“Do you want a yacht?”

“Do you know how steep Magdalene Harbor slip fees are?”

“No.”

“Just sayin’, no, I don’t want a yacht or even a dingy, I gotta pay slip fees and it sits there with me not usin’ it because I’m busy working, with my kids or fuckin’ my woman.”

I started giggling but stopped abruptly and called, “Mickey?”

He didn’t answer. He just tightened his arms around me.

So I kept going.

“I have a lot. I can have most anything I want. But there are only five things in the world that mean so much to me I’d do anything to keep. Auden. Olympia. Lawrie. Robin. And now…you.”

He moved then, sliding me off his cock and shifting to fall back at the same time turning me so when he was on his back in the bed, my weight was on him, chest to chest.

He slid his hands into my hair on either side to hold it away from my face.

“She didn’t,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry?” I asked.

“She didn’t do anything to keep me.”

I lifted a hand to his stubbly cheek and said softly, “Mickey.”

“Do not take from that I got feelings for her. I don’t. But she burned me, Amy. I heard you about it bein’ an illness but in her case, it’s her that had to find the strength to beat back the symptoms, even if she’ll never have a cure. Already told you I had a woman I couldn’t give what she needed, now you get how deep she scarred me. And I guess it’s eatin’ me I got one I like havin’ that needs nothing from me.”

I stiffened on top of him and said, “Mickey, I think I told you—”

“You did, baby,” he said gently. “But that shit has to sink through scar tissue that’s tough and runs deep. So you gotta keep gettin’ in my face, kickin’ my ass and makin’ that statement until it digs through.”

I glared at him, shifting my hand to his neck and declaring, “I think I’d rather kick her ass.”

“Please don’t do that, Amy. You do, she’ll think it’s part of my grand scheme.”

I said nothing even though I was happy to see Mickey was grinning.

Considering his mood seemed to have improved, I demanded, “Do I get Christmas?”

“You get Christmas,” he agreed.

“Thank you,” I snapped, though, I was not only glad he gave me Christmas, I was glad we both thought we’d be together at Christmas, that “we” including Mickey.

He kept grinning. “Told the guys. They’re pretty happy about the new shit that’s coming.”

“Of course they are,” I returned. “It’s a sixty inch TV. A woman is happy with six inches. For a man to get happy, it has to be sixty.”

He burst out laughing.