Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
I WAS COUNTING down the days to my birthday. October 13th. At least it was on a Monday this year, and not a Friday. Being born on the thirteenth of any month sucked. You knew people were going to think you were the unluckiest person around whenever Black Friday came up.
Three days to go, not counting tonight. I sighed, gingerly bandaging my toes as I sat on the toilet and ignored the flashing light and vibration of my cell. I was a crap girlfriend. The past three weeks, Matt and I had been out on dates. No frigging sex. Honestly. Didn’t he know how hard it was for me? Matt was hot stuff, vanilla ecstasy, swirl-a-fucking-licious, finger-licking good. All I’d gotten at the end of each date when he walked me to my front door was a chaste peck on the lips and a sexy wink. Huh. Proper meanie he was.
Sex was the last thing on my mind now though. I wriggled my toes, stood up and took a few steps. The house phone started ringing and I sighed loudly, leaving the answering machine to pick up the call as I grabbed my cell and walked out of my bathroom.
I paused halfway down the stairs, catching the tail-end of the message.
“—issing you, poppet. Call me when you get this message.”
I’d been hoping Matt would be away on business, no such luck. It didn’t seem to matter if my birthday wasn’t Black Friday, I couldn’t catch a break.
Marie-Sol and Bret were flying in tonight, early morning really. Dante was coming over in an hour to accompany me on the drive to Heathrow. The Cayenne was now my new baby, and I was begrudgingly glad it had more than enough space to hold their suitcases and their persons. My Beetle had been sent to that oh-so-sad place where unfixable cars went.
I pottered about my terrace, tidying up any remaining mess, and generally not knowing what to do with myself. I was seated in my kitchen sipping coffee when my cell vibrated across the table. I sighed and picked it up.
“Hey, hon.”
“Poppet.” Matt breathed out in relief. “I’ve been trying to contact you all day.”
“I know. Sorry, things have been busy at the studio. Are you in your office?” I glanced at the digital clock on my stove. Nine fifteen pm. I knew the answer before he confirmed it.
“Unfortunately, yes. Listen, I’m planning on stopping by tonight. I should be out of here in the next thirty minutes, and I want to discuss what I have in store for your birthday.”
I stiffened on my seat. Darn it. Matt didn’t seem to pick up on my hints, or maybe he was ignoring them. He ignored things if they were contrary to his wants, totally understandable as he always got his way in the end.
Not this time though.
“I’m out tonight, Matt.”
There was a short pause. “I see. Where exactly will you be out tonight, poppet? I’m certain we didn’t have a date arranged, so I’m at a loss as to where you’re going and with whom.”
“I do have a life that doesn’t revolve around you,” I said dryly. Of late, that wasn’t the reality of my situation. My whole damned life seem to revolve around Matthew Bradley. We’d been on seven dates over the past three weeks. Four of those dates had been hijacked by the stupid paparazzi. How on earth they knew where we were? Neither Matt nor I could figure it out. All I knew was, on those four occasions when we left wherever we were, there would be the blinding flash of lights and questions about our romance being hurled in our direction as Matt hustled me into his car. I didn’t know how he lived his life being hounded by the media. I was undecided on how to feel about it intruding in my life.
“Whatever you say, poppet. Where are you going?”
“Heathrow Airport.”
Another pause, this one a bit longer. “May I ask why you’re going to Heathrow?”
“You may ask, but I can’t promise to answer.”
“You can’t sing and you’re not funny, poppet,” Matt crooned down the line. I smiled to myself as he asked why again.
“A couple of my friends are flying in. Didn’t I mention it to you before? I’m sure I did.” I hadn’t.
“It must have slipped your mind,” Matt replied with an undertone of something in his voice. He knew I hadn’t mentioned it before, but he was letting it go. Will wonders never cease?
“Yeah, totally slipped my mind,” I drawled. “It’s going to be a manic weekend for me. Did I mention they were staying at mine?”
Matt exhaled down the line. “I don’t see how you could when you forgot to mention they were coming, Madison.”
Complete first name…someone was getting irritated. Maybe if I caused a major fight that would last for a week…yes, yes. Why didn’t I think of this before? Because my levels of bat-shit craziness had been on a steady decline the more time I spent with Matt. He was having an almost calming effect on me. Time to get my levels back up. Normal women didn’t do this, did they? Pick a fight with their honey-bears in order to avoid seeing them around their birthdays? Maybe they did.
“Matt, you’re smothering me.” My tone was sharp, but my face twisted with guilt. Please let this be one of my ‘good’ bad ideas.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Smothering, you know, overwhelming someone with too much affection with the effect that said person feels restricted.”
“Okay,” he said after a few charged seconds. “What is wrong with you? I know it’s not your time of month. That was last week. Did you have a horrible day at the studio? Have you perhaps lost your bloody mind?”
Aahh. My ‘good’ bad plan seemed to be taking off here. Oh God. I was going to regret this shit.
“No to all those questions, Matt. You can get a bit much sometimes. ‘Where are you, poppet? Why haven’t you answered your phone, poppet? I want to see you, poppet. Do this, poppet. Do that, poppet.’ It’s like having a parole officer when I haven’t committed a crime. And my picture was in the papers yet again today. The photographer made my ass look big, Matt. I need some time to myself—”
“Time to yourself?” he asked quietly. Why wasn’t he yelling at me? He should be fuming. Matt continued in a calm voice, “But aren’t your friends staying with you?”
“Well, yeah.” I tried to think of something else I could say to annoy my knight. “But they’re my friends. They’re an extension of myself, so they don’t count.”
“I’m smothering you?” he asked. “I want to be clear on this, Madison.”
“Uh hmm,” I mumbled, feeling like the biggest bitch alive.
“Poppet,” Matt’s voice was gentle and I got nervous. He did not sound like a man who’d basically been told by his girlfriend to get lost. “Why are you trying to pick a fight with me? Is there a particular reason you don’t want me around at this time? Talk to me.”
“How do you do that?” I jumped to my feet and began to pace the length of my small kitchen. “Are you part Vulcan? Have you done some weird mind-meld on me? Because it’s like you always know what I’m thinking.”
His side of the line was silent.
I took a few deep breaths before apologizing. It was a ‘bad’ bad idea, a stupid one. “I’m sorry, Matt. It’s—I’m not—now isn’t—” I sighed loudly, unable to construct a proper sentence. My chest felt tight with emotion and my eyes felt dry and itchy, the dry itchiness you get right before you burst into tears.
“Madi, whatever it is, we can sort it,” he said with quiet confidence and my stupid eyes started tearing up. I wanted his anger, not his sweet caring.
I cradled my cell to my ear and leaned against the cabinets. “No, we can’t, Matt. I get real messy around this time, and I don’t want you seeing me like that. Please understand. It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with you, but the next few days are going to be bad. I’m talking sewerage plant explosion bad.”
He chuckled softly down the line at my analogy and I smiled a little, just a little.
“Shit raining from the heavens kind of thing?” he teased tenderly, and I smiled more than a little.
“Yes, exactly.” I flexed my right foot a few times. “If you see me like that, well, let’s just say the next thing I’ll hear from you is: ‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you.’”
“What time are your friends arriving at Heathrow?” Matt asked suddenly.
The unexpected change of topic left my head spinning, and I answered automatically, “Two am. Why?”
“If I leave now, I can get to yours in well under an hour and accompany you to the airport. I don’t like the idea of you on the roads at that time,” he explained.
“Dante’s coming over,” I blurted out. “He’s going with me to the airport.”
Matt’s side went silent again, then he said, “That’s fine, poppet. I’m still going to pop over tonight, though.”
“Matt, please. You don’t have to come over. I’ll be fine, I just need to do my thing for the next few days, then everything will be back to normal. Don’t worry about me.”
“But I do, poppet.”
“I’m a big girl, Matt.”
“You’re not a girl,” he continued in that gentle tone of his. “You’re my woman and you’re tiny.”
“Ballerina size,” I corrected.
“Pint size,” he joked and I grinned. He was good at making me smile.
“Be that as it may, my lovely knight,” I replied softly. “I need to handle this in my own way. Please understand.”
Matt sighed down the phone. “All right, poppet.”
“Thank you for understanding.” I wandered back to the seat I’d vacated and plopped down.
“As long as you don’t make a habit of shutting me out, poppet. This is going to wreak havoc with my plans,” he said.
That made me curious and a bit alarmed. “What were you planning? Something totally over the top? You haven’t bought me anything stupid, have you? Like a jet or other expensive crap?”
Matt chuckled, his sexy chuckle that seemed to caress my senses. “No, Madi. I was planning a surprise dinner party for you. I thought it would be nice for you to meet my main group of friends.”
Thank goodness I didn’t have to do that shit. Meet more of Matt’s friends? I could barely handle Nathan’s silent disapproval. Matt’s friends would probably be like Nathan, up their own asses and secretly judging me. How Nathan had ended up with someone as sweet as Bella was mind boggling.
“That’s a nice thought,” I murmured, hoping I sounded genuine. “Maybe I could meet them another time.”
When I’m not drunk off my ass and wailing like a banshee.
“Of course, poppet.” Matt paused and I could hear the shuffling of papers. He worked hard, all the time. “When will I be able to see you?”
I thought about it for a few seconds. The fifteenth was the anniversary of my parents’ deaths. Wednesday. Middle of the week. Meltdown day. “Next Friday.”
“Poppet,” Matt’s tone conveyed how much he didn’t like the sound of that.
“It’s a week, Matt.” I let out a hollow laugh. “Honestly, anyone would think you can’t live without me.”
“I can’t,” Matt replied staunchly. “Live without you, that is.”
The air caught in my throat at his words. He was a guarded man, aloof and private.
But never with me. Matt was so open about his feelings it put me to shame. I was trying my best to follow his lead. It was hard, hard to stop hiding behind my walls, to let him in completely.
To trust the way he felt about me was true and not some dream fabricated by my mind. He had to love me. Why else would he act this way? I needed to buy one of those relationship books…just to be sure.
“Matt.” I took a deep breath and tried to quell the voice in my head shouting warnings at me. “I can’t live without you, either.” It was nothing more than a whisper, so quiet I wasn’t sure he heard me.
Until he said, “Good, about bloody time you admitted it.”
I laughed and he laughed with me.
“Friday?” he asked. “That’s a long time away, poppet.”
“A week, Matt. Absence makes the heart—”
“Grow fonder,” he finished my sentence. “All right, Friday it is, but I will be calling you every single day.”
“I wouldn’t expect any less of you.”
“Poppet.” His voice had changed, almost apprehensive. “I know you haven’t spoken about your parents—”
“Don’t.” I cut him off quickly. “It’s fine, I’m fine.”
“If you were, then you wouldn’t be banishing me from your presence until next Friday,” he argued gently. “Look, hear me out for a minute.” Matt took a deep breath, then continued. “I won’t profess to know how you feel about the anniversary of their deaths.” He paused, when I unconsciously let out a wounded sound, but persevered. “I can’t even begin to understand what you’re going through right now, poppet. I want you to know I’m here for you. Whatever you need, I’ll make sure you have it. A shoulder to cry on, a nice cuddle, new shoes, whatever it is you need, poppet.”
I gulped silently. Amazing. Matthew Bradley was a-fucking-mazing. “I love you, Matt.”
“And I you, Madi. Call me when you get back from the airport. I need to know you’ve gotten home safe.”
I hung up after agreeing to call him on my return and more mushy declaration of our emotional attachment. The two of us could form a mutual appreciation club. Members: two. Subscription: lifelong, or as long as we lasted. I could picture a grey-haired Matt bossing me around on some Zimmer frames, while checking out my flabby, wrinkly butt. Nice…unless he turned into his Grumps as he got older. A shudder went through me, thinking of the old man. About a week after my vague confession to Matt concerning the exchange I had with his grandfather, Matt had asked me what exactly had been said. I still hadn’t told him the verbal bullets Grumps had pumped into me, yet I had a niggling sense of unease he somehow knew…which was an impossibility. I couldn’t shake the feeling though that he did know and was testing me, testing my honesty, my willingness to keep things from him. Man, I was paranoid. It didn’t help he was part Vulcan. It was the only explanation behind his ability to read me so easily.
No, I would take Grumps’s words with me to the grave.
Half an hour later, Dante was opening my front door with his keys. I chewed my lower lip, remembering Matt’s directive of reclaiming them.
“Sweet cheeks?” The front door slammed close.
“In the kitchen,” I yelled, hearing him coming further into my home. Seconds later, he sauntered into the kitchen.
“Got any food?” he asked with a wide grin. His dark skin glistening with moisture and his t-shirt had numerous damp spots. It must be starting to rain.
“No, but I can make you something if you want.” I was getting up from the table and moving towards the fridge.
“I want,” he said with a nod, and walked over to take the seat I had vacated.
“It’ll be good to see Marie-Sol and Bret.” I rifled around the fridge. “Chicken salad do you?”
“That sounds good, sweet cheeks, and, yeah, it’ll be good to see my boy, Bret. I’m ashamed to admit this, but I miss Sol’s craziness.”
I laughed and took out the necessary ingredients to make Dante something to eat. It was bad for your digestive system, eating this late. But, so far, our waistlines weren’t showing the ill-effects.
“Have you seen the hits on their website? It won’t be long before they’re proper rock stars.”
Dante nodded in agreement, getting up from the chair to lounge against the counter as I took out my frying pan.
“If our company goes bust, at least we have another route to fame and fortune,” Dante mused thoughtfully.
I arched my eyebrows with a shake of head. “D, it’s been a few years since I’ve sat behind drums, and I know you haven’t been stroking that guitar of yours. We’ll only drag them down.”
Dante shrugged, and we both exchanged a fond stare at the memories of our teen years. Dante and I were dancers, Bret and Marie-Sol were musicians. We were once all in a band though, rocking out our teenaged dramas, until it became too much for Dante and I. Dance was our first love and there wasn’t enough time in the world to do both. Plus, Uncle David hated noise. Never could understand why he threw my last kit out when he was the one who’d gotten me my first drum kit on my seventh birthday. I was an angry little girl, I needed to vent somewhere and ballet class was not the place. Ballet is about control: core control, limb control, mind-over-matter control. And it saved me.
But my anger at the drastic change my young life had taken was consuming me. The drums had helped. A lot. I couldn’t sing. Seriously, even humming sounded bad coming from me, but I could dance like a dream and play the drums mean.
“Well, I can still play. A bit rusty, but I can do it.” Dante sniffed the bowl of seasoned chicken and rubbed his stomach.
“Can you start on the salad?” I asked, wondering if I should broach the spare keys topic.
We worked effortlessly around each other. It was as easy as breathing. I started feeling more serene. Dante was my constant. My friend. My rock.
Before long, we were tucking into grub and eagerly anticipating the arrival of our friends. They would only be here for a few days, flying back to the States the day after my birthday. I loved my friends. The fact they were willing to take a long haul flight to be with me around the worst time of my life was humbling.
“Sweet cheeks.”
“Mhmm.”
“You’re going to be okay.”
“I know, Dante.”
We resumed eating, well, Dante resumed eating and I pushed the food around my plate. “It should be easier by now, D. It’ll be twenty-one years come Wednesday. Why can’t I let it go?”
Dante chewed slowly, scrutinizing my face as he swallowed. “I don’t know, Madi. Why should you let it go? You lost your parents in a bad way at a young age. You’ve never let it hold you back, you’ve never played the victim…so what if you have a meltdown once a year? That’s your way of dealing with it.”
I smiled at him. “What would I do without you?”
“Probably end up on the streets,” Dante teased with a fond grin. “Or shaking your fine ass on a table somewhere—” He broke off when my lettuce landed on his forehead.
I shook my head and fiddled with my utensils. Next year would be better. Next year I’d deal with it better, I’d be over it. Thing was, I had said the exact same thing last year and all the years before it. I was broken and couldn’t be fixed. Scarred. Damaged goods.
I was thankful Matt had agreed to stay away. The next few days would be messy. Painful and messy. Meltdowns were never fun.
>>>
Something tickled my nose. A groan crept past my dry and cracked lips as I sleepily jerked away from the offending touch. Again a light tickle. This time, I managed to prise one eye open to encounter the bloodshot green eyes of Marie-Sol. God. She looked how I felt. Like shit. Her index finger was the culprit, trailing lightly over my nose.
“MSG, I made you an arepita,” she rasped. My old nickname though garbled was sweet to my ears.
“With queso blanco rallado?” I rasped back. How she managed to slip that past customs I had no idea.
She nodded, then stopped with a tortured groan. “You need to eat, MSG.”
I struggled into an upright position, moaning at the pain in my head and hating the sunlight streaming through my bedroom curtains. I was going to order blackouts, right after breakfast.
“What time is it, Sol?” I asked as she slumped against the pillows. Her long, black hair was in disarray.
“Too damned early,” she mumbled, eyelids slipping close. “Brush your teeth, your breath is foul.”
If I had the energy, I would have laughed. There was no energy. There was no laugh.
“Happy Birthday,” she said, tugging me down into a hug. We both groaned. Moving was bad.
“Are the boys awake?” I cleared my throat. How much had I drunk last night? Hell, how much had I drunk since Friday? It was Monday today, my birthday. And my friends would be flying home tomorrow. I only had them for one more day.
“Yeah,” she grumbled into my face. Her breath was stinky, too. I peered at her face. She was pretty. South American mother and German father. And she had the voice of an angel, except when her throat was being abused by copious amounts of alcohol.
“Are they still planning to—”
“Yeah.” She started to grin at me. “Bret bought a leather belt especially for you. I think my man has a fetish for your ass, MSG. He’s planned out a schedule on how to deliver all twenty-seven lashes.”
“Asshole,” I muttered, dreading the game that had started years ago. It wasn’t so bad when I was eleven. But now at twenty-seven? Those lashes were adding up, and Bret never went easy on me.
I sighed and snuggled into Marie-Sol.
“Your arepita is going cold, MSG, and we’ve got a lot more partying to do. How are you holding up?” she asked, wrapping her smelly pits around me.
“Urgh. Sol. You stink.” I rolled away and she laughed, then groaned, clutching her head.
“You, too. Answer the question. How are you holding up?”
I shrugged and slowly sat up again, holding my head as still as possible. “You know me, surviving.”
“Surviving,” she repeated, easing herself upright and doing the same immobile head move that I did. “I need some of your brownies today.”
I started to grin. “Flying high later?”
Marie-Sol leaned over slowly, gripping her head, to press a kiss on my cheek. “Touching the sky, baby. Let’s go downstairs before the boys eat everything.”
Helping each other, we got out of bed and made our way, rather unsteadily, down the stairs in our sweat-stained t-shirts and undies. When we hobbled into my kitchen, the boys were wolfing down Marie-Sol’s delicious arepitas.
“Hey, birthday girl,” Dante said, wiping his hands on a napkin before opening his arms. I went straight over, curling onto his lap as he wrapped his arms around me. “Happy Birthday, sweet cheeks.”
I muttered thanks into his neck and hugged him tighter. Dante rubbed his hand over my t-shirt clad back in circular motions, while Bret got halfway off his chair to lean over and kiss my shoulder.
“Happy Birthday, MSG.”
Marie-Sol stood over Dante and passed a hand over my jungle-wild hair. The three of them encircled me with affection, with support. I loved my friends.
“Coffee?” Bret asked, standing up fully and pushing his chair back. I raised my head from Dante’s neck and nodded. Bret rolled his neck and shoulders, working out the kinks, then sauntered over to get me coffee. Marie-Sol eyed her boyfriend of five years. They were cute together. It had taken them a long while before they gave into the simmering heat that bubbled between them. I remembered being fifteen and having to listen to Marie-Sol list all the reasons she despised him, immediately followed by all the reasons she was crushing on him. I knew they would end up together, but it had been a long road for them to get where they were now.
“You smell, sweet cheeks,” Dante advised as he sniffed, then wrinkled his nose. His usual braids were undone and his ’fro had bits of fluff in it. I reached up to pluck it out and his nose wrinkled further. “Damn, Madi. You need a shower.”
I slapped my hand in the middle of his bare chest and rolled my eyes before slipping off his lap. I stretched in my t-shirt and Dante’s gaze lingered for a second before it jumped behind me. Slyly.
My eyes widened. Oh shi—
“Ow!” I yelled in shock as my ass was the recipient of a leather-induced smack.
“That’s number one, MSG,” Bret stated without remorse as I spun around to face him, hand rubbing my stinging butt. He slung the belt around his neck and grinned at me. He, too, was bare-chested like Dante, wearing slacks and barefoot. I scowled at him, still rubbing my butt. Under normal circumstances, if a skinny white man took a belt to an inebriated black woman, things would’ve gotten dead real, dead fast. But Bret was my people, and this was a tradition—a dumb one, but tradition, nonetheless.
“Why don’t you give me them all right now?” I grumbled, sidestepping him and making my way to the coffee machine. Marie-Sol chuckled and Dante resumed eating.
“Ow!” I yelped again as the belt landed on my other cheek.
“That’s two.” Bret held the belt in his hand and blew me a kiss. “Twenty-five to go, MSG.”
“Freak,” I said, making sure my back was facing the other way. I needed pants on fast. But I needed coffee more.
The weekend was a blur. Friday was spent taking Bret and Marie-Sol to the sights of London. Friday night was hitting the pubs.
Saturday, Dante and I took them to the dance studio for a bit, then out for lunch. Saturday night, we slammed the clubs.
And yesterday. Ah yesterday. We did shopping, then came home, changed and went to this cool bohemian bar with live music and delicious cocktails. We ended up on stage, jamming like we owned the place. The owners tolerated it as the band they hired wasn’t that good, and we played for free. The patrons loved it, and we were high as kites.
Today was Monday, my birthday. After my much-needed shower, I was going to tape a bottle of whiskey to my hand the way Marie-Sol had taped my mouth shut on stage last night to ensure I didn’t start singing in my chemically altered state.
If Aunt Cleo saw what I’d been getting up to, she’d flip, then bust my ass while yelling, “I told you to act right. We’re going to church to get some Jesus in you.” Hell, she might bust my ass anyway. She had called over the weekend, and I couldn’t remember what the conversation was about. Same thing with Matt. I knew I had spoken to him every day since Thursday night but, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what we spoke about. I would worry about it later. Right now, I needed coffee and my arepita. Scratch that. I forwent the coffee and picked up a half-drunk bottle of rum.
“MSG.” Bret was eyeing my arepita. When he reached for it, Marie-Sol smacked his hand away. “It’s only nine thirty.”
“And?” I asked sourly, raising the bottle to my lips as they watched silently. They hid the worry in their eyes well, they were used to this yearly occurrence. After a deep glug and a coughing episode, I walked over to the table and took a seat. “It’s called ‘hair of the dog’, Bret. It’s what we English do for a hangover.”
“Give me some of that hair of the dog then,” he said, pushing my plate towards me and simultaneously prying the bottle from my hand. He took a small sip and, instead of handing the bottle back, he put it well out of my reach as Marie-Sol sent him a thankful look. I ignored them and started to eat.
“Mmm,” I mumbled as my alcohol-drowned taste buds experienced something else for the first time in hours. There was an orgasm taking place in my mouth. “Oh my God…mmm…Sol, this is the best…mmm.”
“I’ll make you another if you eat all of that one,” she promised, and I nodded eagerly. Breakfast, shower, then drink and make brownies. My day was planned. Happy freaking birthday to me.