by Dan Dillard
CHAPTER NINE
Lunch with Sheila
Rusty drove the Riviera back down to the waterfront and parked it outside The Admiral. Kelly was getting the business’s mail and she waved at him as he walked to his room. He waved back and then opened the door to room number seven. A blast of arctic quality air hit him in the face and chilled the sweat on his body. It felt wonderful. After a shower and a nap he would be ready to face all of the late thirty-somethings at the party that night. The actual reunion wasn’t until Saturday, but there was a dinner-and-drinks gathering on the beach on Friday.
He hoped Robyn would go with him, but first, he had to ask her about her relationship with the cop. If there was one.
Rusty hadn’t dated a woman seriously since Tanya, which pretty much meant he hadn’t dated a woman seriously in twenty years. Heartbreak was an emotion he was not fond of. There had been dates and even sex when things sparked at the right times, but he’d always felt out of place in the city. Rusty liked Robyn, and although they’d really just met, he thought there was something there. It was stupid to think anything might blossom in just a few days, wasn’t it? That it might linger beyond his trip back home if it lingered at all was just an immature daydream.
Rusty hoped most of all a shower and a nap would cure him of his current worries, and that they would wash off with the grease, oil and dirt he’d collected changing The Bat’s radiator. He hoped they would vanish down the drain in a swirl. He locked the motel door and in the battle of nap or shower, the nap won.