“I can’t stand talking to you here.” She tromped down the stairs to the floor. “You’re so childish.”
He didn’t get up. “What’s your problem now?”
“Oh, now. As if I’m the one.”
“Aren’t you?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head at the ceiling. “I should have waited until we got back to the city, but I thought it might be easier for you here. See? I’m still putting you first, thinking of your needs, ignoring what would be best for me.” She pointed at her chest, drawing his attention to the swell of her breasts, the shadow of her erect nipples under the thin jacket. She moved her pointer finger higher, to her face. “Up here, buddy. This is me, not my tits.”
He got up, jumped down to the floor to close the doors and drop her coffee in the trash. The last thing his club needed was some paranoid Berkeley mother walking in on an intimate conversation. And Felicia could go from G to Mature Audiences Only in a matter of seconds—one of the things he liked about her. “You’re right. This isn’t the place,” he said.
“Fine. I’ll meet you at your hovel. I drove over.”
He moved to stand in front of the door, his six-five, two-hundred-forty frame easily blocking her exit. “No. You started this, let’s finish it.”
She glared up at him, hands on her hips. “Yes, let’s.”
He waited, but she kept fuming in silence, and he felt the anger seep out of him. He wasn’t the one who was pissed off, after all. He was having a perfectly nice day. And it probably was a mistake to joke about getting married. “What is it, Felicia?” He softened his expression and stepped toward her. “Let’s grab breakfast somewhere. I’ll buy you another coffee. Promise I won’t touch it.”
To his horror, the tough, independent woman he was starting to think about maybe someday spending the rest of his life with began to cry. Her glossy lower lip trembling, her forehead wrinkling in pain, she sank to the floor.
For a long, stunned moment, all he could do was stare at her hunched over with her face in her hands. What was wrong with her? In all their three years together, the only time he’d seen her cry was during a sad movie or after too many glasses of wine.
“Have you been drinking?”
With a screech, she reached forward and pounded him on the shins. “You big oaf! Of course I haven’t been drinking! But if I married you I’d have to!”
Well, that wasn’t what he expected to hear. He went over to the bottom seat of the bleachers and sat down. “This isn’t about the coffee, is it?”
She buried her face in her hands and rocked back and forth.
“Is there anything I can do?”
She shook her head but didn’t look up.
“I’ll just wait here, then, until you can talk.”
Her head popped up, her eyes wide with rage. “That’s all you can say?”
“What should I say?”
She rolled her eyes in disgust, swiped away her tears with her sleeve. “Forget it.” She got to her feet. “I should know better than to expect you to be serious.”
“Felicia…”
“No, it’s hopeless. You’re never serious.”
“I’m at work, Felicia.”
“Work! You call this work?” She flung her hand out dismissively. “Come to the firm sometime, I’ll show you work.”
He stood up. “That’s what’s bothering you again? My job?”
She sniffed, walked to the exit. “No,” she said sadly, shoving the door open. “You could change your job.”
Miles looked around the gym one more time before flicking off the lights and following her into the clubhouse lounge. Past the foosball table, through the glass window of their tiny office, he could see the back of Ronnie’s shiny head as he bent over the desk. Felicia circled the pool table, dragging her fingers along the felt. He flinched, having intimate knowledge of just how sharp her nails were.
The lounge was empty now but it would be filled with eleven-year-old boys in about thirty minutes. Whatever she wanted to hash out, it’d better be quick.
He bent over and picked up a ping-pong ball. “So, not just my job. What else?”
“This isn’t going to work.”
“Fine. We’ll talk on the way home. I’ll tell Ronnie—”
“No, I mean us.” She scowled at him through her tears. “I can’t marry you, Miles.”
Whatever he’d expected her to say, that hadn’t been it. She’d been nagging him to get married for… ever. “All right, we won’t.” He placed the ping-pong ball on the edge of the pool table. “I was just kidding about eloping anyway.”
Her rage flared again. “See? Oh my God! I can’t believe you!”
“What’s the matter with me?”
“That’s what I want to know!” She lowered her voice, slackened her jaw, and slurred her words. “‘I was just kidding about eloping. What’s the problem?’”
He picked up the ball and squeezed it in his fist. “That’s a great impersonation of me, Felicia. You must have spent a long time practicing that.”
“You knew from the start I wanted a family. You knew that.”
“And you knew I was afraid of screwing one up. I didn’t have the rosy home life you did. Of course I’m more cautious.”
“But three years, Miles? I’m going to be thirty-three this month. When I was twenty-nine, I thought I had time to wait for you. But now…”
“You’d risk having children without knowing for sure we’d last? You refused to move in with me—”
“Yes! And you refused to move in with me!”
“You have a studio apartment in Pacific Heights. I barely fit in the door.”
“Which is why I wanted to look for another—oh, forget it!” She threw her hands up. “I was stupid for thinking a nice guy who seemed to care about kids would be in a hurry to have some of his own.”
“‘Seem’ to care?” The ping-pong ball in his palm was now a curved lump of broken plastic. He took a deep breath and studied the frayed felt of his clubhouse’s fourth-hand pool table. “I see so many kids whose parents should’ve waited. Who divorced, or never got married, or work all the time. I can’t be that kind of parent. I promised myself—”
She made a rude noise. “Excuses, excuses. You like the kids here because they grow up and move on. You don’t really want to commit to anybody. Not them, not me. You’re immature. Emotionally stunted. Willfully obtuse.”
He squeezed the broken plastic harder, but he kept his voice soft. “Gee, if that’s true, why were you so eager to marry me?”
She let out a scream through gritted teeth and jammed her hand into the pool table’s pockets as though looking for something to hurl at him. Luckily the balls were locked up in the office with a sign-out sheet.
“Don’t you smirk at me, you giant idiot!” She snatched up an empty Dr. Pepper bottle out of the recycling bin and hurled it at his head.
He crossed his arms and let it bounce off his shoulder. He was starting to get seriously pissed.
She hurled another one, a can of Red Bull, and he had to turn his head so it only clipped him. This enraged her, like he knew it would, and she reached into the bin with both hands and started throwing wildly until Ronnie opened the office door.
“Dude, you going to clean that up when she’s done?”
Without taking his eyes off of Felicia, Miles said, “I’ll handle it.”
Their manly conversation seemed to pierce the last of her temper. She sank to a striped yellow couch, its stuffing seeping out of the cushions, and started sobbing again.
If he hadn’t been so angry he would have gone over to touch her, try to soothe her, but he wasn’t a saint. He held himself still, watching her, feeling his heart pound in his chest and finding some comfort in the fact that he wasn’t driving to Nevada this weekend.
He shoved the broken ping-pong ball into his pocket, vaguely aware of pain in his palm. “So, this is the end of everything between us?”
Swiping her hair out of her face, she got
up and marched out of the building without looking at him again. He watched her tight ass swing out of sight. A minute later he doubled over the surface of the pool table to ease his throbbing skull.
Maybe she was right. He hadn’t really let her in, hadn’t tried hard enough. Three years was a long time, long enough that he should be feeling more than relief—
But damn, she’d really confirmed his worst fears. He’d been stupid to even consider marriage, however theoretical that consideration had been. The only happy marriages he’d ever seen were on TV. His father had been married four times, and not once to his own mother. And his current stepmother… His thoughts skated away from Heather in disgust.
No, he didn’t have a clue about women or happily ever after. He was a product of his genes and his environment, nature and nurture, and he wouldn’t forget it.
Thank God he’d found out in time.
He stood up, wiped some Dr. Pepper off his jaw, and began cleaning up the mess.
Chapter 2
“I NEVER LIKED HIM,” FAWN told Lucy in the middle of their Sunday morning water aerobics class.
Lucy kicked her right leg behind her and smiled at her best friend. The water was chest-high, just enough to support her breasts while she jogged up and down the lanes with the dozen other women in the pool.
“Yes, you did.” Following the instructor’s lead, Lucy leapt out of the water as though she was shooting hoops, took a deep breath, jumped again. “You thought he was hot.”
Six feet tall, Fawn could jump high enough to flash the bikini line she’d displayed on the pages of Sport’s Illustrated when she was nineteen. The other women, some in their eighties and barely able to raise their arms above the surface, watched her with awe and affection. “I still didn’t like him.”
“You could’ve said something.”
Fawn snorted. “As if you would’ve listened.”
Lucy started to protest then caught the look in Fawn’s eye. She turned and jogged after her neighbor, a sixty-something woman in a red tankini with biceps like Michelle Obama. “Well, I wish I would have.”
The class began punching the air over their heads again and Lucy and Fawn joined them. They were younger than most of the other women by several decades, but they liked the plus-sized instructor and the friendly atmosphere.
“That’s okay, Lucy. Nobody can take advice about their love life. Look at me, do I ever listen to you?”
“You dumped Craig McPherson in seventh grade when I told you he’d called me Little Orphan Annie.” Lucy’s hair was bobbed, curly, and on the reddish side, so it wasn’t the first time she’d heard that name.
“That wasn’t advice, that was information.”
Lucy kicked at the water—one, two, one, two—like a slow, buoyant chorus girl. “Well, I wish you’d had information for me about Dan early on. I feel like I’ve wasted eight years of my life. Who knew he was sappy and impulsive? Would you have ever guessed?”
“No way. He was about as sappy and impulsive as you are.”
“Exactly! At least, he seemed to be.” Lucy punched the water. “He has a calendar with appointments extending ten years into the future. Mine only goes two.”
“And he really loved that house.”
Lucy snorted. Obviously, there had been some problems between her and Dan she hadn’t been willing to acknowledge. “Nevertheless, he’s not willing to marry me to get it.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. Obviously, I thought he loved you too. I hoped he did, anyway.”
“I don’t. It would make me think even less of him to think he could do that to somebody he cared about.”
Fawn floated closer. “I’m so sorry.”
“Pffft. The main problem here is biological.” She waited for a buoyant old lady in a daisy swim cap to jog past. “Once I turn thirty-five, my womb is pretty much elderly. Getting through a pregnancy brings on more interventions. I hear it all the time from women at work.”
“Elderly! You’re in your early thirties!”
Lucy grabbed Fawn’s slender arm and pulled her over to the edge of the pool. “Quiet, please. I was speaking from a gynecological perspective.”
“Your hoo-ha isn’t elderly either. I’m sure it’s lovely.”
Lucy snorted into the water. “Thanks. Right back at you.”
“You’ve got plenty of time to have children. We both do.”
“You do. You’ve got your sperm donor all lined up. Mine just shacked up with a nun named Brittany.”
Fawn wiped wet hair out of her eyes. “Don’t call Huntley that, please. He’s sensitive about being objectified.”
“He can’t hear me unless his servants swim at the Berkeley Y,” Lucy said. “Besides, if he’s that touchy he should be in therapy. Hell, with his family’s loot he could afford a full-time shrink.” She grinned. “Dr. Minion.”
“It’s not all in his head. Women have been after his money his whole life. It’s important that he knows I’m not like that.”
“I didn’t say you wanted his money, just his DNA.”
“It’s all the same to some women.”
Lucy made a rude noise. “I don’t know any women like that. Sounds like sexist bullshit.”
“They’re really out there. Women are always throwing themselves at him because he’s rich, just like men chase me because I’m a model.” Fawn hugged her arms to her chest, looking chilled. “It’s horrible the way people use each other.”
“That’s life. Everybody uses someone else in one way or another. We’re just biological organisms, dependent upon one another, mortal and insignificant.” Lucy rested her arms on the edge and let her legs float up behind her. “No point getting upset about it.”
Fawn braced her hands on the edge of the pool and lifted herself with effortless grace. “Either you’re lying to yourself or you didn’t love him.” She got to her feet and walked to the spa.
Lucy watched her long-legged runway stride for a moment, unhappy with her accusation but not entirely disagreeing with it. She knew her feelings for Dan had been, well, somewhat tepid.
But her feelings for the life they almost had together, the family they’d planned, ran deep and fierce. Her relationship with Dan had been—or she thought it had been—based on respect, friendship, and psychological compatibility. It should’ve been just fine for living together, buying a house, raising children, growing older together.
But sexual compatibility was more important than she had realized. She’d ignored the fatal flaw in her relationship with Dan, their boring sex life, thinking it was just a small negative in her calculations of their total compatibility—like, say, five percent. Nothing close to a deal-breaker. And really, what did he have to complain about? He got more than he wanted, poor baby. Then had the nerve to feel sorry for himself and find solace elsewhere.
Lucy really should’ve asked Fawn what she’d thought of him a long time ago, saved herself a lot of wasted time, effort, and embarrassment.
She crawled out of the pool and staggered to her feet. She needed to find someone new. Soon. Given that her childbearing years were limited, and she admitted that biological drive was mighty strong, she might have to settle for a man who was eighty percent compatible, or even seventy-five. If they were motivated and mature, that was more than enough to live together in peace for a few decades.
A few? Not even. Just until the children were in college, though if they wanted help paying for graduate school, it would help if their parents weren’t estranged. Surely there was a man out there who was as practical as she was.
She just needed to find one before her “lovely hoo-ha” was as old as her fellow water aerobics classmates.
Slipping into her Old Navy flip-flops, Lucy wrapped a small white towel around her hips and glanced over at the spa, noticing her two other best friends were there with Fawn. They kept glancing over at her. Betty and Krista only came into the pool to recover from their Flirty Girl Fitness class. Putting on a one-piece black Speedo was flirty e
nough for Lucy.
She joined them with a sharp look at Fawn, noticing that their conversation came to a halt when she slipped into the water.
“Fawn told us everything,” Betty said, her plump arms stretched out to either side. She wore a skimpy lime-green bikini in the exact same color as the streaks of color in her chin-length bob. “Sucks to be you.”
Krista, who was sitting rigidly upright so the water didn’t touch her hearing aids, reached forward and pinched Betty’s arm. “Don’t be that way.”
“Yow!” Betty glared at Krista. “What the hell!”
Krista scooted away from Betty’s under-the-surface kicking, her white halter swimsuit exaggerating her broad, light brown shoulders. “Show a little sensitivity, Betty Hsu.”
Stepping into the spa next to Fawn, Lucy gasped at the thrill of the hot water and sank down to the seat. “She said the same thing when I told her I was marrying him.”
“Show some sensitivity?” Fawn asked.
“No. ‘Sucks to be you.’”
Eyes twinkling, Betty shook her head. “Except then I really meant it. I never did like him.”
“Neither did I,” Krista said.
Lucy sighed with feeling. “I really could’ve used this information earlier.”
Fawn caught the others’ skeptical gaze. “As if she would have listened.”
“If you’d all said it, I might have. I might not have done anything differently, but I always want to have as much information as possible when I’m making decisions, especially major ones.”
Fawn, Betty, and Krista laughed, avoiding her eyes.
“What?” Lucy demanded.
Fawn put an arm around her. “You wouldn’t have considered my stupid little opinion to be information. More like—what did you call it when I told you my multivitamin was totally making me have more energy?”
Lucy sank a few inches into the water. “Confirmation bias.”
Betty nodded, pointing at her. “Like when I told her that hairdo made her look like a middle-aged man and she said that was just because I knew she’d had it done at QuickieSnip. As though its utter horror had no objective reality.”
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