I told myself this was good. I didn’t believe myself and was beginning to think myself was a big, fat moron.
Luke picked me up. We drove around for two hours, doing mostly nothing and saying absolutely nothing (Luke, I found, wasn’t a big conversationalist). We stopped a couple of times so I could talk to some kids and that was it.
* * * * *
At my door I pulled my keys out of my pocket.
Luke pulled my keys out of my hand.
“What the…?” I started but with a Super Dude super-door-unlocking-power he was already pushing open my door. When he was inside, he turned to my alarm and punched in a code.
“How do you know my code?” I asked, coming in behind him.
He threw my keys on my chaise and walked into the house. “Everyone knows your code,” he told me, still walking across the living room.
I stared at his back.
So much for my life going back to normal.
I closed the door, turned on a lamp and followed him. I saw the light go on in the kitchen and heard Boo talking to Luke.
Luke was making himself at home and opening a bottle of Fat Tire beer when I arrived. Boo was asking him who the hell he thought he was and also could he spare a few kitty treats for a poor, abused house cat?
“What are you doing?” I asked as he leaned his hips against the counter and took a pull off the beer.
“Havin’ a beer,” he answered when he was done swallowing.
“I can see you’re having a beer. Why are you having a beer?”
“I’m thirsty.”
Oh for goodness sakes.
“Luke. It’s late. I’m tired. I’ve just been bored out of my mind. I don’t even know what patrol is, all I know is, so far, field work sucks.”
“Field work is the business.”
“My business is plastic wrap and canola oil,” I told him.
After I was done with my statement he gave me one of his half-grins and I realized what I said sounded like.
“Go home,” I ordered, deciding to get snippy instead of blush.
“If you’re worried Vance can see us on the cameras, don’t. He’s after a skip.”
With everything that happened, I’d forgotten about the cameras.
I did a mental review of my time in the house without Vance and realized with relief I’d been clothed through all of it and hadn’t done anything embarrassing like dance around singing “Sir Duke” with Stevie Wonder (which I was prone to do).
I decided to ignore the cameras, for now. “A skip?”
“Someone who skipped bond. Vance is in Wyoming.”
For some strange reason knowing that and finding out from Luke slid in deep like a knife to the chest and it hurt like hell.
He pushed away from the counter, index and middle fingers around the neck of the bottle, and walked up to me, like Vance did, overpowering and right in my space.
Then he put the hand not holding the beer to my neck, thumb at my jaw. I had no idea what he was up to but I stood my ground, head-crackin’ mamma jamma that I was, no retreat.
I rethought my decision when I looked in his face.
This was not badass, Super Dude Luke. His look was gentle and if he was kickass hot normally, gentle would have taken me to a serious Grade Three belly flutter if I wasn’t hung up on Vance.
“He shouldn’t have fucked a virgin,” Luke said to me.
Oh my God.
Any hint of a belly flutter disappeared. Mace had heard the cherry popping discussion and talked.
I tried to jerk my head away but his fingers tightened around the back of my neck and I felt the warmth of his body as he got closer, way closer but still not quite touching me with his body.
“Nothin’ to be embarrassed about, Jules.” His voice was soft.
“Maybe you should go home now,” I suggested, deciding he was wrong. There was indeed something to be embarrassed about but I didn’t want to have this discussion with him (or anyone for that matter).
“It’s sweet as hell and every fuckin’ guy at the office wished they’d gone after you and trapped you in that alley after you shot out Cordova’s tires. Including me.”
Oh… my… God.
These guys gossiped like a bunch of women.
“I wouldn’t have fucked you and left you though. No fuckin’ way,” he went on, still talking softly but sounding like he meant it.
Um.
Wow.
I swallowed and straightened my shoulders. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know Vance.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I repeated and he didn’t and I wasn’t going to tell him.
He stared at me a beat.
Then he said (luckily deciding to switch topics), “Tomorrow, training early. I’m takin’ you out to dinner then we’re going on patrol.”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday. No training and I’m going to annoy some dealers tomorrow night. I haven’t done it in days. I don’t want them –”
“Training at four. Dinner. Patrol. You need to take a break from the dealers,” he interrupted me.
“Luke, I’m not going to stop.”
“I’m not tellin’ you to stop. I’m tellin’ you to take a break, make them think Darius negotiated you off the streets. Get some action where you can try what you’ve learned. Then you can go back after them.”
“Luke –”
“Give it a week, with me.”
I didn’t know what he was asking and I didn’t want to know mainly because I was afraid of what he might be asking.
He knew what I was thinking. “Just training, just patrol, just ride-along when I’m workin’. Anything else you can think of that doesn’t have to do with that, I’m open to it.”
I couldn’t help myself; a ride-along while he was working was too good to miss.
Anything that didn’t have to do with that I wasn’t going to think about.
“Okay, training and patrol tomorrow… no dinner,” I gave in partially.
“Dinner.”
“No dinner.”
He got closer and my breasts brushed his chest.
Um.
Yikes.
“Dinner,” he said softly.
Time to retreat.
I pulled back. “Training and patrol, if I’m hungry, dinner.”
“You’ll be hungry.”
Whatever.
Time to stop talking.
I frowned at him. He gave me a half-smile.
Then he touched my nose with his finger and was gone.
I stood in the kitchen and wondered what in the hell just happened.
Then I decided not to wonder. Best to leave it alone and book my flight to Nicaragua first thing in the morning.
I got ready for bed making certain I did it in the bathroom where Vance told me there were no cameras (and I hoped he wasn’t lying).
Then I climbed in bed and waited for Vance to break in. Wyoming wasn’t that far away, just a few hours. He could make it back in time, from what I heard he was a good tracker.
I tried to stay awake so I could hear him when he came in and be ready to give him a piece of my mind before I jumped his bones.
Then when I dozed, I tried to do it lightly.
Then I fell dead asleep.
* * * * *
I woke to the phone ringing.
I didn’t open my eyes and did a body scan, feeling for extra heat, the weight of an arm on me.
Nothing.
I opened my eyes and saw Boo staring at me. “Meow,” Boo said.
I slept on my side in the middle of the bed. Even though it was a big bed it wouldn’t give Vance much room to sleep and not touch me if I was in the middle.
Still, I turned to my back and twisted my head to look.
No one there.
Boo walked on my chest, sat down and stared at me. “Me… ow,” he repeated.
My answering machine clicked on.
“In a second, Boo,” I whispered, wai
ting for a voice to give a message and hating myself because I was holding my breath.
The voice came.
It wasn’t Vance. It was Ally.
“Girl, wake up. We’re all doing mimosas and eggs benedict. Dozens. Meeting in an hour. Be prepared, Tod’s bringing the Wedding Planner Book. It might get hairy.” She paused. “By the way, ‘in an hour’ means nine thirty.”
I listened to her disconnect.
I laid there, stared at the ceiling and stroked Boo. Boo liked breakfast but he liked stroking better so he settled in and waited.
I wondered if I could do mimosas and eggs benedict with a gaggle of Vance’s friends. I wondered how, if I did do mimosas and eggs benedict, I would go back to a normal life. I wondered what the Wedding Planner Book was.
I curled my arm around Boo, threw back the covers and Boo and I slid off the bed.
I got Boo breakfast.
Then I got ready for Dozens.
* * * * *
After another boring, useless, action-free night of patrol, Luke and I walked up to my house.
I told him he could just take off but he insisted on walking me up to the door.
I’d had another shit day, no calls, no space invasions, no nothing from Vance.
I shouldn’t be surprised. I did break up with him and I wasn’t playing games.
Still, I didn’t expect him to give up so easily.
* * * * *
I found out at breakfast that Tod had declared himself Indy and Lee’s official wedding planner and thus had created The Wedding Planner Book. Indy hadn’t actually made this officially official but was letting Tod live the dream.
For some reason though, throughout breakfast, Tod argued with Roxie (not Indy) about all things wedding. This argument took the form of Tod saying what was going to happen and Roxie saying whatever Tod said was going to happen wasn’t going to happen with a lot of, “We’ve been here before, Tod.”
Indy ignored them and gabbed with the rest of us about her and Lee’s plans to go to Lee’s cabin in Grand Lake for Thanksgiving; whether something big was going to happen between Tex and Jet’s mom (apparently, Tex was Roxie’s uncle and that would make Jet and Roxie related by marriage, I was learning this was an incestuous group); and a lengthy discussion about Luke and my conversation last night.
Indy confirmed that all the guys on the team knew about my cherry popping.
At this news I ordered another mimosa.
“Men think virginity is hot,” Ally assured me after I’d given the waitress my order.
“Maybe for eighteen year olds, not for twenty-six, nearly twenty-seven year olds,” I told her.
“No… um, they just think it’s hot,” Indy put in, “even Lee thought it was hot.”
I stared at her.
“Yeah, Eddie thought it was hot too,” Jet shared.
I turned my head and my eyes bugged out at Jet. “How does Eddie know? He’s not even a member of the team.”
She just looked at Indy and kept her mouth shut. Lee had told Eddie.
These guys.
“Hank knows too,” Roxie decided to stop arguing with Tod and enter our conversation. I actually felt the blood drain from my face when I looked at her. “For the record, he also thinks it’s hot.”
That was it. “I’m moving to Nicaragua,” I announced.
“Oh Sugar, it ain’t that bad,” Daisy threw in. “Vance thought it was hot.”
That was true, Vance thought it was hot – for about a day (okay, maybe two).
I caught the waitress and doubled my mimosa order.
“You should know pretty much everyone is pissed at Vance for leaving you,” Indy said after I finished my bid for a drunken stupor.
“He didn’t leave me. I broke up with him,” I reminded her.
“They don’t look at it that way. They figure if he wanted you, he could have, you know, talked you out of it,” Indy went on.
I was thinking, deep down inside where I didn’t want to go, they were right. Any thinking about Vance made my heart hurt so I pushed it aside.
“It’s better this way,” I told them all.
They just stared at me and I knew they didn’t believe me.
Whatever.
Time to talk about something else.
I turned to Tod. “I like tangerine and chocolate for wedding colors,” I lied.
Tod’s eyes got wide and happy.
“Oh shit,” Ally muttered.
“Do not even go there,” Roxie warned, eyes narrowing on Tod.
The discussion soon got heated.
I was off the hook.
* * * * *
I went to training with Luke and nearly at the end of our hour’s session I dropped him to his back with me on top.
“Yee ha!” I shouted in his face, sitting astride him, chest pressed to his.
“What do you do now?” Luke asked, hands at my hips, mini-half-grin on his lips.
“I don’t know,” I sat up, “maybe this?” Then I swung my arms out in front of me in a continuous loop and chanted, “Go Jules, go Jules, go Jules.”
The door opened, my head swung to it in an oh-my-God-not-Vance panic and I saw Mace walking in wearing a white tee with some surfer design on the front and black track pants with white stripes up the side. He looked at us on the floor, face blank like every day he walked into the down room and saw a woman astride Luke.
Maybe he did.
Then I was flipped onto my back and Luke was on top.
“Hey!” I snapped. “I was celebrating.”
“Probably you should celebrate after you’ve incapacitated your target,” he told me.
“I was thinking you might want to have a family one day,” I returned.
He laughed in my face. I frowned in his.
“Babe, you weren’t even close. Though, you wanna be, I’d give it a shot.”
“Stop flirting with me,” I snapped.
“Stop bein’ so cute,” he shot back.
The treadmill came on and both of us looked to it and saw Mace jogging. It was then I realized I was lying on the floor with Luke on top of me having a conversation.
Damn.
“Don’t mind me,” Mace said, face no longer blank. I didn’t know him very well and he normally looked like he was in a bad mood (Mace was Mr. Seriously Broody Hot Guy Badass) but now he looked like he was going to laugh.
“You have a big mouth,” I told him, turning my snit on him.
He jacked up the speed on the treadmill and the jog went to a run. He was completely unaffected by my snit.
“Too good not to share,” was all he said, knowing exactly what I was talking about.
“You’re on my list,” I said to Mace and then looked at Luke, “you too.”
“What list?” Luke asked.
“My Annoying Men I’m Going to Kill List.”
Luke rolled to his side and came up on an elbow. He was flat out smiling now.
“Why me?” he asked.
“Just because,” I retorted and got to my feet.
I looked at Mace. “If you told Dawn, I’m going to torture you before I kill you.”
“Dawn doesn’t know,” Mace said, amused look gone.
“Dawn’s not gonna know,” Luke said, on his feet too.
Well that was something.
Luke threw his arm around my shoulders. “Let’s get a beer,” he said and he walked me out of the room.
I didn’t argue mainly because I could use a beer.
* * * * *
We went to Lincoln’s Road House for beer and dinner (it would seem Luke had been right, I was hungry).
Lincoln’s was a biker bar on a slip road facing I-25. It had great food, a broken-in feel, hot guys, women wearing chaps and slick bikes of every make, model and color lined up on the side road that flanked the bar.
They had a band so we watched it for awhile.
Then we got in a big fight about who was going to pay because I figured if he paid, it’d be a date and
Luke figured he was a man with a significant overabundance of testosterone so he was going to pay no matter what (this wasn’t exactly his argument, more my take on the underlying message).
People started staring.
I shut up.
Luke paid.
Then we went on patrol.
* * * * *
This time at my door after patrol, keys held firmly and at the ready, I shouldered up to the door and let myself in.
Before I could claim the doorway and keep him out, Luke shoved me in with a hand at the small of my back, closed the door behind us and unarmed the alarm.
Then he walked through my living room.
“I’m tired, Luke,” I told his back.
He disappeared into the dark hall.
I sighed, turned on a lamp, shrugged off my blazer, threw it on the chaise and followed him into the kitchen.
The light was on and Boo was telling on me because I’d run out of kitty treats and hadn’t been to the grocery store. Luckily Luke didn’t speak Cat and seemed to have the Super Dude super-power to be totally oblivious to Boo’s meows.
Luke handed me an opened beer when I walked in and then he settled his hips against the counter, arms crossed on his chest, lifting his forearm to take a pull off his beer every once in awhile.
We didn’t speak.
For my part, this was mainly because the only thing I could think to talk about was whether Vance was back in town or not. And I wasn’t going to do that.
For Luke’s part, on the whole, he didn’t talk much.
Finally Luke spoke. “Tomorrow, you’re off. Monday, I’m workin’ and you’re ride-along.”
I nodded, drank some of my beer, settled my hips against the counter and looked at my boots. I was happy about ride-along. It was something to look forward to in a future that, all of a sudden, seemed kind of bleak. I never thought about my future. I lived life day-to-day. I thought a lot about everyone else’s future, Roam and Sniff, Nick, but not my own.
Luke’s boots came into my line of vision and I looked up. He was close. He set his beer bottle on the counter beside me, pulled mine out of my hand and put it next to his.
Then before I knew what he was about, his fingers curled around my wrists, he lifted my arms, got deep into my space, wrapped my wrists around his neck and his face started coming toward mine.
“What are you…?” I started then stopped.
His hands slid down the undersides of my arms and a thrill shot through me before he (I kid you not) kissed me.