Sweet as Sin (39 page)

“Don’t look at me. I’m not drinking anything stronger than orange juice. Livvy, on the other hand, is trashed.” He tugged her closer, lifted her scrub top and kissed her flat tummy. “Hey, Butterbean, Daddy missed you.”

Andrea snapped her shirt down. “Butterbean is making me want to throw up and Livvy doesn’t drink.”

“Livvy drinks like a fish when she can’t taste the alcohol.” Tow laughed. “Today has

been…let’s just say I ended up playing bartender to keep her off the streets. Here she comes.”

Tow wasn’t kidding. Livvy was drunker than the proverbial skunk. And she was pissed. Her copper hair was pulled up in a messy topknot. She was braless and wore her oldest cutoff shorts. Her eyes were unfocused and glassy. She tossed a handful of toiletries into a box holding a food processor and several CDs. Pointing her finger at 434

Sweet as Sin

Tow, she seemed to be picking up a conversation midway through.

“Do you know how many health codes that

violated? They could shut me down for tricks like that. And those damn tables are hard on your ass.

What in the hell was I thinking?”

“I understand,” Tow replied vaguely. Livvy whirled around and marched back down the hall.

Once she was out of sight, Tow smiled and shook his head.

“Why aren’t you stopping her?” Andrea

screeched.

“I’m letting her vent…and learning way too much about her sex life. She’s been like this for an hour, Andy. It shouldn’t be long until she passes out. Here she comes again.”

Livvy carried a stack of sheets and a set of hot rollers Andrea thought died two years ago. Both got dropped in a box full of photo albums. “Okay, so yeah, he’s right and I’m wrong and life sucks a huge one but I didn’t mean to hurt him. He knew what the hell he was doing when he dropped his pants for that slut.”

“I see your point,” Tow said. Livvy

disappeared into the hall.

Andrea pounced. “What in hell is she

drinking?”

He pointed to the five opened bottles. “Well, she started with that chocolate and schnapps Inez Kelley

435

geriatric stuff but it was taking too long. So I mixed a little of this, a little of that, about a dozen shots’ worth, with two cherry Popsicles. I thought one glass would be enough to knock her out but she slurped the entire pitcher.”

She glared at him and the grin slid off his face.

“I got the idea from John the night we went drinking. He called it a Leftover Hangover. I didn’t tell Livvy that name. She wanted to feel good. I told her it was called a Happy Snapper.”

Livvy reappeared with a comforter the size of Guam. She stuffed it on top of the food processor and turned to them. A wide smile broke over her face.

“Aaaaandy!” Andrea was enveloped by wide-

spread arms that swayed her back and forth. “My baby sister is having a baby.”

“Uh, Liv, why don’t you sit down a while?”

“No. I have to be ready for Leo. Did you know he kissed me today, with tongue, and Murphy didn’t bite, but then he almost kissed me, too?

Then he ripped up a pixie and now he’s going to sue me.”

Her brain hurt trying to decipher that statement and Livvy wavered down the hall once more.

“You wasted my cherry Popsicles so my sister could get drunk?”

436

Sweet as Sin

“I bought a new box, honey,” Tow placated her.

He pulled a king-size Kit Kat from a plastic bag.

“And chocolate.”

She ripped the candy bar from his hand. By the time Livvy reappeared, Andrea had devoured the candy and washed the blender pitcher. Throwing a bunch of mismatched shoes in an empty box, Livvy cocked her hip.

“And another thing. Where in the hell does he get off calling me a fucking bitch? I didn’t go looking for Fifi. If I had half a backbone, I’d go tell him where he can shove that damned one-eared bat and his sketchbook.”

“Go for it, Liv. Give him hell,” Tow

encouraged. Andrea’s mouth dropped open and he clamped his hand over it.

“I should. Screw it, I will. He can’t run away from home all the time.”

Andrea pulled Tow’s hand away as Livvy

shoved her feet into clogs and darted out the sliding glass door.

“Tow! Stop her.”

“No, let her go. She needs to get John out of her system. If it takes giving him a piece of her drunk, befuddled mind, let her do it. She won’t hold anything back and it’ll be good for her.”

She huffed, “Her mind is not the piece I’m worried about her giving him.”

Inez Kelley

437

Tow chuckled, recapping the vodka bottle.

“Yeah, well, that might not be such a bad idea either.” She glowered and he pulled her close.

“Andrea, I’m a divorce attorney. The one thing I know is heartbreak and what it can do to a person.

Livvy’s not living, she’s existing. And it hurts.

Trust me, she needs this.”

She sighed. She’d been the one to encourage Livvy to sleep with John. It was supposed to be a summer booty call. She never meant to lead her to heartache. “I just hope you’re right. With her luck, John will take one look at her and run, leaving her passed out on his floor.”

“No chance.” He leaned in and pecked her

mouth. A strange set of keys appeared out of his pocket. “John dropped his truck keys in the driveway this evening. I saw them when we pulled in. That saved me from letting the air out of all his tires. He’s not going anywhere tonight.

He’s stuck with a full-frontal, pissed-off Livvy attack.”

“I don’t get it. Why is that a good thing?”

Tow smiled the shark-like smile he used in court and she fought a sudden shudder.

“Because sometimes love is a bitch. Because I’m betting he loves her as much as she loves him.

And because I’m a very good divorce attorney. I know exactly how to make a man’s life a living hell.”

438

Sweet as Sin

Infomercial…cartoons…CNN…teenager

headache music…
Seinfeld
…Home Shopping Network…
Gospel Hour
…Infomercial…politics

…Weather Channel…ballgame…black-and-white movie…

John flipped through the channels, barely registering the flickering images. Stretched on the couch, the glow from the screen illuminated off his glasses. Today had drained everything out of him, leaving nothing but an empty shell. Like his house. He just wanted some noise, some parody of life. The remote stopped on
I Love Lucy
and his stomach jumped. It was too close to “I Love Livvy” so he punched the button a few more time until the TV paused on the History Channel.

Whatever, that works
.

He dropped the remote to the floor and picked up Livvy’s hair clip. He’d discovered it in the console of his truck while looking for his missing keys. He fastened and unfastened it, letting the rhythmic click drone in his mind. Stolen images washed over him and he bathed in each one while Hitler’s army marched on Poland in the

background.

Livvy meowing at him, mischief sparkling in her heather eyes.

Livvy singing softly into Tyler’s hair, swaying in the nightlight’s glow.

Inez Kelley

439

Livvy trailing roses down his nose, eyes full of love and tears.

Livvy barreling across his deck with a

murderous look stamped on her face.

It took a split second for reality to sink in. The door crashed open and Livvy blazed into the room like a wildfire touched to a dry kindling pile.

Jackknifing upright, John barely had time for his bare feet to touch the carpeting.

“Liv, wha—” Her thighs straddled his like a wrestler. Her hands reached for his face and anger rolled off her flushed skin. He got a brief glimpse of enraged pain before his vision went blurry.

“Damn it, Liv, give those back. I can’t see!” He reached blindly then heard a muted clank and wondered where she’d tossed his glasses.

“Good. You can’t run away. Just shut up and listen.” The order was heavily laced with fruity alcohol. The uncharacteristic fact stunned him.

“Livvy, you’re drunk.”

“Damn right I am.”

Cherry heat flooded his mouth as she kissed him. A kaleidoscope of thoughts burst into his brain in the same instant. This wasn’t right. She didn’t belong to him any longer, she never really had. He shouldn’t kiss her back. She felt too good to stop. He opened his lips and tasted one last breath of heaven. One kiss, or a series of hundreds 440

Sweet as Sin

of small ones, would be enough to last him a lifetime without her.

Firm bare legs pressed along his, gripping him with a remembered awareness that sent blood rushing to his groin. How hot she was at the junction of her thighs. Gripping her hips, he pulled her closer.

Livvy.

Her back was a long smooth line from hip to neck, and his hands traced every inch. She wrenched her mouth from his with a stuttered breath. “You hurt me.”

Like an ice-cold blade, her words stabbed with no mercy. This close, he could still see her eyes, the iridescent sheen twisting the knife deeper.

Alcohol had stripped away her barriers and she seethed at him. He relaxed, prepared to be her target, to accept whatever shot she wanted to fire at him.

The Kool-Aid red of her lips quivered. “I hurt you, too. But I didn’t mean to. I’d never do that on purpose. But you did. How could you? How could anyone be that deliberately cruel? Why,

Murphy?”

“Li—”

“No. No talking. You listen.” She leaned back and he lost her into the fuzzy smudges.

Inez Kelley

441

He squinted, trying to bring her face back into focus. Angry tears hit his face as she shook his shoulders.

“Why? I loved you. You promised. I could’ve handled almost anything else, but you cheated.

And with Fifi! I let you watch me
play with myself,
damn it! What kind of man are you? Were you two laughing at me? Was she good, Murphy? Was it better than we were together? Because I didn’t think anything could be better than that night.

Were you thinking about her then?”

Her questions tore into him, each word

bleeding anguish. “No! Liv, ple—”

“Shut up! Do you know how much you scared me? Could you feel my fear? Did you even care? I had never been afraid of you until that minute.

You terrified me.”

Shame collapsed his lids and filled his mouth with acid. The writer learned how powerful words could be as they sliced with fresh ache. He deserved her contempt but the intensity burned like hellfire. Hurt like he’d never known surged through him.

“You’re mean and cruel and I wish I’d never met you, never loved you. You took something special and threw it away. Like that damn sketchpad. You just pitched it, pitched us, like we were nothing. We were something to me. You tore my heart out then dropped me as if I didn’t matter 442

Sweet as Sin

and never had. I didn’t mean anything more to you than those drawings did.”

Her words sank deep, tearing into him. He never knew he could ache so much without a touch. He didn’t know if he could survive this beating. His angel carried a sword that cut with more concentrated force than any broomstick.

Beneath his hands, her hips shifted and he opened his eyes to find her suddenly in focus. Her eyes began to droop with alcoholic stupor. She buried her head against his neck.

“I didn’t think there was a piece of my heart left for you to break until today. You want the drawings back? You can have them. Take them all.

Take me to court, take the Shack, take whatever.

You can’t do anything worse to me. I don’t have anything else for you to take. I gave you everything I was.”

Livvy snuggled closer, her words slurring and dropping lower. John let his hand skim up her back, cradling her to his chest. He laid his cheek on her hair. Every nerve cried out from her verbal assault but holding her once more was too sweet.

He couldn’t let go.

“You stupid asshole. You’re in my blood,

Murphy, in my soul. How do I live without you now? You tell me. You’re the one with all the answers.”

Inez Kelley

443

The last syllable died away on a faint exhale.

Resistance seeped from each muscle until she lay, a deadweight against him. He couldn’t move for one long minute. What had she said?

“Livvy, what did you say?” He pulled her away from his chest, straining to see her. “Livvy, wake up, say that again.”

She simply sighed and rolled into his shoulder.

Cotton absorbed her tears. It nearly muffled her words completely. “I hate you.”

His vision blurred from wetness as well as genetics, John took the jab straight to his heart.

Butchers gut a carcass with less damage than those terms. Three tiny words, eight letters in total, cut into his chest, grabbed his heart and yanked it out. The gaping wound screamed as she slept.

He stood and carried her to bed. He didn’t need his eyes for this trip. Memory guided his feet. He lowered her to her side of the bed, the side he’d not been able to make himself roll to since she’d left it. He pulled the twisted elastic from her hair, smoothing the curls along the pillow. Selfishly, he let his hand linger before moving to her shorts.

The button popped and he tugged the faded denim down her long legs, tossing them aside. Just as he had Tyler and PJ, he tucked her in, kissed her forehead and left her to sleep.

John went searching for his glasses but it was impossible. He had no idea which direction Livvy 444

Sweet as Sin

had tossed them. He crossed in front of the couch, tripped over her shoes and stepped on her barrette.

He bit back a curse but the pinch gave him something to focus on other than her words.

Silently slipping back into his room, he closed the bathroom door before turning on the light. The contacts stung his eyes and he let the moisture gather there, washing the sting away. They weren’t real tears even if his nose burned and his throat tightened. He refused to look in the mirror before he left the room.

His glasses were under the bar. Livvy had pitched them farther than he thought. He laid them on the counter and picked up the phone. Andrea answered on the second ring. Without