Peggy Dulle - Liza Wilcox 05 - Till Death Do Us Part (3 page)

“And any crazy thing that Liza did, Kenny was always involved with.” Jordan chimed in again.

“Really?” Tom asked. “What crazy things?”

This was a side of me that Tom didn’t know. Did I actually want him to learn about all the foolish things I did with Kenny? No. “Let’s not drag up old history,” I told them all.

“Oh no, Sis. Those were the only times Mom and Dad worried about
you
. It gave me a break from them. Let’s see,” Jordan ticked off on her fingers. “Sky diving, scuba diving, bungee jumping, and getting so drunk they both came home throwing up.”

“Oh I remember that Halloween party, I was sick as a dog, but …,” I said.

“I was sicker,” Kenny continued.

“That’s because you ate an entire box of Twinkies after we finished off the pizza and chocolate chip cookies.”

Tom, Dad, and Jordan all groaned together. Kenny and I laughed.

“I never took another drink again,” I said, remembering the event and what happened later.

Kenny touched my face and said, “Me, neither.”

“And the fast talking,” Dad sighed.

Jordan rolled her eyes. “That’s for sure; I never understood a word my sister said when she was around Kenny.”

“What?” Tom asked.

“Oh she probably hasn’t been around him long enough yet. It’s like they’re both going at warp speed. He can understand her but I am always left in the dust.”

Kenny and I smiled at each other. It was like our own language and most people would just stare in utter fascination when we got started talking to each other.

Dad chuckled. “Both of them were in every drama production at school but my favorite were the other scenes there were always playing.”

Jordan chuckled and Kenny and I joined them. Kenny and I both loved to pretend we were someone else, especially in public.

“What?” Tom asked.

“They were always playacting. Remember the carnival?” Dad asked.

Kenny and I looked at each other and laughed. “I was a great animal tamer.”

“I was a better monkey,” Kenny said.

“What?” Tom repeated the same question he’d asked twice before.

“Liza put a leash on Kenny and they walked around the entire carnival like that. He pretended to be a monkey and she was his trainer.”

Jordan bounced up and down in her seat and said, “Oh and the best part was Liza’s favorite saying during her senior year.”

“I don’t say that anymore,” I said quickly, starting to pick up the plates from dinner.

Kenny belly-laughed, pointed to his watch and said, “I heard it less than twelve hours ago.”

“Really?” Jordan asked, glancing at me and breaking out into the biggest grin. The only time I ever got in trouble was when I cussed.

“Oh, yeah,” Kenny looked over at Tom and said, “I’m pretty sure it was during one of our conversations about you.”

Tom looked at me and said, “What did you say?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I told them.

“Quack, quack, quack,” Kenny began.

“Kenny stop,” I told him.

“Quack, quack, quack,” he continued.

I turned and glared at him.

He held out his hand to me, palm up, as if to say – say it.

“Oh, fuck a duck,” I muttered and walked to the kitchen depositing the dishes in the sink. When I returned to the table, I glared at Kenny.

“Love me, Stretch?” he asked.

I blew out along breath. “Of course, but I don’t like you right now!”

“Sorry, Stretch, but you know your sister would tell him if you didn’t.”

“I know,” I told him.

“Forgive me?” Kenny asked.

“Of course.” I sighed.

Kenny turned to Tom and said. “And that’s Stretch. She loves deeply, gets angry quickly, but also forgives just as swiftly – if you apologize and have good reasoning for what you did.”

I blew out a raspberry at him.

“I’m going into my room and call Sam. I can’t wait to tell him all the crazy things my ‘perfect’ sister did in high school, now that the moratorium is over,” Jordan said as she got up from the table and left the room.

Kenny stood, too, and said, “How many rooms does this condo have?”

“Two upstairs, Jordan and I have those. Liza is on this floor and Tom has the bedroom downstairs.”

“You can bunk with me,” I told him.

“He’s going to sleep with you?” Tom’s voice elevated with each word.

“Sure, he can,” I said sternly.

“Nope, I’m taking Tom’s room. He can either sleep on the couch or with Liza. I am going to grab my duffle bag from my car. Good night all.” And he left.

The sides of Tom’s mouth tilted up slightly in a tentative smile.

“Like hell you are!” I left the room, went into my bedroom and closed the door.

Chapter 3

I paced for several minutes after closing the door, ready to give Tom a piece of my mind if he decided to come in but he didn’t, so I went outside on the balcony, sat in one of the lounge chairs and looked at the stars in the sky.

A few minutes later, Tom stood at the open balcony door. “Can I join you?” he asked.

I nodded toward the other lounge chair and said, “Sure, as long as you
don’t talk
.”

The tension was palpable between us. The longer we sat, the more my stomach turned, knotted and threatened to give back my buttered noodles. I shivered as a cold gust of wind rushed through the balcony.

Tom got up and left. Good, he’s going to go and sleep on the couch. A few seconds later, he came back with a blanket.

“Would you like this?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you,” I told him, reaching out for the blanket.

“How about I sit behind you?” he asked, and before I could object, he continued, “That lounge chair must not be very warm on your back.”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

I moved forward, and he got in behind me and then wrapped the blanket around me. I stiffly sat forward, keeping my body away from his chest. But it was uncomfortable, like sitting with a board up my back. Eventually, I relaxed and slid back toward him. It felt like coming home. I sensed Tom relax, too, as if he had been holding his breath since he sat behind me.

We lounged like that for a long time.

Tom finally broke the silence. “Can I talk now?”

I smiled. I
did
tell him not to talk. “Sure, Tom.”

“Thanks. I wanted to say that I’m sorry about how it went down with your dad.”

I stiffened, ready to start poking again.

Tom held me tight. “Let me finish, Liza. I had this plan. I would take your dad into custody. I’m a cop, Liza. I had to do it. We’d go together, the three of us, and you would stay with him the entire way.”

“It didn’t happen that way,” I told him.

“No, you got mad. The Feds got protective. They wouldn’t let me go and talk to you. They made me stay with your dad. When I finally could come and talk to you, you were very upset.”

“You think?” I said.

“I knew you were. I wanted to crawl down on the ground with you and just hold you, but you were so mad, and then you threw the ring, and the Feds called me to help them. I thought we would talk at the boarding house, but the Feds sent an agent to collect my things, and I didn’t get to see you. After that, every time I called you, you hung up on me, and I got mad.”

“I didn’t want to talk to you.”

“Liza, I am sorry. I did everything I could to get your dad back to you.”

“I know. Dad told me,” I replied, remembering what Dad told me about Tom working with the FBI and convincing him to be a witness for them.

We sat in silence for a while, and I thought about what I wanted and how much I really did love Tom. It was better to just forget it and move on.

Finally, I turned around to face him. “You want to put the ring back on again?”

He shook his head.

My eyes shot up with surprise.

He unfastened the gold necklace from around my neck and slid the ring on to join the half unicorn locket my Dad gave me several months ago. It was my mom’s, and he had it broke in half, giving part to me and part to Jordan. Then Tom fastened the chain back around my neck.

I lifted the ring up and asked, “Why is this around my neck and not on my finger?”

“I realized something today.”

“What?”

“It took me a long time to understand and accept the contradiction in your personality.”

I frowned at him. What the hell was he talking about? But before I could ask, he continued, “You’re a kindergarten teacher, very prim and proper and a woman who got gassed at the clown camp, drove her car into a ditch, twice, and stood toe to toe with some of the most despicable people without flinching. Now I find out that there is another side to you. I’m having trouble seeing you as a wild, daredevil youth. I want to know all of you, even the side that Kenny sees, too.”

“That’s just high school stuff,” I told him.

He shook his head. “When we were on the cruise, you wouldn’t even get in the water.”

“I hate the water.”

“But you went scuba diving with him?”

I shrugged.

“And you vetoed all those wonderful excursions, like the ATV Adventure and Extreme Canopy. I bet you would have done them with Kenny.”

“Maybe,” I told him, “in my youth, but I’m older now and smarter.”

“I bet you had some great times with Kenny.”

I laughed.

“Tell me about them,” Tom said.

“Oh, no, things that are done in the past – should stay in the past.”

“Come on, Liza.” Tom rubbed his face against mine sending a ripple of pleasure down my spine. Then he added, “And what was Jordan talking about when she said the moratorium had lifted?”

I sighed.

Tom pulled me closer to his chest and wrapped his arms tighter around me. “Take your time, Liza.”

“Well, you know about Sandy?”

“She was your best friend that was killed, right?”

“Yes. After she was killed, I suffered with nightmares and panic attacks. If we talked about Sandy, they got worse – so in my family, we didn’t talk about her. They called it the Liza Moratorium.”

“What’s that got to do with Kenny?”

“After Kenny disappeared, I think my family was afraid that the nightmares would come back, so they instituted the moratorium again. You can’t discuss any of my craziness from high school without talking about Kenny.”

“And did the nightmares come back?”

“No. I was older and, sure, I missed Kenny, but I had college, the credential program, student teaching, and, finally, teaching to fill my life.”

“So tell me about all the craziness,” Tom chuckled.

“I’ll tell you about one.”

“Okay, I want to know about the one that I think is the most important.”

“What’s that?”

“What happened at that Halloween Party.”

My eyes shot up, and my pulse accelerated. “We told you. We got drunk, got sick and threw up.”

“Nope. Every high school kid drinks too much and gets sick. It’s like a rite of passage. But the two of you did it, and neither of you ever drank again. Now with Kenny’s history and the fact that his mom drank and picked up losers, I can understand why he wouldn’t drink, but you don’t either, so I think there is more to the story, and I’d like to hear it.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s old history.”

“Then you shouldn’t have any problem sharing it,” Tom insisted.

I turned and leaned back against Tom again.

“Come on, Liza. I won’t judge you. I just want to understand the relationship you have with him. I get that you bonded that first day of high school, but eventually you should have taken on other friends, but you didn’t. At that Halloween party you both got sick, but then you were even closer.”

“How do you figure that?” I asked him.

“Your dad said that he practically lived at your house his senior year.”

“I guess he did. Maybe it was because of what went on at his house.”

“Domestic violence doesn’t just start one day. It usually starts from the beginning of a relationship and continues until someone dies, gets put in jail, or leaves. And Kenny’s mother had a history of continuing that cycle over and over with the men she chose, so it wasn’t something that was new to him.”

“We are just good friends,” I told him.

“No, it’s more than that. I’ve seen two cops go through an ordeal together, and they bond so tightly that it’s as if they are one person. You and Kenny have that. Damn, you finish each other’s sentences. So tell me what happened.”

I sighed. “Okay. We just went to a Halloween party.”

“What costumes did you two wear?” Tom asked.

“Kenny was the Dark Knight, and I went as Superwoman. The two of us were always talking about being superheroes and saving the world. God, he looked cool in that costume.”

Tom chuckled. “I know the way you feel about a man in a uniform.”

I smiled and leaned back closer. “I love the way you look in your uniform.”

“Thank you. Now back to the story.”

I huffed. I really didn’t want to re-live that experience again.

“Take your time, Liza. I’ve got all night.” Tom wrapped his arms tighter around me.

“Okay. We were drinking screwdrivers.”

“Orange juice and vodka. It’s a typical kids’ drink. You can’t really taste the vodka if you put in enough orange juice.”

“I never liked the taste of alcohol, still don’t, but I could drink the screwdriver. There were lots of snacks to eat, like chips and cookies, but we all got hungry, so we ordered pizza.”

“And since your parents were strict vegans, you ordered and consumed several slices of all meat pizza.”

“Yep,” I smiled. Being the child of two ecologically minded parents wasn’t fun. We never ate meat and only got recycled birthday cards.

“More drinking,” Tom prompted.

“Oh, yeah, I think we started on tequila shots when the vodka was gone.”

I felt Tom shudder.

“Then everyone started pairing up and going into the bedrooms.”

“If I understand what I’ve heard so far this evening, you two didn’t have that kind of relationship, right?”

“No, we didn’t.”

“So what did you two do?”

“We paired off and went into a bedroom.”

“How far did it go?” Tom whispered.

“We were very analytical. We were both seventeen and virgins. We decided that if everyone else was doing it, we should see what it was all about.”

“How far did it go?” Tom repeated his earlier question.

I shook my head. “It went all the way. We took it slow since Kenny had a few issues.”

“He’s gay?” Tom asked.

I laughed until tears came down my face. “Oh, wait until I tell him that you think he’s gay. That’s hilarious.”

“He isn’t?”

I shook my head.

“Look at him through my eyes, Liza. He’s got quite a few feminine mannerisms. His best friend is a girl and - I can’t believe I am saying this, but he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.”

“His mom used to call him Angelface,” I told Tom.

“That’s a good description. So if he isn’t gay, what were the issues?”

“Let’s just say some of his mom’s loser boyfriends also found Kenny attractive, especially because he was so small.”

Tom nodded, his mood turning grave.

“That was one good thing that came out of the Halloween party. Kenny found out he loved sex. Remember I said that senior year I beat off the girls with a stick?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he caught quite a few, too. Do you know what he told me?”

“I have no idea, given your relationship with him.”

“He said having a partner was so much better than doing it himself.” I laughed.

Tom shook his head. “Too much information, and I think you just changed the subject. Finish the story. What happened after the party?”

I did not want to finish the story. Maybe I could distract him. “Kenny and I loved each other. We had sex, and it was very nice. Then later, I was engaged to John, and our relationship went physical and it was very nice, too. But with you it is different.”

Tom’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not nice with me?”

“Of course it is, but it was different right from the start. You don’t think I make a habit out of sleeping with someone in a hotel room after only knowing them a few days, do you?”

“No?” Tom asked, tentatively.

I hit him on the shoulder. “Of course not. With you, it was all fireworks and explosions from the first moment I met you.”

Tom smiled.

I leaned in and we shared a long kiss. My skin tingled and warmed as desire swept through me. I pointed to the goose bumps on my arm and said, “See, you make me tingle.”

Tom brushed my hair out of my eyes and tucked it behind my ears. “Stop trying to distract me. Finish the story.”

“I told you we were sick as dogs. End of story.”

“No, that’s not the end. What happened after you finished having sex?”

“We got dressed, I think. At least I assume so. The next thing I remember was waking up at my house. Dad says I called him, and he came and got us, but I don’t remember that. Then he and Mom took care of the both of us. Kenny and I took turns puking our guts out in the toilet. That’s how Jordan found out about it. End of story.”

“Liza,” Tom’s voice was soft but insistent.

“Okay. When we both felt better again, we realized something.”

“What?”