the same high sound as before.
“I haven’t had sex in ages, Gary. I’d be sore.” My heartbeat had jumped up to about a zillion miles an hour, making a lump of sickness that tasted like apple fritter in my throat. I didn’t know relief could feel so awful. “I’d be sore and I’d be sticky and I haven’t taken a shower this morning and I’m not either of those things and so I didn’t have sex with him. Oh, thank God.” For some reason I was ice cold and shaking.
There was a profound silence that suggested that old dog saying things he shouldn’t or not, I had perhaps overstepped the bounds of friendship with that particular announcement. I was about to apologize when he said, “Kinda glad to hear it, sweetheart. Didn’t really seem like your style.”
I drew my knees up, still shivering, and shook my head. “Not at all.” Then I laughed again, twisting to look back at the bedroom. “He even made the bed.”
“You oughta call this guy,” Gary said again, with a sort of gentle kindness in the command. “Makes the bed, doesn’t take advantage of pretty girls in the bed. Give him a call, Jo. How many guys make the bed?”
“I don’t make the bed, Gary.” I pulled a towel down to wrap it over my legs, trying to ward off the cold of relief. “Maybe I will.” I sounded very quiet even to myself. The prospect of calling Mark, if I hadn’t slept with him, was considerably more appealing than it had been when I thought I had, and that was its own kind of scary. “Maybe I will, okay? You’re pushy.”
“Parta my charm,” he said, still triumphant. “I gotta fare, Jo. Gotta go. Call the kid.”
“I’ll talk to you later, Gary.” I beeped the phone off and sat there in my bathroom doorway, staring at my bed. It sat there, bedlike, tidy except for the pillow I’d dislodged. No startling attractive men appeared in it. After a minute I took a deep breath and said, “Okay. Just to get you off my back,” to Gary, though he was neither there nor likely to believe me if he could hear me. I wasn’t entirely sure I believed me. Either way, I got Mark’s number out of the garbage and hoped for an answering machine.
To both my delight and dismay, I got one. I straightened with surprise and stuttered out a message, not sure if I wanted any of it to sound like “Call me back.”
Right before I said, “So, uh, bye,” the phone got snatched up with a clatter and Mark, a trifle breathlessly, said, “Joanne? Hi, sorry, I was in the shower. I heard your voice on the machine. Are you still there?”
I slumped against the door frame. “Yeah. Hi, Mark.”
“I didn’t think you’d call. Gosh, I’m glad you did.”
“Did you really just say gosh?”
A laugh came through the line, somewhere between pleased and embarrassed. “I did. Does that count against me?”
“It’s kind of cute,” I admitted more honestly than I’d intended to. “Look, Mark, this really isn’t a good time. I just wanted to call because, um.” Because Gary had told me to. I was twenty-seven years old. I wasn’t sure because somebody told me to was a legitimate reason for calling a boy. “To say it wasn’t a good time.”
“Not a good time for what?” he asked, more insightfully than I would’ve liked. “To talk on the phone or to talk at all? Is this the ‘It was a horrible mistake’ speech?”
“It was a horrible mistake, or it would’ve been if we’d had sex, but I’m pretty sure we didn’t, so it wasn’t. Except I don’t bring guys home, so it was.”
“We didn’t?” Mark, unlike me, sounded sort of disappointed. “Are you sure?”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed, even if it was still a sort of shaky sound, and bonked my head against the door frame. “Physical evidence on my part suggests we didn’t. Look, I’m sure you’re very nice, but frankly, I don’t know how to deal with you, and I don’t really think I want to have to figure it out.” That, again, was rather more honest than I’d intended to be. To my surprise, Mark laughed.
“At least you don’t pull your punches. Tell you what. Everything I know about you is you’ve got a sexy car—”
Anybody who compliments my car earns a special place in my heart. I melted for a moment.
“—and a sexier body—”
“Oh, get real.” The thaw was over.
Mark ignored my protest and continued, “You don’t cook and you’ve got a bunch of early-rising friends and you can outdrink half a police department. Now, what do you know about me?”
I pulled the phone away from my ear and peered at it, then sighed and put it back. “You’re cute, you cook and for some reason you apparently find me attractive. That’s about it.” That and he made the bed, which I didn’t want to mention, even if it was a point in his favor.
“Right. So that’s enough to get a first date on, right?”
“Sure. Wait.”
Too late. “I’ll see you for dinner tonight, then. Eight?”
“I—”
“Great! We’ll go somewhere decent. You can drive.” I could almost hear his grin and wink. “See you tonight, Joanne.” He hung up before I had a chance to get out of it, and left me gaping at the phone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Plodding down to the parking lot wasn’t taking a shower, and it certainly wasn’t the best way to help Billy, but I found myself doing it, anyway, after finally putting the phone back in its cradle. I padded across the lot to the tree I’d parked Petite beneath, popping her trunk and wincing as the wrinkled steel creaked in protest. There hadn’t been time or money enough lately to start hammering the dents out. The insurance company still hadn’t paid up for the so-reported “act of vandalism” that had taken place back in January. I had full coverage on my baby. I thought the damned insurance company should stop dicking around and give me my money. It wasn’t like they even had to pay for a mechanic’s work, since I did all my own.
I pulled the jack and toolbox out of Petite’s trunk, still not quite thinking about what I was doing, and gave the gas tank cover an extra reassuring pat before I closed the trunk. It was an ongoing apology for having let somebody shoot an arrow through it, part of the same vandalism that’d ripped a twenty-eight-inch hole in her roof. I had no idea what else to call riders of the Wild Hunt taking axes and longbows to her. I didn’t think the insurance company would cough up at all if I claimed it was an act of gods.
A minute later I was on my back under the engine, tinkering with hot metal and inhaling the scent of gasoline and oil. Somewhat belatedly I realized I wasn’t wearing grubby clothes, and performed a shrug against the warm concrete I lay on. Yet another shirt and jeans relegated to the mechanic pile. I was going to have to go shopping soon.
A vague prickle of guilt set in as I fiddled with bolts. It wasn’t Petite that needed work. It was me. My head was spinning. I rarely got drunk. I never brought guys home, even if I had not, at least, actually slept with the one in question. I certainly didn’t find myself calling the guy back and agreeing to go out on a date. Well, I wouldn’t have thought I did, anyway. It’d never happened before, so apparently it was what I’d do in that situation. It still didn’t seem like me. I was by nature a much more isolated person than that.
I’d grown up on the road, my father unwilling to settle down for more than a few months. The one time he’d stayed anywhere over a year, a one-night stand he’d had showed up again and dumped a kid on him before flying back to Ireland without so much as an explanation. I’d had a pretty clear idea from a very early age what he was trying to leave behind.
Me.
My earliest memories were of mashing my nose against the car window, watching other vehicles whip by and calling “Zoom! Zoom!” at them. I loved the leather seats