“Party line, huh.” Mick looked around. “What the fuck are we doing here?”
“I don’t know.” As a blacked out truck came over the rise, Danny shook his head. “And then there were three.”
Jack parked his Ford behind the Harley and got out. He was in SWAT clothes, the black T-shirt with the crest on the pec and the camo pants accessorized by a couple of forties and a hunting knife holstered around his waist.
“You found it okay,” he said to Mick.
“Yeah.” They clapped palms. “Thanks, man.”
And then the three of them just stood around the coffin, staring at the closed lid that had gathered enough rain so that the water dripped off its sides, tears that should have been shed, but could not fall in any other fashion. In the silence, a bird chirping in a golden-leaved tree was louder than it should . . . God, he could still remember meeting Moose during pledge week. The guy had been determined to out-drink anyone who challenged him, as if he’d recognized that consumption was his sole recommendation for the fraternities. Jack, on the other hand, had been recruited for his game with the females. Danny, they’d wanted as a bouncer. And as for Mick?
The frats been scared of what he might do if they turned him down.
“Someone should say something,” Jack muttered.
“Yeah.” Danny took a deep breath. “Shit.”
That about covers it,” Mick said dryly.
Danny put his hand into the pocket of his pants and took out his Marlboros. After offering and lighting one for the other roommates, he put the mostly full pack and his Bic on the top of the coffin and then he hit the gear switch so that the casket lowered into the earth.
Each of them cast a handful of dirt into the grave.
As it turned out, it was the last cigarette he ever smoked.
And he called Anne as soon as he was back in his truck and alone.
“Hello?” she answered. “Excited for tonight? I know I am.”
He had to hit his wipers as he left the cemetery. “Yes,” he said roughly. “I can’t wait to see you.”
“Are you okay?”
“I am now.” Danny released a long slow exhale. “I just needed to hear your voice. Listen. . . I’m going to wanna talk about Moose.”
There wasn’t even a second of pause, and her voice was strong and steady. “Anytime. You can talk to me about anything at any time.”
Just one more reason to love you, he thought as he drove on through the downpour.
chapter
56
At eight o’clock on the dot, Anne parallel-parked her Subaru on the street and sat back in the driver’s seat. After a minute, she pulled the visor down and checked her face. As a set of headlights flared, she got a good look at herself.
With lipstick on.
Like, proper lipstick. Not a coat of gloss, but real, live L’Oréal stuff that had been applied after she’d used a lip liner.
Putting the visor back up, she felt silly. But it was too late to change, and besides, the one thing she could guarantee about Danny Maguire was that he’d like her in whatever she was wearing. Well, actually, he preferred her naked—but considering they were in public, he would take whatever clothes she’d slapped on as they came.
She opened her door a crack, and then waited for two cars to go by before standing up on the high heels she’d bought at lunch along with the dress she had on.
Across the street, in the glow of the venerable establishment they had agreed to meet at for their date night, Danny turned and saw her.
His smile, open and easy, faded.
And his eyes widened so much, the whites became the size of dinner plates.
Clearing her throat, Anne shut her door and locked her car—and then with each stupid-ass step she took, she made herself promise she would never, ever try to be a girl again. Obviously, her mother’s advice, well intended though it had been, had missed the mark.
Stepping up onto the sidewalk, she shook her head. “Sorry. This was a dumb idea.”
Danny’s eyes went down to the stilettos, up the stockings, over the knees to the fairly short skirt and then the cape that she had swung around herself like she was Lauren frickin’ Bacall.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God . . .” he stuttered.
“I can go change—”
“No! No, don’t change! You’re . . . the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Anne blinked. Once. Twice.
Stop being a girl, she told herself. Be a woman.
Even though it was cold, she separated the cape’s halves and flashed the dress that had been in the window of that shop at the strip mall. The thing was red, and it hugged her waist, and even dipped in between her breasts.
Danny lost the ability to talk again.
As she closed the cape back up, she started to smile. Well, looked like she was going to have to seriously thank her mother. Nancy Janice, it turned out, had skills. Mad skills.
“Your hair,” he breathed. “Can I touch it?”
“Sure.”
Danny’s hand reached up and brushed the blonded streaks. “It’s amazing. Not that it wasn’t amazing before . . .”
“Should we go inside?” she said.
“Oh, yeah, sorry, sure, please. Thank you. What was the question?”
Danny tripped over his feet as he opened the door, and Timeout’s raucous noise spilled out onto the street along with the warmth of its interior. As they entered, heads turned briefly—and then snapped right back.
The conversational din in the bar lowered.
And that was when Danny’s chest puffed out and he put his arm around her, all proud caveman. Then he escorted her through the tables like he had won the lottery, the presidential election, a Nobel Peace Prize, and the Super Bowl at the same time. Especially as they went by the 617’s booth and he nodded at Vic Rizzo.
As they came up to the 499’s table, all the men started to stand up. Duff even took off his baseball hat—and dropped it on his foot.
“Come on, it’s just a little makeup,” Anne said with a smile. “You guys need to get over yourselves.”
Danny helped her take off the cape and pulled out her chair. Then he leaned across the table and grabbed Duff’s lapels. “Your eyes stay at head level. All you guys. I see one dip below the throat, and I’m going to use you as a cue stick.”
Then he kissed her on the mouth and sat next to her, cracking his knuckles.
“Must you,” she drawled.
“Yup. Absolutely.”
And then it was drinks and it was wings, it was stories and it was jokes. It was the family she had worked with and the friends she had grown to love . . . and most of all, it was the big beautiful Irish man sitting beside her, his blue eyes shining.
Overcome with happiness, Anne stared at hm. And when he turned to her as if he wanted to know if she needed something, she put both her hands, the one that was flesh and blood and the one that was a tool, up to his face.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?”
Anne tilted in and kissed him. “I haven’t been to Timeout in a very long time . . .”