COOP GRADUALLY BECAME AWARE of a wet, rough tongue licking his cheek. He opened one eye. His dog, Bear—who was a mutt of undetermined parentage—continued to give his face a bath.
“Knock it off.” Coop groaned and pushed the dog away. Bear didn’t seem offended. He sat, panting happily, smiling his doggy smile.
Coop sat up on the couch, stretching. The muscles in his back made an odd popping noise. When had he gotten so creaky? Lately, it seemed that there was always something aching somewhere on his body. Today’s lower back pain was courtesy of some work he’d done on his boat that morning—the water pump had been on the fritz—before taking it out on the water.
“What time is it?” Coop asked aloud. Since Bear didn’t seem prepared to answer him, Coop glanced at the digital clock on the cable box. 6:07. “Oh, no.”
Coop leapt to his feet, trying to ignore the twinge of protest from his back. He was due at the dinner party at 6:30. Between the morning of work, the day spent out in the sun, and the beer he’d had with lunch, he’d sacked out on the couch when he came back from the marina and had managed to oversleep.
“Why did I ever agree to go to this thing?” he muttered as he headed to the bathroom. The last thing he wanted to do was spend a Saturday night eating dinner at somebody’s house with a bunch of people he didn’t know, save for Will and Fran.
It was all Fran’s fault, he decided. He’d never been able to say no to her. She was a force of nature. They really should ship her off to the Middle East, he thought ruefully. She’d have the Israelis and Palestinians squared away in no time.
Twenty-five minutes later, he was showered, shaved, and dressed in a crisply ironed white shirt tucked into his favorite faded jeans. He stopped at the liquor store down the street from his waterfront condo, purchased two bottles of Taittinger champagne and drove fifteen minutes inland to the address he’d scribbled on the back of a receipt. Mark and Jaime lived in a looming white house with a carefully manicured front lawn and a huge silver Lexus SUV parked ostentatiously in the tile-paved driveway.
Coop sighed. It was going to be a long night.
He climbed out of his white pickup and headed to the front door without bothering to lock the truck. The neighborhood didn’t strike him as a hotbed of crime. He made his way up the walk to the front door—which was flanked with two tall black urns, each containing a leafy palm tree—and rang the bell. A moment later, he heard the clacking of high heels against hard floors and then the door was opened by an attractive woman with a thin, gym-toned body and stick-straight blond hair whom he’d met briefly at the Parrishes’ New Year’s Eve party.
“Hi,” she said. She smiled, displaying professionally bleached teeth, and held out a hand. “It’s nice to see you again. I’m Jaime, by the way.”
“I remember. Nice to see you again.” Coop juggled the champagne bottles so that he could shake her hand, which was thin and cold. Then, he held up the bottles. “These are for you.”
“Thank you,” Jaime said, looking with delight at the bottles. “What a treat.”
“An apology for my lateness,” Coop said.
Jaime shook her head. “No need for apologies. In fact, you beat my husband home. Come on into the living room, everyone’s in there. What can I get you to drink?”
“Do you have whiskey?” Coop asked as he followed Jaime across the foyer. He took advantage of his position to admire the curve of her bottom. If she was logging time at the gym it was definitely paying off, he thought. It was too bad she had a husband. Coop had never been interested in the drama of extramarital entanglements.
“Yes, of course. How would you like it?” Jaime asked. She led him into a large living room tastefully decorated in shades of cream and beige. There was a small knot of people gathered there, including Fran and Will.
“Straight up,” Coop said. “I’m easy like that.”
He grinned again, although out of respect for Jaime’s marital status, he was careful not to use his most dazzling smile, which had on many occasions caused women to tear off their clothes and throw themselves at him.
“Just give me one minute,” Jaime said and headed over to a bar just off the living room.
Fran looked up. “Coop!” she called out and bounded over to him. Her long curly hair was loose around her shoulders and she held a wineglass in one hand. “I was starting to think you’d ditched us!”
“Would I do that?” he asked, kissing her cheek.
“Of course you would,” she said. “You’re thoroughly unreliable, and you know it.”
“Hey, guy,” Will said, slapping his shoulder. “Good to see you.”
“You, too,” Coop said, grinning at his friend.
“Coop, do you remember Leland?” Fran asked, gesturing to an elderly man who was sitting in a cream jacquard arm chair. It was impossible to tell his age. He could be a hard-living seventy-five or a ninety-year-old with excellent genes. Either way, he looked fragile and shrunken, and his face was a web of lines. Still, his eyes were a sharp, bright blue and he seemed alert.
“I would get up, but it would take so long you’d grow bored waiting for me,” Leland said, gesturing to the curved cane resting against the chair.
“Then, I’ll come to you,” Coop said. He stepped forward to shake Leland’s hand. “And please, call me Coop.”
“And this is Audrey, who you also met on New Year’s,” Fran said.
Coop turned. Audrey had glossy dark hair cut into a short angled bob that showed off a long, graceful neck. Her smile reached her brown eyes, causing faint laugh lines to appear at the corners.
Coop pointed at her. “You were on door duty and said I was lucky not to have been named Phoenix,” he said.
“Good memory,” Audrey said. She was wearing very high heels and dark red lipstick, a combination Coop was very much in favor of.
Coop covertly checked for a ring on her fourth finger. There wasn’t one. The evening was looking up, he decided. This time when he smiled, he didn’t hold back—he went for the full dazzling effect. Strangely, Audrey didn’t swoon or throw her bra at him.
“Fran told me you make nature documentaries,” Audrey said. “That sounds fascinating. How did you get started in it?”
“In the most ass backward way possible,” Coop admitted. “When I was fresh out of college, I took a job with a small company down in the Keys that ran boat tours taking tourists out for dives. One day, a production company was looking for some qualified divers to help out with a film they were making about shipwrecks off Key Largo, and they hired me on. I liked the work and managed to talk my way into a permanent spot with the production company.”
“Coop can talk his way into just about anything,” Fran interjected.
“Is that so?” Audrey said, shooting Coop a smile that was encouragingly flirtatious. He accepted the glass of whiskey Jaime handed him.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome. Leland, can I get you a refill?” Jaime asked.
“The answer to that question is always an emphatic yes,” Leland said, holding out his glass. Jaime laughed and took his empty tumbler from him.
“Jaime, do you need any help?” Fran asked.
“There’s a cheese tray and a plate of gougères in the kitchen. Would you mind bringing them out?” Jaime asked.
“Sure thing,” Fran said.
Once they were alone, Coop leaned toward Audrey. “What in the world are gougères?” he murmured.
She smiled. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”
“I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”
“You were saying, about your job—you worked your way up to directing?” Audrey asked.
“Basically.” Coop nodded. “Directing, and now producing, too. We just wrapped filming a piece about the effects of the coastal tide on marine life off the coast of Nova Scotia.”
“Wow. That sounds fascinating,” Audrey said.
“And what do you do?” Coop asked Audrey.
“I own a day spa.”
“Sounds very Zen,” Coop said.
“I hope it’s relaxing for my patrons. But, no, I don’t think the actual running of a business is ever very Zen,” Audrey said.
“Do you have many male clients?” Coop asked, leaning a bit closer toward Audrey so that his arm brushed against hers. She didn’t move away. Another good sign, he thought.
“Absolutely,” Audrey said, nodding enthusiastically. “It’s actually a growth area in the industry that I’m hoping to capitalize on. In fact, quite a few of my regular clients are gay guys.”
Coop blinked, confused by this non sequitur.
Audrey continued. “I’ve introduced a few men to the joys of manicures. They were resistant at first, but now they’re hooked. In fact, one of my clients keeps telling me I should advertise them as our man-icures. Emphasis on the man part.” Audrey tilted her head and scrutinized him. “Actually, you’d really like him. His name is Ron.” Then she smiled and shook her head. “No, never mind, forget I said anything. I’m as bad as Fran.”
“As bad as Fran?” Coop repeated, his brow wrinkling. He had a feeling he was missing something. But before he could ask Audrey what she meant, Will clapped a hand on his shoulder again.
“When are we going to go fishing?” Will asked.
“Haven’t you gotten your own boat yet?” Coop asked. Audrey had turned to talk to Jaime and Leland.
“No way. A wise man once told me that owning a boat was an expensive, time-consuming pain in the ass, and that I’d be much better off finding a friend with a boat and then bribing him to take me out on it,” Will said.
“What wise man?” Coop said.
“Some drunk guy I met in a bar down in the Keys. I think he was about twelve hours into a bender.” Will shrugged. “But the advice was still solid.”
“Would either of you care for a blue cheese gougère?” Fran asked, appearing beside them with a silver tray piled with what looked like cream puffs.
“At long last, a solution to the gougère mystery,” Coop said, helping himself to one. It was a bit like a cream puff in texture, although it was savory, not sweet, and didn’t have a cream-filled middle. “Mmm.”
“I’ll set them down right here next to you,” Fran said.
“I knew there was a reason I liked you,” Coop teased her. Fran grinned at him, and then turned to join the conversation Audrey and Jaime were having about the best place in town to buy seafood.
Coop observed the women for a few moments. Audrey was calm and still, especially standing next to Fran, whose hands moved frenetically while she talked, constantly threatening to spill the contents of her wineglass. Jaime seemed tense. Her fingers played nervously at the diamond charm she wore around her neck on a gold chain, and she kept glancing back over her shoulder, as though looking for someone. The mystery of just who she was looking for was solved when a tall, lean man wearing a Lacoste polo shirt, khaki shorts, and sneakers strode in and said, “Hello, everyone, sorry I’m late.”
“Hi, Mark,” Fran said, as Mark leaned down to kiss her cheek.
“Emily won the tournament,” Mark announced proudly.
“Good for her!” Fran said.
“Way to go, Emily,” Will said, shaking Mark’s hand. “Where is she?”
“I dropped her off at her mom’s house. She wanted to show Libby her trophy. It’s nearly as tall as she is,” Mark said.
Coop noticed that as everyone greeted Mark and repeated words of congratulations about Emily’s big win, Jaime remained silent. And when Mark reached her and tried to slip a hand around her waist, she stepped away, out of his reach. Unfazed, Mark turned to Coop.
“Mark Wexler,” he said, holding out his hand for Coop to shake. “You look familiar.”
“We met at Fran and Will’s house,” Coop said, remembering that Mark had been pretty drunk that night.
“That’s right. Sorry I’m late. My daughter was in a tennis tournament today. I couldn’t bring myself to leave while she was winning,” Mark said.
“I just got here myself,” Coop said.
“And you’ve already got a drink, I see. Good. I could use one of those.” Mark glanced around. “Although I’d better not ask Jaime to get me one. She’d probably dump it over my head. I’m in the doghouse for being late.”
Coop merely raised his eyebrows. Listening to spouses complain about each other had to rate near the top on his list of least favorite conversations. But he was saved from having to hear any further details by Jaime saying, “Now that we’re all here, let’s move into the dining room. The first course is ready.”
There was a stir of activity. Will leaned down to help Leland out of his chair. Those who had empty glasses set them on the bar. Fran continued to talk to Audrey and Jaime, her hands moving constantly, as they turned to head into the dining room, just off the living room. Coop followed closely behind them, still holding his whiskey. He wanted to make sure that he got to the table in time to claim a seat next to Audrey.
AUDREY WAS ENJOYING HERSELF more than she thought she would. She ate the excellent warm goat cheese salad Jaime had made, sipped a very good glass of red wine, and for once she didn’t mind being seated between the only two single men present at dinner. Coop was flirtatious and attentive, obviously the sort of gay man who truly liked women. And Leland was a hoot.
“Everything tastes better when you add bacon,” Leland announced.
“Everything?” Will asked. “That can’t be true. There must be some foods that clash with it.”
“No such thing,” Leland said. “I’ll go so far as to say that you can’t name a food that isn’t improved by bacon.”
Will smiled mischievously. “Care to make a small wager on that?”
“Look out,” Mark said. “Dinner party smack talk.”
“You’re on,” Leland said, pointing a finger at Will. “How much are we betting?”
Will considered this. “I’m in for five dollars,” he said.
“High stakes gambling,” Mark said.
“It’s a deal,” Leland said. “Go ahead. Name something that is not improved by the addition of bacon.” He sat back and waited, while Will thought.
“Beets?” Fran suggested.
“No helping him,” Leland admonished her. “And besides, a roasted beet salad would be delicious with bacon bits.”
“How about cauliflower?” Will said.
“Steamed cauliflower topped with cheese sauce and sprinkled with bacon,” Leland said.
“This isn’t fair,” Will complained. “Whatever food I name, you’ll just announce that it’s improved by bacon. We need an impartial judge.”
“I am a judge,” Leland said. “Or at least, I was a judge.”
“For all we know, you spent your entire tenure on the bench on the take,” Will teased.
A grin split across Leland’s wizened face. “I’ll never tell,” he said.
“I’ll be the judge,” Fran said. “Or am I disqualified because I’m married to one of the players?”
“You are,” Will said. “But only because you’d be biased in Leland’s favor.”
“Have Coop do it, then,” Fran suggested.
Will gave his oldest friend a sideways look. “Coop will probably favor Leland, too.”
Coop held up his hands. “I’m as impartial as they come. Should I take an oath on a package of bacon?”
“That won’t be necessary. You look trustworthy,” Leland said. “Are you stumped, Will?”
“Not a chance. How about chocolate?” Will said.
“I think they actually make chocolate and bacon candy bars. One of Emily’s friends at the tennis club had one. She said it was pretty good,” Mark said.
“Peanut butter,” Will said.
“Mmm, I used to love peanut butter and bacon sandwiches when I was a kid,” Fran said. “I’d have one for breakfast every Saturday morning.”
“If you can’t help me, you can’t help Leland,” Will said.
“Sorry, honey,” Fran said. “But I’m starting to think Leland is right.”
“Spinach,” Will said, sounding less certain.
“That’s easy. I make a wonderful spinach salad with golden raisins and hot bacon dressing. It’s delicious. Although not as delicious as this,” Leland said, raising a courtly fork to Jaime in appreciation for her starter. Jaime smiled her thanks back at him.
“Pizza,” Will said uncertainly. “No forget that. I’ve had bacon on pizza. Crap. I can’t think of anything.”
“Are you admitting defeat?” Leland asked.
“Not a chance, old man,” Will said. “Just give me a minute to think.”
“Should I help him out?” Coop murmured in Audrey’s ear.
She turned to him, smiling broadly. “You’d better not. You may be impeached and stripped of your judgeship.”
“You’re right. I can’t risk losing my power,” Coop said. He leaned closer to Audrey and inhaled.
She leaned back and laughed. “Are you sniffing me?”
“You smell good,” Coop said. “What is that?”
“I don’t know. What are you smelling? My perfume?”
“No, although I like that, too. This is something else. Rosemary?” Coop asked.
“My shampoo has rosemary in it,” Audrey said. “You have a good nose.”
“One of my many talents,” Coop said, touching her arm lightly.
He really is a flirt, Audrey thought. She’d known other gay men who liked to flirt with women. It was funny, though—if Fran hadn’t told her that Coop was gay, Audrey would have assumed he was straight. She could have sworn she was getting an interested vibe off him.
Good God. How pathetic am I? Audrey thought. I’m actually starting to imagine that openly gay men are attracted me. Maybe Fran’s right, maybe it is time I started dating.
“Isn’t that what they call the people who develop perfumes? Aren’t they called noses?” Audrey said.
“Is that right? Maybe I should change careers. It’s probably easier than traveling for two thirds of the year,” Coop said. When he smiled, his gray-blue eyes crinkled up at the corners.
He’s really quite sexy in a rugged sort of way, Audrey thought. His face was interesting, if not handsome, and he was in terrific shape. It was annoying—and so clichéd—that he should be gay. He was easily the most interesting man she’d met in ages.
“But probably not as glamorous,” she said.
“That’s true. Then again, who needs glamour when you have my natural charm and good looks,” Coop said, grinning devilishly.
Audrey laughed. “And so modest, too.”
“I think modesty is overrated,” Coop said.
“And do your boyfriends agree?”
“Milk!” Will said triumphantly. “Bacon-flavored milk would be disgusting. Am I right?”
“You’re right. That is disgusting,” Jaime said. “In fact, it’s something I’d rather not think about when I’m eating my dinner.”
“I would drink bacon-flavored milk,” Leland said stubbornly.
“I don’t know, Leland, I think he might have pulled it off,” Fran said. “Coop? What’s your verdict?”
But Coop was no longer paying attention to the bacon conversation. Instead, he was staring at Audrey. “Boyfriends? Wait. Do you think I’m gay?”
Audrey looked at Fran in alarm. “Wasn’t I supposed to say anything?” She looked back at Coop and laid a hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry. I assumed you were … out.”
Will had just taken a sip of wine, so when he started to laugh, it came out as a hiccup that quickly turned into a cough. Mark pounded him on the back, hard enough to make Will splutter. “Ack. Jesus, Mark, have you been lifting weights?”
“What exactly did you tell her, Will?” Coop asked.
“I feel like I’m missing something,” Audrey said. “Am I missing something?”
“For starters, I’m not gay,” Cooper said dryly.
Will had finally stopped coughing, but now he was laughing so hard, his eyes were watering. Mark, amused at his mirth, grinned. Fran just rolled her eyes.
“You’re not gay?” Audrey asked. She looked from Coop to Fran and then back at Coop again. “Then why did Fran tell me you were?”
“Fran told you that?” It was his turn to look at Fran, his eyebrows arched.
“It was Will’s idea,” Fran said. “Although I’ll admit I may have had a teeny-tiny role in spreading the misinformation.”
“Maybe I should forget the individual filets en croûte and pop some popcorn instead,” Jaime remarked.
Audrey placed her hands on the table in front of her, palms down, fingers spread. “Fran. Why did you tell me that Coop was gay?”
“Yes, Fran, we’d both like an answer to that question,” Coop said.
Fran looked at Will for help, but he was too busy chortling and helping himself to another glass of wine. She sighed, pushed her curls back from her face, and, turning to Audrey, said, “If you’d known there was a single, heterosexual man invited, you’d have assumed I was trying to set you up.”
“What am I, chopped liver?” Leland asked.
“I’m sorry. It was stupid,” Fran said sheepishly. “And, again, it was all Will’s idea.”
“I think it’s hilarious,” Will said, still giggling.
Audrey felt her cheeks flush hot but she didn’t want to throw a hissy fit right in the middle of a dinner party. Revenge would have to wait. Instead, she drew in a deep breath and tried to regain her composure.
“You must have spent most of this evening incredibly confused by my conversation,” Audrey said to Coop.
“It certainly explains why you spent so much time trying to sell me on your man-icures idea,” Coop said. “I thought you were oddly excited about that.”
“Is this the anti–set up? Put two single people together, and then try to make sure they’re not attracted to each other?” Mark asked.
It was Fran’s turn to flush pink. “No, of course not,” she said.
“If so, it didn’t work,” Coop said.
Audrey felt her pulse kick up a notch. Was Coop saying that he was attracted to her?
“No, there was a flaw in Fran’s plan. She should have told you something that would turn you off Audrey,” Mark said.
“Like telling you that I’m gay, too,” Audrey said.
All of the men at the table—with the exception of Leland, who was listening to the conversation with a puzzled expression—exchanged raised-eyebrow looks.
“Oh, please. That would just have made him that much more interested,” Fran said.
“Why are men so intrigued by lesbianism?” Jaime asked.
“Oh, we’re talking about lesbians now?” Leland asked with interest. “I’ve never fully understood how that works.”
“Well,” Will said, leaning forward, clearly about to hold forth on the subject. But Fran whacked him on the shoulder before he could continue.
“Don’t start,” she warned him.
“No, what Fran should have told Coop is that Audrey is one of those incredibly needy women who insist that her boyfriend check in with her four to five times a day,” Mark said, twirling his wineglass in one hand.
“Every man’s biggest fear, right after Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction,” Jaime said, rolling her eyes. She stood and began clearing the salad plates.
“No, it’s really one and the same. The bunny-boiling is just clinginess taken to the extreme,” Mark said.
Audrey noted that Mark wasn’t making any move toward helping his wife clear the dishes. It also hadn’t escaped her attention that he hadn’t managed to make it home before his dinner guests arrived. Which meant, of course, that Jaime had done all of the work. And the dinner party had clearly been a lot of work—everything from the table settings to the food to the wine had been just so.
What a jerk, she thought. Occasionally, Audrey wondered if it had been a mistake to swear off ever marrying again. Then she saw how some of her friends’ husbands behaved, and it just reinforced the wisdom of her decision.
She stood and began collecting dishes. Jaime flapped a hand at her and said, “It’s okay, I’ve got this.”
Audrey smiled at her. “No, let me help. I just spent the last hour trying to set up Coop with a handsome architect who has a standing weekly appointment for a massage. I need to take a few minutes to regain my composure.”
“And here I thought you were trying to talk me into hiring that guy,” Coop said. “Which was really confusing because I rent my condo.”
Everyone laughed, and then Will said, “Leland, you owe me a fiver.” He held out a hand. “Bacon-flavored milk.”
“I don’t think we’ve had an official ruling on that,” Leland said.
As the conversation swung back to its previous bacon theme, Audrey followed Jaime into the kitchen, dishware balanced in her hands.
“Wow, it’s gorgeous in here,” Audrey said, glancing around admiringly at the soaring glass-fronted cupboards and professional-grade appliances. “Like something out of a magazine.”
“Thanks,” Jaime said with obvious pleasure. “I’m really happy with how the remodel came out. It’s exactly what I wanted.”
Audrey wondered if, for Jaime, the nice kitchen made up for the less-than-helpful husband. It wouldn’t be a trade-off she’d willingly make, but, then, other people’s marriages and how they worked were always hard to figure out.
“What can I do to help?” Audrey asked.
“Nothing at the moment. But it would be great if you could help me carry the plates out,” Jaime said. She leaned over to open the oven door, and, using a red silicone oven mitt, pulled out a pan of perfectly browned individual filets en croûte. The puff pastry exteriors were decorated with tiny pastry leaves. Audrey wondered how long it had taken Jaime to assemble such a complicated entrée, and how she’d managed it with two toddlers running around.
“Where are your kids?” Audrey asked, leaning back on the kitchen counter.
“They’re in the playroom with Iris,” Jaime said. “Fran dropped her off earlier this afternoon so she could help me out. She’s been a lifesaver.”
“Does Iris babysit for you often?”
Jaime nodded. “Yes, she’s great with the kids. And I think Fran likes it that babysitting keeps Iris from going out with her friends. Speaking of Fran … just how angry are you?”
“Do I seem mad?”
“Actually, no,” Jaime said. She spread spiky stalks of asparagus on a rimmed pan, doused them with olive oil, and then slid the pan under the broiler.
“Good. Then I’m hiding it well. I have every intention of killing Fran. I just didn’t want to ruin your dinner party with bloodshed,” Audrey said.
“I appreciate that,” Jaime said. “And I hope I can show similar restraint.”
“Is everything okay?” Audrey asked tentatively. She and Jaime had known each other for a few years through Fran, but they had never been confidantes.
Jaime smiled mechanically, masking whatever anger she might have been feeling. “Yes, fine, I was just kidding. I think everything’s about ready. Can you hand me that stack of plates there? And could you open another bottle of wine?”
“Here you go,” Audrey said, handing the plates to Jaime before turning her attention to the wine. Jaime obviously didn’t want to talk about whatever was going on with Mark, and Audrey had no intention of pressing the issue. She respected a person’s right to keep her troubles private.