Love Notes, page 12
I don’t know whether to laugh or not. Stop filling holes with penises? Her therapist? I love that she just threw that in with no embarrassment but is that something they’ve seriously said? I’m not used to this much upfront honesty, and I want to let her keep talking to know everything about her, but she’s staring at me with a coy smile that I can’t look away from.
‘Did that not scare the hell out of you?’ she asks.
‘In no way do I know you well enough to judge you. I’m not scared. If anything, you going to therapy says you’re one of the more stable humans. You saw a problem and got help. Life can be rough, so I think that’s admirable. More people should do it.’
‘Do you say that out of experience?’ she asks.
‘I see a lot of stuff I shouldn’t daily. I have one of those app therapy things on my phone. My therapist’s name is Gino. He helps bring me back to earth after an adrenaline-rush moment.’
‘An adrenaline-rush moment. Are you a stuntman?’ she guesses.
‘Not a stuntman.’
‘Bank robber?’
I laugh out loud, shaking my head as I pay for our dinner. ‘I’m a rule-follower. I try to be a good example. I’ve never even had a speeding ticket,’ I say proudly.
‘Oh,’ she says with a chuckle. ‘Well, I’m sure you’ll get a special room in heaven for that.’
‘My dad will be glad to hear it. He’s still trying to secure my spot with the magic man in the sky.’
‘Why?’
‘Securing spots in heaven and saving lost souls is his job.’
She looks me up and down, her eyes steadily on my tattoos. ‘You’re a preacher’s kid?’
I nod. ‘Fair warning, it was as much fun as you’ve heard. I wasn’t as good at the rule-following back then. My brother and I made it our mission to push those rules hard and often. We had a stereotype to uphold.’
‘You got the tattoos to piss your folks off, then?’ Her eyes move over my skin, inspecting my tattoos.
‘No, but I can’t say that wasn’t a bit of a selling point. My parents and I aren’t on the best terms. In their eyes, I haven’t made choices they approve of. They’re still waiting for me to get my life on track.’
She scrunches her face. ‘I can’t say I have a lot of parenting experience, but it sounds like they’re waiting for you to get your life on their track?’
I’m seriously impressed with how she reads between the lines. We jibe easily. I remember that from before.
‘You’re a smart woman.’ I wave a finger her way.
It takes us a few minutes to get our food, and we choose a table a few spots away from where Ozie is currently yelling at a game on TV. He’s not a sports guy, so I’m not sure what he’s doing, but I’ll ask questions later.
Mercy glances up from her food. ‘You didn’t seem very preacher’s kid five years ago.’
‘Now you know why my parents are petitioning heaven to get me in,’ I say with a chuckle. ‘I was in a jacked-up place five years ago…’
‘I wasn’t complaining,’ she says, taking a bite of her gyro. ‘I quite enjoyed Drake Ramoray, if I’m honest. He was up for anything.’
Heat rises from my neck to my ears. Her talking about our past distracts me from everyday topics of conversation as memories of it roll through my head.
‘Come on, Kansas! Pull your head outta yer ass!!’ Ozie grabs our attention as he yells at the TV angrily while punching a fist through the air. I glance up at the game. Neither team playing is from Kansas.
‘Your friend’s weird,’ she says.
‘Yes, he is. But I’ve known him since I was nine, so he’s like the weird uncle you can’t disown at family events. You get used to him.’
‘Weird uncle, as in the perv who asks you to sit on his lap every time he sits down or the guy who wears his wife’s swimsuit into the pool at the family barbecue to get a laugh?’
‘Thankfully, the latter. You nailed it with the Tommy Lee joke but throw in a touch of Jack Black, and you’d have pinned him exactly.’
She stares over at him, her brows pinched together, before looking back at me. ‘Interesting. And he supervises all your outings?’
‘He’s here to ensure I don’t ask you to go steady.’
Mercy’s eyes widen. I’m going to have to explain myself.
‘My friends are under the impression that I’m terrible at relationships because I want to be in one too badly. They say I don’t know how to go slow. I want to label things too early, hence me getting dumped a lot.’
‘Is that true?’
‘Maybe a little,’ I admit sheepishly. ‘Being single is lonely sometimes, don’t you think?’
‘Yeah. Though you should know I’m scared to death of both the L and R words.’ She glances up at me, lifting a shoulder. ‘Part of that whole complicated past thing I mentioned.’
‘You’re afraid of leeks and radishes? That’s weird.’ I wink. ‘Love and…’
‘Relationships.’
‘Have you never had a serious relationship, or is it something else that stops you?’
‘Good ole childhood trauma. I’ve lost a lot in my life. Relationships scare the hell out of me because those are the worst kind of losses. When it ends, it’s like a death.’
‘I think they scare everyone.’
‘For me, it feels like jumping off a bridge and then realizing my bungee wasn’t yet secured.’
‘Ouch,’ I say, but inside, I want to know what created this fear. ‘If you ever want to talk about it, I’ve heard I’m a good listener?’ I lean my elbows on the tabletop between us, waiting on her answer. She is absolutely gorgeous. Ozie wasn’t wrong when he said she was out of my league. That said, I’m trying out for the team anyway.
She cocks her head, taking a moment to choose her words. ‘I appreciate that.’
Little by little, she’s softening for me. Opening up. I love her wit and spitfire ways, but I’m also really liking this other side of her. The part where she looks at me like she’s not sure she should say it, but she’s taking a chance.
She sips her drink, her eyes on me. ‘I just don’t get it,’ she says, setting it on the table. ‘You’re handsome. Polite. Single. Pretty good in bed, if I remember right. And you have a job. You’re the perfect man for nearly every woman in the world. Why do women keep dumping you?’
‘I—’
‘Marry him,’ Oz interrupts me as he makes his way to our table, sitting so close to her that she leans away. ‘Seriously, you got him laughing; he was nervous as hell you weren’t going to show, so I know he likes you. The guy’s desperate for someone to love, and he’d be good at the doting boyfriend. He’s the coolest guy I know, and he’s got a crazy dangerous job where he’s basically a damn superhero. A total catch. His daughter adores him. Even his ex-wife still likes hi—’
‘Oz,’ I say his name sternly. I realize he’s trying to talk me up here, but I haven’t exactly told her everything about myself yet.
‘Yeah?’ He glances over at me.
‘You’re not helping.’
‘You have a daughter?’ Mercy asks curiously.
She heard that. One if the things I was going to wait to tell her, and Ozie threw it out there on date number one. Alijah is why most people dump me.
‘Ohh…’ Oz says, now getting why I want him to shut his trap with a grimace. ‘Forgot about the baggage.’
Mercy’s eyes are still on me, so I nod. ‘I hadn’t told you yet because I wanted you to know me as a man and not as a single father. But he’s right. I do have a daughter. She’s six, which is why I was so absent-minded when I knew you before. I’d just divorced and found out shortly after that my ex was pregnant. The next thing I knew, the baby was here, and it was a bit of a roller coaster. You made me feel like a single guy with a possibility at life again.’
‘She’s six?’ Mercy asks, the look on her face an emotion I’m not yet familiar with in her.
‘She’ll be seven on Halloween.’
The look on her face is blank. I fiddle with my hat. Please don’t let this be the last time I see this woman.
‘A lot of women leave at this point. Someone else’s kid is usually too much for them.’
‘Well, you didn’t just ask me to go steady or suggest I be her new mommy. So, you have a daughter. I was once someone’s daughter. It’s totally cool.’
13
MERCY
‘You said you were cool with him having a kid?’ Hollyn asks from the dressing room. ‘Are you?’ She peeks out of the curtain.
‘I am the opposite of cool with it. But what was I supposed to say? He didn’t ask me to play the part of stepmom – no mention of her showing up on our next outing. I was just coming to terms with the fact that I like the guy. Now I find out he has a child? I can’t handle that.’
‘You can handle it because you’re an adult, and you’re not dating his daughter,’ Penny, Hollyn’s mother – who is now in possession of a few wedding gowns – says as she approaches the dressing room I’m standing outside. ‘Hols, try these too. I feel like they’re just you.’
‘Mom,’ Hols groans, pulling back the curtain and balking at the stack of dresses in her arms. ‘I’m here to choose between three dresses. Not add more to my list.’
‘Just try them,’ Penny insists, shoving them her way before turning to me, her arms now crossed over her chest. ‘Mercy, do you like this guy?’
‘In a way that confuses the hell out of me…’ I lean my head against the wall I’m standing in front of with a thunk.
Penny’s been my stand-in mother since Hollyn deemed me her BFF in the first grade. I was that kid who ate the ‘special’ lunches the cafeteria ladies made for the children whose lunch tabs were never paid. Hollyn is so soft-hearted that she asked her mom to start making a second lunch for her new friend, and instantly we bonded. Like an unclaimed cat who wanders into your yard, I chose them as family decades ago, and I don’t regret it.
‘As I hear it, he’s a man who “needs someone to love”? I’d assume that means he’s looking for long-term and serious. Do you plan to screw him until he falls for you, then disappear on him? Like Dylan.’
‘I didn’t disappear on Dylan. I see him every single day. We just weren’t right together romantically. It was a mutual decision,’ I defend myself as I yank the curtain back and glare at Hollyn, who’s grimacing as she listens to our words in her safe little closet-sized changing room. Penny repeated precisely what I told her on the phone last night, word for word.
‘What?’ Hollyn asks in a sheepish tone. She’s standing in only a slip and heels, looking guiltier than I’ve ever seen her. ‘I’m sorry. It was either talk about my life or your drama, and yours is more interesting at the minute.’
I sigh heavily, dropping the curtain closed.
‘He makes her all fluttery inside, and she can’t stop thinking about him,’ she throws in as soon as she’s invisible again.
‘Remind me to stop telling you things.’
She laughs to herself. ‘She’d find out. She always does.’
Penny’s perfectly manicured eyebrows are halfway up her forehead when I glance her way.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘He makes you feel something? Even when you’re not in bed with him?’
Penny’s never been the sweet, cookies-baking-in-the-oven, always-says-the-right-thing mom. She’s like me, saying what she wants and not giving two shits about who it might offend. Perhaps that came with her being in the spotlight as a pop star when she was a teen. She had to find a way to stand up to people in the industry who wanted to turn her into something she didn’t want to become. She’s authentically herself, a hint of eighties style included.
I scrunch my face. ‘I’m not answering that.’
‘I’m trying to see the whole picture, so I know what motherly advice to give.’
‘Fine.’ I toss my hands into the air. ‘Yes. Somehow the man’s presence creates this fluttery foreign feeling in my chest – even when we’re not in bed.’
‘A fluttery feeling in your chest? Like a heartbeat?’ Penny says sarcastically.
I laugh under my breath. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never had one before.’
She rolls her eyes the same way Hollyn would if I said something she knew was untrue.
‘Ask her about the letter from Nick.’ Hols spills one more thing I’ve told her as she opens the curtain, the saleswoman now helping her walk with the dress she’s got on.
‘Seriously, you’re about to need to hire a maid of honor,’ I threaten.
I want to be mad that she’s told her mom every detail, but I’m temporarily speechless as she walks to the pedestal. Hollyn in a wedding dress. She’s wanted this for so long. Suddenly my vision goes blurry. I blink a few times to clear it, but it stubbornly stays. Am I near tears at the sight of my best friend in a wedding dress? No. Way.
Hols’s gaze meets mine in the mirror. ‘Are you… crying?’
‘No,’ I snap with a sniffle as I wipe away tears before more surface.
Penny sits beside me, throwing an arm around me like a true mother. ‘I thought you didn’t want all this?’ She waves around the bridal shop.
‘I don’t,’ I say. ‘But my insomnia has me believing otherwise ever since I ran into Brooks Hudson. I mean, I agreed to date him.’
Both Penny and Hollyn’s jaws drop.
I nod. ‘At first, we agreed on just friends, and even then, his presence was so overwhelming that I asked River to supervise.’
‘Why?’ they ask in unison, their faces full of confusion.
‘Because of the whole no-strings-attached thing we had before. I want to do him, yet I don’t want it to turn back into booty calls because I want to know him. Clothed. But that leads to this.’ I wave around the room. ‘And there’s no way it’ll end here because once he hears the details of my past, he’ll want me as far from his kid as a restraining order can command. I’m the daughter of a murderer, for fuck’s sake!’
‘Mercy, sweetie.’ Penny touches my knee. ‘You are not your father. Yes, you had a traumatic past that is now tormenting you from behind bars with words – for the record, know this pisses me off – but part of letting all that go is working through it, and you’ve worked hard to do just that. It sounds like maybe the dam has broken, and now you need to figure out what to do with whatever spilled out.’
‘Oh, well, that should be simple enough, right? I’ve only been trying to figure it out my entire life.’
‘Your answer could be in the letter,’ she says.
‘I can’t read it. Ugh.’ I drop my head into my hands. ‘Why must I face all this for a guy?’
‘You’re doing this for you. Healing is what you’ve worked towards, what you want.’
‘Now your heart has found something it wants too,’ Hols says, a crooked, lovesick grin on her face.
I blink, staring at her blankly, unsure how to feel about that. ‘Until now, my heart has felt very wormhole-y, sucking the life out of me, never allowing me to feel more than I can handle. I feel like I’m in a cab with a driver who speaks zero English, and we have to hand-motion our way through a conversation. Is this how—’
‘Relationships start?’ Hols says quietly. ‘Yeah. I mean, not usually with the murdering father sending you cryptic letters from a prison cell in the background, but yeah. I think you might have actual feelings for this guy.’
‘But I don’t even know him! That’s impossible.’
‘You’ve slept with him how many times?’ Penny asks. ‘Obviously, you know the guy,’ she says without my answer. ‘Now you want to know more than just his penis. What could it hurt?’
‘Uh, my already-destroyed heart?’
Penny rolls her eyes. ‘We all go through heartbreak, Mercy. I’m not a psychologist, nor do I claim to be one, but I am a woman who lived a chaotic, confusing life, and to get through it, I had to face some hard truths about myself. Sometimes, the trauma we lug around with us, we didn’t pack ourselves. It’s given to us like a backpack full of boulders.’
‘My boulders feel more like bombs.’
‘I could bet Nick is your biggest boulder, and he’s behind all this confusion. Kicking karma in the teeth by allowing that hurt to heal would be a blast right to that asshole. Read the letter; it might help.’
That sounds scary as fuck. Who goes head to head with karma? People who don’t believe. I told Brooks I didn’t believe in that stuff, and I don’t. Fate hasn’t blessed me in any way, shape or form, besides maybe the musical prodigy thing and the fact that I’m not terrifying children on the street with my looks. Otherwise, a complete dumpster fire consumed much of me at a very young age. Maybe his letter will help me heal that little girl inside.
‘Having a makeshift mother complicates things,’ I say with frustration.
‘A stubborn as hell bonus daughter isn’t easy either,’ Penny snaps back.
‘So, I’m just supposed to take this buzzing in my chest as my sign to get to know Brooks Hudson – romantically – and let him into my life even though this could all blow up and damage me more than I already am? Because when I say it out loud, I hear “run away”.’
‘Everything in your life so far has been about running away. Surviving. Maybe start living instead?’
That was so truthful it hurt. I glance at Hollyn. ‘Your mom’s being mean to me.’
She laughs. ‘Be thankful she’s not asking you about the sex.’
Penny lifts a curious eyebrow.
‘I’m not about to kiss and tell with my best friend’s mother. But for the record – it was never just fine.’ I say the last part under my breath, causing Penny to smile wide. She once told us if the sex was just ‘fine’, he’s not the one.
‘Then what are you worried about? I bet the man problem will be fine on cruise control until you figure out the dad problem.’
‘She’s worried about liking him so much she’ll want to stand on this pedestal one day,’ Hols tells her.
‘That’s absolutely not true. I refuse to let myself want any of this because I can never have it. I have no mother to come ooh and ahh over me in a big white dress. No father to walk me down the aisle and threaten my fiancé’s life if he ever hurts me. No extended family to cheer when we exit. I’m close to like eight people. That doesn’t exactly fill up the bride’s seating at a wedding. I’d be humiliated.’ My words slow as I speak, realizing all these things hurt to say out loud. I’ve thought them a thousand times, but to say them out loud. Ouch. ‘Once you all get married and start families, it’ll be just me. Your weird single friend spending holidays alone eating my frozen dinner while I curse It’s a Wonderful Life.’
