Divorced, Desperate And Dating

by Christie Craig

Sue dropped her head back on the sofa. Her mother not only had better cleavage, but she had a better sex life. Not that Sue even had a sex life. Yet.

  Unable to wrap her mind around her mom having sex, Sue tried to think of Paul and herself bumping uglies and making juice, but all she could think was that there had to be something wrong with her tonsils.

  The bad vibes brought her focus back to her pinching shoes. She yanked off the sandals. Barefoot, she stomped over to the trash can and ceremoniously dumped the shoes. Everyone stared.

  “Toe pain,” she said. Everyone nodded in understanding. Then Sue’s home phone rang, and her mother answered.

  “Hello?…Fine, don’t talk.” She dropped the phone and downed the last of her wine.

  “Was that a hang-up?” Sue asked.

  When her mom nodded, Sue’s heart missed a beat. Just a coincidence, she told herself. She got hang-ups all the time. Didn’t she?

  Two days later, Sue sat at Lacy’s kitchen table on the Fourth of July and tried to figure out the best way to drop the bomb about having to miss the party. She had tried to persuade Paul, but…

  “Did you find someone to pet sit?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Lacy said.

  Chase sauntered into the room and gave Lacy a kiss on her neck. Sue tried to imagine Paul doing that this weekend. She couldn’t.

  “So, how are your plans for cha-cha-cha in Mexico?” Chase asked.

  “Fine.” Sue rubbed Lacy’s dog, Fabio, with her foot.

  “Just fine?” Chase asked. “You haven’t had sex in years and all you can say is fine?”

  Sue frowned at Lacy. “Do you tell your husband all my secrets?”

  “I seduced it out of her.” Chase wrapped his arm around his wife.

  “Great,” Sue said. “You two get it on while you talk about my nonsex life.”

  Lacy elbowed her laughing husband. He rubbed his side. “Speaking of your nonsex life, is this Paul guy going to show his face around here?”

  Time to drop the bomb. “He’s coming by to…pick me up.” Sue winced at Lacy’s frown. “Before I ever mentioned the party, he’d made reservations at a fancy restaurant by the Galleria.”

  “You think you’ll get food better than mine?” Chase asked.

  “No.” Guilt started pulling tighter at the corner of Sue’s heart. “I’m so sorry.”

  “What,” Chase said, “the foot doctor’s too high class to hang out with cops?”

  “No.” Sue met Lacy’s eyes and pleaded for understanding. “He already had plans.”

  “Your mother seems to think he’s behind the rat incident.” Chase’s brow pinched.

  “He’s not!” Sue snapped, and from the look on Chase’s face she knew where the conversation was going. “And neither is my agent.”

  Sue’s cell phone rang, and she grabbed it from the table. “Hello?” She prayed it wouldn’t be a hang-up. She had only gotten two since Monday, but…

  “I’m lost.” Paul’s voice echoed through the line as Sue watched Chase leave the room.

  She gave Paul directions again, trying to find some flicker of warmth at the sound of his voice. But Paul had a wimpy voice. When she hung up, she met Lacy’s eyes. “I hope you didn’t cook steak for us. I should have called last night when Paul told me—”

  “It’s okay,” Lacy said. “Jason will make up for it.”

  Sue’s eyebrows shot up before she could fake a nonchalant expression. “He’s coming?”

  Suspicion filled her friend’s eyes. “Is this why you and Paul are leaving? You’re not still avoiding Jason?”

  “I didn’t even know he was coming,” she said honestly. Yet who could blame her for wanting to leave? What girl wanted to spend time with a guy who found her tonsils defective?

  The phone rang again. “You take a left on the dirt road,” Sue explained when Paul said he was lost again. “It’s a ranch-style house. I’ll meet you out front.”

  Sue dropped the phone in her purse and went to hug Lacy.

  “You’re not going to bring him in at all?” her friend asked. “You’re going to sleep with the guy and I haven’t even met him. Isn’t that against the girlfriend code of ethics? What if he’s dog ugly and you just can’t see it?”

  “He’s not ugly, and you slept with Chase before I met him.” “Yeah, but he had me handcuffed to the bed.” Sue chuckled, then asked, “Is Kathy coming?” “Tommy’s sick,” Lacy explained. “I throw a party and neither of my two closest friends show up.” She studied Sue as if using her all-powerful girlfriend radar. “It is about Jason, isn’t it?” She pointed a finger at Sue. “Other than that day at your house, you two haven’t been in the same room since the kiss.”

  “Pure luck,” Sue said. Shoes in hand, she waved and headed out the door.

  She hadn’t gotten off the front porch when she realized her luck had run out. Jason’s Mustang eased into the driveway.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Jason saw Sue’s Honda. For a second, he considered leaving. But he’d spent a good part of the last two days telling himself he’d made more of this infatuation with Sue than existed.

  So she tempted him. He wasn’t going to act on it. She wasn’t the first woman he’d chosen to avoid, and it wasn’t as if she was some siren that drove a man to his knees. He’d had women with larger breasts and longer legs. Sue wasn’t even his type. She talked too damn much, was too short, and…

  “Crap!” All delicious five feet of her stepped out of Chase’s front door.

  Jason’s gaze whispered over every inch of her, and his mouth went dry. For a woman who wasn’t his type, she got his pulse rate going. She wore one of those loose-fitting, sleeveless summer dresses—the type of dress that led a man to think about how little was worn underneath. His mouth dryness increased, and he wished he had a beer. Hadn’t he passed a convenience store a mile back?

  “Don’t be a fool.” He crawled out of his car. Or a bigger fool. He’d already made a fool out of himself a couple days ago when he’d left her house, taken Chase’s car, and forgotten to take Chase.

  Jason pushed his door closed with more force than needed. He didn’t like losing his head, especially over a woman he had no intention getting close to. But neither did he run from trouble. Best to face this problem head-on like any other.

  Facing Sue, he first noted her frown, then the fact that dangling from her fingers were a pair of peach-colored sandals. But it was the frown that got to him, though the bare feet did a little something to his insides, too. Not to mention the low neckline that showed off her breasts, which in all fairness were perfectly proportioned.

  Damn, she looked good.

  “Where’re you going?” Rearing back on his heels, he tried not to enjoy the view.

  “Don’t you know better than to ask a dumb blonde a question?” She skirted him.

  Turning, he caught her by the arm. The feel of her skin sent his pulse to ticketing speeds. He told himself to ignore it. But he’d never been good at minding.

  He ran his thumb over her elbow. “Don’t you think this is silly?”

  “What’s silly?” She glared at his hand wrapped around her arm.

  He let go, reluctantly. “This avoiding act you’ve been playing.”

  “I haven’t been—”

  “Don’t lie. Every get-together I don’t come to, you do. And when I’m here, you’re not.” If he were being honest, he’d done his share of avoiding, too. But this time his plan was to confront the problem head-on, and he couldn’t let something like the truth get in his way.

  “Pure luck.” She glanced at the street—avoiding looking at him, probably.

  “Pure stupidity.” He decided to give her the same speech he’d given himself earlier. “It’s not as if we’re divorced or something. We didn’t even date. We kissed. Once. Just once.”

  She moved from side to side, as if the sidewalk was too hot on her bare feet. If her feet were as soft as her elbow…He nudged her over to stand on the grass.

  T
he grass felt better against the pads of her feet, though Sue wouldn’t give Jason the pleasure of such an admission.

  “One kiss,” he repeated.

  But it was a good kiss, Sue thought, as the smell of smoldering charcoal and the hearty aroma of Chase’s steaks grilling in the backyard filled her nose. She stared down the road and prayed Paul would magically appear.

  If only Jason’s kiss had been horrible. If only she hadn’t enjoyed having her tonsils strip-searched by a certain cop.

  “I just don’t get it,” he said.

  Neither did she. She had to bite her lip to keep from asking why he hadn’t called. Another scented breeze caught her hair. And she remembered the night and the kiss in question. She’d forgotten her shoes on Lacy’s patio and stepped out to get them before heading off. He’d followed her. They’d actually stood there and had a real conversation about the…stars. And—

  “Look,” he said, pulling her out of a memory that was best forgotten.

  “Gotta go.” She tried to step around him.

  “It was just a kiss.” He moved in front of her. “I didn’t even touch…the merchandise.”

  Considering his eyes had gone to her newly acquired Wonderbra cleavage, she knew what merchandise he meant.

  “For which I am very grateful!” she snapped. “Because I don’t like to be groped while some guy has his tongue down my throat.”

  He muttered something under his breath and tucked both hands into his jean pockets. The position made his biceps press against his white T-shirt. Not wanting to notice things like muscles, or how good white cotton looked stretched across his masculine chest, she pinched her toes around the hot blades of grass.

  “Look,” he said. “Let’s go inside and put this whole thing to bed.” His voice rang baritone, and his hair, the shade of light wheat, whispered across his brow in the breeze.

  “Sorry, but I don’t intend to bed you.” But if you’d called four months ago I’m sure my life would have been off hold. Yet somehow she knew sex with Jason Dodd would not come with pedal brakes. She’d be thrown over the handlebars for sure.

  But you wouldn’t have to fake it with him, a voice within chimed. A voice she ruthlessly ignored.

  “You know what I mean,” he said. “It’s not fair to Lacy and Chase for us to keep this up. Let’s go back inside and prove to each other, and to them, we’re adults.”

  She looked him in the eyes—blue eyes, long lashes. “Sorry, I’ll have to be an adult another day. But if you start practicing now, you might succeed in a couple of years.” The wind blew again and the bow on her dress flew up to her Wonderbra cleavage.

  “Don’t be silly.” He jerked his fingers out of his pockets and tucked his hands beneath the opposite armpits like a child who’d been told not to touch.

  “I’m not being silly. I’m meeting someone.” She noticed his gaze flickered to her chest every few seconds. So the Wonderbra was doing the trick, huh?

  “This is what I mean.” His gaze fell back to her breasts. “You aren’t meeting anyone. You’re lying just so you don’t have to be in the same room with me.”

  Tension knitted Sue’s brows, and she waved the sandals in front of him to get his gaze off her chest. The leather strap of one shoe caught him across his arm with a loud pop. “For your information, I have a date and—”

  “Right.” He rubbed his arm. “I happen to know that you don’t date. You belong to that Divorced, Desperate and Delicious club that you, Lacy, and Kathy started. Of course, Lacy jumped ship.”

  Sue gritted her teeth. Did everyone in town know she hadn’t had sex in two years? “Well, throw me a landline, mate, because you can drop the desperate from my title, too. I’m now divorced, delicious, and dating.”

  The sound of an engine buzzed in the summer air. “Sue?” Paul called from his car as he stopped in the driveway. His voice wasn’t baritone, but she didn’t mind because it blended perfectly with the purr of the Porsche’s engine.

  Victory tickled her insides, and she darted off, ducked inside Paul’s window, and kissed him. She even put a little tongue in the kiss. “Perfect timing.” Then she noticed he wore the surgeon’s cap again over his short brown hair.

  She yanked it off before backing up. Paul had to look good, just in case Jason checked him out. Not that she needed to worry. Paul could look like a dweeb, because his red Porsche had the power to mentally castrate any man who cared about cars. Jason might not care about Sue, or her tonsils, but she was almost certain he liked cars.

  “What’s this?” Paul leaned out the window, his gaze following her legs downward.

  At first she thought he referred to her dress. Then he frowned. Had he somehow guessed that she’d found more sizzle standing on the same block with a certain egotistical cop than she had in the lip lock she’d planted on him?

  He flicked the edge of her sandals with his index finger. “Never go barefoot!”

  Barefoot? Here she’d worn a bra that pushed her boobs plum up to her nose and the man still only noticed her feet. Oh, goodness, in two days she would be having sex with this man.

  Or not, whispered an internal voice. She could still tell him no. But her life might be on hold for eternity. She might never have sex again, and the whole world would know.

  She shot a quick glance back at Jason, who stood, arms crossed, staring daggers at her. Then he bolted off to Lacy’s front door.

  “Who’s the dude in the shower cap driving the Porsche?” Jason shoved Chase into the kitchen, away from the crowd.

  “Oh, you must mean Paul, Sue’s new squeeze. She said he drove a nice car. I wouldn’t know about the shower cap.” Chase shrugged. “Want a beer?”

  “It’s a tad more than nice. It’s a Porsche, for Pete’s sake. And why in the hell didn’t you tell me Sue was dating?” Jason stalked to the fridge and grabbed a beer.

  Chase studied him. “I didn’t know you cared about Sue.”

  “I don’t care.” Giving the cap a vicious twist, he hurled it into the sink with such force that it pinged around the white porcelain. “But you could have told me.”

  “Hey, you made a play and said you weren’t interested. In my book that means her dating status is off the record. I mean…” Chase smiled and snatched the cap from the sink. “If I got juicy details, I ’d share them with you because you’re my best friend, but—”

  “I’m not interested. The woman can’t stand still and never shuts up. When I kissed her she talked through the whole thing. Never stopped yapping. You know how hard it is to kiss a girl who’s talking?”

  “Well, excuse me!” Sue’s voice brought Jason swinging around. She stood in the doorway, eyes narrowed, hands on her hips, and her peach-colored sandals now on her feet.

  Jason went ahead and took a sip of beer, because from the look on her face he was going to need it. Hell, from the look on her face he might need a six-pack.

  “Maybe I was telling you to get your tongue out of my larynx.” She jerked a purse off the kitchen table then turned to Chase. “And if you share one tiny piece of my ‘juicy details’ with Mr. Deep Throat here, I swear you’ll be singing soprano for at least a week.” In a streak of peach, the woman stormed out.

  Jason held the cold beer to his forehead and leaned against the counter. Chase waited until the front door slammed before bursting out in laughter.

  “Cork it, would you?” Jason snapped.

  “I’m sorry,” Chase said. “But that was funny. You two got something good going. But you’d better move fast before the foot doctor gets her socks off. Her mother swears if he’s good in bed, Sue will marry him.”

  Thursday night’s weekly meeting with her longtime critique partners strained Sue’s nerves to the breaking point. Hey, it had been a hard week. As if dead rats, bad-boy cops, and several more hang-ups weren’t troubling enough, Benny Fritz, critique partner number three, was giving her the eye again.

  She watched Mary and Frank walk out of the diner. Then her gaze darted to Benny, who s
till had his crooked smile in place.

  “Have dessert with me.” Benny eyes took on that glint again.

  “Sorry, but Thursday nights I go for homemade cookies and hurricanes at my grandparents’. Weekly ritual. They’re big on rituals.” Sue looked at her bill.

  “Isn’t she the one whose cooking sends people to the hospital?”

  “Yeah, but her cookies are safe. Burnt, but safe.” Sue noted again the puppy-dog way Benny gazed at her. He looked as if he might roll over and offer his belly for her to scratch. She had no desire to scratch Benny’s belly, stroke his ego or any other body part. Since his separation with his wife a month ago, the forty-year-old had been way too chummy.

  Frankly, his interest surprised her. She’d seen Benny’s wife, and she and the woman were complete opposites. Dark, light. Big, small. Sue fidgeted with her purse strap and tossed words at the awkward moment. “Your chapter had edge. The man-eating plant was a nice touch.”

  “You don’t like sci-fi. I know that.” He placed his hand over hers.

  “But it’s good writing.” Sue slid her fingers from beneath his. “I sympathized with the donkey when that alien ate its baby.” She liked Benny, appreciated his input on her own work, and admired his writing talent, if not his genre. Most of his one-eyed alien stories were published regularly.

  “I’ll take the compliment,” he said. “When a beautiful woman says something nice, you shouldn’t argue.”

  Sue half smiled. Benny wasn’t half bad looking, but as soon as his wife forgave him for not noticing her new perm, or what ever stupid thing they had argued over, they’d be back together. All Sue had to do was discourage him until they rediscovered their twenty-year love affair, hopefully without damaging his ego or the dynamics of the critique group.

  Benny winked at her. “Can I drop off my story at your place when I finish it?”

  “Or you could e-mail it.” She scooted out of the booth, dropped money on the table, and waved at the young pregnant waitress. Wondering about the girl’s situation, Sue dropped another bill and glanced at Benny. “Later.”

  He followed her. Muggy July air greeted them as the door squeaked closed and sent one last wave of air-conditioning their way.