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He mulled that over for a couple seconds. “Maybe, you should be specific about whose aggression ran you to her before bringing my role in all this up to her. She could mistake me as the one who’s back. My situation isn’t all that different from Chad’s. My first impression on you two isn’t one to brag about either, remember?” Damn if he didn’t have a valid point.
“I really need to choose my words carefully tonight, don’t I?”
He raised one eyebrow and cocked his head. “So carefully, you should probably look each word up in the online dictionary first before speaking them.”
It might help if I was articulate when explaining everything to her. “That means no drinking for me then. Fuuuuck,” I stretched the curse to within an inch of its life.
A drink was the main thing I had to have after this day, outside of Tobin, of course. He belly-laughed loudly and sidestepped, showcasing the way out with an outstretched arm.
I swatted his arm as I passed by him. “Denying my weakness for alcohol after a long day is not funny.”
“Your cursing is funny. It’s too proper. You sound like a teacher doing it when nobody ever expects it. Shocking.” More like hilarious evidently.
I took a left in the foyer. “Well, this is one of those days when I need to de-stress, so I might let go of a lot of f-bombs since I can’t drink. Prepare yourself accordingly,” I cautioned.
He only chortled at my expense harder, his laugh a thing of beauty. I didn’t think he knew how much younger and handsomer it made him. No one should get more good looking. It was a crime against women forced into celibacy everywhere. It would also induce them to commit crimes too, of the sexual kind. Picking up the pace before I caught my first molesting charge, I overtook a closed door to the restroom on my right.
Tobin was in more danger than he knew just by being near me. I wasn’t about to admit that to him. We went through the archway into the sparsely decorated breakroom. Crossing over large blocks of tan tiles to the back door, he went out it first, surveilling the area as I locked up. His vigilance had my paranoia kicking up a notch. I advocated, with a hastily extended palm pointing to the other side of my car, that he get in the passenger’s seat.
“Thank you for the ride,” he delivered as I practically dived in the car, slamming my door shut then locking it.
I started the car while Tobin let the seat back before getting in. Viewing his long, muscular limbs moving from outside to in was a decadence for the eyesight. He wouldn’t be thanking me if he knew what I wanted to do to his legs; ride them while riding him. Then again, maybe he would thank me. We were not going to find out here.
The ride around to the front was brief and silent. The air was dense with my desire. I had a feeling it would always be that way around him. The deep, deep trouble I descended into during our first meeting this week just got deeper. With doubts of rescue coming anytime soon, I dropped him off behind his truck, pulling away only after he’d mobilized behind me. On my way to a nearby store, I knew I had two things to look forward to, a long, sleepless night thinking of him and Chad or haunted dreams of both. Either way, I’d be tired come morning and ravenous for Tobin. Again, fuck my life, I thought as I entered my front door.
Four hours later, my escort home had been long gone. Bizarrely, I didn’t feel alone while relaxing on my tan, cloth couch with my bare feet resting on Malaysia’s brown leather ottoman. The house was a mix of my and her belongings. I expected her home in a few minutes. If I ruined explaining why we needed Tobin around, I could always move into my office. A practical nature had me buying a sleeper sofa instead of a regular couch. I didn’t know when I’d want a nap.
After hearing from Athena, my chances for screwing up my talk with Malaysia doubled. Glad my receptionist didn’t have poison in her system, I needed a glass of forbidden wine to celebrate. The flute in my hand was two-thirds gone when Malaysia turned her key in the door. As usual, she plopped down on the couch beside me, never just sitting down like a normal person.
A large carryon filled with samples for new designs slipped down the three-quarter sleeve of her pink cargo jumper. “Hi, honey. I’m home.” The white stilettos on her feet went in two directions as she toed them off.
The closest thing to the love of my life at the moment, I stroked a lock of her bone-straight hair. “We need to talk, baby girl.”
She lifted one finger in the air, signaling for a ‘wait a minute.’ “For a moment there, I thought we were actually married because ‘we need to talk’ is something a man I’m involved with would say.” He most certainly would.
Malaysia was a slob during the week, a bad cook on any given day. The bathroom was always occupied with products of the things she used in the mornings. She needed more bathroom to go with her things. “I’m going to need some of whatever you’re drinking before we talk… and you better not be moving out, Cherise.”
“I’m not moving out, but you might be kicking me out.” I handed her my glass.
Chugging the wine and bucking her peepers over the rim at me, she wiggled her fingers for the bottle on the end table with a nail head-enclosed leather patch in the center. I passed along the Pinot Grigio. She filled the glass to the brim. “How can I kick you out when you signed the lease just like I did?”
“Before I answer that, I’m going to need you to swallow one more glass of that first.”
“You’re trying to get me drunk.” She bobbed her head with conviction. “Definitely my man. Tell me what’s happening while I drink like a fish. I’m thinking I should be at least one sheet to the wind to hear this too.”
She turned up the flute. I spewed out today’s events. When I ran out of words, she staggered to her feet, screeching, “Oh hell nawl!”
I couldn’t say I didn’t see that impolite decline coming. “I told you you’d want me to move out.”
She leaned back as if I attempted to hit her. “What? No! That’s not it. You like the guy that threatened us with death fifteen years ago. What’s wrong with you?”
My eyebrows shot up into my hairline. “That’s your takeaway from a stalker? Not the poisoned employee, maybe you being targeted too, and me hiring an ex-Marine for a dollar?”
‘Duh’ was stamped all over her face when she spouted, “Yeah!”
Rearranging the kimono I wore with nothing else around my legs, I loosened up for a verbal fight for Tobin’s admission into our home. “Did you hear Tobin say he’d kill us that night?”
“Ye-no, not… really,” she faltered, “but it was implied.”
