Flirting With Disaster (27 page)

He reached back and stroked her thigh once, his hand clumsy from the angle. “You? Please.”

She smiled. “So you don’t have a Princess Leia. Oh, I know! You have a life-size statue of carbon-freeze Han Solo.”

“For a non-geek, you know a lot about
Star Wars
.”

“Everybody loves
Star Wars
.”

“So why are you p-picking on my p-posters?”

“Because you
framed
them, Sean. That’s just wrong.”

“You were the k-kind of girl who punched the boys you really liked, weren’t you?”

“I kicked Jeff Myers in the shins during recess all the time in second grade. He never understood.”

His back heaved up beneath her as he chuckled. “That explains why my sscalp hurts.”

“Your scalp?”

“You p-pulled my hair. Bit me, too. I think you must love me.”

“Did I? I’m sorry. I didn’t even realize. I was too busy getting screwed so hard, I lost all sense of reality.”

Languidly, he flipped over, and she ended up half pinned under his leg, his smile filling her field of vision and his hand under her head.

“You like me, though,” he said.

“You’re weird.”

“Yeah, but you like me anyway.”

“Don’t sound so pleased with yourself. I’m not such a prize.”

He dropped his head and nuzzled her throat. “Sure you are.”

They stayed that way for a long minute, Sean breathing against her, her arms looped loosely around his neck, and she let herself bask in him. Just for a little while.

“I have to g-get up,” he said.

“Knock yourself out.”

She looked at the
Empire Strikes Back
poster as he threw his legs over the side of the bed and left the room. She heard the click of the light switch followed by the sound of running water in the bathroom.

Katie understood what Sean was doing in Camelot, though clearly he didn’t. It was
punishment. He was serving time for a crime he’d never committed.

The woman she used to be would have been desperate to help him, to rescue him from his unhappiness and coax him to stay.

And yes, unfortunately, she was still that woman. Obviously. That Katie had been in charge just minutes ago, when Sean was inside her. Straining toward him, wanting to rescue him with her body and give him everything he needed. But lying here in his bed, surrounded by his adolescent crap, she knew she couldn’t save him, and she didn’t want to entrap him. He’d already entrapped himself. She only wanted to enjoy him while she could.

If there was some secret way to keep her heart out of what their bodies were up to, she didn’t know what it was. But maybe it didn’t matter if she got hurt again. With Sean, for the first time in her life, she felt sufficient. He could stay or he could go, and she would remain here, and her adequacy, her
value
, would have nothing to do with her ability to hold his interest.

It was a good way to feel.

Progress, if not perfection.

Sean came back in the room and stretched out beside her. His hand found her stomach.

“We’re sssupposed to be working,” he said. He kissed her throat.

“I know. But I’m really hungry.”

He lifted his head. “I d-don’t have any food.”

“I’m sure I can throw something together.”

“No, I mean I really d-don’t have food.”

“Well, come on,” she said, dragging her sated body into a seated position. “Let’s go see what there is.”

He gave her a T-shirt to wear and pulled on his jeans. Downstairs, he showed her the cupboards, where she found some dusty cans of tuna, a container of salt, and a bag of expired wheat germ. He didn’t even have nonperishable food.

What he did have was approximately forty coffee mugs of various sizes and ages. He had flowery dishes, a collection of miscellaneous Tupperware, and, on the counter by the coffeemaker, a bag of Peet’s coffee beans that appeared to be the one item in the kitchen seeing any action.

He had a black ceramic urn on the countertop that almost certainly contained all that was left of his mother.

Oh, the man was a mess.

And he didn’t
live
here. The conclusion had been solidifying ever since she walked in the door, but the kitchen clinched it. The house was fussy, overstuffed, and dim. There was nothing to suggest Sean in any of it except the computers camping out on the dining room table.

Sean had an immaculate wallet, a car completely empty of junk, and understated, unwrinkled clothes. This was his mother’s house, and he wasn’t inhabiting it. He was squatting in it.

He really was a self-punishing bastard.

“I m-mostly eat at the Inn,” he said. “We c-could go out to d-dinner if you want. Maybe go into Mount P-pleasant for Chinese?”

She indulged herself and imagined it. Katie and Sean at the Hunan Garden, sharing crab rangoon and swapping funny stories.

But there wouldn’t be a Katie and Sean. He wasn’t going to stick around Camelot, because his whole life took place somewhere else, and whatever wounds he was nursing here would heal eventually, or he’d gnaw off the limb that had trapped him and limp home.

Either way, he would leave, and she would get left.

It was different this time, though. Levi had promised to love her until death did them part. Sean had never promised her a thing. He didn’t love her. He barely even knew her.

She didn’t love him either. She liked him a lot. There was nothing on earth she’d rather do than have sex with him. She respected his intelligence and his humor and his basic goodness and his … well, his everything, but she didn’t love him. She wouldn’t. She wasn’t going to let herself make the same mistakes all over again.

She could be with him and enjoy him—even care about him—but she wouldn’t try to keep him.

Better to make this simple, so she couldn’t forget what it was.

“Let’s order a pizza,” she said, closing the cupboard door with a louder thud than she’d intended. “And then we should get to work.”

“Sir, you’ll have to remove your watch. Sir?”

Katie poked him in the lower back. “That’s you, Buster. You have to put your watch through the X-ray thingy.”

Sean had already been prompted to throw away his water, pull out his bottle of eyedrops and stick it in a plastic bag, remove his shoes and his belt, and place his car keys and wallet in a tray that looked like a dog dish. Now the dog dish was gone, and he was at a loss.

“Where am I supposed to p-put this?”

“Give it to me, I’ll put it in my purse,” Katie said.

Sean handed over his watch, and the TSA agent beckoned him to step up to the full-body scanner.

“Do you have anything in your pockets, sir? Anything at all?”

“Just some c-cash.”

The woman shooed him in. “Put your hands up, please.” He copied the figure on the illustration in front of him, raising his hands to his forehead, palms out, elbows up. Something whirred and clunked. The other side of the pod opened up.

“Have a nice flight,” she said.

After gathering his scattered belongings, he found Katie on a bench in a spot helpfully labeled “Recombobulation Area.”

“I d-don’t know why they don’t just ask you to sstrip and bend over. It would ssave a lot of t-time.”

“Men are such whiners about airport security,” Katie said cheerfully. “Caleb hates it, too.”

“It’s d-demeaning.”

“You kind of suck at it,” she replied.

“Ssweet of you to say. My watch?”

She handed it to him. He sank down into a chair beside her and started trying to put himself together again, beginning with his belt.

“I like it,” she said. “I’m not used to seeing you suck at things.”

Tying his shoelaces put him eye-to-eye with Katie’s high-heeled ankle boots. Her legs, encased in black tights. As he sat up, he got to know her short black skirt better, and then his eyes insisted on visiting her soft, tight, bright blue shirt for longer than was strictly polite.

“Quit that,” Katie said as his eyes raked over her throat. Her neck. Her mouth. Those regal cheekbones.

“Quit what?”

“Quit looking at me like you want to do me in an airport bathroom stall.”

“Now that you m-mention it, that’s an excellent idea.”

She smacked his knee, then rubbed out the sting. Rubbed a little higher. “Ever had a sex-in-public fantasy, Sean?” she asked.

“I have now.” He checked to see that she was recombobulated, then stood and pulled her to her feet. Leaning in close, he whispered in her ear. “I’m going to find somewhere. After we land in Des Moines, I’m going to find a sspot, and then I’m going to make you c-come so hard you’ll have to bite your hand to keep from giving us away.”

She swayed a little and flattened one hand on his chest for balance. Her throat had flushed pink. “Promises, promises,” she said in a husky voice.

She wore her hair up in a ponytail. He kissed behind her ear, running light fingers over the sensitive nape of her neck.

Someone bumped his foot with a rolling suitcase, and he forced himself to remember where they were and knock off the flirting before he got too far down the road to Foreplayville. He didn’t particularly want to walk through the airport with visible wood.

When he stepped back, Katie blinked and inhaled sharply through her nose before saying, “Let’s go, Flyboy. I need to find a cup of coffee, or I’ll start to get grumpy.”

“C-can’t have that,” he agreed. They strolled toward the gate.

His phone beeped with a programmed alert. He pulled it out of his pocket, but it was only an email from Mike.

Last night, the same sound had chimed to notify him of a suspicious message sent to Judah on Twitter:
Life’s short. Better get all your candy hearts in a row
.

Death threat, or existential remark? No way to be certain, but it did fit the holiday theme, and it had that menacing, I’m-going-to-kill-you overtone.

He and Katie had spent hours last night crunching data, and he’d driven her home at four thirty a.m. so she could get packed before he swung by her house again at six to drive them to the airport.

The message had come through a dummy account. He hadn’t had any luck tracing it yet, though there were still a few things he planned to try.

Once they’d located the coffee place, Katie offered to stand in line while he scrounged up some food. He bought them egg-and-croissant sandwiches—the best he could do—and stopped at the newsstand to get a paper. On the spur of the moment, he picked up a box of chocolates wrapped in red cellophane and a cheesy card with a teddy bear on it. It was Valentine’s Day, and he figured he should at least take advantage of the one opportunity he’d ever have to spend money on Katie in the name of Hallmark-sanctioned sentimentality.

For my dream girl
, he wrote above the pre-printed “Happy Valentine’s Day.” He hesitated over how to sign it, then gave up and wrote
Love, Sean
.

Then he stood staring at the card for half a minute before he sighed, crumpled it up, and threw it away.

When he found her again at the gate, she had his tablet out and was sorting through the data they’d come up with on possible Judah-stalkers as she sipped her coffee.

He stuck the chocolate box between her lap and the armrest and sat down next to her.

“What did you get me?” she asked without looking up.

“C-candy. Sorry, they didn’t have flowers.”

She raised her head, brow furrowed in confusion. “I meant for breakfast. I can’t have candy for—Oh.” When she saw the chocolates, her face became a study in unguarded expressions. Surprise and delight, followed by concern. Dismay. Disapproval. And then her struggle with knowing he’d seen all of it written there when she wished he hadn’t.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “There’s no ring. It’s only chocolates.”

“Yeah.” Her teeth worried at her bottom lip. “Sean?”

“You don’t wuh-want me to buy you sstuff.”

“I don’t want you to act like you’re not leaving.”

Good move, tossing the card
. “It’s just c-candy, sweetheart. It c-cost less than your b-breakfast.”

She inspected the box of chocolates, picking at the overlapping cellophane on one edge
with a sour expression. Then she sat up straighter, shoulders squared, and offered him a poor approximation of her usual smile. “I like cordial cherries. I think I’ll have one for an appetizer. You game?”

“Nah. Ssssweet stuff makes me sssick.”

“What a wonderful manly blanket statement.” Leaning over, she kissed his jaw. “Thanks. I’m not very good at getting presents. I’ll say in my defense, though, that this is the only Valentine’s present anyone’s ever given me, and I wasn’t expecting it.”

“Rider never b-bought you anything for Valentine’s Day?”

“He considered Valentine’s Day to be a form of consumer rape by greedy, soulless corporations.”

“Everybody thinks that. Most of us d-don’t use it as an excuse not to d-drop a few bucks on the women we’re sssleeping with.”

“Lovely,” she said, and this time the smile came closer to the real thing. “I sure can pick ’em, can’t I?” She got the lid off her chocolates and popped one into her mouth. It was the final punctuation mark on the conversation.

Sean ate his sandwich, drank his coffee, and watched the passengers go by. Ohio people didn’t look like California people. They were whiter, bigger, and softer. A bunch of doughnut holes clutching Starbucks cups and trailing suitcases on wheels. He felt vaguely ill and attributed it to the view.

“So, Mr. Owens,” Katie said after he came back from throwing away the breakfast garbage, “I’ve been trying to make heads or tails of this pile of gibberish you gave me, and I think I might be getting somewhere. Look at this.” She rotated the screen to where he could see it. “I invented some group profiles from what we’ve got, like what sorts of people are interacting with Judah and how. And I think some of them we can definitely exclude.”

Sean started reading the document she’d pulled up.

The Tween. Eleven to fourteen, the Tween has a crush on Judah and tends to check his Twitter stream, blog, and Facebook pages multiple times a day, most frequently in the hours before and after school. She usually participates using her phone, with a desktop computer as a backup. Her spelling sux, and almost everything she writes is an IM abbreviation. The Tween is no threat. Can we try to filter her out?