14
“What do they taste like?”
Tam swallowed – it took a second,
and he made a face like he might have to regurgitate what he was trying to push
down – but the muscles in his throat rolled and he took another bite of the
blackened brownie he’d pried out of the pan with a boning knife. “Shit,” he
said with his mouth full, “burned shit.”
Mike chuckled, but inwardly cringed.
No one would have been willing to eat the smoking dish of hockey puck-hard
dessert Delta had pulled out of the oven…no one but Tam. Mike gave his friend a
closer once-over than he had in a while, taking in the way his skin was
starting to stretch tight across his face, his eyes ringed with dark, tired
half-circles. The t-shirt he’d borrowed hung off shoulders that were going bony
and sharp. Mike didn’t know if he couldn’t afford to eat, couldn’t remember to,
or didn’t care enough to. None were comforting thoughts.
“I’m gonna order Chinese,” he said,
and pushed up from his round little kitchen table. “What do you want?”
Tam’s eyes were a fast snatch of
blue, worried and embarrassed over the charred hunk of brownie he was still
choking down.
“My treat. I gotta feed the princess
anyway.”
“Mongolian beef,” Tam finally said
once he’d forced down another bite.
“What kinda soup?”
“Hot and sour,” he said like most
men would say a woman’s name, like he was already imagining the taste. Poor
bastard.
“I’ll get some egg rolls too,” Mike
offered, and earned another grateful/mortified look. He made the call, ordering
sesame chicken for Delta and beef for them, and went back to the table. Tam was
still picking at the brownies and Mike shoved them away. “Dude, you’re making
me sick just watching that.”
Tam licked a crumb off his index
finger and shrugged. “So where is she?” he asked, and cast a look toward the
living room.
“Up in the office. She needed to
send an email.” To Greg, he knew, though she hadn’t said. She’d asked if she
could borrow a computer and he’d left her to it, intent on asking for the
details of what she’d said later.
“So you’re serious about this one,”
it wasn’t a question and it wasn’t said eagerly.
Mike shrugged. He didn’t want to
fight about Delta, not with Tam of all people. “I dunno. We’ll see what
happens.”
“What happened to Stephanie?”
“I haven’t called her and she hasn’t
called me.”
Tam picked charcoal brownie out of a
back took with his thumb, frowning. “I just…don’t get pissed at me… but I don’t get
it, man.”
“I’m bored,” he said with a shrug,
“and she’s not boring.”
“Maybe boring’s better than
difficult.”
“Maybe it’s not.” He got to his feet
again. “I’m gonna change clothes.” Tam nodded and eyed the brownies again. “I’m
gonna remember this, though,” he grinned, “when you finally bring home your own
princess, I’m gonna give you such shit.”
Tam made a sound in the back of his
throat that wasn’t really a laugh. “Don’t count on that happening.”
Upstairs, Delta was in the spare
bedroom he’d set up as an office, her bare feet tucked up in the chair, long,
elegant fingers flying over the keys of his desktop Dell.
“I ordered takeout dinner,” he
informed as he stepped into the room and drew up behind the chair, his hands
finding her delicate, poplin-covered shoulders. Having her in his house felt a
bit like being entrusted with some million dollar artifact he didn’t really
deserve to touch. The cool part was, though, she didn’t seem to think
that. One of her hands left the keyboard
and came up to land on top of his, perfectly manicured and lily white against
his skin.
“Mmkay,” she said absently, eyes on
the computer. A moment later her head tilted back, eyes wide and brown and not
scowling at him for once. “This is what I’m sending to Greg. Do you want to
read it so you know what it says?”
In theory, her offer was offensive:
she didn’t trust him not to blow up at her. But it was sweet, or as close to
sweet as she could get, too. She wasn’t hiding anything.
“Sure,” he said, and she slid out of
the chair so he could take her place.
She stood beside him, one arm held
loosely around her middle while she held a thumbnail between her teeth,
waiting. Mike read the email twice, thoroughly impressed with her vocabulary –
most of which he didn’t fully understand – and almost felt a little bad for
Greg. Without a single insult, or any petty comments, she’d been absolutely
cutting and ruthless – the guy had been unmistakably dumped. No way around it.
“You’re wicked,” he said once he was
finished, and watched her try and hide a grin behind her hand. “And you’re
proud of it, which is even scarier.”
“I’m not proud,” she protested. “I’m
not.” The hint of a smile fell away as her hand dropped to her side. “I’m not
enjoying this situation.”
“Well, not this part,” he motioned
toward the computer screen. Then he took the hem of her skirt between his
fingers and towed her to him, until her knees bumped against the side of his
thigh and one of her hands was raking through his hair. “But this part…” he
opened his palm against her thigh; her navy tights were slick as silk and warm
with the heat of her skin as he reached up under her skirt.
She was smiling when she said, “you
ordered dinner, remember?”
“Dessert first? Tam ate all the
brownies.”
Her smile turned down at the
corners. “He did? Those things were ruined.”
“Yeah, well…” his hand had reached
her hip and he squeezed, asking her not to get any more curious about Tam and
his willingness to eat ruined food. “So,” he hooked his fingers in the waistband
of her tights. “You wanna?”
“As romantic as that was,” she
chuckled, “you’re gonna have to wait till after dinner, Captain America. Girl’s
gotta have some fuel to tackle you.”
**
Delta woke up the next
morning…happy. She didn’t know if it was
funny or sad to realize that it had been too long since she’d awakened with a
smile on her lips, but either way, when the alarm went off, she was snuggled
down in gray satin with Mike wrapped all around her and the solid heat of his
skin was more than welcome.
She’d come prepared this time –
fresh clothes, toothbrush, makeup, hair dryer – and she got ready for work in
his bathroom, working around him like it was the most natural thing in the
world.
“Thanksgiving’s tomorrow,” he said
as he pulled socks out of the top drawer of his black dresser, and she nodded.
“I’m thinking no family
meet-and-greet,” she said as she fastened her earrings. “What about you?”
“It’s too soon,” he agreed. “But you
can come by here afterward. We can watch a movie.” The look he shot her across
the bedroom was a little bit adorable. “And by ‘watch’ I mean have sex on the
couch while the movie plays.”
“Subtle,” she said, but had to
return the smile. “Sounds good.”
They parted on the driveway, in the
still-dark morning, with a long kiss that neither of them wanted to break.
Delta headed for work with a giddy catch to her breath that she chastised
herself for. But it refused to go away. She was high as a freaking kite, and
even if she hated it, she couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
At ten a.m. red roses arrived. The
tag read: They’re not blue carnations,
princess. And she grinned all the way through her rounds of the sales
floor.
But at noon, something else entirely
arrived, and a hard knot formed behind her breastbone.
Dennis Brooks was an excellent
father on paper. Delta’s childhood had been full of designer dresses, cotillion
classes, white gloves, pearls, custom-made dolls that looked like her, violin
and horseback riding lessons, trips to plays and poetry readings, vacations in
NYC and Hawaii. She’d wanted for nothing, had been denied nothing, and her
father’s wallet had been bottomless. But when Delta glanced up at the sound of
a rap against her open office door, and her silver-haired, tanned, immaculately
suited father stepped in, her stomach dropped out through the soles of her
feet. She wasn’t frightened of him, didn’t resent him, didn’t bemoan her
adolescence, but the man inspired an anxiety in her she’d never been able to
shake. How did a person live up to a legacy like the one he’d laid before her?
How, as an only child, did she fulfill all the dreams he’d held for all the
offspring he hadn’t had?
“Dad,” she said, startled, half
coming out of her chair. His eyes went immediately to the roses on her desk and
her pulse kicked into high gear, thumping through the thin vessels in her ears.
“What are you doing here?”
He stared at her flowers a long
moment, frowning in the semi-permanent, disapproving way he always did, hands
in the pockets of his tailored slacks. “Greg called me this morning,” he said
without preamble. “And then forwarded me a rather disturbing email.”
Delta’s mouth went dry as she
watched him ease down into the chair across from her desk, his brown eyes
finally coming to her face, full of censure. He propped his elbows on the arm
of the chair and linked his fingers over his stomach.
“Really?” she asked, hoping her
voice didn’t quiver too badly. “I didn’t know you two were that close.”
His look told her he didn’t
appreciate her playing dumb. “Delta,” he said, “what are you thinking?”
Dennis didn’t believe in small talk;
he was a shark, a bloodthirsty one, straight to the bone without so much as a
smile to numb the pain. There was no “hi” or “how are you” or “let’s talk this
through like we’re both adults”. No, he was the parent, she was the child, and
she was doing something that displeased him.
“Greg is perfect for you,” he
continued, his expression daring her to disagree.
“Well,” she wet her suddenly dry
lips, “technically, that’s true. In a sense. But I don’t like him.”
“That’s ludicrous,” Dennis said. “Of
course you do. Why wouldn’t you? He’s intelligent, successful, and
well-respected by his peers. He’s just like you. Of course you like him.”
“Dad,” she said patiently, despite
the kettle drums in her ears. “I -,”
“And you’re seeing someone else he
tells me. No, I’m sorry, you’re sleeping with someone else. Again, I ask, what
are you thinking, Delta?”
She wanted to slip beneath her desk
and hide until he left. But she’d wanted to do that as a little girl, too, and
had never stooped so low. If she never had his undying love, she’d at least
have his respect, by God. Denial was pointless – no one denied Dennis Brooks
anything.
“Michael,” she said with a nod,
palms sweaty where they rested against her thighs. “His name is Michael. And
I’m not ‘sleeping’ with him. We’re seeing each other. In an official sense.”
“Oh.” His graying brows gave an
unimpressed jump. “Official. Then he must be something special to have
warranted your treatment of Greg.”
Special was the word, but it was a kind of special her dad would
never understand or approve of.
“Yes,” she said, drawing up tall in
her chair. “He is.”
It would have taken a chainsaw to
break up the stare-down she suffered through with the man, but finally he stood,
with a sudden burst of energy, and gave her a disappointed glance down over his
nose. “I’ll expect to meet him, then. This special Michael. Bring him
tomorrow.”
Panic surged in her stomach at the
thought. “Dad -,”
“Dinner is at three-thirty, don’t be
late.”
Delta sat, staring stupidly at the
open door once he was gone, watching patrons move and surge out on the floor,
listening to the Christmas music pouring through the sound system. She should
have known not to let herself feel happy, she thought, because it never lasted.
Today was a new record: seven hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment