“Jesse,” Peter said softly. He reached out to catch her fingers, then he caressed the backs of both her hands with his thumbs. “You're kind of spazzing out.” He looked her right in the eyes and took a deep breath.
She took one, too. And then another. God, his touch was making her feel soft and fizzy all over.
“Jesse?”
“Yeah?”
“My apartment is four blocks away. Do you want to come over?”
“Let's keep walking,” she decided, then smiled. “For four more blocks.”
The first thing she noticed when they walked through his front door was the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows along the back wall of the living room. “Wow ...” Drawn by the city lights, she drifted over.
Peter stood by the couch, his eyes darting around the room. Had she just seen him shove something into a drawer?
“Lose something?” she asked.
“What? No. I just … I think my apartment might seem like a real mess.”
Jesse shrugged. “I don't care.” And the smile she gave him reached all the way to her eyes. She walked toward him.
“Jesse,” he said, walking toward her.
“Mmm?”
Then he slipped his hand along the side of her neck and into her hair and that was it. As she stretched up to kiss him, he snaked his arms around her. His lips on hers were soft and hungry as he pulled her into him with a groan. They toppled onto the couch, but Jesse didn't miss a beat when he landed on top of her. Her legs twined around him as she arched into him.
“Oh, Jess,” he murmured, kissing her ears, her throat, her lips again.
THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP!
They sprang apart, each looking at the front door.
THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP! “Get out here, 5A! Your damn Audi is in my spot again!”
Peter looked at Jesse. “The parking garage. I fucked it up again.” He kissed her on the nose. “Wait here. Please.” With the lightness of a vanilla wafer, he was off her and headed across the room toward the door. He grabbed his keys off the entry hall table as he went.
“Sorry,” he said to the man as he opened the door. “I'll be right back,” he called back to Jesse. “Gotta move my car.”
When the door shut behind Peter, Jesse let out a long breath. Her entire body was humming. And she was sinking. Actually sinking. Actually sinking!
Jesse flailed. They'd managed to push the cushions almost right off the couch, and she was getting sucked into the back of the sofa. As ungainly as Bambi, she managed to extricate herself from the cushions and stand. She was pushing the bottom cushion back into place when she noticed something smushed deep in the couch. She picked up the lightweight, stretchy black material. She held it up in front of her. Tights? Were these tights, for Christ's sake? A pair of woman's tights in his couch?
What kind of woman went home without her tights? Jesse felt her stomach drop. Unless this was the woman's home. Her mouth went dry. What had she walked into? Was Peter fooling around while the cat was away? Was he turning her—Jesse Rufino— into a scarlet woman? Good God! Jesse wasn't about to be anybody's Miss Scarlet!
Wait. Maybe this was nothing. So Peter had hooked up with some other woman on this couch. She could be so out of his life by now. The tights didn't mean that a woman actually lived in the apartment. With Peter.
Jesse swallowed. Jesus. This Peter guy was starting to feel like more than a one-night romp. But Jesse wasn't about to let herself fall for some two-timer. She had to know. And if there were another woman, there would be signs, right? Jesse honed in on a closet in the entrance hallway. She walked cautiously to it and opened it. Then she quickly slammed the door. Holy shit. Had she seen—had she seen ballet slippers in there? And—and—spangles?
Jesse rushed to the drawer she'd caught Peter closing. Inside she found a crumpled poster for … Don Quixote? There was an X drawn viciously across a lithe ballerina. She had glossy raven hair coiled back from an arresting face.
Peter was living with a prima donna ballerina? Jesse looked at the dates of the ballet's tour. The breathtaking woman was off dancing in Europe.
Jesse backed up until she slumped onto the couch. It was really true. He was living with some diva ballerina. Jesse was the other woman.
She was trying to remember how to breathe when the apartment door opened and Peter walked in. Jesse jumped up from the couch. The man was a cheater. An adulterous boyfriend … or husband?!
“Jesse?” Peter stepped cautiously toward her then stopped.
Jesse stared at him. He still looked like the same nice guy with endlessly kind eyes. “Ah ...” she began.
Peter sighed as the light seemed to go out of him. “I … I get it,” he said. “You want to slow down. You barely know me … and things were getting pretty intense.”
Wait—did he want to slow down? Was he thinking twice about messing around?
“It's just,” Jesse began. “I just—”
Bzzzt. Bzzzt.
Jesse slapped her hand onto her vibrating pocket then pulled out her cell phone. She read the text. It was work. She had to go. She had to go. But she needed answers! But did she want answers?
“I have to go,” she said. “Sorry. It's—” No. No way was she baring her dirty secret when there was so much she didn't know about him. “I have to go.”
“What? Wait. Let's—”
Jesse looked at him. “I have to go.” She walked quickly toward the door, stopping at the entry hall table where she spotted a pen and pad. She quickly scribbled something down. She turned to him. “That's my friend Celia's number. If … if you decide that I'm the one you want to be with, call her, and I'll be in touch.”
Jesse registered the confusion on his face just before she bolted out the door.
What the hell just happened? Peter stood in his apartment, still able to smell a hint of Jesse's perfume. Who just texted her and had her racing off like the getaway driver?
Oh, God. Was she married?
Peter sank onto the couch. Had she gotten a text from her husband while he was down in the garage? Was that why she'd looked so shell-shocked when he'd come back? Then another text, wondering where she was? Had this just been a wild night out for her? And those furry cuffs! She must have taken off her wedding ring for one night, but she couldn't get rid of the ring dent in her finger. So, she'd worn the furry cuffs to distract anyone from looking for a ring dent. Good Lord! She knew to hide her ring dent! And then she hadn't even given him her number—she'd just jotted down her friend's phone number and taken off.
Peter's head jerked up. She took off. Jesse was headed back to her car blocks away through downtown after midnight. Cheating wife or not, she wasn't safe walking by herself.
Peter raced down the stairwell, taking the steps three at a time. When he burst out the front door, he saw Jesse halfway up the block. He ran to catch up. “Jesse!”
She swung around, her eyes huge and her lips parted. “Yeah?”
Peter pulled up short. He didn't want to give her any false hope of a quick bang before she headed home. He really didn't. He wasn't a home wrecker. He looked into her big, bright eyes and told himself, I'm not a home wrecker. I am really not a home wrecker.
“I can't let you walk by yourself.”
“Oh,” she said, a ghost of a smile fading. Then her eyes grew wide and panicky.“No!” She started to back away from him. “No, you stay here. I'll be fine.”
“The streets aren't exactly safe, Jesse.”
“Please, just go away.”
Peter watched her charge up the steep hill of Beaudry as if a pack of demons were chasing her. What the hell? Why didn't she want him to see her to her car?
“No.” Peter felt his world tilt. She had completely freaked less than an hour ago when he'd suggested they go to her car. She wasn't just married. She had kids. She didn't want him to see her car because it probably had a car seat in it, or some other kid stuff, like … like drink boxes or stuffed animals. Or one of those bumper s
tickers bragging about her kid's being a 3rd grade super-genius or something. Peter ran his hands through his hair. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. He did not seduce a PTA mom. He had not actually committed the cardinal sin of defiling Mrs. Brady. But he couldn't be responsible for getting her attacked or killed, either. His gut roiling and his head spinning, he took off after her.
On the next block, he called out to her. “Jesse, wait.”
She put her head down and stormed off at an even more furious pace.
“Jesse!” Peter ran past her and turned around right in front of her so they were face to face. “Look, I get it. You need to go home. I. GET. IT. I just want to make sure you get to your car safely. That's all.”
“That's not all,” she said, her voice sounding strained and raw. She looked up at him and blinked rapidly a few times. “That's not all,” she said again. “And you know it.”
“Jesse,” he said softly, taking a step closer.
She took a step back.
“Jesse, please. Can't we just—”
“Look,” she said, taking another step back. “I could really like you. Really like you. But I do not want to get involved in your—your—your clusterfuck!”
“My clusterfuck? It's not that bad. And what do you even know about it? Were you talking to Marcia?”
“Marcia?” Jesse hissed. “Is that her name?”
“Yes, that's her name. You met her.”
“What? Are you insane? I never met her! I would never do anything like this on purpose.”
“Do anything like what?” Peter almost shouted.
“Go home with a … a ...”
“A what? What the hell did Marcia tell you?”
“Marcia didn't tell me anything!” Jesse cried. “I don't even know her, thank God!”
“What do you mean, you don't know her? You just met her at the party! You called her a winged monkey!”
“What?” Jesse gave her head a little shake as if she were a horse bothered by a fly. “You mean your sister the doctor? She's named Marcia, too?”
“Marcia II?” Peter echoed. “No, she's just Marcia. Our mom's name isn't Marcia.”
“Your mom? What does she have to do with any of this?”
“She doesn't have anything to do with this!”
“Then why are we even talking about your mom?”
Peter huffed in frustration. “I have no idea.”
Jesse took a deep breath. “Stop. You're trying to distract me. Just let me go.”
“Fine,” he barked. “It's after midnight, time to turn back into a soccer mom.”
Jesse's hands flew to her hair. “How dare you call me a soccer mom! Just because I didn't put out? And my hair's not long and glossy and ravishing?”
“What?”
“That is so unfair! If you thought I was so average why did you act like you wanted me in the first place? Did you think I would just be an easy conquest and even easier to forget? Ooooh!” Jesse spun away from him.
“Jesse!” Peter pulled on her elbow to stop her. “I'm sorry. I never thought you were easy. Or average. Never.”
Jesse kept her jaw clenched. “You called me a soccer mom!”
“Aren't soccer moms supposed to be hot? And anyway, what else could I say? I didn't think I should call you a MILF right to your face.”
“A milf! What the hell is that? No, I don't want to know! I can't take any more of your insults on top of everything else!” She turned and surged away from him with the speed of a motorboat.
As Peter lunged out to stop her, he felt someone jerk him back by the shoulder. “Ow!”
“Hey!” A deep voice boomed from behind … and slightly above him.
Peter swung around to find a monstrously built bald man in Cupid wings staring him down. Then it spoke. “I think you should leave the lady alone.”
“What?” Peter said, shaking him off. “Let go of me. I'm just making sure she gets to her car all right.”
Uber Cupid looked past Peter. “Well, it looks like mission accomplished. So why don't you beat it.”
Peter turned around just in time to see Jesse stepping into a large vehicle down at the other end of the block. She wasted no time peeling out from her spot at the curb and speeding away.
What was that she was driving? A Humvee? A minivan? “Jesus,” he rasped. “How many kids does she have?”
“Jesse? Didn't you like it?”
Jesse squinted as she walked out of the dark theatre and into the afternoon sun of the lobby. “Hm? Like what?”
Celia waved a hand in front of her face. “Are you even in there? Were you even watching?”
“Yeah. A guy who works in Barbra Streisand's basement. It was really good, really funny. I liked the part about James Brolin. He's on Castle, sometimes.”
Celia sighed. “Why do I waste my money on you?”
“It's dollar day.”
“It's the principle. Come on, Jesse. It's been two weeks. You've got to snap out of it.”
“Are you sure he never called?”
“No call, no message, no missed calls from strange or unknown numbers.”
Jesse sank down on a cushioned bench along the wall. “Why do I even care? He called me a soccer mom.”
Celia flopped down next to her. “Really? Your look isn't together enough to be a soccer mom. Look at your hair.”
“Maybe that's what a milf is—someone who doesn't style their hair.”
“A milf?”
“He called me a milf. What's a milf?”
“I don't know. Something from Lord of the Rings, maybe? Like a goblin or something?”
“Great.” Jesse stood up and stretched.
“I like that dress,” Celia said. “It's pretty flirty for you.”
Jesse looked down at herself. “Good thing we go to the theatre on dollar days. Or I'd have no place to wear it.”
“Not true,” Celia said, standing so they stood face to face. “You know where he lives. Just go there and ask him to explain.”
“What if she's there?”
“What if there is no she?”
Jesse shook her head, pushing past Celia. And then she stopped as if iced to the spot. She stared at a framed advertisement for Swan Lake. The guy on the poster … the prince … the spangles!
“What's up?” Celia asked, coming to stand next to Jesse.
But Jesse could hardly speak. She pointed feebly at the ballet pictured in front of her. “That guy … the prince ...” Jesse's eyes scanned down the poster. Peter Tavock. She gasped, as if someone had just run a nail file through her diaphragm. “Celia,” she rasped, “he doesn't live with a ballet dancer. He IS a ballet dancer.”
Celia looked at the poster. “It's playing here, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Right across the plaza, Jess.”
Jesse's breath hitched.
“Jess, there's a matinee this afternoon.”
Jesse's heart fluttered madly into her throat. The tights … his tights. What the hell had she done?
“Go, Jess. I've got my car.”
Jesse looked at her.
“Go!”
Jesse turned on her heel and raced across the flagstones to the theatre on the other side of the complex.When she burst through the lobby doors of the Dorothy Chandler, a few lingering theatergoers looked up. But Jesse didn't notice. Her eyes honed in on a scruffy usher standing by a door to the auditorium. She ran up to him. “When did Swan Lake let out?”
“About fifteen minutes ago, ma'am.”
“So the dancers are still here?”
“Uh, ma'am ...”
Jesse dug into her purse, pulled out a card, and quickly scrawled something on the back of it. “Look, can you get this to Peter Tavock? He's, like, the head guy dancer. A prince, right? It's really important.”
“Uh, ma'am—”
Jesse dove back into her small purse and came up with some twenties. “Here's a hundred dollars. Please. This is really super important.”
The young man took the
money and the card. “Okay,” he said. “I think I can get a sound guy to talk to one of the makeup people.”
Jesse unzipped the inside pocket of her purse and found the weekend's bankroll. She peeled off some more twenties and thrust them at the kid. “Do what you can. Pay who you have to.”
Snatching the bills, he disappeared through the door to the auditorium.
Peter sat in nothing but a towel, barely looking at his reflection as he wiped off his make-up. He scarcely noticed two fingers sliding a card across the dressing table in front of him.
“Sorry!” Tammy pulled away quickly, as if she were afraid he'd bite her.
And no wonder. He'd been a snarling bear for the past two weeks. “What's this?” He asked as if he were curious, deciding to give the kid a break.
“Oh, sorry. Some woman paid us all, like, over a hundred dollars to give this to you.”
Peter picked up the card. After Hours Plumbing: no extra $$$ because your AFTER hours are our REGULAR hours. Jesse Rufino.
Peter's hand started shaking. He turned the card over and saw the message on the back. I'm in the lobby. I want to explain.
Peter shot bolt upright, sending his chair and the towel around his waist flying across the room.
“Ah!” Tammy screamed.
Peter looked around wildly then stilled when he saw Tammy cowering by the closet. “Tammy, hey, can you help me find my pants?” Thirty seconds later, when he was dressed, he hugged her hard before flying out of the room.
Jesse swallowed. She wandered stiffly over to the windows that looked out to the fountain. What had she just done? Peter wasn't a cheater. He was a ballet dancer performing at the The Music Center. And now that she knew that ...
But what about him? All he knew was that on Valentine's night she got cold feet for no reason, then got a text and took off.
What if she was just a one-night stand that hadn't worked out for him? And here she was, showing up like a whirling dervish, heart on a platter.
Jesse felt cold sweat break out all over her skin. What if that usher kid hadn't even gone to get Peter? What if he went to report her for trying to entice a minor or something? Maybe she should get the hell out while she could.
All Summer on a Date: Three Romantic Comedy Short Stories Page 5
