After Hours (InterMix)(63)
“What do you think it was, that kept you from screwing up?” I asked Kelly. “Both your father figures were lousy, but you ended up a pretty good guy.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“You didn’t turn into either of those men.”
“No, I guess not.”
“Was it your mom, who kept you on the straight and narrow?”
He shook his head. “She was real weak. My dad—my stepdad—beat her down. Sometimes physically, mostly mentally. If anybody kept me straight, it was my grandfather, but I only got to see him a few times a year. And I never turned into him. He lived out in the boonies, and as fun as it was, staying with him and fishing and hunting and all that shit, it was like visiting another universe. Trying to live his life would’ve been like a junkyard dog trying to go off and live on a farm. All happy, frolicking in the meadow with butterflies, when all I wanted was a fight.”
“Huh.”
He shrugged and stole a slice of my bacon. “So I dunno why am I how I am. Why I didn’t go rotten. I should’ve, probably. Any subconscious choices I made to be this way, though, I made them out of anger. And spite. Like I refused to turn into either of those guys. Just don’t go telling yourself I’m some saint. Just a stubborn son of a bitch with real shitty role models.”
“Noted.”
“What about you?” he asked, forking eggs onto a slice of toast. “Who made you the way your are?”
“The way I am?”
“Yeah. How’d you end up like a rabid raccoon, scrapping with your sister’s loser boyfriend?”
“I don’t know. I basically raised her. It must be some maternal-type instinct.”
“What’s your mom like? She still around?”
“She’s around, back near Dearborn. I don’t talk to her very often. She was never built for motherhood, but she kept food in the fridge and a roof over our heads. She worked really hard. I can’t fault her for that.”
“Bet you can fault her a few other things, though.”
Yes, yes I could. “Doesn’t help anything, dwelling too much.”
“What about your dad?”
“He was never really in the picture. They reconciled when I was little, for maybe a year. Long enough for Amber to show up, then he took off again. Like a kid who begs for a pet and promises to take care of it, then changes their mind the second it stops being adorable. The whole family thing was a passing novelty to him.” My throat felt tight and sore, talking about it, and I had to work to swallow a bite of toast. The sensation surprised me. I’d thought I was numb to that old resentment.
“Where is he now?”
“Last I knew, he was living in Cleveland. Some kind of menial, warehouse-type job. He was never abusive or a criminal or anything, just . . . I dunno. Irresponsible. Like it didn’t register that he had a family unless he got it in his head that he was going to suddenly turn up and be Superdad, like a TV father. He showed up on Christmas once, with bikes for both of us. Amber was about eight and he got her a tricycle. I was thirteen and mine was pink, with streamers. He was clueless. We were just some project he’d pick up when it suited him, then he’d lose interest again.”
“Ouch.”
“Amber got a bike out of it, at least. A pink one with streamers.” I smiled dryly.
“I’d say woe is us, but I don’t know anybody who had a great childhood.”
“I’ve known a few, but they all had other problems.”
“Amen.”
We were quiet for a couple of minutes, finishing our breakfasts. Kelly had to help with mine, polishing off my bacon and eggs. Without a word, we carried our plates to the sink and he rinsed them. He took my hand in his damp one and led me silently down the hall, back to his bedroom.
I lay across the rumpled covers, resting my head on my hands, flexing my feet. Kelly stripped down to his shorts, then joined me with his fingers laced atop his belly. After a minute he shifted, propping himself on his elbow to stare down at me.
“Yes?”
He brushed stray strands of hair from my face and without a word, he moved to his knees between my legs, gently pushing my thighs open. I saw recognition in his eyes as my skirt slipped up and my bare * greeted him. All the laziness left his expression, intensity hardening his features and voice.
“Get me ready.”
I touched his neck with one hand and clasped his already-stiffening cock in the other through his shorts. He shoved them down, clearly in no mood for waiting. He pumped his hips, f*cking my hand, and with a dozen thrusts he was hard and thick, and my awareness had sunk low in my body, heat building between my thighs. He knocked my hand aside, wrestling his shorts the rest of the way off. My lips parted. His naked body was fascinating in the daylight. I memorized it, proud to know the secrets that lay behind Kelly’s drab gray Larkhaven uniform and stony professional persona.