Fourteen
This was way too comfortable.
Way, way too damn comfortable.
But still, I didn’t move, for fear of disrupting Monica’s state of deep sleep. Well… that, plus the fact that having her in my bed felt good.
She’d showed up at the door to my office around one in the morning. Woken up ready to go at it again around five, and gone back to sleep immediately after. Now, it was damn near ten in the morning, and I’d just opened my eyes, feeling better rested than I had in months.
No matter how contented I was at the moment, nature was calling. I carefully lifted the arm Monica had draped across my stomach, then detangled my legs from hers so that I could climb out of bed to relieve myself.
While I was washing my hands, my stomach started rumbling, protesting the fact that I hadn’t eaten since that lunch the day before. I left the bathroom, doing a mental inventory of my pantry while I threw on boxers and sweats. I wondered if I had the ingredients to make waffles.
Monica liked waffles.
A glance at the bed told me she was still fast asleep, curled in a ball now under the covers. Before I could stop myself, a wide grin had crossed my face. Countless times, I’d imagined this moment, but always with the knowledge that it was outside of my reach.
Only… it wasn’t.
It was right here in my face.
And as much shit as I’d talked – internally and externally – about how having her within arm’s reach would lower my interest… my actual feelings were the total opposite.
I was very fucking interested.
Instead of standing in the doorway staring at her like a creep, I made my way downstairs. Halfway down the staircase, the scent of bacon hit my nose, and I frowned.
“Kay, you down there?” I called, and I relaxed as soon as I heard her distinctive giggle.
“No, it’s a breakfast-making burglar,” was her sarcastic ass response, and I shook my head as I followed the aroma down to the kitchen, where I found Kayla standing in front of the waffle maker, pulling one out to add to a stack that she’d already made.
“To what do I owe the honor of being graced with your presence – and waffles – your majesty?” I asked, stepping beside her to plant a kiss against the side of her head.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I really just came to grab some clothes, since you’re playing bodyguard, but then I peeked in your office, looking for you, and I saw…”
Holy shit, what did she see?
My thoughts were moving a hundred miles per second, wondering when she’d arrived home, and what it was that she’d seen. Monica on my desk? Me carrying her out? Fuck. Where did I take her panties off? Did I leave them on the office floor?
“This,” Kay finished her statement, reaching under the cabinet for the bottle of Mauve I’d left on the desk last night. I’d been a little too distracted by the woman in my bed to even think about going back for it.
Kay put the bottle down on the counter, then turned to me with her hands propped on her hips.
“What?” I asked, even though I knew damned well what.
She shrugged. “Well… you only pull that bottle out when I’ve done something, or somebody has done something to me. And since nobody is on my bad side, I figure I’m on yours. So... you want to talk about it, or…?”
I narrowed my eyes. “So… bacon and waffles are what… a peace offering?”
“Uh… something like that.”
“Okay, out with it. What did you do that you think I’ve found out about?”
Her eyebrows perked up. “Wait, so… you don’t kno—I mean… so you’re not mad at me?”
“Should I be?”
“Huh?! No, daddy!” she insisted, suddenly way too damned cheerful. “It’s just that I thought that you thought that I did something, but I really didn’t, so if you’re cool, I’m cool. We’re cool. Everybody’s cool. I even made a waffle for Monica too.”
That was it.
Right there.
The over-sell.
“You’re not a good liar, Kay. I thought we went over this before?” I asked, chuckling as I sat down to eat my bribe waffles before she really told me what the fuck was going on. She’d either wrecked the Range Rover she begged for as a birthday gift, was back to trying to hustle me into paying for her to have her own apartment, needed money, or… something that was too awful for me to even name, but I was expecting to hear any day now.
“Why do you think I’m lying?” she asked, in her definitely-withholding-the-truth voice. “You’ve always been fair with me, and consistent. I have no reason to—”
“You’re laying it on too thick baby girl,” I interrupted, holding up a hand. “Just tell me how much you need.”
She sucked her teeth. “Why do you always think I want money.”
“Because you always want money, Kay. You think I’m playing, but I’m gonna make your ass get a job. You see where Taylor always is between classes. Working.”
“But Taylor doesn’t have an important part in a real show, with long, hard, exhausting rehearsals, or a boy—a… boy-ottomless… list of responsibilities… like I do.”
I gave her a blank stare as I chewed my mouthful of waffles, then swallowed. “Boy-ottomless. Boy-ottomless, Kay? With a straight face, you just tried to make that work. Okay, K-Pain.”
“K-Pain?” she asked, confused.
I grinned. “Yeah. Like, T-Pain. Rhymed “mansion” to “Wisconsin”. Wis-can-sin? Remember?”
“No.”
“Yes you do,” I insisted. “That song, “I Can’t Believe It”. You remember that!”
She held up a finger. “Hold please.” I watched, amused as she picked up her hot pink, tutu-ed phone case, fingers flying over the screen as she looked it up. “Yeah, I was like twelve when that song came out, so…”
“You’re just a hater,” I said, brushing her off. “Hating on my joke. K-Pain is funny.”
She cringed, shaking her head. “But it’s… not though.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I grinned. “But your painfully unsuccessful attempts to conceal the fact that you have a boyfriend are hilarious.”
Her oversized afro puff shook as she stepped back in overdone faux-shock. “Why would I be pretending not to have a boyfriend?”
I shrugged. “Ol’ Khalil probably wonders the same damn thing,” I told her, almost making her choke on the sip of orange juice she’d just taken. “If he asked me, I’d say it was probably because you knew I would look into him, like I always look into them, and you probably didn’t want me to know he had a record, cause you’re in loooove with him. Am I right?”
“Daddy, you didn’t!”
I laughed. “Oh, but I did. Months ago. I looked all up and through his shit, because I wanted to know who he was if he was going to be dating my baby girl.”
Her eyes went big and glossy, like they always did when she was getting ready to go into full-on daddy’s-girl mode. “But that’s not fair. It’s a violation of his privacy, and you don’t even know the full story to judge him based on him having a record, and—”
“Kay, damn,” I said, motioning for her to kill the noise. “I haven’t said anything to you about him. If I had a problem, he would’ve disappeared by now. You don’t have to explain yourself like this to me – you’re grown, even though you like to pretend otherwise when you think you’re in trouble. I just want to keep you safe. I saw the letter from the judge in his file, all that shit.”
And I put a Lo-Jack on his piece of shit car.
“And you approve?” she asked, getting right in my face. “You’re okay with him? You like him?”
I sucked my teeth. “Ain’t nobody said all that. I just don’t think the little motherfucker is going to get you into anything you can’t handle, which is as far as I care to reach. You’re old enough to buy alcohol, which makes you old enough for me to mind my business. Just don’t fuck it up.”
“Ohhh, you should meet him,” she gushed. “He paints the most amazing murals, and he’s teaching me how to eat vegan, which is great for me as a dancer—”
“Hold up,” I said, with a piece of bacon halfway up to my mouth. “Is pork vegan?”
She grinned, and shook her head. “You know it’s not. Just don’t tell.”
“Who would I tell?”
“Khalil.”
“Why the fuck would I be talking to Khalil?”
She stepped back, giving me another sheepish grin. “Well, because… I… maybemovinginwithhimnextmonthifthat’sokay???”
“Man, hell nah, it’s not okay!”
“You just said I was grown though!”
I threw up my hands. “Then why the hell are you asking me?!”
“Because I care what you think, and I want your blessing, duh.” She said those words with a pout, and a strain to her tone that instantly softened the scowl on my face.
“I’m glad to hear that you still care what I think, baby girl. And what I think is that you’re way too young, and its way too soon for you to be moving in with anybody. I’m not giving you my blessing for this, but I know you’ll do whatever it is you feel is best. I just hope you consider it long and hard. And consider that I really will make that motherfucker disappear if he’s not doing right by you. So I mean, if you really want that on your hands…”
“Daddy, stop it,” she whined, then pushed out a sigh. “It was really just a thought. Not even something we’re seriously considering. Not yet. I just wanted to know what you thought.”
“I think Khalil needs a real job, or you’re going to need one. Cause I’m not paying rent for you to lay up under him.”
She sucked her teeth. “Do you really think I would expect you to?”
“I mean, you expected that Range Rover, so…”
“Enough about me,” she said, brushing that line of conversation off. Kay was spoiled – unabashedly so, and I knew it – but she mostly had a good enough head on her shoulders that I didn’t feel about it. I was making up for the years I hadn’t known her, and I didn’t give a fuck what anybody had to say about it.
I grinned at her attempt to deflect. “Oh, you’re ready to change the subject now, huh?”
“Yes, because I want to know why you brought the liquor bottle out if you’ve known about Khalil for months?”
“Why don’t you mind your business, and I’ll mind mine?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh. So it’s about her,” she said, not even bothering to hide her eye-roll.
“Ten minutes ago, you were making a waffle for Monica, and now she’s just… “her”? Damn, cold world.”
Kay shrugged. “Sorry. I’m still salty about that whole wrongful arrest thing, and now I find out she has you pulling the Mauve out.”
“I didn’t say it was her, you don’t know the full details about the arrest, and we’re past that anyway.”
“I bet you are,” she said, smirking. “I peeked in your room looking for you too. Imagine my surprise to find—”
“Noooo!” My hand went to my chest as I immediately filled that sentence with the worst possible scenario, but Kay lifted her hands, shaking her head.
“No! You think I’d be in here cooking waffles if I’d walked in on that?! I’d be… at therapy, or something. Ew. No, you two were just… sleeping. Looking all… peaceful and adorable or whatever. But my point was… of course you’re past the arrest, if she’s posted up in your bed looking cute like a Woman Crush Wednesday or something.”
I grunted. “Not that it’s your business, unless you want to talk about where you woke up this morning, but, we got past our friction before… that happened. Because we talked. Like grown-ups.”
“Not the only thing y’all were doing like grown-ups,” she muttered, around a mouthful of bacon, making me scowl.
“Aiight… let’s talk. Go ahead and spill. What’s with the attitude?”
“I don’t have an attitude,” she insisted. “It’s just… weird. You haven’t brought a woman to the house since Dirty Diana.”
I coughed, trying not to choke on my juice. “Shit, I forgot about that,” I laughed.
Kay gave me a look that said she was unamused. “I haven’t. She hated me, for no reason!”
“You were seventeen, Kay. She definitely had a reason.”
“Whatever. I’m just glad you dropped her before she moved in… with her box of toenail clippings.
I shuddered, remembering the horror I felt when I’d stayed overnight at her house, and accidentally knocked over the box she kept on her dresser.
I’d dealt with some interesting women in my lifetime.
“Please don’t remind me of that shit,” I told Kay, shaking my head. “Just be glad I recognized the crazy before the feelings got too deep.”
“Oh, I am,” she nodded. “But, I thought that dealing with her had scared you off bringing anybody home. Apparently not though.”
“In my defense, Monica was already here. But… I’m not really sure why you care baby girl.”
“I mean, it’s not that I care about you… doing whatever, it’s just… it’s different, is all. Just makes me wonder.”
I frowned. “Makes you wonder what?”
“If… if she’s like mom.” As soon as those words left her lips, she shook her head. “Wait, I mean… I don’t know how to express it, not really, but… you’d told me about her already, you know? Back when she was “Sandy”, your friend from online. And, I’m not stupid, I know you dated the whole time I was growing up, all of that. But you never talked to me about them. Not even Diana, not really. But just… in conversation, you would tell me a funny story you’d heard from Sandy, tell me Sandy had recommended a movie, or a show, or… whatever. And your face would kinda light up, and all of that. Like you liked her.”
My mouth opened a little, struck by what was honestly a revelation to me. I’d never mentioned Kayla to Monica, because I was purposely keeping the details minimal. But I didn’t realize that talking to Kay about Monica, even innocuously, had been such a natural, normal thing.
“Anyway,” Kay went on, “When I was younger, I made up this whole narrative in my head, that you hadn’t gotten married, or settled down with anybody, because you were pining away after my mother. And I know that’s not true, but still. It’s what I wanted to believe. Relationships were inconsequential to you, because that’s how you were trained… except for me and… Sandy. So… my narrative shifted. And Sandy, to me, was like a stepmom that I’d never meet, or see, but… you had someone in your life that made you happy. So I never felt bad about you not having a girlfriend or anything, because you had Sandy. And I filled in details for her. Details… from my mother. So then now, here we are, and Sandy is actually Monica, and at first you were mad, but then you weren’t, and then you left in the middle of the night because she was hurt, and I saw how you looked at her at the gym that day when you were talking, and now… she’s in your bed. And I know it’s childish, and silly, but… if she’s taking that place as a woman in your life for real now, I just… I want to know if those details I filled in are right. I want to know if she’s like my mother.”
Ah shit.
I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat and pushed my plate away, reaching forward to grab Kay’s hands. “Baby girl… you don’t know how much I wish I could tell you yes, Monica is like Lisa. But… she’s not. I’ve tried to be age-appropriately transparent with you about the relationship between your mother and me, but since we haven’t really talked about it since you became an adult, let me put it this way… your mother used me for my body, Kayla.”
“Oh my God, Dad!” she whined, sounding disgusted as I laughed.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but that’s just the real deal. She was an older woman with a certain sex drive, and I was a young man that could handle it. Your mother was, as you kids would call it today, a savage.”
Kay giggled at that. “Goals,” she laughed, a little too hard.
“I don’t know about all that, young lady,” I scolded, trying to keep a straight face, but I couldn’t. “But nah, seriously… your mother was an amazing woman. It’s unfair that she was taken away from you so soon, but you consider yourself lucky for the years you got to spend with her.”
She nodded. “I do. I just… I wish I could’ve had them with both of you.”
“Yeah, I do too. But… that’s not the way it went, and… all we can do is make the best of it now, right?”
“Right,” she said, and smiled. “So… I’m guessing that means Monica is not a “savage”.”
I chuckled. “Nah, I don’t think so. With business, maybe, but on a personal level… no. I think you’d like her a lot though. She’s smart, she’s sweet, she’s funny, she—”
“Always has a bomb mani-pedi,” Kay mused.
“How do you know?”
She wrinkled her nose, looking at me like I was crazy. “Duh, because I follow her on Instagram. Her nails, hair, clothes, skin, life, are all goals. Well… maybe not her life right now.”
“Ah, damn. Come on, Kay…”
“What?! I’m just saying, her life isn’t exactly enviable right now. Maybe it will be, like… later though.”
“How about, instead of talking about her life, you tell me about yours. Come on. What’s up with you, besides ol’ boy?”
“Daddy, we talk every day. Not much has changed since yesterday. Oh! Wait, actually – I might be getting moved up on the stage! Anais has a crazy stalker ex, so the director is considering pulling her from the show to keep her safe. But… I don’t know. As much as I’d love to have that spot, I don’t want it to be because Ana is being threatened, you know?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I get that. Has she talked to the police?”
“Yeah, but they won’t do anything since he hasn’t touched her, even though she’s terrified. It’s like they don’t even care.”
“Sounds about right,” I grunted. “I think you should put her in touch with Marcus. She shouldn’t be having to deal with this shit.”
“I think you’re right. I’ll talk to her tonight. For now though, I have to get going if I want to make it to campus for my 11:30.”
“Aiight K-Pain,” I told her, standing to pull her into a hug before I kissed her forehead. She pulled back, just to scowl at me.
“K-Pain is not happening, stop it.”
“Don’t be a hater all your life,” I called after her as she headed toward the front of the house to leave.
Surprisingly, she’d left the kitchen mostly clean. She really must’ve been feeling convicted about that boyfriend of hers. But honestly, even with his felony record – busted hanging with the wrong crowd when he was just out of high school, a fate that could’ve easily been my own – Khalil seemed like a good kid. I’d used the resources at Five Star Security to run a few test scenarios past him, when he and Kay first started dating. Fast, easy money, but the kid never did bite.
I was impressed.
It was too soon, to me, for her to feel like we needed to get introduced. I’d run off enough knuckleheads to recognize that the ones she brought to me after a month or two were the ones she knew weren’t shit, she just wanted me to give her confirmation.
Khalil had been around for nine.
With this one, I could tell, she really liked him, and he was good to her. She didn’t want me to run him off before she was ready for him to be gone… or she was waiting until her feelings were strong enough that she didn’t care what I thought about him. Either way, I was cool. Actually, I thought he was good for her. He was a little bit older than her – he was just twenty-five, but still – and more mature. Grounded. Humble. Made enough money as a painter to actually support himself, between commissioned work and his fairly popular business. I liked him for her.
I couldn’t tell her that though. Not yet. She’d run the other way.
With Kay headed off to school, I went upstairs to look in on Monica, expecting to find her still asleep. What I found instead was an empty bed, which caught me a little off guard. It hadn’t occurred to me that she would leave.
I stepped out of my room and went down to hers, knocking on the door first instead of just walking in. I had to knock twice to get her to answer, and when she did, her whole vibe was just… off.
I narrowed my eyes, confused about why the hell she was standing in the doorway, cracked just enough for her to stick her head out instead of opening it to let me in.
“Uhh… what’s going on with you?” I asked.
“What? Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “I just um… I came to take a shower, and put some clothes on. Get my day started. You know, the usual.”
“Oh.” I pushed my hands into the pockets of my sweats. “You know, uh… you could’ve used mine, right?”
“I didn’t want to be in your way, you know. Figured I’d get myself back to my own space, give you yours.”
I tipped my head to the side. “Did I give you the impression that there was a problem with you being in my space?”
“Um… no. No, you didn’t.”
“So then why…” I paused, meeting her eyes in search of some kind of explanation, only to have her stare right back, offering none. Which was an answer in itself. “Ohh,” I said, as understanding clicked into place. “This… isn’t about me at all, is it?”
“No, it’s not,” she said, sounding relieved. “I… woke up feeling a little confused, and so—”
“You need some space. Got it.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Really? Just like that?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. I didn’t survive Kay’s teenage years not being able to take a hint about when a woman wants to be left alone. When you’re ready to talk, you just let me know.”
She tried to hide it, but a little smile crept to the corners of her mouth as she nodded. “I will. And um… I heard you talking to her. Just a little, because I wasn’t trying to be nosy, I just went looking for you, and I heard you two downstairs. Didn’t want to interrupt.”
“You could’ve. She made you a waffle.”
“Really?” she asked, genuinely surprised.
“Yeah. I put it on the warmer for you.”
“Okay. Thanks. But, no, I couldn’t have walked into that kitchen looking quite as… freshly fucked as I did. I figured it was best to come and get cleaned up while you two had your time together. You should know… she’s going to appreciate you so much when she gets older. I mean, I’m sure she does now too, but… I think about what a difference having a father like you would’ve made when I was her age, and…”
When she didn’t finish that statement, I knew there was more heartache behind her words than what her voice gave away.
“When did he pass away?” I asked, and she shook her head.
“He’s still alive, as far as I know, I just never knew him. I had a stepfather, for a while. The closest thing to a real parent I ever had, and he died when I was fifteen. I only knew him a few years, but he was good to me, so I always go put flowers on his grave on his birthday. Good thing for me, because this year, that was the day Kellen died. My commitment to taking him those flowers was my alibi.”
My eyebrows went up. “Shit. That’s some kinda luck.”
“Or… none at all. Depends on how you look at it.”
She dropped her gaze to the floor, looking so forlorn that it made my chest hurt. “Hey,” I said, getting her to look up again. “We could find your biological father. I’m usually pretty damn good at tracking people down.”
“No,” she said immediately, with a sardonic little laugh. “I misspoke. I know who he is, we just never had a relationship… because of the way that I came about. I don’t even know if he knows about me, but… I know about him. There’s no need to track him down.”
“Oh. Shit, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she shook her head. “I’m okay.”
The look in her eyes told a different story, but again – I knew when to stop pushing.
“I’m going to let you get back to your morning,” I told her. “But, in a couple of hours, I want you to come down to the basement.”
She frowned. “You didn’t show me a basement. What’s down there?”
“It’s the door right behind the stairs. You can’t miss it. And to answer your question… you’ll find out when you get down there.”
“You’re really not going to tell me though?” she asked, surprised.
“What, and ruin the surprise?”
I winked at her before I turned away, heading to my office first to set a few queries in motion before I went to clean up – myself, and my bedroom.
I didn’t know what Monica was being weird about this morning, after what I’d thought was an incredible time last night, but I chose not to focus on it when I had a lot of other things to do. It was only a matter of time before Monica went stir-crazy, being confined to a house that wasn’t home to her. We needed to get this shit figured out, so that she could be back to her own space, like I knew she wanted.
As soon as I sat down at my computer, I went to the list I’d compiled of things to look into further.
Kim’s finances – what made her agree to work with Canvas, and does she have other accomplices?
Canvas – motive? Has to be deeper than just wanting Monica’s company.
Asher – psycho motherfucker. I can just feel it. What the fuck is he up to? Besides Monica, what did he have against Kellen?
Kellen – who killed him, and why? He had beef with Monica, so why not use him instead of getting rid of him?
Amanda – where did Asher bury the body?
What stood out to me most were the questions about Kellen, so I decided to focus my energy there. It only took a few minutes to get knee deep into the hole of personal debt he’d built around himself with bad investments in tech and crypto-cash ventures that never took off. Up until three years ago, when he… magically, I guess, paid it all off.
Only it wasn’t so magical.
A few minutes after I found that, I realized he’d been able to pay off that debt with a loan from a “banker”, Tommy Briggs who was well-known to be connected the criminal fringes of society. Looking through his financial records, I could see where he’d been cashing out investments and other assets to stay on top of bi-weekly payments toward the loan. He was still wrong as hell, but seeing this put the fact that he’d been living off of Monica in a different light. In addition to being trifling, the man was desperate, which had the potential to lead to an ugly situation.
In this case, more than just potential.
From the looks of things, Kellen had dug himself into a hole he couldn’t get out of, and the only ladder he had available was robbing Peter to pay Paul. And sure enough, earlier this year, around the same time those big payments had started for Kim, they’d started from Kellen too, originating from the same source.
Canvas had been using him too.
“But why kill him?” I mused out loud, frowning at the screen. If I was working from the assumption that Canvas was behind the hacking, Kim’s attack, Monica’s attack, and the break-in and Monica’s house, I had to assume that Kellen’s murder was part of it too. Everything except the hacking had one of those messages with it – the names of the nail polish colors.
It had to all be connected.
What was the motive though? Exactly what was the catalyst?
“Why use the nail polish names? There has to be a reason. Has to be a reason.”
After thinking about it for another few minutes, I navigated to my internet browser and typed a simple string of keywords as a query into Google.
Monica Stuart Vivid Vixen Interview Wicked Widow
Immediately, a dozen or so articles popped up, many of them just referring back to one main article – an interview she’d given with Sugar and Spice magazine.
“I got the idea from Twitter, actually,” she’d told the interviewer. “There was this picture going around of this woman in this really gorgeous, lavish sheer gown, with feathers, and the caption on it was something like, “what I’m wearing to my much older husband’s funeral after he “mysteriously” dies. And I mean, I’m not gonna lie, I chuckled at it, you know. There’s like this fantasy or something, of being the tender young thing for some dinosaur of a man, and he leaves you everything. I guess it sparked something in my imagination, because before I knew it, I was jotting down these names for colors that this woman might wear. “Gold-digger Goals” as this lush, intense gold tone, and “Poison Potato Pie” which is gorgeous fall orange, and “Champagne at the Funeral” – a beautiful pearlescent nude. That’s just a few of them. I’ve gotten some pushback about it, which is to be expected, but I really just wanted to do something different and sexy and fun. Of course I’m not advocating murder – I think nail polish is considered contraband in prison! I just wanted to flex my creative muscle and tell a story – a fictional story.”
Okay, so, that was innocuous enough that I didn’t see how the creation of the collection could factor into motive. Maybe the names were just convenient ways to torture Monica – which, at this point, was exactly what I considered all of this to be.
And I was pissed about it.
A knock at the open door to my office made me look up, to see Monica standing there, looking good enough to eat – again – in jeans and a BSU tee-shirt, with her hair pulled up in a ponytail.
“Hey… you said two hours, right? I thought we were meeting downstairs?”
My eyes went immediately to the time in the bottom corner of my screen. “Oh, shit. My bad. Yeah, let’s get to it,” I told her, pushing back from the desk to stand. “I just need to throw some shoes on.”
“Is what I’m wearing fine?” she asked, looking down at the blue Sperry’s on her feet.
“Absolutely. You are very, very fine,” I said, winking at her as I eased past her in the doorway to get to my room. She rolled her eyes about it, but couldn’t help the smile that came to her face, which had been my goal anyway.
A few minutes later, I was opening the door for the stairs that led to the basement. I flipped the light on, then motioned for her to lead the way, which she did without any complaint.
Even with the light for the stairs, the basement was pretty dark until we passed a certain point. Then, step by step, everything lit up, activated by our movements until Monica let out a gasp as we reached the bottom.
“Wow,” she whispered, stopping where she stood to put her hands on her hips as she stared in awe. “That is… a lot of goddamn guns.”
It was a lot of goddamn guns.
But, I wasn’t without my reasons.
If the white boys with no military or law enforcement training could build up their arsenals with guns bought off the internet, my ass was building up an arsenal too. Anybody that came here looking for a problem would definitely get it. I’d first taught Kay to use a simple handgun when she was sixteen, and I’d had her down here at least once a month since. She knew how to use everything in this room, from the lightweight pistol, to the hunting rifle, to the AR-15 I hoped I never had a reason to use.
As long as Monica was here, I was going to make sure she knew how to use one too.
“Point out what you think you’d be most comfortable with,” I told her, leading her to the handgun case. I have all different types, different ammo caliber, different grips, different weights. We can find something that works for you.”
She sucked in a breath. “Oh, um… probably something like what I already have. I took a class a few years ago. Once it was clear that Kellen wasn’t interested in being a protector anymore.”
“That’s good. So you know how to protect yourself. How to keep your gun clean, loading and unloading, all of that?”
She nodded. “Yeah, they taught me all of that.”
“Perfect. So we should just be able to run through a refresher then. What do you have right now?”
A semi-blank look crossed her face. “Um… a Glock? 9mm I think?”
“Okay. How many rounds does it hold?”
“Excuse me?”
“Bullets,” I laughed. “How many bullets?”
“Oh! Six.”
“Okay. Any idea what model it is?”
That blank stare came back, and she shook her head. “No. But, it’s upstairs with my things.”
“Not necessary. If you’re already comfortable with that one, we’ll introduce you to something. Glock is a great brand, and I have a few down here myself, but the CIA raised me with a Sig, so that’s my brand of choice.” I keyed in the code that would let me open the case, then picked up a pistol I thought she’d be able to work with. But when I handed it to her, I couldn’t do anything but frown at the way she was holding it – her grip was off-kilter, her trigger finger placement was awkward, and if she fired the way she was holding it, her thumb was likely to get broken by the hammer when it slid back.
“Okay, wow, that is really wrong,” I told her, stepping behind her and reaching around. “You want to make sure your thumbs are under here,” I said, making the adjustment. “And keep your hands here, so your finger is free to pull the trigger. Always have it at eye level, okay? You aren’t shooting anybody’s feet. If you have it out, you need to be ready to kill. Show me. Pull the trigger.”
“What?!” she exclaimed, stepping away. “I’m not about to fire this gun in here, with all these other guns!”
I raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t say anything about firing it. I said pull the trigger. It’s not loaded, Monica.”
“Oh. Shit, tell me all the details please,” she laughed. “What good is pulling the trigger if there aren’t any bullets?”
“I just want to know that you’ll actually do it.”
“Oh. Sure, here,” she said, pointing it right at me, and pulling the trigger. I heard the little click confirming that she’d actually done it, and crossed my arms, shaking my head.
“Really? You pointed at me to do that? What if I’d forgotten to unload it? What if I got it mixed up with a different one?”
Monica frowned. “Uh, sorry Mr. Chadwick,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You told me to pull the trigger.”
“Yeah, because I assumed you would be mindful of gun safety, Ms. I Took a Class. You just forgot all of that shit, huh?”
She sucked her teeth. “You don’t have to be mean.”
“Nobody is being mean to your ass, you could’ve shot me, woman! On accident. If I’m going to take a bullet, I want it to mean something, please.”
With the gun still in her hands, loosely now, she crossed her arms, potentially dangerous weapon just floating every-which-way.
“You’re trying to give me a heart attack, right?” I asked, pointing at how she was holding the gun.
“Oh! Sorry,” she said, correcting herself – somewhat – by pointing the gun at the floor, standing like she was posing for a 90s gangster rap poster.
What the hell did I get myself into?
“Okay… how about we start all the way at the beginning? Is that cool?”
“Whatever you say,” she muttered, in a tone that made it clear I had gotten on her nerves. For what, I didn’t know, since I hadn’t pointed a gun and pulled the trigger at her, but whatever. We were gonna make the shit work.
It turned out that she really did know the basics, they’d just gotten a little shoddy in her memory from lack of practice. Once we spent some time going over it all again – basic gun safety rules, loading and unloading, breaking it down to clean it, etc., I was confident that she was ready for the next thing.
“Got something else to show you, gorgeous. Come on. And bring your gun.”
The expression she took on was one of suspicion, but still enough curiosity that she did what I asked, following me around a corner, where she let out another gasp.
“Oh my God! Is this a shooting range?! In your house?!”
I chuckled. “Yes, it is. Fully insulated and reinforced so no bullets get out. Majorly ventilated so that all the gasses and poison and shit don’t stay in. You ready to practice?”
“Hell yes,” she said, wearing a goofy ass grin as she turned to me. “Where are the bullets? Let’s do it. I’m ready to gear up!”
“Oh so now I’ve got you excited, huh?” I asked, pulling her over to outfit her with goggles and ear protection. “You don’t have an attitude anymore?”
“I didn’t have an attitude,” she argued. “You just… hurt my feelings, is all. You were acting like I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“Hey,” I said, grabbing her chin to point her face up towards mine, and looking her right in the eyes. “You… didn’t know what you were doing though,” I teased, laughing when she snatched away from me to head towards the ammo.
“You’re gonna get enough of teasing me while I have a gun in my hands,” she called over her shoulder while I put on my own ear protection and goggles.
“You ain’t gonna do shit,” I shot back, yelling so that she could hear me through the ear cuffs. “Worry about hitting these targets.”
“I’ll just pretend they’re you.”
“Oh you’re not going to hit anything if you do that. May want to pretend it’s Kellen.”
I regretted that shit as soon as it was out of my mouth. Hell, before. But, I said it as soon as I thought it, before my brain could send the that’s a mistake, motherfucker signal to my lips.
I hadn’t even been looking at her when I said it – I had turned to pull my ammo of choice from the shelf. When I looked at her, her eyes were on her weapon, but her hands had stilled in the middle of loading her gun. She was frozen.
Yeah.
Big fucking mistake.
“Monica… shit, I am so sorry.”
That seemed to snap her out of her trance, and she shook her head. “No. Don’t be. You’re right.”
“But that wasn’t… I didn’t mean that like a joke about him being dead, I just meant that—”
“That he was a piece of shit?” she supplied for me. “That he constantly disrespected me, had zero regard for our marriage vows, and doesn’t deserve even half of the consideration I’ve given him, since his death? You are absolutely right,” she said, with a heavy sigh. “He treated me like garbage… and that’s just based on the things I know about. There’s probably a whole lot of heartbreaking things I’m – blissfully – not even aware of.” She blinked hard, several times, a move I recognized as an attempt to fight back tears.
I hated how right she was.
“Still,” I said, unable to dispute any of the words she’d spoken about her husband. “I shouldn’t have said that. And I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
She shrugged. “Don’t be sorry. Like I said… you’re right. He may be dead, but that’s no tragedy for me. And he doesn’t deserve for me to act like it is.”
The next twenty or so minutes were… tense. We got her loaded, and set up in one of the two firing bays I had, and then I let her loose with a target page, which she completely murdered with haphazard shots. Then, she carefully reloaded her weapon, and killed it again.
And then again.
And then again.
The tension left her shoulders after that.
Once she seemed a little less angry – and I hoped to God it wasn’t actually my face she saw as she was doing all that firing – I joined her on the other side of the bulletproof glass that separated the firing bays.
“Hey… you good?” I asked, approaching her cautiously while she was reloading.
She looked up at me with a smile, and nodded. “Yeah. Sorry about that getting all intense on you like that. I’d had something on my mind, and then your comment about thinking about Kellen as my target kind of… pushed me over the edge.”
“Again, I am so sorry. It wasn’t funny, and—”
“The hell it wasn’t,” she giggled. “Listen… seriously, you don’t have to be sorry about that. It’s not our fault he got himself murdered and I can’t even joke about killing him anymore. He’s even getting on my nerves in death, and it’s pretty annoying.”
I chuckled. “Tell me how you really feel then, damn.”
She took a deep breath. “Yeah… I don’t even know how I feel about anything these days. Everything is all upside down, and I’m just… a little lost. But I’m okay. I’m here, I’m focused. I need to be able to do this, and now that I’ve… wasted all these bullets,” she said, motioning at the shell casings all around her feet, “I should probably get you to help me actually hit something.”
“You’ve been hitting… the page. Which is something,” I said, trying to give her a little encouragement, but it only made her shake her head.
“Uhh, nah. I need to be able to hit a target. With consistency. Help.”
I grinned. “Yeah. I’ve got you.”
And I did.
The next hour that we were down there was much more fun, with Monica being an eager student. She took direction well, easily applying the running stream of tips I gave her, until I had her emptying a whole magazine straight into a target.
“Oh my God!” she squealed, as soon as she’d pumped the last bullet right into the center of the target. She followed her proper steps first – turning on the safety, and then putting the gun down before she snatched her ear protection, turning to me with an excited shimmy. “Do you see that?!” she asked, and I nodded, taking off my own ear protection before I opened my arms to pull her into a hug.
“Yeah, I did. That was really good! Listen, you keep practicing like that? Nobody can fuck with you, gorgeous.”
She tipped her head up at me, beaming as I looked down into her pretty face. “And it felt ah-may-ziiiing,” she gushed, doing another one of those shimmies. Only this time, she was still in my arms, body pressed too close to mine for me to let too many more shimmies go unaddressed. “I feel really bad ass right now.”
“You looked really bad ass too. I should’ve grabbed my phone, so you could see a video of your technique, which helps you adjust and improve. We’ll remember that for next time.”
She grinned even harder. “There’s gonna be a next time?”
“There has to be. Shooting properly is something you use or lose. You have to stay in practice.”
“Okay,” she nodded eagerly. “When? Tomorrow?”
“Nah,” I laughed. “Your arms will probably be sore. But maybe the day after that, okay?”
“Yeah. Um… can I do one more round?”
“Of course. Load up.”
I let her out of my arms so that she could load up. Just as she was lifting and aiming, I touched her shoulder, in a gentle reminder that she didn’t have her ear protection on.
“Thank you,” she shouted, when I picked them up and put them on her head, adjusting to make sure her ears were covered. I stayed behind her, adjusting her grip, critiquing her stance until she was perfect, and ready to fire.
But I still stayed behind her.
“What are you doing?” she asked, half-turning to face me as I wrapped my arms around her waist, putting my body flush against hers.
“Being a distraction. You don’t think it’s always peace and quiet at a moment when you might have to pull a gun, do you?”
“I don’t think I’d have you all over my neck either though,” she giggled, shying away as I trailed my lips over the back of her neck.
“Fine,” I said, stepping away to give her room. “No distractions then. Go ahead and make it happen.”
I grinned at her as she carefully fixed her stance and grip, then pointed and aimed again. She squeezed the trigger six times, pausing between shots to adjust her aim, just like I’d shown her, and at the end, she had another really good page of targets.
“Know what would be hot?” she asked, turning to me as soon as she’d followed her safety protocol with the Sig.
“I’m looking at something now, but go ahead,” I told her, making her blush as she pulled off her goggles.
“I was thinking, if I get really good, I can do like, a collection of polishes in badass colors. But they would have to be a really good, high durability gel polish, so your mani doesn’t get chipped while you’re loading and unloading, all of that. Ooh! The “Bulletproof” collection. And I’ll find a black police officer, and a female soldier, and a woman who goes hunting, and then just like, everyday women, you know?”
“It sounds like a great idea. A campaign like that might even get more women into learning to shoot for self-defense too. And these days…”
Monica nodded. “Right. Necessary. Ahh, I’m already excited about it,” she mused, then gave me another big grin. “Thank you,” she said. “I needed this today.”
“Thank you, for being a willing student.”
She raised an eyebrow, then stepped toward me. “Thank you, for being a patient teacher. And… protector.”
I was the one to take a step this time, closing the gap between us. And then, I kept going, backing her up against the wall. “No need to thank me. This isn’t a favor, Monica. I have you here because I want you here. Safe.”
She ran her tongue over her those soft lips, looking up at me with her eyes wide. “Why?”
“Is that a real question?”
“Yes,” she shot back. “And I want a real answer.”
“You think I’m scared to give you a real answer or something, and you’ve gotta demand it out of me?”
She shrugged. “Yeah. Probably.”
“You’re right,” I countered, and her serious expression broke as she laughed. “No, seriously though… when I say that I consider you a friend, that I care about you… I mean that.”
For several seconds, she just stared, and then… “Is a friend all that you consider me?”
“Is that really a conversation you’re trying to have right now?”
“No.”
I chuckled. “Good. Me either.”
After that, she gave me another of those long stares, and I couldn’t tell if she understood how sexy that shit was, especially with her hands gripping the sides of my tee shirt. I leaned in, bringing my mouth down to hers to press a soft kiss to her lips.
“Let’s go back upstairs,” I suggested, moving my hands from her waist down to her hips.
She held my gaze, eyes full of lust, nipples hard enough that I could feel them pressing into my chest through her shirt, and… shook her head.
“Not for what you want to go back upstairs for,” she told me, with a disappointed little sigh after. “I’m guessing you didn’t notice I was barely walking straight after last night… and this morning. She needs a little TLC first – and not from your dick… Wick.”
“But I can treat her with all the tender loving care she needs, in all kinds of other ways, without even taking my boxers off.”
She smirked. “And I believe you. The problem is, if we do that, I’m definitely going to want you to take your boxers off. I happened to already have a high appreciation for what you keep in there, but after last night’s first-hand experience with it…”
“Mmm,” I grunted. “You sure do know how to stroke a man’s ego. Sure would like you to stroke something else though.”
“I know. And… as much as I would like to indulge that… rest isn’t all I need.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Tell me what you need.”
“Clarity, Wick. And unfortunately… the kind I need… you can’t give.”
I closed my eyes to take a deep breath as I caught her meaning. “Not about me?”
She nodded. “Not about you. Remember that whole… woke up feeling confused thing?”
“I do. Still confused?”
“Very.”
Reluctantly, I eased myself back, giving her some space, because I knew, without her explicitly stating it, that it was what I needed to do. “Do me a favor?” I asked, and her eyes immediately perked up.
“Of course. What?”
“Don’t hesitate to tell me when you’re… no longer confused.”
Rolling her eyes, she laughed, then turned to pick up her weapon, goggles, and ear protection, to return to their proper places.
“Don’t worry,” she said, with a smile that seemed… promising. “You’ll be the first to know.”