Creep - Jennifer Hillier [26]
The game went to commercial. Putting the football down, Morris leaned toward her, cupped her face in his big hands, and kissed her deeply. He smelled the way he always smelled—a blend of fabric softener, soap, and spicy citrus aftershave.
Butterflies fluttered in her stomach—they always did when he kissed her like that. She parted her lips, slipping her tongue inside his mouth, and let her hands wander down to his belt.
From somewhere nearby, wherever she had dropped her purse, her BlackBerry chimed. She had a new e-mail.
“Don’t you even think about checking that.” Morris’s hands were under her shirt.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
She continued to kiss him, but then it occurred to her the e-mail might be from Randall. She’d been in contact that morning with a sweet-sounding woman from the New York branch of Amnesty International who’d promised to get back to her with new contact info for Morris’s long-lost son.
The game came back on and a moment later a loud cheer erupted from the TV. Morris turned his face toward the screen midkiss.
“Yes!” he barked in her ear. “He makes the extra kick and they’re going into overtime. Are you excited?”
“Oh, hell.” She pushed him away and stood up, looking around for her purse. “I can’t check my phone while we’re making out, but you can watch football?”
“Aw, honey, it was just one quick look.” He feigned sorrow but his eyes were still on the TV.
“Where’s my purse?”
“Kitchen.”
She found it sitting on the shiny black granite of the large center island. She loved this kitchen. Morris had designed it himself because he loved to cook. It was one of the things they often did together. Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was huge, with cabinets that stretched up to the ceiling, sleek stainless steel appliances, a chef’s cooktop and double wall oven, even a pot rack hanging over the island. She wouldn’t miss her townhouse.
Scrolling through her BlackBerry, she saw that she actually had two new messages. The first was an e-mail from Katrina Lebert, the nice Amnesty woman. The other was a text message from Ethan. She ignored the text and clicked on Katrina’s e-mail first.
Subject: Randall Gardener
Hi Sheila,
Good news. Randall and his team should be passing through the AI office in Honduras sometime this week and my sister just happens to work there. I’ve let her know you urgently need Randall to contact you and will have her pass along your info.
Hope this helps!
Katrina
Damn. It didn’t really help. She’d been told before that Randall would be passing through one of the Amnesty offices, but if he’d gotten her messages, he’d never contacted her. Every phone number she had for him was disconnected, every e-mail address was either inactive or he just wasn’t checking. Time was running out. The wedding was in three weeks.
She could understand the issues Randall had with his father. Morris had admitted he’d been a distant parent to all three of his sons, and unfortunately Randall, as the oldest, had taken the brunt of it. Morris’s drinking had damaged his son deeply. All Sheila wanted to do was help—first, by reuniting the two of them, and later, by helping Randall work through his issues, whatever they might be.
Sheila poked her head into the living room. Morris was yelling at the television, lost in the world of football. After a second of hesitation, she clicked on the text message from Ethan. It only took one second to read what he wrote.
What do u see in that fat fuck anyway?
Sheila gasped, then looked up quickly to make sure Morris was still in the other room. She took several deep breaths in an effort to stem the rage building inside her.
The goddamned son of a bitch! Who the hell did he think he was?
Suddenly she didn’t give a rat’s ass about the sex video that could destroy her career. Ethan wanted time off and a reduced workload? Fine, whatever. But nobody talked about Morris that way.