“Go to La-La Land,” Deke ordered. Having put the bologna on the sandwich, he was adding the next layer of cheese. “Get us coffees and anything out of the case. That’ll do us.”
“La-La Land?”
“On Main Street. Only coffee house we got. You can’t miss it.”
“Excellent, Mr. Hightower. I’ll see you and Justice tomorrow at eight.”
“Deke,” Deke grunted, having upended a chip bag, he was covering my sandwich and the entire plate with Bugles.
“Fine, Deke,” Mr. T semi-grunted back. Then came, “Justice, you rest. And text me Mr. Decker’s number.”
“Right, Mr. T. I’ll do that ASAP.”
“Enjoy your evening,” he bid.
“You too,” I replied, seeing Mr. T disconnect the call before turning my head and taking the mounded plate from Deke.
I sat with plate in hand, eyes tipped up, staring at Deke as he walked back to the kitchen area.
“You just bossed Mr. T,” I declared, my voice flimsy, not just due to my throat still hurting but my utter shock. “And he let you.”
“Babe,” Deke began, slapping more bologna in the skillet, “you don’t got far to look, you wanna learn how the folk in Carnal look after each other.”
With their rather dramatic history, this was true.
Once he was done with the bologna, he turned eyes to me.
“You look, you’ll find Chace is all over that,” he said quietly. “So is Tate. They’re involved with lookin’ after you, they’re good with you bein’ with me, clear your guy is not stupid. He gets that and what that means. Didn’t boss him as much as told him the way it is. Smart men don’t waste time tryin’ to prove who’s got a bigger dick by arguing over what time in the morning we meet. A decision’s made that makes sense, smart men move on and ask if they can bring breakfast.”
I was learning a lot about Deke that day.
Top of that list (for a variety of reasons) was that he was a great cuddler.
Near to the top of that list, when asked to put on a song of my dad’s, he was the perfect DJ.
And high on the scale of honorable mentions, he did not waste time on stupid shit, like proving he had a bigger dick (or one at all) by getting into it when the girls wanted to clean his trailer or staking claim in a way that would raise the hackles of Mr. T. But instead he settled a man who cared about me into the knowledge that I was being looked after.
“Jussy?” Deke called.
I shook off these thoughts and the happy feeling I got learning all this about Deke, thus getting it all for me, and focused on him.
“Thank you for—” I started softly.
That was as far as I got.
“Don’t say it,” Deke ordered.
His terse response made my head give a small jerk.
“But today, Deke, you’ve been really—”
Off went the skillet from the burner and suddenly Deke was bent over me, his face in my face, both his hands curled around the sides of my neck.
“I said, don’t say it,” he repeated, this time gently.
“I have to,” I told him.
“My honor,” he told me.
I felt my brows draw together, but even so, my heart didn’t skip a beat at that.
It squeezed.
Deke kept looking me right in the eyes.
“My honor, Jussy, to be that man who’s there for you.”
Okay…
Now what did that mean?
I didn’t ask and I didn’t know why.
Maybe it was because I was scared of the answer.
“Now eat your dinner, gypsy.” He was back to ordering but still speaking gently.
Before he could take his hands from me, because I really did not want him to take his hands from me, I asked, “Can I thank you for my fried bologna sandwich?”
I saw humor flare in his eyes as he replied, “Yep.”
“And my massive mound of Bugles?”
“You can thank me for that too.”
“Then thank you.”
His fingers slid back and up into my hair before he used them to press in so I tilted my head forward. Once he had me in that position, he kissed the top of my hair.
After that, he let me go and went back to his skillet.
It was better than my hair being tousled, probably not as good as a touch on the lips, though I’d never know.
But it was from Deke. Being gentle with me. Taking care of me. Looking out for me.
So I’d take it.
* * * * *
I lay in Deke’s bed, alone, staring at the ceiling.
In the shadows I could see there were blank spots there but he was covering them up. The last white to his life’s canvas was that ceiling, ready to be filled.
It’d be cool to help him fill it. So fucking cool to have a part in that canvas, look up and not just see the roadmap of Deke’s life, but also see memories.
Deke was on the couch.
It was dark, late.
It was also after we ate bologna sandwiches and I won the argument that I had to move or my entire body would lock in place, never to loosen again, so I made him let me help with the minimal cleanup. And last, it was after he’d won the argument after that cleanup that we were watching The Fighter.
He might have won it but I got the last laugh because I liked that movie too so I didn’t mind losing (and I knew before I even suggested it (something I didn’t hesitate to do anyway) that I wouldn’t get Deke to watch Ben Stiller’s version of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, or at least not without more energy for the fight and some buildup of bargaining power).