Chapter 15
“DO YOU SUPPOSE my father and Joe are wondering where we disappeared to?” Kelly lifted her head to look up at Tom.
He looked over at the open French doors, realizing with a flash of alarm that they were wide open. But no. No way could Joe and Charles have heard them, no matter how loud they’d been. The two old men were sitting on the other side of the house, down on the first floor, on the deck. Still . . .
“It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if your father came searching for me with a shotgun.” He ran his hand lightly down her bare back, unable to get enough of touching her. “I feel like I’m breaking the rules by being here—in Kelly Ashton’s bedroom with the door locked.”
He’d always imagined that would be better than paradise. He’d been dead right.
Kelly smiled at him. “It’s kind of strange, isn’t it?”
“Strange and wonderful.”
“Speaking of strange and wonderful, I forgot to mention it to you this morning, but last night I actually got Dad to tell me a little bit about this argument he’s been having with Joe. Believe it or not, it has something to do with a woman who was in the French Resistance.”
“Cybele,” Tom said.
Her mouth dropped open. “You know about her? And you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t,” he said hastily. “Know about her, I mean. That was just a lucky guess. Joe mentioned someone named Cybele, and Charles nearly had a heart attack. I couldn’t get them to tell me more than that. Although Joe gave me a few more hints today—mostly from the things he didn’t say about her.”
“They were both in love with her,” Kelly told him. “I think my father’s still in love with her.” She laughed softly. “I didn’t think he knew how to love anyone, and yet here he’s been in love with this Cybele woman for nearly his entire life.” She settled back down, with her head against his shoulder, running her fingers through the hair on his chest. “I don’t know what happened to her. Do you?”
Tom sighed. “No. And Joe’s not talking.”
Tipping her head back, she looked up at him and touched his face. “You look tired. How are you feeling?”
He felt a wave of giddy disbelief as he looked into her eyes. Kelly Ashton was lying naked, next to him. He still couldn’t believe it. And he wanted her again. Already. He kissed her. “Incredible, thanks.”
“Headache? Dizziness?”
“Help, there’s suddenly a doctor in my bed.”
“It’s my bed,” she countered. “There’s always a doctor in it. How are you feeling?”
She was serious. She wanted a medical report. “I’m doing okay,” he told her.
She sat up and looked at him. The eyebrow raised in skepticism was made far less effective by her nakedness. Her hair was tousled, and it just wasn’t long enough to do more than bend enticingly at the tops of her breasts. Her beautiful, naked breasts.
It was impossible not to smile at her, but that just made her frown at him.
“What?” he said. “I’m not allowed to be doing okay?”
“I need you to be honest with me about this,” Kelly said with wide-eyed sincerity. “I know you’re tough and you’ve been trained to endure nearly anything, but when you’re with me, don’t just endure, all right?” She took his hand, pressed it to her cheek. “Please? Promise me, Tom. . . .”
He’d always found naked, begging women impossible to disappoint. “I promise.”
“How are you feeling?” she asked again.
“Slight—very slight—headache. Almost nonexistent, certainly not bad enough to complain about. See, I really am doing okay.” He reached for her, but she backed away.
She wasn’t done. “Dizzy at all?”
“To be honest, I don’t know for sure. You do things to me, babe, that turn my world upside down. But all the dizziness I’ve felt today seems physiologically appropriate.”
Kelly smiled and leaned forward to kiss him. He took full advantage, pulling her close, touching all that soft skin, drinking her in.
Her voice was breathless. “Last question from the doctor. Are you feeling up to—”
“Yes.”
She laughed as he swiftly rolled her onto her back, as he pushed his way between her legs. “Because as a doctor I’m very observant, and I couldn’t fail to notice—”
He kissed her.
“Mmmm,” she said as she pressed herself up against him. “I thought so. I could get used to this.”
Oh, baby, so could he. Three, four times a day, every day? For the next few weeks. After that, he didn’t want to think about it. He couldn’t bear to think about it. He didn’t want to stay, but he sure as hell didn’t want to go. Suddenly his life was even more complicated than it had been just a few short hours ago.
He closed his eyes as she reached between them, her touch banishing all thought as she drew him to her, as she lifted her hips and . . .
The phone rang. At first he thought it was in his head, some kind of red alert condom alarm. What the hell was he doing, about to enter her without a condom on? Was he nuts? Was he completely insane?
He pulled back as the phone rang again.
“Uh-oh,” she said. “It’s the Bat Phone. Trouble in Gotham City.”
There were two of them, Tom realized. Two phones on her bedside table. One was a regular Princess phone, the other—the one that was shrilly ringing—was cordless.
He let her slide out from underneath him, taking the opportunity to touch her every inch of the way as she reached for the phone. “Kelly Ashton.”
But once she was listening and talking, he kept his hands to himself. Fun was fun, but business was business, and he’d had lovers try to distract him from the business of an important phone call. He hadn’t found it sexy at all—only irritating.
Whatever the person on the other end of the line told Kelly, it made her sit up. “Yes.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed, turning her back on him. “Yes. And she’s . . .”
She scanned the floor for her underwear, finding her bra and finally her panties. “I see, uh-huh.”
Oh, hell. Kelly was leaving.
As Tom watched, she put on her underwear. Watching her do that was nice, but compared to what they’d just started, it didn’t cut it.
With the phone under her chin, she pulled a pair of khaki pants from a pile of clothes and stepped into them, too.
She was definitely leaving. Every cell in his body was jangling, ready for another enthusiastically energetic round of sex, and she was leaving.
Tom had to laugh—the irony was intense. He was used to being the one who had to leave. And he’d never really understood before what it felt like to be left behind. It was frustrating and annoying. He felt cheated and wistful as well as hopeful that she’d come back soon.
But he understood completely about having a job that required her to get up and go at a moment’s notice. And the last thing he was going to do was whine and guilt her out. He pulled the sheet up to his waist, hiding the hard evidence of his desire, as he propped himself up on one elbow.
Kelly turned and looked at him as if suddenly remembering that he was there. “Hang on, Pat.” She covered the phone receiver. “It’s about Betsy. She started chemo today and apparently the oncologist gave her an antinausea drug that didn’t do the trick. She’s been throwing up blood for the past hour and her parents are scared to death. I really need to—”
“Definitely,” he said. “Go. And don’t worry. Between me and Joe, we’ve got your dad handled.”
She exhaled her relief. “Thank you so much.” She uncovered the phone. “Pat, tell them I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
She hung up the phone, pulled a dark-colored T-shirt over her head. “I’m so sorry about this.”
“Think of it as forced anticipation. And later tonight, when we do get a chance? . . . Oh, baby, get ready for fireworks.”
She laughed. “Promise?”
“Absolutely.”
She was standing there, looking at him as if she was about to change her mind. “It’s so stupid. My going in, I mean. Vince Martin and the rest of the staff at the hospital have this completely covered. There’s really nothing I can do.”
“Except make Betsy’s parents feel better by being there.”
“Except for that.” She pulled her hair into a ponytail, still gazing at him. “You’re really okay with this, aren’t you?”
Tom lay back in her bed, his hands up beneath his head. “I admit I would like it a hell of a lot more if you could stay. But I know all about getting a page or a phone call and having to go to work. It doesn’t always happen at the most convenient time, and that’s life. In fact, I was just thinking how it’s usually me who has to climb out of bed at an inopportune moment.”
He watched as she brushed a little makeup onto her face, put on some lipstick. “I guess you probably have a lot of . . . inopportune moments, huh?”
She was jealous. She was trying hard not to be, but she was. Usually jealousy made him want to run away screaming, but this time, coming from Kelly, it made him feel undeniably pleased.
“Not really,” he said. “Certainly not lately. And never anything special, you know?”
She glanced at him. “I didn’t mean to sound . . . I’m not trying to pry, or . . .”
“I don’t have anything to hide,” he countered. “I mean, yeah, I’ve had relationships, but . . .”
Never one that made him feel even remotely like this.
Jesus, he couldn’t tell her that. It scared him to death, the intensity of his feelings and her potential reaction—or lack of reaction—to them. He’d never used the word love preceded by I and followed by you. Never. He wasn’t even sure that was what he was really feeling, and not some hormonal imbalance caused by seventeen years of delayed gratification.
“I really don’t want to know,” Kelly told him. “Really. It doesn’t matter. I don’t know why I said that.”
Tom was just as glad to let it drop. “Call me from Boston,” he said to her. “I mean, if you have time.”
She looked at herself critically in the mirror. “They’re going to know, aren’t they? Just from looking at me. I’ve got that whoo-whee, I-just-got-laid look.”
He laughed at that. “No one’s going to be able to tell that from looking.”
“Oh, yeah?” She looked at him, eyes narrowing. “You’ve got it, too. If you go downstairs right now, Joe and my father are going to know. If you’re not careful, we’re going to find ourselves in the middle of a shotgun wedding.”
“Your father’s not that old-fashioned.”
“No, but Joe is.” She lingered, her hand on the doorknob. “There’s Chinese food in the refrigerator. Just heat it in the microwave when you get hungry.”
“Hey, aren’t you going to kiss me good-bye?”
She laughed. “Are you kidding? I don’t trust myself within six feet of you. I’ll kiss you hello, later.”
“Fair enough.”
“I really need to run.” She still didn’t move. “Thanks for the best day I can remember. Ever.”
“Thank you, for . . .” Being you. Jeez, when had he turned into a sappy greeting card?
“God,” she said, “I can’t believe I’ve finally got Tom Paoletti in my bed, and I’m about to get in my car and drive away.” As she shut the door behind her, he heard her laughter.
She was gone.
Tom lay back, breathing in the ghost of her perfume. He had to laugh, too. That made two of them. He couldn’t believe he was here in Kelly’s bed, couldn’t believe what he felt when she smiled at him, couldn’t believe she’d wanted him so desperately, too, couldn’t believe they’d finally made love.
He climbed out of bed and went out onto the balcony to watch her get into her car. She didn’t look up, didn’t look back. She just drove away.
In a few weeks, when he was the one who had to leave, he wasn’t quite sure he’d be able to do the same.
Mallory looked at her living room, imagining it from David’s perspective.
Shabby sofa. Shabby recliner. Worn and stained wall-to-wall carpeting. A small room, only one window—and it was covered outside by a rusting white-and-turquoise awning, succeeding in making the room even darker and uglier than it had to be.
Cheap-shit artwork hung on the walls, from the time Angela had that job at the chain motel off Route 128 in Beverly. The place went out of business and Angela—in a brilliant move—had accepted six awful oil paintings in lieu of her final check.
David gazed at the still life on the wall behind the couch, his face carefully blank. Mal knew he saw amazingly crappily executed art in a garish gold-painted baroque-style wooden frame. But she saw more. She saw a reminder of her mother’s folly.
Why the hell had she brought him here? What was wrong with her, anyway?
They’d been sitting in David’s apartment, looking at the photographs he’d taken of her and Brandon. Most of them were extremely good. And as weird as it was to look at herself in a bikini, she looked good, too. She’d made herself look the way she imagined this Nightshade character was supposed to look—strong and brave and invincible.
But the lighting was bad in some of the pictures. The kisses were overexposed. Didn’t it figure? They were going to have to shoot the kisses over again. Just her luck.
The sandwich David had made her was delicious and while she ate it, she’d asked him about drawing graphic novels. Did all comic book artists do it this way—by taking photos?
David told her everyone had their own method. There was no wrong or right way—although there were some people who thought taking photos like this was cheating. But it wasn’t as if David actually sketched over them. He just used them to remind himself how the human body moved.
He’d shown her which of the photos he thought he’d use the most, which he’d pin up right over his drawing table. And she’d told him they were so much better than anything she’d ever taken.
David being David had picked up on that right away. And one thing led to another until here they were. In her crappy house in the low-rent part of Baldwin’s Bridge. In her crappy living room. Where she was about to show him some of the crappy photos she’d taken with her crappy Instamatic over the past few years.
Angela had left a pack of cigarettes on the coffee table. It was all Mallory could do not to light one up.
David kept glancing back at the still life from hell, as if he were afraid it was contagious.
“My grandfather painted that,” Mallory told him. “Pretty good, huh?”
David looked at Mallory, looked at the painting. “Amazing,” he murmured. He leaned closer to look at the brush strokes. “That is really awful. A true artistic nightmare. Your grandfather—” He pointed to the signature. “—Mary Lou Brackett, is clearly a genius.”
Busted. Mallory grinned at him. “Grandfather Mary Lou was something of an eccentric. Extremely brilliant, but tortured. Understandably.”
“His disturbed presence certainly radiates from his work,” David said, smiling back at her.
Behind his ugly glasses, beneath his terrible haircut, his eyes were warm and intelligent. He liked her. She could see that just by looking at him. He didn’t have that slightly glazed look in his eyes most guys got when they spoke to her. He wasn’t here, in her house, because he wanted to score. He liked being with her. He was here because he wanted to hear what she had to say, because he really did want to see her photographs.
David didn’t care what her house looked like—so what if it was the smallest, shittiest house in all of Baldwin’s Bridge. It didn’t matter to him one bit.
“Do you mind if we look at your pictures in the kitchen, Nightshade?” he asked. “Grandpa Mary Lou’s fruit bowl is a bit overwhelming.”
“There’s another one in there,” she warned him. “It’s even worse.”
“Worse.”
“There are six . . . heirlooms altogether,” she said. “Naturally we hung the very best in the living room.”
David went into the kitchen. “Oh, God,” she heard him say as he started to laugh. “Grandpa Mary Lou signed this one Elizabeth Keedler. Either he had a multiple personality disorder, or he was attempting to break into art forgery.”
“By copying the style of the as-yet-still-unknown master of motel oil painting, Elizabeth Keedler?” Mallory raised her voice so he could hear her. “He was extremely shrewd.”
David came out of the kitchen. “And you have six of these, you say?”
“That’s right. Come on, it’s safe—at least relatively safe—in my room.”
She led the way down the hall. Her room was tiny, but it was all hers. She kept her photo albums in her bookcase. She pulled the latest one from the shelf.
David stood in the doorway, suddenly and obviously uncomfortable. “You know, I was just kidding. I don’t mind sitting in the living room.”
She watched as he looked around the room, at her narrow bed, the dresser, her little built-in desk, the slant to the ceiling. This had been an add-on to the back of the house, a former toolshed or pantry. One of Angela’s boyfriends had put a window in about ten years ago. He hadn’t quite finished it before they’d broken up, so Mallory had painted the sill herself. Gleaming black. It was still the best part of the entire room.
David looked at the movie posters and pictures that covered every inch of her walls, at the books that overflowed her bookcase and sat in precariously tall piles on the floor.
And then he looked at her, sitting there cross-legged on her bed.
“I don’t mind if you come in,” she told him. “I know you’re not going to, like, attack me or anything.”
He nodded, suddenly as serious as if she’d just given him a medal for saving the Rebel Forces from the Death Star. “Okay. Good. I’m . . . glad you know that.”
He left her door wide open, pulled her chair from her desk. He slipped his neon backpack from his shoulder, but instead of putting it on the floor, he sat with it on his lap. And he unzipped it. “You know, I was thinking, you could borrow my camera if you want.”
“What?”
He took it out of his pack by the neck strap, the enormous lens reattached. “My camera. There’s a new roll of film in it. Color prints, thirty-six exposures. You’ve got this evening and tomorrow morning off—you could shoot this entire roll if you want.”
Mallory stared at him. “You want to lend me your camera.” That thing had to cost at least four paychecks.
“Sure.” He held it out to her, and when she didn’t take it, he set it down next to her on the bed. “It’s easy to use. Pretty much point and shoot. You may want to play around with the settings when the sun starts going down, but you probably remember all that from media club.”
He trusted her with his camera.
David put his backpack on the floor, then held out his hands for the photo album she was clutching. “So let me see your pictures.”
She held it even closer to her chest, afraid she wasn’t good enough, afraid he’d take one look and laugh. “I took these with an Instamatic. They suck, so don’t pretend they don’t, okay?”
He smiled. “Okay.”
Mallory’s stomach did a slow flip as she handed him the album. He had the best smile. And the deepest brown eyes.
He opened the album, screamed, and slammed it shut. “Oh, my God! These suck!”
Mallory laughed and kicked him with her bare foot. “Don’t be a jerk.”
“Whoa,” he said, “let me see if I’ve got this straight. I say they suck, and I’m a jerk. You say they suck and . . .” He looked at her expectantly.
Mallory rolled her eyes. “And I’m a jerk. All right, they don’t suck, okay?”
“Aha. The truth comes out.”
“Just don’t . . . expect too much and don’t lie, okay?”
“Okay.” He pushed the camera back so he could open the photo album on the bed. And just like that, he was instantly involved and connected, leaning over the pictures.
“Some of these are really good, Mal. Look at this one.” He pointed right away to a photo she’d taken when she was baby-sitting the O’Keefe twins, a photo she’d always thought was one of her best. “Look at the composition here. It’s really great the way you use the swing set to frame the photo. And you caught these kids in motion—it’s really dynamic, and you did it with an Instamatic.”
Mallory watched him as he talked. He was so enthusiastic, he spoke with his hands, with his eyes, with his entire body. He was so completely different from too-cool-to-be-anything-but-bored Brandon.
He was wearing kind of fashionable shorts that came down past his knees. The dork factor kicked in, though, because he was wearing really dweeby dark socks with his ratty sneakers. His shirt was a desperately ugly button-down short-sleeved plaid, but it didn’t matter. His crappy haircut didn’t matter, nor did his ugly glasses.
It was all superficial. An hour at the mall, a few fashion dos and don’ts, and David would transform nicely from nerd to kind of average-looking guy. But nothing anyone could do would change him into a superstud like Brandon.
Of course, it would take far more than a trip to the mall ever to change Brandon into someone as smart and funny and nice and genuinely sweet as David.
Mallory had to laugh.
David just smiled at her and kept on talking—he didn’t think it was weird she should just suddenly feel the need to laugh out loud.
It was ridiculous, though. Unbelievable. And incredibly cool.
She, Mallory Paoletti, was completely falling for David Sullivan.
“I thought I heard you come home.” Charles turned on the overhead lights. “What are you doing sitting in the living room in the dark?”
Kelly didn’t turn to look at him. “I’m exhausted and I’m hiding. What are you doing up? Joe left a note saying that you’d kicked him and Tom out at around eleven because you wanted to go to sleep.”
“A white lie,” he said. “I wanted to be alone. These days it seems as if the only time I’m alone is when I’m in bed—which is the exact opposite of the way it should be.”
Kelly could hear him using the walker to shuffle farther into the room. “Better not come in,” she said. “It’s not going to take much to start me crying.” And God knows Charles hated crying.
He stopped. “Oh.”
Betsy wasn’t going to make it. Kelly had realized that tonight. The chemo was most likely going to kill the little girl. But without it, the cancer would definitely kill her. “Most likely” came with pain and suffering, but “definitely” was definite. That was one hell of a choice for her parents to make.
Kelly had sat with the McKennas and Vince Martin for hours discussing different medications that might ease or even eliminate the side effects of the chemotherapy. But trial was involved, and with trial came error. And pain.
The McKennas had looked to her for answers, and she couldn’t help them. She had no answers, not even today with Tom’s scent still on her, with the glorious perfection of their physical joining still warming her skin.
The knowledge that he was everything she’d ever dreamed of in a lover—and more—didn’t help her as Brenda McKenna’s dark brown eyes begged her to tell them what to do. Let their child die, or try to save her and watch her suffer. After which she’d most likely die anyway.
Kelly had all but promised Tom they’d finish what they’d started when she got home tonight. But right now, sex was the dead last thing she wanted. She couldn’t bear the thought of celebrating life that way, not while knowing that the McKennas were facing death and struggling with such sorrow.
She knew Tom was probably upstairs, in her room, waiting for her.
She drew in a deep breath as she sat up, turning toward her father.
“Do you need something?” she asked Charles. “Can I make you a power shake?”
“No.” He cleared his throat. “Thank you, but . . .”
“Time for a pill?”
“Took one an hour ago.”
“Are you . . . okay?” she asked. “Is it time for me to call the doctor for a stronger—”
He took one hand off his walker to wave away her suggestion impatiently. “No, I’m fine. Relatively speaking.”
Had she done something to disrupt his carefully ordered world? Kelly couldn’t think of a single thing except for . . . oops. Seducing Tom up in her bedroom in the middle of the afternoon. Had Charles somehow found out about that?
He seemed exasperated and annoyed, but more at himself than at her.
“Do you need me to change your sheets?” she tried.
Maybe he’d soiled them during a nap. He hadn’t had that problem before, but she was well aware loss of control could happen at any time to someone with his deteriorating physical condition. She’d bought some Depends, and, like the walker, she’d simply put the box in her father’s room. They were there if he needed them—he wouldn’t have to ask.
But changing the sheets on his bed—that was something he wouldn’t be able to do by himself. And she could understand his not wanting to ask Joe for help.
“No,” he told her crossly. “I just wanted—”
She waited.
“I wanted to sit and talk for a minute. But if you’re feeling . . . Well, later will be fine.” He turned away, started back down the hall.
Her father wanted to talk to her.
Kelly couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Why did her father want to talk to her? And then she couldn’t do anything but think of reasons. Maybe to tell her he’d come to terms with dying, with the fact that he was running out of time, the fact that everything he’d left unsaid had better be said, and soon. Maybe he wanted to tell her more about that French woman he’d mentioned just last night. Had that really been only last night? It seemed like a million years ago.
Or maybe he had found out about her and Tom.
“Wait! Dad!” She hurried after her father. “Dad.”
As he stopped and turned toward her, she saw that just that little movement required a great deal of effort and her heart sank. He was looking more and more fragile every day.
“Talk to me.” She pulled him back into the living room, practically pushed him down into a chair. She pulled up a footstool right next to him. “I’m here. What do you want to tell me? I’m dying to listen.”
“It’s not that important. I just . . .” He couldn’t meet her eyes.
“Just say it,” she whispered. “It’s amazing how easy it is once you open your mouth and start talking. It’s amazing the things that come out.”
He finally looked at her. He even briefly reached out to touch her hair. “You always were a pretty child. I used to be afraid of Tom Paoletti, when he was living with Joe down at the end of the driveway. I saw the way he looked at you.”
Oh, my God. This was about Tom.
“You know, Dad, I’m a big girl now. I’m pretty good at taking care of myself.”
“You’ve always been good at taking care of yourself. It’s . . . um, it’s occurred to me that because of that, you might miss out on an opportunity to let someone else take care of you, if you know what I mean.”
Kelly didn’t. She shook her head.
“Tom,” Charles said with a spark of impatience. “We’re talking about Tom here.”
“Ah,” she said. “We are?”
“He’s a good man, Kelly.”
Oh, my God. Did her father think . . . ? “He is,” she agreed.
“I just wanted to make sure you knew I thought that,” he said awkwardly. “I’ve never come out and said that before.”
“Dad, it’s obvious you think very highly of him.”
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately,” Charles said. “Since you told me, well . . . You know, you could do far worse.”
Oh, God. Her father thought she and Tom . . . “I’m not going to marry him. We’re not . . . He’s not . . .” She shook her head. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.” Again.
“Oh,” he said. “I thought . . . I’d hoped . . .” He searched her face, then sighed. “It was too perfect. I just thought that if Tom could take care of you, then the two of you together could look out for Joe.”
This was about Joe. Her father was worried about what would happen to his dear friend Joe when he was gone.
Heart in her throat, Kelly took his hand. “I’ll make sure Joe’s okay,” she told him huskily. “I’ll take care of him for you, Daddy. I promise.”
He touched her hair again and his eyes were sad. “But who’ll take care of you?”
Tom sat at Kelly’s computer, suddenly completely uncertain.
He’d heard Kelly’s car pull into the driveway nearly an hour ago. It was hard to believe she hadn’t noticed that the light was on in her room, that the French doors were wide open.
She’d come into the house, but she hadn’t come upstairs.
She hadn’t called him from Boston, hadn’t called from her car, either.
It was probably no big deal. She’d probably just misplaced his cell phone number. And maybe she’d grabbed something to eat, gone in to check on her father. Those things took time.
He’d showered and shaved before coming back over here tonight, brushed his teeth, run his fingers through his hair.
He’d even practiced bringing up that goddamned unpleasant subject a few times. “Hey, Kel, you know in three and a half weeks when I go back to California? What do you say we do that crazy-assed long-distance thing? We could give it a try. You know, email, phone calls, I could visit every few months or so? . . .”
Of course, there was the variation on the theme that went something like “Hey, Kel, you know in three and a half weeks when I go back to California? Maybe you could go with me. . . .”
Or, best yet, “Hey, Kel, you know in three and a half weeks when I fail my psych evals and I’m kicked out of the Navy, when I’m homeless and jobless and certifiably insane, when I’m at my most pathetically, depressingly lowest—and oh, did you happen to notice it’s definite that I’m going bald?—what do you say we get married?”
It was crazy. He was nuts—this proved it.
But oh, God, he wanted her. He truly did. Tonight and forever. All evening, he’d been waiting, half-aroused, wishing she’d come home, dreaming of the stupidest things. The most efficient ways to get their crazy schedules to line up. A plan for bicoastal living. A simple, quiet wedding with Joe and Jazz standing up for him. Names for their children.
Holy shit, he was in serious trouble here. He was naming their frigging children after one naked afternoon. Yes, the sex was beyond incredible. Yes, she made him feel things he’d never felt before. But that didn’t automatically make what he was feeling love. That didn’t mean it was going to last forever.
Jesus, how do you know? Did the uncertainty ever fall away? Maybe if she looked into his eyes and whispered that she loved him. The thought of her doing that was enough to make him dizzy. God, he wanted her to love him.
He wanted her up here. Now.
If it had been him pulling into the driveway, he’d’ve taken the stairs to her room three at a time.
Finally, finally the door opened, and Kelly stepped inside.
She closed it behind her, leaning against it. She seemed to brace herself before looking over at him.
“Hi.” She forced a smile.
She’d been crying. She’d dried her face, but Tom could tell she was still extremely upset. He stood, suddenly even more uncertain. “I hope you don’t mind that I—”
“Of course not.” She was brisk as she came into the room, setting her bag down next to her dresser. “I said you could use my computer whenever you wanted.”
He wasn’t here to use her computer. Surely she knew that. “Is everything . . . Are you . . . ?”
She sat on the edge of her bed and untied her shoes. “I’m fine. I’m . . . My father’s dying. It gets to me sometimes. That and the fact that an eighty percent survival rate for childhood leukemia means that twenty percent of the children who get it die.” She fired first one and then the other of her shoes into the closet with about ten times the necessary force.
Tom sat down next to her. Oh, damn. “It doesn’t look good for Betsy, huh?”
She shook her head tensely, tightly. “No, it doesn’t.”
He took her hand, massaging her fingers gently. “I’m really sorry.”
She gazed down at their hands. “God, Tom, I’m so tired. It’s been an intense couple of days, and . . .”
“You look like you need a back rub.” He wanted to help erase the strain he could hear in her voice. “Joe’s got a pretty nice collection of French wine. I could go grab a bottle and—”
She pulled her hand free and stood up. Her voice shook. “Look, I know I promised we’d get together again when I got home, but I’m sorry, I’m just . . . I’m so not in the mood.”
Tom didn’t know what to do. But leaving her alone and upset was the last thing he wanted. He tried to keep things light. “For a back rub?”
Kelly turned to face him. “For sex.”
“I didn’t say you look like you need sex, I said you look like you need a back rub.”
“Isn’t it the same thing? I don’t think I’ve ever been given a glass of wine and a back rub that hasn’t ended with sex.”
She was very tired and very upset. And Tom was guilty. A little wine, a little soothing massage, and a little full-body, sensual comfort usually followed. His motives hadn’t been entirely pure. But he could make them pure. “There’s a first time for everything. And I can tell you right now, I’ve never had sex with a woman who didn’t absolutely want it, so . . .”
“And I have no doubt that after one of your famous back rubs,” she countered sharply, “I’ll be on that list with all the other women you’ve made to want it. And I just don’t goddamn feel like wanting it tonight, all right?”
Whoa. She was actually pissed off. “Kelly—”
Her voice shook. “I know I’m being awful. Tom, I loved our afternoon together, I really did. But I don’t want to mislead you into thinking I’m ready to do anything right now besides crawl miserably into bed and sleep. So maybe you should just go.”
Tom stood up. He was trying hard to be understanding because she’d clearly had a tough night with that sick little girl, but it was getting harder not to raise his voice. “Are you implying that the only thing I want from you is sex—that I wouldn’t want to spend time with you unless we’re going at it?”
She did. Oh, Jesus, she did. She didn’t need to say a word, he could see it in her eyes.
“You don’t think that when you come into your room—” His voice was definitely getting louder. “—after you’ve been crying, that I might want to put my arms around you and talk to you, stay with you for a while, find out what the hell’s made you so upset?”
“And you don’t think that if you put your arms around me,” she countered, “we’ll be going at it, as you so accurately put it, in a matter of minutes?”
“Not unless you want to,” he said tightly.
She was exasperated. “But that’s my point. I don’t want to want to, but we both know that I will if you touch me.” She all but threw up her hands. “You know, this is all really new to me. I’ve never had a relationship that’s based purely on sex before, and the truth is, all I have to do is look at you, and a part of me forgets that I don’t want sex tonight. I know it’s completely my problem, but please, just give me a break, Tom. Just go.”
Tom stared at her. A relationship based purely on sex. Jesus. Had he missed something here? Is that what she truly thought they had going? He laughed in disbelief. She had no fucking clue. If their relationship were based purely on sex, they wouldn’t have spent all those hours talking. Caring what the other said and thought and felt and . . .
This so wasn’t some fuck-me-tonight, pure sex deal in which they’d have only exchanged names and maybe a sentence or two of small talk. “I grew up in Albuquerque.” “Yeah? I have a friend whose sister lives there. Let’s screw.”
What he had with Kelly was a love affair. At least that’s what he’d thought it was. Obviously, he’d been wrong. What he had was a one-sided love affair with a talkative woman who wanted only to fuck him. Come to think of it, she’d used that very word from the start.
His stomach hurt and his throat felt tight. “Well,” he said. “Great. Why don’t you give me a call when you want to have sex? I’ll be, just, you know, standing by.”
He went out the French doors and over the side of the balcony without looking back.