With one sex-patrol glance back at her, he carefully got out of the SUV, sliding down the seat until he hit pavement.
He shut the door, leaving Breisi and Dawn alone. Genuine worry lingered in her coworker’s gaze, and Dawn couldn’t find it in herself to battle against that. It was kinda nice to be cared about sometimes.
“Don’t get all fretful,” Dawn said. “I’m defense-ready, just in case he turns out to be the mean man you think he is.”
“You’ve got free will, but…If you insist on seeing him, would you refuse to have a Friend accompany you?”
“Breisi.”
“Dawn.”
Stalemate. Realistically, Dawn saw the sense in bringing extra protection; part of the reason she found Matt so attractive was his dark mystique. The other part of it was because, out of everyone else in her life right now, he really did make her feel that normalcy was not just an abstract word someone had stuck in the dictionary. In spite of all his possible closet activities, he was a genuine guy. Hollyweird didn’t have many of those. She sure as hell didn’t know any.
And, anyway, he did know something about Jessica Reese; he’d let on as much the last time she’d seen him. Why not subtly grill him about it in person?
Breisi traced her car key over the steering wheel. “I don’t feel right about leaving you alone with anyone right now. We should all be sticking together.”
It occurred to Dawn that maybe Breisi thought she owed it to Frank to watch over his daughter. Unable to help it, she smiled at the other woman, touching her arm briefly before taking her hand away again. Breisi merely nodded once, as if most everything was out in the open now. Right.
“I’ll tell you what.” Dawn felt like a kid bargaining for the car on a Friday night. “What if one of our Friends hangs around outside while I go to Matt’s. I won’t even stay long, just enough to get some information if he’s willing to give it. No guts, no find-out-about-the-Underground, right?”
And maybe she could also get some of what Breisi used to get from Frank: smoothies, quiet nights, understanding from another person in their business. Daisies. God knows she needed that anchor tonight of all nights—and not the kind The Voice provided. No, she needed another human. A hu-man.
Breisi seemed to come to a conclusion. She glared at the door leading to the house, as if communing with it—or their boss. “I really don’t like this. Not at all.”
“But you’ll arrange some Friend protection?”
She clipped out a nod, then got out of the car. “Just be careful. Stay aware of everything.”
Finally, Dawn was able to breathe. “I will. And, Breez?”
She paused in closing the door.
Dawn offered a thankful grin, not finding it necessary to say anything else.
Because there was too damned much to say.
A N hour later, she was relaxing on Matt’s futon, a glass of water in one hand, TV remote in the other. She was surfing channels while Matt microwaved popcorn in his kitchen, which was connected to the family room by a wall with a window cut out of it.
Weird, weird, weird, she kept thinking. The two of them had never hung out like this, person to person. She couldn’t get over it.
He lived in a real “regular guy” place that had been in his family for years and years—a cottage on Beachwood Drive. Palm trees and bird-of-paradise plants shaded his windows. White paint shimmered off the planks of the building’s facade, creating a serene, happy-in-a-pretty-expensive-neighborhood look. Inside, he’d decorated in alpha-male style: a studio lamp aimed toward the ceiling. A basketball backboard, complete with a net, propped against a bolted door, as if waiting to be relocated to a permanent outside home. An entertainment system much like Kiko’s, except where her temporary roommate was neat, Matt was not. He had the components sitting on boxy steel structures, the wires nevertheless wrapped in bundles. No pictures, no frills. Very Matt.
“Find anything good on the tube?” he asked as he carried out the popcorn in a large plastic bowl.
At his approach, she’d stopped on a random channel, too compelled by him to notice what was on TV anymore. He’d showered recently; his brown hair was still damp. She imagined he would smell so good: soapy and male, tinged with a little bit of the spice she’d detected when he got close.
And when he sat next to her, it was true. She breathed him in, dizzy. It was almost enough to dismiss the niggling feeling in the pit of her stomach.
The woman she’d hurt tonight…
But that’s partly why she’d come here: to forget. So she was going to do it.
He offered her popcorn, then sat on the couch, not minding the smell of garlic on her skin—he never did—and reached for the remote with his other hand, stealing it from her.
He caught her smiling at him, but continued to surf until he landed on an entertainment channel.
“What?” he asked.