CHERRY BLOSSOMS // Revisited // Montréal // 3.13

Odie could have stayed with Winslow—should have stayed with Winslow—but she really wanted her daddy. So Geoff was at his signing table, a crowd of maybe a hundred to see him and the others, Odie hanging off his chair, and climbing on his lap. Next to him, Cole Nassau who wrote Kid Starbuck, Beli Mawr Lupardus who wrote Pride about a pride of struggling lions in Iraq, twenty-four-year-old Lucy Mannix who wrote and drew a questionable book about future employment that made no sense to him, and Marshall Forster, on his right, whose recent book was about a family of commercial planes, and whom he’d spent many shows sitting next to.

Marshall was wrapping up with a fan, a fourteen-year-old girl who’d grown up reading his books. He was all smiles, shaking her hand, idly wiggling a pen between an index and middle finger while he talked, . She left, and he turned and said, “Geoff, beer, you, me, thirty minutes.”

An usher, a meek-looking heavyset kid with black dress pants and a black polo, was delivering a man and his young daughter over to Geoff from the velvet rope mouth of the twisting line. Geoff laughed, said, “What do you think, O? What do you drink? You like a pilsner, right?”

“I don’t know,” she said, being sweet and cute about it.

Marshall laughed. “Odie likes an IPA, don’t you, O?”

“What?” she said, coyly, making her way over to Marshall now and hanging off his chair.

“Or a raspberry wheat,” Geoff said.

“Raspberry wheat?” Marshall asked Odie.

“I don’t know,” she sang. “I like raspberries.”

“Where’s Nia?” Marshall said, but Geoff turned to the man and his daughter and gave them a big friendly smile and he shook their hands.

He heard Odie tell Marshall that her mommy was at work in Montréal. The man was about Geoff’s age and his little girl was about Odie’s age. She was a little sweetheart with long, curly blond hair. She was so shy she hid from Geoff, and her dad made fun of the situation, saying she made him stand in line so long, at least she could talk to the nice man. Geoff took her book from her and he asked her to come closer. He took a narrow Sharpie once he had her attention, and he drew a box, leaving gaps where he’d put the steam chimney, and he drew wheels, then the marker danced around drawing pieces of the train, keeping her guessing what it was going to finally look like. Then he had her draw the final five straight lines that made up the grill of the cowcatcher, and her shyness evaporated. Odie returned and leaned her forearms on the table, watching the little blond girl draw for her dad. Geoff told the little girl she had genuine talent and asked her if she liked to draw. She nodded, and he told the dad that Odie was his little helper, putting a hand on Odie’s back and saying she was getting an early start and she’d already drawn a whole book about—

And then Odie was off telling the little blond girl all about the ogre and the prince, and Geoff leaned back laughing, taking the little girl’s book and putting a finishing touch on her personalized train and then signing it Geoff J. Kane along the bottom with his fancy signature.

“Nia’s not here?” Marshall asked, leaning over in his chair, in between guests.

“Nope. She’s working.”

“Shoot, Katie wanted to do dinner.”

“Hey, how’s Katie?”

“She’s good. We just had another one, so she’s looking for an adult night.”

His phone vibrated in his front pocket of his jeans, and it made him jump. His scalp tingled. “Oh shoot,” he said, clutching at his phone, “Hold on, bud, that might be Nia.”

He took his phone and turned away from the table while Odie still explained her princess story. His phone’s screen was alive, and he read the text from Nia and watched it fade to black as his heart went cold and the blood drained from his face.

Nia: his cock is fucking huge

His hand was shaking. He looked around at Marshall, engaged now with a mom and dad and their two little kids, Odie was drawing in the air with his sharpie and making explosion noises, the dad was laughing and his little girl chewed her lip, quite interested in Odie’s fanciful tale. Geoff’s ears rang like there was a siren in the hall. He blinked, put his phone in his shirt pocket, took six tries before he looked down and saw the pocket flap was closed over. He clenched his hands. Open. Closed. He rubbed them on his thighs. They were fucking crazy wet. The kid dressed in black-on-black came to remind the dad to keep the line moving. Geoff stood—only could get up a third of the way, all the strength in his legs completely gone. He shook the other dad’s hand, then his daughter’s hand, and he plopped back down in his chair and grunted.

Breathe in, Geoff, breathe in. He stopped the kid in black, said to hold on, he had to go to the washroom, said, watch my girl. He got up, sat back down again. Got up and pulled himself along the table till his legs started working again. He said to Marshall to watch Odie two minutes, gotta go to the, uh, the, uh, the can. Marshall said yeah, sure and Odie went to him and climbed on his lap now and Geoff reached over and patted Odie’s head, saw his hand still shaking as he did.

“Okay,” he said to no one, and stumbled to the black curtain, next to the name Geoff J. Kane, and grabbed at the hanging black cotton, knew there was a way through somewhere fucking somewhere here, for fuck’s sake—found it, yanked it, frustrated, and charged through.

Straight ahead, a bathroom door, and he lurched to it, pressed his palms to it, then grasped the cold metal handle and fell in, staggering to a stall and closing himself inside.

Oh, Nia, Nia, Nia. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. He fell back onto the toilet. Someone was in the stall next to him—he could see their shoes. Wow. Oh wow. You fucking asked for this, Geoff. Enjoy it. Here it is, buddy. She’d fucked him. Got fucked with his huge cock. He ran his hands up and down the denim of his thighs till his palms burned like they would burst into flames. He moaned. The moaning soothed him. Guy next to me—it’s just a big shit, this is how I coax it out. He moaned again and looked to the ceiling, heard the metal echo of his own sound coming back to him. No tears came. His heart hammered. He felt regret. He felt alive. He felt in love. He wanted Nia right now. He had the urge to get up, get Odie, get to the car, drive to fucking Montréal, go to her hotel and put his arms around her. Was she okay? Was she safe? God—was that big man good to her?

He texted.

G-Force: love you so much

He chuckled at that. He did love her so much, his best friend. Ha, now the tears came. Happy tears. His hand squeezed his cock through his jeans. He needed her with him right now, needed her so badly. He let his cock go. She had rules. No touching and he wouldn’t. Obeying her rules was like having her with him right now. He let himself go. Laughed silently like a maniac, clenched his eyes til the tears that had swelled were squeezed from him and he wiped them away. He sniffed loudly and sat up straight. Okay. Just like twelve years ago. You could do this, Geoff. You’ll see your sweet friend tomorrow. See her on a Sunday and have a coffee, make cookies or brownies, and you’ll be her good buddy and make everything in her life that was wrong—well, you’re gonna make it right for her. Except tomorrow when you see her she’ll look in your eyes with love. And when you’re done with making her feel like things are right again, you’ll turn the TV off and take her upstairs to the bedroom you share and you’ll make love to her. Make love to her as her husband. Like no other man can. No other man could ever love her like you do. Ha, ha, yes, he hissed to himself, didn’t care who heard. Yup, and then you’ll wake up the next morning to the daughter you cherish together. This was exciting. This. Was. Exciting. Remember that.

He got himself out, flushed the empty toilet, and he went to the sink and washed his hands and then splashed lots and lots of fresh cold water on his face. Dried it with rough paper towel and smiled for himself, split his beard with a white tooth grin, left and went back to Odie and to sign some books for the people that loved what he did.

* * *

Nia pressed a long glossy red fingernail along the top edge of the stainless steel steak knife and sawed through the buttery flesh. A porterhouse, swimming in red.

She’d stood in front of Rocco in her black lingerie and her stockings with lacy straps clasped in gold along her bare thighs and told him she wanted to go out for dinner. He’d said, “I’ll order room service,” his deadly eyes locked on her half-naked body. She’d stood casually in front of him, just a woman getting dressed, had said, “I’m going out. Do you want to come?”

They were in a polished wood steakhouse now on the shoreline edge of Ville-Marie. Sitting at a linen tablecloth booth with red velvet curtains at the partitions. The servers wore tuxedos. Rocco’s bulk was squeezed into a black short-sleeve shirt, tucked into khaki pants. The restaurant had a lax dress code in the summer. He looked like he wanted to tear someone’s head off. If they’d asked him to wear a tie, he might have. He was having the Porterhouse as well. Sawing and eating, his face clenched in bad temper.

He’d stood then, in his side of the suite, looking at her as she stood hip-cocked in her skimpy lace things in the partition's archway, and he’d said, “What do you want?” A philosophical question, a man struggling with the will of a woman. She’d answered him coyly, literally—she’d smiled and said “Steak.”

Rocco had grunted like an animal, looked down at her through his brows, his mouth a tense line, the muscles in his jaw and temple had been pulsing. He knew she was playing a game. He knew it and he wasn’t going to fall for it. Nia knew he wasn’t going to fall for it right until the moment he did fall for it.

He’d stepped forward, and she’d turned, let him see her beautiful ass in her black thong underwear her husband had bought her. Knew he’d see her round cheeks, scored by a lacy black triangle that scooped the taut curve of her healthy flesh. Knew he’d watch one cheek lift, the other fall and give a gentle jiggle as she took three swaying steps into her room and turned and closed the partition, let him hear the clicking mechanism of the lock.