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Part XIV

“Fourth of July, in two days, what do you want to do?” Coral asked as they were putting the finishing touches on Hailie’s room. Marshall was installing a light fixture in the corner while Coral finished painting the flowers on the table edge of the desk. Cody sat happily on her shoulder, now a little bigger than a pigeon, his bright red plumage more beautiful by the minute.
“Aren’t you doing something with your family?” he asked, the drill whirring steadily.
“No, we usually have a picnic, but since they aren’t talking to me, that ain’t happening,” Coral replied.
“Well, there’s fireworks down the road here,” Marshall added.
“No, I meant, aren’t you gonna have like a party or something?”
“I don’t have anyone around to invite to a party, it’s just you and me and Cody.”
“Hey, I have a perfect idea, since you took me to a club, it’s my turn, I’ll take you to one,” Coral said, turning in her chair to look at him.
“I thought you said you didn’t go to clubs?”
“I don’t, it’s a bar, a honky tonk.” She grinned.
“Ah no you don’t, I don’t do country music. I may think you running around here singing country tunes and saying ya’ll is cute, but I don’t do line dancing and such.”
“I’ll get you drunk and take advantage of you on the way there,” Coral said with a bargaining air.
“I’ll be there.”

Marshall was trying hard not to be too obvious, unfortunately he’d been swimming a lot. Coral didn’t try to be attractive, but she was. She didn’t dress up, in fact her wardrobe was practically plain. She wore tank tops and shorts or jeans and t-shirts. But it had been a long time, and she was an affectionate person. He hated that he was so affected by this, by just her niceness, by how kind and happy she was around him. He felt like a puppy following her around.
He refused to even think about masturbating while she was in the house, he felt too guilty. But that didn’t stop the dreams. Perhaps that was the only relief he got, but he still felt guilty about it.
It was around lunch time, the day before the fourth, and Coral was fixing something he’d never seen her prepare before. She had made some chips and was experimenting with some new variety of salsa. She had peppers and tomatoes cut up, some limes and other various fruit. On the stove something was cooking and smelled wonderful.
Her hair was down for a change, and she looked, incredible. There was no other word for it. Marshall felt his chest tightening and thought about turning and leaving when she looked up and saw him.
“Hey stranger!” she said. He’d been out most of the morning, a load of wood and supplies he’d ordered for the room he was making into his new office had come in and he’d rented a truck to pick the stuff up.
“Whatcha making?” he asked walking over to her side involuntarily. He hoped he could keep his body in control.
“Try this,” she said picking up a chip and holding it towards his mouth. He knew he should just take it in his hand and move away. But he didn’t. He opened his mouth and she popped the chip inside before he bit down and chewed. It was just right. The mingling of the flavors, peppers, onion, tomato, lime and just a hint of chile.
“Perfect, just right,” he said nodding.
“Good, I was worried it was a little too,” Coral didn’t get the rest of her sentence out. Marshall had moved forward and took a chance, pressing his lips softly against hers.
She didn’t protest. And he felt like he was home at last. The kiss lasted maybe only a minute when Cody squawked loudly and they pulled apart. They were still standing close to one another and Coral’s eyes looked up at him, searching, wondering.
Marshall didn’t know what to make of her stare, so he backed away mumbling something about unloading the wood and left the room.
Coral watched him stumble out of the room and then let her hands fall heavily to the counter. She licked her lips and shook her head, turning to catch a glimpse of Cody sitting in his cage.
“Why’d you have to interrupt, huh Cody?” she asked.
“Mommy!” he croaked and clawed at the cage.
“Yeah, what?” she asked the bird.
“Arrrck! Mommy!” the bird called again.
“You got to learn how to talk some more,” Coral said going over to the cage and taking the bird out, his feet using her arm as a perch. The bird made a long smooching sound and crowed,
“Mommy and Marshall!”
“No Cody, no mommy and Marshall.” Coral replied picking up a piece of fruit and offering it to the bird, but he shook his head gave three short smooching sounds.
“Mommy and Marshall!”

Marshall luged the wood into the house by himself. Normally Coral would have been helping him, he never asked her to help, but he certainly did not want to talk to her now.
What the hell has possessed him to do that? Why on earth had he kissed her? It was so stupid! Now what was she going to think of him?
He had to give up this idea, it wasn’t okay, he needed let it go.
“Fucking pussy,” he snapped at himself.
“Fucking get her out of your head.”

Marshall skipped dinner, though Coral wasn’t surprised. She didn’t expect him to eat with her, she didn’t even expect him to come around her at all.
She sat in the living room with a bowl of chili watching the seven o’clock episode of Law and Order like she usually did, though now her only company was Cody, sitting on her shoulder.

The next morning Marshall arrived downstairs at breakfast as usual, though uncommonly quiet. Coral handed him his coffee silently and neither of them spoke until they were both almost finished with their toast.
“Um, if you really don’t want to go to the bar tonight with me, you don’t have to,” Coral said as she carefully set her coffee cup down. She fed a piece of banana to Cody who was sitting on her shoulder and pet him.
Marshall watched her careful movements and considered what she was offering.
“Uh, yeah, Dre called, and he’s having something, and I kinda told him I’d go. Kind of an industry party,” he replied. It may not have been the most graceful way to bow out of something, but it was a way out. He didn’t know if he could take a night out with her, especially after the night at the club, that had been enough of a disaster.
“Cool.”
“I mean, I hope it doesn’t mess with your plans or anything,” Marshall blurted out.
“No, really that’s fine. I’m gonna go into the city and go out with Turkey and her boyfriend then,” she replied. Marshall nodded awkwardly.
“Well, yeah, okay then.” They went their separate ways for the day.

Marshall had flat out lied that he was going anywhere so, when Coral left around noon to go meet her sister, he was left with a blissfully peaceful house. Cody had gotten better at the separation from mommy bit, and wasn’t screaming nearly as much as he once had, so Marshall didn’t even have that distraction.
He wasn’t fooling anyone. Now that Coral knew, she had to. There were not too many interpretations to come up with when you kissed a person on the lips. Kissed them and most likely would have kept kissing them had a bird not made a noise and interrupted you. Now that she knew, what was he supposed to do? What were they supposed to do? Ignore it? Act like it never happened?
He couldn’t act like it never happened. He didn’t want to act like it never happened. He could have sworn she had responded to him. He had felt her kiss him back slightly. It had been there. Though he wished he could have been sure.
He was inside his head more than he wanted to be right now so he went into the kitchen to get something to eat. Cody was sitting on top of his cage, bobbing up and down, singing some little tune to himself.
“Mommy teach you that?” Marshall asked the bird as he sang away. Cody was extremely smart and picked up words and song tidbits all the time. Marshall once caught Coral and Cody in a duet of “You Are My Sunshine”.
“It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss, arrk!” Cody squawked.
“Huh?” Marshall asked confused.
“Mommy says, ‘It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss’, arrk!” Cody called again. Marshall shook his head and went into the fridge for some leftovers.