Cookie Cutter (12 page)

“Where are you going? The car’s right here.”

“Carter’s taking us in.”

“Why?”

At least she’s walking. “My license expired.”

“Well, can’t dad just take us in?”

“Nnnnooo.” That is so not happening.

Ally huffs and she puffs but doesn’t say anything else until we get to the truck and she sees it’s a front seat only type of situation. “Seriously?”

“Oh for crying out loud, honey, just get in.”

“She’s pretty roomy,” Carter promises. He throws a wink my way as we all scoot into the cab. I slide into the middle, letting Ally have the window since she has to get dropped off at school first. For convenience purposes only. Honest.

“It’s so cramped in here,” Ally mumbles before she pulls her phone out to text a friend.

Carter and I share a silent laugh between us and then we’re off. I tell him how to get to the high school. It’s not that far away, then I try to start some conversation with my daughter and mostly she just ignores me. It’s not until we’re about halfway to school when she finally decides to speak.

“So, Mom, there’s a party this weekend at Karen’s cousin’s house—she wants me to come with.”

“Annnnnnd, there it is,” I say. I knew
she was being too nice today.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She snorts at me. “Whatever.”

“Anyway, no can do, not this time; you know the carnival is this weekend.”

“Mom.”

“Sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

“Okay, I’m not but you did promise you’d help and you didn’t make it to the site last weekend so—”

“Awesome.” She throws a free hand up into the air. “I guess that means I can’t go to Paris with dance club, either.”

“Pa-- ”
What?
“Yeah, no that’s never happening.” No way is she going
that
far away from me at her age.

“Mom, it’s my last summer before senior year. My last chance to do something great. My last--”

“Wait,” Carter interjects.  “Why would it be your last chance to do something great?”

Both Ally and I stare at Carter. It’s not so much that he said something, but rather more like, we’re not quite used to anyone of the male species having any interest in anything we’re talking about. Of course when I say male species, I mean Ally’s father. He never got involved with arguments between Ally and myself. He couldn’t bear to be the bad guy. Ever.

If Ally’s expression could talk, it would probably say something along the lines of, who
are
you?  I mean, how dare he speak to her much less speak to her about something that she deems is none of his business. The
nerve
. He blows off her rude silence and shrugs. “I’m just curious.” he clarifies.

She rolls her eyes and goes back to texting her friend. Carter refuses to be ignored.

“Look I’m not taking sides here, I just don’t think you realize the benefits of being young. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, and it’s a little presumptuous to say that this
is your last chance at anything.”

His voice lowers after that. “It should be your first
chance at everything.”

Carter stares straight ahead as he drives now but he peeks at his rear view mirror and shakes his head like there’s more he wants to say. I feel for him. This is my life. Every day. Trying to get her to listen only to be rejected most of the time if not all.

“Maybe I’ll go when after I graduate then,” Ally says. “When no one can tell me what I can and cannot do.”

This would usually be where I have to raise my voice to make a point with my daughter and I’m about to but then it hits me – she heard him. Which means, maybe she hears me too. I let the conversation end there. For now. And when we pull up to her school just under a minute later, she opens the door before we’re even stopped and slips out quickly without another word.

After she pushes the door shut, she never looks back. When she catches up with her friends, they all look over in the direction of Carter’s truck and laugh with Ally. Then they all head off to life within the walls of high school.

As Carter pulls away, I tell him how to get to Maximum Copy. Then I slide over to where Ally was just a few moments before and slide down into the seat. I watch the world go by and think about Ally being out there somewhere, further away than she already is. Without me. I can’t even think about it. Not after that poor girl, from the news, died last year on her spring break down in Ft. Lauderdale. And she wants to go to another country? Seriously? Alone? I push thoughts of men doing evil, unthinkable things to my daughter out my mind and replace them with something safer.

“Did you know Paul has been all over the world?”

“No I didn’t know that.” Carter smiles as he watches the road.

Something I truly enjoy about him is that he lets me avoid further discussion about my teenager and engages in my new topic without another word about her.

“He was in Nice for two weeks last month.”

“Nice sounds . . . nice,” he puns.

I let myself laugh even though it’s totally cheesy.

“Where’s the last awesome place you’ve been, Iris?” he asks.

I wish I had a better answer for him. I’m tempted to make something up but I’m not a very good liar. “Nowhere.”

“Come on,” he jibes.

“Honest.”

“You’ve never been outside of Spangler?”

I shrug. “No one ever leaves Spangler. Not by choice, anyway.”

He gives me this look then, like I’ve just frightened him or something.

“What?”

He goes back to watching the road. “That doesn’t sound creepy at all.”

Good job, Iris, you have officially scared off the only man that’s ever been worth paying attention to in recent years.

“I’ve been to the coast.” I try to make up for my creepiness.

“California?” He sounds optimistic.

“No, Hilton Head.” It doesn’t sound as awesome when I say it out loud.

“Oh. Well, that counts,” he informs me. “And sounds . . .” he hesitates, like he can’t quite find the right word. He finally ends with, “great.”

“It is kind of great.” My voice sounds small when I say it, even to me, as I turn to stare out the window at the trees speeding by.

If you consider going to the beach with the girls alone every day while James worked most of the time, it was kind of great. It’s quiet in the truck after that, until Carter pulls into the Maximum Copy parking lot.

“Hey Iris?” Carter says as he stops in front of the entrance.

I look over at him and wait for him to poke fun but he doesn’t.

“Have a good day,” he says.

I grin. It feels like this is an old hat between us even though I barely know him. Kind of.

“Thanks.”

I get out of the car and grab my purse.

“I mean that by the way,” I say. “And please don’t worry about later, I’ll figure something out.”

I swing my bag over my shoulder and shut the door to his truck. I wave but he waits for me to go in. I walk a little slower than normal and look back over and over again to see if he’s left yet he’s still there. My cheeks burn from the smile that’s plastered across my face. His protectiveness is cute. Finally, I head into the office.

“Iris.”

And my mood is shot. Just like that.

“Hey, good morning,” my boss says too loud for this time of day. And now, He’s too close but he’s not crossing the line exactly. I’m debating saying something when he reaches around me to open the door. He’s still trying to make up for being an ass, I suppose.

“Hey, Iris. Listen,” he says.

I stop and he stops but he’s still holding the door open.

“I’m gonna need you to stay later tonight – Mac wants the numbers in presentation format by tomorrow and I have to catch a flight out to go over them with him, personally, so . . .”

No. Flipping. Way.

“Mark, I have the carnival tomorrow. I can’t just---”

“Babe.” Carter? Only it can’t be Carter. But it is Carter. And why would he be calling someone babe?

It’s him alright – and he’s jogging to catch up with me. There’s no one else around but the security people sitting at their booth inside so, he
must
be talking to me. Unless he’s talking to Mark. As he approaches, with locked eyes on me and me alone, he’s certainly not talking to Mark.

“Hey,” he says to my boss with a nod of some sort.

“Carter? I don’t ---”

“You left this in the truck.” He turns to me and murmurs through that boyish grin of his, holding out a stick of Burt’s Beeswax Chapstick and I might be lost in those beautiful brown eyes of his, but I’m very confused as well.

“Must have fallen out of your purse when you grabbed it. And I know how you like to keep those luscious lips of yours soft.”  He cups my face with his hand, unexpectedly. His fingers curl through my hair and around my neck.

Rather than flinch away, I fall completely prey to his voice and those words and I let myself lean into his hand, then I close my eyes as his thumb sweeps across my lips. It’s been forever and a day since someone touched me like this and even though I understand now, what he’s doing, that this is all just show for Mark so he’ll leave me alone, I pretend that it’s not.

“Plus, I didn’t get to say goodbye properly,” he tells me, softly.

I open my eyes. His eyes dart from my mouth to my eyes with something I don’t recognize behind them and in an instant, his lips are on mine.

He’s kissing me.

He is kissing me.

And it’s not like Mark at all.
Thank God
– or James even. It’s passionate and urgent but not sloppy or over the top, it’s like the first hill of a roller coaster; heart pumping, stomach flipping takes my breath away. It’s everything I imagined happening yesterday, when nothing happened at all. He holds me like he’s telling me something. A secret maybe. A deep, dark secret.

When Carter lets go of me, I can’t move. My lungs feel heavy and my palms are sweating. I’m sure my face is beat red right now and my blood is pumping like I’ve just run a marathon. My fingers touch my lips, where his just were. Carter doesn’t look like he’s going to apologize for what he’s done. I don’t want him to, either. He offers Mark his hand.

“Carter Blackwood, by the way.”

“Nice to um, meet you Carter, I’m Iris’s um . . .” He chokes on his words. “Boss. I take it, you two are . . .” he asks, hesitantly, as though he’s unsure. Like that kiss could leave anyone questioning what’s going on between us.

“Sure are,” Carter says. “You keep an eye on her for me will ya, Mark?” He eyes him carefully and then adds, “I’d hate for anyone to try and take her from me.”  He cracks his neck to the left, then right. “Just sayin.’”

Mark takes a step or two away from us and retrieves his hand from Carter’s and tries to smile.

“Of course, no, yes, I understand.”

“Good,” Carter says with a friendly smile. Then he turns to me and gives me an even broader one.

“See ya later, Iris,” he says with a low, sultry voice.

After that, he shoots me one of his playful winks and leaves me there with my boss. Alone. I take in a deep breath of air and let it out slowly, trying to slow my pulse and regain my composure.

“Nice guy,” Mark offers.

I nod and try to hide the butterflies that are swirling inside of me right now. “He sure is.”

Mark opens the door wide and gestures for me to go on in, first, so I do – and there might be a little more of an umph in my step too.

Chapter 10. Carter

Working on the house is sort of a safe haven for me, after I drop Iris at her job. I build some shelves for the family room and add some detail work that Frank taught me a few years back. I make a run to the closest hardware store for some stain and paint. I sand down a few walls with some classic rock playing in the background. I even manage to make an attempt at some wiring for the electric,
and fail
, but the truth is, all I’ve been able to think about, the entire time I’m working, is Iris.

The way her lips felt against mine this morning.

The sensation that shot through my entire body when my fingers touched her face.

How easy it was to kiss her like that. And the way she responded to the kiss.

Damn.

The flush in her cheeks was enough to make me want to do it again.

I can’t pinpoint when I’d made the decision to do it in the first place. It was kind of a spur of the moment type of thing. Maybe when I saw that dick boss of hers finding any reason he could to put his hands on her again. Maybe even before that, like when I watched her walk away from the truck. I haven’t wanted to kiss a woman that badly in a long, damn time.

I only meant to scare the guy off from trying any of his bullshit with her again but then suddenly, when my lips met hers, it turned into a whole lot more than I had anticipated. And the way she looked at me when it was over. I fully expected surprise but what she gave me was flashing lights and spinning rooms and lightheadedness I haven’t experienced since . . .

Was it like this with Cheryl? I don’t recall anything similar.

Cheryl was so different from Iris. She was driven but not OCD like Iris, and she was very matter of fact about where her life was going. She knew what she wanted and she was going to get it, no matter what. It was comfortable, she made sense. At least I always thought she made sense.

“It’s been a long time, Carter, that’s all.” I try to convince myself that how I’m reacting to kissing Iris is simple math. “You’re just a horny bastard.”

I push the drill I’m using to screw two four-by-eights together and wind up splintering the damn corner.

“Ow. F
ffffffffuck!
”

I punch the wall with my other hand out of frustration and wind up putting a nice hole in the drywall I just finished.

“Shit.”

My cell phone rings as I’m about to kick the rest of the damn thing down and I know who it is. I don’t want to miss this call so I answer it and try to cover up the pain in my thumb.

“Yeah.”

“You okay there, Carter?” My buddy Mike from over at the Sacramento DMV laughs from the other end. I suck in another breath of air hoping it deflects from the pain shooting through my hand right now.

“Totally,” I lie.

He knows I’m full shit. He could give me hell right now, but lucky for me, he likes to get right to the point of his call. “Got your message. It’s all good.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like, my friend.”

I love this guy. “Damn you’re like God these days.”

“You know it,” he laughs. “Hey, so how long?”

“What’s that?”

“How long have you been dating this woman?”

I let out a loud burst of laughter that makes me completely forget the injury to my thumb for the time being.

Dating? Iris?

“Not like that, man.”

“Oh really,” he says and the sarcasm. It tells me what he’s really trying to say is, bullshit.

“Yeah,” I tell him defensively. “Really.”

Mike chuckles from across the country.

“What?”

“She must be pretty awesome is all I’m saying.”

“And why is that exactly?”

“I don’t know many people, much less
women
, that you’d call in a favor for.”

“She’s just a friend, man.”

I do my best to convince him, all the while though, I’m picturing Iris’s lips after I kissed them. Full and red. Inviting me back for more.

“She’s, you know, nice, that’s all, had a bad day, I thought I’d make it better for her.”

“Uh huh.”

I don’t have much more to go on here so I put a stick in the ground with Mike. “O---kay. We done here?”

“Done! I gotta get back anyway, downed phone lines. I’ve got seven locations that are useless right now.”

“Say no more, and thanks a ton man. I owe ya one.”

Mike huffs from the other end of the phone line. “When do you not
owe me one, Carter?”

We both have a good laugh over that one. It was because of Mike that I narrowly escaped more than my share of courthouse traffic citations while working at my dad’s firm. We go way back. Otherwise, I may have lost my license a long time ago. The call ends and I let a smile spread across my face knowing that, even if Iris is
a little ticked off about that kiss earlier, which she may very well be, I now have an ace in my pocket that will make her forget it instantaneously. I hope.

* * *

When the clock hits Noon, I head over to Iris’s workplace.  I make an assumption that she’ll leave for lunch since I don’t remember seeing a lunch bag or anything like that this morning. About a half hour after I arrive though, I think, maybe I was wrong.

Another fifteen, though, when I’m contemplating trying this again some other time, Iris exits the building looking flustered and tired. She checks her watch. She looks around, inching up onto her tip toes to see over the cars. I wonder if she’s waiting for someone else. And who that might be.

“Need a ride?” I push off the wall I’ve been holding up for almost an hour now. And man, my ass is numb.

Iris whirls her head around. She gives me a tight smile, and then a sultry, “Hey.”

Her lips.

Those eyes.

That look.

It all makes me want to relive the moment I had with her this morning but as I walk toward her, I tread lightly in an attempt to gauge whether or not she’s perturbed with me over my grandiose actions, earlier. “Hey.”

“What are you doing here?” she asks me. And although she looks slightly baffled, she’s got that sexy, half smile thing going on which tells me, maybe she’s not annoyed with me.

“Thought I’d take you somewhere.”

Her mouth twists up like she’s thinking about it.

“I think you’ll agree with me when I say, you need to go to this somewhere.”

Iris stares, with thoughtful eyes, for a minute. “Sure,” she says.

I grab the bag she’s carrying from her and escort her to the truck. Inside, I can see her fidgeting in my peripheral so I know something’s on her mind. I’m pretty sure I know what something it is, too. I try to come up with the correct way to bring it up and get it over with. Usually I’m pretty damn good at pointing and laughing at the elephant in the room but with Iris, I’m not quite sure which approach is the best. Do I poke fun and blow it off? Or should I tell how much I’ve been thinking about her today? That might scare her off about as much as it scared you though, Carter.

“So, you kissed me,” she says quietly when I’m stuck at a traffic light.

And there it is.

“Yeah, about that.” I start slowly, still trying to come up with a game plan here.

“Thank you.”

I look over, tentatively. “Thank you?”

She nods. “Mark didn’t give me one single inappropriate look, comment or sinister touch at all today.”

“So, you’re not mad?” I push on the gas pedal.

“Mad?” She laughs and I smile in response to the way it lights up her face. “How could I possibly be mad at you for doing something so thoughtful?”

That last word leaves her lips as more of a whisper than the end of a sentence but I don’t let myself dwell on what that means. Instead, I let out a heavy, grateful sigh of relief.

“Thank God. I thought for sure you’d be pissed.”

I pull out to the main road and when the light turns green, I step on the gas as Iris giggles beside me.  That sound is coming increasingly easier for her since we met. It’s nice.

“Really.”

“Yeah, you know, not too long after your boss gropes you, I do exactly the same thing.”

“It wasn’t the same thing.” She’s not giggling anymore.

“No?”

“No.” She looks out the window, avoiding eye contact with me for some reason.

The last thing I want is to make things weird between us. Especially since we just started getting along. “So, not gross?”

Her body shakes with silent laughter and she chews on her bottom lip before she turns to face me again. “No, not gross.”

“Good.” This is good. We’re still friends. Which is perfect.
Right?

“Okay, well, if that made you happy – there’s another reason I wanted to pick you up today.”

“Oh really? What’s that?”

“I had a talk with a friend of mine today over in California.”

“California?” Her face scrunches up in curiosity.

“Yeah, he works for the DMV there.”

Blank stare. I love Iris’s blank stare.

“Anyway, he knows a lot of people around the system, and . . .”

“And?

“He pulled a couple of strings. Not big ones mind you but he did get you an appointment today over here.”

“He did?”

I nod. “And he waived the late fee.”

Boom.

“Carter.” Iris’s eyebrows curl up and her forehead crinkles some. I get a sneaky suspicion she might cry or something and I don’t want this to be a big deal so I laugh the whole thing off.

“Relax, Iris, it’s not that big a deal, I just thought you could use a little pick me up.”

“You didn’t have to---”

“Didn’t have to. Wanted to.”

She closes her mouth and stops herself from saying anything else for the time being. Which would be okay except . . .

“I do need your help with one thing though.” When she looks back over at me, curious, I add, “I don’t know where the DMV is.”

And there’s the giggle again.

* * *

There’s no line to check in when we arrive at the Department of Motor Vehicles but there is
a boatload of people waiting on the other side of the wall where you wait for your name to be called.

“Iris Alden!”

And when her name is announced, almost right away . . .
Just in time.
My job here is done.

“That’s you.” I nudge her a little to make sure she heard the announcement.

She looks at me cockeyed when the woman behind the counter calls her name again.

“I’ll be over here.” I find a seat as Iris walks up to the counter to take care of business. It probably takes all of fifteen minutes for her to wrap it up and when she strides past all the patrons still waiting for their turn at bat, she’s bursting at the seams. I stand up and greet her.

“All done?”

She nods, and reminds me of a kid in elementary school who just got her first gold star.

I give her a side nod toward the door.

“Let’s get outta here.”

Inside, Iris is calm, cool and collected. But outside, she turns to me, jumps up onto her tip toes and throws her arms around my neck. She hugs me so tight I think I’m going to choke.

“I will never know how to thank you for that.” Her breath is hot next to my ear and the sensation is similar to the one I had this morning when we kissed.

When I kissed
her
, that is.

I pull her hands from around me and she slides back down, flat onto her feet again. She looks up at me, expectantly. I take everything in about her. The way her pupils dilate, despite the sun being out, still. The flush in her cheeks, the slight parting of her lips. It takes everything I’ve got not to grope her ten times more inappropriately than this morning.

Breathe Carter. It’s just a woman. Nothing to be afraid of.

“Okay well first of all,” I tell her. “It’s not like I saved your life, and secondly, although I hate to admit it,” I really hate to admit it. “I didn’t really do any of the hard work, here. I simply called a guy who knows a guy who knows a girlfriend of the woman in charge of licenses over here.”

“Maybe, but you didn’t have to make that call,” she reminds me as she continues to hold my hands in hers. “Thank you Carter.”

There’s something to be said for the harsh outside layer of Iris. Especially once you get underneath it and see the softness inside.  When she says something, she means it. My lips curve upward in response to her sincere appreciation for such a simple task. “You’re welcome, Iris.”

By the time we grab some lunch, Iris decides to call it a day. Her boss is okay with it so I take her home. On our way, I think about my life – then her’s.