At this moment of victory for my son, I felt the hairs stand on end at the back of my neck. I turned my head just in time to catch Conrad looking away from me.
He was alone. No Martine. No Tammy.
A good choice.
It was sad but it was his lonely bleacher he’d made for himself.
I turned to Mickey who was grinning at the mat and clapping.
“You do know you’re going to have to back off this Ash and Kellan thing,” I advised.
He stopped clapping and grinning and looked to me.
“She’s fifteen, she gets more freedom. She’s fourteen, she does not.”
“She’s fifteen next month,” I told him something he knew better than me.
“Then she doesn’t have long to wait,” he retorted and looked away, toward the boys in their clutch patting Auden on the back.
He took it then his eyes went to his dad. After that, they came to me.
I gave him a thumb’s up and some silent clapping.
He shook his head and rolled his eyes but did it grinning.
Then he started pulling on his track suit.
“Look at those mooks,” Cillian stated disgustedly, staring at the two boys now wrestling on the mat. “Auden is the best…ever.”
Mickey slid an arm along my waist and kept it there.
I endured the bone-crushing boredom of watching another bunch of boys—these I didn’t know and love—wrestle, doing this fortified by Mickey’s arm around me.
Then, thankfully, it was over and we all went home.
* * * * *
I knocked on the door to the locker room.
It flew open and I found myself flying in because Mickey’s hand latched onto my wrist and he pulled me in.
He looked out the door he had his other hand on.
“Kids in their seats?” he asked the hallway.
“Yes, Mickey,” I breathed.
He slammed the door, locked it and shoved me against the cinderblock wall.
Then, in his boxing trunks and shoes, upper body bare and still slicked with sweat, he dropped to his knees in front of me.
“Mickey,” I panted.
His hands taped from the fight he just lost to Jake, he pushed up my pencil skirt.
“Are you okay?” I asked, noting (in what I had to admit was a distracted way) the red welling on his cheek.
He didn’t answer.
He ripped down my panties.
I sucked in a breath.
He tipped his head back, sliding a hand up the side of my high-heeled Jimmy Choo boot.
“Like these boots, baby,” he whispered.
“I…good,” I mumbled.
He slid his hand back down, grasped my ankle, tossed it over his sweat-glistened shoulder and dove right in.
My head hit cinderblock and I buried my hands in his hair.
He ate me, hungry, voracious, no mercy until I came in his mouth (and again I had to admit, this didn’t take long).
Still soaring, he was up, I was up, and he was fucking me against cinderblock.
I came again while he was kissing me, moaning into his mouth, tasting me and Mickey.
He followed me while I was kissing him, groaning into my mouth, tasting only me.
When he was done, he stayed buried inside me, shoved his face in my neck and held me against the wall.
I stroked his hair and his back and stared unseeing at the locker room.
“I love fight night,” I whispered.
Mickey pulled his face out of my neck and looked at me.
Grinning.
* * * * *
“Babe.”
“This is not happening.”
“Amy.”
“No,” I snapped, pacing my bedroom and sliding my hand on the display of my phone.
I found what I wanted, tapped it and put the phone to my ear.
“Amy, this is not a good idea,” Mickey growled. “Shit like this, you don’t get involved.”
I glared at him just as Lawrie said in my ear, “Hey, MeeMee.”
“You’re dating someone who isn’t Robin?” I snapped.
He didn’t reply for a loaded moment before he asked, “How did you find out?”
“We have mutual friends, Lawrie, and I’ll add one of them is Robin.”
“She heard about Tara?” he asked, sounding concerned.
“Tara?’ I asked. “Tara?” I demanded peevishly.
“Did Robin hear about it?” he clipped.
“No.” I tossed a hand to the laptop on my nightstand that he couldn’t see. “I just read an email from Melly.”
Perhaps it was my fevered mind but I could swear I heard a sigh of relief before he told me, “Sweetheart, I can’t date your best friend.”
“Why not?” I queried sharply.
“What if it doesn’t work out?”
“Are you worried she’ll turn whackjob on you?” I returned, and before he could answer I went on, “Because if you are, don’t worry. That’s for cheaters. Everyone knows that. And if you could stay with Mariel for as long as you did and not stray, you have nothing to worry about.”
“That’s not it.”
“What is it?”
“You two are very close and if—”
“She makes you laugh.”
“She does, but—”
“She’s beautiful. Stylish. She has her own money.”
“This is true, but—”
“She thinks you’re handsome. She loves spending time with you. You make her laugh.”
“That means a lot, MeeMee, however—”
“However nothing,” I snapped. “We girls, we need it. We need the grand statement. We need to know that nothing else matters, nothing, not one thing but the shot you’re willing to take at you making us yours. You’d risk anything. You’d do anything. Logic and manners and her living right across the street and sisters as best friends don’t factor. Nothing does. Caution is thrown to the wind and you’d go against everything you believe in just for that one chance. That one chance to start building something. So if you do that in the beginning, when life happens, we know you’d do whatever you gotta do to keep us happy.” I paused before I finished, “This, of course, does not include if all this happens while you’re married. But that’s the only exception.”
Lawrie was silent.
“Lawrie,” I hissed. “Did you hear me?”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“You are not,” I bit out.
“If I don’t, how can I call Robin?”
I rocked to solid then tore my phone from my ear and hung up on him.
“You need the grand statement?”