Page 31 of Sterling Clay

Love hurts. That’s what I’d learned from my dad. And the long-term investment in it can be cut short within a moment’s notice.

Dutton flinches beside me, then he giggles, laughing at his own startling.

“What’d I miss?” I ask, knowing my mind had wandered off and my body wants to follow Mavis to the bathroom, climb into my tub behind her, and hold her against me again. Last night had been nice despite the storm and loss of power which came back on at some point in the early hours of a new day. Holding Mavis felt right. Sandwiching Dutton between us felt strangely good.

And finding her sitting against a brick wall earlier, crying into her hands, nearly broke me. Hugging her on the public street was the least I could do for her.

“She just found a hiding spot.” Dutton stiffens beside me, straightening his arms at his sides and tightening his outstretched legs like he’s the one hidden behind an open door.

“She why you’re good at finding hiding spaces?” I hadn’t forgotten what he said earlier today. How his mama taught him how to hide. I’d been puzzled on and off throughout the day what he meant by the admission.

“Mama used to make a game of hide ‘n’ seek when Wesley was fired up.”

“Fired up?”

“When he drank too much and got mean.” Dutton’s eyes don’t leave the television screen, but I can’t be certain if he’s focusing on the hidden princess or falling into a memory. His body slowly slumps into the couch cushions. I shouldn’t be prying into his history. I don’t want to trigger him.

Still, I don’t like that a child was conscious of what drinking too much alcohol can do to a person and how it can make him cruel.

This reminds me of my father.

“So you hid from your dad?”

Dutton shrugs, lowering his gaze and picking at the track pants covering his legs. “When I could.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. Not one bit. If his father was anything like my father, I shiver to think what was said, what was done, to frighten a child enough he tried to hide. And at his mama’s request.

Then another question strikes. He’d called Wesley by his first name, not Dad. I’d started doing the same thing as I aged. Working in the family business, it seemed better to distinguish myself from Dad by calling him by his given name, Flint.

The irony of his hard name compared to the softness of our mother’s—Violet—was never lost on me.

“I’m sorry Flint promised we could deliver by Friday. That’s just not possible.”

“No, we cannot honor the extension Flint allowed you.”

“What do you mean Flint owes three months of payment for the feed shipment?”

“How is it Flint didn’t cover taxes for the last two years?”

The last one had almost been the end of me and the Seed & Soil.

Deciding I shouldn’t question a six-year-old about his past, my attention returns to Princess Power, finding my focus waning occasionally. Drifting to a woman taking a bath in the tub down the hall, imagining the water enveloping her body. Maybe bubbles covering her thighs, her breasts, her nipples rising above the suds. Just a peek to confirm they are dusky like her skin, or rosy and pink.

All I want to do is comfort her.

Shaking the thought, I drift back to why her son had to hide from his dad. From Wesley.

And what the man has done to Mavis.

+ + +

Once the program finishes and Mavis exits the bathroom, I call for a celebration.

“Why?” Mavis chuckles, freshly fragrant in that floral scent of hers. Her cheeks are brighter, heated from the bath. Her dark hair is piled on top of her head in a wobbly twist. She looks younger, relaxed a little bit.

And sexy as hell wearing a ratty, peach colored robe with giant mint-green flowers here and there on the worn material. I’m one-thousand percent positive she’s naked underneath it and I’m jealous of the material. She looks comfortable, plus confident enough to wear something so casual around my house, like it’s her home.

I want her to stay here, and she hasn’t given me an answer about whether she will or won’t.