Chapter 10 #3
“That’s a little dramatic,” I corrected him, as I carefully pulled into an angled parking spot a block down from the NGS. “We weren’t even close to being killed.” Mostly. “And I don’t want you to throw a fit at Annie.”
“Emmy already told her that she would make the police take her driver’s license,” Charlie said, as he got out of the car.
Luke raised an eyebrow. “I told her I would report her to the Secretary of State if she didn’t start using corrective lenses,” I explained. “And now she’s wearing them. See? Problem solved.”
Luke and I got out, and he looked around. “Is there a reason you parked so far away?”
I flushed. “Cars are always pulling in and out in front of the store. There’s much less chance of getting dinged here down the street.”
Charlie was already running ahead of us. “Look both ways to cross!” I hollered at him. Luke took my hand.
“First of all, I don’t ‘throw fits’ at people,” he said.
“And I won’t bring this up with Annie, for now, because she’s really going through a hard time.
” I looked at him questioningly. “My dad called me over so urgently the other day because Annie told him that she had filed for a divorce from Milos. She told me last week.”
“Oh my goodness,” I breathed. “I thought she didn’t want to get a divorce.”
Luke sighed. “She didn’t, but his behavior has gotten more and more egregious. And…he has a drinking problem. I think Annie has finally admitted to herself that she can’t fix him. Or fix their marriage.”
“Oh, no. I’m so sorry for her.”
Charlie came bolting back out of the NGS. “It’s ok with Martha, Luke! Carl is going to come too.”
“What’s ok with Martha? What’s going on?”
Luke rubbed my hand against his cheek. “Charlie and I talked while you were getting dressed, and we thought it would be fun to go up in the Cessna again. Maybe go somewhere today while you work. He wanted Frankie to go too, so I called Martha and asked if both he and Carl would want to come.”
“You decided this without me? To go fly again?”
He looked at me. “Is that all right? I thought it would be fun for Charlie.”
I felt my anxiety rise and squeeze my chest. “Luke, it’s such a small plane.”
He looked offended. “I’m a good pilot, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No, that’s not it.” I rubbed my chest where it was hurting.
“Hey!” He took me by the shoulders. “If it’s making you that worried, we don’t have to go.”
Charlie came bolting out of the NGS again, followed by Frankie. “Carl is on his way! Frankie and I are so excited!”
I shook my head. “No, it will be fun for you guys. I trust you.” I rubbed my chest.
“I hope you do,” he said, looking into my eyes.
I was trying.
∞
I was on edge the whole day. When a customer dropped a cereal box and it slapped on the linoleum, I jumped about a foot in the air and screamed. A little scream.
“Why are you so concerned, honey? Should I be, too?” Martha asked, starting to twitch.
“No,” I said quickly, “not at all. Luke is a great pilot and very careful. I’m sure everything is fine.” I furtively checked the aviation incident website on my phone again to see if there had been any plane crashes reported in northern Michigan.
On top of all my airplane-related worries, I continually replayed the scene at the breakfast table in my mind: “Is it because you love her?” Choke. Thump. Spit the French toast. The band across my chest tightened.
By the time they came back to the NGS that afternoon, I was a wreck of nerves. I grabbed Charlie and hugged him to me, then took Luke with my other arm and hugged him too.
“Did you have fun? What did you do?” I asked, sounding very cool and collected. Nicely done.
“Aunt Emmy, you’re crushing me,” Charlie mumbled from the vicinity of my ribcage. “I can’t breathe.”
I loosened my grip. “I’m glad to see you, pal!”
“We can tell,” Luke said, kissing my cheek. “You all right?” I put my arms around his waist and clutched him.
“She’s been like a cat on a hot tin roof all day,” Martha volunteered.
“I’m great. Tell me what you did! Did Frankie like it?” I forced myself to release Luke from my grip. Charlie launched into the story of their day and I pulled him to me again. Just one more hug.
“Maybe we can take a break from flying until you’re ready to come too. What do you think?” Luke asked me when Charlie took a breath.
I rested my head on his arm, and he wrapped it around me. “I think that’s a good idea.”
Luke offered babysitting services for Charlie for that night, so we followed his car back to his house. “Are we sleeping over at Luke’s?” Charlie asked.
“Well, he offered it, if you want to. I can run home before work and throw some clothes together for us.”
I glanced in the rearview mirror. He was frowning.
“You don’t want to sleep at Luke’s? We don’t have to.”
“No, I want to sleep at Luke’s,” Charlie said angrily, “but I don’t want you to go work at that place!”
“Are you still getting a hard time about that at school?” He didn’t answer, and focused on the scenery outside his window. I sighed. “Well, let me take a look at our money situation, pal. Maybe I can swing it so that I don’t have to work at Roy’s anymore.”
I glanced back again, and he was beaming. “Really? I don’t like it when you’re gone at night, Emmy.”
“If we need the money, I have to, sweet pea. Do you understand that?”
Charlie was quiet. Then he said, “What if I eat less? Then you wouldn’t spend as much money for groceries.”
My heart broke a little. “No, you don’t have to eat less. I’ll figure it out, ok?” I bit my lip. “We can stay at Luke’s tonight. I’ll bring over your toothbrush, which I’m sure you will use.”
“And Danny Bob,” he reminded me. “I forgot him.”
“Of course, Danny Bob. Do you mind sleeping on the air mattress?”
“No, but Luke and I are going to get a real bed for me.”
I felt a little shock run through me. They were making furniture plans together? Before I could get more information from Charlie, we were turning into the driveway and arriving at Luke’s.
Luke and I were both fairly useless in the kitchen, unless we all wanted to live on pasta, grilled cheese, French toast, and hamburgers.
Which would have been fine with Charlie, but the adults in the house preferred a bit more variety.
“I’m going to look up some recipes while you’re gone,” Luke said, as he gingerly bit into my version of chicken parmesan.
It was a little rubbery. Well, maybe more than a little.
After dinner, he and Charlie got involved in a board game, which seemed so boring I wanted to poke out my eyes, but Charlie loved it immediately and Luke was completely engrossed.
I kissed them both on the heads and snuck out.
Nana’s house was dark and lonely. I grabbed our things as quickly as I could, telling myself that the noises I was hearing were just the house settling in the wind.
That there wasn’t really anyone there, watching me.
Hating me. I ran out and slammed the car door, then drove to Roy’s for another evening of beer and lewdness.
Luke was awake when I pulled back in after my shift, watching sports replays on the coach. “I need to clean off,” I told him, bending to kiss him. “I reek of beer.”
“I can help you with that,” he volunteered, grabbing my hand and leaping up, and before I knew it our clothes were shucked off and we were in the shower together.
“First thing I’m going to do when I remodel this bathroom is put in a big shower,” he said. “Built for two.”
“I’m not minding this,” I told him, and pressed back against him, letting the water run down me.
He took his time rubbing the soap across my back, massaging my shoulders until I groaned with the pleasure of it.
Up and down my arms, then he whispered, “I need to do your front.” I watched his soapy hands rub my breasts, rolling them between his fingers, pinching and pulling my nipples gently, then harder until I was gasping, leaning my hands against the tile wall to support myself.
I turned and took the soap bottle, pouring some out into my palms, and started the same treatment on him, sweeping up and down his fascinating chest, across his broad back, rubbing and kneading his ass with both my hands.
Then I took his length into my hand and rolled his balls in my other palm.
He tilted my head up to kiss me, then reached between us and cupped my pussy, pushing me back up against the wall.
His fingers went to my clit, rubbing in circles and then pinching, and I lost all conscious thought when he put two fingers deep inside me.
I continued to stroke him, up and down, losing my rhythm as I got closer and closer to climax.
He kissed me, rubbing against my clit with his thumb and moving his long fingers in and out, pinching my nipple until I came, hard, clenching on his fingers, and he came too, spurting across my stomach and thighs.
We panted, resting against each other, under the warm water.
The actual getting clean part after that was less successful.
The house had been designed for shorter people, and Luke had to do a backbend to get his head under the water.
Every time he did it, it made me laugh, until he kissed me to make me be quiet.
We maneuvered each other out of the way for time under the water, shoving and wiggling, and he tried to shampoo my hair, making knots in it as big as my fist. We kept laughing, then reminding each other that Charlie was sleeping in the master bedroom, then getting hysterical again.
Finally we decided we were clean enough and went back to his temporary room.
I settled on the air mattress to comb out my hair.
I decided to leave my brush at his house so I would have one there for next time.
“I’ll put in a big shower. With two shower heads.
” Luke said. He studied me. I sat cross-legged in the middle of the mattress, my hair making wet patches on my t-shirt over my breasts, my nipples prominent.
His eyes fixed on them. “The other thing I’m going to do when I remodel is soundproof the bedroom,” he remarked. “I like it when you scream.”
I flushed. “I don’t think I scream!”
“You did when I put my mouth on you,” Luke said, his voice dropping. He crawled across the bed to me. “When I was licking your clit, you screamed.” He bit my neck and I convulsed with shivers. “Want me to try it again? You can bite the pillow.”
And he was right, turned out I was a screamer.
The next day, Luke invited Annie and Macdara over, and they spent the day with us in front of a cozy fire as a cold spring rain came down outside.
Macdara was equally board game-averse, but was a whiz at cards, so she and Charlie and Luke played while Annie poured out her heart to me about Milos.
But while she was truly broken-up, I also felt that she was secretly relieved.
It was hard to be apart from someone, but it was even harder to be together if drinking was involved.
I remembered my mom, and her warnings not to let CPS take me.
But in the end, I had told on her to my teacher, and being taken from our apartment and sent up north was the best thing that ever happened to me.
When they left after lunch, Charlie lounged in front of the TV, and Luke and I went out onto the back deck.
We looked at the waves, the whitecaps stirred up by the storm.
He was very quiet. “What’s up?” I asked, running my hand through his thick hair.
Man, it was a little unfair to us ladies when men got hair like that.
“I’m worried about Annie.”
“I think she’ll be ok,” I told him. “In the end, I think this will be for the best.”
“No, I agree about that,” he nodded, then hesitated.
“Tell me.”
“My dad has been pressuring her for a long time. First it was to marry Milos and settle down. He and Milos’ dad are old friends from State. Then when he saw the way the wind was blowing, he got all over her to leave Milos and move back in with him. Which would be a disaster.”
“Why?”
“He’s so controlling. Every single thing either of us did as kids, he had a hand in. Or at least a finger. He drove my mother insane.”
I nodded. “Annie told me she moved back to France.”
He looked surprised. “She told you that? Well, Annie and I have different perspectives on my mom. She blames her completely for the divorce, but I can see her side. She was twenty years younger than my dad—she never even went to college. He moved her from another country all the way up here, completely isolated, then he controlled her every move. Sure, I wish she had behaved differently, not run off and left us, but I can understand. All Annie can see is that she abandoned her children. I was pretty young, and Annie wanted to protect me.”
I thought of Charlie. “I could never, ever leave my kids. No matter what.” Like Cassie had. Then I realized what I was saying. “Luke, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult your mom.”
He was watching me intently. “No, it’s all right. Like I said, I can see both sides, but that doesn’t mean that I would ever run away from the people I love.”
I swallowed hard.
“Emmy, what Charlie said this morning—”
“It’s ok!” I butted in. “You don’t need to say anything. He just has a big mouth. He doesn’t understand that it’s just the kind of person you are, kind and sweet and considerate and thoughtful and protective. That’s why you act…like you do with me.”
Luke smiled. “I can’t imagine how the people I work with would react to hearing me described that way. I think ‘mean SOB’ is more what they’d say.” He leaned and kissed me. “Thank you, but you’re wrong.”
“About what?”
“I act the way I do about you—crazy, worried, horny, clingy, idiotic—” he shook his head ruefully—“because I do love you. I love you,” he repeated, looking into my eyes.
I felt dizzy. So I grabbed his shirt and kissed him, until the rain started again and we went back inside.