He gave her a squeeze, a touch of the lips, then he let her go, opening the door and moving through.
He looked back as he did to see her standing in it, watching him go, the curls that were a mess at the nape of her neck were now still a mess at the nape of her neck with a bunch of them falling down her shoulders and chest.
She looked magnificent.
It was all her.
And what he gave to her.
Real and amazingly unreal.
Theirs.
For a really good night, a damned fine memory with not even a hint of shit attached.
“Lock,’ he ordered.
“I know,” she said, the words trembling with humor. “Yeesh. You can take the smokey out of his late seventies cop car and slap him in a late nineties Bronco, but you can’t take the smokey outta the smokey.”
He didn’t think how her commentary oddly, but awesomely, fit with hints of what was happening in his life at that time.
He just shot her a grin, lifted his hand in a low wave, and walked to his truck, hearing her door close and the lock go.
He was in his truck, starting it up, when he saw her kitchen light go out.
He reversed from her drive and scanned the streets both ways to see if the Mercedes that was in the Dew’s parking lot was anywhere to be seen.
He drove away, rounded the block three blocks down and drove back, riding down her street, still scanning for the car.
When he saw it wasn’t there, he headed home to his apartment and his kids.
He had no idea what it meant, all that had gone down with Greta and him that night.
He just knew he felt a whole lot better driving away from her this time than he had the week before.
And most of that had to do with the fact he knew he’d left her feeling a whole lot better too.
But part of it had to do with the fact that he felt good. Plain, straight-up good for the first time in a really long time.
And he had Greta to thank for that too.
Not Yet
Greta
LATE THE NEXT morning on my way to Sunnydown, my dashboard told me I had a phone call.
I took it and didn’t even get out a “Hey,” before Lou said, “One-time thing?”
I grinned at my windshield.
“I take it that means Glossop’s gossip mill is running a lot quicker than last week,” I noted.
“I told you!” she hooted.
I shook my head, still grinning but also saying, “Don’t get excited. He likes to listen to me sing. And he’s a good guy. Funny. Sweet. We enjoy each other’s company. We enjoy other things about each other too. And that’s all there is. It’s not going anywhere unless it goes somewhere, and I’m not expecting it to do that. I just like spending time with him and dig the fact he likes the same from me. That’s where we are. That’s it. So don’t go planning any bachelorette parties.”
“Girlfriend, I hear you. I don’t believe you because my guess is, even if Hixon Drake doesn’t think he’s doing something with a purpose, he doesn’t do dick without a purpose. But whatever. I hear you. You gotta live in that place in your head, you just do. And I’ll make you wear a T-shirt at the salon that says ‘She told me so’ with an arrow pointing to my chair when that time comes.”
If that time came, I’d gladly wear that shirt.
I just wasn’t going to hold out for that time.
If Hixon Drake wanted to be friends and that friendship turned out it came with benefits, I was not going to say no. He was easy to be around. I felt like crowing at the top of my lungs any time I made him burst out into that gorgeous, deep laughter. He was spectacular in bed.
And he looked out for me, me, not a citizen of McCook County, but me.
So no.
Hell no.
I wasn’t going to say no.
“And just to say,” Lou’s voice kept filling the car. “If this keeps going and next month you find the homecoming king and queen shoved right off their float with the ladies of Glossop slapping crowns on yours and Hix’s heads and installing you on those thrones, don’t be surprised.”
“I’m sure that warning should bother me, but I’m not in the mood to care,” I replied.
“I bet you aren’t,” she chortled. “Now give your girl something. On a scale of one to ten, how good is Hixon Drake in bed?”
Seven thousand, one hundred and twenty-two.
The lift-me-up-and-plant-me-on-his-cock thing?
Forget about it.
“That’s for me to know and you never to find out,” I answered.
“You suck.”
I started laughing.
Lou kept talking.
“Though if he sucked, at the good stuff that is, I figure you wouldn’t allow there be a take two and convince yourself you guys are taking it slow. You’d find your sweet way to say sayonara.”
“We’re not taking it slow, Lou. There’s nothing to take slow. We’re just friends.”
“Friends who do the nasty.”
I laughed again. “Yeah, that kind of friends.”
“You got that hair, those eyes, those teeth, that rack and that ass, so I already hate you. Now you’re friends with Hixon Drake, I’m not sure I can stand to look at you.”
Please.
She was tall, willowy and had a body that bore no testimony to the fact she’d had two kids.
She also had a face free of lines even though she was forty-four years old, had had her fair share of life stressors and then some. Not to mention she had that pixie look with the bow-shaped lips á la Janine Turner circa the Northern Exposure years, except her short hair had thick bangs that brushed her lashes.
She was gorgeous.
I didn’t tell her that because she knew that’s what I thought since I’d already told her that ad nauseam.
“You’ll get over it by tomorrow,” I told her.
“I’ll try,” she replied then asked, “You headed to Andy?”
“Yeah.”
“Give him a hug from me and the girls.”
Andy loved Lou.
And the girls.
Then again, Andy loved everybody.
“Will do.”
“Have a good day with your baby bro, Greta. And see you tomorrow.”
“See you, darlin’. Later.”
“Later.”
We disconnected. I kept driving. And I did it singing to a Sarah McLachlan tune on the radio without a care in the world.
This was because Hix was right. We were adults. We could have whatever the hell we wanted, however the hell we wanted it.
So what, Glossop had more churches than it had bars (one of the latter, three of the former)?
Somewhere else, not a small town in the Bible belt, no one would blink.
He had kids but no one would make us their business. I suspected even Hope wouldn’t sink that low to score one on her ex.
So it was what it was and I liked what it was. I’d only dated two guys since I’d hit Glossop and only slept with one. He’d been nice, a farmer that lived too far out to make it a problem after I ended it, and I’d ended it because he wasn’t all that interesting and he was terrible in the sack.
I didn’t want kids and I didn’t need a husband.
But friends.
You always needed friends.
So I’d take that.
I drove into the parking lot of Sunnydown seeing what I always saw when it was my day to spend with Andy.
My brother standing out front with a male staffer waiting for me.