Unplugged (23 page)

I
SAW MY USUAL
clients on that post-Thanksgiving Friday. Most of them seemed thankful to get the family get-together behind them.

The Hunts arrived. I asked them about their holiday. Their son had come home for the traditional meal, then rushed off to be with his girlfriend. Their teenage daughters were spending the weekend with their cousins in San Diego.

Some parents feel the empty-nest syndrome most intensely during the holidays. But that didn’t seem to be the case here.

I pried gently. ’Cuz that’s what I do. I don’t so much shrink as peck.

“Larry made the meal,” said Mrs. Hunt. She was sitting very straight and proper, but there was something a little different about her, a little less rigid.

“Oh?” I have to admit being impressed. In Mom’s house a man was taking his life in his hands if he so much as glanced into the icebox. “Is that a first?”

“I’ll say,” said Mrs. Hunt.

“And how did that turn out?”

She glanced at her husband from the corner of her eye. There was a bit of color in her cheeks. “Good,” she said.

“Yeah,” he agreed. Their gazes locked. “But the candied yams was the best part.”

I thought there was some sexual innuendo in the exchange.

By the time I limped out of my office fifty minutes later, I felt like I’d been subjected to audio porn.

My last session of the day canceled. I gave Laney the short version of the weirdness, wished her luck on her date with a plumber, and hurried home.

It was almost dark when I arrived there. I glanced up and down Opus Street. There was an unknown blue Toyota parked a couple hundred yards down the street, but there didn’t seem to be any boogeymen or guys with smirks and tampons lurking about. Still, I knew from the edification of horror flicks that it’s the ones you don’t see that you have to worry about, so I hurried inside, locked the door behind me, and punched in my security code.

Pete had left sometime after I’d hustled off to work some eight hours earlier. I glanced warily from side to side, wondering where he’d put the dead rat, but it was nowhere to be found. Not even in the kitchen sink.

Either he was growing up, or he was ill. Either way, I was grateful, because Ross was due in an hour and a half.

Being the culinary genius that I am, I had purchased a pan of prefab lasagna, which I popped into the oven without even having to read the owner’s manual. Look out, Julia Child.

I’d planned to have French bread and a tasty yet nutritious salad, but I forgot to buy fresh lettuce and the stuff in my fridge looked kind of brown and sloppy, so I dumped the bag in the garbage and pulled out the Spumante. It had been chilling since morning—on its side, of course. I can’t cook worth a damn, but I’m not a barbarian.

Choosing an outfit was the most painful part of the entire ordeal. I dragged off my slacks, stood in front of the mirror in my underwear, and flipped through my wardrobe.

Five skirts and a mound of blouses later, I exited the bedroom in the same pants I’d worn to work. They were black. I accented them with a black blouse . . . my usual first-date attire. Elaine calls it my premourning ensemble.

It was 6:57. I still had makeup to artfully apply and my hair to arrange in a casual but fashionable coiffure. No problem, if I were gorgeous and talented. Or bald and male.

I happen to be neither.

I hit my hip on the doorjamb as I rushed into the bathroom, but I had no time to rub away the pain. It was now 6:58. If he arrived early, I had every intention of jumping out the window and heading for Seattle.

I tried to apply my mascara while curling my hair. But the hot rollers kept ending up in the sink and I stabbed myself in the eye twice.

When the doorbell rang, my hair was stacked atop my head in purple Styrofoam and I was trying to blink mascara out of my right eye.

I think I may have been cursing.

The doorbell rang again. I winced, yelled, “Just a minute,” and whipped the curlers out of my hair while simultaneously applying a cloud of hair spray. I ended up with most of it congealing over the layer of mascara in my right eye, and hustled back into the bedroom, hitting my opposite hip on the way through.

There was a mound of clothing three feet high on my orange-and-green sculpted carpet. The doorbell screamed again. I kicked the garments under the bed, fluffed the coverlet, and jammed my feet into a pair of strappy but understated heels.

By the time I answered the door, Ross had aged a little bit, but he didn’t look any worse for wear.

“Hi,” he said.

“Sorry about the wait,” I said.

His smile etched twin grooves into his cheeks. I found that I was inordinately happy that I’d had the clever foresight to kick my clothes out of sight.

I may have to add housekeeping to my list of less-than-stellar attributes.

“I was sure I had the wrong house,” he said, leaning forward and kissing my cheek.

“But you waited anyway.”

His smile shifted up another notch. Guys oughta be more careful with smiles like that. I’ve gotten fresh for less—say, a wisp of cologne and a “How do you do.” “I was hoping whoever lived here would have mercy on me and give me a meal.”

I pulled the door open wider and he stepped inside. “You’re in luck,” I said, and led him into the kitchen.

I had him open the wine while I fished the lasagna from the oven and sliced up the bread. I’d forgotten to heat it up.

The lasagna stuck to the pan and dripped across the tablecloth when I served it, but it didn’t taste half-bad.

He said as much. “So I talked to your Lieutenant Rivera,” he added, changing the subject with mind-numbing suddenness.

I choked a little, then cleared my throat and shook my head. “He isn’t my lieutenant.”

“Whose, then?”

“I think he’s a stray,” I said, and took a sip of wine. Casual me. And elegant. Once I’d taken a breather I’d decided I didn’t look half-bad, but I’d been gazing at myself through a sheer of mascara. “What did he have to say?”

He shrugged and cut off a corner of his lasagna. “Not much. Where was I on the night of the eighteenth, that sort of thing.”

My throat felt suddenly dry, my bones strangely fragile. “And . . . ?”

“I told him I had a big game with my squash buddies.”

I could feel the life drain out of me.

He stared a moment, then laughed. “I’m kidding,” he said. “I told him I was here.”

I considered thumping myself on the chest to recharge my heart.

“I’m sorry. You okay?” he asked, and chuckled as he reached forward to squeeze my hand. “I lied my ass off, just like you asked.” He leaned back, drawing his fingers from mine. I chanced a careful breath. “I didn’t think I had much choice after you gave me all those details about our evening together.”

“Well . . .” I cleared my throat, realizing I was still alive. “I just wanted to be thorough.”

He took a sip of wine and let the glass dangle from his fingers. “I was especially impressed that you told me the color of your bedsheets.”

I felt flushed, but I wasn’t sure if it was the wine or the talk of sheets that sent the blood to my head. “I hope he didn’t give you too much trouble.”

He shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.” His eyes were the color of the Caribbean at high tide. Okay, I’ve never actually seen the Caribbean, high tide or otherwise, but anyway, his eyes . . . well, they were blue. “I was hoping to find a way to get back into your good graces,” he said.

I blinked foolishly and fiddled with my fork. “My good graces? What are you talking about?”

“Oh, come on,” he said, and gave me an oblique glance across the table as he swirled his wine. “I’ve used that line a dozen times.”

“What line?”

“Getting an emergency call in the middle of a date.”

Somehow, I’d never even considered the fact that he’d think I’d wanted to escape. I mean, he had high-tide eyes. “It really was an emergency,” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Really.”

He watched me for a moment. “Honest?”

“Of course.” Did I look crazy? More crazy than desperate? “I’m sorry I ran out on you. It was a . . . It couldn’t be avoided.”

“Was it really your girlfriend?” He leaned forward on his elbows, adroitly avoiding his lasagna.

Ummm . . . Okay, now things got tricky. “Yes.”

“I think you’re lying,” he said.

“I don’t . . .” I began.

He raised his brows.

“Well, okay, I do lie sometimes.”

He laughed. Maybe he liked liars. Excellent. A match made in heaven.

“But it really was an emergency.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” he said. “I thought I’d offended you with my body odor or something.”

I watched him. The lights were low, I was on my second glass of Spumante, and he had . . . some sort of eyes.

“Believe me, there’s nothing about your body that offends me,” I said, and he gave me that smile that made my toes curl in my strappy, understated sandals.

Fifteen minutes later we were sitting side by side on the couch with our wine. Music played softly in the background. Classy.

“A psychologist,” he said.

I shrugged. “For about a year and a half.”

“So what brought you to California?”

I took a sip of wine. “If one intends to make one’s living dealing with psychological disorders . . .” I let the sentence dawdle.

He laughed. “Head to La La Land. Good thinking.”

“How about you?”

He shrugged. “Got a job offer at Neo. Couldn’t turn it down.”

“They have quite a reputation, I take it.”

“Other than E.U., there’s nothing can touch us.”

“E.U.?” I asked, but I remembered the place. It was the high-tech store where none of the employees had seen the Geekster.

“Electric Universe,” he said, eyes alight with enthusiasm. “They’re coming on like gangbusters. They’re really a Japanese company. Just opened their first store in the United States. Apparently, if you know their secret handshake, they’ll let you play with their stuff.”

“You know the handshake?”

“I don’t even know the address. But tell me more about your job. Is this really the place to be if you’re a psychologist?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” I swirled my wine and looked languidly intelligent. “I think psychological difficulties are pretty universal.” I was waxing philosophic and rather enjoying the sound of my own voice. Christina McMullen, sounding smart, or drunk. “I mean, if the caveman hadn’t been so busy fighting off saber-toothed tigers, he probably would have been obsessing about his relationships with—” But in that instant Ross leaned in and kissed me.

Our teeth bumped.

“Sorry,” he murmured, and pulled back half an inch. “I’m not very good at this.”

My heart rate had escalated to hummingbird status.

“You’re not?” My voice sounded breathy.

“Once a nerd, always a nerd.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said, and kissed me again.

There were no teeth this time. And he was lying about his abilities.

He shifted sideways, half reclined. I did the same. He stroked my arm. His lips slanted across mine. He smelled like . . . I don’t know what he smelled like—something I could eat in one bite. But he drew back. Maybe he was aware of my carnivorous tendencies.

We stared into each other’s eyes. Here comes the big question, I thought. And it was wrong to have sex on the first date. Wrong. So wrong. But in another light, this wasn’t really my first date. It was about my thousandth. Just not with the same guy.

“Do you need to answer that?” he asked.

I blinked, dreamily rising from a fog. “What?”

He tilted his head slightly, eyes smiling. “Your bell’s ringing. “

“Bell,” I agreed.

“Someone’s here,” he said.

I heard it then. The chime of the doorbell, followed by a pounding fist.

I don’t know how I missed the noise. It surely wasn’t my heavy breathing. Heavy breathing is strictly for sexually frustrated women who don’t know how to keep their knees together.

“Oh.”

He sat up. I didn’t have much choice but to do the same. I would have felt like a doofus lying there alone.

“Yeah, I . . . Yeah,” I said, and rose to my feet. My knees were a little wobbly . . . and not completely together. Guy could suck face like a kissing gourami.

I wandered hazily toward my vestibule. If this was some door-to-door salesman, he was going to get his ass kicked. Unless he was selling Girl Scout cookies. I mean, kissing’s all well and good, but it’s hard to hold a candle to a box of Caramel deLites and a half gallon of milk.

I glanced hopefully through the window, and every blissful thought frizzled to oblivion.

Rivera stood on my stoop, and he didn’t look happy.

What should I do? My mind had stormed into high gear, but didn’t seem to be generating a lot of fabulous results.

Maybe, I thought, on the blinding edge of inspiration, if I was quiet, he wouldn’t know I was home.

“Open up, McMullen,” he said. “I know you’re there.”

I gritted my teeth against a curse and swiveled to smile at Ross.

He was watching me with unblinking curiosity.

“This isn’t a good time, Rivera,” I said, turning back toward the door and speaking quietly.

“Good time, my ass,” he growled. “Let me in.”

I gave Ross another smile, debated all my marvelous options for about three seconds, and snatched the door open.

“Damn it, Rivera,” I hissed. “I’ve got company.”

“Congratulations,” he said, and pushed his way inside. He scanned my house like an exterminator checking for roaches, then nodded toward the living room. “Who’s that?”

“Get the hell outta my—” I began, but just then I heard Ross rise from the couch and make his way toward us.

I swallowed another curse and turned a beatific gaze on my guest. “Ross,” I said, but it was damn hard speaking between my teeth, “this is Lieutenant Rivera. Rivera”—I hardly growled at all when I said his name—“this is Ross.”

The lieutenant was silent for about a third of a second, then, “Bennet?” he said.

I was struggling to think of a way to deny it, but Ross was already stepping up and reaching for Rivera’s hand. For a moment I thought the cocky bastard would actually refuse that most honored of male rituals. But he didn’t. Their fingers met and clasped. Their eyes did the same. They might just as well have sniffed butts and circled each other snarling.