April 2025 #2
He kissed me frantically, and in moments, I was in his lap as I was devoured.
It was impressive, the way I hadn’t heard him unclip either his belt or mine, and there was the console between us as well that I’d been lifted over.
All of that movement was seamless, and there I was, in his arms, because he was hungry to affirm our connection.
“You’re insane,” I gasped, breaking the kiss to look into his eyes. “First, you don’t know if the man is nice or good or anything else. You know him from work. Period.”
“Yeah, but––”
“Second, I will remind you again, that you prioritized your family. We all knew that if you could possibly come home—you would. And now they need you in their lives so much that they don’t want to leave the city you’re in.”
Clearly choked up, he could only nod.
“Nobody’s perfect, and God knows you’re not,” I assured him. “But you have to––”
“What’d you just say?”
“––remind yourself that, hey, even though I’m allergic to doing laundry and moving rinsed dishes from the sink into the dishwasher, that––”
“Listen––”
“––there are other things that you excel at. Like, for example, supervising other people while they work. That is particularly helpful. Giving directions at the same time things are being done… My goodness, everyone loves that.”
“That was a lot of sarcasm,” he muttered.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“And I think it’s important for you to know when you’re not doing something right so you can adjust your––”
“And certainly, saying things like don’t worry and calm down are also so very important to say when––”
“I think we’re getting off track here and––”
“Perhaps you need to read the room sometimes before opening your mouth.”
Instantly, his brows furrowed.
“These are just helpful observations.”
“I––”
“Sometimes,” I said, grinning at him, “keeping one’s opinions to oneself can be the most useful path.”
“I don’t know about that,” he grumbled.
I laughed before I kissed him. Once he was breathless and had to break the kiss to gulp air, he took that moment to wrap me in his arms and hug me tight. I was fairly certain the crisis was averted after that.
“You’d never leave me,” he muttered, more to himself than to me.
“No, Sam Kage, I would not,” I said into the side of his neck. “Who gives up the love of their life?”
He grunted, and I was squeezed tighter, which I didn’t mind even one bit. I would even endure helpful anecdotes at the worst times in exchange for hugs that made it hard to breathe. I mean really, who wouldn’t?
I was surprised when we got home and Hannah and Jake were there rummaging through our refrigerator.
“I’m thinking there were lots of places to eat between here and your home that would have rendered this visit unnecessary,” Sam told his daughter before he kissed her forehead.
“Yes, but that way I wouldn’t have gotten to see you,” she informed him. “And Pa said he made cheese-and-potato pierogies, and I wanted some.”
I was forgetting something.
Jake was at the counter making himself a sandwich and turned his head to look at me. “I can read it all over your face,” he said with a grin. “You’re thinking, wait now, I thought Finn and Kola were going to bring you all home food from their dinner tonight.”
“Yes,” I said, “that’s it. I thought Anne was cooking.”
“Oh she cooked, poor lady.”
I turned to Hannah. “What does that mean?”
“In answer I will say, let’s go to the monitor, kids,” she said overly perky and pointed back over at Jake, who had his phone out for Sam and me.
“What is––” Sam squinted, taking the phone from Jake. “––where is this?”
“That is Finn’s uncle Conor’s house in Marybrook.”
“Okay,” he said, touching the screen, and then quickly groaned. “You see, I was right. Thank God we didn’t go.” He sounded horrified as he leaned on the counter to get a better look. “These pictures are—damn. And wait, there’s a video too?”
“Yeah, but don’t start it yet. Wait for Pa, because your son narrates and it’s…hysterical.”
“Hey, you,” he called over to me. “C’mere.”
I was chuckling as I walked over and put my head on his shoulder.
“Keep in mind he’s talking to me and B and not you two,” Jake said, chuckling.
“What does that have to do with anything.”
Jake scoffed. “You’ll see.”
Sam hit the Play button.
“Okay,” Kola began, “for your viewing pleasure, here we are at Finn’s uncle Conor’s place—who is his father’s youngest brother for those following at home—who told Finn that dating me was a bad idea because what if I was a psycho…” Evil chuckle then.
Both Sam and I turned to look at Hannah.
“He’s hateful in real life. Don’t you two know this?”
We looked back at the phone screen.
“Our boy Conor is currently engaged in more than one long-term affair, one of which is with his best friend’s wife.” Kola finished with a cackle.
Hannah snickered. “Ohmygod, the evil laughing is to die for.”
“You’re both bad people,” I assured her.
She grunted.
We got video of a Toyota Sequoia then that was on top of a portion of white picket fence because it had clearly run into and over it, had then decimated a boxwood at the end of the drive—like it looked like the truck was a giant planter, that’s how embedded the shrub was—and killed a mailbox.
“Now, here is the man in question,” Kola announced, “Conor Murray.”
He was handsome, built muscular with a golden tan, and had the same blond hair as Finn except there was some silver in his. Apparently, all the Murray men were a fetching lot.
“The good news is, the lady responsible for the cold-blooded murder of a boxwood is not, in fact, drunk, just really mad. Let’s listen in, shall we?”
“He’s being so snide,” Sam said through his own chuckle.
“You’re not any better,” I assured him.
Up the front walkway came a very tall, very beautiful redhead, who, in my opinion, being maybe all of twenty-six if I had to venture a guess, was far too young for the aforementioned Conor.
She had an aluminum baseball bat in her right hand and was swinging it as she closed in on an unassuming garden gnome. “Motherfucking, cheating ass Conor Murray, you better get your ass out here!”
“Wait.” I was confused and looked over at Hannah.
“Oh, the gnome just got it,” Sam announced, keeping me apprised of the play-by-play.
“That is Christine,” Hannah began, “and she’s the one who owns the Toyota Sequoia, and she’s one of the two affairs he’s having, though she’s not the wife of Conor’s best friend.”
“This is nuts,” Sam told her.
“Just keep watching.”
Back with my head on Sam’s shoulder, I regarded the devastation of lawn ornaments that included a metallic peacock, a couple of tall flower wind spinners, the Virgin Mary—which I thought was in especially poor taste to reduce to rubble—a wooden giraffe, and various sized plastic flamingos.
“She’s going to hell for what she did to Mother Mary,” Sam pointed out.
We had a close-up of Finn’s father, Eammon, who was standing there, on the front lawn, with his mouth open and his hands laced together on top of his head. We then moved to Finn’s mother, Anne, standing, gobsmacked on the stairs, and finally to Finn, who was shaking his head at Kola.
“But wait, there’s more,” Kola announced cheerfully, as a cherry-red 1967 Chevrolet Impala, a four-door hardtop sedan, which was Dean’s car from Supernatural, came to a screeching stop in front of the house.
Out of that hopped a tall man with salt-and-pepper hair, who was carrying, I was guessing, an extra fifteen to twenty pounds on him.
He came charging up the drive, and someone said, “Oh shit,” near Kola.
“You’re a son of a whore, Murray! You’re supposed to be my best motherfucking mate!” he yelled at Conor, who had just appeared out on the lawn beside Finn’s father. I noted that he immediately tried to run before the man dived at him.
Funny to see Finn’s father move around to get out of the way of the grappling men.
“What does son of a whore mean?” a little voice asked.
“Oh, honey,” a woman replied shakily.
“He said son of a horse,” Kola enunciated for whatever child was there. “Horse. We just didn’t hear the S and the E very well.”
“That’s what I thought,” a little voice confirmed. “What about the mother one?”
“Not even a real word,” he said in that tone he had that conveyed absolute conviction. He’d been using it since he was five.
“Okay,” the little voice said, taking his word, as most did, as gospel.
A whispered thank-you then, and Kola’s husky, “No worries,” in return.
“Let’s go, angel.”
“But I want Auntie Anne’s cinnamon rolls.”
“Okay. Let’s go get some.”
“And we’re back,” Kola announced acerbically, and in the frame, another car parked behind the Impala, in the middle of the street, this one a newer Ford Bronco that a woman got out of, probably in her early forties, wearing a gorgeous navy dress with white polka dots.
“Oh no,” I groaned.
“That’s Finn’s aunt Gabrielle, Gabby,” Jake told us, having finished the sandwich he’d been making and holding it out for Hannah, who darted over.
“Thank you,” she said with a sigh. “It’s beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful,” he praised her, smiling as he started on his own.
“You’re ridiculous, but I love you, and I have strawberry pie chilling in the refrigerator ready for consumption.”
“Because you’re beautiful and a good person,” he made sure she knew.
Her giggle made me smile.
“You do?” Sam asked her.
“I do what, sir?” she questioned him, batting her eyelashes.
“Have pie in the fridge.”
“I do.” She beamed at him. “And while Jake’s pie has a heretical chocolate crust, yours has a traditional graham cracker one, as you would rather, and I quote, gargle glass than eat any kind of chocolate with strawberries.”
“Because it’s disgusting.”
“Chocolate-covered strawberries are an actual thing,” she apprised him.
“C’mere,” he ordered, and she bounced over and hugged him.
“I really want to know what happens next,” I told Sam after hugging Hannah as well. “But I can’t watch this anymore.”