“At this rate, I’ll have you paid back in no time,” she said. “Well, okay, not no time exactly, but in a lot less time than I had figured. As it is, I found some really good deals and did a lot of work myself and didn’t end up using the entire balance of the loan, so I was able to return some of the principal unused. That reduces the payment on the loan and boosts what I can pay you every month, too.”
“Don’t start paying me till we agreed on it, six months, right?” I said. “Quit putting pressure on yourself. Reinvest in the business if you need to. Don’t cut corners on my account. You can take your time, Trix,” I said. It made me uncomfortable, her talk of less time, of paying me back faster, basically of cutting all ties between us. It brought back forcibly the image I’d thought of when I was out with Brody—of her walking out of my life, a grateful acquaintance. I’d be invited to her wedding, I knew. To some other guy. I swallowed hard then, drained my glass of wine.
She stood up to clear the plates, but I got up, too. I crowded her up to the counter, looked down into her eyes. I ran my hand down her arm and took her hand, held it in mine.
“I need to talk to you, Trix. I’ve been putting it off, but I can’t wait anymore. Leave the dishes. Let’s talk.”
She chewed her lip, and I couldn’t resist. “Let me bite that lip, then,” I said with a dark smile.
I covered her mouth with mine, softly taking her full bottom lip and nipping it with my teeth. Her arms went around my neck and I pulled her fully against me, groaning at the relief of the contact. I loved the length and shape of her, the way she fit against me. Everything about holding her, kissing her felt so good and right.
“I’m so proud of you, Trix. And I’m so crazy—” I was nipping at her lips, a sensuous, slow, insane kiss.
Then my phone rang, the bleating urgent sound of my mom’s ringtone. We broke apart and I grabbed the phone. “Sorry,” I said to her and then answered.
As soon as I was off the phone, I scrubbed a hand through my hair and turned to Trixie who had cleared the table and started the dishes by then.
“I need to go over to my parents’ house. My mom needs my help with the water heater. Can we—”
“Go on,” she said with a sad smile. “They need you. You know, you’re a really good guy,” she said. I wasn’t sure why she sounded so resigned, so unhappy.
“You get some rest. You’ve got another big day tomorrow,” I said.
When I took off in my truck to go see about the water heater at my parents’ house, I really felt uncomfortable. I had a hunch that maybe I should’ve stayed and talked to my wife. But she’d said to go on, and Mom needed my help. I could’ve called Brody to see if he’d handle it, but I didn’t want to call him away from home to help my parents with my sister pregnant. I’d always been around to help them out, and just because I was fake married didn’t mean I wasn’t available to them. They hadn’t even interrupted our dinner, really. We were done eating by the time they called. And it was another excuse to put off a pretty high-stakes conversation that I wasn’t looking forward to having with Trixie.
So there I went, to my mom’s, where I got the water heater working again and talked to my dad about my suspension again even though we’d already gone over it on the phone when it happened. My mom gave me some cake—made with sugar substitute due to my dad’s diabetes—and demanded to know if it was too dry. So I sat down at the kitchen table and ate it.
“You know the chief don’t mean nothin’ by laying you off a couple days, boy. No reason to mope around. You ain’t in trouble and you know you did right. Every man there would stand up for you if they’d tried to sack you over it.”
“Nobody’s firing me. But I wanted to apply for the assistant chief position in a couple months when it comes up, and this’ll be on my record now. Like I’d be a crappy leader because I’m impulsive or something,” I confessed.
“Nobody thinks that. You need bold men in leadership, not like that lily-livered jerk from Overton.”
“Lazy bastard, is what Trixie called him,” I recalled with a half-smile.
“She ain’t half wrong either, boy. I don’t know a lot about him, but I do know that I haven’t heard much good about him. Have you considered going for his job? Bigger department, more money, and men will follow you the way they don’t much like to listen to him.”