by Various
“I had him delivered to my ex this morning, as a gift of my undying affection. Then this afternoon, he had the nerve to send the darn thing back.” She covered her heart with her hand. “Is that rude or what? Not only did he not say ‘thank you’ for the gift, he returned it.”
“And the reason you sent him a rat is because…?”
“As retaliation for the psycho fish he sent me for Christmas.”
“Rhett and Scarlett?”
She nodded. “He gave them to me together in the same bowl. I’d always thought — as you told me — that fighting fish shouldn’t be together, but since they already were...” She shrugged. “Rhett was dead by morning. I think that was Wayne’s intent.”
“Do you and your ex still have a thing for each other or something?” A feeling awfully darn close to jealousy rumbled inside him.
Sam burst out laughing and punched him in the arm. “God, no. Wayne’s a slime.” She reached for the wine bottle and plunged a corkscrew into the top.
“So what happened?”
The cork came out with a POP. “What happened was I realized he was a slime.”
“He cheated on you?”
She nodded. “With his camera woman. I got out of class early one day and caught the two of them going at it on our bed.”
“Christ, Sam. I’m sorry. What a jerk.”
“Yeah.” She poured two glasses. “Do you watch Channel 2 News?”
“Occasionally. Why?”
“Then you’ve probably seen him.”
John blinked a couple of times, then awareness dawned. “Wait. The sports announcer, Wayne, uh, uh, Metzger. He’s the man we’re talking about here?”
“Don’t use the term so loosely.”
“What term?”
“‘Man.’”
John recalled Metzger’s image, seeing the cheap hairpiece, lined face, perfect white teeth that were obviously capped, and a body that appeared to be past its prime. What on earth had Sam seen in him? “He must be twenty years older than you.”
“Twenty-three.”
He tried to picture the two of them together. “I don’t get it. His toupee looks like roadkill.”
“It was a long time ago.” She handed him his wine. “He wasn’t so bad to look at back then. I thought he was the mature, older man.” Her voice held traces of mock awe. “The big-wig sportscaster on Channel 10 — that’s where he worked at the time. I was dating a guy on TV. Wow. My girlfriends were jealous.”
“How did you meet him?” Although he and Sam had had some great conversations this past week, they hadn’t spoken of past relationships. It was like there was an unspoken rule between them. But if she was willing to divulge a little, he certainly wouldn’t stop her.
“I interned for him my sophomore year in college.” She headed into the living room and dropped onto the couch.
He followed and sat beside her. “How long were you together?”
“Eight years.” She leaned back against the armrest and propped her legs over his thighs.
“Did he cheat on you the whole time?”
She sipped her wine. “To his credit, I don’t think so. It was only after I was no longer the perfect little chickee babe that he strayed.”
His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“After my parents divorced, my mom moved in with us for a while because she couldn’t hold it together. Her depression rubbed off on me I guess, so I started eating. And eating.” She gave him a wry grin then lifted the wine to her lips. “Anyway, I ended up gaining quite a bit of weight.” She made a face over her glass.
John tried to picture her with a plumper figure and couldn’t do it. He’d assumed she’d been “perfect” all her life. Somehow, that knowledge made him feel closer to her. Both of them had had their ugly duckling days. Both knew what it was like to be less fortunate in the looks department.
“I knew it bothered Wayne, because he’d sort of glare at me if I ever ate anything other than a plain salad. And he kept buying me Barbie doll-sized lingerie, as if that would motivate me to slim down again.”
“Not the sensitive type, eh?”
“Uh, no. Anyway, it was around that time I caught him doing the mamba wamba with Wendy Anthony, the little tramp. I, of course, went ballistic. But Wayne was so self-righteous, like he had the right to go after a slimmer model. He actually had the gall to tell me to look him up once I got my life together and my figure back.”
“Christ,” he muttered. No wonder men were at the bottom of her totem pole.
She giggled and shot him a sly look out of the corner of her eye. “You should’ve seen the look on his face when I waltzed into his office a few months later in my size four jeans and stilettos.”
He had to chuckle at the thought. “He wanted you back, didn’t he?”
“Damn straight he wanted me back. Thought I’d throw myself at his feet or something, the jerk.”
“Metzger must be quite a guy if he could end a marriage because of a weight problem.”
“No kidding.”
“And now you just send him rats.”
“Yep. And, of course, I get back at him professionally, out-scooping him on the hot stories whenever I can. Remember the big story about Darwin Tooch in February?” John nodded. “That really chapped Wayne’s ugly hide when I got the story first.”
“Remind me never to break your heart, beautiful. Because I’m not really a rodent person.”
She smiled and snuggled up to him again. “That’s the beauty of our relationship, John. Our hearts are safe.”
Unexpected disappointment welled inside him. He knew their relationship was only temporary and risk-free — that’s what they both wanted. Still, he didn’t like hearing her say it.
He swung her legs off his and stood. “More wine?”
She nodded and he headed to the kitchen. Pouring the wine, he glanced at the ugly rat huddled in the corner of its glass cage, and grimaced. He took the glasses to the living room and set them on the coffee table.
She climbed into his lap and put her arms around his waist. He dipped his head. Their kiss was slow and leisurely, neither of them needing anything more at the moment, both still sated from their recent tryst. When it was over, he nodded his head toward the kitchen. “You’re not going to keep it, are you?”
She shrugged. “If I return him to the pet store, they said he’d likely be snake food. Now as much as I’d like to see big Wayne get the life squeezed out of him and swallowed whole, little Wayne doesn’t deserve such a fate. Even though he’s uglier than sin.” She shrugged again. “I might be stuck with him.”
After finishing the wine, they cuddled together in silence for a while. John’s arm was around her and her head rested on his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to go off on that tangent about my marriage to Wayne,” she said, her voice muffled against his shirt.
“I didn’t mind.”
“But something was troubling you when you got here and then I go babbling on about myself when you obviously needed to talk.” She cocked her head to peer at him. “Bad day?”
He dropped a kiss onto her nose. “Ended that way.” He told her about his visit to Brian’s house. As he spoke and she listened, her gaze intent on his, he thought again how easy it was to talk to her. How pleased he was that she’d shared some of her past with him. And he realized he wanted her to know more about his past, to understand the real John Everest, good things and bad.
Of course, that meant bringing up the accident. With things going so well between them right now, temporary affair or not, he didn’t know he was ready to tell her. Because she wouldn’t be pleased. She’d probably hate him.
She’d hated him when they’d first met, but that was before they’d gotten to know each other. Before they’d become friends.
Before he’d cared.
Chapter 13
It was late afternoon the next day when Sam arrived at John’s. He’d promised to make her dinner. He was a wonderful cook. She, on the other h
and, was no Rachael Ray.
He’d just finished working out when she arrived, fresh from a shower and wearing only blue jeans. He greeted her with a long, leisurely kiss at the front door then invited her in. She smelled something delicious coming from the kitchen. “Mm, what are we having?” she asked as he took her coat. “I’m famished.”
“Chicken cacciatore,” he replied. “It’ll be done in about half an hour.”
He poured her a glass of wine and she sat on a barstool at the counter. The denim of his jeans stretched taut over his firm behind as he squatted to pull vegetables from the refrigerator crisper. His back muscles rippled and contracted with every movement. A delicious little tingle skimmed over Sam’s nerve endings as she remembered how those muscles felt under her exploring hands. She noticed a faint set of bite marks near his shoulder — that would have been from this morning — and his taste came to her. She licked her lips and shifted on the stool. If she wasn’t so starving for food she’d jump him here and now. They could do it on the counter next to the salad spinner.
She grinned. She still couldn’t believe she was having an “affair.” She didn’t have affairs. Since her divorce from Wayne, she’d had a limited number of controlled relationships, none too serious, none too exciting. She’d always kept a certain amount of emotional distance between herself and the man. Enough to keep from being hurt. Far enough away to stay in control. Still, the future had always been in the back of her mind and she’d always ended up disappointed.
But in none of those relationships had she felt so content, so happy as she did with John. She didn’t care if he saw her in the morning with bed hair or morning breath, because she wasn’t trying to impress him. They had no plans to meet the other’s family. They had no plans at all, in fact. Their affair was a one day at a time sort of thing, the only objective to get her pregnant. Amazingly, their relationship wasn’t based solely on sex, like most affairs were. Sure they had sex, but she enjoyed just spending time with him, whatever they did. And she was pretty sure he felt the same way. They’d become friends.
John stood and brought the vegetables to the center island where she sat. As he cut cucumbers and radishes, she watched the way his pecs flexed. She almost sighed her pleasure out loud. “I could stare at your body all day.” She didn’t realize she’d said it aloud until he glanced up from the radishes.
“Feeling’s mutual, beautiful.” He grinned. “Hey, could you hand me my shirt? It’s on the railing behind you.” She grabbed the white T-shirt and tossed it at him, thoroughly enjoying the view as he pulled the shirt over his head, his stomach muscles rippling with the movements. She was in GQ heaven.
He stirred the chicken simmering on the stove. Replacing the lid on the pot, he turned toward her, wiping his hands on a dish towel. “Not much longer, then we can eat.” He came around the island and sat on the barstool next to hers. Grabbing her stool, he dragged it across the tile until she was between his thighs. He nudged her short skirt even higher.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I can’t get enough of you, Sam.” He slipped his hands beneath the skirt and cupped her bottom through her panties. Her breathing sped up. “It’s physically impossible for me to be in the same room with you for more than five minutes without needing to touch you.”
“That long, huh?” she murmured, her voice husky. He leaned closer to kiss her. “John,” she whined against his mouth. “I’m starving.”
“Me, too.” He dipped his head and kissed her neck and shoulder. “Ravenous.” He nibbled on her earlobe.
If she didn’t get some food in her belly soon, she would keel over. She was sure of it. “So, how long have you and Alex known each other?”
“I don’t want to talk right now, beautiful.”
His fingers inched toward no-man’s land so she gathered all her willpower and pushed him away. “John. I’m serious. The buzzer for the chicken is going off any time now, and when it does, I want food.” The disappointed look on his face was endearing. “Just think of all the energy I’ll have after I’ve eaten. They’ll have to pry our naked bodies apart when I’m through with you.” She raised and lowered her eyebrows a few times.
He tugged her skirt back into place. “I’m going to hold you to that promise.” He gave her a hard kiss on the mouth then sat back on his stool. “Do you really want to know about me and Alex, or were you just trying to distract me?”
She popped a cherry tomato into her mouth. “Both.” Juice dribbled down her chin and John swiped it away for her.
He licked the juice from his thumb. “It’s a long story.”
“You have until the buzzer goes off.”
“Would it surprise you to know when I met him, he was about the meanest, toughest son-of-a-bitch you could imagine? He was the leader of a gang—”
“Alex was in a gang?” she interrupted, incredulous. “As in guns, knives, drive-by shootings?” He nodded and she grabbed more vegetables from the salad bowl. “How in the world did you ever meet someone like him?”
“At a boys’ home.”
She stopped chewing. “You mean like jail?”
“Basically, yes.”
“What did you do? Steal your dad’s car and go on a joyride?” She smirked.
His eyes veiled over and he stood to check the chicken. The spoon clanged against the pot and the lid banged as he replaced it. As a reporter, Sam was dying to learn what he’d done to land him in the boys’ equivalent of jail, but as his friend she figured she’d better tread lightly.
“John? If this is a touchy subject, we don’t have to talk about it,” she said gently.
He didn’t respond. She hated it when people wouldn’t talk to her, which was probably why she was so good at her job. She plucked a cherry tomato from the salad bowl and threw it at him. She aimed for his shoulder blades but hit him in the back of the head. Not quite as accurate as she’d been in her Little League days, but close enough. She stifled a giggle with her hands.
He turned around and glanced first at her and then to the floor where the tomato had rolled near the baseboard. He picked it up and tossed it into the sink. When his gaze met hers again, his expression was sheepish. “Guess I deserved that.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He shook his head. He rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “Yeah. I probably should.” He circled the island counter and sat beside her.
He shoved fingers through his hair. “I’ve told you about my scrawny and insecure days?” Sam nodded. “I was basically a punk. Drinking, smoking, shop-lifting, stealing cars, you name it. I was only fourteen but saw no future ahead of me. At least, not a future worth seeing. Well, my life kind of did a three-sixty at that boys’ home. A guy named Hank Hardy was our instructor. Man, he worked us hard, cut us no slack. Alex and I credit him and the weight training for turning our lives around. It was the first time I’d ever had any self-esteem. The first time I saw a future. That’s why Alex and I are working with these inner-city kids. We want to give them the same opportunity before they get into serious trouble.”
He paused, and Sam noticed he hadn’t answered her question about what he’d done to land in the boys’ home. She didn’t know if he was beating around the bush or changing the subject. She stayed silent and waited for him to continue.
She remembered her first impression of him, that he was an arrogant egomaniac who thought of nothing but himself. How wrong she’d been. She reached across the space dividing them and took his hand. “If your intent is to make me see what a nice man you are, then you’re doing a good job.”
“That was the plan.” He chuckled, but it sounded forced, even to his own ears. He pulled his hand away. “But you may not feel that way when I’m done with this story. Christ. This is something I should have told you a long time ago.”
Her brows furrowed. “It can’t be that bad.”
“When you asked me if I’d gotten in trouble for stealing my dad’s car and going on a joyride, you weren�
�t far off the mark. I used to hang with this bad group of guys, and one night we were doing our usual thing of looking for trouble, and we ended up stealing a car.” He paused. “A Mercury.” Another pause. “A blue one.”
Sam watched him with a tolerant expression, as if he were one of those people who routinely peppered his stories with mundane and utterly useless information.
He cleared his throat. “Anyway, on this particular night, we crashed a big party at a deserted airstrip near Bothell.”
She went still. Her gaze didn’t move from his face, but her eyes widened. “One of the guys in my group, Morris — I guess you could call him the leader because he was the oldest — saw a girl he liked and proceeded to get her drunk and slipped a little something extra into her drink.”
“Oh, my God,” she whispered. Her fingers clutched the edge of the barstool so tight her knuckles had turned white.
He pushed onward. “Once she was too out of it to know what was going on, he tossed her into the back of the Mercury. At my feet.” He stopped here, knowing he didn’t need to go any farther. Sam hadn’t budged from her seat, but the distance between them had lengthened considerably.
“Johnny.” Her voice was a fraction above a whisper.
He closed his eyes. “I would’ve helped, but—”
She held up a hand, halting his words midsentence. She opened her mouth to speak just as the buzzer rang, echoing loudly in the deafening silence. They both glanced toward the noise, unmoving. Finally, she nodded toward the stove. “Go.” Her voice was a raspy whisper.
Slowly, he stood and circled the counter. He flipped off the buzzer and the burner, and the house was quiet again. He drew a long, steadying breath. “Sam,” he began on the exhale, turning toward her.
She was gone.
He rested the heels of his palms on the counter’s edge and hung his head. “Dammit.” After another moment like that, he went after her.
The bathroom door was closed and he heard running water. He stood in the middle of his bedroom, clenching and unclenching his fists. He debated whether to knock on the door, or let her have some space. He sat on the edge of his bed to wait.
