Page 39 of Happy Is On Hiatus
“Enough for what?” Her tone had lowered slightly, and the sexual buzz that she’d been trying to ignore sizzled around them.
“Enough to show off the woman behind the badge,” was his reply.
For the next seconds they’d stood in that store as if they were the only ones there. Their gazes had locked, and an entire silent conversation had ensued. A conversation that they both knew shouldn’t be happening.
She’d grabbed all three bathing suits and made her way to the register at that point. From there it’d been limited conversation as he insisted on walking her to her car. He muttered a quick “I’ll call you when I have the final paperwork” seconds before she closed the door and drove off.
And now he was on her mind again.
She was horny.
With a nod, she snatched the tags off the bathing suits and then tucked them into the huge duffel bag she was packing. Her body hummed with arousal, her breasts felt full, pussy throbbing with every recollection of his big hands holding those clear plastic hangers, his smoldering eyes staring down at the barely there material, then easing over her body.
It was hot as hell in here too.
She’d kicked off her sandals as soon as she walked into the bedroom and now moved on bare feet across the carpeted floor. Going to her closet, she took out the three dresses she’d planned to pack. Two maxi dresses with flowing material from the bottom of the tight bodices, and a knee-length halter one in her favorite shade of—yes—black, again. She put them in the bag, then went back to the closet determined, telling herself that if she hurried to get the packing done, she could also take care of the incessant aching between her legs that had followed her home from the mall.
But on her next trip to the closet, when she bent down to hunt through the stacks of shoeboxes to find the ones she needed to go with the dresses and the four shorts sets she’d already packed, everything stopped.
Her fingers brushed over the cool cashmere-gray marble tower urn. Last week after she’d picked it up from the funeral home, she’d come straight home and tucked it against the back wall of her closet. Tonight, she stared at her fingers as they moved of their own accord over the surface. It looked like any ordinary chunk of stone. Nobody wouldever guess there was a compartment opening on the bottom where the ashes were stored.
Rita had agreed with Medwin III that this one had a bold, modern appearance. Jemel had felt squeamish about the whole cremating idea. And Sharae hadn’t cared one way or the other. Except right at this moment, she wanted to look at it.
Pulling it out, she sat with her legs tucked under her butt on the floor. It had weight to it as she held it in both hands. The light swirls of gray throughout the white created a fantastical look. But it was the undeniable emotion emanating from the chunk of marble circling around her that had her gasping. In the next seconds, a pain unlike anything Sharae had ever known gripped her chest, and she pitched forward, closing her eyes against the assault.
There’d been so much blood. More than her thirteen-year-old eyes had ever seen. And the smell, it had been acidic and made her stomach roil in complaint. She’d never known what had awakened her that long-ago summer night, but she’d sat up in her bed for a few moments, trying to determine whether to turn over and go back to sleep or get up and find herself a snack. Her throat was dry, so she’d decided on some juice or iced tea. Mama had made iced tea, and there was a two-liter of lemonade that she could mix with it for a cool beverage. She’d eased out of bed and walked out of her room in a way she’d done so many times before. They lived in a two-story town house, and she walked down the hallway to the stairs. It was dark, as it should’ve been at that time of night, but she’d lived in that house all her life, so she didn’t need the light to know where she was going. There was a light on in the kitchen. She noticed that the second she stepped into the living room. Maybe Mama and Daddy were up getting a snack or a drink too. But if they were, they were being awfully quiet about it.
She moved through the space, passed the small laundry-room area on the left, and then she felt the coolness. The carpet floor had ended and was replaced by white tile that had been cracked in some places.Her toes had wiggled at the chill, then her nostrils burned, and her eyes had seen all the red. Justine had been sitting up against the refrigerator, her face swollen, blood matting her hair.
Sharae had her mother’s thick, coarse hair. Justine had kept hers permed because she said it was easier to manage that way. Sharae kept hers natural because her mother had never put any chemicals in her only child’s hair.
She didn’t know when she’d begun to rock. Probably when the memories first forced themselves to the forefront, but Sharae sat on the floor, rocking forward and backward, clutching the urn as tears streamed quietly down her face.
Her mother was gone, and now the man who’d taken her away was gone too. She didn’t know how she was supposed to feel about all that or what she was supposed to do. All she knew was that the grief that thirteen-year-old girl had tucked into the back of her heart was breaking free, and the woman had no idea if she could survive it. That thought scared Sharae in a way she’d never been afraid before, and she cried harder. The pain spread faster. Her loss seemed deeper.
Chapter 16
DRINKS...AND OTHER THINGS IN HAND.
Rita swallowed another gulp of her second mojito as the lyrics to a hip-hop song purred over a thumpin’ beat. There were at least fifty women tucked into one of the hotel’s meeting rooms with a wall of windows facing the ocean. Highboy tables were spread around the space, and stools and a few lounge chairs as well. The overhead lights had been dimmed so that the smoky-white uplighting cast the space in deep shadows, everywhere except the center of the floor, where a bright spotlight shone on the stripper pole. On the pole a scantily clad woman did some sort of sexual acrobatics while a couple of feet away from her, a bare-chested man sat in a chair, legs spread, hands gripping what Rita suspected was a thick erection through his jeans.
The first of Wendy’s three bridal celebrations had started off with a bang at ten Friday night.
It was almost eleven now, and Rita felt sticky in the pale-pink maxi dress she wore. Sharae was seated at the table to her left. Her drink of choice was whiskey, straight. Every time Rita watched her take a drink, it made her throat burn. Sharae wore a dress tonight too—a floral-print black, white, and pink one. Jemel, whose idea it’d been for all of them to wear dresses instead of shorts and T-shirts—they’d thank her for thatlater since nobody in the room was wearing shorts and T-shirts—wore a shorter wrap dress in a vibrant yellow color that matched the large earrings and bracelets she also had on. Her drink—the third one in the short time they’d been here—was a margarita, which always made her grin at Rita knowingly when she ordered.
“How long are we staying down here?” Rita asked when her glass was just about empty. She looked at her watch for, like, the hundredth time.
“Till it’s over or the bar closes,” Jemel added. She was bopping to the beat of the music, clearly enchanted by the show still going on in the center of the room.
“Or until he yanks her off that pole and starts bangin’ her right there on the dance floor,” Sharae added with a shrug. She didn’t look like she was enjoying the show half as much as Jemel, and for the second time tonight, Rita wondered at her mood.
She’d been uncharacteristically quiet on the ride down. And that was after she’d elected to sit in the back instead of arguing with Rita over riding shotgun. While Jemel and Rita had chatted about their upcoming event, Rita had peeked back at Sharae a couple of times. She’d been staring out the window as if she’d never seen the view from the Bay Bridge before. When they’d arrived at the hotel and checked in to their room, both she and Jemel had asked Sharae what was wrong, and she’d shrugged then too, saying she was working on a difficult case and needed this break to clear her mind. Neither Rita nor Jemel had believed that for one minute.
Still, they’d showered, dressed, and ordered room service before coming down here. Rita hated depending on the place where she was going to feed her. She’d never been at this hotel, so she wasn’t sure what was on their banquet menus, or what Wendy’s budget allowed her to order. So they’d eaten in their room, which turned out to be a good thing because there were only finger foods down here and an open bar.
“He’s not gonna do that right here, is he?” she asked when she followed their gaze to the middle of the room once more.
The guy was standing now, undoing the button on his jeans and pushing them slowly down his legs.
