Shopping for a Billionaire 2(16)
Author: Julia Kent

Or whether we can rub something hard enough to light a blaze.

Bzzzz.

Steve again. I smack my forehead with a quietly-muttered “Aha!”, because that’s my answer. I keep asking myself what on earth makes Declan want to date me.

And Steve, of all the people in the world, is the key.

Mr. Invalidator is undermining me by simply communicating with me. It’s not even intentional. The content of what he’s trying to communicate doesn’t matter. Our shared past means that even being bzzzz’d by him carries an emotional message.

I snatch up the phone and, without reading his texts, delete them all. Then I delete Steve as a contact from my phone.

It feels like flushing a deeply clogged toilet after working for hours with a plunger and a snake to reach the goal. Whoosh!

Should have done that last year, but I couldn’t. It felt like cutting off the stump of an amputated limb.

I close my eyes and feel. Feel. The air goes in as I inhale and I imagine breathing with Declan, our air mingling, intentions and suppositions and hopes and interest all swirling before us in an atmosphere of mutual enjoyment.

My eyelids flutter and as my eyes drift around I can see him, casual and smiling, laughing and quiet, nuzzling against me, my view obscured by the soft wave of his hair, by the layout of his eyelashes against his cheek, the look of light stubble across an iron jaw.

I inhale deeply and remember his scent, the mix of citrus and spice and something deeper, fragrant and infused with promise. The taste of wine on his lips, how fire and grapes mixed in our kisses to make a kind of ambrosia I want to experience again. And again.

And then I run my fingers lightly across my arm and remember the weight of his hot skin against mine. His arms claiming me, hands hungry to touch more of me, to combine our flesh and to revel in the nuance and the carnal.

How it felt like finding my way to a home I never knew I had.

Tap tap tap. I turn to look toward the sound and there’s my mother’s face pressed up against the window, her makeup smearing the glass as she presses a bright red kiss on my already-dirty window. The fact that it’s off center annoys me even more.

“Hi, honey! We’re here to make sure you go on your date looking good!” She lifts up her makeup bag. It’s bigger than most NHL player duffel bags. Pink with silver buckles, that thing has more chemicals in it than a Monsanto pesticide lab.

“And my new mascara came. Four layers of color!” she squeals.

Four layers of torture and doom.

“Great,” I say weakly, grabbing my purse and climbing out of the car. “My eyelashes will cross into three states.”

Four days ago I was walking down the same apartment stairs I’m now walking up. I wore an elegant black dress, my mother embarrassed me thoroughly, I split my skirt, and I rode to one of the finest restaurants in Boston with a man I’d met just twelve hours earlier in a men’s bathroom.

And now here I am…getting dolled up again for a date with the same guy. My eyeball has barely recovered from Mom’s game of Pin the Eyeshadow on the Donkey on Monday.

She yammers a steady stream of words about Dad, yoga class, something involving the words “vaginal ultrasound” and “banana” and “online condom site.” Because none of those words should ever be uttered in sequence, I have to block it all out. My dreams, though, will be vivid tonight, because the subconscious is like Chuckles.

Eventually you pay the price for simply existing.

I walk in my front door and a lovely surprise greets me. Chuckles is smiling—smiling!—with his eyes closed and ears tucked back, sitting in my dad’s lap.

“Dad!” I shout, rushing to him. He stands and dumps Chuckles on the floor. The look Chuckles gives me convinces me that he has Feline Borderline Personality Disorder, and a chill runs through me. I’m about to be the target of one hell of a character attack.

Too bad, kitty, I think. Daddy’s little girl always prevails. I glare back at him over my dad’s shoulder as we hug and Chuckles slinks away. Ha. Score one for Shannon.

Pretty bad when the highlight of my day is beating my cat at being loved by my own father.

Dad looks…different. He’s two years older than Mom, and has that middle-age paunch all the fathers of my friend have, except for Mort Jergenson, who runs ironman triathlons and makes my dad mutter about “showoffs” and how “only a trust fund baby could do that marathon shit” under his breath.

He conveniently ignores the fact that Amy does that marathon shit, too. She didn’t qualify for the Boston Marathon last year, and everyone was sad for her when she got the news. Mom, however, was a sobbing mess on race day when the bombings happened, and for two hours no one could locate Amy, who had been in the city along the race path to cheer friends on. Fortunately, she was fine and back at mile twenty in the crowd.

This year she did run. And Dad couldn’t be prouder.

If there’s one thing my family has taught me, it’s that being a hypocrite is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, some people polish their badges and wear them like an award.

“Dad, what did you change?” I scrutinize him as we stand in the living room. He’s beaming at me and Mom scowls.

“Look closely,” he urges. Mom says nothing. That, alone, sends chills down my spine.

I frown and squint. Something about his face has changed. The clothes are the same—old jeans and a faded blue polo shirt. The same scuffed brown boat shoes he’s owned since I’ve been alive. His hair is squirrelly and full of tight auburn curls, as always. Eyes are warm brown and hooded slightly by sagging eyelids that all my friends’ parents seem to be getting. Except for the mothers who can afford lid tucks. Then they just look REALLY EXCITED ABOUT EVERYTHING. You can tell them the tag on their shirt is showing and THEY ARE JUST SO JAZZED.

It’s like looking at a meerkat nonstop.

He rubs his chin. Then I see it. “You have a goatee!” I peer closer. “And it’s red.”

“Red” doesn’t quite describe it. Dad’s had a scruffy beard on and off for years. Gray took over at least since I was in third grade. This is a young man’s color, a vibrant red that almost belongs on a punk skateboarder.

“He did it himself,” Mom spits out, as if she were shooting a hocker ten feet in a contest. “Tell her what you used, Jason.”

“Kool-Aid!” Dad says, crowing. He plants his thick, callused hands on his h*ps and beams at me, proud and glowing. It dawns on me that he only comes over to our apartment when something is broken or when Amy and I invited him and Mom over for dinner. Dad doesn’t just drop in like Mom does.