Hollow
Hixon
SHE DIDN’T TAKE her eyes from him, not from the moment Elvan touched his fingers to the keys, not a second as the room suspended, the others melted away, and her lips sang Pink’s “Glitter in the Air” straight at him.
He’d been wrong. Gum drop wasn’t it.
He should have been calling her sugar.
Because he thought it could never get better than that first night.
But every one since, she’d made better and better.
And in that moment, sitting at a table with an empty chair across from him, her sparkling water there waiting for her to return, Hix knew the ride he was taking to fall in love was over.
At the same time it never was and never would be.
That was what love was, he knew right then.
An endless night of beauty that didn’t include making plans to retire to your RV.
Just sitting back and seeing what came next in your never-ending journey of discovery.
He was in love with Greta Kate Dare.
It was too bad he couldn’t afford to buy her a twenty-five thousand dollar engagement ring.
But he’d get her one on their twentieth anniversary.
Hix walked in through the kitchen door of Greta’s house to see Shaw and Wendy at her island hunched over the books and papers spread all over it, studying. Corinne was nowhere to be seen (probably in the living room on the phone with her new boyfriend, a recent development that didn’t make Hix happy). And Mamie and Greta were bending over pots at the stove.
They’d started to do this after Thanksgiving, come to her home for dinner, because Greta liked having them all there. He didn’t know exactly why, since she had all of them at his house, except for the fact it was part of who she was, having a bent to take care of people she cared about, and there was something in it for her to do it in her own space. So now, a couple of times in a way Hix knew there’d be more, the kids and Hix came to her.
Then again, the kids liked her house. Greta had made them comfortable there from the moment they’d walked in the door Thanksgiving night. Not to mention there was a fully-stocked kitchen in all the ways that could be and Greta made more than just great breakfasts, so his kids knew they’d get a good meal that wasn’t takeout, delivery or its origins were mostly from a box.
But that wasn’t the only reason they did it.
“Hey, Dad,” Shaw greeted.
“Hey, Mr. Drake,” Wendy called.
Greta looked over her shoulder at him and smiled.
Mamie whirled and cried, “Hey, Daddy!”
“Hey, guys,” Hix said, coming in, shrugging off his jacket and moving around the room to lift a hand and squeeze the back of Shaw’s neck, get Mamie’s hug when she danced to him and bend in to touch his lips to Greta’s mouth. “We need a second,” he told her quietly when he’d pulled away.
She stared into his eyes and nodded.
He retraced his steps to go to the living room and jerked up his chin to Corinne before he threw his jacket on the back of the couch. Curled in Greta’s armchair, his daughter grinned at him and gave him a little wave before she went back to her conversation, curling a lock of her hair around her finger.
He unbuckled his gun belt and started up the steps, going to Greta’s room where he hung it on hook inside her closet, coming out of that closet to see her walking into the room, eyes on him.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
He moved into her space, putting his hands to her hips.
“Right, you filed for that protection order on your mom and the judge granted a fourteen-day order, ex parte. Yeah?”
“I know,” she told him, looking like she spoke even while holding her breath.
“Yeah, you know. What you need to know now is that we haven’t been able to find her to serve the order. I called Becker, he told me he scraped her off and has no idea where she is. He didn’t sound happy to be talking about her, so my guess is, she finally did some shit that made him find his way free of whatever hold she had on him and he’s done with her.”
“Not great news for Mom but I’m not in the mood to care that my mother lost her meth-cooking boyfriend so . . .” She didn’t finish that but did lift her brows in request he get to the point.
“If she isn’t served, sweetheart, the order is ineffective. She needs to be aware that the order has been issued, if she isn’t, it hasn’t officially been processed. And she needs to have that order served so that fourteen days can play out so you can return to the judge and request a permanent one.”
“Do you . . . want me to call Mom? Ask her to come around?” she asked.
“Hell no,” he answered.
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m just saying, she pulls shit, gets near you, takes pictures after she’s been served by a protection order, that pushes her into felony territory. But if she hasn’t been served, she can still do whatever the hell she wants.”
“Awesome,” she muttered sarcastically.
“She doesn’t have a job, she’s not at home, she lost her sugar daddy. Maybe she took off,” Hix suggested hopefully.
“Maybe,” Greta replied skeptically.
He bent in and touched his lips to her forehead before moving back. “Seein’ as the process servers for McCook County are me and my deputies, not thinkin’ we’ll give up on this one.”
That made her grin.
Hix grinned back.
She watched his mouth a beat before she looked again to his eyes.
“We have kids to feed,” she reminded him.
“Yeah,” he murmured.
She lifted a hand to his neck, rolled up on her toes and kissed the bottom of his jaw.
She then rolled back and they held hands to the top of the stairs.
He let her go so Greta could walk down before him.
They managed to pry Corinne’s phone from her ear to sit down to eat.
Then they sat at Greta’s awesome table and had a family dinner.
“You need to call Hope. We need to know what she’s buying them from these lists. We shouldn’t double up.”
Greta was sitting across from him at his desk at the department, her head bent as she shuffled through the papers in her hands—his kids’ Christmas gift wish lists—doing this bossing him.
“I’ll get on that right away,” he muttered and her eyes shot to his.
“This is serious, Hixon.”
“Of course it is,” he assured.
She gave him a hard stare to assess if he found her amusing (which he did) but he figured he’d managed to hide that when she raised the lists and shook them in the air. “We also need to be careful to go equal. It wouldn’t be cool to make it bigger than what she gives them since there are two of us.”
“Babe, they’re gonna be at their grandparents’ house Christmas Eve night, gettin’ spoiled rotten, dropped at my place at the end of that to wake up and get spoiled rotten on Christmas morning, then heading to Hope’s to get spoiled rotten Christmas night. With all that, I don’t think anyone is gonna be able to keep track of who spoils them more rotten.”
“It’ll be noted,” she returned.
He leaned into his folded arms on his desk and reminded her, “Hope’s lettin’ that kinda shit go.”
“I know she is,” Greta replied. “And I know it has to be hard on her, the holiday is going to make it harder, so we shouldn’t do even the littlest thing to make it even harder.”
He stared at the woman he loved, having reason once again to love her more before he sat back and said quietly, “I’ll call Hope and we’ll get it straight.”
“Thank you, Hix,” she replied quietly.
It was time to move on to something else.
“I’m settin’ up the guest room,” he declared.
“I . . . okay,” she returned, sounding confused.
“My folks come visit every once in a while, they don’t have plans to hit town until the weather shifts since they’re not big fans of snow, which is why they now live in Florida. But Andy can’t sleep on the sectional anymore when he’s over. I know he doesn’t mind and that just means he’s closer to the TV and Shaw so they can play videogames every waking moment they’re together. But the man should have his own space when he’s at home so we’ll set it up for him. I’m sure it’ll be cool with him that we use it as a guest room when he’s not around.”
It was Greta staring at Hixon when he got done talking, and the way she was doing it he felt in a number of areas of his body, his gut and chest the most prominent.
“What?” he whispered when she didn’t speak.
“Can we shut the blinds to that window and do something probably very illegal on your desk?”
That he felt in his dick.
“No,” he unfortunately had to answer.
“Shame,” she murmured.
“But the minute the kids are back with Hope, you can do something not illegal to me in my bed and I’ll return that favor.”
She gave him a look he also felt in his dick.
“It’s gonna be so good it’ll feel illegal, smokey.”
“Then I’ll look forward to that, sugar.”
She smiled at him.
He smiled back and decided it was time to move them on to something else again or he’d be sitting behind his desk at work with a raging hard-on.
“You wanna cook for the kids tonight or go out and—?”
He didn’t finish because a sharp rap sounded on his window.
His head jerked that way and the warmth in his chest and gut vanished when he saw Bets standing there, her back to the window, her hand to the butt of her firearm in its unclipped holster, her eyes glued toward the front of the department.
Hix’s gaze immediately moved there and he went entirely still for half a beat before he was out of his chair, his voice low and abrasive as he ordered, “You do not move from that seat, Greta.”
“Hixon,” she whispered but she didn’t move and he knew this even though he didn’t pry his eyes from the window as he quickly walked across the room.
He shut the door behind him and just as quickly moved down the hall.
He slowed his gait when he hit the mouth of it and swiftly assessed the situation.
Donna was five feet from the left of her desk, clearly having been stopped by what was happening in the process of walking in from the back. Her hand was on her firearm also in its holster, eyes locked on reception.
Hal was up and to one side, behind the reception desk, legs braced apart, one in front of the other in a modified squat, firearm out, up and aimed at reception.
Larry was the same, behind his desk, and he was ordering, “Drop the duffle and put your hands where we can see them!”
And just inside the door stood a very large, very tall man with straggling, wild, light-brown hair, a weathered face, wearing a canvas jacket with a big duffle slanted across his back.
He was unmoving and his eyes were not at the guns pointed at him or the further threats from the deputies who were ready to unholster their weapons.
They were on him.
“Drop the duffle and put your hands where we can see them!” Larry shouted.
“Larry,” Hix called loudly, but calmly, moving in front of Bets slowly, making his way to the aisle, his arms down by his sides, his right elbow hitched up slightly but his hand was not on his gun.
“Boss—” Larry started.
“Lower your weapons,” Hix ordered.
Hal’s “Boss?” was terse.
“Do it, Hal,” Hix commanded as he made his way deliberately down the center aisle, not taking his attention from the man just inside the door who still had not moved.
He didn’t check to see if Larry and Hal had obeyed his order, he just kept walking with his attention locked on the man at the front until he was standing two feet from the swinging, half door.
He braced and heard Hal’s clipped, “Fuckin’ shit,” and Larry’s, “Goddammit,” that came when the man moved.
But the guy just walked directly to the reception desk, lifted his hand and lowered it to the desk. He engaged his other hand when a balled piece of paper fell out of the first.
He smoothed it out, spreading it open, then he took a step back, leaving it there.
It was one of the artist’s sketched pictures of him they’d sent out as a notice to homeless shelters.
“Is that you?” Hix asked him.
The man didn’t speak.
“Are you here to turn yourself in?” Hix asked.
The man said nothing.
“Did you kill Nat Calloway?” Hix pressed.
The man stood still and stared into Hix’s eyes.
An unpleasant thrill chased down his spine when Hix saw the man’s eyes were empty. Void. Hollow.
“He had a wife and two children,” Hix told him quietly.
Nothing came from the man. Not a movement. Not a sound. Not a change in expression.
Except one thing.
A tear fell from his left eye.
Shit.
“We need to take your duffle. We need to take your jacket. We need to pat you down. We need to cuff you. And then we’ll need to arrest you,” Hix told him, voice calm and still quiet.
The man moved, the room tensed, the duffle dropped.
Hix let out a breath and then another one when the jacket dropped.
The guy lifted his long arms and put his hands behind his head, his gaze never leaving Hix’s.
“Careful and gentle, men,” he ordered as Hal and Larry moved around him.
Hix followed them, going through the swinging, half door to stand with his hand now on his firearm as Larry got behind the guy and Hal took his brother’s back with his hand also on his holstered gun.
“Read him his rights, Deputy. Go slow,” he instructed then called, “Donna.”
“Here, boss,” she said from close.
“Get the defense attorney here and call the court psychologist,” he ordered, not losing eye contact with Nathan Calloway’s killer.
“Do we have a court psychologist?” Donna asked.
“Find one,” Hix bit out.
“Right,” he heard her mutter as Larry finished with reading the man his Miranda rights.
“Do you understand your rights?” Larry asked.
Hix butted in. “You can just nod.”
The man took two beats then jerked up his chin.
Hix nodded. “Take him back.” He moved out of their way as they carefully pushed the guy forward. “Process him.”
Hal held open the door, Larry guided him through, Hal fell in behind Larry as they took him to the back.
Hix followed them until he got to Bets.
“You monitor that, every second, every move, holster clipped, Bets,” he commanded in a low tone. “That guy is big and that guy is unpredictable and Hal and Larry need you as backup. He gets loose and gets the jump on you, I don’t want him to have a clear shot to your gun. You need to use it, you can unclip it.”
“Yeah, boss,” she murmured, moving directly toward where Hal and Larry rounded the corner to get to where they did their fingerprints and mugshots in the back corner of the department.
“I get these calls done,” Donna started, standing with the phone to her ear but her eyes to Hix, “I on that too?”
“Absolutely. But you and Bets give him space. I do not want that man to feel crowded or threatened beyond what I’m guessing he knew was gonna happen.”
Donna nodded, looked toward the back and Hix moved straight to his office.
Greta was getting up slowly as he opened the door and her face was white as a sheet. “Is that the guy who—?”
“I need you out of here. I need you to keep this quiet. But I need you somewhere safe and right now, that is not here.”
She immediately started gathering her jacket and purse even as her face got even paler. “Is it not safe for—?”
“Baby, no questions. I gotta escort you out then I gotta do a lot of other shit.”
She nodded and didn’t delay. She got her jacket on, her purse over her shoulder, and she scooted out with Hix dogging her heels.
He got her out the front door and around the side of the building where he stopped her, bent in, pressed his mouth hard against hers and pulled back, muttering, “I’ll call you later.”
“I love you, Hix.”
He froze.
They hadn’t said it. He’d been waiting for the right moment. He felt it from her and guessed she was waiting for the same.
Then again, she sang “Glitter in The Air” to him so she’d already said it.
“Best man I’ve ever met,” she whispered, rolled up on her toes, pressed her lips hard against his and rolled back.
She then walked swiftly in her high-heeled boots down the sidewalk cleared of the snow they got yesterday.
“He’s mute, due to a medical condition or a trauma, I don’t know. He’ll have to be examined,” the psychologist told Hix and Donna outside the interrogation room. “He’s also suffering a variety of other conditions, none of which I can accurately diagnosis, considering he’s mute, he’s big, and he scares the beejeezus out of me.”
“Doc—” Hix began but stopped speaking when the psychologist lifted her hands and shook them.
“He needs a full medical evaluation and a full psychiatric evaluation. However, the one thing he’s given me, his attorney and your deputy is that he killed Nathan Calloway. He jerks up his chin every time it’s mentioned. He jerks up his chin when he’s asked if he understands the meaning of that. He jerks up his chin every time he’s asked if he understands why he’s been arrested. I’ve asked him to write down what he wants to say if he has anything to say and he’s refused. For whatever reason, physical, psychological or some of both, that man is deeply disturbed. However, in my professional opinion, he understands completely that he’s done wrong. He saw that picture of himself and knew you knew who he was and you were looking for him. But my sense is, he’s not here because he thought you’d find him. If that man doesn’t want to be found, he could get lost forever. He’s here to atone for it.”
This was not news to them, except the last. They’d watched it all in the observation room, with Hix watching from inside the room while Larry asked the questions.
Hix turned to Donna. “Set up a supervised physical. The psych eval can happen here.”
“On it,” Donna muttered and took off.
He looked back to the psychologist. “Your professional opinion, we ever gonna know why he did what he did?”
She shrugged. It wasn’t casual. She was taking this seriously. She simply didn’t know.
“I honestly can’t say. He doesn’t trust me to open up to me, which isn’t a surprise, I haven’t had enough time with him and I’ve never done this. I did my best but the man frightens me and I’m afraid I couldn’t completely hide it in a way he surely read it. It may be you’ll need to do the psych eval somewhere else so he doesn’t feel trapped or cornered and he might open up. But he may never open up. He might not even know how. Again, I can’t say for certain.”
“He’s arrested, an unknown who’s committed a violent act and a flight risk,” Hix pointed out. “Not feelin’ good about takin’ him to a doctor so I’m not feelin’ good about doublin’ up on that to take him to see a shrink.”
“Yes. But this man is not one who spends much time surrounded by four walls. Just being inside, my hunch, is costing him. It being a sheriff’s department isn’t helping matters.”
“He essentially turned himself in.”
“That’s the atonement I told you about. This isn’t easy for him. But he’s doing it. If someone can get him to a place he’ll find some way to communicate in the presence of someone he can trust,” she shook her head, “I just don’t know.”
“I can’t let you be alone with that man even observed and even with his attorney present and even as he is now, chained to a table. When I say that, not you or anyone,” Hix told her. “We have some idea of what he’s capable of. His size, I’m not testing that.”
“I know. And I appreciate that. And I don’t know even if he was lounging unencumbered out under the sky if he’d share. My suggestion is, the hospital will have psychiatrists on staff. Get one, another suggestion, a male one, to do the eval there. One visit, double duty. But every indication he’s giving is that you’re correct. He turned himself in for the crime of murdering Nathan Calloway and he’s here to let justice take its course.” She got closer. “You might never have answers, Sheriff, but you have your man.”
Without her able to give him much more, he nodded.
“You want me to hang around or—?” she began.
“You can go but I’d like to be open to give you a call if we need to,” he told her.
“Anytime.”
“Obliged,” he muttered.
She gave him a close look, a small, forlorn smile then she turned and walked out.
Hix turned to the window to interrogation, one of two one-way windows that looked inside, and saw the man staring at his hands cuffed to the steel ring in the middle of the table.
He’d allowed them also to shackle his legs.
The defense attorney was leaning toward him, speaking.
Larry was against the wall, giving them space but watching.
Hal and Bets were in the observation room monitoring with the recording equipment on.
Nat’s killer was right there.
Right in his interrogation room chained to a table.
The man with the answers.
The end of it.
And studying him, Hix didn’t feel the relief he thought he’d feel.
Mostly because all he could think about when his mind had opportunity to let anything else in was that tear sliding down his craggy cheek.
On that thought, he pushed through the door.
Larry and the attorney looked at him.
So did their guy.
Hix took the chair the psychologist had been sitting in across the table from their perp.
He looked him in his eyes and saw right down to an empty soul.
He then put his hands on the table, but other than that, didn’t move in his direction at all.
“In order to do right by you and by Nat’s wife, we need to be thorough, sir,” he said quietly. “This means my deputies are going to have to take you to a medical doctor to be examined.”
That got him nothing.
“A psychiatrist will either be coming to this department to speak with you or you’ll be seeing one at the hospital,” he continued.
More nothing.
“Do you understand these things?’ Hix asked.
Finally, he got a chin jerk.
“Good,” Hix muttered and held his gaze before he whispered, “There’s a woman who’s now raising two kids alone who needs answers. You can find it in you to—”
The guy thumped the side of his fist lightly on the table, the chains rattled, and Hix grew tense, as did the room. But he looked down at the man’s hands and saw one long finger pointed at the legal-sized pad of paper there.
Hix shoved it his way.
The man put his opened hand on top of the pad then turned it palm up, and since they didn’t leave a pen that could be used as a weapon lying close to him, Hix looked to his attorney.
“I think we should get this gentleman’s evals out of the way before—” the attorney tried.
The man thumped his fist on the table, harder this time, then opened his hand.
The attorney sighed then leaned in and put a pen in his hand.
Hix didn’t look to the attorney, to Larry, to the observation window.
He looked right at the pad of paper.
The guy wrote on it, set the pen down, then flipped it around to Hix.
On it, he’d scratched in shaky but careful capital letters, I did it.
It took no time to read that but Hix barely got that job done before the guy was flipping the pad around again and writing.
He set the pen aside one more time and turned the paper Hix’s way.
Hix read it.
I’m sorry.
A prickle slid over his scalp.
Hix looked to his face and whispered, “Why?”
The man’s blank eyes stared into his.
“I’d like to be able to tell her why,” Hix shared.
The man continued to stare in his eyes before he slumped in his seat, tucked his chin in his throat and stared at his bound hands.
“You got your confession, Sheriff, now get this man his evaluations,” his attorney demanded. “It’s clear where this is leading and we should get there as soon as we can because this man needs help. Not a stay in a penitentiary.”
Hix looked to him then to their guy.
He was still staring at his hands.
“You didn’t want to, did you?” Hix guessed quietly.
The man stared at his hands.
“He gave you a ride and you were grateful. You were tired. It was hot. You wanted to ride a while. You wanted out from under the sun. He gave you that ride and you were grateful.”
The man stared at his hands but his shoulders pressed into his ears slightly.
He’d been grateful.
“What came next?” Hix asked.
The man said nothing.
“Sheriff,” the attorney butted in.
“What came next?” Hix pushed.
“Sheriff,” the attorney clipped. “This gentleman needs evaluated before you ask another question.”
“What came next?” Hix repeated.
The guy didn’t speak.
“Sheriff, I really must ask you—” the attorney tried.
“Why did you kill Nat Calloway?” Hix pressed.
The guy suddenly moved, making Hix’s body go tight. But he just grabbed the pen, pulled the paper to him, and wrote in a diagonal scrawl that was nothing like the careful, block letters he’d written before.
He set the pen aside and shoved the pad at Hix, not turning it like he’d done the other two times he’d shared.
Hix reached out and turned it himself.
I don’t know. Can you tell me?
Hix’s eyes cut to his face.
There was nothing there.
Hollow.
“No,” Hix said quietly. “But if you let the doctors see to you, maybe we can find out.”
The man jerked up his chin.
“Can this be done now?” the attorney asked impatiently.
“It can be done,” Hix murmured, about to get up but the guy grabbed the pen and reached for the pad.
He scrawled, set the pen aside and shoved the paper to Hix.
Hix stood and turned the pad his way again.
It’s never done.
Hix looked at him and replied, “No, man, it isn’t. And the way it goes, it never will be.” He turned his attention to Larry. “Let’s get him in a cell and get him a meal.”
Larry nodded.
Hix looked to the attorney, to the empty soul who wandered alone in order to protect the world from the unknown, inexplicable urges that lie within, the man who killed Nat Calloway, and then he walked out the door.
Greta and Shaw hung back when he walked through the back door that night.
But Mamie was on him in a way he knew they’d been watching for him to return home, and Corinne was on him two seconds later.
He held his girls to him but his eyes were on Shaw and Greta who were standing in the mouth to the mudroom, Shaw’s arm around Hix’s woman.
Shaw gave his sisters some time before he called, “Guys, let Dad take his jacket off. Dad, you want a beer?”
“Yeah, kid,” Hix answered as Corinne slid away but Mamie held on.
“You okay, Daddy?” Corinne asked.
“Yeah, honey,” Hix answered gently.
Mamie leaned into him, arms still around him, just arching her back and looking up at him.
“Yeah?” she asked for confirmation.
He glided his hand over her hair. “Yeah, baby. Now let me get my jacket off, okay? You can keep on huggin’ me after that.”
“’Kay,” she agreed and did just that, unclamping her hold on him for just long enough for him to shed his jacket and put it on a hook, then clamping on to him again so he didn’t bother to take his gun belt off and he had to shuffle from the mudroom down the short hall and into the kitchen with his baby girl attached to him.
The smells he was experiencing hit him before he hit the kitchen though, and he was reminded that Greta had been in his office to meet him for lunch, something he didn’t have, he’d only had the coffee that Ida had brought in from Babycakes.
“What’s that?” he asked, his eyes to the stove.
“Greta showed us how to make Mexican skillet casserole,” Corinne told him.
“Excellent,” Hix muttered.
“We’ll go set the table, help me, Mame, Cor,” Shaw said, handing Hix a beer.
“Sure,” Corinne replied, moving to a cupboard.
“Mame, babe,” Shaw urged gently, holding his hand out to his little sister.
She hesitated before she let her dad go, took her brother’s hand and held it even while Shaw went to the drawer and got out the cutlery.
The kids left.
Greta, standing at the stove sprinkling cheese on a skillet filled with what looked like heaven in ground beef form, turned her head his way.
He set his beer aside and moved right into her space.
Bag of cheese still in hand, she wrapped her arms around him.
“You good?” she whispered in his ear.
“Better,” he whispered back.
“You tell Faith?”
He nodded, her hair catching on his whiskers as he did it with his jaw pressed to the side of her head. “Her hair looks great.”
She gave him a squeeze and held on.
Hix held her back, and after a time, he tipped his chin down to put his lips to her ear.
“That man is broken.”
“He gave that impression.”
“But whatever snapped in him to make him kill Nat annihilated him.”
She just held him tighter.
“It’s the only time a murder was solved where the answer makes sense,” he shared.
“How’s that?” she asked softly.
“My guess, even he can’t control the demons that moved him to do it, he’s just got ’em. And if he was holding them back before, when they took over in that moment, whatever he had left, they took it with them. Only thing he’s got is the will to survive and the remorse he feels for taking a man’s life. In other words, there is no answer, there is no reason. It’s incomprehensible, just like it always is.”
She started stroking his back.
After a time, she said, “I need to feed my man and his kids. They insisted on waiting. But it’s late and I heard Shaw’s stomach rumbling so we should get down to that.”
What she meant was, I need to give my man normal with his woman and kids around, fill his belly and be in a position to assess where his head is at so I can do something about it if I need to and we should get down to that.
“Yeah,” he replied but didn’t let go.
She didn’t shift or move an inch.
In other words, she didn’t let go either.
The Drake Family
“Hey,” Shaw whispered urgently, catching Mamie, who had her mind on other things and was heading into the kitchen.
Corinne was already pressed to her brother’s back.
The three of them stood, frozen in the open doorway to the kitchen, watching their dad holding Greta.
No, watching Greta hold their dad.
“Let’s give them time,” Corinne whispered.
As one, they all slunk backwards on silent feet.
Mamie leaned against Shaw as Corinne adjusted the place settings so they were all just so and they waited patiently until their dad walked in with his gun belt gone, an open beer in his hand and an oven glove on the other hand that was holding the big, cast-iron skillet Greta had brought over to cook in.
“Get drinks, kids. Let’s get this grub in our stomachs,” he ordered.
They moved out as Greta moved in, carrying a big wooden bowl (that she’d also brought over) of salad.
“Corinne, can you grab the salad dressings from the fridge? And Shaw, can you get the cornbread out of the oven? Just put it on the hot pad by the stove. I’ll come in and deal with it.”
“You got it,” Shaw muttered.
“No problem,” Corinne said.
“I’ll get drinks, what does everyone want?” Mamie asked as she entered the kitchen.
Shaw and Corinne did as Greta asked and Mamie got the drinks.
They sat down at the family table.
They all watched closely as their father tried to make it normal while they ate Greta’s amazing food, but they did what they could to take their dad’s mind off things, talking about school, telling stories, anything.
It never got normal.
But they gave it their best shot.
And their dad, being the kind of dad he was, didn’t bother to hide he appreciated it.
Hixon
The call came when they were all cleaning up.
He saw who it was on the screen and muttered he had to take it as he walked out of the room, through the living room, out to the front porch, doing it sliding his thumb on the screen, taking the call, putting the phone to his ear.
His storm door closed behind him as he answered, “Hey, Hope.”
“Hey, Hixon,” she replied gently.
“You okay?” he asked.
“That was my question, honey.”
He looked to his boots.
There was the woman he’d married.
“It’s good it’s over, yeah?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Greta and the kids taking care of you?”
He looked to the street, the snow covering his lawn, his walk and driveway clear.
“They are, Hope. Thanks.”
“How’d the wife take it?” she inquired.
“Confusion. The guy is . . . off. But there was also some relief. Blatt’s semi-related to her. I called him, he was there when Larry and I visited. He took over when we left. He can be an arrogant ass but I think he’s got this.”
“That’s good,” she murmured.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“Okay, I didn’t want to take up too much of your time or anything. I just . . . heard and I’ve been thinking of you.”
“That’s appreciated, honey.”
She was silent for a few beats before she rushed out, “Okay. You probably need a bourbon about now so I’ll let you go. Just . . . take care of yourself, yeah, Hix?”
“I will. You too.”
“I will. Tell everyone I said hey.”
“I’ll do that.”
“’Night, Hix.”
“’Night.”
She hung up.
He dropped his hand with the phone in it and stared at the street.
When he noticed his breath come out in a visible puff, he cleared his throat, shoved his phone in his back pocket and went inside.
He was up, his knees were up, but Greta was straddling him, riding him, her fingers in his hair, her lips attached to his so the noises she made were muted since they sounded down his throat.
Her rhythm was gentle, but he could tell she was working to keep it that way, so he put his hands to her waist, lifted his hips and took her to her back before he threaded the fingers of one hand through hers and he stopped going gentle.
“You’re . . . too good at this,” she breathed against his lips.
He could not believe it in that moment for a variety of reasons but what she said made him smile.
“What?” he asked.
“It’s . . . hard to . . . stay quiet,” she pushed out.
He slanted his head and took her mouth to help with that even as he ran a hand down her chest, snagging her nipple hard with his thumb, forcing a gasp into his mouth, thus making it harder.
She lifted her knees high at his sides and he went deeper, which felt so fucking good it made him go faster.
He slid his lips to her ear.
“You love me?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she panted.
“You know I love you?”
She tilted her hips up and held his hand laced in hers so tight, he felt pain at the webbing.
“Yes,” she repeated breathlessly.
He lifted his head and looked down at her indistinct face, the shadows of her sunshine and honey hair somehow bright even in the dark. “Good, baby, because I love you a lot.”
“You can’t . . .” she tipped her knees back farther, he slid in deeper, and she lifted her head to put her mouth to his when that caused a low groan to rumble out of him, “imagine how awesome . . . that is, baby. But can we have this conversation when I’m not . . . about . . . to . . . ?”
She didn’t finish.
Her neck arched, her mouth opened, and her pussy seized his pulsing cock as she climaxed under him.
He watched. He enjoyed it. Then he kissed her so when his world exploded, the grunt it forced from him was quietened by her mouth.
Hix came down slow, made sure she came down slow, and kept his fingers wound through hers long after, kissing her, working her neck, feeling her work his, her free hand moving on him, his doing the same.
Finally, he found her ear with his lips and whispered, “At last.”
Again, her fingers convulsed in his hand before she repeated, “At last, Hixon.”
He kissed her throat, pulled out and rolled them both out of bed.
He got rid of the condom, cleaned up, pulled on some pajama bottoms. She pulled on panties and her nightie.
They slid into bed together and she curled into his side.
“Love you, Greta,” he murmured to the ceiling.
He felt her kiss his chest before she settled back in. “Love you too, Hix.”
She burrowed deeper into him and after some time, he felt her weight fall into him with sleep.
Hix closed his eyes and saw hollow.
But he felt Greta.
So eventually, he followed her.