The Love Language of an Assassin

3

Jesse was tired. She couldn’t hide it. She knew she had dark circles under her eyes and her body was desperately in need of sleep. However, when she pulled her mother’s cube van back into the hospital parking garage, she was aware sleep was a luxury she wasn’t getting until much later.

She groaned as she pulled the shopping bags off the passenger seat and mumbled incoherently under her breath. Her mother had sent her a long list of things she needed to bring to her from her house and to pick up from the stores. She’d barely gotten any work done from the woman’s constant text messaging. Some people’s parents never used technology. Her mother not only used it, but she was also a damn champion user of it. Things like texting, face time, emails and even the Tik Tok videos the younger members of her staff made were all familiar to the woman.

“Ah, Ms. Chavez, good to see you again,” a deep gravelly voice made her look up.

She immediately felt her entire body tense as she took in the piercing blue eyes of man in front of her. “No! You did not go visit my mother.”

Jesse hadn’t talked to her yet, had wanted to do it in person and now this behemoth had beat her to the punch. She cursed loudly and almost threw the two bags in her hands across the parking garage at his head.

“Is that a word you know in sixteen, almost seventeen languages?” his voice was mocking. “Your mother told me she was proud and impressed with your linguistic skills and the best you can come up with is a four-letter word. Tsk, tsk,” he chastised her, his eyes daring her to argue with her.

“She is your cleaning lady. Why did you go visit her?”

“Because she has been my cleaning lady for eighteen months and she is the best one I ever had, and I heard she was ill. I brought flowers and candy and then offered my apologies to her for the misunderstanding today.” His grin revealed straight white teeth with oversized canines. “Funny, she said you hadn’t mentioned it to her. She assumed it must have been because you were only messing with me today and would be back on Monday.”

“She assumed wrong. I hadn’t told her because reporting her favorite client manhandled me was something I felt should be done in person,” she shifted her feet angrily. “I will most assuredly not be back on Monday.”

“We’ll see, Jessamine,” he stepped closer to her, his head bending forward as he looked at her. “I’m curious though, why were you smelling my soap?”

She closed her eyes aware she could smell said soap on his skin even now, “one, do not call me Jessamine. It is a name reserved for my mother and grandmother. Nobody else gets to call me by that name. Two, I smelled sandalwood when I stepped into your bathroom and was I curious to know where the smell was coming from. Turns out it was the hand soap.”

“Curious,” he c****d his head to one side, his smile predatory as if he were sizing her up. “How did you pick out the scent?”

“Sandalwood, cloves and a hint of mint,” she shrugged and leaned closer to him, “and,” she sniffed his chest before leaning back and holding her fingers an inch apart, “just a touch of arrogant white rich man. Actually, I’m certain it’s the predominant smell.” She stepped past him, “smell ya later Mr. Haugen.”

“Doctor,” he corrected at her retreating back.

“Whatever Doc,” she gave a half-wave. “See ya never.”

“I will see you Monday.” His voice was confident from behind her

She didn’t respond as she kept her back straight and made her way into the hospital. Several minutes later she entered her mother’s hospital room and deposited the bags on the floor next to the chair where Hector was sitting.

“I know the oversized brute was here to sweep you off your feet but I’m not going back,” she didn’t even look in her mother’s direction, her eyes pulled the largest bouquet of mixed flowers she’d ever seen in her life. She pointed at them, “he knows flowers die right? They’ll be dead in ten days.”

“Jesse, you are going to explain to me exactly what you were doing in his home to make him physically remove you from his premises. How could you embarrass me like this?”

Her mother’s tone stunned her, and she turned slowly to meet her mother’s furious gaze. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t ‘excuse me’ me” her mother’s face was tight. “What did you do? I have worked for him for over a year, and he’s never been anything but kind and polite.”

“I cleaned his house. I made his bed,” she pointed at her, “and you would have liked the corners.” Her mother harumphed at her comment and she continued, “and then I moved to the bathroom, and it was stupidly massive, and I could smell the soap. I lifted a bar of soap to sniff it and he showed up in the bathroom. Tell me mom, does he always come and accost you when you’re cleaning his bathroom? Because he showed up in the room, didn’t allow me to say a bloody word, dragged me down the stairs and shoved me out the front door.” She yanked the sleeve of her t-shirt up angrily and showed the five finger marks on her bicep. “Look at my arm.”

“You didn’t say hello to him,” her mother said as if it explained everything away.

“Wait! What? Are you defending his boorish behaviour? Mom, he physically put his hands on me.”

“He was removing who he thought was an intruder into his home.”

“I think they need to lower your pain killers,” she stared in stunned amazement of her mother’s defense of the man.

“He is a man of routine.”

“He is a ginormous jackass and he hurt me!”

“He told me you said he didn’t hurt you at all, just minor bruising. He was quite concerned.”

“The only thing he’s worried about is losing the best damn cleaning company in all of New York State. It has nothing to do with me.”

“Jesse, you are to go back on Monday.”

“Did you not hear what I said? He hurt my arm. He grabbed me and dragged me through his house.”

“Did you not hear what I said? He thought you were an intruder. He thought I was cleaning his house today,” her mother flopped her hands frustratedly over the blankets, “on Fridays when I am done cleaning the powder room, I knock on his office door and let him know I am moving to the upstairs. When you finished the powder room, you closed the door behind you. He thought I was still in there, but he heard someone moving around upstairs. He went upstairs to investigate and found a young woman rummaging through his bathroom touching his personal items.”

“I smelled his soap,” she protested angrily

“He only realized I wasn’t still in the powder room when Mya arrived and said I hadn’t been there at all.”

“This is all too convenient for him.”

“You’re lucky we’re not in Florida,” Hector said from his corner of the room. “In that state they shoot first and ask questions second.”

She glared at him, “Dad, not you, too!”

Hector shrugged, “He is a nice man, Jesse. He made a mistake. He was defending his home.”

“He should have let me speak.”

“Since when do you not make your voice known?” Her mother questioned, “in fact, he told me you were almost silent as he threw you out of his house. It makes me wonder if you didn’t expect him to fire you. You didn’t want to help me this morning when I asked you to go, and you saw his behaviour and his quick jump to judgement as a get out of jail free card.” Her mother pegged her with eerie accuracy.

“Now hold on,” she put her hands up defensively, wondering how things had gotten this twisted. “Mom, he put his gigantic hands to my arm.”

“Funny, if memory serves me correct, you’ve been practicing Taekwondo since you were three and you have a blackbelt and you actually are called sensei by your students. Yet you couldn’t get his hand off you?” her mother narrowed her eyes on her, “Jesse, you let him manhandle you to get out of cleaning the house.”

“He’s way bigger than me.”

“I’ve seen you take out a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound opponent in a mixed-s*x competition. You’re full of it.” Her mother sipped water from a paper cup and a bendy straw and leaned back in the bed, closing her eyes. “Now, I’m exhausted. I asked you to bring my things. Did you bring everything?”

“Yes, although why you wanted the oil is beyond me.”

“Because your father is going to rub my feet for me. I am tired but I can’t sleep. It always helps me sleep.”

“Why can’t you sleep?”

“Because I am going to be laid up for weeks with nobody to run my business. I can do some of it from home, but I am stressed over it, Jesse and you are not helping. I need support from my family, not constant argument in my fragile state.”

“Mom, you could have been hit by two buses and a cabbie and still not be in a fragile state,” Jesse leaned forward and kissed her forehead, knowing she was beat. “I’ll go back. Don’t worry about the company. You have good staff, and they won’t let you down.”

“Good, thank you. Now, did you eat today?”

“Yes, I warmed up one of your lasagnas I had in my freezer. It was amazing as always. Nobody makes better food than you Ma.” She waved to the bag, “in fact, I brought the leftovers for Hector. I know the doctor said you’re on a liquid diet until tomorrow, but he should eat something other than vending material things.”

“You are a good daughter,” Hector said as he dug through the bag excitedly.

“I know it,” she moved to kiss the top of his bald head and whispered, “stopped by and got you a cannoli from the bakery too.” His eyes rounded with excitement, and she chuckled.

“I brought mom’s tablet from the house to play her games and check her emails but don’t let her work too long. She’ll be doing billing and assignments instead of letting her secretary do it for her,” she pointed at the woman. “You’re supposed to be on bed rest so rest.”

“You are very bossy,” her mother complained but didn’t argue either as her daughter perched on the side of her bed and played with her fingers.

“Are you okay Ma?” Jesse asked quietly. “You are looking a bit pale.”

“I’m getting tired,” she admitted and sighed. “It’s barely seven and I bet I could sleep until tomorrow,” she paused, “if I could get my brain to shut off.”

Hector immediately set the sealed container of food to the side and dug through the bag. “Jesse, why don’t you go home and sleep. I will rub your Mama’s feet, get her to sleep and then I will eat my dinner. I am not leaving here tonight.” He pointed to a recliner in the corner of the room, “they brought it down for me to stay here with her tonight.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, go. Go get rest,” he pulled her away from her mother’s bedside and passed her the keys to her car. “Take your car home. Stop by the house on Sunday to load up whatever supplies you need for Monday.” He kissed her cheek and gave her a sideways hug. “You look ready to drop.”

“I am ready to drop,” she moved back to her mother’s bed and kissed her again. “I love you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Love you too, cara,” Her mother nodded and closed her eyes and Jesse wrinkled her nose at the quiet whispery voice.

By the time Jesse reached her house she was beyond exhausted. Her cat Fluffy met her at the front door, meowing his irritated frustration at his dinner being delayed an hour. She quickly fed him and stroked his head before making her way to her sofa and laying down and flicking her television on to the reality television she loved so much.

As she fell asleep on the sofa, with Fluffy curled next to her. watching people get married on the day they met she found herself strangely thinking of a man with eyes as blue and cold as an arctic sky and wondered what her mother had gotten her into.