19. I Love Him Already
19
I LOVE HIM ALREADY
Diana
The next evening, I walked down the hall while putting in my last earring, hit the living room and saw Hugger slouched in the couch, his eyes on the TV .
When I showed, he turned his head to me.
Then I watched with a good deal of interest as every inch of his long body went alert.
“ This is the first time I’ve worn this,” I announced, raising my arms at my sides like that would show him the LBD I was wearing better.
It was pretty simple, as LBDs should be. One long sleeve, one shoulder bare, skintight, a short skirt that hit several inches above the knee, slit on one side.
I’d convinced myself I could pull it off at the store when I tried it on.
I wasn’t so sure now.
“ Does it work?” I asked Hugger .
“ How ?”
His question confused me. “ How what?”
“ How do you want it to work?”
I looked down at myself, saying, “ Well , I have kinda wide hips, and then there’s this.” I put both hands to my little belly.
“ Come again?”
I was even more confused, so I turned my attention to him. “ It’s so tight, you can see my pouch.”
“ All I see is my woman in a dress that’s makin’ my dick hard.”
Hmm .
“ Really ?”
“ You wanna feel the evidence?”
I shivered at the invitation, but had to say, “ I fear that would make us late.”
“ Your hand gets anywhere near my cock, especially right now with you in that dress, we’ll be late, baby,” he decreed.
I really, really wanted my hand near his cock.
But I’d been blowing off my friends, and late was rude.
Damn .
I bit the side of my lip in indecision.
Hugger chuckled as he pulled himself out of my couch.
“ Let’s get you to cocktails,” he said, taking my hand.
Before he could tug me anywhere (not that I could go anywhere except my closet, I still had to switch out purses), I held strong to his fingers and asked, “ You don’t mind that I wear my dedication to cookies and tacos on my ass and belly and elsewhere?”
His expression changed to irritable.
And as ever with Hugger , he didn’t make me wait to understand his emotion.
“ I now see how your dad dicked that up.”
“ Yes , but you’re super fit,” I pointed out.
“ Because we got a gym on Chaos and all the brothers take advantage of it.”
“ On Chaos ?”
“ Our flagship, with the first store, the garage, and the Club Compound is referred to like an island. You’re there, you’re ‘on Chaos .’ Don’t know how that came about, just know that’s how it is.”
“ Oh .”
Now I didn’t know why I loved knowing that about his Club , but it was just how it was.
“ Was a bouncer before I became a brother,” he went on. “ Pay was shit, but I was good at it. You can’t do that unless you know what your body can do and you can take care of business. To know what your body can do, you work out.”
“ Right .”
“ Became a habit, and I dig it,” he stated. “ Clears my head.”
“ I took a Pilates class downstairs once and couldn’t move for two days.”
He smiled.
“ When the heat goes off the Valley , I like to take walks. However , with the heat on or off the Valley , most of those walks happen in a mall.”
His smile got bigger.
“ Pretty much, I get my exercise by cleaning my house once a week,” I finished.
He got closer and tucked his chin in his neck to keep his eyes on me.
“ I give you any indication at all I don’t love every inch of you?” he asked quietly.
“ No ,” I answered honestly, and yes, a little breathlessly.
“ Get that shit outta your head, then. Only person who needs to feel good in that dress is you. But just sayin’, you look beautiful. You always look beautiful, but you pulled out all the stops tonight.”
Well then.
Fuck it.
I got up on my toes, threw my arms around his neck, pressed close and kissed him, hot, wet and heavy.
Hugger backed me to the arm of the couch and we toppled over.
So when we finally left, we were late.
* * *
“ What the fuck?” Hugger asked as we turned the corner from the hostess station at 36 Below .
I stifled a laugh, because this tiny bar in the basement of a coffee place had miniscule orange-velvet padded stools around nearly-as-miniscule tables, and green-velvet barstools around the bar. It also had screens all around showing an animated landscape of a fairy world complete with lots of toadstools, a water wheel, woodland animals skittering about and floating glitter. Further , it had people drinking out of mushroom-shaped glasses set on moss-covered slabs of bark-circled wood or lit glass lanterns dangling from fake-flower-festooned iron hooks.
Not a biker hangout in the slightest.
You had to have a reservation, and we had a close-to-miniscule table with four stools, so Hugger was only there to meet the girls and then he was going to chill upstairs, keep an eye on the entrance, and probably drink coffee.
Pulling him to where my girls were (they hadn’t all gone LBD , Bernie was in an LBD , but the “ B ” stood for electric blue, Mel was openly wishing for autumn in a short, bodycon, green turtleneck sweater dress, and Charlie , our hippie girl, was wearing a sleeveless, boatneck maxi dress made of cream gauze, with a high side slit and line of diminutive bells on the full skirt that I knew would jingle when she walked—she was seated, but I knew about the slit and bells because I’d been with her when she’d worn that dress before).
As we made our short way to them, they were all staring at me and Hugger with identical expressions of astonishment mixed with extreme interest.
“ Hey , sorry I’m late,” I said when we made it to the table.
No one replied.
They were all now just staring at Hugger .
“ This is Harlan ,” I indicated him. “ He’s dropping me, but I wanted you to meet him.”
They continued their silence and stared at Hugger .
“ This is Bernie , or Bernice ,” I indicated Bernie . “ And Mel , or Melissa ,” I went on with another flick of my hand. “ And Charlie , or Charlotte ,” I concluded.
“ Odd woman out, you don’t got a guy’s nickname,” Hugger remarked.
“ And it’s too bad Jagger and Dutch are taken, because it would seem all my girls would have been candidates,” I noted.
Hugger shot me a smile.
I heard Charlie gurgle.
I got that totally: his smile with his white teeth in that multi-colored beard was the best.
“ Leave you women to it,” he said, then angled his head and bent to kiss my neck. When he caught my eyes after that awesome maneuver, he bid, “ Have fun.” He turned to my friends. “ Nice to meet you.”
“ Yeah ,” Bernie choked.
“ You too,” Mel breathed.
Charlie just waved at him.
Hugger strolled through the small space like he owned it and disappeared around the wall to the stairs.
I nearly tumbled off my high-heeled black sandals as Charlie yanked on my wrist. Fortunately , against all the odds, my ass landed on a miniscule orange-velvet padded stool.
All of them leaned toward me in unison.
“ Who the hell is that guy?” Mel demanded.
“ Okay , don’t get mad—” I started.
“ I’m not mad. I’m jealous as all hell, but I’m not mad,” Charlie said. “ I mean that guy is like… whoa .”
He was definitely whoa .
“ Why would we be mad?” Bernie asked. “ Except for the fact you were persona non seena or hearda for weeks, and now you show up with beefy hot guy who kisses your neck before he leaves you.”
Bernie , by the way, was slim, Black , had no small amount of back, but definitely a small chest, so everything looked good on her in every color, and she changed her hairstyles more often than I changed my purses, and I changed my purses all the time.
Now she had very long, thin braids, half up, half down, with the up part being in a fabulous knot with braid ends sticking out at the back of her head.
She was kind of shy, kind of quiet, but not with her girls. When she was with her girls, she was outspoken and no nonsense.
Mel , on the other hand, was white, auburn-haired, petite, and totally together. She was the only one of us who had a guy, Gerard , who was Scottish and really into her (as far as I could tell, half the time, I couldn’t understand what he was saying, his brogue was so thick).
Charlie , as noted, was our hippie chick. She was a wedding photographer and keyboardist in an ambient music band (if you could call them that) who played tunes that I guessed worked, because they put me to sleep, though that wasn’t what you were supposed to do when you went to one of their gigs to hear them play.
Still , we all went to see her all the time because she was Charlie .
The waitress showed, and I saw on the table there was a mushroom, a lantern and a green vase with some spiked leaves sticking out of it along with an apple slice and some floating almonds, so I went for the Solis , because it was yummy, but it was served in a goblet, and I figured that would round it out.
Once the waitress left, I said, “ Okay , so a lot has gone down.”
“ Ya think?” Mel asked, and jerked her head of luxurious tresses toward where Hugger disappeared.
“ Are your hatches battened?” I asked.
“ Oh boy,” Charlie whispered.
“ Hatches battened. Spill ,” Bernie ordered.
I spilled.
And I kept doing it through receiving my cocktail, and it went on until I was halfway done with it.
“ Holy Mahoney ,” Charlie muttered when I finally shut up, indicating that by sucking another quarter of my cocktail up my straw because all I’d just shared warranted it.
“ Bad guys might be after you?” Bernie asked.
“ We don’t think so, but maybe. They used to hang out in the courtyard of my complex to provide a threatening presence, but we haven’t seen them in days. Though , Hugger isn’t taking any chances,” I replied, putting my goblet on the table.
“ He’s in a motorcycle club?” Mel queried.
I wasn’t certain about the look on her face, but I answered firmly, “ Yes .”
“ Why didn’t you tell us all this was happening?” Bernie asked the million-dollar question.
“ Well , first of all, a lot was going down, so I didn’t have the time,” I explained.
“ I see that,” Mel mumbled.
“ And second, so much was going down, with Maddy , Dad , Hugger , I didn’t have the headspace to get into it, because there was so much of it.” I spread my hands over the table. “ But now, I’m getting into it.”
“ I think we should start with your mom,” Bernie said.
“ I think we should start with this guy who lives in Denver ,” Mel countered.
“ I think we should lay off because, like Di said, this is a lot,” Charlie shot at Mel and Bernie across the table.
“ Well , for all of that, there’s nothing more to give about Mom ,” I told them. “ She still hasn’t replied to my voicemail or any of my texts.”
“ Sorry , babe, but lame,” Mel declared.
Forgot to mention, Mel was pretty no nonsense too.
Though in this instance, like many, she was right.
“ Agreed ,” I replied. “ The longer it takes her to reach out, the more all of it is pissing me off. And it’s super pissing Hugger off. He had a really great mom. I think this totally confuses him, but more, he had that, so he hates what I have. It’s also stupid, because it’s giving me plenty of opportunity, which I’m taking, to shuffle back through my memories and notice a lot of stuff that really isn’t good.”
“ Like her giving up custody without a squeak?” Bernice offered.
“ And her taking off to Idaho like she didn’t birth no babies, when she did, and that baby she forgot she birthed was you,” Mel put in.
“ And like she shows when she shows, and you or your gram have to drop everything to be at her beck and call, but she won’t stay with either of you. Nope . She’s got a bungalow at the Biltmore and you have to go get her and traipse around Phoenix at her whim,” Charlie added.
Welp !
It seemed my girls had my mom’s number before I did.
“ And straight up, she had the means to help you out when you were busting your back to get your degrees,” Bernie started, “and she didn’t. I can’t believe your dad put all that in a trust and gave it to you. Along with him dropping that mobster client because you asked him to, that’s a seriously stand-up thing to do.”
Dad and I had not come to terms about the trust, but Bernie was right. It was a stand-up thing to do.
“ It isn’t Mom’s money,” I pointed out.
“ She sells one Birkin bag, she pays an entire year of your tuition,” Mel returned.
Sadly , I couldn’t argue this.
“ More stand-up from your dad, that he took the hits he took all your life,” Bernie stated. “ What I don’t get is why your mom would pull what she pulled.”
“ Well , it isn’t like, in front of Di , Nolan and Margaret are gonna have a chat about who cheated first,” Mel noted.
“ That’s the worst part of this,” Charlie said. “ The Big Lie .”
“ Victims gonna victim,” Mel replied. “ Can’t get everyone to kiss your feet and make life easy for you if you don’t convince them they should.”
I stilled.
Victims gonna victim .
Dad cheated on her (when he didn’t).
Brendon gave up on her (but did he?).
Rick forced her to live in Idaho where she had to drive all the way to Seattle for good shopping, or fly down to Phoenix (but she went up there with him without a peep).
Rick went out hunting, and left her “all alone” (when, for God’s sake, people had hobbies).
Rick got mad because she didn’t like to ride in his speedboat because it messed up her hair and “doesn’t he understand about a woman’s hair?!” But she rode in it and bitched about it, like taking a ride in a speedboat on a beautiful lake in God’s country was akin to being stretched on the rack.
Nothing was Mom’s responsibility.
Nothing went Mom’s way.
But she lived a damn good life.
I didn’t even know how she spent her time up there, except she always had perfect nails, an immaculate pedicure, no roots in her hair, and she often went to spas.
I’d wanted to do it on my own, getting my degrees, but I’d wanted to do that to show Dad .
That said, it had been all kinds of hard work.
I’d met all of my girls our first year in college. They knew everything about me. They went through all of that with me. Hell , Bernice’s parents gave me a waitressing job at one of their restaurants. I’d worked there for three years.
And they were right. Mom and Rick gave me big checks at birthdays and Christmases , but they weren’t that big.
She could have helped.
She could have at least offered.
She didn’t.
She never even asked about it, and truth, she still gave me those big checks, though now I was seeing them as guilt checks, if she could feel that emotion.
What they weren’t were presents.
Even when I was a kid, Mom gave me money on those occasions.
Like , she was a superior shopper, and she didn’t bother to know me enough to buy me an actual present that I might want.
“ Di ?” Bernie called.
I focused on her.
“ Oh shit,” Mel mumbled when she caught sight of my face.
“ It really hurts,” I whispered.
“ Okay , now we’re gonna lay off,” Charlie decided.
Bernie reached across our nearly miniscule table toward me.
I took her hand.
“ It sucks you have to come to terms with this, but I’m glad you are, because you give that woman a lot when she demands it, and she doesn’t really deserve it,” Bernie said.
“ Bernie !” Charlie snapped.
“ No ,” I cut in, giving Bernie’s fingers a squeeze and letting go. “ She’s right.”
“ Do you know what you’re going to do when she calls?” Mel asked.
“ I think… I need to talk to Hugger about it,” I said.
“ Hugger ?” Charlie asked.
“ No offense, but I …” I smiled. “ He’s kinda become my touchstone.”
“ Perfect segue,” Mel muttered.
Yep .
Now was the time to get into Hugger .
“ He vacuums,” I announced.
“ Sorry ?” Bernie queried.
“ Maddy and I were cleaning last Saturday , I got out the vacuum, he took it from me and vacuumed my whole house.”
“ Yowza ,” Bernie said.
“ Has Gerard ever done that?” Charlie asked Mel .
“ Once , and he did it so badly, he’s never done it again,” Mel told her.
Bernie and Charlie rolled their eyes at each other.
“ Excuse me, but he has other attributes,” Mel said saucily.
“ Yeah , he knows what to do with his dick,” Bernie murmured.
And we knew all about that.
“ And he can make a woman come just by talking to her with that accent,” Charlie added.
There was that too.
“ There’s that,” Mel spoke my thoughts. “ And he cooks and does the grocery shopping, and I don’t like to do either.”
“ He’s a good guy, really,” Charlie assuaged. “ But he could say, ‘ I don’t wanna vacuum, let’s figure out the allotment of chores,’ rather than just doing a shitty job vacuuming so he can get out of doing it.”
“ I read he doesn’t like doing it, so now I do, and he didn’t have to say that because I have a mind to my man, and just to say, he has a mind to me and that’s why he cooks,” Mel returned.
“ Let’s get back to Di ,” Bernie urged.
“ He grew up with his mom, just those two,” I shared. “ And I think he had to pitch in, so it’s just a part of who he is. Like , he makes the bed in the morning just like I do .”
“ Holy shit,” Mel whispered reverently.
“ I know,” I said. “ He listens. And he’s smart. And he gives good advice. He says he’s not affectionate, but he’s really demonstrative with me. It feels mega nice. He likes my pouch and big ass and doesn’t even glance askance at me when I eat a third cookie. Or a fourth.”
“ Wow ,” Bernie said.
“ And he’s been at my side through all of this, and honestly, I don’t know if I would have gotten through it if he wasn’t.”
“ Aw , Di ,”— Charlie patted my hand—“you so would.”
“ And you had your girls,” Mel reminded me.
“ I know, but he was there, and he stuck, and because he did, he made it easier.”
“ So he isn’t hard on the eyes, and he’s got no issue being supportive,” Bernie brought it to a fine point.
“ Yes , and more,” I said.
“ Please say that big man with that big body does big things for you in bed,” Charlie begged.
I smiled. “ He’s very…take charge.”
Charlie rolled her eyes back and moaned.
Bernie and Mel smiled at each other.
Charlie recovered, tipped her head to the side and asked, “ So … Denver ?”
I shook my head. “ We haven’t gotten that far. We’re going to have the big chat on Sunday . But until he knows I’m safe, he’s not going anywhere.”
“ Sweet ,” Charlie whispered.
“ And when’s that gonna happen?” Bernie asked. “ You knowing you’re safe?”
“ It’s doubtful I’m not, they just want to make sure.”
“ So … Denver ?” Mel brought us back around.
“ I don’t know. I don’t want him to leave. I’m not fired up about a long-distance thing. I don’t want to think about moving, because I love my life here, and before you say anything, I know it’s way too soon for a decision like that. So it’s going to sound wild when I say, I just know whatever happens, we’ll figure it out.”
“ You really know that,” Charlie said, watching me closely.
“ Know what?” I asked her.
“ Know you’ll figure it out,” she explained.
I smiled. “ Yeah , that’s one thing in all this mess I definitely know.” I took them all in. “ He’s my guy. I can’t explain it, because there’d never been an explanation for it. I just know it.” I patted my hand over my heart. “ Deep in here.”
Charlie put both arms around me and gave me a fierce squeeze. “ I love that for you.”
Bernie and Mel were giving me soft, happy faces.
Shoo !
They got it.
Then again, if I thought about it, I knew they would.
“ Do you all want another cocktail?” The server was at our table.
Bernie looked at her watch. “ Damn , our time is almost up.”
You got allotted timings at 36 Below . You had to drink up and go.
“ I don’t want another,” Charlie said.
“ Me either,” Mel said.
I shook my head.
“ I’ll get your bill,” the waitress mumbled and walked the single step to the server station.
I grabbed my glass to suck down more drink.
“ I think we need to go someplace where Hugger can sit with us,” Bernie decreed.
“ I’m in,” Charlie chirped.
“ Totally ,” Mel said.
“ He’s not going to drink. When he drives, he doesn’t,” I warned them. “ But he’ll probably have a Coke .”
“ I love him already,” Bernie decided.
And I loved her.
I loved all of them.
“ I’m sorry I didn’t tell you guys any of this stuff,” I said.
“ Yes you did,” Mel returned. “ Just now.”
“ All good,” Bernie put in.
Totally loved all of them.
The waitress came back with our bill.
“ Let’s sort this and go get Hugger ,” Charlie said, reaching for the bill.
This wasn’t about them sizing him up.
This was about them getting to know him.
So I uttered not a peep as I opened my clutch to get my credit card.
* * *
“ What the fuck is an ‘ambient jam’?” Hugger asked.
I busted out laughing.
It was after drinks at the Linger Longer Lounge , which included late-night scarfing of fried bologna sandwiches. We were a little overdressed (well, Hugger wasn’t), but it was the Linger Longer and it was Phoenix , so anything went.
It was after incredible sex.
We were in a zone that was coming to be familiar, me on my back in bed, Hugger on me, both of us under the covers, happy, limber, warm post-coital and chatting.
And Charlie had invited us to her gig the next weekend.
An “ambient jam.”
“ We’ll need to down two dirty chais before we hit it, trust me,” I replied.
“ What ?” he asked.
“ She’s in a sort of band. And I don’t say ‘sort of’ to be mean, it’s just not like any band you’ve ever seen, though they play instruments. Charlie’s keyboards, there’s someone on a drum machine, there’s a lead guitar and a bass guitar. But it’s all very…” I searched for a word. “ Moody . They have some recordings, and I have them on my phone. I’ll play one for you tomorrow.”
“ I’m not sure I’m looking forward to that.”
I smiled and ran my fingers along the whiskers at his jaw. “ It’s really nice, if you’re in a mellow mood at home, coloring in books and drinking wine or whatever. It’s a little…shall we say, awkward when you’re out at a gig.”
“ But you go,” he noted.
I shrugged. “ Charlie wants us there, so yeah.”
“ So yeah,” he repeated quietly.
We weren’t going to get into how selfless I was again, because right then, I was feeling cozy good and nicely tired without being exhausted, and we had something else to go over.
“ Did you like them?” I asked.
“ They’re great.”
I smiled again.
“ Mel , Charlie and I had a conversation while you were pissing me off going to the bar with Bernie to get more drinks.”
I beat back a snicker and said, “ They were getting uncomfortable with you buying them all.”
“ Whatever ,” he muttered.
“ What did you chat about?”
“ They said you had an epiphany about your ma.”
Gluh .
“ It was a good night, I’m pleasantly tired, can we leave that for later?” I requested.
“ Only if you tell me you’re good.”
I ran my fingers through his beard and whispered, “ I’m good.”
“ All right.”
That was Hugger .
Everything with him was all right.
With that, he moved to turn off both bedside lamps, then he snuggled me close, front to front, in the dark.
“ Glad you had a good night, baby,” he murmured.
“ Glad you liked my friends, honey,” I murmured back.
Hugger gathered me closer.
I tucked my head under his chin, closed my eyes, and for yet another night, fell asleep snug and safe in my guy’s arms.