“You didn’t!” She screeches.
“Ever since we saw that movie, I knew this was going to be your gift,” he says victoriously.
“Oh my God, thank you,” Mushroom hugs him with tears in her eyes, and he squeezes her tightly.
They stand like that for a long time, until Cotton snaps out of it and breaks the hug.
He gives Mushroom a kiss on the temple. “Happy birthday, Alice.”
When I saw him talking to the twins’ parents earlier, he seemed so animated that I joked to Hawk, “Looks like he’s auditioning to be Mushroom’s boyfriend.”
“Took him long enough,” Hawk replied.
I glance at Shiner, and he’s watching Cotton too, only his eyes are narrowed, and his jaw is tense. He's not buying it.
“Thank God Hammer isn’t here,” Uncle whispers to our group as we watch Lucy dance with the man she introduced as “my boyfriend, David.”
“Yeah, the Morales siblings are batting two for two tonight,” Hawk says, and my stomach twists at the memory of how Red had stormed off when Doc walked in with Dana as his date.
She later returned, pretending nothing out of the ordinary had happened, but I knew. We all knew.
“Speaking of people who aren’t here,” Uncle says, “where’s my buddy DJ tonight?”
I jump at the chance to talk about something else. “He’s with his dad this weekend. Oh my God, he took his first steps yesterday, wait ’til you see this. Look!”
“Wow. What a special moment. And you managed to capture it on video forever,” Uncle says.
“I can’t stop watching it,” Hawk admits.
“I don’t know why they call it baby steps,” Cash remarks. “Look at him lurch into the unknown.”
I widen my eyes at the man who has, admittedly, been the biggest enigma in the club. So gruff and curt, and at times even antisocial, yet he crochets and, for DJ’s birthday, set up and contributed to a 529.
Later, Bev told me he does that for all the club kids, in addition to making sure the parents do sound financial planning for their futures.
And he's not scoffing at the video I'm showing him. Would you look at that.
“Did you get them to play this?” I ask Hawk as he leads me to the dancefloor when Witchy Woman comes on.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says with a secretive little smile.
We’re covered by a fairy light canopy as we slow dance, then jump, sway, and laugh for the next five songs. It’s the most fun I’ve had in ages.
As I knock on Hawk’s door later that night, I know that I'm standing on the precipice of something exciting. I think back to Cash’s words about baby steps. Lurching into the unknown indeed.
Hawk opens his door wearing only his pajama bottoms. I let my eyes slowly travel over every inch of his muscular chest andtorso. I’m naked under my bathrobe, and when he notices, his eyes become dangerously dark. He wordlessly holds out a hand to me, and I step inside his room.
I am the brave one this time. I walk him to his bed, and as soon as he sits down, I straddle him.
“You’re always so warm,” I tell him as I run my palms up and down his chest, enjoying the texture of the coarse hair there.
It does something for me, maybe because it makes him look strong and manly and sexy.
“Why don’t we warm you up too?” he proposes as he slides the bathrobe down my shoulders.
The tension is prickling the air. For the briefest of moments, I worry about baring my boobs; I worry that Hawk might not like them. Then I remember that I don’t have to earn this man’s love with my looks or my performance in bed.
“Fuck, you’re breathtaking,” Hawk exclaims once I’m fully naked in his presence for the first time. “Do you want me to open the curtains again?”
