38. The Shit List

The Shit List

M ara

Olivia walked out the door with Bex, and I turned to find Zale barreling down on me. He pulled me in tight for a quick, hard, close-mouthed kiss.

“Bed. Now.”

My mouth dropped open two seconds before the message hit my brain and the wet hit my panties. I grasped his forearms as my eyelids fluttered shut.

“Mara!” He laughed. “Bed!” He turned me in his arms and ushered me back to our bedroom.

Shyness and suspicion caught up with me halfway there. He was walking behind me. Did I look fat? Did he really want me? Was this all an act to prove to me that he’ll give me what I need only to take it away again once he goes back to work? Is it even fair to ask him for sex?

Nothing made sense anymore. I didn’t know if I should be making demands or promises, demanding apologies or offering them.

As soon as we passed the threshold to our bedroom, he started taking off my clothes, kissing the skin as he exposed it. He moved quickly, his hands everywhere, his mouth following, then heading back to cover mine in a contradictory soft, slow kiss. He was going too fast, his actions too erratic, for my brain to focus on anything other than what he was doing to me. I moaned into his mouth, standing naked in the circle of his arms, pressed against his long, hard body still encased in jersey and denim.

“Please, take your clothes off,” I pleaded “I want to feel you against me.”

He grasped his shirt at the back of his neck, pulled it over his head, and dropped it on the floor. He pulled me close, pressing my breasts against his hard chest, and then looked down into my upturned face.

His voice was low and thick, eyelids at half-mast. “You want to make love, baby? Or do you want to fuck? ”

I leaned in, allowing my weight to settle against him, I breathed, “I want to fuck.”

His eyes lit then hardened along with his jaw. “Alright,” he agreed, “let’s fuck.”

He backed me up to the edge of the bed and slammed his mouth down on mine, his hand fisted in my hair, holding my head back, exposing my throat to his lips, his tongue. I relaxed into his hold, gave myself over to him, and let him take me where we both longed to go.

Half an hour later he pulled me, limp and replete, into his arms, all tension drained from my system. I sighed against his chest.

His deep, mellow voice rumbled up from his chest. “You good, gorgeous?”

“Mm.”

He kissed my head. “Good. That’s what I like to hear.”

Zale

He’d taken full possession of Mara’s cell phone when she came home from the hospital, and he had deleted the messenger app off her iPad, for the time being, with her full consent.

Bea had been calling his cell and the house phone for the past two days. He’d already spoken to her once, but she was calling again. He’d yet to tell Mara about the phone calls but it was on the agenda for tomorrow.

They had a great day. After making love they had to boot it to make their joint session with Erin and then grabbed a late lunch. They arrived home about fifteen minutes before Olivia came in spouting off the news from the shelter, after which she retreated to the sunroom to decompress. She was there still, and Mara was in the kitchen with Bex and Willa, when his cell lit up with Bea’s name yet again. He walked out to the front porch and took the call.

“Bea.”

“Finally!” Her strident voice pierced his ear drum, and he winced as he pulled the phone away from his ear. “I’ve called you four times.”

“I spoke to you yesterday.”

Yesterday she wanted to know when Mara was going to bring Olivia to see her. She didn’t ask how Mara was doing.

“Yes, and what if this had been an emergency?”

“Then you call 911. But I’m guessing this is not an emergency?”

She huffed. “Well, isn’t that nice? How lucky am I to have you for a son-in-law?”

“You didn’t answer my question. Is this an emergency?” He could not believe the amount of patience required to cut through the bullshit with this woman .

“When are you going to let me speak with my daughter? It’s like you’ve kidnapped her or something. You’re like one of those abusive men who cut their wives off from their families.” She laughed it off as a joke, but the joke had teeth.

“Mara has suffered no abuse from me. You, however, are a different story. Your manipulations have hurt her.”

The story of what had happened with Bea had eventually come out during one of their therapy sessions with Erin. He had always tried to be sensitive to her as Mara’s mother, and as a widow who had suffered the loss of her husband, but he was no longer interested in catering to her ‘lonely widow’ routine. His priority was to care for Mara and Olivia, and Bea had shown herself to be in direct opposition to that goal with her actions.

“I’ve hurt her?” Bea scoffed, then continued, bitterness dripping from each word. “She abandoned me! My husband died! He died and I had no one!”

“You were here twice a week for dinner if memory serves me correct, for the first few years until Mara started working from home with her writing. Since then, Mara made a point of taking Olivia to see you two or three times a week all of these years, despite all the things she has to do.”

She scoffed again. “Invited for dinner, like a charity case, then? Not like family! And those visits are going to stop, apparently! Olivia’s too busy all of a sudden. It’s shameful. I’m ashamed and it hurts me to say it, but I didn’t raise Mara like this. Willa, she was always a lost cause, but with Mara I had hope!”

The vitriol coming from this woman, who he’d always seen as controlling, insensitive, and slightly neurotic, but never malicious, shocked him yet again. No wonder Mara had the self-esteem problems she had, if this had been going on her whole life?

And what must Willa have gone through to lead her to cut her off entirely? He knew part of it, obviously, she’d lived with them off and on since she was a teen, but he’d never heard this kind of talk from Bea. He needed to end this call before he said something he might regret, though he doubted that would be an issue at this point. She had yet to inquire about Mara’s wellbeing.

“What did you need to speak to Mara about?”

“I want her to stop this nonsense! Ignoring her own mother! What if I needed something?”

“Bea,” he growled, “Mara is the one who needs something this time…”

“She always needs something!” she screeched. “What about me? I have a heart condition and I’m alone! What if something happened?”

Zale was known for his composure, and it did not fail him in this instance, but it was sorely tested .

“If you have an emergency, text me at this number and I will call you back. If I call you back and it’s not an emergency, you may rest assured that I will not respond the next time you text.”

She started to talk but he cut her off with a barked command. “Quiet, Bea, I’m only going to say this once and if you screw up it’ll be on you. If you would like to inquire as to how Mara is doing, you may text me at this number and ask. As for speaking to Mara, you will speak to Mara when she is sufficiently recovered to be able to deal with you.”

“Well, I cannot believe…”

“Believe it. Good-bye for now, Bea. Take care of yourself.”

He ended the call but did not go inside. The front door opened, and he blew out a breath and turned, cringing at the possibility that Mara might have heard. Seeing Willa stepping outside to join him was a relief.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes, sweetheart.” He winced. “Could you guys hear me?”

“I was at the door, getting something from my purse. No one else heard.” She paused, then questioned, “That was my mother?”

He snorted. “You use the term too loosely, I think.”

She laughed, as he hoped she would. He held out his arm to rest it around her shoulders and she nestled into his side.

“I’m sorry, Willa, I never realized how bad she could be. ”

At forty-seven, Zale had fifteen years on Willa, Willa well knew he was old enough to be her father, and he fulfilled that role, as well as that of a beloved, protective, older brother, in her life. She loved him and he loved her right back. She was important to him, but he was crucial to her.

“Ah, you got a taste of Bea in a snit. Are you on the shit list now too?”

He squeezed her around her shoulders. “That’s okay, the best company is on that list.”

They went back into the house, Willa headed back to the kitchen to order pizza, and he flaked out on top of the tangled sheets on his freshly fucked-in bed until the time came to get Olivia into bed and drive Willa and Bex home.

Mara was sleeping deeply when he got back. He quickly added that day’s song to their playlist and slid into their bed, dragging his wife into his arms where she remained until morning.