He rolled the Snake in, shut her down, grabbed his workout bag from the passenger seat and hauled his ass out. He dumped the bag in the utility room as he moved through it. She’d sort his shit and he wouldn’t have to ask. He knew it. He gave her diamonds and expensive shoes. She gave him everything else and she gave it in a way that he knew he didn’t have to give her diamonds and expensive shoes to get it.
He walked up the stairs, rounded the railing and stopped dead.
“In the middle of something, baby,” she muttered, “kiss you in a minute.”
She was sitting at a stool at the island, legs crossed, one heel to the bar on the stool, both legs shoved to the side, torso hunched over, head bent, even though he had her back he knew she was concentrating on what she was doing and he understood this not just because of her distracted words but also her posture.
She was wearing a pair of white slacks, wide leg, riding low, a wide slash of skin exposed below her top and above the waistband of her pants. A wide slash that was an invitation that, knowing Lexie, she had no idea she was giving. A wide slash that invited her man to shove his hand down her pants and cup her sweet ass, an invitation he decided he was going to find time that night to accept.
Her top was a light gray, satin camisole, loose-fitting and gathered at her waist, tied at the side in a big, droopy, satin bow. Her hair was in a sleek fall down her back. A pair of black, high, spike-heeled sandals had been tossed on the floor by the side of the island; a small, black purse was resting on the counter on top of it.
Also on the counter were a bunch of gray and black pitchers that, even as a man, he had to admit were the shit. They looked good on the black granite countertop. His eyes moved from them and around taking things in. Shit in the window sill over the sink that wasn’t there when he left that morning, her snow globe, a photo. His eyes scanned. A wide bowl that matched the pitchers filled with fruit by the fridge. His eyes kept moving and he saw their wedding photo in a silver frame on the mantel.
Seeing that photo, he felt that sharp thing pierce through the left side of his chest again and, at the exquisite pain, that area tensed and stayed that way.
His mother didn’t frame photos. She didn’t set out souvenirs to remind them of good times had during family vacations or outings. Their family didn’t take vacations. They didn’t have outings. And they didn’t have happy memories to display.
But it was more than that. His mother spent her energy bitching and pissed at the world. She did not spend it making a home, definitely not for a husband she hated but stayed with for the sole purpose, Ty figured, of torturing him. But also not even for her children who she frequently forgot she had.
Therefore, Ty Walker never had a home. Even the house he bought and started to fill with shit he liked he didn’t try to make a home firstly because he was a man and secondly because, never having one, it didn’t cross his mind.
Pitchers, a bowl, a snow globe and some frames and Lexie did it. She needed nothing else. No flowers for the deck. No other touches. He’d be good with what she’d already done. But he also knew, what they started kept going, she’d fill his house with shit that made it a home.
He moved toward her, got close to her back, pulled her soft hair off her shoulder and bent low to kiss the point of her shoulder then moved his mouth to her ear.
“My mama’s been busy,” he muttered there then his eyes moved to the counter where he was going to toss his keys and he froze solid.
“Yeah,” she mumbled distractedly but he barely heard her.
That was because on the counter was a scattering of dissected roses and he knew by their color they were from her wedding bouquet. She had a square piece of glass in one hand, in the other she had a weird gun that she was using to edge the glass with some melted metal the color of silver. He noticed that it wasn’t one piece of glass but two and between them she’d pressed petals from the roses in the shape of a heart. They were overlapping thickly, both colors used, the pattern random, pieces of petal arranged in other places in the glass that looked arbitrary but somehow pointed to and highlighted the heart. He wasn’t a hearts and flowers guy but he’d seen shit like that sold in stores and the way she made what she’d made was far from amateur.
“There,” she declared, setting the gun aside on a ragged dishtowel. She held the glass up cautiously between thumb and forefinger, her torso straightening and she asked, “What do you think?”
Walker had no response, he just stared at it.
“Is it too cutesy?” she asked and he noted out of the corner of his eyes her head had turned and he felt her gaze on him but he couldn’t tear his eyes from the heart. “I mean a heart… that isn’t me. It also isn’t you. But I was thinking I could etch some squiggles and shit in the glass at the corners and on the inside of the heart I could write, ‘Ty and Lexie, Las Vegas,’ and maybe the date of our wedding. I’ll solder a hanger on top. I got a blush colored ribbon and a sucker thing for the window and I’ll hang it in the window over the kitchen sink.” She stopped talking and when he still made no reply, she muttered, “Maybe that’s too much. Not sure a heart made of rose petals goes with the black counters and cream cabinets of your kitchen…”
She was talking but he wasn’t hearing her.
He was thinking, Ty and Lexie.
That sharp thing again pierced the left side of his chest.
“Your kitchen,” he found his mouth saying.
“What?” she asked quietly and his eyes moved from her hand to hers.
“Your kitchen, babe. It’s your kitchen; you made that so it works.”
He watched surprise flare in her eyes then he watched her beautiful face grow soft and he liked both but he liked the second better.
“Those are from your bouquet,” he noted quietly and she nodded.
Then she admitted, “I was pissed at you but not pissed enough not to keep a few of the roses.” She paused then, “As in, eight.”
He felt the tightness in the left side of chest ease.
Then he wrapped his fingers around the side of her neck and slid them up and back so they were in her hair, hair he’d felt gliding over his skin, hair he felt all around while she’d worked his cock. Hair that felt better during those times then he imagined it would and he imagined it would feel really f**king good.