Flushed (9 page)

Places like Austin.

Kim wiped the fresh chalk off his hands and unclipped his
phone, wondering if it was too early in the morning to call his realtors.
According to a message left by his Dallas agent, the buyer who’d looked at his
loft yesterday had made an offer.

It was time to get serious.

He dialed his Austin realtor. Either she was a fellow
insomniac or a workaholic, as she picked up right away.

“I’ve been working with your wish list,” she said, “and I
have the cutest houses to show you! When are you going to be in Austin?”

Kim thought about it. He wasn’t getting any younger, and
there really was nothing holding him back now. Certainly not a
translucent-skinned force of nature who seemed determined to deny herself—and
him—the intense chemistry between them.

Images of Isabelle had haunted his night, especially her
face as she stood in the midst of her wonderful little house and registered the
truth of the break-in.

It made him ache. It made him angry.

It made him helpless.

Helpless led to breaking things, not fixing them. She’d had
enough broken. Just as well she didn’t want him around.

“How’s tomorrow?” he asked.

He was just ending the call when, the house-flavored
disco-esque electronic music Damon favored starting blaring from the
loudspeakers.

Kim rechalked and challenged himself to flash the Knife at
least twice before his friend showed. One thing he could say for the music, it
left little room for obsessing over Isabelle. Of course, it didn’t have to be
this kind of stinky, dance cheese. Any music would probably work, if played at
sufficient volume. He was throwing his legs over the Knife’s edge for the
fourth time before the alleged proprietor of Wall Werx joined him.

“Up early, slick,” Damon shouted to him over the music. He
wore a lime-green belly shirt and white shorts, both a striking contrast to his
rich brown skin.

Rather than continue to the other side, Kim perched on the
Knife’s edge, his heels tucked against the uppermost pinch holds on the wall.
“Hell of an outfit,” he said, glad Damon didn’t dress like that when they went
to Austin.

Damon grinned, turning around. “Like? Trent said it made my
butt look big.”

Trent would say that. Kim suspected Damon’s opinionated
boyfriend might be part of the reason Damon wasn’t at Wall Werx as much as he
ought to be.

“Your butt always looks big. Too much time sitting on it.”

“Skinny, white-boy freak,” Damon said.

Kim grinned. “You here to climb or just run that pretty
mouth?”

And so they were off. Kim gave his friend a chance to warm
up before challenging him through a series of specific exercises that
eventually moved them into the Big Top where they could race for lap after lap
of low-to-the-ground horizontal traverse around the room’s perimeter until Kim
was dripping and far too pumped to safely continue.

He dropped off the wall, happy, breathing hard. Nothing like
having a partner to turn a workout into an endurance test. Not something he
liked to do every day, but once in a while, it was exactly what he needed.

Damon may not be the most reliable guy in the world, but Kim
owed him for showing him the end to years of searching. Biking. Blading.
Running. Racquetball. Who knew how many team sports, rafting trips and assorted
thrill rides. When he’d met Damon, Kim had finally found a sport where he could
really let go.

Two years. Incredible. It hadn’t occurred to him until he’d
said it to Isabelle yesterday and it still filled him with wonder.
Take
that, Kerry
, he thought. Not such a quitter.

Damon was still working the wall, so Kim took a cool-down
walk that led him to the office. He grabbed a handful of clean towels from the
stash Jules had been keeping for the staff since she’d practically become part
of it. Kim might have started as her teacher, but Jules had shown herself a
gifted climber. He’d been urging her to fill in the holes in her experience and
talk to Damon about becoming a teacher herself. So far, she seemed content to
spend all her off hours here at the Werx, pulling plastic and doing what she
could to make the place more livable. Like washing the towels.

Kim was about to leave the office when he realized he needed
to do one more thing. He navigated through the piles of junk in the office,
punched his finger at the far end of the volume control and held it there until
the music no longer made his fillings vibrate.

Two years climbing was only the beginning, he knew. Two
years of Damon’s god-awful music, on the other hand, was itself almost enough
to push Kim to Austin.

He returned to the Big Top where Damon had dropped off the
wall and was already holding out his hand for towels. Like Kim, he’d pushed.
Like Kim, he’d pumped. It was just more impressive on Damon, whose bulkier
build and dark skin showed off gleaming, cut muscle.

Kim threw himself at the faux leather sofa with a sigh.

Damon squeezed a water bottle over his head and shook his
hair. “How was the hot date?” he asked.

“What date?”

Damon grinned at him. “Short, curvy woman in a brown suit.
Flapper hat. Dark hair. Name of Isadora.”

Kim groaned. Naturally, any woman that gorgeous and out of
place would raise gossip. “Isabelle.”

“Whatever. I guess it didn’t go well or you wouldn’t be
here, humping the walls this morning.” Evidently competitive workouts didn’t
produce the kind of post-climbing telepathy he and Damon sometimes got on the
rock.

“It wasn’t a date, at least not according to her.” Kim sat
up. He was still sweating too heavily to lie on the slick, hot sofa. He pulled
off his shirt and mopped his back and belly and chest with a towel.

“Oh, mama,” Damon said, staring at his chest. “Some kinda
non-date.”

Kim fingered one of several marks Isabelle had left on his
skin, as if he needed a visible reminder of her passion. No danger he’d forget
her any time soon.

“Yeah,” Kim said.

“Doesn’t that make her perfect for you?” Damon flopped into
the wooden chair Isabelle had sat on yesterday.

Kim scowled at him and took his friend’s water bottle,
scrubbing the last of the water over his own hot scalp. It felt good.

“I’m serious,” Damon said. “A sweet package who does that
for you,” he waved at Kim’s hickey-marked chest, “and yet isn’t looking for
commitment sounds like the first girl you’ve dated who might have staying power
with a relationship-impaired loser like you.”

“Gosh, Day Man, you’re right. What would I do without you as
my personal love guru?”

“Sarcasm. Nice.”

It was the only weapon Kim had against the irony of it. How
many times had he bailed on a relationship because he couldn’t handle it?
Ginger. Jules. Too many to count, or even remember. In that light, it was only
too perfect Isabelle should bail on him first.

Weird, then, how badly he’d wanted to tell her about Austin
after that earthquake of a kiss in the restaurant parking lot. There just
hadn’t been a good time to bring it up, especially with her house freshly
broken into and her brother asking to stay. Trying to help seemed more
important than giving her one more thing to think about.

One more reason to close the door in your face, you mean.

“You okay, slick?” Damon asked.

“Sure,” he said. “Dandy.”

* * * * *

“You okay, Isabelle?” Charlie asked.

“Of course,” she said, knowing there was no other answer to
give. Her brother had helped half the morning. Mostly he’d been making coffee
and keeping an eye on the repairman who fixed the front door, but she’d been
glad to have him here. “You’ve got interviews. Go knock ‘em dead.”

“I can call, reschedule. You can make me your shelf slave
all afternoon.” He gestured to the hats and knickknacks and books that lay all
over the floor. Shelves weren’t the problem. It was deciding how to organize
the mess, and doing the insurance paperwork. She’d feel better once it was
done. But right now she wanted to curl up and nap. With luck, she’d find
everything back to normal when she woke, the whole thing a dream.

She shook her head, shooing Charlie toward the door.

“I’ll be back for dinner,” he said. “Save me some shelf
stuff to do, ‘kay?”

“Thank you, Charlie.”

“Yeah.”

She locked the door behind him and made herself choose the
next task for the day. Her hats. They had been everywhere in the house. The
most fragile ones had been on wooden stands before the break-in and most had
miraculously stayed firmly on their head-shaped forms, undamaged, through the
assault. But she’d found a straw cloche, originally displayed in the bedroom,
on the dining room table. Presumably, it had been on the floor and Kim had
picked it up. Its antique fabric had cracked along a new stress line unlikely
to have been created striking the floor or being picked up. The hat had been
stepped on.

It wasn’t alone. Isabelle wrote down each transgression for
her insurance claim. What a depressing inventory. All these irreplaceable
beauties, filled with memories of the charity auctions and fun vintage stores
where she’d found them along with the richly weird conversations that usually
came with them—people who sold old hats tended to be great storytellers. But
Isabelle’s greatest pleasure in the hats was imagining the delight of the women
who had discovered and bought them when they were new and still smelling of
fresh straw and linen, still blooming with crazy flowers, or vibrant in freshly
dyed felt softened with velvet ribbons, a brand-new lining in buckram or
horsehair to make it sit just so and hold its shape. She imagined someday designing
a series of cubbyholes in which to display the hats properly, making her house
feel like a homey haberdashery.

That day was not today.

She finished the inventory and made another pass through her
house, grabbing all the towels from her topsy-turvy bathroom and taking them to
the washer. Feeling normal was not going to happen today either.

At least she hadn’t gone home with Kim last night. As hard
as it had been waking up surrounded by reminders of what had happened to her
house, it would have been worse to come home to it in the cold light of the
morning after. That’s what she told herself, anyway. Her body wasn’t thrilled
with the argument. Her inner child seconded the opinion, having desperately
wanted to sleep in comforting arms.

She’d known Kim a day. Under the circumstances, she’d merely
have been using him anyway, if she’d gone home with him. She was starting to
suspect he was too nice a guy to deserve that treatment.

Drool-worthy, yes. And thoughtful. A gentleman in spite of
his not-entirely-civilized kisses, which to be fair, she’d invited. And he had
respected every boundary she’d set. Which, on review, had been quite a few. No
wonder Charlie had taken to calling her Majesty of late.

She took a break from what Stacey would call a four-Prozac
morning—if Stacey weren’t happily head over heels in lust—to answer the phone.
If there were any mercy in the world, it would be Kim. No such luck.

“Isabelle. Give me the ring.”

Perfect. Her day was complete. “Hello, Steven.”

“Don’t play games with me.”

“I wouldn’t presume. That’s always been your department. How
interesting that it’s gone from a generic heirloom, to your box, to an actual
ring. I wonder what it will be tomorrow?”

“It will be over, Isabelle. I’m done asking.” His voice had
lost its silkiness, becoming flat, even jaded, as if he no longer cared about
persuading her. It scared her, which made her angry.

“What a relief,” she said. “I know I’m tired of being asked.
I thought we’d agreed anything still here belonged to me.”

“I need the money.”

“You’d pawn an heirloom for money?”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand. That’s why I couldn’t tell
you.”

Isabelle rolled her eyes. This was the Steven she knew.
Ready-with-the-excuses Steven. Manipulative Steven. Slimy Steven.

“Oops,” she said. “Well, you have now. You may as well tell
me what you need the money for. Something worthwhile, I hope. Maybe to buy a
conscience? The ability to tell the truth? Or failing either of those, a
vasectomy? Say yes to any of these and I’ll cosign the loan, if necessary.”

“Where did you put the ring?”

Isabelle went cold. Where did she put it? That meant Steven
knew she’d moved it.

Which meant he’d been in her house to look.

Which meant he was the one who’d stepped on her hat.

“Phone call for you,” Jules said. Kim swore. He had his
duffel in hand, ready to be gone. First time he’d tried to leave, Damon asked
him to stay and open the gym so he could go home after their early workout and
shower. Second time, Damon talked him into holding down the floor while he
brought some guests through—guests Kim wasn’t introduced to, not that Damon was
obligated. Lucky for Damon, Kim loved Wall Werx. But he was ready for his own
shower, his own priorities. It was time to leave.

Now this.

Jules tagged along as he made for the office, saying, “You
used all the towels? How could you use all the towels?” Her skin gleamed and
sweat stains showed at the waistband of her knit shorts and on her green bra
top between her breasts. She’d pulled her dark hair back in a big plastic clip
but stray strands were glued to her face and neck. Her shoulders said she was
pumped but he wasn’t going to check the rest of her. They weren’t lovers
anymore.

“Sorry, Jules. We’re nasty, sweaty pigs. Any idea who’s on
the phone?” If it were Isabelle, he’d walk faster.

“Nope. Damon answered it. Said you could use the office.”

So it might be Isabelle. Kim dropped his bag and opened the
glass door.

“When you’re done, I want to change in the storage room,”
Jules said.

“I’ll wave you in,” he promised.

Jules had been cool about the end of their relationship, for
which Kim was grateful. Otherwise one of them would probably have had to leave
the gym. Instead they seemed to have fallen into comfortable friendship much
like he and Damon enjoyed.

The Wall Werx office was a painfully narrow space, barely
accommodating a metal desk and broken-down office chair to the left and a tall
filing cabinet straight ahead. Piles of paper swamped the furniture, letters
and receipts and catalogs for everything from outdoor clothing suppliers to a
specialty catalog of nothing but carabiners. There were even boxes of stuff on
the floor, though a rough path doglegged around the desk to the door on the far
wall that led to the storage closet.

Kim leaned across the desk, picked up the receiver and
punched the flashing button. He considered answering as if sure it were
Isabelle, something just for her, but she had him too confused to guess how she
might react.

He said simply, “Kim.”

It wasn’t her.

“Kerry,” said his half-brother, mimicking him.

Kim kicked the leg of the metal office desk. Damon had known
who it was—and known Kim wouldn’t want the call—and he’d sent Jules after him
because he knew Kim would smell any attempt to lie about it. Coward.

“Hey, man. What’s up?”

“What was that? You okay?”

“Fine. Just some work being done here at the gym.” Kim
kicked the desk leg again. Hopefully, the more he kicked the desk now, the less
he’d feel like kicking Damon when he got off the call. “What’s on your mind?”
he asked, though he’d have preferred to go with,
What do you want?

“Your home number is disconnected. Can’t a brother worry?”

Half-brother
, Kim thought. Only half. “Well, I’m not
on the street. No heroin habit or pregnant girlfriends. Hope that’s not too
much disappointment for one day, bro.” He wondered whether Kerry was home or if
he was calling from Glassner’s Fine Jewelry. Was he checking in on the
blue-collar dropout in moments between helping well-to-do clients choose the
perfect diamond?

“So I guess you didn’t call the home security company we
talked about.”

You mean that you talked about. Endlessly.
He was
done arguing with Kerry about his condo. He’d made that mistake too often to
forget. When he’d first seen the drawings. When he’d put down his deposit. When
he’d hired a decorator. Last time he’d talked to Kerry, he’d set the phone down
so the blowhard could get it out of his system without interference.

The next day, he’d had the phone disconnected, grateful he’d
always dodged Kerry’s efforts to get his cell number.

“You don’t feel safe living downtown, don’t live downtown,”
Kim said. “I happen to like it.”

“Adding security will help it sell.”

“Who said I was selling?”

Kerry didn’t need to say. Damn Damon and his big mouth. Kim
kicked the desk again, glad to be wearing his street shoes. If he were still in
climbing slippers, he’d really be paying for this.

“What area are you looking at?”

“South,” Kim said, unclenching his jaw enough to force a
laugh. “Austin. Didn’t I tell you?”

“Austin! You’d leave your client base? Do you have any idea
how tough it is to get started in a new place?”

Better than you, heir to Wassily the Great’s
well-established business.
But that was Kerry, always butting in. Always
trying to be the one who knew what was best for Kim.

Other buttons were flashing on the phone. Kim ignored them.
Damon’s problem, not his.

“Don’t worry about it,” Kim said.

“I do. I will. I can’t believe you never mentioned it.”

“Yeah,” Kim said, “well.” Damn if he would apologize.
Tomorrow’s house-hunting expedition was going to seem just a little sweeter
after this reminder of what he’d be leaving behind.

“The kids will be heartbroken if you disappear. They ask
about you all the time.”

Kim had nothing to say to that. He liked Kerry’s wife. He
was crazy about their kids. But he and his brother couldn’t manage to share air
for more than five minutes, which complicated things.

“Lisa starts high school this fall,” Kerry said.

“No way.” Kim had been in high school himself when his niece
was born. How weird was that.

“Driving before you know it.”

Trust Kerry to dash regrets of not often seeing his nieces
and nephews with a classic dig—a little reminder that Kim had promised Kerry’s
oldest he’d teach her to drive. “Cool. She can drive the whole busload of
Glassner spawn to spend weekends with Uncle Kim.”

“Not in this lifetime.”

Kim’s jaw started to ache.

“That was a joke, Kim.”

“Oh. Good one.” He kicked the desk.

“So have you researched the market for plumbing services in
Austin?” Kerry asked.

Kim thought about saying that yeah, there was a backlog of
demand. A veritable shit ton of business to be had. Or better yet, he was going
to change his name to Glassner and call the business Glassner’s Fine Potty
Works. What a glowing legacy for the Glassner name. What a testament to the wonderful
man Wassily Glassner had been and how much happier their mother had been
married to him than worthless drifter Brian Martin.

“I have a few business ideas,” he said instead. Damn if he’d
discuss his future plans with the man who’d spent half a lifetime manipulating
them.

“You’re giving up plumbing,” Kerry said as if Kim had let
him down.

“Thought you’d approve,” Kim said.

“You quitting climbing too?”

“You know me,” he said. He aimed a full series of kicks at
the front of the desk. The last one left a dent. It was college all over again,
but with one important difference. Kerry hadn’t yet found a way to interfere or
one-up or control this part of Kim’s life. Being older gave him no advantage
here. Wouldn’t Wassily Glassner be disappointed.

“You okay, Kim?” It was Jules, her head in the office
doorway. He’d forgotten she was waiting to change clothes.

“I’ll be just a minute,” he said. She frowned but let the
door close.

“They need me on the floor,” Kim lied. “Are we caught up?”

“You’ve got a big birthday in month or so. Ann really wants
you to come for dinner.” At their gigantic new house, where they could
celebrate Kim’s thirty-year lack of accomplishments.

“Yeah, well, if I’m still in town…”

“Yeah, well, if you’re still a brat…” Kerry said.

Kick. “So I guess we’re caught up.”

“That was a joke, Kim.”

“Yeah, Kerry, you’re a riot. No wonder you and Damon get
along so well.”

Kerry’s laugh sounded forced, though this conversation was
actually quite civil for them. Kim wondered if it might be Isabelle’s influence
on him—the two-year-hobby realization had helped.

“Damon and I may be close, but he still wouldn’t give me
your phone number. How about you do that for him?”

“You want Damon’s number? Is there something Ann should
know?”

“Please, Kim.”

“That was a joke, Kerry.” Kim read off his number and
actually heard Kerry copy it down. Kerry liked to use wood pencils and he
pressed hard. The man carried a little battery-operated sharpener in his
pocket. Or used to. Kim hadn’t seen him in a while.

“I really have to go,” Kim said.

“We’ll see you on your birthday?”

“I’ll have to let you know,” Kim said.

“You do that.”

Kim hung up and kicked the desk leg again. Anyone who’d met
Kim’s brother seemed to think he was Mr. Family, so levelheaded and mature. You
had to have lived with Kerry—no, under Kerry—to know how comprehensively he
took his self-appointed role as father figure to Brian Martin’s slacker son.
Always assuming the worst, dishing out unwanted advice and wanting Kim’s world
to match his own standards for success. The worst of it had been the whole
college debacle. Kim had hoped it would stop once he’d dropped out, became the
blue-collar man Kerry most feared—hoped Kerry would give up and butt out. It
would never stop. Kim had learned to not even mention him anymore, except to
Isabelle. Isabelle had asked—Isabelle, who loved her brother, a man with whom
she shared not a drop of parental blood. Lucky her.

Kim gave the desk a final kick before letting Jules in. The
leg collapsed. Damon’s stacks of paperwork and catalogs and assorted junk slid
toward the floor. Fitting. Things seemed to fall apart once emotions started
running high. It was why Kim liked to keep things light. It was why he’d gotten
so good at letting go. Or, as Kerry preferred to say, quitting.

“I’ve got it,” he said to Jules as she tried to help him
with the mess. She must have understood the warning in his refusal to look at
her, or maybe it was his less-than-subtle barking. She moved on past him to the
storage closet to change.

Past him. Moving on. Yeah, he was so good at it, the women
in his life were learning from him. Isabelle had learned it before they’d even
made it past the couch. She recognized the son of Brian Martin before she could
make the same mistake his mother had. Smart woman.

* * * * *

She’d been an idiot. Isabelle could see that now. Steven
wasn’t going to stop until he had that ring. Satisfying as it had been to flush
it, it hadn’t been smart.

“He’s in the office,” said the young woman she’d met just
inside the front door at Wall Werx. “I’ll take you there.”

“Thank you.” The relief of not having to enter the
building’s cavernous core eased Isabelle’s nerves. She’d had to come in person.
The only phone number she had for Kim was his service. He wasn’t answering
service calls. Not from her, at least. So here she was.

She followed the woman through the claustrophobic
corridor-like outer space littered ankle-deep with jackets and pants and shoes.
It was almost as disorienting a space as the sickening area where yesterday
she’d seen the kid, Cameron, fall. The Big Top, Kim had called it. There the
walls canted inward at uneven intervals, making her feel she was trapped inside
an overturned, partially crushed, giant paper cup. Not only did the walls bend
in, out and over to create challenging climbing surfaces, they were warty with
colored plastic grips the climbers used to defy more laws of nature than the
walls were breaking.

The place was almost as ugly as the ring she’d come to ask
Kim to dig out of her toilet, if such a thing were possible. The toilet thing,
not the ugly thing. As many unorganized homes she’d been in with her Space
Craft business, she knew the ugly thing was possible.

The athlete’s long blonde ponytail bounced as she led
Isabelle. She wore one of those strappy, stretchy tanks yoga people wore as if
it were a real top—pink—along with similarly tight shorts. Apparently, climbers
didn’t worry about exposed skin being scraped off the way Isabelle would, if
ever she were demented enough to try defying gravity.

“Have you ever gotten hurt?” she heard herself ask. “I mean,
do you worry about it?”

“Why would I? Kim is a great teacher.”

Isabelle just about turned her ankle trying to avoid
stepping on a discarded shoe. Hard to miss seeing the disruption still plaguing
her own house overlaid on this littered floor. “Kim?”

The young woman stopped, turned and treated her to a
head-to-toe assessment. Her lowered brow suggested she didn’t trust Isabelle’s
score. “I’ve been with him since, like, December.”

“What do you mean, ‘with him’?” Isabelle asked carefully.
She dreaded getting confirmation that Kim was a man ready to cheat on his
woman, a pretty woman with firm, small breasts, a full butt and an enviable
waistline. If it were true, it meant Kim had lied last night when he insisted
he hadn’t cheated.

But that could just as easily be her, letting her own past
color the meaning of this woman’s words.

She endured another canny assessment. Was this a girlfriend,
growing suspicious that Isabelle was the other woman? Or could there be another
reason for the catty calculation that animated the young woman’s features?

“You’re not a climber,” the blonde finally said. It didn’t
seem like much of an answer, but it was enough for Isabelle to hear a hint of
petulance in her tone, enough to notice just how young she was. If she was
telling Isabelle to back off, it might not be because she’d already scored with
Kim. It just meant she wanted to.

Beyond her, a glass door with the letters “Office” stenciled
on it promised an end to this nonsense.

Isabelle pointed toward the door. “I see it now. Thank you
for your help.”