Chapter 6 #2
He couldn’t help himself―he wandered into the little nursery and looked down at Indigo.
The baby slept soundly, her little lower lip quivering from time to time.
She was so precious. God, he wished he had enough money to take her and have pictures made!
She wouldn’t be little much longer and he wanted to remember every minute.
Dear god, I sound like a parent! he laughed to himself. The next day would be one week, and he’d survived it. That had to be the greatest accomplishment of his life.
Blue wanted to leave poor Anne alone the next morning, but then he thought of something and ran across the yard to her house.
Fifteen minutes later, she was watching Indigo and he was headed to the fire station with her car.
The firefighters put a car seat in it for him and he drove back, proud that he’d thought to do that so she’d have a seat if she was watching the baby and wanted to take her somewhere.
There was a big surprise for him when he got back. Anne had helped the kids get the grill started and they were grilling hot dogs and hamburgers. “You’re going to eat with us, right?” she asked when he came to collect the baby.
That stunned him. “Um, well, I don’t want to impose.”
“Impose? I just invited you!” Anne said, laughing. “I mean, if you’ve got something else to do…”
“No! No, nothing. Yeah, sure! That sounds like fun.” In less than an hour, they were sitting at the rickety picnic table in Anne’s back yard, eating dogs and burgers and chips, laughing and talking and picking on each other.
He helped them clean up and thanked them again before taking the baby and heading back to his house.
Two hours later, he was tuning his bass at the club, waiting for the other guys to show. Another man stepped up on the stage and picked up Devon’s guitar, and Blue barked out, “Hey, man, not cool! That belongs to somebody else!”
The man turned and, to his surprise, it was Devon!
But it was a different Devon. His hair was trimmed neatly and so was his beard.
He had on a brand-new pair of jeans, a pair of nice western boots, and a very, very cool tee that was also obviously brand new.
Emblazoned across it were the words, “I’m with the band,” and it had the image of a Stratocaster Fleet in the background. “Hey!” Devon said, laughing.
“Wow. I didn’t recognize you. Man, you clean up good!” Blue said, laughing.
“Yeah. My old lady got all over me for looking like a bum,” Devon said, plugging in his amp.
Blue shook his head, still laughing. “Well, I guess I’ll look like a bum forever. I can’t even afford a haircut.”
“Oh, it didn’t cost much. I got it all done at the beauty school. They don’t charge much of anything and they need the practice,” Devon told him.
Beauty school. That could be interesting!
Maybe he’d even meet a cute hairdresser, somebody he could go out with a few times, maybe even a fuck buddy.
Then he thought about Indigo and realized his free-wheeling days were probably a thing of the past. But yeah, a haircut would be great. “Can you give me the number?”
“Sure!” Devon rooted in his pocket for his phone, then pulled it out and showed it to Blue, who put the same number in his phone. “And they have classes in the evenings too, so you wouldn’t have to take time off from work.”
“That’s awesome! Thanks for telling me. I like the boots too,” Blue said, pointing at them.
“Yeah? Those were a birthday present. Pretty nice, huh?” Devon said, holding out a foot for Blue to see.
“Very nice.” Lucky guy. Blue couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a birthday gift, or even a Christmas gift, for that matter.
Nobody knew when his birthday was and nobody cared either.
But someday Indigo would be older. Maybe Anne or Polly could take her to the store then, help her pick out something small.
He’d give her the money for it. But it would be so great to have something that was a surprise, something that someone he loved had given him, even if he had to pay for it himself.
It was like the baby shower. He’d never been so thrilled in his life, and his eyes grew a little misty as he thought about it.
When he called at a little after eight to check on Indigo, there was no answer and he almost panicked. Then he told himself there was no need―she was fine with Anne and the kids.
The call at a little after nine was answered with, “Hello?”
“Hey! Called earlier and got no answer. Is she okay?”
“Oh, yeah! We were at the store and I didn’t hear my phone ring. Sorry,” Anne said, breathless.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Just carrying groceries in. Is it going okay at the club?”
Blue chuckled. “Yeah. Same boozers wanting the same old songs. Pretty much like always.”
“Good. Well, have fun and…”
“Not fun. This is work to me until I get to play something original that I’ve written. And that’s after it’s late and nobody is paying any attention anymore,” he told her.
“You write songs?”
“Yep.”
“Would you play me one sometime?”
Blue blushed on his end of the phone. “Um, yeah, sure, I guess.”
“Great! I’d like that. So don’t worry about her. I’ve got to get this stuff inside. See you in a bit.”
“Yeah. See you in a bit.” He ended the call and sat there for a few seconds, wondering if he’d ever have the money to just go to the store and get what he needed.
When he got home the next morning, Polly was sleeping on the sofa again, and he sent her off to her own bed. After checking on Indigo, he stepped into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator to get out what was left of a bottle of soda. And he almost fainted.
There was a case of beer in his refrigerator, along with two twelve-packs of soda.
Beside the drinks was a container of deli-made chicken salad, a bag of salad mix, and a bottle of ranch dressing, plus a jar of salsa.
He glanced around and, sure enough, there was a bag of chips on the counter.
Then he thought to open the freezer door.
Five frozen dinners were stacked inside, along with two pints of ice cream. Trying to overcome his shock, he stepped into the laundry room to his little pantry, and there he found two large packages of cookies.
Right there in the laundry room, Blue fell to his knees. He was overwhelmed. Why was she being so nice to him? He’d been nothing but nasty to her. Had she really forgotten all the hateful things he’d said to her? And how could she do that? He didn’t know, but he was more than thankful.
Then something flitted across his mind. Was he getting too close to her? Would she misunderstand how he felt about her? Because they were only going to be friends. That couldn’t change. She wasn’t his type. She was…
Better than him. So much better than him.
That put his mind at ease immediately. She was a smart woman, far too smart to ever think about getting hooked up with the likes of him.
That was one thing he was sure he didn’t have to worry about.
But he had to wonder: Why hadn’t she found someone over the years?
She wasn’t his type, but he was sure there was someone out there for whom she would be perfect.
That’s when another thought crossed his mind.
What exactly was his type? Memories of Bettina drifted along, the smell of her skin after a shower, the way the light made her hair glitter.
She’d been his one true love, and he’d fucked that up royally.
He was six feet and two inches, and she’d been about five and eight.
Plus about four and a half feet of that had been legs.
Anne, on the other hand, was kind of short, probably not more than five feet and three inches.
She wasn’t exactly heavy, but she wasn’t skin and bones either, and he wondered what she looked like in something other than the shapeless scrubs she always wore.
Stop thinking about her that way, Wallace , he told himself.
That was never going to happen. His track record with women was anything but stellar.
Matter of fact, it was so far from stellar that “women” and “stellar” couldn’t be used in the same sentence.
But he was glad to have her as a friend.
She was most definitely the best friend he’d ever had, and he’d only known her a week.
Blue struggled to his feet there in the tiny laundry room and stood for a few minutes, trying to collect his thoughts. One thing was sure, though.
AnneBlack was not his kind of woman. She was the good kind, and that was something he’d never have.
When he woke on Sunday morning, Blue looked out the window. The sun was bright and the sky was clear. He was happy about that because he’d decided there was something he wanted to do.
He was going to mow his grass.
A chuckle escaped his lips when he thought about how surprised his neighbors would be!
The old mower was still out back, and he figured he could get it going pretty easily.
As soon as he’d fed Indigo and gotten her settled down for a nap, he grabbed a stale toaster pastry, scarfed it down, and headed out.
He was ever so wrong about the mower. He tried for almost an hour, but no luck.
Finally, he headed over to Anne’s to ask about using hers and decided he’d just mow both lawns.
No one was home, but the shed door was unlocked, so he went in, got the mower out, poured gas in it from the can sitting beside it, and cranked it up.
He’d been mowing along happily for about twenty minutes when he felt someone touch his back and he jumped a foot.
Cutting the engine, he turned to see Anne standing there, laughing. “You scared the shit out of me!”
“Sorry! What are you doing?” she asked, staring around.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m mowing,” he said, trying hard not to grin.
“Where’s the baby?”
“She’s in her bed, sound asleep,” he said, pointing at the house.