“What the hel !” I screeched, grabbing on to Hank’s shoulders as he walked the few steps to the bathroom, carrying me, then he dropped my legs and set me on my feet in the bathroom door.
I tipped my head back and frowned at him. He kept his arm around my waist and was grinning at me.
His hair was damp from a shower and he looked awake, alert and refreshed.
I found this supremely annoying.
“How can you be bright-eyed at this hour? You’ve barely slept,” I asked. I didn’t know what hour it was; al I knew was that it wasn’t a good hour.
He kept grinning.
“Conditioning,” he answered. “Get dressed. I have to get to work but before that we have to walk Shamus, have breakfast and then you have to spend an hour doing whatever-it-is-you-do that, in the end, makes you look no more cute and sexy than you do right now.” I stared at him.
Was he serious?
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“Get dressed, Roxie.”
“I’l have you know that I’ve spent years honing my getting-ready routine to a fine and practiced art and, when I’m done with it, I look far better than I do right now.”
“No you don’t.”
My mouth dropped open.
He wasn’t only serious, he was insane.
I’d been perfecting my high-maintenance toilette since I was twelve years old. My family was always yel ing at me to get out of the bathroom. I never left the house without at least two coats of mascara, a shimmer of blush and one lipstick and one lip gloss just in case I changed my mind sometime during the day as to which was more appropriate for my outfit.
“Yes I do,” I told him. “When I wake up my eyes are al squinty and my face is al blotchy and my hair is always a mess.”
He pul ed me into his body and tilted his head down so his face was an inch from mine. “I see you’re in the mood to argue but I have to get to the station so can we argue while we’re walkin’ the dog?”
Then, before I could answer, he rubbed his nose alongside mine, let me go, turned me around to face the bathroom, put his hand to my ass and gave me a little shove. I whirled around to glare at him and say something smart, or at least say something, but he was already walking away.
Shamus sauntered into the doorway of the bathroom and sat down, tail wagging and his tongue rol ed out.
“Whatever,” I muttered and grabbed my toothbrush.
*
We didn’t argue while walking Shamus. I pouted and practiced my cold shoulder while trying not to think about my life’s spiraling descent through the seven depths of hel . My cold shoulder didn’t work; literal y nor figuratively.
Hank ignored it completely and slung his arm around my neck, making me walk pressed against his side.
I also managed to think of nothing but my downward life spiral through the depths of hel and by the time we made it back to his house, I had waltzed through the fourth depth of hel and was careening headlong into the fifth.
Hank left me to my thoughts and my getting ready routine. While he scrambled eggs and made toast, I showered.
I was standing at his bathroom sink applying blusher, when he brought me coffee and a plate of food. They were good scrambled eggs, with a hint of garlic and some cheese and the toast was toasted perfectly, not too light, not too brown and with a generous coating of real butter and grape jel y.
I found it immensely irritating that Hank was even a good, fucking cook.
I ripped off a chunk of toast angrily with my teeth and chewed while Hank watched me. He was leaning against the bathroom doorway, foot crossed at the ankle, plate in his hand, forking up some eggs.
“What now?” he asked. His eyes were lazy and amused.
“Nothing,” I said with my mouth ful .
“You have jel y on your face,” he told me.
My eyes flew to the mirror.
Shit.
I rubbed it off, put down my toast and took a sip of coffee.
He walked into the bathroom, kissed the side of my head and walked out.
Fucking Hank.
*
We were parked behind Fortnum’s and I had my hand on the door handle when Hank stopped me and turned me to him. “You want to tel me what’s buggin’ you?” he asked.
“No,” I answered.
His eyes smiled but his mouth didn’t.
How he could smile, I did not know. Even if it wasn’t a ful blown smile, to my mind there was nothing to smile about.
“Is this about our conversation last night?” he went on.
“No,” I repeated, this time it was a lie.
It was totally about our conversation last night. I couldn’t get it out of my head, any of it. Last night, he’d made sense.
In fact, everyone made sense, Daisy, Duke, everyone. I wanted to believe, even tried to believe.
In my heart, I couldn’t.
Deep down, I knew I had to protect myself from that time; the time that happens in any relationship, when my judgment was cal ed into question. Then, where would I be?
What would I say? I didn’t have solid moral ground to stand on and Hank was a pil ar of solid moral ground. Any relationship had to have equality. Ours did not. He was clean and good, I was dirty and, if not bad, then at least dubious. Who wanted to be the dubious girlfriend?