One of his hands went to my jaw and his thumb came out to run along my lower lip. “Al the time you want,” he said softly, not answering my question.
The velvet shroud came around us again and I leaned into him.
“Am I going to be beating up al your ex-lovers?” I asked.
“No. Just Jackie, she’s a bitch.”
I didn’t want to ask. I knew I shouldn’t ask. But I asked.
“What were you thinking, being with her?”
“She’s not a bitch to me,” he replied.
True enough. It was pretty clear she real y liked Vance.
Then for some reason, do not ask me why, I threw myself in the deep end. “Was she good?”
“No,” he replied immediately.
This time I sagged into him, glad I hadn’t sunk to the bottom of the pool like a rock.
“You’re not just saying that?” I asked.
He shook his head.
My hands came up and I started to play with the edges of his leather jacket. “When do you have to get to your job?”
“Gonna see to my other job first,” he told me.
“What other job?”
His white teeth flashed. “The job of fuckin’ you.” He was teasing me.
I stopped playing with his jacket. “This isn’t real y funny,” I snapped.
“It’s hilarious. That, particularly, was my favorite part.”
“I’m so glad you enjoyed it,” I said, sounding snotty.
He touched his lips to mine. “Let’s get you home.” Whatever.
He let me go and got on the bike. I got on behind him.
He leaned back, grabbed my wrists and wrapped my arms tight around him.
I put my chin to his shoulder and we took off.
*
Sometime in the dead of night, I didn’t feel the bed move when Vance got in it but I did wake when his warmth hit me from shoulders to heels. “Hey,” I mumbled.
“Hey,” he replied softly, “go back to sleep.” I felt Boo walking up the bed and then heard him slip off the side to the platform with an I-meant-to-do-that meow.
“It was Nick,” I told Vance, stil half-asleep.
“Sorry?”
“Nick made me cry. He approves of you, like, a lot.” Vance’s arm tightened around me and drew me deeper into his body.
“Go back to sleep, Jules,” Vance whispered into my hair.
“Okay.”
I snuggled in and then fel asleep.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Shrink-Wrapped
The next morning I woke up before Vance and I tried my new skil of waking him with a kiss. This time I decided to put my lips on other parts of his anatomy.
I was left in little doubt that he appreciated my creativity.
We were showered, dressed and in the kitchen eating bowls of Cream of Wheat that I prepared because you could cook Cream of Wheat in the microwave. Vance was sitting on the kitchen counter. I was standing with a hip leaned partial y into the counter, partial y into Vance’s knee.
Boo was sitting in front of us, tail sweeping the floor in a wide arc, staring at our bowls with greedy eyes.
“What’s on for your day?” Vance asked.
I looked up at him and gulped down a bite of Cream of Wheat. “Shelter. Then I should go talk to Heavy, Frank and Zip, tel them the party’s over.”
“Good idea.”
I had one more thing on my agenda that was waiting for my period to come. Vance and I were moving fast but not fast enough for me to share that.
Instead I said, somewhat wistful y, “I’m gonna miss the street.”
“You left it in good hands.” Vance’s lips weren’t smiling but his eyes were.
“How’s that?” I asked.
“Jack told me a dealer’s entire car was shrink-wrapped the other night.”
I felt my eyes widen. “What?”
“Tex shrink-wrapped a dealer’s BMW. Wrapped the whole thing in plastic wrap and then used a portable blow drier on it to tighten the plastic. Word has it, it was several layers deep.”
I was thankful I didn’t have a mouthful of Cream of Wheat or it would have come out my nose, I laughed so hard.
“Tex is a nut,” I said when I was done laughing.
“Tex is a nut,” Vance agreed.
“What’s on for your day?” I asked.
“Never know where the day’l take me,” he replied.
I sighed and leaned into his knee. “That’d be nice.” I took another bite of Cream of Wheat.
“Jules?”
“What?” I asked with my mouth ful (Auntie Reba would have had a conniption). Then I swal owed.
“Wherever it takes me, good to know in the end, it’l lead back to you.”
Luckily I had swal owed because my mouth dropped open.
Vance watched me a beat and said, “If you fuckin’ freak out, I’m cuffin’ you to the bed.”
My mouth snapped shut. “Indy says that doesn’t work,” I informed him snottily.
He watched me another beat again openly surprised by what I shared. Then he laughed.
“That’s more than I needed to know about Lee’s relationship with Indy,” Vance said through his laughter.
Then a thought hit me. “Don’t tel anyone I told you that,” I demanded.
He grinned at me. “Why not?”
“Because it’s nobody’s business.”
“Indy told you.”
“Yes but she probably didn’t expect me to blab it to you.”
“Women talk.”