Chapter Nine
Tucker
If anyone had asked me as I walked out of Libby’s house, if it wasn’t the hardest thing I’d ever done, I would’ve concurred heartily, and with language fit for the back pastures and the cattle drive. I wanted that woman so damn bad it was just about killing me, but I wasn’t going to force her to let me in. I was sure that every time she looked at me, she saw me as her husband’s best friend. When he was alive, and they were still married, I would never have even harbored the thought of Libby’s naked body under me, her long legs wrapped around my waist as she clenched around me with her legs, her arms, and with that wet heat I had sheathed myself in, so tight that even wet it had been a pleasant torture to push my way in and find my rhythm.
I swore at myself as I slammed on my brakes to avoid running a red light. The last thing I needed was to accidentally kill myself because I was too stupid to stop at an intersection, busy focusing on how the skin on the inside of Libby’s thighs had tasted. The driver of the car behind me honked his horn and I flipped him off for good measure, before changing lanes and turning into the first parking lot that had lights on. It was a business I’d ignored until now, but I knew I needed a break before I hurt someone.
The bright primary colors of the décor hurt my head and made me wish they served alcohol. Unfortunately, it was a sort of soda fountain, with flavors they added to the drinks, as well as ice cream and giant frosted cookies. I ordered myself a ridiculously large soda with fruit in it, and made a mental note to bring Olivia, or at least tell Libby about it if she ever spoke to me again.
I sat in a swing chair hanging from the ceiling in the corner, and sipped my future diabetes from a Styrofoam cup, and tried to come up with a proper penance for making the woman I wanted more than anything else in the damnable world faint from the mental anguish I caused her. As it was, all I was going to get out of trying to be a gentleman, was a sugar hangover and more guilt for being the wrong man, or the wrong man’s friend, I wasn’t sure which.
But I knew that there had to be something I could do to make her life easier, help her with O, anything that would prove that I was just me, not the ghost of a bad husband. I tossed the empty cup and bought an oatmeal cookie for my breakfast, and a white-chocolate-dipped Milk Bone for my pup, that was asleep in the car just outside the window next to me.
Kennedy scarfed down the doggie cookie and we headed home; she content and sleepy, me sugared-up and caffeinated and a lot sharper than I had been before I’d stopped. I made it home without wrecking and fell into bed, grateful, at least, that I’d showered after the pool, so even if showering had been a special kind of torture, surrounded by the scent of a woman, imagining her washing herself in the steamy shower…. Nope, it was going to be a long time before stepping in the shower didn’t automatically make me think of Libby, in that godforsaken little bikini, naked in her shower, or naked everywhere else my brain wanted to put her to make me crazy.
Her hearing still hadn’t been called up, and we’d need to start putting together an intermediate plan to help her take care of Olivia and herself if Carl managed to drag out the proceedings the way he loved to do. I changed out of my jeans and into my favorite ratty old basketball shorts and a t-shirt, and selected the first of many books from my library. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror with my pile of books and laughed. I was like the reverse Batman. My persona was an amazing and brilliant lawyer, with great hair and a flawless backswing. My secret identity was a skinny nerd in thick glasses whose super power, as it turned out, was just reading really well, really fast.
So, I read everything I could find, in my own books, and online about how to market graphic designs, and brushed up on how start an online business, what the best social networking sites were for building businesses—anything and everything that constituted the most mind-numbing, tedious, and mundane parts of owning and running a business. I wasn’t an artist. I’d never create anything as an artist, but I could save Libby from the most common failings of new business owners, especially the creative ones.
Boring old Tuck saves the day, stopping the IRS from attacking. I took off the glasses and rubbed my eyes, which were burning so bad I thought they’d fall out of my head. I’d been at it for hours and the sugar and caffeine had worn off after a while, but I was through the most important parts. I typed up everything I had managed to digest into a coherent business plan, and emailed it to her, along with my thanks for the seafood and the company. I hit send, then wished I hadn’t, or at the very least, that she didn’t bother to look at when it was sent.
Kennedy whimpered from her bed, and I took her cue and headed toward mine. Fatigue made my feet lead and I dragged myself across the bed and passed out where I fell, only to dream of a blond-haired woman and redheaded little girl, dancing in the ocean.
I ate the oatmeal cookie for breakfast, though lunch might have been more accurate, since I didn’t drag myself out of bed until after eleven. The dog walker had already come by and taken Kennedy out, and I took a long, hot shower to make up the difference for the abbreviated one of the night before.
Checking my messages, I saw two from my former colleagues at Cripke, Cripke, and Stokes. One was from my ally, the other, my enemy. Once I’d listened to them both, I wasn’t sure which one was worse for Libby, or how to get around the wrench Carl was so gleefully throwing into the attempt to get Libby and Oliva what they deserved.
My stomach was full of angry wasps stinging at my insides I dialed Libby. The one thing I wasn’t going to do was leave her out of the decision-making. After all, it was her home, her memories, and the belongings that she and Andrew had collected together that were suddenly up for grabs. How it was to be handled had to be her decision.