Putting the Fun in Funeral

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  He also went grocery shopping for me. I could hardly imagine his wandering the aisles and selecting meat and vegetables. I didn’t add anything like tampons to the list, though I was tempted.

  I insisted on cooking since I couldn’t get out to run. I was going a little stir crazy, cooped up all day and all night. Cooking helped calm my nerves, and I had to admit I preened under Damon’s lavish praise and fluffed my feathers at his insulting surprise that, in fact, I could cook and with the skills of a five-star chef. Or at least four stars.

  I had to take breaks and do a lot of the prep while sitting. Stacey got a phone call from her mom, which always took a half hour minimum, and left me alone in the kitchen. Not for long.

  I was mincing onions when Damon came in and opened the refrigerator. He took out a bottle of water. He came to stand beside me, propping himself against the counter.

  “What are you working on?”

  “Pasta.”

  “Somehow I don’t think it’ll be quite that simple.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s an insult or not.”

  “It’s not. Your food is the best I’ve had. I’m getting fat.”

  I darted a look at his decidedly not-fat stomach, remembering its taut planes and rippling abs. I flushed and focused back on my onions. “Thanks.”

  “You’ve been avoiding me.”

  I considered arguing the point but opted for the truth. “Yep.”

  His brows rose, evidently not expecting agreement. He took a sip from his bottle, appearing to think. “Why?”

  “Pretty much because it’s easier than dealing with you.”

  “Dealing with me? Let me guess. You’ve decided that I have some ulterior motive for kissing you and staying here.”

  “I think we both know that you do.”

  He sighed. “Do we have to go through this again? Not that I mind. I’ve been aching to kiss you for days.”

  He turned to face me, still leaning against the counter. Good lord, but he was sexy. I turned back to my onions before I started drooling. Why couldn’t I just run with it? The man said he wanted me. I would have to be braindead not to want him. It couldn’t hurt to get hot and sweaty with him. Could it? The trouble was I didn’t do casual, even if I wanted to. I needed a lot more commitment and trust than that.

  He put his hand over mine, taking the knife and setting it on the counter. Then he turned me toward him. “Talk to me. Let’s sort this out right now.” He glanced toward the spare bedroom where Stacey had retreated. “Before we are interrupted. When are they leaving, anyhow?”

  “When I’m well. Or when you leave. Probably the second.”

  “I’m not leaving. And I’m not sharing every minute of you with them forever.”

  For whatever reason, that hit me the wrong way. I stiffened and drew back.

  He looked startled. “What?”

  “I feel like this is a game. That you’re playing me. I keep waiting for a joke to come bursting out. I don’t want to be your fool.”

  His face tightened as he considered my words. Then he nodded. “I’ll convince you.”

  “Why?” It popped out of my mouth before I could stop it.

  “I already told you. I like you. I think you’re beautiful and sexy and unexpected, and incredibly independent. You’re also tenacious and you love dogs. That all turns me on like you wouldn’t believe.”

  I kept looking at him, waiting for the punchline.

  “Come on, you can’t be surprised a man is interested in you,” he scoffed.

  “But you’re not a man. You’re the man who tried to kidnap me and then stalked me and now has invaded my house. You’re gorgeous as hell. You’re slick and say all the right things, and when you kiss me, my toes curl. But I don’t know you, and I can’t tell if you’re lying to me and I just can’t get over it.”

  His smug look made me want to smack him. “Your toes curl? I like that.” He reached out and twisted a strand of my hair around his fingers. “You’ll learn to trust me.” He smiled and I felt like a dragon’s lunch. “In fact, I’ll enjoy the challenge.”

  He swooped in and kissed me fast. Too fast. Heat burst in my chest, and then he was gone, leaving my heart pounding and my entire body vibrating and my lips throbbing for more.

  “Hey,” I said, twisting to watch his ass as he returned to his computer. God’s finest work, if anybody asked me. “What is all that you’re doing?”

  Damon slid into his seat. “Work,” he said.

  “Duh. What do you do?”

  He looked at me and there was something unsettlingly secretive in his expression. “I’m an attorney.”

  I don’t know what I was expecting. Something more exotic. Maybe a former Navy SEAL or a smoke jumper or a spy. He had the right body. A lawyer? That was a letdown.

  “What kind of law?”

  Maybe he was a criminal attorney.

  “Contracts, mostly.”

  “That sounds ... boring, actually.”

  The corner of his mouth quirked. “You’d be surprised.”

  Chapter 19

  Damon disappeared that evening after dinner, leaving me alone with Stacey, Jen, and Lorraine.

  “All right, dish,” Jen said as we settled onto the couch. They drank wine and I drank hot cranberry juice with a cinnamon stick and an orange peel floated in it. “What’s going on with the centerfold man?

  “He kissed me again,” I said.

  “When?” Stacey asked.

  “The night he brought Ajax back. When you guys were asleep.” I paused. “Three times,” I said.

  Stacey said, clapping, “Maybe there’s hope for you yet!”

  Jen glared at her then tossed her hands. “I give up. It’s true. Hallelujah! You’re finally getting with the sex program.”

  My cheeks got hotter. “Not sex. Kisses. Three.” Well, technically, that last time had been several, but I didn’t figure the girls needed to know that.

  “It’s a start,” Lorraine said. “He’s handsome as sin too, and I bet he knows how to please a woman.”

  “Now you need to ride him like a pony,” Stacey said, her eyes sparkling.

  A vision of me straddling a naked Damon popped into my head, and my entire body turned into molten honey. I jumped up, refilled my iced tea, and sucked about half down, wishing for something a lot stronger.

  “Is he a good kisser?”

  I eyed Stacey in disbelief. “Of course he is. Because if he wasn’t, it would be a whole lot easier for me to tell him to fuck off. I melt into a blob of goo when he touches me. You’d think I’d never been kissed before.”

  “Good,” Jen declared. “You’ve never gone around the bases with any guy before and you really need to get your engine lubed.”

  Yippee. Baseball and auto repair, my two favorite metaphors for sex.

  “I have too been around all the bases.”

  “Marco Culver doesn’t count,” Lorraine said. “You were eighteen, it was in the back of his car, and it hurt. He didn’t even finish. It doesn’t count. Your first time should be with someone who makes you explode.”

  “I beg to differ. The fact that Marco got his dick all the way inside me makes me not a virgin. That’s the dictionary definition of losing your virginity, in fact. I’d have thought all of you would know that.”

  “One thrust does not make for sex,” Jen said, agreeing with Lorraine. Stacey nodded vigorously. “Face it. You’re so close to still being a virgin that you could be the poster child for abstinence. You need an orgasm. Several of them, all one after the other. With a man, not fingers or toys, though those are fun too.”

  Ew! I mean, I love Jen but I did not want those images in my head. I decided the smartest thing to do was keep my mouth shut on the subject and hope they’d drop it. Of course they didn’t.

  “You’ve been missing out, let me tell you,” Stacey said. “Good sex is amazing. What I really like is when—”

  Nope. Wasn’t going to listen to specifics. “I get it. Orgasms good.
Man-made orgasms really good. Yay. But that doesn’t mean I’m getting down and dirty with Damon. Anyway, I thought you guys didn’t like him.”

  “He’s grown on us,” Stacey said. “He may not be Mr. Forever, but he could definitely be Mr. For Right Now.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “If not him, we all know guys who’d would treat you right,” Jen said.

  “I’ll start a list,” Stacey said, going to a drawer and grabbing a pad of paper and pen. She immediately started scribbling down names.

  “Wait. I didn’t say I was going to go out with anybody. I’m not interested in a relationship.”

  “Sure you are. You just don’t know it. Trust me, you need good sex,” Stacey said blithely.

  I sighed as the list quickly grew. “Nobody you’ve dated or slept with,” I said, feeling all control slipping away. They were going to blind date me into hell. Though admittedly I was more than a little excited at the prospect of going out on my first real date. “And I’m not doing a one-night stand either.”

  Stacey crossed a couple of names off her already lengthy list. “Sure. You can try them all out of you want.”

  “I don’t know if I even want to go out with one.”

  “Yes, you do. You need to have a man-induced orgasm. In order to do that, you actually have to have sex, which means finding a guy who you like and who turns you on and who treats you the way you deserve. That may take a few tries. You have to keep going until you get your world shattered.”

  I looked at Lorraine as she finished her little speech. “You too?”

  “Sex has a lot of therapeutic effects. One night of good sex is like a week at the beach. Better than heroin or any other drug. You have to experience the good stuff at least once in your life, and since we can’t trust you to do it for yourself, we need to help. It’s our responsibility as your best friends. Scratch that. We’re your sisters and it would be criminal to let you go on this way.”

  “Now that your bitch of a mother is out of the picture, you can open up to someone,” Jen said, reaching out to grab my hand. “This isn’t just about getting you laid. It’s about embracing your freedom without fear that someone is going to hurt a lover or a friend or anybody else.”

  My heart swelled and my throat knotted. I didn’t know how or why I deserved these women—sisters of my heart—but I was beyond grateful. Having them was a damned miracle.

  “I love you guys,” I said.

  They all blinked at me in shock. I didn’t do outpourings of emotion unless I got pissed. That was safe, but the other? Like exposing myself to nuclear waste. I knew I’d get burned. But not anymore. At least not with Lorraine, Stacey, and Jen.

  All of a sudden, they got up and swept me up in a hug. Some of us cried. Okay, I definitely cried, but the tears were cleansing. Washing the bitter grime of my mother away.

  After a few minutes, they went back to making the list. Within ten minutes, there had to be more than twenty names on there.

  “That should keep you busy for a month or two,” Stacey said with satisfaction.

  “I’d say that will keep me busy for a couple of years.”

  “Oh no. You’re not going to drag your feet. You’re starting as soon as you heal up.”

  “Promise me we can double, triple, and quadruple date until I figure out how this whole thing works. You know I’ll say inappropriate things and I won’t even know it, and I’ll get dumped before I can order a drink.”

  “If a guy can’t handle the real you, then he’s an idiot and his loss,” said Lorraine with a shrug. “But we’ll be your training wheels for a little while.”

  Chapter 20

  Damon didn’t return before I went to bed, which was little-old-lady early, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I hated that about the Vicodin. I was ready to dump it in the toilet and switch to ibuprofen and just grit my teeth.

  I got up just after dawn and showered then went to make espresso. Coffee wasn’t going to cut it. I was just settling down with my tablet to check my e-mail when Damon came in. He was dressed in a cashmere sweater over a white shirt and dark jeans that hugged his ass like plastic wrap. In a word, he looked edible. Lord, but I wanted to take a bite of him. I took a big mouthful of espresso instead and burned my mouth and tongue.

  “Good morning,” he said. He took a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and set it down in front of me. “Drink that.”

  “I’ve got espresso, thanks.”

  “Drink it. You wouldn’t go to the pool, so a bottle of the pool came to you.”

  “That’s where you went last night?”

  He shrugged. “Figured you might want to get better faster. Plus, I assume you didn’t want me underfoot with your girlfriends around.”

  “Don’t you have your own house? A wife? A family? Pets? Plants?”

  His brows rose. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

  “I’ve been trying to get rid of you since I met you. I’m just curious about who’s missing you. Or really, how you can manage to be here for days on end. Obviously you can work remotely, but then, watching me seems to be your side job, so I guess you can’t be at your office and get your work done.”

  Damon propped himself against the stove, crossing his ankles and folding his arms over his chest. “All right. I’m not married. I don’t have children or pets. Plants, yes, but I have someone take care of them when I’m not home. Now do I get a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “What’s that?” He nudged his chin toward the list of names the girls had left behind.

  “Those are the men I will be going on blind dates with,” I said, feeling a lot less excited about the prospect with daylight.

  “Oh? Since when?”

  He sounded as if he didn’t care. That annoyed me after all his talk and the kisses. Clearly they’d meant nothing. I tried to dredge up some enthusiasm for the get-Beck-laid project so he wouldn’t know his indifference stung.

  “The girls think I need to find a boyfriend—actually they said I need to have great sex, and since I don’t do one-night stands, they made a list of men I might be able to have a relationship with.”

  “I see. And how do you feel about it?”

  “I’ve never really had much of a love life, and they aim to fix it. It should be fun, right? I mean, maybe I’ll meet the love of my life.”

  “You believe in that? Love? The forever kind?”

  I shrugged. “It happens to some people. Why not me? I mean, sure, I have no idea how to do a relationship thanks to my mother, but I can learn. I take it you don’t believe in happily ever after and true love and all that.”

  “I haven’t seen a lot of it.”

  “I’ve never seen the Grand Canyon, but word is that it exists.”

  I emptied my cup and started to get up to get more. Damon took it from me and pointed at the bottle.

  “Drink.”

  I sighed. “What about giardia?”

  “Don’t be a baby.”

  I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him and took a drink. It tasted just like water. I don’t know why I expected something different. Something to say it had healing properties. I drank more. Damon watched me finish it and then made coffee and poured me a cup.

  “I was drinking espresso.”

  “Now you’re drinking coffee.”

  “You’re a pain in the ass,” I grumbled.

  He reached to take my cup back. “If you don’t want it....”

  “Back off, buddy, or I’ll put you on the floor.”

  He smiled lazily. “Feel free to try. And speaking of that—”

  He reached over and picked up the list. He looked at it then crumpled it up, and a puff of white smoke came out of his fist. He dropped the remaining ashes onto the counter.

  “You didn’t really need that, did you?”

  “It would help me get my love life off the ground. I’m really bad at it. My future husband could’ve been on there. The father of my children, even.”
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  “He’s not.”

  I doubted it too. Hell, I didn’t think I was destined to ever get married. And children? Completely out of the question. Just a boyfriend would be monumental. Almost unthinkable. All the same, I was hurt.

  “Yeah, well. Some guy is bound to think I’m good enough to keep around. At least for a while. Anyhow, the girls aren’t going to be happy about having to write another list.”

  “I’ll burn that one too.”

  He came to stand over me, pushing my legs apart so he stood between them. He leaned down, one hand on the counter, one hand on the back of the barstool, his face inches from mine.

  “If any man thinks you aren’t good enough for him, he’s got shit for brains. I, however, have all my gray matter intact, thank you very much, and the only list you need has one name on it: mine.”

  A shiver ran through me along with that kind of excited rush you get when you’re sixteen and your crush notices you’re alive for the first time. Not that I was crushing on Damon. That would be stupid. But all my female hormones purred with gooey gratification at his declaration. In that moment, I felt special. Chosen, like one of those fairy-tale princesses that never existed.

  Looking into his stormy eyes, I thought he was going to kiss me again. Instead he straightened and whistled.

  “Come on, Ajax. Let’s get you outside.”

  The dog had been lying on the floor beneath me and now followed Damon. I watched them go, totally at a loss for words, smartass or otherwise.

  “I’m in such deep trouble,” I whispered when the back door closed. “If I don’t get rid of him soon, I might actually fall for him.”

  Chapter 21

  By the next morning, I was feeling a lot better. My bruises had faded quite a bit, and my cuts were a lot less red and painful. I drank the bottle of water Damon handed me without arguing. I’m stubborn but not stupid, and a little ‘I told you so’ action was a small price to pay for feeling so much better.

  The next afternoon, he and Jen took me to the doctor who oohed and ahhed at the speed of my healing and then proceeded to start removing stitches right there. That took more than an hour, and when I left, I felt liked I’d been pecked by a flock of starving seagulls.