“Are you staying in that apartment with Ray while he’s still there? Does he know about Killian?”
“Um, it’s…”
“Complicated?” Mom asks with a knowing voice.
“Can I call you tomorrow? Or just see you tomorrow? I haven’t eaten all day and we’re just about to eat, so…”
“Sure honey. Love you.”
“Love you, too. Call me if anything happens with Grampa. Okay?”
“No problem. We should be able to pick him up fairly early tomorrow, if all goes well.”
“Good. What a day.”
“No kidding.”
“Sorry your trip got cut short, Mom.”
“Me, too. But what can you do?”
“Yeah.”
“Family first. Anyway, go eat, Love you, honey.”
“Love you.”
“Hey Violet?” she says.
“Yeah?”
“I approve. From what I can tell so far,” she says in a whisper.
I can hear my father grumbling in the background.
“Um,” I start.
“Bye, sweetie!” She hangs up.
I bite my cheek. Shit. turn back around. Killian’s sitting there, waiting for me. He’s sipping his milkshake, but his eyes are on me.
As I sit, he unwraps his burger, so I do the same, putting the chicken tenders in the middle so we can share. His phone rings.
He shakes his head. “I have to take this. Please, eat. Don’t let it go cold. I’ll be back.”
38
Killian
Could this evening have any more interruptions?
I had my locks changed because I’d given Kenya a set of keys to get in because she’d meet me sometimes in the evenings when I worked late and it made sense logistically, not that it meant she had keys in the same sense as other men might give them out. Yes, she had keys, but I hadn’t invited her to leave a toothbrush. In fact, she tried to leave a toothbrush and a box of tampons and I threw them in the trash. More than once, prompting a fight that finally ended things.
Yes, there were those types of things in my bathroom now, but that was because I knew Violet would be staying with me.
For some reason, I justified it as different in my brain when I asked Patricia to stock my bathroom with anything a surprise female guest might need.
I’d changed my locks, yes, but of course I couldn’t change the lock to the building, which Kenya still had a key for, and that’s how she got in.
She handed the keys to me tonight at my request, a big pout on her face.
She tried to turn on the charm while Violet was inside, tried to tell me she had a lot of time to think about us, about what she wanted and didn’t want, and told me that she showed up with chocolate covered strawberries, wearing nothing but sexy lingerie under that coat because she wanted to make a grand gesture. With a bottle of top shelf booze.
“Is it too late for that?” she asked. “Do you want to get rid of her and spend the evening with me instead?”
“It is definitely too late for that,” I told her.
She pouted some more. And then she asked me to call her if things didn’t work out with Violet and me.
Kenya was a spoiled princess, far too much of a debutante and frankly too vanilla for me. Based on the conversation Wes recorded of Violet with Debbie with Violet’s coworker in that food court, and the timing of when Debbie came onto me, I knew it was Kenya that Debbie had heard talking about me in that nail salon.
Kenya’s long-term goals included joining a country club, lunch with the ladies, she didn’t want a career, and she was what I thought of as a professional husband-hunter. She wanted a guy with stacks of cash who would indulge in her every want. She wanted it in a way she’d barely have to reciprocate unless it was missionary sex on a Saturday night other than during the week she’d ovulate so that she could go about squeezing out a couple kids in order to secure alimony and child support when things went sour.
I had her pegged as the type to get pregnant immediately after a six-figure wedding day, and do it back-to-back, then she’d go to the gym as soon as she was allowed after that second birth, so she’d get her figure back and hire around-the-clock nannies until those kids were old enough to go to boarding school.
She wanted something serious with me. But she didn’t want me working nights. She always bitched about the fact that we’d see each other after eleven o’clock most nights. She wanted a husband who’d be home for dinner every night, which would be on the table at six o’clock sharp. She didn’t want to fuck against the wall in a filthy trash-laden alley outside a nightclub because she looked good and I couldn’t keep my hands off her. She didn’t want her makeup messed up on the way out the door by my kissing her with too much passion. Didn’t wanna give blowjobs, do anal, or make sex remotely interesting.
Until she did, I guess. And it’s too late.
She wasn’t that interesting. She wasn’t very good in bed. She didn’t make me laugh. She cared nothing about my life other than how it impacted her future. We barely had a thing in common beyond that I liked how she looked and she liked how much money I have.
She didn’t make me feel what I felt already with Violet. I’d take Violet with her face scrubbed clean of makeup in her baggy clothes and silly unicorn hoodie over Kenya in lingerie and red lipstick any day.
“Zack. What’s up?”
“Iadanza got into a bar fight. He’s in the drunk tank for the night.”
“Interesting. Anything else?”
“Nothin’. Stupid argument over a sports thing on the television. I may or may not have instigated it, so he’d have a babysitter for the night.”
I bark out a laugh.
“Since he’s under wraps for the night, I’m goin’ home to bed. I’ll have one of my guys follow him back from the drunk tank in the morning.”
“Works for me. Thanks, man.”
I head back out to the dining table and she’s staring out the window, her burger in her hand, dangling. A glob of orange sauce drips out, onto her wrist and she jolts.
She wipes up the mess and immediately starts eating, looking like she wants no part of conversation.
I sit down and take a bite of my burger. It’s not gone completely cold, but close.
“I’m gonna give this a zap. You?”
She shakes her head and swallows. “Mine’s okay.”
I can see she’s completely worked into a state of stress, so I decide to let her off the hook. “What about a movie? Wanna watch something while we eat?”
“Sure,” she says quickly.
I grab the remote and hand it to her. “Go ahead. Find something.”
“What do you wanna watch?” She pops a fry into her mouth and then takes a sip of her shake.
“Whatever.”
“Chick flick?” she tries, looking sheepish.
And I like that she’s got a sense of humor despite that she’s stressed, despite that she’s nervous to be alone with me.
“You want me to fall asleep, don’t you?”
Her shoulders shake with silent laughter.
“I don’t mind,” I say. “Whatever you wanna watch.”