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  “You’re smiling.” He wasn’t. “Do you like to play games, Elle? Is that it?”

  Some men like to use their size or their fists to intimidate women. Dan looked angry, but he didn’t touch me. I didn’t move, didn’t retreat. He put a hand on the door frame next to my head.

  “I didn’t get you off good enough?”

  “That’s not it. You were very good.”

  He didn’t look pleased at the compliment. “Not good enough for another round?”

  “You didn’t ask me if I wanted to fuck you again,” I said matter-of-factly. “You asked me if I wanted to see you again.”

  “You can’t do the first without the second, Elle.”

  He was fast. Clever, without being arrogant about it. I liked that. Liked him.

  “If you want to fuck—” I began.

  “Is that what you want?” His voice dipped lower. “Just a quick fuck?”

  “No,” I said. “Sometimes I like them to be slow.”

  He put his other hand on my hip, pulling me step by reluctant step against him. “I can give you that.”

  He was hard again. I felt him on my belly. I put my arms around his neck and let him press me close along his body.

  “Can you?”

  He nodded, solemn, hands cupping my ass now to rub me against his erection. “I told you. Whatever you want.”

  “It won’t work, you know. It never does. People get attached—”

  He laughed. “I won’t get attached.”

  I smiled. His bare skin was warm beneath my hands. “Nobody thinks they will. But they always do.”

  “And that’s why you don’t date.”

  “That’s why.”

  He rocked me against him, slowly. “Because men get attached to you.”

  “Some have, yes.”

  “And you don’t?”

  I splayed my fingers on his shoulders, my thumbs stroking the ridge of his collarbone. “I did once.”

  He bent his head to run his mouth along my neck. “But other than that, you’ve broken the hearts of scores of fools who got attached to you.”

  “I don’t like to think so, no. I’ve tried to avoid it.”

  “Why? It doesn’t get you hot, thinking of all those broken hearts in your wake?”

  “No.”

  “Because…you’d feel guilty.”

  “Yes…” The word became a hiss as his tongue stroked my skin.

  “And that’s why you don’t date.”

  “Haven’t we gone over this?” I looked at him, pushing him away a little to see his face.

  “Don’t worry, Elle,” he whispered, pulling me closer again. “I won’t get too attached.”

  How can I explain exactly how he made me feel? Even now, looking back, I can remember everything about that moment. The feeling of his hands on me. The scent of him, cologne and sex. The way his mouth curved at the corners and the way the first hint of stubble glinted on his cheeks. I hold a perfect picture of him in my mind: Dan in that moment. The moment he convinced me to stay.

  Chapter 05

  I had time to regret my decision the next day when I got out of the cab in front of my house wearing the same clothes I’d worn the night before. I’d showered, brushed my teeth, washed my face. But there could be no mistaking the crumples for anything other than the sort of wrinkles your clothes get when they’ve been tossed without ceremony on the floor because you’re about to get well and thoroughly fucked.

  “Hi, Miss Kavanagh.” Gavin waited on his own porch steps this time, but as they were scant inches from mine it made little difference. “I thought you might need some more help today with the dining room.”What I really wanted was to fall face-first into my pillows and go back to sleep. I gave Gavin a narrow smile as I put my key in the lock. He was already behind me.

  “It’s so early,” I told him. “Don’t you have anything else you’d like to be doing today? It’s a gorgeous Saturday.”

  “Nah.” He watched me fumble with my lock, which sometimes stuck on humid days. “Need some help with that?”

  “I got it.” I didn’t. I was tired and he was crowding me, peering over my shoulder to look at the stubborn lock.

  “Gavin!”

  We both turned. Mrs. Ossley came out onto their front porch, her hands on her hips and a frown contorting what would have otherwise been a pretty face. She stopped when she saw me with her son. Her gaze swept me up and down. I owed her no explanation for my clothes or early-morning return, but that didn’t stop me from feeling I wanted to give her one. Her frown gave way to an insincere smile.

  “Gavin,” she said, her voice sweet enough to rot teeth. “Leave Miss Kavanagh alone. You have to get ready to go.”

  Gavin backed away from me a step, but didn’t go next door. “I don’t want to go.”

  Her smile didn’t waver. “I don’t care what you want to do. Dennis has been talking about this all week.”

  Gavin didn’t move toward her, though his entire body seemed to shrink in on itself. “I hate the Civil War, I don’t want to go to the Civil War Museum. It’s going to be boring.” He looked at me. “Besides, I promised Miss Kavanagh I’d help her paint her dining room.”

  “Miss Kavanagh,” his mother said through her teeth, “is perfectly capable of painting her own dining room.”

  “Yes, Gavin,” I said quietly, meeting her gaze without looking away. “I am. You should do what your mother says. You can help me after I get home from work this week. I’ll be taping off the moldings.”

  He muttered and grumbled but hopped down my two concrete steps and took the ones to his house in one stride. He pushed past his mother without a word. She didn’t look at him as he went inside.

  We looked across the narrow gap between our porches. She didn’t seem much older than I, despite having a fifteen-year-old son. She still smiled, and at last I relented and smiled at her with as much sincerity as she’d given me.

  “Have a good time at the museum,” I told her, finally fitting my key into the lock and opening my door.

  “We will. My fiancé, Dennis, is taking us.”

  I couldn’t have cared less about her fiancé, but I nodded at her anyway and started inside my house.

  “Gavin spends a lot of time with you,” she said, stopping me.

  I turned to face her as I took my key from the lock and put it in my purse. “He likes to borrow my books. And he’s been very helpful with my renovations.”

  She glanced inside before looking back at me. “I have to work long hours. I can’t always be here for him.”

  I couldn’t tell if she was explaining herself to me out of guilt or warning me off. “He’s always welcome to come over here, Mrs. Ossley. I appreciate his help.”

  She looked me up and down again. “I’m sure you do.”

  I waited for her to say more and when she didn’t, I repeated my hopes they’d enjoy the museum, and I went inside. I closed the door behind me and leaned against it for a moment. We’d never shared more than a wave in passing before, even though we’d been neighbors for five years. I supposed there were better conversations we could have had. Then again, there could have been worse.

  I didn’t care to ponder on it too much. My bed called me, and I went to it to seek a few hours rest before I got on with the rest of my day.

  There was no hiding from Marcy on Monday. She took one look at me and squealed like she’d been stuck with a cattle prod.“Ooooh, girl! You’ve done it!”

  I kept my eyes on my reflection as I carefully applied sheer lip gloss and powdered my nose. “Done what?”

  Marcy was touching up, too, though she’d brought a fully equipped tackle box into the bathroom. She had every color of eye shadow known to man and some I was convinced came from an alien planet, all with matching lip and eye pencils, blush, foundation and powder. She had so many lipsticks laid out the counter bristled like a coral reef full of tubeworms. She shook one at me.

  “You’ve gone got yourself a man.”


  Her words took me aback, so I smeared instead of smudged. “I beg your pardon?”

  She raised a plucked-to-perfection brow. “A man, honey. Don’t deny it. You’ve got the FFG all over you.”

  I shook my head, laughing. “What’s FFG?”

  “Freshly fucked glow, honey,” she said, lowering her voice in deference to the bathroom acoustics, but only for a moment. “Spill it.”

  “I don’t have anything to spill.” I swiped the sponge from my compact over my nose and cheeks, then tucked it and my gloss back in the small emergency kit I keep in my purse.

  “C’mon. I told you about Wayne.”

  She was right. The bonds of feminine friendship did require reciprocation. And truthfully, I wanted to talk to someone about Dan. Marcy, sad to say, was my only friend.

  “His name is Dan Stewart. He’s a lawyer. I met him at The Blue Swan.”

  “I knew it!” She didn’t seem to mind that I’d lied to her before.

  Marcy owned more brushes than Picasso, all shapes and sizes and kept in a rolled-up leather case. She whipped out one now and used it to dab at the lipstick. I watched, fascinated as she drew in her lips like a paint-by-numbers picture.

  “So he’s got a good job. Big deal. Has he got a big dick?”

  I coughed and blushed. I don’t know why. I’ve heard worse. Said worse.

  “It’s adequate,” I said.

  “Oh,” she said sympathetically, blotting her lips on a square of tissue. “Small?”

  “No! Marcy, good Lord!”

  “Adequate? C’mon, Elle.” She turned to face me. “Cut? Uncut? Long? Short? Thick? Thin? What?”

  “Jesus, Marcy. Who looks that closely?” I bent to scrub my hands.

  “Who doesn’t?” She began packing away her box of paints and powders.

  “He has a very nice penis,” I told her. “Aesthetically pleasing and fully functional.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Spare me, would you? You’re acting like this is no big deal.”

  I pushed open the door to the bathroom and started for my office. She followed. She didn’t stop at my doorway, either, but came right in and made herself at home.

  “Have a seat,” I offered wryly. “Can I get you a drink?”

  “Give me one of your diet sodas,” she said. “I know you hide ’em in that minifridge.”

  I handed her a can and settled behind my desk. “Don’t you have work to do?”

  “Yes.” She cracked the top open and drank, not seeming to care she was ruining the lips she’d just worked so hard to paint.

  “Shouldn’t you go do it, then? Instead of interrogating me about my sex life?”

  “Who’s interrogating?” She cried. “I’m just asking.”

  I had to laugh at her. “Marcy, we had sex. It’s no big deal.”

  She frowned. “Sugar, that’s just sad. It should be a big deal, otherwise why bother?”

  She had a point, one I’d made for myself when I’d sworn off the act altogether. “It was worth the bother, all right?”

  “So he was good.”

  “He was good, Marcy!” I shook a pen at her. “You nosy bitch!”

  She put a hand over her heart and looked wounded. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  I sighed, resigned. “He took me to the movies, and we went to his place, after.”

  I didn’t mention the dance club or the bathroom at La Belle Fleur. Marcy oohed, anyway. She leaned forward on her seat.

  “Did he put the moves on you right away, or did he pretend he wanted to show you his soda can collection?”

  “I think we both knew why I was going back there. And he doesn’t collect cans, at least that I can tell.”

  “Phew,” she said. “Because that’s total turn-off.”

  I laughed again and shook my head. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Marcy drank some soda, then set the can on the edge of my desk. “Elle, if you don’t mind my saying so—”

  “Would you stop if I did?”

  “Hell, no.”

  I waved my hand. “Then by all means, carry on.”

  “I think it’s good you got out.”

  Her words touched me, and I smiled. “Thank you, Marcy.”

  She nodded, then winked. “So you’ll be seeing him again.”

  My smile dimmed a bit before I answered. “Yes.”

  “Geez. You sound thrilled. What’s the matter, he chews with his mouth open? What?”

  I shrugged, studying the folders of work piled high on my desk. “No. He has very pleasant manners.”

  “Uh-oh,” she said. “Very pleasant manners. An aesthetically pleasing penis. You’re regressing, girl, let me hear you say he’s a great fuck and fun to be with.”

  There would be no resisting her. I knew that by now. Yet I gave in to Marcy not because she could be an insistent, nosy bitch, but because I’d never have admitted my thoughts out loud had she not pushed.

  “I like him.”

  “So what’s the problem?” She looked concerned. “That’s a good thing.”

  I shrugged again. I had my reasons for not wanting to like him. For avoiding relationships. They were shitty and pathetic reasons, but I had them.

  “You don’t have to marry him.”

  “Heaven forbid,” I said, startled at the thought. “Good God, no.”

  She held up her hands. “Just saying. What’s wrong with going out, having a good time, getting laid?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with it. I just…” I shrugged. “It’s not really my thing.”

  “Maybe you should rethink what your ‘thing’ is,” she advised, getting up. “’Cuz to be honest, honey, I don’t think it works so good for you.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” I replied.

  “Sarcasm,” Marcy said loftily, “is the defense of the guilty!”

  With that, she swept from my office in a cloud of Obsession and left a sweating soda can to stain my desktop.

  I had the bus ride home to think about what she’d said and what Dan had promised. No attachments. The idea was appealing, though ridiculous. People can’t just fuck. They can’t. One or the other gets caught up in emotion, someone gets hurt. We’re not meant to separate sex from love; there’s a reason why euphoria occurs in both situations. Sex and love nourish each other. You can argue it’s humanity’s way of establishing family groups and guaranteeing creation of the next generation, but the simple fact remains: the more often two people engage in sex, the more likely it is that one of them will fall in love.How many times would it take, I wondered. I stared out my window at the streetlamps, counting them as I always did. The number never changed. I defined my life by numbers. What number of times would I take Dan inside my body before one of us felt that first pang of emotion?

  And would I be able to stop if it were me?

  It wasn’t that I’d never had a boyfriend or never been in love. I had been, once. A long time ago. Head over heels, madly, passionately, devastatingly in love with the boy I thought might be my knight in shining armor. Funny thing about that shining armor, by the way. It tarnishes pretty fast.

  By the time I got home, I had determined I was not going to see him again. There could be no point in it. It was useless, a satisfaction of the body that could lead to nothing but dissatisfaction of the mind. I knew it without a doubt. I wouldn’t call him, I wouldn’t see him, I wouldn’t…wouldn’t…would not.

  By the time I got home, my mother had called three times and left messages so long they’d filled up the tape on my machine. And I, unable to hate her, found myself even unable to ignore her. I listened to her tirade, and then I picked up the phone.

  “Who’s this?” She sounded querulous. Old. I had to remind myself she was only in her early sixties and far from an invalid. “Ella?”

  “It’s Elle, Mother. Please.”

  “We’ve always called you Ella.”

  Then she was off on her rant, and I didn’t bother correcting her again.

  “Are
you listening to me?”

  As if I had a choice. “Yes, Mother.”

  She gave a low snort into the phone. “When are you coming home for a visit?”

  “I’m very busy at work. You know that. I told you.”

  I listened with half an ear while I drew water into the teakettle and took out a microwave meal from the freezer. I grabbed one plate. One glass. One fork. Set one place at my table, which was big enough to seat four but never had. I didn’t have dinner parties.

  “I want you to take me to the cemetery, Ella. Daddy can’t do it, he’s not able to make the drive.”

  The fork clattered against the plate. “Mother, I told you before. No.”

  There was, incredibly, a long silence in which I heard nothing but the sound of her breathing. “Elspeth Kavanagh,” she said at last. “The least you can do is put a rose on his grave once in a while. He was your brother. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Ella? He was your brother, and he loved you.”

  The kettle screamed, saving me from the effort. With shaking hands I turned off the gas and poured the water into my mug. It slopped, stinging my hands. I hissed in pain.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I burned myself on some hot water.”

  And she was off again, with the best way to treat burns, and how I should have someone there to make sure I did it right, and someone there to take care of me. Because so obviously I couldn’t care for myself. I ended the call as fast as I could. I looked at the tea, the food, the single plate.

  “I know who he was,” I said aloud to the empty room.

  Dan answered the door with tousled hair and sleep in his eyes, which widened at the sight of me. It was the black vinyl raincoat and the stiletto shoes. The red lipstick and black eyeliner. I knew what I looked like. A parody of a teenage boy’s wank fantasies.I closed the door behind me. “Hi.”

  Dan smiled. “This is a surprise.”