Read Starting From Scratch Online
Authors: Georgia Beers
Tags: #Fiction, #Lesbian, #Romance, #Erotica
and still wearing her police officer’s uniform. My mouth
went dry, as it always does when I see her imposing figure
in full regalia. She is nearly six feet tall, with skin the color
of the unsweetened cocoa powder my grandmother used to
make brownies from scratch, deep and smooth and even.
e uniform was cut surprisingly well for her; it didn’t look
like she was a woman trying to wear a man’s clothes. Her
waist tapered in, her hips flared slightly with her gun
holster on one side and her nightstick on the other, and
her broad shoulders told you how alarmingly strong she is.
Any lesbian who doesn’t immediately entertain fantasies of
J.T. pushing her up against the wall and slowly, thoroughly,
frisking her from behind (my fantasies include use of her
handcuffs) needs to have her libido checked.
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“Hey, Red,” she said as she saw me come in, using the
familiar nickname she’d given me when I was twenty-five.
“You look as sexy as always.”
“What did I tell you about making me blush,” I
scolded her, feeling my face warm as I playfully slapped at
her arm.
She bent down to kiss me on the cheek. “at it
clashes with your hair.”
“at’s right.”
“Not my fault. You’re too damn good-looking.” She
gave me a lazy wink. Nope. No hot-blooded woman would
stand a chance resisting J.T.’s charms. Not a one.
“I’d give your wife a hug,” I told her, “but she’s too
busy loving up my dog.”
Maddie laughed. “Oh, all right. I can’t help it if he’s
the man of my dreams.” She set Steve on the floor and he
gave J.T. a quick sniff as she bent down to ruffle his fur,
then set off on his usual tour of the house, the first thing
he always did when we came to visit. Well, second thing
after lavishing attention on Maddie.
She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed.
Maddie gives the best hugs of anybody I know; you feel
like you really mean something to her and she’s happy to
have the opportunity to show you.
“How’s the knee?” I gestured down with my chin as
she limped to the stove.
“Open that wine and I’ll tell you all about it,” she
ordered.
We sat and chatted and ate dinner and drank wine,
catching up on the weeks since we’d seen each other.
Maddie was scheduled for knee surgery the following
week. Torn ACL. I don’t handle medical, surgical, or any
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kind of ‘cal’ very well. As soon as Maddie got into any sort
of sentence that began with, “then they cut this,” or “after
they slice through that,” I slapped my hands over my ears
and began to sing “She’ll Be Comin’ Around the
Mountain” at the top of my lungs. I’m ridiculously
squeamish. Pathetically so. I can’t even have
Grey’s Anatomy
on my television during a surgical scene. e second I see
anything bloody, I run squealing from the room in horror.
So, Maddie knew better than to go into detail about what
they were going to do to her in that operating room. As far
as I knew, she was going into the hospital, they were going
to fix her knee, and then she’d come home and recover.
And that’s all the information I needed to have.
“Are you nervous?” I asked her as J.T. set a cup of
after-dinner coffee in front of me. My stomach was full to
bursting with the pot roast Maddie had cooking in her
crock pot all day long, and the sips I took from my cup
were miniscule. Steve was crashed out under the table, his
chin resting on my foot.
e sigh Maddie blew out told me she didn’t really
want to admit what she was about to tell me. “Yeah. Yeah, I
am.” She took a sip of her coffee. J.T. reached over and
covered Maddie’s hand with her larger one. “I know
everything will be fine. I’m not really all that worried about
the surgery itself. I just want my recovery and rehab to go
quickly. And they’ve already told me it may not. I ain’t as
young as I used to be,” she added, trying for a cocky grin
but it ended up looking more like she smelled something
foul.
At thirty-eight, Maddie was four years older than I,
and I couldn’t imagine trying to get around on one leg for
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longer than a couple hours without wanting to pull my
own hair out, so I understood her worry.
“You just have to remember to take your time, not to
push harder than your body tells you to, and let J.T. wait on
you.” I gave that last comment with a wink.
“I’ve already told her that,” J.T. said. “But you know
how stubborn my wife can be.”
“It’s not stubbornness that’s going to be the problem,”
Maddie told us. “It’s going to be the frustration. I’m going
to get frustrated and that’s going to piss me off.”
J.T. and I nodded in unison, knowing Maddie spoke
the absolute truth.
“So,” she added, eyes on me, “I’m going to ask you to
call before you pop in. Okay?” I knew her well enough to
read her face. She was trying not to hurt my feelings, but
was also trying to make a point. “I don’t want you showing
up unannounced on a day when I’m crying my eyes out or
throwing dishes.”
I smiled, not the least bit offended. “Understood. I
promise to call.”
“Good. ank you.” She sipped again. “Which brings
me to something I need to talk to you about.”
“Well, that’s kind of ominous,” I said, because it was.
“Are you breaking up with me?”
She laughed. “Never, baby.”
“Okay, good. What’s up then?”
“Remember when you left Christine?” She gazed into
her cup.
“Of course.” Christine was an ex from many years ago
with a taste for alcohol and a volatile temper. We were
together for about six months. I made her angry once. She
slapped me once. at was the end of that.
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“And we helped you go get your stuff from her place
without a moment’s notice, just dropped everything we
were doing and got you the hell out of there?”
I squinted at her, wondering exactly where she was
going with this, thinking I wasn’t going to like it judging
by the fact that she hadn’t looked up from her coffee yet.
“Uh-huh.”
“And you thanked us so much and said that you owed
us, big time, and whenever we had a favor to call in just to
name it?”
“Uh-huh…” I drawled it out, feeling the sudden need
to squirm. J.T. seemed to find her fingernails very
interesting and my eyes zipped back and forth between her
and Maddie. ey obviously needed something from me,
and I was okay with that. ey’d taken great care of me
more than once and I loved them both like family. “All
right. What’s going on? What is it?”
Maddie took a deep breath. “When I scheduled my
surgery, I forgot about one teeny, tiny thing. I have
something that starts two days later and I won’t be able to
do it because I’ll be laid up. Plus, with rehab and physical
therapy, it’s probably going to be at least three or four
weeks before I can even think of participating.”
“Participating in what?” I asked, a sinking feeling
settling over me. I set my cup down, the coffee suddenly
sitting like lead pellets in my stomach.
“And I apologize for the short notice. I’ve been sort of
preoccupied.” She indicated her knee with her eyes.
“Participating in what?” I asked again.
“Tee-ball.”
And there it was.
I groaned.
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Starting three years before, each spring and summer
Maddie coached a tee-ball team of five- and six-year-old
boys and girls. She enjoyed it immensely, despite the fact
that it was sometimes stressful. She had done it as a favor
initially. e computer consulting company she worked for
sponsored a team each year, a dozen little kids running
around in bright green T-shirts with the company logo
splashed across the front, trying hard to learn the rules of
the game and have fun at the same time. Maddie’s boss
asked her if she’d be interested in coaching a team. Maddie
said yes, more out of a desire to please the boss than a
desire to actually lead a bunch of kids. To her surprise, she
found it to be fulfilling.
Which, by no means, meant I would. I groaned again
and dropped my forehead to the table in front of me.
“You’ll be great at it,” Maddie said, as the buttering-up
began. “It’s just practice. e first few weeks. I’ll be able to
take over after that.”
“Me and kids, Maddie?”
“Kids
love
you.”
“I never know what to say to them,” I whined,
knowing the chances of me getting out of this were slim to
none, but vowing to protest as much as possible anyway.
“at’s why they love you. You talk to them like
they’re grown up.”
“I talk to them like they’re grown up because I don’t
know what to say to kids.” Maybe repeating myself would
help me get through to her. “Can’t somebody from your
office do it?”
“I don’t trust anybody there with my kids,” she said,
surprising me.
“God, I don’t know…”
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“It’s only for a few weeks, Avery,” Maddie said. Her
voice had changed, from “hey, this’ll be fun” to “all right, I
know you don’t want to, but you owe me.”
And she was right. I did owe her. em. Maddie and
J.T. had gotten me out of a really bad situation. I was truly
afraid of Christine, but there were a few things I'd really
needed. If I went to get them alone and she caught me, she
might snap. Paranoid? Probably. I didn’t care. Having J.T.
there in uniform was a huge comfort. Surprisingly, I’d
never heard from Christine again…not that I didn’t
change my phone number and jump every time my
doorbell rang for the next month.
I sighed the sigh of defeat, knowing there was no way
out. I owed Maddie big, she needed me, and that was all
there was to it. “Fine.”
“Oh, thank you,” she squealed, popping up from her
chair and hobbling around the table to throw her arms
around my neck. Her blonde hair smelled like lilacs and I
couldn’t help but smile at her exuberant gratitude. “You’re
the best.”
“Yeah, yeah. I hope you’ll be a character witness at my
trial after I kill all the children for driving me up the wall.”
“Not going to happen. ey’re going to love you and
you’re going to love them.”
I shook my head. “I haven’t the foggiest idea how to
coach a tee-ball team.”
“No worries. I’ll give you my notes.”
“Notes? You have notes?” I got up and helped myself
to the last of the wine from dinner, exchanging my coffee
for something a bit stronger. And more numbing. J.T.
chuckled from her seat. I turned on her and pointed a
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finger in her direction. “And you. Don’t you sit there and
laugh. You haven’t helped at all.”
She shrugged, still grinning. “Hey, I know who’s boss.
It ain’t you.”
“Yeah, no shit.” I sat back down and took a slug of my
wine.
18
CHAPTER TWO
My grandmother’s assisted living apartment complex
didn’t have some fancy name that made it sound like a
nursing home. It wasn’t Shady Acres or Whispering
Winds or Lofty Pine Manor. It was just 217 Jefferson
Road and I think that’s why she liked it.
As far as I’m concerned, Colleen Avery King was truly
a woman ahead of her time. She was a career woman when
it was uncommon—and frowned upon. She was the right
hand of the County Commissioner and pretty much ran
his office for the better part of thirty-five years. She retired
at seventy with a notable pension, as well as income from
the smart investments she’d made. Her financial prowess
was the reason I was able to go to a good college without
more than a couple of small loans.
It was true that she didn’t need my financial help
(she’d been insulted when I offered to help her with her
rent, and she’d told me so in no uncertain terms), but she
was still my grandmother and she’d raised me, so I liked to
help out any way I could. us, the grocery bags I unloaded
from my car on Sunday afternoon. Eggs (you can never
have enough eggs), half-n-half (Grandma hates plain milk
in her tea), boneless chicken breasts, bread, and a sour
cream coffee cake I’d baked that morning. I figured she
could serve it to her coffee klatch—three friends in the
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complex that came over every Monday for lunch. I knew
she’d scold me for bringing her these things, but I also
knew she was eighty-five years old and just couldn’t get out
and about to the grocery store as often as she liked. Not
that she’d ever admit it. So, it made me feel like I was
helping her out, which would be worth the reprimand.
“Hey there, Ms. King.” e front security desk was
manned by Jamal, as usual, and his teeth gleamed like new-
fallen snow in a face as black as pitch when he smiled at