Chapter Seven #2
“Sorry,” I muttered then rallied. “So, if I make you
pancakes, will your body rebel and I’ll have to take you to the hospital? Or
will you have to eat nothing but celery for two weeks to make up for it?”
“I cooked in your kitchen, honey,” he reminded me. “I didn’t
notice many healthy options.”
“I’m Southern. If it isn’t fried, griddled, or grilled, it’s
grilled, griddled, or fried. We might get up to some boilin’,
but only if it’s crawfish, lobster, or shrimp, and I don’t have none of that.”
I hesitated, making a mental grocery list before I concluded, “Right now.”
“I’m thinking I’ll have to add another hour to my workout every day if you’re doing the cooking.”
My eyes got big.
“You work out every day?”
His body shook against mine with his laughter and his word
shook with it too, “Yes.”
“That explains it,” I muttered.
“Daisy?”
I focused again on him and not the delicious vision of him
working out.
“Yeah?”
“You have a beautiful body, too.”
I smiled. “Thanks, sugar, that’s sweet.”
“You’re welcome, darling,” he said warmly. “But what I’m
saying is, you have that body. You also have three packets of bacon, and only
because I cooked up the last of the opened one yesterday, so before, you had
three and a half.”
“This is true,” I confirmed, like having four packets of
bacon (and I made another mental note for my grocery list that I was one down)
was the most natural thing in the world.
Because it was.
“And you don’t work out?” he asked then added with his arms
giving me a squeeze, “Every day?”
“I strip. Then I practice strippin’.
Then I help the other girls practice strippin’, doin’ it by showin’ them some
good moves.” I paused before I finished, “And I power walk.”
“Ah,” he murmured.
“I also have to cart around these bazungas,”
I shared, deciding not to take my arm from around him (because I liked my arms
around him) in order to gesture to said bazungas he
couldn’t exactly miss since he was lying on them. “And that burns some
calories, believe you me.”
He was still murmuring, and his eyes were still twinkling,
when he said, “I bet.”
It was then I decided to remove an arm from around him but
only so I could put a hand to his jaw and rub my thumb over the dark stubble on
his cheek.
It rasped against the pad of my thumb and felt nice.
Real nice.
And I watched the twinkle in his eye disappear but only so
he could replace it with something I liked just as much.
I kept doing this with my thumb as I said softly, “I need
some aspirin, baby. I got me a little hangover from last night and it’s all
good with you lookin’ hot on my couch and bein’ hot while kissin’ me then bein’ sweet while talkin’ about
pancakes. But that’s settin’ in again so I gotta get on doin’ something
about it and then feedin’ my hot guy.”
“You have an extra toothbrush?”
My eyes rolled back to study my bangs for a second as I
mentally inventoried my bathroom drawers then I looked at him again and said,
“Yeah.”
“You get me that. I’ll get you the water and aspirin. Then
you can start cooking.”
I grinned at him.
“Deal.”
We were sitting at my dinette and I was shoveling in
pancakes while envisioning the dining room table I was going to buy when I got
my new place (this in an effort not to envision what Marcus’s shoulders looked
like under the shirt he’d put back on—he was fine in that shirt—he was finer
out of it).
Marcus was shoveling in pancakes too. Though, he was
classier about it.
“How’d you get all classy?” I asked.
“Sorry?” he asked back.
I circled my fork with its hunk of pancakes dripping syrup
at him.
“You said you didn’t have much growin’
up. Your daddy played the ponies. Your sister was a stripper. But you look and
act like a Kennedy, except hotter, and without forgettin’
how to pronounce your R’s.”
“Got a job at a country club to help my sister out when I
was fourteen,” he shared.
I nodded.
“Some of the adults were all right. The rest acted like I
didn’t exist. The kids were jackasses.”
“I’ve got no doubt,” I murmured, watching him like a hawk.
“I belong to that country club now.”
His words socked me right in the chest in a very happy way.
Real slow, I felt a smile spread on my face.
“You knew what you wanted, you made it happen.”
He gave one nod. “Exactly.”
I’d made a decision. I was scared to death of it. But I’d
made it and I’d shared it with Marcus.
It was time to get to the important stuff.
“You want babies, sugar?” I asked quietly.
“Yes.”
I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding
after I asked my question and before I asked another one.
“How many?”
“As many as my wife will let me make.”
Excellent answer.
“Do you want them, Daisy?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“As many as my man will let me make.”
We sat there, not eating, just staring at each other.
I broke the silence by giving him the honesty.
“Just sayin’, darlin’, this takin’
it slow is not real easy.”
His eyes heated but his face went soft.
“Let me take care of you,” he whispered.
I didn’t know. I couldn’t keep up. He gave me a lot of it.
But in that moment, those words felt like the sweetest
Marcus had ever given to me.
I pressed my lips together, rolled them, and nodded.
“I like it that you don’t want slow but you need it, baby,”
he went on.
He was probably right about that, even if after that kiss on
my couch that morning, I wanted him to be wrong.
I didn’t offer him these thoughts.
I just kept nodding.
“Dinner tonight, my house,” he decreed. His lips curled up
slightly. “Since it’s my house, I’m cooking for you, honey.” The lip curl went
away as his tone grew firm. “And I want you to bring a bag but I’m sleeping in
the guest room and you’re not.”
What could I do?
I’d made a decision. And Marcus knew that decision.
And on the other point, it was his house. Maybe one
day (I hoped, please God, did I hope) I could horn in and do what a good woman
should do for her man, that being the cooking (and I didn’t think on what
Marcus and his six-pack had in his fridge—I was Southern, I could eat a strawberry
if it was on the bottom of a champagne glass and some Brussels sprouts if they
were coated in bacon grease, but that’s about as far as it went).
But right then, I had one choice.
And for once in my life, it was a good choice.
So I again nodded.
“Eat,” he ordered. “I need to get to work.”
I just kept nodding.
He gave me a sweet smile.
And then we both ate.