by Penny Reid
“So some women like it because they think it’s hot, therefore it is hot.” Sandra took a sip of her drink, smacking her lips.
“On the other hand, anything that stretches out that hole can lead to an increase in sharts.” Marie lifted her eyebrows at Sandra.
“Really, Marie? We’ve reached this level?” Ashley was making a disgusted face. “I grew up with six hillbilly brothers. You think I want to spend this precious time with my lady friends talking about sharts? I can do that here, anytime. In fact, I think it was the hot topic over dinner last night.”
Marie giggled, not looking repentant.
“I don’t know if that’s true.” Janie shook her head. “Increase in anal sex hasn’t been shown to be a factor in loss of sphincter control. Not if it’s done right.”
“Done right?” I asked, my voice cracking before I could catch the question.
“I’m so afraid.” Ashley covered her ears.
“Stop being a prude.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes at Ashley.
“Just because I don’t wish to discuss putting junk in my poop-shoot doesn’t mean I’m a prude,” Ashley volleyed back.
Sandra ignored them, answering my question. “Lots and lots of lube.”
“Are you speaking from experience, Sandra?” Nicoletta sent her a flirty grin.
“No! God no. Have you seen Alex’s yang? It’s a monster.”
Nico busted out laughing, and so did Marie and Elizabeth. “As a matter of fact, no. But I’ll be sure to ask him about it the next time I see him.”
“Can we please not talk about Alex’s yang?” Marie’s voice, though she was wiping tears of hilarity from her eyes, was pleading. “It’s like talking about my little brother’s yang.”
“Your little brother is hot, though.” Elizabeth pointed at Marie with her knitting needle. “And, for the record, feel free to discuss Alex’s yang with me.”
“Moral of the story: some women like it, some women not so much.” Sandra seemed to be determined to push the conversation forward.
“I wouldn’t like it.” Ashley still had her ears covered.
“How do you know unless you try it?” Roscoe nudged his sister again.
Ashley batted his elbow away. “I don’t want someone else to pick my nose, doesn’t mean I need to try it first to know.”
“Personally, I can’t get behind it. See what I did there?” Sandra grinned at Roscoe. He grinned back.
“Then why are we talking about it?” Fiona asked, her tone dry and impatient.
Sandra didn’t answer right away, instead glaring at Fiona, and the glare intensified the longer she looked.
Silence stretched and became uncomfortable; all of us, one by one, looked up from our knitting and glanced between Fiona and Sandra.
Visibly confused, Fiona lifted an eyebrow. “Sandra?”
“Because I can’t talk about how sad I am,” she blurted. “So I have to talk about something else.”
Wait, what?
“Why are you sad?” I asked, examining my friend. She did look a little sad.
“I just—I feel like everything is changing.” Sandra took a gulp of her drink and hid behind the glass.
Fiona and I shared a look before she asked, “Changing how?”
“Well, you’re pregnant. Janie’s pregnant.” Sandra gestured to their bellies. “Soon someone else will be in the family way.” Sandra glared at Elizabeth and Elizabeth gave her wide eyes of innocence in return. “And then—between sleep deprivation and hunting for deals on diapers, we’ll drift apart. Pretty soon it’ll be months between meetups, or years. And then once-in-a-blue-moon reunion specials. And then we’ll only see each other at weddings and funerals.”
Janie’s eyebrows puckered. “Three of us live in this building—including you. It seems highly improbable for us to drift apart given our proximity.”
“Are you seriously going to tell me that having a kid won’t interfere with your social schedule? Because I remember how things were with Fiona when Grace was born. We didn’t see her for months.”
Fiona didn’t look hurt, but she did look concerned. “Sandra—”
“By the way, you know I love Jack and Grace, so this isn’t a complaint about your ridiculously stunning family. This is me trying to prepare myself for less frequent knit nights. Or poorly attended knit nights.”
Another moment of silence settled upon us, and when Sandra spoke again, her voice was softer, her melancholy more obvious. “Things aren’t going to be the same.”
“Things are changing, it’s true.” Fiona’s tone was gentle.
“And maybe we won’t see each other as often.” Marie’s cadence was also soft, and maybe a little introspective. “But just because we won’t see each other doesn’t mean we won’t know each other.”
“You sound like a greeting card,” Sandra grumbled, then sighed, and then shook her head. “I’m sorry, Marie. That wasn’t—”
“Don’t apologize to me.” Marie held her hands up. “Knitting means never having to say you’re sorry.”
That drew a small smile from Sandra and another sigh. “I don’t want things to change. I don’t want things to end.”
She sounded so sad, so desolate, that I couldn’t help my heart’s answering pang of despondency. Things were changing, and not just because Janie and Fiona were about to have their babies.
Abruptly, Marie stood, placing her knitting on the seat behind her, crossed to where Sandra was on the opposite sofa, and pulled her into a hug. Then I stood, as did Fiona, Elizabeth, and Nico. We all followed suit. Soon we were piled on top of, and next to, and behind Sandra, embracing her and each other.
And then we heard Janie’s gruff, “Thor!”
Turning, we found the tall redhead struggling to rock forward, as though she wanted to also hug Sandra, but couldn’t gain enough momentum to lift herself from her seat.
“It’s like,”—Janie started to laugh, obviously with frustration—“I’m that cockroach in Kafka’s Metamorphosis. I can’t even get up.”
Nico broke away and, giving Janie a huge grin, easily lifted her. Before allowing her to cross to the group, he pulled her into a hug first, smoothing his hand down her back. “You are not a cockroach, Janie. Sei molto simpatica, incantevole, e bellissima.”
Janie seemed to melt into his embrace, and she sighed. Or maybe that was me. Or maybe that was all of us.
“I don’t even care what you said. You might’ve called me a dumpster fire and I would never know.” Janie leaned away and grinned up at him with stars in her eyes.
He pushed her hair back from her face and returned her grin. “I said, ‘You are sweet, charming, and very beautiful.”’
And then I was pretty sure we all sighed.
Even Roscoe.
Chapter Seven
Youth Detention Center: Also known as a juvenile detention center (JDC), A secure prison or jail for persons under the age of majority, to which they have been sentenced and committed for a period of time, or detained on a short-term basis while awaiting court hearings and/or placement in such a facility or in other long-term care facilities and programs. Juveniles go through a separate court system, the juvenile court, which sentences or commits juveniles to a certain program or facility.
—Snyder, H. & Sickmund, M. (March 2006). "Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report"
**Kat**
Waiting for lunch Thursday afternoon was just as difficult as it had been last week. Like last week, I’d come into work early, just in case lunch took longer than anticipated. I watched the clock on my computer, glancing at it every three minutes or so. I tried to focus on work. I failed.
But I’d anticipated this and had worked late into the evening on Wednesday, writing emails and saving them in my drafts folder, finishing projects, and preparing the final documents for the Friday staff meeting.
What did help keep me distracted was looking over my list of reckless choices on my phone. Reading the list was unexpectedly catharti
c. It helped me refocus. It also helped dampen any silly shards of optimism I’d been carrying around that Dan might one day return my feelings.
Just keeping it real, I had a lot of what was often colloquially referred to as “baggage.”
I had so much baggage, I could’ve opened a Samsonite outlet store.
Therefore, rather than fulfillment, happiness, and/or true love, I’d decided to settle for functioning member of society; that was my goal.
The first time I filed my taxes was the happiest day of my life up to that point. It felt like a victory. I threw myself a wine and cheese party, but without the wine, and spent the weekend binge-watching Doctor Who.
I was also a steadfast realist. No one with any sense—and especially not someone as amazing as Daniel O’Malley—would ever accept or deal with all my baggage. Who had that kind of room in their life? No house contained that many closets.
Moving on.
Finally, the time was nigh. Locking my computer and grabbing the bag with Dan’s lemon loaves, I let Ms. Opal know I was leaving and made my way to the elevators, feeling remarkably calm.
My plan was to give Dan the list, allow him several minutes to read it, answer any questions he might have, and then—if he still wished to help me—I would explain the situation with my cousin and what Dan could expect from my vindictive family member.
I would be cool and collected. I would be marble.
But then, as the elevator doors opened on the lobby, the first thing I saw was him.
Dan.
Twenty feet away.
Leaning against one of the rectangular pillars, arms crossed, eyes aimed at me.
I hesitated.
He smirked. But not a jerky-smirk. It was an amused smirk. Even from this distance his eyes looked warm and teasing.
I reminded myself of the list, but it didn’t help. In fact, it made me want to stay put, allow the doors to close and carry me back to my floor. His eyes narrowed, the smirk falling away, giving me the impression he suspected I was about to do just that.
And wouldn’t that make me a selfish jerk? Here he was, helping me, and I was going to flee because I was too much of a scaredy-cat to own up to who I was? No. No, no, no.
No.
Gathering a bracing breath, I stepped out of the elevator and walked directly to him, my spine straight, my head held high. His smirk returned and his eyes swept over me as I approached.
Before I could decide whether to greet him with a handshake (would that be weird?), hand him the lemon loaves, or employ a succinct head nod, he leaned forward, slid an arm around my waist, and placed a soft kiss on my cheek.
Oh.
Well.
Okay.
Now I was completely disoriented.
Not quite letting me go, but drawing several inches away, he indicated to the bag. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Lemon loaves.”
“Loaves?” His eyes grew wide. “As in more than one loaf?”
“Yes. Two loafs. I mean, loaves.”
“You are my favorite person.” His voice became low in that way it did, like he was telling me a naughty secret.
I swallowed, careful not to gulp air, and gave him a smile I was sure looked dazed. I was dazed. I was amazed and dazed and frazzled and bedazzled. And bewitched.
This was the worst. And the best.
He grinned, apparently finding something in my expression amusing as he reached for my wrist. “Come on.” Smiling down at me and tilting his head toward the exit, Dan guided me forward as our fingers tangled so we were carrying the bag together. “I’m starving. I made the mistake of ordering pizza last night in New York. It tasted like kitty litter and cardboard. And that miserable cheese, silly putty.”
My gaze was fastened to his profile. “You prefer Chicago pizza?”
He gave me the side-eye. “Do I prefer Chicago pizza? What kind of question is that? You look gorgeous by the way.”
Oh jeez.
He was too much.
I glanced at my outfit, my stomach flip-flopping, an automatic thank you on the tip of my tongue, but then he said, “You wore that last Thursday, right? I like it, the purple. It brings out the color of your eyes.”
My mouth opened and closed for a moment as I struggled to speak. Or think. I sucked in a large breath but stopped myself before I swallowed it. The last thing I needed was violent hiccups.
In the end, I hid my blush behind a curtain of hair and simply followed where he led, my heart in my throat.
It brings out the color of your eyes.
What was I supposed to do with that?
He was the master of flustering me. I was at a loss when what I needed to do was focus. I needed to forget that I liked this man—so, so much—because it was clouding my vision. Dan being Dan was making it difficult for me to think.
He opened the door for me, placing his hand on my lower back—unnecessarily—to guide me through, and then recaptured my fingers as soon as we were on the sidewalk.
“Have you ever been to Capriotti’s?”
I shook my head, forcing myself to say, “No. But I’ve wanted to try it.”
“They have this turkey sub with stuffing and cranberry sauce. It’s like Thanksgiving in a sandwich, but without the additional seasoning of my drunk Uncle Zip’s politics, or my sister Cathy’s failed attempts at pumpkin pie. The woman never met a recipe she didn’t want to ruin by making it vegan. What the fuck is almond milk? They don’t call it ‘nut juice’ but that’s exactly what it is.”
In any other circumstance, his mini-tirade would’ve made me laugh, or at least fight a smile. Many times over the years I’d overheard him ranting to Quinn, or Fiona’s husband, Greg, about something completely prosaic made hilarious by his spin on it. Dan had that way about him. Even when he ranted he was adorable and charming, and whomever he ranted to always ended up laughing.
But not today. I was completely out of sorts, dangerously close to off-kilter. Like an idiot, all I could manage was a tight smile.
We walked the rest of the way in silence, and when we arrived he ushered me in, once again with an unnecessary hand on my lower back. Without pausing, he strolled into the restaurant and claimed a square table with four chairs, and the only one with no customers on either side of it.
I took the chair closest to the wall. I was hungry, but I was more nervous than hungry. Which meant if food were placed in front of me, there was a high chance I would shovel it into my mouth with alarming speed and maybe end up choking to death on a sandwich.
And wouldn’t that make a great headline? Heiress chokes to death on a sandwich, news at eleven.
I placed my backpack and the bag containing the lemon loaves on the seat to my right. Almost immediately, he picked them up and claimed the seat they had occupied, putting both next to him, in the seat across from mine.
“Do you need a menu?” he asked, brazenly studying me.
“How about a grilled cheese?” A grilled cheese wouldn’t present any size issues. I could take careful bites. It was the safe choice.
“That’s it? Just a grilled cheese?”
“Yes.”
Dan contemplated me for another half minute, then stood and motioned to the area where customers placed their orders. “Fine. I’ll get you your grilled cheese.”
“Oh, sorry. I can get it—”
“No, no. You stay there.”
“But I can—”
“Seriously, I’ll get it. The truth is, I’m getting two subs for myself. Because I can’t ever choose between the Thanksgiving one and the cheese steak. So, if you want a bite of either or both, fine. If not, whatever. No pressure.”
Dan backed away from the table, holding my gaze, then turned and strolled toward the counter. I watched as he pulled out his phone, glanced at it for a short moment, and then stuffed it back in his pocket.
Rubbing my forehead, I closed my eyes and redoubled my efforts to focus. It was imperative that I separate myself from this moment, fr
om Dan. For the hour, he would not be Dan the Security Man, who I couldn’t stop ogling, or thinking about, or fretting about his opinion of me.
I needed to forget about that.
He would merely be the parts of himself relevant to the present situation: a good person; a person I needed to protect; a person I trusted to help.
Feeling steadier, I reached for my bag and withdrew my phone. Once on, I unlocked it and navigated to my list of misdeeds, intent on reviewing it when he returned to the table. Sandra’s advice was in the back of my mind, encouraging me to be honest without putting myself down.
However, as soon as my cell had a signal, it buzzed, and then it buzzed again, and again. Eugene had called me three times and had left two messages, not counting texts. Tallying the notifications, I realized he’d sent twelve new text messages. The last one was three paragraphs long and seemed to detail a cautionary tale of someone named Harold Hamm who’d married without a prenup. The unfortunate billionaire—or ex-billionaire—was now in big trouble and on the precipice of losing his company.
More importantly, Eugene pointed out, Harold Hamm’s employees were now at risk of losing their livelihood.
I gave my phone the side-eye. Uncle Eugene was a stinker. He knew I would be having lunch with Dan today and was clearly very adept at pushing my buttons.
“What’s wrong?” Dan settled back in his seat, looking between my phone and me. “Bad news?”
“No. It’s not bad. It’s just . . .” I sighed again. I couldn’t seem to stop sighing.
Dan tilted his head, his eyes on my cell phone screen. “Who’s Eugene?”
“He’s my lawyer—actually, my family’s lawyer—and he’s the executor of my father’s will.”
“Did your”—Dan covered my hand, his gaze impossibly soft and sympathetic—“dad die? Is that why you needed to get married?”
“No. He’s still alive. But he has Alzheimer’s and has for a while.”
“Oh yeah. I knew that.” Dan stripped his straw of paper with one hand, pushing it into his cup. “He and your mom are at the same care facility, right?”