0215543001348293036 vaughn piper oshea m.j. (12 page)

“Mind if I come with you?”

I looked back at him in surprise. “Not at all.” We left the apartment, pulling the door shut behind us. When we were at my place, I shrugged out of my coat and hung it in the closet.

“Did you want something to drink?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“Gatorade okay? I have Coke too, or water.”

“Water’s fine, thanks.”

I went into the kitchen to grab him a bottle of water and the gel pack from the freezer. Dusty was sitting on the couch when I came back into the living room, leaning weakly against one of the arms.

“Does it hurt?” I handed Dusty the gel pack and set the bottle of water on the coffee table in front of him. “I could get you some ibuprofen.”

Dusty shook his head slightly. “I’m okay.”

Not knowing what else to do, I sank down onto the couch beside him. “Did you… w-want to talk?” I wasn’t very good at making small talk with people, and I’d never even attempted to give anyone advice, but Dusty looked like he needed
something
.

[74]

one small thing

Dusty shook his head again.

“We could watch a movie,” I offered. “
Star Wars
always makes me feel better.”

Dusty gave a soft laugh. “You can put it on if you want.”

“I j-just don’t want you to be sad.”

Dusty’s expression crumpled, and suddenly he was crying again.

I shifted in my seat, unsure of what I’d done wrong. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“No, it’s not you. I just… I keep searching and searching, and I never—” Dusty broke off and swiped angrily at the tears on his cheeks.

“God, you must think I’m so pathetic. I swear I’m not stupid. I don’t know why I stayed with him as long as I did. I was just lonely, and at the beginning he treated me so n-nice….” He dropped the gel pack and covered his face with his hands.

For a moment I just sat there at a loss. Aside from Alice, I’d never really had to comfort anyone. But I knew sometimes all Alice really wanted was to be held. I figured Dusty might want the same.

Tentatively, I wrapped an arm around his trembling shoulders and drew him into my side.

It must have been what he needed. He melted into me and pressed his face against my chest. I gave his shoulder an awkward pat. I could feel the warmth of his tears soaking through the material of my T-shirt.

“Dusty, you shouldn’t be with someone who hurts you. It isn’t right.” Dusty nodded but didn’t lift his head. “I know.”

“You’ll find someone else soon. Someone who treats you with respect. Someone who’s as nice as you are.”

“Thanks, Erik,” Dusty whispered. “You’re a good guy.” I patted his shoulder again. It felt less awkward that time.

“Can you just hold me for a while?”

“Of course. As long as you need.”

Dusty nodded and snuggled closer. He was very much in my personal space, and I wasn’t sure why I didn’t mind. He was my friend,

[75]

Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea

and he needed me, and maybe that was enough to overcome all of my usual idiosyncrasies.

I wound up holding him until he fell asleep. I closed my eyes, thinking I would rest for just a few minutes, but when I opened them again it was daylight, and Dusty was gone. I sat up, blinking sleepily. A glance at the clock showed that it was seven fifteen. I had time enough for a quick shower and a couple of strawberry Pop-Tarts before Rue was knocking at my door to drop Alice off.

Dusty stood behind him in the hallway. As Rue handed me Alice’s car seat and bags, he mouthed “thank you” over Rue’s shoulder.

I nodded in acknowledgment and said good-bye to them both. Once they were gone I took Alice out of her car seat and let her grab onto one of my fingers. “Exciting day yesterday, huh? How about we just stay inside today?”

Alice stared at me solemnly and opened her mouth as if she was going to answer. Instead she let out a rather impressive burp followed by an even more impressive amount of spit-up.

“I’m gonna take that as a yes.”

[76]

one small thing

Chapter 6

Rue

“ALICE! No, love!”

I reached over to where she was lying on the floor on her cushy blanket and grabbed my shoelace from her hands. The next place it would be was her mouth, and I didn’t want her putting that dirty thing anywhere near it.

Dusty and Erik laughed, a bit sympathetically, I might add. We’d all been dealing with octopus fingers for a few weeks. Four-month-old Alice was quite a bit different than brand-new Alice had been. She (thank heavens!) was finally sleeping most of the way through the night, but that whole grabbing-everything-and-putting-it-in-her-mouth game was a new one, and I was constantly cleaning the floor so she couldn’t find specks of dirt or microscopic pieces of stuff (food, paper, and Lord knows what else) that I’d dropped. She always did.

“Who’s our smart girl?” Dusty crooned, rubbing at her belly. She made a snorty little noise that sounded like a laugh. We all grinned at each other. Three grown men, sitting rapt and watching a baby roll around on the ground. Who would’ve guessed?

“Are we going to watch another episode, or do you have to go, Dust?” Erik had been slowly introducing us to his sci-fi collection. This weekend it was
Firefly
. I was grudgingly entertained by it and sure didn’t mind drooling over the gorgeous captain. Dusty and I had traded

[77]

Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea

a few comments about how hot he was. I halfway expected Erik to get all red and change the subject, like most straight guys would’ve, but he remained unperturbed by our comments—even when they got a bit…

well, let’s just say it’s good Alice didn’t understand what we were saying.

“I’ve gotta go. I was late last weekend when we were watching that last episode of
Battlestar Galactica
. I don’t want to get my ass canned.”

“You two weren’t really watching. You were just looking at Lee Adama. What was that you said about his pecs, Rue?” Erik chuckled.

Chuckled
.

He was becoming more like a person every day—or maybe he was getting more comfortable with me and Dustball and letting some of his real personality out. And that personality was so very nice. Nice to me, amazing to Alice, sweet to Dusty, and a lot stronger than I would’ve ever guessed. Like that night when we’d gone and rescued Dust from that asshole Gary. My awkward, nervous Erik had turned into a lion. He’d stood Gary down until Dusty and I were in the car.

Then, without even a single look back, he’d calmly gotten into the car and turned right to Dusty. We’d both stared at him like a hero that night. I was pretty sure Dusty was still staring at him like a hero. It was starting to annoy me. I didn’t want to think about why.

“Rue?”

“Uh… huh?” Dusty was waving his hands in front of my face.
Oh
wow.
Way to space out, special.

“I’ll see you in class tomorrow morning.”

I made a face. It had been nice to be off for two weeks. I’d gotten used to spending time with Alice. Too bad the holidays were over.

“Yeah, it’s Monday, isn’t it? What are we starting with again?”

“Angled bobs.”

I swear that class moves at the speed of evolution. We could’ve
been done months ago.
“Thrilling.”

[78]

one small thing

“So which one of us is going to be on Debbie duty?” Dusty wrinkled his nose.

“Your turn. I took her four times that last week before break.” Erik stretched and gave me a confused look. I tried not to notice his surprisingly rippled abdomen. “Debbie duty?”

“Debbie’s this girl in our class who will keep us all there asking questions forever if she’s not distracted. Dusty and I are doing a public service by distracting her. I swear she thinks Dust has a crush on her.”

“Maybe I’m jealous, and I want to have my girl adventure too.

We used to do everything together, Underoo.” I grimaced. “Use a condom.”

Dusty chuckled and waved as he slipped out the door and closed it behind him.

“YOU really slept with a woman? Is that where Alice came from?” I’d never told Erik the story.

“Yeah.” I winced. “It was one of those things. Anyway, she didn’t want the baby, and I couldn’t just put her in the system.” Erik looked thoughtful. “Aren’t you afraid she’ll try to take Alice back?”

“No. She signed over parental rights to me. I’m Alice’s sole legal guardian.”

“Wow.” Erik looked mystified.

“What?”

“I just assumed, you know, that you’d had a surrogate or something? That you really wanted Alice.”

“I
did
. The second I knew she was coming I wanted her. I wasn’t exactly prepared, but who ever is?”

[79]

Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea

He shrugged, then raked his hands through hair that had gotten even shaggier since the last time I’d really looked. “Probably no one.

I’d do my best to research it and make sure I was ready, though.”

“You can’t learn everything from research, babe.”
Oh, no. Did I
just call him babe?
I decided to play it off and flipped my hair out of my eyes. “So, Erik, do you want me to trim your hair for you?”

“What?”

I probably shouldn’t have surprised him like that. He was really smart, but sometimes it took his big brain a while to move around. “Do you want a trim? I could give you some shape too.” I’d have liked adding some highlights even more, but I somehow thought Erik would never go for it. Maybe I’d talk him into it next time. I had my ways of being pretty persuasive….

“Uh, I guess. Would you want to?”

“Of course. I promise not to give you an angled bob.” Erik blinked at me owlishly.
Oh, Lord. I’m going to have to work
on his sense of humor.

“Just sit on one of the dining room chairs. I’ll be back out in a minute with my stuff. We won’t go much shorter. I’ll just give you a bit of a skater shag?”

“Skater shag? Am I supposed to know what that is?” I winked at him
(Flirting, Rue? Really?)
and went to my bathroom to gather up my haircutting kit. I kept my best stuff in my station at school, but for the simple cut Erik needed, what I had should be fine. When I returned from the bathroom, I noticed Erik had put Alice in her little rocker in front of the couch. She was contentedly batting at the toys that hung from the bar above her, but he looked a bit nervous, fidgeting in his chair and shaking his leg a little.

“I’m not going to make you look like Frankenstein, you know.” He smiled a little at that. “I don’t usually like getting my hair done… or going to the dentist or the eye doctor.”

“Well, the other two I can understand, but why the hair?”

[80]

one small thing

“I don’t like to be touched.”

“But you let me and Dust touch you all the time. It doesn’t seem to bug you.” And it was true. Both of us were naturally demonstrative.

Nudges, hip bumps, a hand on the arm. I know I didn’t think twice about it, and I doubted Dusty did either.

He looked a bit surprised. “I guess I do. It doesn’t bother me at all when you guys touch me. I’d hardly noticed, actually.”

“I promise, it’ll be painless and over before you know it.” I STARTED with a spray bottle, misting his hair down, watching as the little tiny droplets of water quivered in the air before they settled on the dark waves of Erik’s hair. He shivered a little, and I used the towel draped across his shoulders to wipe up his neck. When the towel slipped and my fingers brushed his skin, he shivered again. My stomach felt a bit weak all of a sudden, and my joints went all watery.

“Sorry if that was cold.” I spoke quietly, trying to get control of my misbehaving body.
What the hell?
I couldn’t believe how all-of-a-sudden aware of him I was. I’d been attracted to him for weeks.

Slightly. That was no problem. But something had just changed, and I wasn’t sure why.

I was even less sure I liked it.

I ran my hand over his hair, testing the texture, finding the cowlicks. It was something I’d always done—even if it was usually a much quicker process—it helped me shape the hair so my cut worked with the direction it wanted to go naturally. My fingers slipped into his wet locks until I was right up close to the warmth of his skull, massaging the skin. My mind went all soft, and I concentrated on the silky texture of his hair and scalp sliding under my fingertips. I noticed goose bumps rising on Erik’s arms. He let out this half-shiver, half-moan sound. I doubted he even knew he’d made it.

Knock it off, dork. What are you doing to the poor guy?

[81]

Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea