Max had made up to cover for the fact that she didn’t understand Spanish coming back to me.
He walked toward me, laughing. “‘Hey, mister, I’m not wearing a bra’?” He pulled at the top button of my blouse and peered in. “Not true and not the words.”
I put one arm around his waist and took his hand, making him dance. “I only speak French. No Spanish.”
He led me to the stereo and turned it down so that we could talk without shouting. “Speaking of which, you’ve never spoken any French to me. I think it’s about time.”
I stood on my tiptoes and whispered some very dirty French into his ear.
“I have no idea what you just said.”
“I said I want more pizza.”
“No you didn’t.”
I whispered the translation in his ear.
“Okay,” he said slowly, and took my hand, leading me into the bedroom. He took a final look at Trixie and closed the door. The lights were off, but he had arranged candles around the room so that a soft glow was cast over everything. He took my face in his hands and kissed me, his lips and tongue tasting like wine. “I love you.”
I touched his cheek. “I love you, too.”
He looked relieved. “You do?”
“Of course I do. What did you think?” I asked.
“I don’t know. You’re not exactly an easy read.”
“How about this? You take off all of your clothes and I’ll show you how much I love you. How does that sound?” I led him over to the bed and pushed him down. I got on top of him and ripped his shirt open, buttons making pinging sounds as they hit the walls and floor. “Then, I’m finishing the pizza.”
Chapter 31
Crawford and I had settled into a nice routine: Friday nights were spent at my house and Sunday nights we stayed at his apartment. He arranged his schedule so that he didn’t have to go to work until ten on Monday mornings, and my classes didn’t begin until a little after that, so we got to spend part of the morning together, with him dropping me off at work on his way to the station house. From Saturday morning to Sunday evening, he was in the city with his daughters. He hadn’t introduced me to them yet and I was fine with that; although they were sixteen and sounded pretty mature, we were still in the early stages of this relationship and wanted to wait for the right time to unleash the second new relationship in their lives, their mother’s new one with the divorced neighbor being the first. I had spoken with his almost-ex, Christine, on the phone a few times, and she was exceedingly nice—almost saintly—in her support of our relationship. She confided to me that her wedding would be the following summer. The girls liked her fiancé which was as much of an endorsement as she needed.
I was actually looking forward to officially meeting her at some point. Crawford was right: she was someone with whom I could be friends.
Bagpipe Kid let me know that he had gotten into Notre Dame, early admission, and would be leaving the following summer to spread his bagpipe love in South Bend, Indiana. Well, actually, I made that last part up—he told me he was excited about going to the school to study prelaw. In the days since we had discovered the body, he had come out of his shell a little bit, and when he came over to play with Trixie, we chatted and I learned more about him. He was still traumatized by finding the body but he seemed to be getting over it as the days passed.
He introduced me to his little brother—whom I dubbed “Accordion Boy”—a sophomore at Stepinac, a local all-boys’ Catholic high school. He played piano accordion (apparently, there is more than one type of accordion, which was news to me) in an Irish ceili band and was only unavailable on Thursday nights, which was when the band rehearsed. This all meant something to Crawford, even though it sounded to me like they were always speaking Gaelic. Accordion Boy, whose name continues to escape me, was more than willing to take over Trixie duty in several months and began to learn the ropes. He figured out what made Trixie tick and seemed to enjoy his time with her. If I hadn’t gotten so attached to Trixie myself, I would have given custody of her to the boys, but I just couldn’t bring myself.