Her Perfect Gift (14 page)

Suro seemed to consider the problem carefully before saying. “There is another way.”

“What?”

“I have associates in the Chicago government as well. We could take care of Spidey until his mother got clean or a suitable family was found. It could be arranged.”

The way Suro said “arranged” made Lacey wonder what kind of back room dealings he’d have to do to get this done. But it didn’t really matter because, “There’d still be paperwork, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then, I can’t do it, as much as I’d like to.”

His shoulders tensed. “Why not?” he asked.

“You know why.”

Now Suro put his fork down. “Because you’re hiding from something you refuse to tell me about.”

She stood up and began clearing the table, feeling silly because she was buck naked and arguing with Suro. “You promised.”

His jaw set. “Right now I’m wishing I hadn’t.”

“Well, you did,” she said, throwing the dishes into the sink.

After that she slammed into her room, put on some pajamas, and crawled into bed.

Suro came in a couple of hours later and did the opposite. He pulled his thin black sweater and gray slacks off and climbed into bed naked a few minutes later.

“Come here,” he said, his smoky voice gruffer than usual.

Lacey did as he commanded, scooting over to him and laying her head on his chest. Even though she was mad at him, mad at herself, mad at the fates for putting her in this position, she still realized she’d rather be in his arms than just about anywhere else on Earth.

He held her cradled to him. “You still don’t trust me.”

“Maybe you need to trust me when I tell you it’s better you don’t know,” she whispered.

A few more minutes of quiet, then he said, “I have to go out of town tomorrow, but I’ll be back by dinner.”

“I’ll make some étouffée,” she said, “Your favorite.”

Then she kissed him, hoping her lips conveyed what her words could not: that despite trying to keep her heart locked away in a box, she cared about him, too.

This led to quick, passionate love, with Lacey determined to burn away the argument and everything else that was wrong with their relationship, by reveling in what was right.

After she came twice, she ended up between his legs, taking his hard length in her mouth. She loved the way he tasted, the feel of velvet over steel, as her head bobbed up and down, trying to take as much of his long length into her mouth as she could.

She looked up and found him staring back, and for minutes on end there was only those two things: them gazing into each other’s eyes and her sucking on him, until he threw his head back and came.

She swallowed him down, loving that she’d made him come with her mouth alone. “I will miss you, tomorrow,” he said when she was once again lying in his arms.

Simple words, but Lacey could hear the depth of feeling they conveyed.

“I’m going to miss you, too,” she told him.

And it was true. She woke up to find him gone the next morning, and it felt like she carried around an empty space in her heart all day.

Luckily the club was more packed than usual, with regulars and out-of-towners alike. They wouldn’t be opening until eight on Thanksgiving, which meant she wouldn’t have to work the next day. But it also meant she had to make sure everything was in place so the club could run smoothly without her until Friday. And because this kept her good and busy, she only thought about Suro every other minute of the day.

But right before she was set to get off of work, Miss Beatriz called her into the daycare. Apparently, Candy had brought Spidey in early that morning for what was only supposed to be a couple of hours.

“But she’s still not back,” Miss Beatriz said. “And I would stay later, but it’s the day before Thanksgiving, and I must cook for my family.”

“I understand,” Lacey said, taking Spidey from her. “I’ll take him upstairs until Candy gets back.”

She thought then about how she wouldn’t be spending Thanksgiving with Sparkle for the second year in a row. It was too hard to drive all the way to Montana and make the long return trip when Sparkle only had until the following Monday before she had to be back at school. Lacey would have to wait until the much longer Christmas break.

She struggled to keep the sadness out of her voice when she said to Miss Beatriz, “Go home to your family. Happy Thanksgiving!”

Upstairs she knocked on Candy’s door for a full five minutes. She was either truly not there or too far gone to answer the door. Though she’d gone out of her way to find apartments in decent school districts after Sparkle was diagnosed with autism, she still remembered the addicts she and her father would occasionally find passed out in front of the shop’s door, both men and women, some of who had been perfectly fine citizens before falling under the thrall of crack.

“It looks like you’re having dinner with me, handsome man,” she told Spidey, walking back toward her own apartment.

“You’re a little young for shrimp still, so I guess I’m going to have to introduce Suro to the chicken and Andouille version of étouffée tonight. You think he’d like that?”

Spidey gurgled back, as happy as he could be despite his circumstances, and it broke Lacey’s heart to think of him ever being neglected.

She nuzzled her nose against his and caught a whiff of tangy body odor. It had obviously been a while since his mom had bothered to give him a bath. “But first I’m going to give you a bath in the sink, because you’re good lookin’, but you don’t smell too hot, little man.”

Spidey laughed, which made Lacey laugh, too, as she opened the door.

But then she broke off when she saw who was inside her apartment. Not just Suro, but Sparkle and Kenji, too.

And a smile about a mile wide broke out across her face.

However, Kenji answered her smile with a frown. “Whose baby is that?” he asked.

CHAPTER 16

IT
was all Lacey could do to restrain herself from covering Sparkle with kisses. But while Sparkle tolerated her enthusiastic one-armed hug, Lacey knew not to push it too far. “I can’t believe you’re here! Wait, how did you get here?”

The thought of her taking a commercial flight and the TSA flagging her for using a dead girl’s ID, sent her into a temporary panic. “You didn’t fly here, did you?”

But then Suro said. “A friend of mine let me borrow his private jet. The hardest part was getting Sparkle packed at the last minute.”

“I like two weeks to plan out my packing list. Mr. Nakamura said I had two hours.” She rubbed her thumb between her middle and ring finger, which was what she did when a thought was making her anxious. “I’m afraid I might have forgotten something.”

“If you did, my father will buy it for you here,” Kenji told her. “Judging from this apartment, our income level is much higher than yours.”

Sparkled eyed her suitcase nervously, and Lacey decided to use an oldie-but-goodie distraction trick, one that would hopefully keep her daughter from checking and rechecking her suitcase for items she might have forgotten for the rest of the night.

“Are you taller?” she asked Sparkle. “You look taller to me.”

That drew Sparkle’s attention away from the suitcase. Ever since childhood, she’d been obsessed with tracking her own growth. “Yes, I’ve grown a quarter of an inch since you’ve seen me last,” she informed Lacey.

“And we’ve also composed the first aria for the opera,” Kenji said, as if the subjects were perfectly aligned.

This led to a long, two-person lecture about their opera and their plans for it and then they insisted on bringing out their electric keyboards to play what they had so far. “Without words of course,” Sparkle added. “Since we don’t have an opera singer.”

“Of course,” Lacey said. “I’ll just give Spidey a bath in the sink while you guys play.”

“It sounds much better with a full range of instruments,” Kenji informed Lacey as Suro helped them set up their electronic keyboards side by side. “We have a music room at our home in Miami. We should have Christmas there. Our house is much bigger than your apartment and the weather is better.”

Sparkle, whose friendship with Kenji was probably predicated on their matching inability to not take what the other said personally, nodded. “I would also like to spend Christmas in Miami.”

The truth was she and Sparkle might be in a new state soon after Christmas, starting lives under new names. But Lacey didn’t want to ruin the reunion, so she answered, “We’ll see, sweetie.”

She wrapped Spidey up in a fluffy towel, steadily ignoring Suro’s curious gaze, which she could practically feel poking at her. “We can order a pizza tonight, but we’re going to have to make a plan for Thanksgiving dinner. I was going to fix a turkey gumbo for Suro and me...”

That was as far as she got before all sorts of protests went up from Sparkle and Kenji.

“Why can’t you make a regular turkey?” Sparkle asked.

“Dad and I usually go to a sushi restaurant on Thanksgiving,” Kenji informed her. “We’re Japanese.”

They argued back and forth until Lacey put a firm stop to the argument, shooing Kenji and Suro downstairs so they could borrow one of the pack and plays from the nursery for Spidey to sleep in.

The next morning she woke up to the sounds of Sparkle and Kenji composing on their electric keyboards.

Lacey pressed a pillow over her head. “I did not miss this,” she said.

“This is the reason Kenji has his own soundproofed music room in our Miami home,” Suro said, his voice as dry as a desert.

She peeked out from underneath the pillow. “I still can’t believe you have a house big enough to include a music room, but you’re okay being holed up in my little apartment.”

“I’d rather be here with you than in my house alone,” he answered with quiet sincerity.

And it happened again. That heart melting feeling that made her want to tell him everything.

But then she spotted Spidey trying to break out of the pack and play. He already had a little chubby leg over the top.

“Spidey!” She scrambled out of bed to pick him up before he fell over the edge just as a knock sounded on the bedroom door.

“Dad, can we go out and buy Sparkle’s mom a piano?” came Kenji’s voice from the other side. “We need a clearer sound to compose this next part.”

“Where does he think I’m going to put a piano up in here?” Lacey asked, trying to disentangle Spidey’s hand from her locks, which he was once again trying to pull out of the pony tail she had them in. “There’s barely enough room to fold out the couch.”

“Perhaps a distraction is in order,” Suro said.

And thus, they ended up at the McCormick Tribune Ice Rink on Thanksgiving morning. Having now spent a full winter in Montana, Sparkle and Kenji were pretty much experts at getting around on the ice. But both she and Suro had to take turns with their respective children in order to figure out the basics of skating and keeping themselves balanced at the same time.

But at least Suro had skiing experience. He didn’t fall like Lacey had several times when Sparkle had been trying to teach her. And soon he was skating around the outdoor rink like an old pro.

“He’s naturally athletic,” Sparkle observed, as they sat on the sidelines with Spidey, watching father and son skate.

“Seems like it, huh,” Lacey agreed.

“You like him,” Sparkle said. “Kenji thinks the plan worked.”

“Sparkle, what have I told you about staying out of grown up business? We don’t need you discussing us behind our backs.”

Sparkle stared at the ground. “I said
Kenji
thinks the plan worked. But I know it didn’t. You like him, but you’re going to make us move again.”

Lacey didn’t know what to say. Sparkle had always been a girl of two extremes, either oblivious to her mother’s feelings are overly attuned to them.

“You did something bad, didn’t you? That’s why you make us drive everywhere instead of flying and why we always have to pay for everything in cash. And that’s why you never go on the internet. You’re the only person I know who doesn’t use it.” She gave her mother a sad look. “And that’s why you’d never marry Mr. Nakamura even though you like him, because you did something bad and you have to hide.”

“Sparkle…” Lacey said, not quite knowing how to address what was basically the truth. “It’s complicated. I’ll explain everything when you’re older. I know you think twelve is old enough, but trust me, it isn’t.”

Sparkle thought about that for a moment. “I don’t want to leave Rise Academy.”

“I know you don’t,” Lacey said. “But you’re only twelve, and if I do end up moving from Chicago, I can’t just leave you in boarding school. You’d have to come with me.”

“Then the opera would never get done.” Sparkle began rubbing her thumb between her middle and ring fingers. “You’re going to make me leave Rise Academy and Kenji and I won’t be able to finish the opera.”

Perhaps sensing Sparkle’s agitation, Spidey began to fuss in Lacey’s arms. But Lacey held him tight in her right arm and pulled Sparkle close with her left one.

“Please, Sparkle,” she whispered. “Please don’t melt down. Not here. Not now.”

“I want to finish the opera,” Sparkle said, her voice shaking. “I love it so much.”

“I know you do, baby. And I’m sorry. I wish more than anything I could provide a different life for you. And when you’re old enough and can take care of yourself, we’re going to figure out how to get you out of this trap I’ve put us in. But until then, I’m you’re mom, and we’ve got to stay together. Okay?”

Sparkle closed her eyes and started breathing deeply in such a rhythmic way that Lacey knew it must have been something they’d taught her to do at Rise Academy. Still, it felt like a magical reprieve when her daughter opened her eyes and they were clear of tears even if the sadness remained.

“When?” she asked.

“I don’t know exactly,” Lacey answered. On one hand she wanted to stay with Suro, even after he gave her back the key. But Christmas marked the end of their truce. If he began asking questions again or worst kept on making it hard for her to have access to the things she needed to make a quick getaway, then she’d have to enact the Plan B that had been brewing in the back of her mind for a while now.