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“I like your friends, though. And you…I like you a lot.” I turned to catch his lips, the kiss a little off-center. I smooched the corner of his mouth and broke into giggles that lasted about two blocks before I fell asleep to the soft sounds of Andy Serkis as he read something about Silmarils, whatever they were. Something to do with Middle Earth knowing my Marcus. Hmm, my Marcus.
I did like the sound of that as well…
***
“Daddy, is he dead?”
“No, sugar, he’s just sleeping.”
“But I brung him the coffee that you said would make him live again, but he’s still not living right.”
I ran my tongue over my mossy teeth, opened one eye to see Kyleen and Marcus staring down at me, and then burped the sourest, most rancid burp ever burped.
“Your breath smells like Goldberry’s cat box,” Kyleen informed me, then gingerly lifted a huge mug of coffee from the long table sitting in front of the sofa where, it seemed, I had slept all night. The sofa, not the table. “Daddy says you like coffee a lot, so we have some that Aunty Zada made for you. She said you should have dog hair in it, but Daddy didn’t think so. I don’t either. I get cat hair in my mouth and it’s gross. Do you want the coffee now, Mr. Baskoro?”
How did a child so small speak so loudly? My head thumped as I levered myself up and stretched out a shaking hand to take the elixir of the gods.
“Call me Basky,” I moaned and inhaled one of the most blessed smells on the planet. I took a sip. It was creamed and sweetened perfectly. “Buddha, bless you,” I whispered into the brew before taking another sip.
Kyleen beamed at me and then raced off, yelling at Zada to make more coffee because Mr. Basky was awake but still looked dead. I felt dead too—or wished I were—it was hard to separate to be honest.
Marcus sat down beside me, all decked out in gray jogging pants—yum—and a yellow sweatshirt with the name of a dance studio on the front. He dumped a couple of aspirin out of a bottle into his hand and passed them over.
“I think you look adorable when you’re half dead,” he told me, leaning in for a kiss. I held my coffee mug in front of my mouth. “Oh right, cat poop breath. Well, then a kiss on the cheek will have to do.” He placed a peck on my cheek and then sat back to stare at me. “How do you feel?”
“Like death. No,” I paused to swallow the tablets, “like death who got kicked in the head by one of his demon horses. Then the horse danced on his skull for a few hundred years. Then the horse shit on him just for the hell of it. Ha. The hell of it. Oh shit, my head hurts.” I cringed at the throbbing behind my eyes.
“Poor thing. I did try to warn you about drinking all that wine,” he whispered, easing his arm around my neck so I could rest my aching head on his shoulder. “But you said you drank wine all the time.”
“I lied. Big time. I hardly ever drink. It’s kind of not done in my household as it violates a precept. Can’t recall which one now, but yeah, I tend to skip all that. Now I remember why.” I lifted my cup to my lips, frowned, and then picked my head up so I could ingest more of the heavenly fluid. “What time is it?”
“A little after eleven. I know you have to leave this afternoon to get back to meet your parents at the airport. I wish we had more time.” He dropped a featherlight kiss to my ratty hair. It kind of hurt. Why did I drink so much wine?!
“We will have more time. In two days, you’ll be at my place for a few days. I promise my head won’t hurt nor will my breath smell like cat feces.”
“It is pretty rancid, baby, I got to say.”
“Mr. Basky! Aunty Zada is making you happy waffles so you get more alive!” Kyleen shouted so loudly my eardrums pulsed. And so did my head.
“Ow,” I whimpered.
“You still sure you want a bunch of kids?” Marcus teased just as I got a hug around the neck from a very boisterous young lady who smelled of sunshine and cinnamon.
Yeah, I was sure. Lots of kids. Less wine. For sure less wine…
Chapter Fourteen
Marcus
“Are we there yet?”
The urge to sigh loudly was strong, but Super Dad that I am, I held it back and smiled into the rearview mirror at my offspring sitting so proudly in her booster seat. Her gaze met mine instantly.
“No, baby, we still have a couple of hours to go.”
My child did not hold back on the dramatic sigh. Nope. She was an expert. “Why does Mr. Basky live so far away?!”
“It’s not really all that far, honey. It’s about three hours or so. If you’d sit back and listen to the audiobook that we borrowed from the library, the time would fly. Kind of like the dragon in the book.”
