40 - Feces Occurs

“Oh my God, I need a drink.”

Jon’s laughter didn’t ease that need, and Delaney cut him a dark look as he closed the suite door.  The man wasn’t stupid and, understanding the imminent danger he found himself in, helpfully offered, “I happen to have wine.”

“A bottle of that will be perfect after a couple shots of whiskey.”

“Whiskey?  You really need the hard stuff?”  Surprise was evident in his raised brow as she joined him in the living room after having dropped her bag on the bed.  “It wasn’t that bad… Dellie.”

Flipping him an impulsive middle finger, she drawled, “Bad is in the eye of the beholder and depends on proximity to an aardvark anus.  Looks like I just can’t escape ‘em tonight.”

“Oh ho ho!”  His chortle echoed from within the bar cabinet where he was rattling heavy glass, ultimately withdrawing a bottle of amber liquid that would fulfill her request for hard liquor.  “Did you just call me a fuckin’ aardvark anus?  Seriously?”

“Don’t make me say it outright, Bongiovi,” came the droll warning as Delaney sank to the couch and kicked off her sandals.  “And how can you still be smiling after that whole fiasco?  I made your real estate adventure a freeping train wreck.”

Heavy drinkware joined the black-labeled bottle of liquor whose top Jon spun free.   He poured two full fingers in one of them, and slightly less in the other.  “I think you’re making it out to be worse than it was.  I’d hardly call it a train wreck.”

“Let’s recap, shall we?”  One heel landed on the coffee table and she emphatically crossed the other leg over.  “I schedule property viewings for four o’clock.  At three-fifteen my agent’s son broke his arm in three places.  She sent me seven frantic text messages from the ER to apologize and let me know, but I left my freeping phone at the shop.  So, like a boober, I blindly led us into the opportunistic clutches of my ex.  Even with the smell of a healthy commission in the air, he behaved like a – say it with me – aardvark anus, to the point that you felt obligated to suggest a rousing game of Screaming Orgasm in retribution.  You hated all three listings, it took us an hour to get here from picking up the freeping phone and I haven’t even gotten a real kiss from you today.  Oh, yeah.  I’d say ‘train wreck Delaney’ is pretty appropriate.”

This is why people got so annoyed with her – Petra, Marilee… Geoff.  Her forgetfulness was always causing some kind of avoidable crisis, and today was one of those.  

At least Jon knows what he’s dealing with now.

The smiling man that plunked highballs onto the glass table didn’t seem all that upset, however.  He simply lifted her top leg and bent it, placing her foot on the floor before repeating the motion with the opposite leg.  Then he plopped onto the adjacent couch cushion, grabbing her hands and tugging until Delaney sat upright. 

“First things first,” he murmured, leaning in to slant a decidedly unbothered mouth over hers.  Gentle lips worked deliberately over hers until they parted with the invitation he’d been coaxing, and he immediately swept inside.

A sigh seeped from Delaney’s nose as he seized possession of her with that single kiss.  There was no tentative exploration of uncharted territory.  There was no uncertainty in his invasion.  He barged in and laid claim to all the soft, secret spots as though they were already his, inventorying every crevice to ensure it was as he remembered. 

By the time his proprietary survey was complete, she was both breathless and dazed.  He seemed to be inhaling and exhaling on a regular schedule, so it didn’t have the same impact on him, but there was an impact – chiseled cheeks were flushed atop lips that glistened with leftover kiss.  Lazy fingers stroked from the underside of Delaney’s jaw to her chin as he appraised the fruits of his labor with satisfaction.

“You’ve had your kiss, Mou.  Now tell me I’m not that crazy fucking name.”

Great Caesar’s ghost, he was sexy.  Fresh-kissed and domineering was a combination that did wonders for him.  Of course, the man could be unshaven, uncombed, unbathed and unconscious with about the same result.  He was just that magnetic. 

“You’re the least anussy thing in existence,” she breathed obediently.  “Aardvark or any other.”

“Thank you.”  His lips touched the tip of her nose before he twisted to grab the two whiskey glasses.  Handing one off to her, he lifted the other in silent salute.  “Now tell me about your ex.  Why’s he such a dick to you?”

The booze delivered a harsh burn of consolation when sliding down to splash in the stomach that now glowed with its fire.  Jon's kiss had diminished her dire need for hard liquor, but a good Irishwoman didn't shun a wee bit of distilled comfort.  She might cling more passionately to her Greek roots, but Delaney was half-Irish and inhaled the drink in a single gulp. 

Letting her head sink into the cushioned sofa back, she rallied a muted smile.  “I’m sorry for being ditzy.  If I’d had my phone, we could’ve just cancelled, and you wouldn’t have been forced to deal with him.”

“That wasn’t dealing, baby.  It was just a business meeting with someone I didn’t like, and I do it on a regular basis.  I’m more interested in what he did to piss you off.”

It would be so easy to go nuts for this guy who was, by all indications, stupidly perfect.  Realistically, she understood that was an illusion, because all humans had imperfections and he was only a man – despite his reputation and the opinion of thousands of women.  Time would undoubtedly reveal his shortcomings, but she would enjoy his flawlessness in the meantime.

“Geoff’s an arrogant hemorrhoid.  Always has been.”

“I’ll assume ‘hemorrhoid’ is the Sesame Street version of ‘pain in the ass’?”

“Yep.”  Geoff was a rampant pain and the memories of it rendered her first drink useless.  Rising to seek out a refill, she paused and held out a hand for Jon’s empty.  “I’m going to have another slug, if you don’t mind.  Are we eating?”

“I told them to bring it about seven-thirty.”  Looking at his massive wristwatch, he determined, “Another twenty minutes or so.”

“Perfect.  What’s on the menu?”

“Food.”  The sting of his sharp sarcasm was eased by the wink that followed.  “If he’s always been an arrogant pain in the ass, why did you marry him?”

Content that he’d taken care of dinner, and knowing she’d eat about anything, Delaney sloshed a new wave of tawny fire into the highball.  When it reached a socially acceptable depth, she paused the pour.  If he expected the whole sordid tale, whiskey would make it flow a lot more easily, and she peeked over her shoulder.

“You want the short, polite answer that satisfies superficial interest?  Because the real story is long and rude, and we don’t have the kind of relationship that requires you to give a frip about it.”

“I’m from Jersey.  Long and rude is what I’m primed for but bring me another shot in case I’ve gone soft in my old age.”  When she nodded and tilted the bottle again, he added, “And let’s get something straight.  Sex with you is high on my list of favorite things right now, but that’s not all this is.  If we never got naked again, I’d still call and text, because you were my friend first.  That constitutes the kind of relationship that makes me give a frip.”

He really is stupidly perfect. 

Because he wasn’t the only one that considered them friends. 

If Delaney didn’t, she wouldn’t have even offered the second version of the story.  She would've simply presented him with short and polite, as she did with anyone else who asked about her marriage or divorce.  In a weird way, he felt like a masculine, less lippy version of Pearl – someone she could just talk to and be herself without fear of judgment. 

With the added bonus that he liked very physical sex. 

Stupidly.  Perfect.

“Long and rude it is.”  She went back to her glass and doubled the contents.  “You owe me your divorce story after this, though.”

Delaney turned just in time to see his scowl, which lingered as he reached for the drink.  “Much as I hate to, yeah.  Okay.”

She felt his pain. 

Not since the week it happened had she willingly engaged in this subject.  Sometimes Petra wouldn’t let sleeping dogs lie, Papa waxed nostalgic, Ma had a weepy memory or Geoff was a jerk.  Those situations were unavoidable, but unless someone force fed it to her, Delaney didn’t think about her divorce or the subsequent series of events. 

During the past five years, she’d learned that dwelling on those things was detrimental to her sanity.  It was a struggle building a life that didn’t revolve around someone else, but with one foot in front of the other and Petra’s guiding hand at her back, Delaney had trudged on.   Dandelion Dreams had become her new reason for living, and with each surge of life that she put into the shop, the days had become… not easy, but tolerable. 

“Mou?”  Blinking away the cloud of melancholy, she turned from the dusky Manhattan skyline to the man on the sofa, who watched her with solemn curiosity.  “Come sit.”

Quirking her mouth into the semblance of a smile, she nodded and crossed to fold herself into the corner of the creamy sofa.  He stayed in the middle but angled toward her, propping an elbow on the back of the couch and making a fist to lean his temple against.

“So,” she sighed with resignation, appreciating the blue-eyed compassion visible over the rim of his drink.  “The short story is that it was a marriage of convenience for me.  He knew that going in and didn’t seem to mind, so I married him and was a wife in every sense of the word, even though our sexual preferences never quite meshed.  Eventually, he got tired of giving me what I enjoyed, and then I got tired of pretending I liked what I got.  He discovered a younger woman – the office secretary – was more sexually compatible and that was that.”

“How’d you find out?” he quizzed gently.  “Please tell me you didn’t catch them fucking in your bed.”

Oh, no.  She would’ve killed him on the spot in that scenario.  If, by some bizarre twist of fate, she didn’t, and he escaped.…  Well, she had an equally vengeful, father, mother, sister and brother who would vie for the privilege of killing him.

The distilled fire streaked down her throat and caused a grimace.  She didn’t even mind the bitter pain, because it joined her previous shot to ease a bit of tightness in her shoulders and numb her around the edges.  The relief would be temporary, but she just needed fifteen minutes.  After that, she could again dismiss the past and enjoy the present.

“No.  Nothing so dramatic as that.  He had enough sense to keep it out of my bed, but they made good use of vacant property listings.  That’s what Avery said later, anyway – after he told me about the teeny bopper who could better appreciate him.”

“How old was this teeny bopper?”

“She was twenty-five at the time, so around thirty now, I guess.  The anus is fifty-two.”  Every time she did the math, her eyelashes automatically fluttered over rolling eyes.  It was like an automatic gag reflex.  What kind of guy went after a woman almost twenty-five years his junior? 

The kind who needs to feel important.  That wasn’t your strong suit.

No, it wasn’t.  She wasn’t the hand-holding, pandering type.  Geoff sold a fifteen-million-dollar listing?  So what?  That was his job, but he’d wanted constant praise for doing it.  Delaney hadn’t had the time, and even if the hours weren’t jam-packed from morning to night during those years, she wouldn’t have been interested in applauding a grown man for earning a living.   

“To each their own on the age thing, I guess,” Jon reasoned.  “But I’m sorry he did it to you.”

Delaney shrugged.  “Feces occurs.”

“That it does.”  Her eyelids drifted shut when he palmed her leg and squeezed.  “Why was it convenient for you to marry him?”

It was a funny thing, convenience. 

People made sacrifices in one area to reap benefits in another – like fast food.  Quality and health benefits were forsaken in the name of saving time.  Ultimately, convenience commanded a higher cost than the original price tag, and that’s what happened in Delaney’s case.

“I did it for my daughters.”