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pizza on speed dial and knew without asking to order a large.
    Still, it wasn’t lost on me that if Darrin was alive, regardless of the fact he was religious, conservative and I was his baby sister, he’d be doing cartwheels knowing I was naked in bed with Mike Haines.
    And part of this not being lost on me was the part that sucked because Darrin was no longer alive.
    I knew my thoughts had drifted but I didn’t know how deeply or that my eyes had until I heard Mike call, “Dusty?” and felt his arm give me a squeeze.
    My eyes left the pillow beside his head and went to his to see not only were his on me but he was no longer on the phone.
    Mike caught one look at my eyes and whispered, “Honey,” as he tossed his phone on the bed, his other arm came around me and I knew he read me.
    “Sorry,” I whispered back.
    “Don’t be.” He, too, was still whispering.
    “You ever lose anyone close?” I asked, he shook his head and I felt my lips curve but I didn’t feel the feeling I usually felt when they did that. “I’m glad for that for you,” I said softly.
    “My job, I deal with a lot of loss, Dusty, and you’ll get through,” Mike assured me.
    “I know, I just don’t wanna have to.”
    “Bet not,” he muttered then sat up, taking me with him, shifting me and the covers fell down around our waists as he settled sitting up with me straddling him. He had one arm wrapped around my hips, the other one angled up my back with his hand flat and warm between my shoulder blades. I tipped my head down to look at him and saw he was already looking up at me. “Like I said, my job, see a lot of loss. Never get used to it. So I guess, being removed and feeling that, you experiencing it, the bad news is, you’ll never get used to not having Darrin anymore. So there are no magic words. There’s no way to ease the pain. This is just life and like anything, you keep on living it and just learn to deal.”
    “Don’t beat around the bush, darlin’,” I repeated his words from earlier as a lame joke and, even though we both knew it fell flat, he still was a good guy so he smiled at me. I liked his smile so I curled a hand around the side of his neck and my arm around his shoulders. Once I’d latched on, I dipped my face close and promised, “I’ll learn to deal.”
    He tipped up his chin, pressing his hand between my shoulder blades and touched his lips to mine. Then he settled back and said softly, “And I’ll go get pizza.”
    “I bet pizza will help me deal,” I guessed and got another smile. This one hit his eyes and I liked it a whole lot more.
    “Yeah, bet it will. Now shift off me, Angel, I gotta get dressed.”
    I shifted off him but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to because his body was hard, warm, big and I liked being wrapped around it with his arms wrapped around me.
    And I didn’t want to because he called me “Angel”. He was the only one who ever called me “Angel”. He started to call me that within weeks of him dating Debbie. I didn’t know why he did it because I wasn’t an angel, I was a rascal or at least that was what my Dad thought of me and thus that was my Dad’s nickname for me. But, for whatever reasons he called me that, I’d loved it then and I loved it now.
    But more, I loved it that he remembered to call me “Angel”. Time had gone by, not a little of it, a lot. And as that time went by, I thought of him and not only when Darrin was informing on him to me. Mike Haines had popped into my mind often as I lived my life. And each time, he felt good there. In fact, it wasn’t unheard of for me to talk about him. All my closest friends knew all about him, including updates on his life after Darrin reported in. I didn’t know if the same happened with him about me. But I liked it that he didn’t forget something important to me.
    I pulled the covers up to my chest, watched as he tugged on his clothes and listened as he said, “Gonna hit my house, change, go get the pizza