last year. She’s on calmatives now,” Kim drawls, making me tense.

“Kim–”

“Pay up or forfeit Dee, your choice but just know that I will choose Christmas Day as the time and Skeeter and Barney will be there.”

I shiver, hating her because those two perverts will look, not hide the way Jimbo does.

“Fine! Jesus, what do want?” I grate, putting my feet up on my desk.

I’m not having a good day. I was supposed to move today, but I still don’t have a place, Jack is on her honeymoon so I can’t just call, and mama sent me a text yesterday and told me she’d murder me because I made Luanne some cake, just to prove that mine’s better.

So I can’t even go home. Darn it.

I’m stressed, scrambling to search the paper for even a hovel for rent at this point and I need Kim’s shit like I need a dildo with spikes.

“You have to have dinner with someone. Tonight.”

“Not Dougy!”

“Baby. Don’t lie and say you didn’t like kissing him. I saw you climb him like a tree.”

“His mouth tasted like meat. That was the week me and Bay tried the dairy diet. I was desperate for protein,” I defend, trying not to laugh when she gags.

“It’s not Dougy anyway. He’s with Carla Mosby.”

“Who then?”

“Nope. It’s a surprise. Just go to this address and stay for dinner. You do that, we’re square,” she says, standing to walk for the door.

“That’s it, just dinner? What’s the catch?”

“Nothing. Dinner. You stay through the whole meal, including dessert and you’re paid up in full. If you leave, I get two forfeits and the second one is my choice.”

I’d agree because it sounds simple enough, but I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her, and I just know there’s a catch. Kim never does easy. She does sneaky like she’s doing with Mel. She does mean, like she’s doing keeping Mel from letting Felix call or see the baby. She does mean, like when she waxed Jack’s eyebrow half off because she had a date with Cord and Kim was convinced it was not a good idea.

In her defense, at the time I wasn’t sure that Jack should see Cord because we all thought he was engaged and getting married. It was a lie, but still.

My point is that Kim, this Kim who’s trying to be reasonable, I don’t trust.

“I don’t believe you. You never just do simple. Who is it? If it’s the girl from Fridays then hell no. I told you, I won’t experiment, I’m straight.”

She laughs, her full mouth curving with humor and gives me a pointed look. One I know and don’t like but sort of do because she’s so damn good at sardonic amusement.

“Babe, I wouldn’t let you near Tristan. That chick likes piercing her bitches. And whips. Nah, this is just a straight date, for a girl who hasn’t been boned by anyone but a cop for the last few months. Live a little, Dee, you’ll like it. Promise,” she says, making me smile.

A few nights ago Kim went out with Sully on a real honest to goodness date that ended with the man taking her home, kissing her cheek and leaving her on her doorstep completely put out that he didn’t even try to have sex with her.

She was so put out I laughed my ass off because she’s been giving Sully the brush off for years. The guy is a player, I get it. Most people assume that Kim is loose but that it’s not true.

She is very discriminating about the men she lets into her bed and never, ever does it just for the hell of it. For Kim, it’s about someone who is right.

She once had a month long affair with a widower because “he needed to feel desirable.” That’s Kim’s thing, making men, the right men feel like they can do and be anything they want to.

She’s hard and sarcastic and always weird, but she’s good at heart, and maybe that is why, deep down, Kim is afraid to really fall for someone. Like Sully.

I can’t blame her either, I have my own flirt to handle. If Ky is a flirt, Sully is an out and out playboy. For Kim, it’s a hard situation to be in. She wants Sully, but she’s not willing to be just another notch on his bedpost.

“I am living,” I mumble, watching her lean into the door frame and turn back to look at me.

“No, but you should try it. By the way, I left Jack’s front door keys in your desk drawer, and Sully already moved all the stuff I packed for you this afternoon. Next time, ask for help, Dee. That’s what family is for.”

She leaves me then, her heels clicking on the hardwood floors and the sound of Bay muttering from her office all I hear. I sit for a long time, alternately trying to make sense of the filing and also trying hard not to cry.

Leave it to Kim to see what others don’t when most assume that she hardly pays attention.