“How about Mac?” I suggested.
“His stepdad is Mac,” Charleston said.
I glanced at my watch. “I feel like I’m leaving you guys in the lurch, but I have to go if I’m going to make the appointment.”
“You sure you feel well enough to drive yourself?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Lila said, “I was supposed to be your taxi because you got cut up by a demon.”
“I’m good.” And in my head I thought, no way was I taking Lila and me off the job for my couples counseling.
They both gave me hard looks, but I managed to just wave and start inching my way toward the elevators. “Just let me know what nickname you decide on for Officer Goliath MacGregor, so I don’t get it wrong.”
“Oh, don’t worry, if you get it wrong Goliath will let you know,” Lila said, rolling her eyes.
Charleston grinned. “I told him it could always be worse, try being a boy named Adinka through elementary school and seventh grade.”
Lila gave a low whistle. “Everybody thought it was a girl’s name, didn’t they?”
Charleston nodded.
“Wait,” she said, “you said just seventh grade, not junior high, what happened to make it bearable in eighth grade?”
“I hit my growth spurt fast and hard the summer between seventh and eighth grade.” He grinned again, but this time it was fiercer, the smile that the sports magazines had touted as his killer smile. I’d seen suspects confess after being offered to be alone with him and that smile. Charleston would never have harmed them, but he gave off raw menace better than almost anyone I knew. He’d tried to teach me how to do it since I had the size to intimidate, but he finally gave up, saying, “I guess you get to be the good cop.” I was okay with being the good cop. I wondered if Goliath MacGregor would be able to do bad and good; he was certainly tall enough to intimidate most people.
“Good luck, I’ll contact you both when I’m out of the appointment,” I said.
“You got this, Havoc,” Lila said.
I shook my head. “If I asked you what women want, would you have an answer?”
She smiled, but it was more bitter than funny. Her eyes were bleak as she said, “If I knew the answer to that I’d still be married to my own wife.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Our therapist was older than us by at least a decade. There was a plain silver band on her ring finger. Our first therapist had been younger than us and the longest she’d managed to live with anyone was less than a year; she’d never been married. How did I know all that about her? Because I’d asked after a few sessions where I felt like maybe we knew more than she did about being a couple. It had been a huge fight with Reggie. She’d almost signed the divorce papers, so she said later. There was a part of me that would have been relieved if she’d done it. I didn’t want our marriage to end, but I was beginning to just want it done, yes or no, in or out. Hell might be worse than Purgatory, but at least you picked a direction and knew your fate.
Dr. Martin sat there looking pleasant, but serious, as if she was almost smiling, but you could never quite catch her at it. It was a neat trick, like counselors had their own version of cop face, that mask you wore when you wanted a suspect or a witness to tell you everything you needed to know. The best thing she’d accomplished for us so far was getting Reggie to stop harping on my first marriage to a stripper when I was a brand-new private in the army. The woman had taken me for everything I had, what little there was of it, and served me papers when I was in a forward area, probably hoping I’d die in combat, so she’d get the most insurance possible. That was the marriage that taught me I didn’t have to marry a woman just because I had sex with her once. Did I mention I was raised in what amounted to a religious cult?
“Zaniel, are you even listening to me?” Reggie’s voice on the other end of the couch from me.
I hadn’t been listening. I didn’t even know how long I hadn’t been listening; not good. I took a deep breath in and let it out slow as I turned to look at her. Seeing her still hurt like hell. When we’d first started counseling, I’d stared at her as if I wanted to memorize her. The full face, which she thought was too wide, but I thought framed her big, brown eyes perfectly. If her face had been narrower the eyes would have been too big like a Japanese anime character. The strong, high cheekbones that almost overwhelmed her mouth, which was why she wore lip liner and lipstick constantly to give the illusion that her upper lip was closer to the fullness of her bottom lip. I thought she was beautiful without any makeup, but the dark, artful lipstick did help bring her lips out to balance the strength of her face and those huge, dark eyes. The eyes were the third thing I’d noticed about her when we first met. The first was her height. She was five foot nine and had been wearing five-inch stilettos, which made her an inch shorter than me. I’d thought for a second, before I saw the shoes, that she was my height, and I’d loved it. When you’re six-three you date shorter women, because it’s hard to find taller ones, but I saw those strong shoulders, the fine muscle play in her tanned arms, and I thought, Athlete, and I liked that, too.
Her back had been strong and bare with tiny little straps barely there. The pink blossoms and curling green leaves of the tattoo on her right shoulder seemed to cover more than the back of her dress. The tanned skin of her back had been exposed to her waist with just a hint of the swell of her hips as she moved. When I finally got to see her from the front the dress had been solid black, hinting at small, firm breasts, which went along with the amount of slim muscle under all that smooth skin. Most women had to trade curves for that level of fitness, and I was good with the trade. Her hair was a brown so dark I’d thought it was black until I saw it in bright sunlight on our third date. Her hair was thick and wavy, but she straightened it almost as often as she wore the red lipstick that stood out against her tan like a Valentine’s Day promise.
She was wearing the lipstick today, along with enough eye makeup to make her eyes huge and romantic, except for the anger in them. She spent most counseling sessions angry. I spent most of them confused. It was like she had the CliffsNotes on how to do couples counseling and hadn’t shared them with me.
“Sorry, could you repeat that last part?”
She crossed her arms underneath the fuller breasts that cutting back on the exercise and having a baby had given her. The thin red sweater looked good against her almost year-round tan; she could get lighter if she stayed indoors enough, but she never looked pale. Her grandmother was Colombian and her grandfather Colombian and Mexican, and yes, the distinction is important. So many people just label it all Hispanic or Latina, but it’s so much more multilayered and multicultural than that. Her mother had been the first person in the family to go to college and refused to speak Spanish at home. She was American, damn it. Reggie learned Spanish in college and used it daily as a teacher on the West Coast.
“My eyes are up here, Zaniel,” she said, her voice thick with disdain, as if to say, So like a man to stare at breasts.
I hadn’t been staring at them, not really, but I didn’t try to explain that I’d been looking at her breasts and then started thinking about other things but just never changed my eye-line. She wouldn’t believe me anyway.