Gail and Dave stood outside the door for only a moment until they both stepped into the house. Gail had a set of car keys in her hand that I recognized as belonging to the GTO and... and... him. She started moving toward me, smiling, and I noticed she still looked the same. Built like a supermodel with a movie star's face, hips swaying back and forth and long legs moving enough to expose generous amounts of her well toned legs. Dave looked the same, a high school quarterback from a well to do family, his blond hair teased and feathered in the same styles I'd seen on TV.
Anger welled up for a moment before that emptiness swallowed it up.
Hannah walked briskly into the room, stopping next to me, her hand seeking out mine, her fingers interlacing with mine, and the emptiness was pushed back by warmth.
"Like, I totally didn't know you were back, Paulie," Gail smiled. She stepped toward me again, obviously intending on hugging me, and the thought of her arms wrapping around me made my stomach twist and churn.
"Paul, who are these people," Hannah asked. The inflection told me everything I needed to know about her opinion of Gail and Dave, although I doubted either of the two in front of me heard the inflection. Hannah's accent was thick enough to make her words sound musical but not too thick to understand her.
Gail made a face when she realized I wasn't going to let her hug me, stepping back next to Dave, who had shut the door.
I noticed that the two of them had tracked rain onto the clean carpet and that Dave's boots left small thin outlines in mud on the cream colored shag carpet.
Fury licked at me for a moment before the emptiness devoured it.
"Like, I'm Gail, and this is, like, Dave," Gail said, frowning at Hannah. She looked at me, "Paulie, like, who is this?"
"My girlfriend," I told her, feeling a small bit of pleasure at the hurt that filled Gail's eyes, "I need her with me."
"So I arrived as soon as I was able," Hannah said, her voice full of something I couldn't really identify.
Gail made a small wave with her hand, "It doesn't, like, matter, this doesn't involve her," Gail's voice was dismissive, "I'm here, I'll, like, totally take care of it all with you and junk, she can just go back to wherever she, like, came from."
"I go nowhere," Hannah said, venom filling her words. The burning feeling started where her skin touched mine and I knew she was angry. "You have no hold over one such as I, nor do you have a hold over Paul Foster."
I squeezed her hand, turning and looking at her, "Hannah, sweety?" Aine looked at me, her green eyes luminous, as I kept talking, "How about some coffee for our guests and a cup of tea for you, I'll handle this."
Hannah nodded, letting go of my hand and hurrying into the kitchen.
"They aren't your parents any more, Gail," I said, standing between Gale and Dave to keep them from coming any further into the house.
"We were married, Paulie, they'll always be..." Gail started.
"Dead," I said, my voice flat. "They're dead. We're divorced. This is my home now, not yours."
Gail stared at me, and her eyes opened wide as she finally saw past her preconceptions and saw me. "Paulie, what happened to your face?" She reached for me and I brushed her hand aside, unwilling to have her touch me. She looked at my arms, at my chest, and I realized the T-shirt I'd grabbed was too tight. It had been fine when it was just Hannah and me, it showed off my pecs and biceps, but I suddenly felt dirty as Gail stared at me. "What happened to you?"
"He became man," Hannah said simply from the kitchen. "I did not know you had never seen one before or I would have had him dress more modestly instead of to entice my eyes."
Gail flushed and Dave looked angry for a moment.
Where before my best friend's temper had always scared me a little now it just made me want to sigh as I suddenly realized he'd been a bad best friend since he'd usually bullied me to get his way. He could go ahead and look angry all he wanted, it wasn't like he was going to pull six inches of steel from behind his back.
"Hannah," I said gently.
"Apologies, Paul," Hannah said, her apology meant for me and me alone.
Gail gasped and I glanced behind me, turning me body slightly so the two of them were still in my peripheral vision.
The gingham dress was gone and she was wearing the same clothing that she had been wearing while she made breakfast, only the kerchief missing. Her hair instead cascaded down her back, shining in the lights of the kitchen, falling to the middle of her butt. She had on makeup, emphasizing her eyes and lips and bringing out the bright red freckles across her nose.
Blood sprayed across Aine's face as she fired her pistol point blank into the Russian's chest. The heavy .45 caused his chest to explode as he arced backwards and Aine was already shoving him aside, bounding toward me, blood dripping down her face, her eyes molten jade, her pistol in one hand and the black ritual dagger in the other. I pulled on the wire in front of my throat, feeling the wire cut almost to the bone as the Vympel drove his knee into my back, trying to break my grip...
"Paul," Hannah's hand was on my arm, a warm tingling spreading from beneath her hand and through my skin.
I shook myself and the memory, which had been like going through it again, vanished to wherever it had come from, leaving me feeling like I'd been doused with cold water.
Goddamn you, Stillwater, you bastard.
"I am here, Paul," Hannah said, standing on her tiptoes and kissing me on the lips. "I am here with you, and we are far from that cold dark place." Her eyes were deep emerald pools.
"Paulie?" Dave asked, his voice confused.
I ignored him, closing my eyes and kissing Hannah again, feeling my lips tingle almost painfully. Her tongue darted into my mouth to twine with mine, filling my mouth with the taste of honeysuckle. We kissed for a long moment, the memory of what had happened fading away beneath her kiss and the warmth of her petite body pressed against mine.
"Paulie, don't be like, totally gross," Gail said as the kiss broke.
"There is coffee and tea," Hannah said, turning away from me but still holding onto my hand. She pulled me toward the table. I sat down and she sat next to me after pouring three cups of coffee and a cup of tea for herself. Gail and Dave sat down across from us and Hannah watched the couple over the rim of her teacup through narrowed eyes.
"Dude, like what happened to the side of your face?" Dave asked after a long moment of staring at one another across the table. "It's all scarred up. Did you get in a car wreck?"
Yeah, you could say that. That big Russian was in it to win it, I thought to myself. And that ZSU delivered all the hate on our crash-hawk.
"Why are you two here?" I asked, ignoring the question.
How could I explain? The Vympel, the War Fighter Tunnels, Atlas, Africa, Central America, vehicle and helicopter wrecks, close quarters combat, all of it?
Stillwater laughed in the back of my head, that rough hoarse voice mocking my worries at explaining it.
"Someone had to, like, handle their affairs since totally nobody knew you were, like back," Gail said and I saw Dave jerk and knew she had kicked him under the table.
Hannah's bare foot was rubbing up and down the back of my calf, warm through the denim.
"I'm back," I said flatly, taking a sip off my coffee. "I'll handle their affairs."
"But you like hardly knew them, Paulie," Gail protested, breaking off from staring around the house. Aine had cleaned it thoroughly till it looked like a 1950's showpiece instead of what it had been.
"They were junkies, what's to know," I shrugged. "I'll bury them, handle everything."
"Who's going to like care for the house and junk, Paulie?" Gail asked.
Stillwater's laughter came back for a moment, and with it, rage at Gail and Dave both.
"It doesn't matter, it's my house now," I told her flatly. "It was my parent's house, and unless you've got a will that says otherwise, that makes it my house now."
Gail frowned, that thin I-Want line appearing between her eyebrows. Dave's face also filled with a frown and he made a show of cracking his knuckles.
It didn't intimidate me into agreeing with him any more.
"Your mother totally said if like anything happened to her, I totally got the house and junk," Gail said.
I shook my head, that emptiness inside of me devouring the rage before it could do much more than make itself known, the emptiness itself surrounded by the honey sweet warmth that Hannah's presence filled me with.
My coffee cup clinked on the saucer as I set it down. "Unless you have it in writing, you're out of luck," I told her. I leaned forward and I could hear Stillwater laughing again in my head as I spoke before I could stop myself. "I'll burn this goddamn house to the fucking ground with myself inside of it before I let a cheating cum-guzzling skank like you spend a single goddamn night in it," I growled at her, clenching my fist.
Gail stared at me in shock, her mouth opening and closing in silent shock.
"Now see here, Paul Foster," Dave started to stand up and I slammed my hand onto the top of the cheap formica table, the impact sounding like a gunshot and setting the cups chattering, coffee sloshing over the rims of Dave and Gail's coffee cups.
"THEY WERE MY PARENTS!" I bellowed out, "THIS IS MY HOUSE! I WAS BORN HERE, I WAS RAISED HERE!"
I stood up, intending to tell them to get out, but Hannah held tight to my hand and I stayed in my seat.
I took a deep breath to calm myself and to push away the feeling of my .45 from my hand.
Goddamn you, Stillwater.
Hannah looked at both of them. "Things are different now, my Paul is different now, in ways that you cannot comprehend," she said, her voice filling me with a flush of pleasure. "Your vulture-like appearance has already strained our hospitality," her voice grew hard, full of malevolence, "Do not strain it any further."
"Paul, are you like going to let this skank like totally speak to me this way?" Gail asked. Once again her theater trained voice filled with pain and anguish.
"Your legs no longer wrap around him and you no longer have his heart in your fist or his soul twined around your fingers," Hannah said, her voice still venomous, "And I am an Aine, I will speak as I choose."
The burning tingling moved up my arm, the venom increasing as her temper rose.
"She's my girlfriend," I shrugged. "Don't insult her too much, Gail, you wouldn't like it."
Gail glared at Hannah and I for a long moment, then stood up. "Let's, like, go, Dave. I totally don't want to like be here any more, since Paulie's all totally rude and junk."
Hannah stood up, touching me to let me know she wanted me to stay sitting down. All three of them were silent as Hannah walked them to the door and showed them out. When Hannah came back she wiped up the spilled coffee and dumped the two cups out before refilling my coffee.
She sat on my lap, looping her arms around my neck and kissing me. When we were done she smiled at me, a beautiful smile that made the warmth thicken up and almost made it so I couldn't feel that emptiness inside of me.
"Girlfriend," she sighed. She laid her head on my chest, pulling her knees up so her bare feet were on my leg, completely curled up in my arms. "Tonight, if you would like, you can put a baby in my belly."
I kissed the top of her head, smelling the apple blossoms.
"Do we have to wait till tonight?" I asked.
Hannah laughed and led me back to my old bedroom.