The mattress dipped as he sat on the edge and pulled off his boots and socks. Meg thought all he needed was to meet a nice woman to make him a good wife, but he just couldn’t see himself married. Not now. He’d had a few good relationships in his life. Good right up until the moment that they weren’t. None had lasted more than a year or two. Partly because he’d been gone so much. Mostly because he didn’t want to buy a ring and walk down the aisle.
He stood and stripped to his underwear. Meg thought he was afraid of marriage because their parents’ had been so bad, but that wasn’t true. The truth was that he didn’t remember his parents all that much. Just a few watery memories of family picnics at the lake and his parents cuddling on the sofa. His mother crying at the kitchen table and an old heavy telephone thrown through the television screen.
No, the problem wasn’t the memories of his parents’ fucked-up relationship. He’d just never loved one woman enough to want to spend the rest of his life with her. Which he didn’t consider a problem at all.
He pulled back the quilt and lay between the cool sheets. For the second time that night, he thought about Maddie Dupree, and he laughed into the darkness. She’d been a smart-ass, but he’d never held that against a woman. If fact, he liked a woman who could stand up to a man. Who gave as good as she got and didn’t need a man to take care of her. Who wasn’t needy or weepy or crazy as hell. Whose moods didn’t swing like a pendulum.
Mick turned on his side and glanced at the clock on his nightstand. He’d set his alarm for ten a.m. and was ready for a full seven hours of uninterrupted shut-eye. Unfortunately, he didn’t get it.
The next morning, the ringing of the telephone brought him out of a deep sleep. He opened his eyes and squinted against the morning sun pouring across his bed. He glanced at the caller ID and reached for the cordless receiver.
“You better be spurting blood,” he said and pushed the covers down his naked chest. “I told you not to call before ten unless it’s an emergency.”
“Mom’s at work and I need some fireworks,” his nephew informed him.
“At eight-thirty in the morning?” He sat up and ran his fingers through one side of his hair. “Is your sitter there with you?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow’s the Fourth of July and I don’t got no fireworks.”
“You just realized this?” There was more to the story. With Travis, there was always more to the story. “Why didn’t your mom get you your fireworks?” There was a long pause and Mick added, “You might as well tell me the truth because I’m going to ask Meg.”
“She said I have a potty mouth.”
Mick stood and his feet sank into thick beige carpeting as he walked across the room toward a dresser. He was almost afraid to ask. “Why?”
“Well…she made meatloaf again. She knows I hate meatloaf.”
He didn’t blame the kid there. The Hennessy women were notorious for their shitty meatloaf. He opened the second dresser drawer and prompted, “And?”
“I said it tasted like shit. I said you thought so too.”
Mick paused in the act of pulling out a white T-shirt and glanced into his reflection above the dresser. “Did you use the real s-word?”
“Uh-huh, and she said I can’t have fireworks, but you say the s-word all the dang time.”
That was true. He hung the shirt over one shoulder and leaned forward to look into his bloodshot eyes. “We talked about words I can say and words you can say.”
“I know, but it just slipped out.”
“You need to watch what slips out of your mouth.”
Travis sighed. “I know. I said I was sorry, even though I’m not really. Just like you said I should say to girls. Even the stupid ones. Even when I’m right and they’re wrong.”
That wasn’t quite what he’d said. “You didn’t tell Meg I said that, though.” He pulled a pair of Levi’s out of the dresser and added, “Right?”
“Right.”
He couldn’t countermand his sister, but at the same time, a boy shouldn’t be punished for speaking the truth. “I can’t buy you fireworks if your mom says no, but we’ll see if we can’t work something out.”
An hour later, Mick shoved a bag of fireworks behind the driver’s seat of his truck. He’d bought a small variety pack as well as a few sparklers and snakes from the Safe and Sane stand in the parking lot of Handy Man Hardware. He hadn’t bought them for Travis. He’d bought them to take to Louie Allegrezza’s Fourth of July barbeque. If anyone asked, that was the story, but he doubted anyone would believe him. Like all other residents of the pyrotechnically obsessed town,
he had a big box of illegals just waiting to be shot over the lake. Adults didn’t buy Safe and Sanes unless they had kids. Legal fireworks were kind of like training wheels.
Louie’s son Pete Allegrezza and Travis were buddies, and days ago, Meg had agreed that Travis could go to the barbeque with Mick if he stayed out of trouble. The barbeque was tomorrow, and Mick figured Travis should be able to control his behavior for one more day. Mick shut the door to his truck, and he and Travis headed across the parking lot toward the hardware store. “If you behave yourself, maybe you can hold a sparkler.”
“Man,” Travis whined. “Sparklers are for little kids.”
“With your track record, you’ll be lucky if you’re not in bed before dark.” Sunlight shone in his nephew’s short black hair and across the shoulders of his red Spider-Man T-shirt. “You’re having a hard time controlling yourself lately.” He opened the door and waved to the owner standing behind the counter. “Meg’s still pretty mad at us both, but I have a plan.” For several months, Meg had complained about a leaky pipe beneath her kitchen sink. If he and Travis fixed her S-trap so that she didn’t have to keep emptying a pan of water, maybe she’d be in a more forgiving mood. But with Meg, a person never knew. She wasn’t always the most forgiving person.
The soles of Travis’s sneakers scuffed alongside Mick’s boots as they walked to the plumbing section. The store was quiet except for a couple looking at garden hoses and Mrs. Vaughn, his first-grade teacher, rooting through a bin of assorted drawer handles. He was always amazed to see Laverne Vaughn still alive and walking around. She had to be older than dirt.
While Mick grabbed a PVC pipe and plastic washers, his nephew picked up a caulking gun and aimed it at a bird feeder at the end of the aisle as if it were a .45 Magnum.
“We don’t need that,” Mick told him as he reached for some plumber’s tape.
Travis popped off a few rounds, then tossed the gun back onto the shelf. “I’m gonna go look at the deer,” he said and disappeared around the corner of the aisle. Handy Man’s had a big selection of plastic animals that people could display in their yards. Although why you would want to do that when the real thing was likely to roam through was beyond Mick.
He stuck the pipe beneath one arm and went in search of his nephew, who didn’t usually go looking for trouble, but like most seven-year-old boys seemed to find it anyway. He moved through the store, glanced down each crammed row, and paused next to a display of mops.
A smile of pure male appreciation curved the corners of his mouth. Maddie Dupree stood in the middle of aisle six, a neon-yellow box in her hands. Her brown hair was in one of those claws and looked like someone had stuck a dark feather duster on the back of her head. His gaze moved down her smooth profile, past her throat and shoulder, and stopped dead on her black T-shirt. Last night, he hadn’t been able to get a good look at her. Today, the fluorescent lighting of Handy Man Hardware lit her up like a walking, talking, breathing centerfold. Like an old-school playmate before eating disorders and silicone. Desire stirred in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t even know her well enough to be feeling a thing. Didn’t know if she was married or single, had a man in her life and ten kids waiting at home. Apparently it didn’t matter, because she drew him down the aisle like a magnet.