Roly
A few days later I’m mildly overwhelmed and exhausted, racing from the gym to the Worthy Prosthetics board meeting on surface roads because I-35 is a nightmare. Again. I get a text from an unfamiliar number and let my car read it back to me.
Unknown number:Roly, this is Heath. Were you serious about helping with shitty jobs?
My gut swarms with uncomfortable emotions as the car’s weirdly calm electronic voice reads his words aloud. I mean, there’s definitely a part of me that knows I’m a better person now and shouldn’t keep beating myself up for my teenage bullshit.
But then there’s the other, larger part of me that knows that my shitty attitude went well beyond high school, and it’s in a delicate dance with the survivor’s guilt and the I’ve-still-got-all-my-limbs guilt and, finally, that oily mixture of the no-one-laid-a-hand-on-me guilt and the fuck-I-hope-no-one-ever-finds-out shame.
So, yeah. I’m serious about helping in any way I can. Something has to feel better than this. I park at the medical building on 38 1/2 Street where we hold our monthly board meetings and add his number to my list of contacts.
Roly:ohemgee, yes put me to work ill do anything.
SexyPapaBear:Come on over to my house tomorrow morning; dress for dirty work.
Not sure why Heath puts proper punctuations in his texts like a serial killer, but I immediately send my agreement and let Evie know that I won’t be able to help out in the morning.
The next morning, I put on some old sweats, some ratty tennis shoes, and my worn-out Disney Gay Days T-shirt from two summers ago. I show up at his place five minutes later, and it’s hard to miss the suspiciously happy look on his face.
“So… how can I help?”
He quietly leads me to the back of the house, onto the back deck. Just as I’m about to comment on how large his yard is, and how beautiful the trees are, the largest fucking dog in the universe barrels into me and knocks me to the ground. All I can see is curly black-and-brown fur and a spotted tongue, dripping dog spooge onto my chest. In addition to that, three small tongues are now licking my forehead.
“Sasha! Huey, Lewey, Dewey! Get off of him! Girls! Y’all were supposed to put the dogs away!”
It’d rained last night, so by the time the herd of canines retreats, I am covered in filth, and hair, and mud. Last time that happened to me, I at least was getting off with a large, hairy man at a campsite in Georgia.
“Why does your Rottweiler have a perm?” I ask, brushing the leaves off me, managing to smear the mud a bit further. I sniff, and… actually, pretty sure that wasn’t one hundred percent mud. Ick. “Also, is she new? I don’t remember you having mobile shag carpeting.”
“She’s not ours, we’re just fostering her. And it’s not a perm. She’s a Rottiepoo.”
I scrunch my face up but can’t keep my hands off of her soft, wiry-curly hair. “That sounds like a bad mpreg novel. I mean, how does that even work out, logistically? ’Cause I’m imagining a poor little poodle with her back legs in the air while a big Rottie knots her.”
Heath snorts and bites back a smile, and… okay. If I thought he looked hot angry, that’s got nothing on the man when he’s all happy and lit up. Even if I have a feeling he’s about to make fun of me.
“Youdoknow that there are giant poodles, don’t you?”
Oh yeah, right. God, I bet he thinks I’m so fucking stupid. It’s not my fault that a rifle butt to the head left me a little forgetful. Changing the subject, I ask, “Who do you foster with? I’m with Texas Sweeties.”
“A Rottie Rescue.”
“And what about these little ones?” I bend down to love on three very cute, very rambunctious-looking dachshunds. “Are they fosters, too?”
I look up and smile at him, for no other reason that it makes me happy that he’s as big a dog lover as I am. A couple of different expressions cross his face before he settles on neutral.
“Foster-fails, actually. Central Texas Dachshund Rescue. I’ve stopped going to those events because I keep ending up with dogs whenever I go.”
Heath looks at three nearly identical reds with fondness, and I try not to be jealous of weiner dogs.
I’ll be honest, I’m a little thrown. Heath is very Sunday-at-the-lake with his trimmed beard, polo shirt with a pair of sunglasses hanging from the placket, seersucker shorts, and deck shoes. His legs are so fucking strong, his arms are muscular and deliciously veiny, the hives are nearly completely gone, and that belly… fuck, I want to put my hands all over that belly. But just as I banish that thought to the land of never-gonna-happen, I see three familiar pairs of eyes peering at us through the window. Slowly the sliding glass door opens, and out pour the three most gorgeous young women, ever.
“Hi, Roly!” the younger two chime in unison.
“Hi,” the eldest whispers in a soft voice.
“Daddy! We put Thatha in the run like you told uth to! The climbed out of it!” the youngest, Luna, protests through the gap in the front where her baby teeth once lived. I swoon over the way her esses are “th” sounds, and wonder how Heath is handling the fact that she’s about to stop being a little girl in about three, two, one.
The girls share a strong family resemblance to each other, but having spent several hours with them while Ashley was with Heath in the hospital, I can also tell you that they are each unique. Luna is probably four or so, waiflike and sweet, and the middle one, Molly, is sturdy and almost defiant, but the eldest, Lily, is shy despite her fiery hair, which is redder than that of her two siblings. She’s got a bit more of her father’s build than the others do, and even though we’d hung out the night I nearly killed her dad, she’s wrapped her arms around her soft middle and burgeoning chest and is peeking up at me from a down-turned head. Ah, man. Fourteen is hard.
