Chapter 7 - Morris
MORRIS
By the time we reach my apartment, both Alice and Zoey are sound asleep. Zoey’s in full hibernation, her mouth wide open and her head angled back against the padding of her booster chair.
Alice, if it’s even possible, looks more radiant asleep than awake. She’s shifted so her head is inclined against the headrest, and she’s curled kind of halfway on her side facing Zoey, a protective hand on the booster seat even as she sleeps.
When Leo stops the car, he doesn’t immediately kill the engine. “Uh…” he mutters, looking behind him. “They’re asleep.”
I laugh, quietly, so we don’t wake them. The fact that we’ve stopped and the lack of road noise will wake them soon enough. “Here.” I hand him the key to my apartment. “Use the back entrance. The stairs are less narrow than if you go in the front. I’m on the second floor, unit three.”
“I’ll get the luggage,” he says. “What are we gonna do about her car?”
“We’ll talk inside,” I say and unbuckle my seat belt.
I slip out of the truck and open the rear passenger door by Alice.
I admire the extended cab Leo’s got going.
This truck is surprisingly old, but it’s in great shape.
If this is any indication of the kind of work the kid does, I have no doubt he’ll be able to repair Alice’s beater. We’ll get her fixed up in no time.
Although, where she’ll go when she can leave is another matter.
“Sweetheart?” I don’t want to scare her, so I rest a hand on her knee and give her a gentle nudge. “Alice, we’re here.”
She opens her eyes as if I’ve fired a shot. She bolts upright and immediately puts her hands in front of her face and ducks down behind them.
I don’t have to ask what she’s doing.
I’ve seen it plenty of times before.
She’s obviously been awakened one too many times in anger. By someone whose fists were a wake-up call.
The fact that she has to brace herself for even one moment in my presence makes my blood boil. I clench my fists and then realize doing that may stanch my anger, but it only drives the point home to her. I release my hands fast and lean into the back seat.
“It’s okay,” I assure her, spreading an open hand on the seat. She should be able to see that my hands are nowhere near where they can hurt her. “We’re here. You want to wake up the little princess, or should we carry her? I’m on the second floor.”
I watch as Alice’s expression goes from lost and hiding to gentle realization. She peeks from between her fingers and sees Leo heading into the building, carrying her bags. She looks at me and studies my face for a long minute. She looks away when I meet her eyes directly, but then she looks back.
For a minute, we stare, locked in an exploration so potent, I feel as if she is looking through me.
“Alice?” I echo.
She nods quickly and shakes her head. “I’m sorry,” she says, licking her lips. “I dozed off. I was so…” She reaches for her purse and looks at Zoey, fast asleep beside her. “It was nice,” she says. “I think that’s the most relaxed I’ve been in…two years.”
The boulder in my chest catches fire when she says that.
Two years.
“I’ll wake her,” Alice says. “She doesn’t usually nap anymore. She must have been really worn-out.”
“You too,” I say, and Alice looks at me again. Through me.
“I was,” she agrees. “Am.” But with that admission, the moment between us ends. She turns her attention to Zoey and strokes the little girl’s hair. “Zoey,” she whispers. She leans close to her daughter’s face and gives her a gentle kiss on the cheek.
I watch her wake up her baby, and I am moved by the tenderness between them.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been around kids, and most of the kids I’ve known have been little wildings, ill-mannered offspring that I had no desire to spend time around kids, let alone talk to. But the raw tenderness between Alice and Zoey makes me think about what I’ve been missing.
When Jessica talked to me about marriage, about making a life that was more than one night’s pleasure at a time, I couldn’t picture it. Wouldn’t. That domestic life’s not for me. I’m not any better suited to diaper duty than I am doing yoga or singing opera.
Fucking, drinking, and riding.
It’s what I love, and it’s my religion, politics, and lifestyle. My brothers are my family. Family dinners and shit like car seats are for other men.
“Morris?” Alice has inched up to the edge of the bench seat. “She’s really out. I may need to carry her. Would you mind grabbing the booster seat?”
She lifts her brows as if to remind me I need to move out of the doorway if I want her to pass by. But I can smell her sugar-cookie sweetness from here, and I’m drunk on it. I flare my nostrils, taking more of it in, all of it I can before I have to move aside and let her pass.
“Yeah,” I say, “I got it.”
I stand back so she has room to stick a leg out of the back seat, but then she reaches out her hand and holds it. Waiting. For me to take it. Touch her again.
The invitation hits me hard.
She trusts me.
I open my hand, and she grips mine and then jumps down onto the pavement.
She smooths the strap of her handbag over her chest, slinging it crossways between her breasts with one hand while she grips my hand in the other.
We stand there holding hands for a moment, Alice swaying slightly toward me.
Her face is almost pressed against my chest when a small, sleepy voice calls out to us.
“Mama? Where are we?”
Alice drops my hand like it’s hot and jerks her head upright. Then she turns and sticks her head back into the truck. “I’m coming around to get you, baby,” she says.
She scurries around the front of the truck and opens the driver’s side rear door. She has Zoey out of her booster and on the ground before I can catch up.
“You okay? Awake now, Sleeping Beauty? She’s a princess, isn’t she?” I ask, looking down at the mussed hair and sleep lines on Zoey’s face.
Alice looks at me in barely contained surprise, while Zoey seems to have gone from asleep to wide awake in the few seconds it took to get her out of the car.
“Yes, she totally is a princess too,” Zoey says. She reaches for my hand and starts walking toward Leo, who is strolling back toward the truck. “Sleeping Beauty’s real name is Aurora, so her princess name…”
I turn my head and bug my eyes out at Alice. Is this okay? I mouth. This little lady can talk, and she’s already down some rabbit hole of princess facts I can’t follow. Meanwhile, she’s leading me into the apartment building like she’s been here a hundred times before.
Alice purses her lips and smiles so big her eyes crinkle shut. She nods and waves us off, and then sticks her head back in the truck, presumably to grab the booster seat.
“Help Alice,” I grunt to Leo as he passes me and my miniature chatterbox.
“Will do,” Leo says, not bothering to stifle his chuckling.
“Eyes up here,” I warn him as he heads toward Alice. “Remember our deal.”
I hope he remembers the part of our deal where if he looks at Alice too closely, or even thinks about touching her, I’ll turn his nuts into a tailpipe ornament.
“Do you know about Tiana?” Zoey asks. She doesn’t wait for a response. “So, she lives in New Orleans, which is kind of like Florida because it’s really hot, but it’s not the same.”
Zoey continues the explanation, but I’ve mentally started cataloguing the apartment and what I’ll need to make the ladies feel more comfortable.
Groceries, for starters. I doubt I have more than expired mustard in the fridge and, if I’m lucky, at least a couple beers and some bottled water.
I’ve got one bedroom and one bath, but I’m sure Alice can share with Zoey, or she can give Zoey the bed and she can sleep on the couch. It’s an L-shaped sectional that I can say from experience is sleep-worthy, given the many, many times I’ve passed out there, too drunk to even make it into bed.
As Zoey and I take the back steps, my education on princesses’ real names continuing, my phone rings.
“Goddamn, Tiny.” It slips out before I can stop myself. “Sorry, princess. Bad word.”
Zoey seems unfazed as she climbs with me up the stairs. I let her into the apartment, releasing her hand long enough to pick up the call.
“Tiny, for—” I lower my voice to a whisper so I can drop the bomb“—fuck’s sake! What?”
“Morris,” Tiny says, sounding as put out with me as I am with him. “Where you been, man? I been trying to reach you all day!”
“I’ve had some complications with the property,” I say.
I point to the couch and watch as Zoey plunks down on the edge of a cushion.
She sits primly and folds her hands, waiting for me.
Probably waiting for me to finish my call so she can pick up the conversation where we left off.
Which, if I’m not mistaken, was someplace in the middle of the plot of Brave.
I’ve lost count of the princesses at this point.
“I’ve had fucking complications here too. That’s why I’ve been calling.” Tiny sounds off. Stressed.
“What is it? Club trouble?” I’d really love to deal with one goddamn thing at a time, but that’s not the nature of the brotherhood. This man is more my family than my family—what’s left of it—is.
“Nah, it’s more…personal.”
“All right. Can it wait? I’m in the middle of—”
“Yeah, I guess. But I need a favor. You using your apartment right now?”
That stops me in my tracks. “As a matter of fact, I am. Why? You need it?”
Tiny is one of the brothers who doesn’t have any place to hang his hat other than the compound. Tiny loves the compound and rarely talks about life outside the club. I think the guy was married once, or had an old lady long ago. But something like this, needing my place… This is a first.
“Maybe,” he says.
Fuck.
“All right. I’m here at my apartment now, and I’ve got company. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. This can wait?”
“Yeah, yeah…” Tiny sounds far away, but right now, I’ve got a little girl kicking her shoes and fidgeting on my couch. She looks like she’s about to burst.
“Man, I gotta go. I’ll get back to you.” I end the call and walk over to Zoey just as Alice and Leo are coming up the stairs.
“You okay?” I ask the kid. “You need something?”
She looks at her mom and nods.
“What is it, honey?” Alice drops the booster chair on the floor by the door.
“I have to use the bathroom,” Zoey says loudly.
Leo starts to grin, and Alice takes her daughter by the hand.
I breathe a huge sigh of relief. That, I can do.
“One sec,” I say, holding up a finger. I wanna make sure there’s nothing in there that would traumatize a kid or Alice. I’m not here much, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find a used condom floating in the toilet…or worse.
I flip on the light and inspect the toilet for offensive material. Finding none, I scan the sink for soap—check. And the hand towel looks as clean as the ones in the closet. One last look to make sure there’s toilet paper, and I think we’re good to go. But then it hits me.
“Alice?” I say, sticking my head into the hallway.
She walks through the small apartment, hand in hand with Zoey.
“Does she need like one of those seats for the shitter—I mean, the toilet? Don’t kids need like potty boosters?”
Alice covers her mouth with a hand and giggles, while Zoey charges past me to the toilet.
“I haven’t needed one of those since I was four!” she declares. She shuts the door behind herself and calls, “Thanks!”
Alice pinches her eyebrows between two fingers and lets out a full-blown laugh. “Potty boosters… You’re not around kids much, are you?”
I shake my head. “Today might be a lifetime record.”
“Really?” she asks. “No little Morris babies running around out there? No wife?” She hesitates on that last question like she is embarrassed to ask it.
I take that opportunity to lean close to her. Her sunshine hair is spilling over her shoulders, and she’s pushed the sunglasses up onto her head so I can look right into those caramel-brown eyes.
“Now, why the sudden interest in my personal life?” I ask. I’m careful not to cage my beautiful bird in, but oh fuck, how I want to.
I want to pin her against the wall of my hallway and bury my face in her hair. Taste her neck, bite down on the sinews of her lean shoulders. Soon, maybe. But not now. Not yet.
She meets my eyes and, this time, doesn’t look away. “Who says it’s sudden?” she teases, her voice thick. “I’ve been curious about you since the hot dog stand.”
I nod and play along.
“You seemed, let’s just say, guarded. Not exactly what I would call interested,” I say, but I soften my words by picking up a bit of that sunshine hair. I rub the strands between my fingers. Fuck, she feels as soft as she looks.
Alice swallows, and I hear her breaths, in and out. Deep and shaky. But not with fear. Her pupils dilate, and she lifts her chin. A brazen move for my shaky little sparrow.
“Mom?” The door suddenly flies open, and Zoey is standing there with her hands on her hips.
“Yeah, Zo, what is it?”
“Can you fix my hair? It got all messy when I fell asleep.” Zoey’s scowling as if she just noticed she has a bad case of car-ride bed head.
“Yeah, of course.” Alice draws her lower lip into her mouth.
I watch her bite it, and slowly, she releases the swollen skin from between her teeth.
She steps away from my hold and starts chattering with Zoey about quickly redoing her braid.
I stand in the hallway a moment, watching them and listening.
Zoey’s voice is light and sweet, and Alice is reassuring and calm as she pulls off the princess baseball cap and uses her fingers to smooth out Zoey’s braid.
She quickly works the hair into this new complicated thing and then replaces the hat.
“Love it?” Alice asks, lifting Zoey up so she can inspect the entire hairdo in the mirror.
“Love it,” Zoey says. “Now can we eat?”
Alice meets my eyes and shrugs.
“I could do with some grub,” Leo calls from the living room.
I shake my head and grin. “I guess that means we’re eating.”