Fix It Up: Torus Intercession Book Three, page 13
Leaning in, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pressed his face into the side of my neck. “I’m playing with you,” he murmured, his warm breath on my skin causing an involuntary shiver. “You’re not boring, even a little.”
“Come on,” I prodded him, needing him to let go before I did what I wanted and grabbed him back. I had a sudden urge to put my hands all over him. “I’m starving.”
He let me go, darted back for his bag, and I locked the car as he caught up with me. The dogs came back to make sure we didn’t get lost walking into the house.
The wide creek and the shade of the lush copse of trees surrounding the house cooled the outside temperature a bit, but it was still late August, still hot, so we retreated inside to the shade and the fans. Nick was instantly impressed.
“If you get too hot,” my mom told Nick, “I can turn on the air conditioner, but I prefer not to. I don’t like to be cut off from nature.”
“Me neither,” he agreed. “I try and keep the doors open at home, though I have an air guard,” he told her.
She asked him to explain, and while he told her that the air kept the bugs out, she was horrified that a bee might get caught in that and be hurt. “We have to safeguard our honeybees,” she insisted.
“Absolutely,” he agreed quickly, looking a bit concerned with how adamant she was.
“I have a friend who keeps bees,” she said, getting up to get us more berry-infused ice water. “That’s why I have all the beeswax candles and every kind of honey you can think of.”
He was going to help carry things from the kitchen to the table, but she ordered him to sit down and relax. I offered to help instead, and when she darted away, I leaned close and whispered to him to take it easy on the food.
“What do you mean?”
I grimaced at him. “She’s got a heavy hand with the spices, so be careful.”
He scoffed.
“I’m serious. Take it easy.”
The look he shot me, like I was clearly deluded, had me shaking my head.
Once she and I sat down, the three of us filled our plates, and my mother got right to asking Nick a million questions to get to know him. It was nice, listening to the two of them, and I found that seeing them interact made me happier than it should have. Why I cared that he was obviously smitten with her, and she with him, made no sense. I was trying to figure it out when she went to her huge kitchen for another pitcher of water and to make avocado toast, leaving the two of us alone.
His gasp captured my attention, and I realized he was squinting at me.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Everything is so hot,” he rushed out, guzzling the last of his water.
“Yeah, I know,” I agreed, grinning at him. “I told you.”
“Even her micheladas are hot,” he whined. “And she wasn’t kidding when she said the taquitos are spicy.”
“Yeah, I know,” I repeated, giving him a look that I hoped conveyed the level of dumbass he was for not listening to me. “I think she burned out the heat indicator in her mouth years ago. And tomorrow morning, you shouldn’t drink her coffee.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because she makes it so strong she once gave my grandmother a bladder infection.”
“Are you kidding?”
“I think we’ve established that I am, in fact, not kidding when it comes to my mother.”
“Jesus, does it stain the cups?”
“All coffee stains cups if you let it sit,” I clarified. “I think what you mean to ask is, does it peel the glaze off the inside of the cup, and the answer is yes.”
His eyes opened wide.
“This is just another thing that makes her, her,” I said magnanimously. “You have to roll with it, my friend,” I said before I went back to eating salsa.
“Are we?”
“Are we what?” I asked, sniffling as I put another chip in my mouth. It was best to eat one chip with salsa, one without, and alternate like that the whole time.
“Friends.”
“Well, yeah. I think we’re getting there, don’t you?”
He nodded. “I want us to be really good friends.”
I winced, and his chuckle, and the way he reached for my knee and squeezed it, warmed me inside even as I kept up the pained expression on the outside. “So you’re saying, once I leave, we still gotta exchange Christmas cards and talk on the phone and shit?” I asked, like that was the absolute worst thing I could think of.
He looked startled.
I clapped him on the shoulder. “What’s the matter? Too horrible for words?”
“No, that’s not—it just hit me that yeah, you’re gonna leave.”
“Once you get going on the album and your life is in alignment, yeah, I need to get outta the way so you can make with the living.”
His gaze held mine.
“Isn’t that what you want?”
“You’re missing the point,” he informed me. “Haven’t I been living since I woke up on that first Saturday in June to find you in my kitchen?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“I think an argument can be made that I’m living now.”
“You wanna talk semantics?”
“No,” he said, and there was a trace of a smile there. “My point is that you don’t need to leave for me to get on with my life. Those two actions are not mutually exclusive.”
I scowled at him. “Of course they are. I’m the fixer, and you’ll be fixed up by the time I walk out the door.”
“And why do you have to go?”
“Well, for starters, because you don’t want me there when––”
“When what?”
“When you start to date again,” I snapped at him. “You’re going to want your privacy, and not have me there breathing down––”
“You’re wrong,” he said, and really, those eyes of his were quite something, burnished golden brown. I was drawn in and held there. “I need you.”
“Not forever,” I replied gruffly, looking down at the salsa. “You’re young, Nicky. You need to spend a ton of time dating and getting to know people, and along with all the other amazing changes in your life, finding the right person will be great too.”
“I so enjoy having you to do all my thinking for me.”
I chuckled, lifting my eyes to his face. “You see, that’s what I’m talking about. I’m a buzzkill, and you know that’s true.”
“No,” he replied softly, hoarsely. “I thought you were. I thought a lot of things about you, and then, I don’t know when it was, but I was standing on the patio one night and I realized I could hear the crickets.”
I grinned at him, knowing where he was going, because it only made sense.
“I’d never been outside and been able to hear them before, not at the new house, and definitely not at the old one.”
“And that was a good thing?”
“Yes,” he said with a sigh, his eyes warm and soft as he stared at me. “And when I looked around, everything was where it was supposed to be, and not sterile, you know, not perfect, but clean, and everything has a place, and it feels like home.”
I nodded, because it did. “When you start having more people over and having people stay, then––”
“No. It’s like a retreat now,” he informed me, “and it needs to stay like that, gentle and easy, like a sanctuary, not a frat house.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I assured him. “I think you need a place to decompress once you’re out in the world again on a regular basis.”
He nodded.
“Because you need to do that too, to travel and go on tour and do all the things you’re supposed to, and be young and wild and crazy but not get lost in the undertow again.”
“So partying after a show, but maybe ending the night with chamomile tea and going to bed instead of getting blackout drunk and snorting a few lines when the sun comes up.”
“Oh look, he can be taught.”
He laughed, and his smile was wide. “I can’t do that, you know? I’m an addict, and I’ll always be an addict. But I think from now on, my highs have to come from other places.”
I tried not to grimace.
“What? What’s with the face?”
“Now I’m worried that you’re gonna turn into an adrenaline junkie or something.”
He scoffed. “No, but don’t you think I’ll need someone to watch over me?”
I nodded. “That’s why I need to hire you a real assistant. Someone who knows you’re their priority, unlike Brent.”
“I don’t want an assistant to travel with me,” he murmured. “I want something else.”
I shook my head. “You don’t want whoever you’re in a relationship with traveling with you. Then you can’t be yourself when you’re out on the road.”
“You’re wrong,” he said flatly. “It’s actually the other way around. I’ll be more myself, and I’ll want to show off, being the best person I can be every single day.”
“That’s not how that works,” I explained to him. “Everyone needs time away.”
He suddenly crossed his arms. “And you know this because of all your vast experience being in relationships.”
“Shuddup,” I ordered him. “You’re too young to be fighting with me about this.”
“That didn’t sound patronizing at all,” he assured me, getting up and leaving me alone at the table. “And baby, you’re so wrong.”
It took a second.
“The hell did you just say?” I snapped at him, turning around in my seat.
He blew his nose in the napkin he’d taken with him. “What’d—what did I say?”
“You just called me baby.”
Instant face like he’d bit into a lemon. “I did not. That’s wishful thinking right there.”
“Excuse me?” I said, getting up. “Wishful—have you lost your fuckin’ mind?”
He scoffed, not scared of me even a little, before he turned and went to the kitchen where my mother was putting the finishing touches on the avocado toast. He asked her for some milk, and she smiled as she poured him a glass.
I stood there, glaring at him as he completely ignored me, instead watching in horror as my mother shook red pepper flakes over the top of the mashed avocado.
“What?” she asked him, stopping mid-shake.
“Your avocado toast is hot too?”
“Is it hot?” she asked, squinting at him.
He looked back at me then, and so did she.
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked me. “You look like you swallowed a bug.”
I threw up my hands and flopped back down in my chair. “Am I getting avocado toast, or do I have to make my own?”
“Oooh, somebody’s grouchy today,” she remarked under her breath. “And since I’ve been feeding you, it can’t be your blood sugar…” Her head snapped up.
“No,” I ordered her. “Think before you speak.”
“Sweetheart, how long has it been since you’ve gotten any?”
Nick nearly drowned in his milk.
Eight
Around seven, after we took a nap, when it started to cool a bit, which wasn’t saying much—it was still in the mid-eighties—my mother piled us into her four-seater golf cart and drove us the back way, up and down horse paths, over shallow parts of the creek to an open area of mowed grass and a large stand of Arizona cypress, scattered pinyon pines, and alligator junipers. It was a lovely space on my mother’s friend Jamie’s property. I had never met him, as he’d always been traveling when I visited during the holidays.
“It’s really something that there’s this lush vegetation here among the red rock,” Nick said as we got out to walk toward the long table with seating for twelve.
“Oddly serene, isn’t it?” my mother asked him.
“It is,” he agreed. “But even as lovely as this is, I think I prefer your back patio and the view of Cathedral Rock.”
“I know,” she said, chuckling, taking hold of his arm. “And my house butts right up to the national forest, so I don’t have to worry about anyone else building across the creek from me.” She gestured at the meadow. “Jamie doesn’t have that luxury. Someone could build right there, though the land isn’t cheap, and the build wouldn’t be either.”
“Well then, hopefully Jamie isn’t in danger of having neighbors.”
“I heard my name,” a man said, walking from the tent where the bar and a buffet would be laid out. “And it was spoken by one of my favorite people.”
I had assumed that Jamie was my mother’s age, but he appeared to be somewhere between me and Nick. He looked to be about my height, lean, handsome, with long, rangy muscles, shaggy blond hair, stubbled jaw, weathered, and with eyes as green as spring grass.
“Jamie,” she said happily, going into his arms to hug him. “So nice that you invited me, and I’m thrilled you had room for the boys.”
He was my age, and she used the word boys. Christ.
“Yes, of course, I—Nick Madison?”
Nick grinned and stepped forward, offering him his hand. “It’s a pleasure to—wait,” he said, staring at Jamie. “You’re not James Reider, the photographer?”
“I am, indeed,” he said, his voice low and husky as he took a step closer to Nick.
Who used indeed in a sentence?
“Oh,” Nick said with a mischievous grin. “I saw your exhibit on the fragility of women at the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco. It was stunning.”
He nodded.
“And of course, it was just one badass woman after another.”
Jamie smiled wide and shrugged.
“Very clever,” Nick praised him.
“Well, I do like to get people talking,” Jamie quipped, chuckling.
I had the sudden urge to hit him.
“I also saw your retrospective on fashion at the Photographers’ Gallery in Soho when I was there, what, last Christmas I think it was.”
“Yes,” he admitted, wincing. “That one was––”
“Amazing,” Nick gushed, and I watched Jamie melt with his words. “I actually bought two photographs for my lake house.”
Lake house? He had a lake house? I thought he only had one home.
“You didn’t,” Jamie said, taking hold of his forearm.
“I did,” Nick said, clearly in awe of the man. “Centennial, the gorgeous black-and-white, and Couture, which I had to outbid a friend for.”
“Oh my—Nick,” he said, his voice faltering, “I—I’m overwhelmed. You paid a small fortune for that.”
“Worth every penny,” Nick assured him. “And people who see it always love it, though that same friend has made me an offer on the house, and I think part of the deal is that the photograph stays where it is if the deal goes through.”
Jamie laughed, and of course it was deep and husky, not high and tinny or snorting like a horse. The longer I stood there with them, watching them flirt, the more I was reminded that Nick’s life ran on a track that I could never be on.
“Tahoe?”
“Sorry?”
“Your lake house?”
“No,” Nick said playfully, and the way Jamie was looking at him, completely smitten, was easy to see and, more importantly, understand. Here was a young, talented, gorgeous man who thought Jamie hung the moon. Of course you would fall for that. Who wouldn’t? “It’s on Lake Como. It’s tiny, but I love it.”
“Oh, I’d love to see it.”
“You have an open invitation,” Nick assured him.
“You know, I was at your concert in Paris in November, and you were sublime,” Jamie gushed, taking hold of Nick’s bicep. “Can I get you a drink? Let’s get you a drink.”
“I don’t actually do alcohol anymore, but maybe you have some sparkling water?”
“Oh no, I don’t drink either,” Jamie said happily. “I can’t—it really messed with my creativity. The highs and lows were no good.”
“Really?”
Jamie nodded. “Oh yes,” he began, leading Nick toward the tent. “But I have these amazing teas that…”
They were too far away for me to hear any more. I could only see the body language, the touching and smiling, the way Jamie was crowding close and, more importantly, that Nick was letting him.
“Oh, I wanted to introduce you to him,” my mother said, joining me, having gotten sidetracked with another friend of hers.
“That’s okay,” I said, kissing her temple before I took her hand in mine. “But I’m glad that we have this time, just us, because I need to talk to you about these rings of yours.”
“Pardon me? What about them?” she asked innocently, smiling too big.
“Mom, I think we’re gonna have to stage an intervention.”
Her laughter, always, was so good to hear and made everyone turn to look. She was enchanting, my mother.
“What is this?” I asked, looking at the newest ring, a huge teardrop-shaped labradorite on the index finger of her left hand, easily three inches long and two inches wide. On her right she wore two, one on her pointer finger, an enormous polished rectangle of black tourmaline, and on her ring finger another beast that had a piece of rose quartz at the center, flanked by two carved turquoise leaves. All of them were set in silver, and none of them could be called delicate in the least. “Where’s the one I got you the last time I was here?”
“I change them out,” she said as she gazed lovingly up at me. “You know I’m a fickle creature.”
“I don’t think so,” I apprised her thoughtfully. “I’ve never been on the receiving end of that.” I finished by touching the heavy gold belcher chain around her neck, where a large Victorian eighteen-karat rose gold locket hung that I had bought her with my first paycheck when I became a policeman. It had cost a lot at the time, and was probably worth quite a bit more now, but her face, when I gave it to her, before the bawling, was priceless.
As she said, she rotated rings, discarded wedding ones, earrings were a disaster, forget about pins, and expensive hair forks or sticks were a waste of money. She wore other necklaces with my locket, like the strand of olive pearls she wore at the moment, but she never, ever took off the only piece of jewelry she’d been wearing for the past fourteen years. She was supposed to press pictures inside, but if she didn’t, she could wear it in the shower, and that was more important. There was no glass, just my stupid engraving, because I wasn’t good with words. It said, “I love you, Mom. Love, Loc.” Short and to the point. She had cried until her eyes got all puffy.
