CLOVER FELT IMPOSSIBLY light even with Erick on top of her. She felt clothed in happiness even as he undressed her. She felt joy even as tears slid down her face. More than anything she felt relief as Erick entered her and she lifted her hips to take all of him. He’d seen her at her worst, seen her family at their worst, and he loved her in spite of it all. And maybe even loved her a little because of it.
Erick moved in her with an almost unbearable tenderness, and Clover wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, clamped her legs around his lower back and tucked her head against his neck. She’d liked him the day she met him when he came with Ruthie begging for nothing more than a job interview for his teenage daughter. He’d been so humble that day, almost scared, scared for his girl, who was facing real trouble. “Please, Ms. Greene,” he’d said. “She’s a good kid and smart. She’s a real nature lover, and she’ll work hard for you if you give her the chance.” Clover had asked him about Ruthie’s arrest and what he felt about it. When he’d answered by saying, “I don’t believe in using arson or violence to solve your problems, but when I was her age, I spent my Friday nights getting drunk with my friends in someone’s barn, not burning down barns to protest animal abuse. She made a bad choice, but she has guts and a good heart. When I don’t want to kill her, I have to admit I’m proud of her.”
I’m proud of her, Erick had said, and maybe that was the day Clover started to fall in love with him. About a year ago. But she’d loved Ruthie, too, which is why she’d hidden those feelings she had for Erick so well. It took Ruthie to bring them together, Ruthie to put them together, Ruthie to make them deal with their crushes on each other and get on with it.
“What are you laughing at?” Erick said as he braced himself over her and looked down into her eyes.
“Nothing,” she said. “Sorry.”
“You’re not supposed to laugh while I’m inside you. It’s hard on the hard-on.”
“I wasn’t laughing at you or your hard-on, I swear.”
“Then what?”
“I was just thinking about Ruthie.”
He raised his eyebrow so high Clover laughed again.
“That is a weird thing to do while we’re having sex.”
“I was thinking... I’m going to give that girl a raise.”
“Unless you sell the company.”
“Oh, yeah.” She sighed. “I’ll figure that out tomorrow. Today I just want to think about you. And turkey.”
“We did forget to eat, didn’t we? Sex first and food after?”
“Okay,” she said. “But hurry. I’m starving. Fuck me fast so we can go eat all the meat and pie in the house.”
Erick dropped his head to his chest and playfully wiped a tear from his eye.
“What?” Clover asked.
“‘Fuck me fast so we can go eat all the meat and pie in the house’? Clover, I’ve waited all my life to hear those words from a woman.”
* * *
ERICK WOKE UP alone in the bed. He’d done as Clover had instructed and fucked her hard and fast, but as usual he’d succumbed to a nap afterward. He strained his ears, curious where she’d gone. Bathroom? Kitchen? She had better not be eating without him. He found his khakis and pulled them on.
When he found Clover he thought she was crying. She sat on the edge of the guest bed with her back to him. She had her big yellow bathrobe on and her head was bowed. But then he heard her speaking.
“Mom, it’s okay, really. Please don’t cry. I’m not angry anymore. I just want our relationship to change, for the better. It has to because it can’t go on like this. The way you treat me is unacceptable.”
Clover paused and Erick went into the bedroom, sat down at her side. Clover leaned her head against his shoulder and it felt so good to be leaned on by this woman he loved he could have stayed there forever.
“I feel like I’ve been trying for nine years to get you all to listen to me, and when talking didn’t get the message across, I yelled. No, I don’t hate you all, not at all. I love you all. I love you and Dad. But today has to be the last day you bring up that I dropped out of college. The very last day. And you are never to call me your ‘little dropout’ again. Never and I mean it. It also has to be the last day you tell me who I should date or what I should do with my money. I’m not going to put up with it anymore, okay? You all raised me and you did a good job. Trust that you did such a good job that I can make my own decisions about my life.”
Clover paused again and listened for a long time. He felt her swallowing hard.
“Thank you, Mom. I needed to hear that. I’m proud of you, too. Where do you think I learned how to work so hard? It was from you.”
Clover wept softly against his shoulder and he kissed her on the forehead, rubbed her back, which was shaking under the strain of having this long-overdue conversation with her parents.
“Yeah,” Clover said. “Erick’s something. Better get used to him, though. He’s going to be around for a long time.”
Erick grinned but he couldn’t help but wonder what her mother was saying to that bit of news.
“I like that he stood up for me, too. I promise, Ruthie is the best. She wants to be a college professor someday. You two will have a lot to talk about.”
He left her alone in the guest room but only for a minute. When he came back she was finishing up her phone call.
“I love you, too, Mom. Happy Thanksgiving.”
Clover ended the call and dropped the phone on the bed. After a long shuddering breath, she looked up at Erick standing in front of her.
“Told you they’d come around,” he said.
“They are. Slowly.”
“You ready to eat?”
“I am. First, I just need a—”
“Lavender wipe?” He held one out to her and she smiled and took it from his hand.
“You are the best fake boyfriend ever.”
“Better than Sven?”
She stood up and tossed the lavender wipe over her shoulder. Who needed aromatherapy when she had Erick’s sex therapy?
“Sven who?”