I led Kacey out through the parking lot to my truck: a small pick-up in blue, its flatbed filled with cardboard boxes. I held the passenger door open for her, which seemed to surprise her. This whole lunch outing surprised me: not in the schedule by any stretch. But obviously Kacey was in no hurry to rejoin her band. After whatever catastrophe she’d caused at the Pony Club, staying with me was an act of self-preservation.
I climbed behind the wheel and my eyes strayed again to Kacey’s thighs, smooth-skinned between her boots and the almost non-existent mini-skirt. Part of a colorful tattoo was partially visible on her thigh and the urge to see the rest of it was ridiculously strong. Kacey was easy on the eyes. Actually she was more than that. She was beautiful. But so what? She was more Theo’s type with her bleached hair, leather, and tattoos.
My eyes strayed to her thighs again. How long had it been since I’d touched a woman?
One year, four months, thirteen days, and eighteen hours.
I scoffed at my inner mathematician, though the number probably wasn’t far off. I hadn’t been with a woman since my ex-girlfriend, Audrey. Before I got sick.
“What’s with the boxes in the back?” Kacey asked, jolting me from my thoughts. “Are you moving?”
“No, they’re full of glass,” I said, grateful for the distraction. “Old bottles and jars that I melt down to make my pieces. I’m going to take them to the hot shop tomorrow.”
“So the hot shop is where you blow the glass?” Kacey snickered.
I arched a brow at her.
“I know, I know. I’m twenty-two but I have the sense of humor of a fourteen-year-old boy.” She turned in her seat toward me. “And how do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Raise only one eyebrow. I’ve always wanted to.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just can.”
“Do it again.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s cool.”
I arched my brow at her. “Is it?”
She laughed and sat back in her seat, satisfied. The broad smile remained on her lips as she watched Las Vegas passing outside her window. Even only half-turned to me, she had a stunning smile.
“So what are you working on?” she asked after a moment. “At the hot shop.”
“Well… I’m working on an exhibit for a local gallery. It opens in October. The exhibit, not the gallery.”
Smooth, Fletcher. But it had been months since I’d spoken to a stranger about the exhibit. I’d whittled my circle down to exactly three friends, my family, and the curator of the gallery. Until Kacey, I hadn’t fully grasped just how small a circle that was.
“Will you sell your glass at this exhibit?” Kacey asked. “Like those beautiful paperweights?”
“Yes, I’ll have small pieces like that for sale, but the main focus will be a large-scale installation.”
She started to ask another question as I pulled the truck into the parking lot of Mulligan’s, a mom-and-pop diner. It was nearly three in the afternoon, the lunch rush was over, plenty of parking to be had. I pulled into a spot near the door.
“This is right up the street from you,” she said. “We could’ve walked.”
“In this heat?” I said, and shut off the engine.
“Good point. The heat is godawful. I don’t know how you desert dwellers cope.”
I held the diner door open for her, surprising her again. She beamed at me and I almost lost my train of thought.
“I was born and raised in the desert,” I said. “I’m used to it, but some people can’t hack it. Wimps and pansies, every one.”
Kacey snorted and elbowed me lightly in the side as she breezed past me into the restaurant. She sighed with relief as we entered the air-conditioning, then caught me giving her a knowing look.
“Oh, fine. I’m a wimp,” she laughed. “Get us a table, smartass, while I use the restroom.”
I chuckled on my way to the hostess station. It was easy to be around this girl. And it seemed like she found it to be around me, like we’d known each other for years instead of hours.
A waitress greeted me. “How many, hon?”
“Two,” I said, and felt an immediate twinge in my chest.
I’d heard you could cut off a limb but still feel the pain of its absence. I didn’t miss Audrey, my last girlfriend. She’d cut me off, right after my transplant surgery. We’d planned a certain life together, but when the virus wrecked my heart and nearly killed me, it wrecked our plans and killed our relationship.
Audrey couldn’t take the illness, the hospitals, the specter of death hovering over me until the call came in that a donor heart was available. She left before I even came out of the anesthesia.
Theo would never forgive her for leaving, but I got over her quickly—even after being together for three years. It hurt she left, and the timing sure as shit could’ve been better, but I forgave her for leaving to find someone else, someone healthy with whom she could fall madly in love, and build a real life with.