Mistletoe & Kisses (38 page)

He does that damn chin lift and turns, walking back the way he came.  I head to the front desk, telling Alyse that I will be back.

* * *

When I get back to the hospital I’ve got several bags over my shoulders with more along each arm.  Alyse looks on with alarm as I sign in and move without hesitation to Rachel’s room.  She’s sleeping so I take off my shoes at the door, setting things up slowly.  I watch her when I’m done.  Her cheekbones are showing, elbows protruding.  She looks beyond emaciated.  And so, so tired.  The circles under her eyes aren’t from lack of sleep.  It’s just from living.  There are several cords going into her gown, some taped to her cheeks. 

I’m prepared to wait all night, I have no where to be . . . well besides with Batty.  But this is my priority.  The door clicking open, then shut, brings Rachel around though.  Batty stands there in his cape and mask taking in the scene.

Rachel gasps before either one of us can say a word and our attention is brought to her.  “Oh my God!”

I lean forward and take her hand, giving it a little squeeze.  “Hey now.  Your parents probably wouldn’t want you saying that.”

“What’s going on in here, Robin?”

I smile and bring a wig from out of sight, making Rachel gasp again.  I tie a thin scarf around her head first, then put the neon pink wig on.  “We’re having a tea party,” I tell him, still adjusting the bob cut on the little girl’s head. 

Next I bring out mine, a neon green that has Rachel giggling again.  “Do you want a wig, Batty?  I found a yellow one?” I ask, innocently holding it up.  He shakes his head, pulling up a chair next to the bed.  I move Rachel’s bed to sit up more and we concentrate on the ‘table’ I’ve set up at the foot of the bed.  Against the foot rail there are several stuffed animals, all of them with a place setting.

“Where’s the food, or the tea for that matter?” Batty asks.

I roll my eyes and share a look with Rachel that she unsurely returns.  “Batty.  We are imagining the food and tea.  It’s better that way.  We can eat whatever we want.”  I turn back to the little girl.  “What do you want to eat first?  Wait!”  I jump up before she can say anything and dig around another bag I had hung on the bathroom doorknob.

“I almost forgot these!”  I hold up the bead necklaces and tiaras, placing them gently onto Rachel and then myself.  “Okay. 
Now
what do you want to eat, your highness?”

Through a smile, Rachel answers,  “Cookies.”

I hand her a place setting, then Batty, completely ignoring how his hand brushes mine as he takes the cup and saucer.  “Oh, nice!  What kind?”

“Chocolate with chocolate chips, still warm so that they melt in your mouth.”

“That sounds amazing!  Am I drooling?” I ask her, putting a cloth napkin in her lap.  Her smile is permanent as she shakes her head, her eyes lifting to look at the bangs of the wig.

“What about you, Robin?” Rachel asks.

I sigh as I hand Batty a napkin.  “I’m going to have to go with crème brulee.”  I note the confused look on her face, and wish I had picked something simpler.  “It’s like pudding, with hard sugar on top.”

“And you, Batman?  Will you eat with us?”

I look up from preparing little plastic cookies with forks onto the plates at Rachel’s question. 

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.  How many chances do you get to eat with royalty?”

“What will you be eating?”

Batty licks his lips, drawing my eyes.  “I would love some peach cobbler.  Homemade, with vanilla bean ice cream on the side.”  Not what I was expecting.

“That sounds really good.  I love ice cream,” Rachel says.

“Then you should have some too.  Dip your warm cookies in it.”

She whispers, “Yeah,” with a smile that makes my chest do that thing again.

I hold my cup up, making sure my back is straight and my nose is in the air.  “To the finest tea party I’ve ever had the privilege of attending.  Queen Rachel, Sir Batty, thank you for accepting my invitation.”  I raise my cup and lightly touch it with both of theirs.  Batty and I wait until Rachel takes her first sip from the cup before taking ours.  Rachel hums, setting her cup down and dabbing the corners of her mouth with her napkin.

“The tea is excellent, Princess Robin.”

I bow my head to the little girl.  “Thank you kindly, Queen Rachel.  I’m glad you approve.”  Our heads are brought around to a slurping sound coming from Batty, our eyes wide.

He looks up to us, and I hear a sound.  A laugh?  More of a chuckle, but it shakes me so much the cup rattles in its plate.  Rachel laughs, and I can’t help but join in.

“It seems Sir Batty has been away from the tea table for quite some time,” I say through my laughter.  Rachel is laughing so hard she has tears in her eyes.  Batty bows his head low.

“My apologies, my queen.  I have indeed.  This is excellent tea,” he says, holding his empty cup up.

“Thank you, Sir.”

We finish our first course of imaginary food, humming and groaning, eyes rolling back as we describe the dishes.  We go through finger sandwiches, ham and cheese for Rachel, cucumber and cream cheese for me because I remember that from somewhere, and peanut butter and jelly for Batty, making us all crack up again.

When we’re done Rachel looks tired, so I know we don’t have much time left. 

“And how was your tea, Lady Bear?” Rachel asks the stuffed animal at the foot of the bed. 

I pick up a hand to make it move and say in a mousy voice and a horrible British accent, “’Twas lovely, Queen.  Thank you for having me.”

Rachel laughs, which gets us all going, and I bend to pick up the duck next, trying to figure out a voice to go with it when an alarm starts blaring.

The next moments are in slow motion.  My eyes move first to the machine causing the sound, then to Rachel.  She looks asleep.  I think at first she is.  But that doesn’t make sense.

“Rachel?” I hear myself say, but from a long ways away, like I’m underwater.  “Rachel?” I ask more forcefully.

Batty is up and moving around the bed as people flood the room.  Nurses and doctors, I guess.  But I’m just staring, waiting for her eyes to open and give me a laugh.  A giggle.  Something.

The crew starts stripping down the bed, brushing her plastic necklaces aside and lowering the bed.  They tear the gown off of her body.  They’re treating her too roughly, she’s delicate.  As I stand my cup shatters on the ground.  “RACHEL?”

Batty’s arms go around me as I reach for them.  They’re going to hurt her.  “RACHEL?!”

His arms are steel bands and won’t let me go.  He drags me first to the back of the room, then out the door.  “Rachel,” I whisper.  I blink over and over, trying to rewind, trying to unsee.  Batty hits the wall opposite her door.  Nurses rush back and forth, and I wait, like a damned parent, for them to tell me it was a false alarm.  We wait until a doctor comes out slower than the rest.  The siren has stopped. 

Batty’s arms haven’t stopped holding me, squeezing so tight I don’t know if the trouble I have breathing is because of that too full feeling in my chest or him crushing my ribs.

The doctor goes to leave.  I try to lurch away to follow but don’t get very far.  “Wait!  What are you doing?” I ask numbly.

The doctor sighs and looks between us before walking back to where we are.  “Are you the parents?”

“I . . . what?”  I can’t think.

“No.”  I feel the short answer more than hear it.  Something’s wrong with my ears.  There’s a roaring in them.

“I’m sorry, I can’t give any information to you if you aren’t the next of kin.”

“Ki—“ I can’t even finish the sentence.  That’s what they say when something bad happens.  But, fuck, she’s already got cancer.

There’s a commotion down the hall, the sound becoming faster, louder as two people round the corner at a run.

They see the doctor, and I see them.

“You,” I growl, knowing these are the people that leave her.

“Sadie,” is whispered in my ear as I struggle.

“Where were you?!” I screech.

The doctor turns back to me, directing his eyes over my shoulder.  “Get her out of here.”

“Her? 
HER?!  I
was here!”  I focus on my prey.  “Where were you?  At your church or getting something to eat, while your daughter imagines food?  Where the fuck were you?”  I scream at them.

Batty says, “Okay,” before he hauls me away.  I kick on my bare feet.  I resemble someone on Jerry Springer held back by the bodyguard.

“You’re leaving, Sadie,” Batty says as he pulls me toward the elevators, taking me dangerously close to the people I want to rip apart.

“What is wrong with you,” the guy asks, looking like I’m crazy.

“I was having tea with the queen!” I try to launch myself at him, but Batty’s too strong, so I resort to my long legs.  Before I can make contact he lurches me around so that I can’t see them anymore.  He doesn’t let me go until we’re in the elevator.  When he does, I almost collapse to the ground.

Batty’s breathing hard, pacing with his hands on his hips.  We don’t speak.  My mind is numb, but at the same time whirling like that tornado from last time, but this is F5.  

There are people on the elevator to the parking garage and a woman keeps looking at me from the corner of her eye.  I start for her, barking, “What?”

Batty is there in a second, pulling me away.  The woman shrugs and moves to the front.  She gets off on the first floor, even though she pressed two.

When we get to the third floor, we’re alone.  I stand there, just staring.  I see Rachel laughing, so hard tears were running down her cheeks.  Then I see her still.  Over and over.

“Come on,” Batty says, grabbing my arm and moving me toward his car.

“But—” I say quietly.

“You don’t have your purse.  I’ll drive you.”

“Purse?” I ask, confused.

“Your keys.  You don’t have them or your driver’s license.”

I look to my feet and behind me as he drags me along.  Nope.  They aren’t there.

“You’re in shock.  You couldn’t drive anyway.  Get in the car.”  He opens the door, and my knees buckle more than sit in the seat.  He stands outside of my door as I stare out the front, then Batty grabs the seatbelt and latches it for me with a sigh.

I don’t move.  I don’t think the whole ride home.  The same reel keeps going through my head.  Laughing, asleep . . . my mind won’t accept anything else than asleep.

Chapter Seven

SUNDAY

Batty’s face, without the mask, brings me back to the present; he’s unlatching my seatbelt.  I look around.

“You’re home,” he says unnecessarily.  But I don’t have my keys.  I tell him.

“Don’t you have a spare under a rock or something?” he asks impatiently.

I look around my yard.  My mind not able to process.  A rock?

Batty’s hand on my bicep gets me moving to the front porch.  The light is on, so Batty leaves me to start kicking over first the front mat, then rocks in the yard.

“It’s shit.”

Batty keeps kicking rocks down the front of the house, ignoring me.  He seems to be getting madder he goes along.

“It’s in the shit,” I call after him.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” he asks.  He’s pissed.  Why?  I point to the center of the yard.

“I don’t have a yard.  That pile of shit is a hide-a-key.”

He stalks over to it in the dark.  “I’ve been doing this for ten minutes and you tell me now?”

“Ten minutes?” I ask, not believing it’s been that long.  Didn’t we just get here?

“Jesus Christ,” he growls, throwing the plastic crap over his shoulder and walking past me to the door.  He walks right into my house, and I follow.  I watch him put in my security code.

“What the fuck?” I ask, some life coming back to me as I watch him.

He turns back to me, again walking past me to the kitchen.  “I’m not blind.  You put in the code right in front of me.  Should probably change that shit.”  He’s slamming cabinet doors.  “Don’t you have any booze around here?”

I shake my head.  “I’m an addict.”

Batty stops and looks at me.  “You aren’t an addict.”  He says it like he knows for certain.

“Yes I am.  Have the rehab graduation certificate to prove it.”  I lick my lips and look around the room, not really seeing anything.

“Sadie?”

My head turns but he doesn’t say anything else except my name.  I raise my eyebrows.  What does he want?

“Well, I was going to give you a shot to bring you out if it, but it looks like I don’t have a choice?” he says as he stalks over to me.  I have enough sense to back up.  The side of the stairs stop me.

“Choice?” I ask

He reaches for my wig, the tiara clattering to the ground when he takes it off.  Next is my mask, but it gets caught in my hair, since the band holding it up was put on before I put my hair up.  He patiently unbinds my hair.

“What are you doing?” I whisper.

Those eyes.  They meet mine, and I’m swirling in them, instead of my own thoughts.  “Finding you.”

His lips move against mine, closed, but only briefly.  He opens them, effectively opening mine with them and slips his tongue inside.  Batty’s tongue coaxes mine out, lifting it, sucking it until I come to play.  When his hands grab my face, then move into my hair, pulling on that edge of pain, I stop seeing Rachel for the first time.

I lunge for it.  Desperate to leave the day’s events, I twine my fingers through his hair and return the favor.  He groans into my mouth and I catch it, swallowing the sound deep in my throat.  One of Batty’s hands stays in my hair, pulling hard while I fight against it to keep the sting.  The other goes to my ass, gripping hard, pulling me into his erection.  I grind against him, frantic to keep this feeling.

I feel the digging of the stairs fall away when he pulls me deeper into the house.  I don’t know where we’re going, and I don’t care.

He picks me up with that one arm.  I fully appreciate the gesture, wrapping my legs around him seconds before he sits.  I open my eyes, first seeing his lips, a brief glimpse of his tongue as it tangles with mine before I take in the fact that we’re sitting on my couch.

He pushes my head to the side for a better angle, lifting as I rock my hips against his.  My neck as been straining to keep the tight pull he has on my hair, but he pulls harder, and I have no choice but to tilt my head up.  He sucks on my neck, I can feel his tongue laving at my pulse.  Batty pushes my shirt up with the hand that was on my ass.  I let go of his hair to shed the red shirt and am rewarded with his mouth moving down my chest.  My bra is gone.  Then his mouth.  He sucks me in and the tornado dies to create another something that sets me on fire.

When I feel his teeth on my nipple I cry out, the pleasure/pain shooting straight to my pussy.  I grind harder.

“Off.”  His voice is deeper.  It ignites me.  He’s pulling at the button on my jeans.  Then he’s gone, forcing me to stand on legs that want nothing more than to be bent around his frame.  But he stands with me.

He moves to his shirt as I watch.  I try to back up to take in the view, but my knees hit the coffee table and I go down with my jeans halfway down my thighs.  He unbuttons his pants, kneeling down to maneuver my tight jeans off of me.

“Don’t think I’m doing all the work tonight.  You’ve got shit to do,” he says, freeing my feet.  I didn’t wear panties because the jeans were so tight, so I’m left naked on my white coffee table when he spreads my legs and takes in the view. 

He lets go of one of my bent legs to move his hands down the center of me, then into me.  First one finger, then two, making my eyes roll back in my head.  Making me moan.

My eyes shoot open, dazedly seeing the ceiling fan above me before I lift my head to watch his tongue lick my clit.  “Oh fuck, Batty,” I say as he does it again.

“Mmm, you taste better than I thought you would.”  I feel him say the words against my core as his hot breath hits me, then reach my ears.  I raise an eyebrow and look at him.

“I’ve been thinking about this pussy since I left here,” he explains.

“You like?” I ask lightly.

“Fucking better than peach cobbler, I’ll tell you that.”  His tongue flicks several times, preventing me from going back there.  “Where did you get the tea set?”

“Ah, don’t stop,” I complain.  Why does he keep talking? 

“I won’t stop, baby.” He moves his finger inside of me, in and out.  “Tell me where you got it.  It was china, hand painted.”

I move my hand to point to the empty shelf as his mouth sucks my clit into his mouth, making my hand fist in the air.

“You gave her your tea set?”

I sit up and push him to the couch.  “Stop talking,” I say with clenched teeth, grabbing his jeans and pulling them off.  He helps by taking his wallet out before it’s out of reach and kicking off his shoes.  “I need this,” I say as I palm his cock.

“I know you do.”  He hands me the condom, and I waste no time getting it open then rolling it down his length.  I’m rewarded by a sweet inhale of breath as I sink myself onto him.

His hand slapping my ass brings my own gasp, feeling the sting, and I move.  His hands on my ass help to lift me, then bring me down hard.  I bend my head to his neck, then shoulder.  He moves his head out of the way, helping me to reach him as we fuck.  My eyes don’t want to close anymore.  The lights are on.  For the first time I see all of him.  I pull away, sitting up to let him do the work.  He tunnels into me from below, and I watch. 

He’s got tattoos everywhere.  How did I miss that?  From his wrists, up his arms, and down his torso.  His pecs flex as he lifts me.  A massive angel is in the center of his chest, clouds or smoke swirl around in a vortex, the wings expanding to his collarbone and around his ribs.  I groan in appreciation and set my tongue to the feathers that I can reach.

He slaps the other cheek hard, pulling me onto him harder than before.  He likes it.  I move my hips onto his as he pulls my hair to curtain us in gold.  It’s only us under here, our breaths gasping, our moans getting caught under the screen.

I grind against him, where I need the friction.  Batty lifts my ass in a rhythm that is ours, hard but smooth, building us to the point where we can’t help but explode.

My head comes up as my back arches away from him.  He keeps moving me as I splinter like a house that’s in the direct path of our force.  My eyes move back to his as he shouts his orgasm loudly.  The sound echoes in my near empty house.  His eyes are on me, watching my hair, my chest, where we’re connected.  He gets off on me, and he sees me.  But which me?  There seem to be a few these days.

I leave him before he can leave me, pulling away to sit back on the coffee table.  We catch our breath, our eyes locked, and I almost think we’re going to go again because of the look he’s giving me.  But he looks down, stands then walks away.

When he comes back from flushing the condom I’m fully dressed and ready, though still sitting on the table.  He’s magnificent naked.  His muscles shine with a sheen of sweat and his hair is in every direction from my fingers.  He pulls his boxers on, then jeans silently.  When he’s slipping his shoes on, he finally looks at me.

“She didn’t get to see the lights?” I say abruptly.

“The what?”

“Rachel.”  The name alone guts me again.  “She didn’t see the Christmas lights we hung today.”

I watch his jaw clench, then his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows.  “She sees them.”

I study him, thinking about the angel on his chest, but his face is stone and gives away nothing.  “Do you believe that?”

“I have to,” he says before turning and walking out.

My eyes follow his bare back as he leaves, his shirt fisted in his hand.  He shuts the door quietly, but when the lock catches, I still flinch.  I look around at my empty house, the house I always wanted, and think about how much happier I was with a dying girl.

I walk over to the staircase and pick up the green wig and tiara, combing it with my fingers until it’s smooth.  Moving back to the empty shelf, I position everything until it is fanned out, the tiara set just right. 

Then I turned off the lights.