“Never heard of it,” Davy said, and Tilda felt annoyed. Then his mouth was on hers again, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and tried to coax herself back into all that heat she’d felt in the closet. But no matter how she tried as the minutes passed, she couldn’t get beyond conflicted warmth. Then Davy’s hand was on her zipper, and that was dangerous. She had too much to lose to let somebody like Davy Dempsey in.
Robin belted out the last line about the most wonderful summer of her life, and the surf rolled, and the room was silent again, and the sound of her zipper reverberated everywhere.
“Hold that thought,” Davy said, as he moved back up to the jukebox, and Tilda thought, You don’t want me to hold my thought. You want me to hold the one you ‘re having.
He reached over her head and smacked half a dozen buttons at random. The Essex kicked in the opening bars of “Easier Said Than Done,” and Tilda said, “You know—”
“Later,” Davy said and slid his fingers into her jeans.
“Oh. Hey.” Tilda closed her eyes and decided to push him away in a couple of minutes. Or maybe not at all. If he kept doing that for about half an hour, she’d even take off some clothes.
Davy pushed up her T-shirt, narrowly missing her chin, and she yanked it back down again as he pulled her hips down to his. The pressure there was nice as long as she kept her eyes closed and thought, LouiseLouiseLouise. Then he stopped kissing her long enough to strip off her jeans and slide between her legs. Maybe not, she thought, as he shoved off his jeans. Birth control, we didn‘t—
“Wait,” she said, opening her eyes, careful not to look down. “I don’t have—”
He held up a condom and went for her mouth again, and she thought, If I say no, he’ll stop, and then we’ll have to talk about it, and that’ll be terrible, and he did feel good, if she could just get her head straight—
Come on, she told herself, and tried to work herself into the mood, concentrating on how solid his arms were around her, how wonderful it was to be held, how good his mouth felt, finally generating enough heat that when he pulled her hips to his and she felt him hard against her and then hard inside her, it didn’t hurt—there’s a recommendation for you, she thought: it didn’t hurt.
She moaned for effect, more surprised he was inside her than shocked—this is what happened when you didn’t pay attention, they got ahead of you, and there you were—and it wasn’t that she wasn’t ready, exactly, it was more that Louise would have felt more. There would have been gasping with Louise, she was sure of it.
Of course, Louise wasn’t asthmatic.
She began to move with him, trying to pick up his rhythm, which was hard because she kept slipping down the couch. Oh, hell, she thought, and moved her hand to brace herself on the back of the couch and caught him across the nose.
Don’t have a nosebleed, she thought, please don’t have a nosebleed, but he just said, “Ouch,” and kept going.
Single-minded, she thought. Okay, there is no Louise, Louise is like the Easter Bunny, so just breathe heavy and get this over with and never go near this man again.
She took deep breaths, not even trying to match his because they were never going to be in sync, and once she stopped trying and started breathing, things got better. He picked up speed, and Tilda tried to imagine the tightening of her muscles and did a damn good job with those moans as the minutes passed and her pulse picked up. Then he shifted against her and hit something good, and she sucked in her breath and thought, Wait a minute, this could—but even as she had the thought, he shuddered in her arms and that was it. Just hell, she thought, and finished off with an oh-my-god-that-was-good moan-sigh combo.
So much for channeling her inner Louise. He was semi-mindless on top of her now, so she held him, patting him on the back while he caught his breath and Pippy Shannon sang “I Pretend” on the jukebox. Our song, Tilda thought.
Steve dozed on the rug beside the couch, oblivious to both of them. He had the right idea. She should have taken a nap instead.
Then Davy pushed himself up on one arm and looked in her eyes, nose to nose. “So what was that?” he said, still breathing hard, looking mad. “A fake or a forgery?”
“Hey.” She tried to sit up, and he shook his head.
“You’re a terrible actress,” he said, and collapsed on top of her again.
“Your foreplay was okay,” she said crushingly to the top of his head. “Your afterplay sucks.”
“Sorry,” he said, clearly not, and eased away from her, and she looked at the ceiling as she pulled up her jeans, and he got rid of the condom and got dressed.
“Well, gee, I can’t thank you enough,” she said when they were both clothed again. She made her eyes wide. “What a good time.”
He shook his head and turned away from her. “Good night, Tilda. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Ouch, she thought, and then he turned back and said, “Look, don’t fake. It’s lousy for everybody.”
“Gee, you sounded like you were having a pretty good time,” Tilda said, stung.
He started to say something and then shook his head again and headed for the door.
When he was gone, Steve jumped up on the couch again and Tilda patted him and tried to blame everything on Davy, but fairness got in the way. Okay, so it hadn’t been good. That was her fault. She wanted to be Louise and she wasn’t. She was a fake, she just wasn’t a hot fake.
Although she was sure as hell a tense fake, damn it.
And if he were any kind of a lover, he would have known something was wrong.
She punched buttons on the jukebox and decided to forget about Davy and concentrate on the comfort of music. She lay down on the couch and Steve climbed on top of her stomach and stretched out, his nose underneath her chin. “Lotta guys doing that tonight,” she told him and when he looked at her adoringly, she relented and patted him. “You’re a good man, Steve. Needy, but good.”
That was one thing Davy wasn’t. She had to give him that. Completely self-sufficient, didn’t need her for anything. Davy would never tell her she had to choose between him and her family. Of course, Davy would never propose, either. That was the problem with independence. It so rarely went well with commitment. Which she didn’t want anyway because she had enough people to take care of.
Maybe that’s why I don’t miss Scott, she thought and then shoved Scott and Davy and uncompleted sex—not that that was bothering her—out of her mind and let the music fill the void until she heard Andrew and Louise come in the back door and hit the stairs. If they were home, it was past midnight.
She got up as the jukebox began to play “The Kind of Boy You Can’t Forget,” and picked up the painting from the table. “Well, let’s look at you,” she said. “You’re the one that started this mess.” She tore the paper off and then stopped, staring at the cupped yellow flowers that rioted under the checkerboard sky while the Raindrops burbled, “I ain’t got over it yet.”
Flowers. Not houses, flowers. He’d stolen the wrong damn painting again. Her already tense system split down the seams, and she headed for the stairs.
She stomped on every tread as if it were Davy’s head as she climbed the three stories to his door, Steve trailing dutifully behind her. “Open up!” she said, pounding on it, not caring who heard.
After a minute he opened the door, wearing nothing but black boxers, looking sleepy and annoyed. “Look, if this is about the couch, I don’t want to hear—”
She shoved the canvas at him. “I said a city?” Snapping at him felt wonderful, really, she just wanted to rip him apart. “These ate flowers.”
He took it and shoved it back at her, pointing at the houses in the distance. “Those are houses. See? Those little red things? That’s a city”
“Yes, little” Tilda spit back. “In the background. Everybody knows if you say city, it means a big city, it means what the picture is about.”
“That’s true,” Dorcas said from the doorway behind them as she peered at t
he painting from her doorway. “That’s a painting of flowers.”
“Thank you, Dorcas,” Tilda said. “Go away.”
“This is so like you,” Davy said, ignoring Dorcas. “It’s all about what you know and I don’t. I don’t know who Gene Pitney is, so it’s my fault.”
“ ‘Town Without Pity,’” Gwen said from below on the stairs. “What’s going on?”
Davy jerked his head back from Tilda. “Why are you here?” he asked, looking down the stairwell at Gwen.
“I live here,” Gwen said. “Why are you shouting about Gene Pitney?”
“ ‘True Love Never Runs Smooth,’” Louise said from behind her, her black china-doll wig swinging away from her stage makeup as she stretched to see the painting.
“‘Only Love Can Break a Heart,’” Andrew said, from behind Louise.
“ ‘One Fine Day,’” Dorcas said, from behind Tilda.
“That’s the Chiffons,” Tilda said to Dorcas, fed up with everybody. “Will you people please go back to bed?”
“I wasn’t the one screaming in the hall,” Dorcas said and shut her door.
“She has a point,” Gwen said. “What’s going on?”
“Did Davy say something bad about Gene Pitney?” Nadine said, from farthest down the stairs. “Because I think he has a point.”
“It’s not about Gene Pitney,” Davy said, fixing Tilda with cold eyes. “It’s about people who do not give other people the information they need to get the job done.”
“What job?” Louise said, her eyes dark behind black contacts. “Is that the painting?” Tilda turned it so she could see it. “Oh. No. It isn’t.”
“You got the wrong one again?” Gwen said.
“Hello,” Davy said, squinting at Louise in the dim hall with interest. Suddenly he wasn’t nearly as sleepy or annoyed, and Tilda wanted to kick him.
“Hello.” Louise handed the painting back to Gwen, looked him up and down and smiled, and then faded down the dark stairs in her four-inch heels, probably trying to get away before he noticed she was Eve.
Davy stretched his neck to watch her go as Tilda took the painting back from Gwen. “If you’re all finished yelling at me,” he said, when Louise was history, “I’d like to go to bed. Alone.”
“Not a problem,” Tilda said, and he slammed the door in her face.
“So, the evening went well, did it?” Gwen said.
“No,” Tilda said. “The evening sucked. But don’t worry, I will figure out a way to get the right painting back.” She went down the stairs, Steve on her heels once more, slammed the office door behind them, threw the painting back on the table, and plopped herself down on the couch, determined not to cry. It had been a horrible, horrible night. She felt her face crumple. It had been—
Louise came in, leggy in her heels. “You okay?”
“No,” Tilda said, ready to burst into tears.
“Jeez.” Louise sat down beside her and put her arm around her, her long red nails looking like petals on Tilda’s T-shirt. “That bad. What did he do?”
“It’s not him, it’s me.” Tilda tried to smooth out her face and crumpled it more in the process. “God, I’m hopeless.”
“Better not be,” Louise said. “You’re holding the rest of us together. What happened?”
Tilda drew a deep shuddering breath. “Lousy sex.”
“Really.” Louise looked thoughtful as she sat back. “I thought he’d be hot. He’s got that look going on in his eyes. And a very nice body.”
“He probably would have been great with you,” Tilda said, defeated. “I just wasn’t in the mood.”
“Well, why didn’t you say no?”
“Because I was in the mood when we started,” Tilda said. “I really was. Except that it’s Davy, and he sees everything so you can’t let your guard down, plus, the embarrassment factor. I mean, I hardly know him.” She turned to look at Louise. “That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”
“No,” Louise said. “It’s the reason Eve never has sex. She keeps thinking she doesn’t really know this guy, and then there’s Nadine, what will she think, and of course Andrew will hate him, and it just doesn’t seem worth it to her.”
“Eve has sex,” Tilda said flatly. “She just has it when she’s you.”
“I have sex whenever I want,” Louise corrected her. “Eve never does. I don’t think she’d even know what to do, it’s been so long.” She cocked her head at Tilda. “You know, you should really think about getting a Louise.”
“I tried,” Tilda said, annoyed. “That’s how I got into this mess. But I couldn’t make it work. I kept thinking, What if I come and scream out ‘I’m an art forger’? We’d all be dead.”
“Stop thinking.” Louise stretched out on the couch, put her sequined high-heeled feet in Tilda’s lap, and surveyed her red ankle straps with pleasure. “So it was hot at first, huh? Where did he screw up?”
“Well, there was the lag time,” Tilda said bitterly. “I kissed him in a closet, and he said wait a minute and sent me home and stole a painting and then came back here and had a drink and talked to Clea Lewis and—”
“The guy’s a moron,” Louise said. “Why didn’t he jump you in the closet while you were hot?”
“Because we would have ended up in prison,” Tilda said, guiltily remembering the guy she’d knocked unconscious. “I actually do get that part.”
“Okay, so you cooled off, and he came home. Why didn’t you say, ‘Not tonight, Dempsey’?”
“Because it felt so good to be held,” Tilda said, feeling pathetic even as she said it. “And because I wanted to be Louise. He was out there flirting with Clea Lewis instead of me, and then he came in and he looks really good, you know—”
“I know,” Louise said with enthusiasm.
“And he kissed me and I thought, Oh, what the hell, and then it turned out to be hell.” She wiggled her toes. “And now I’m mad!”
Louise shrugged. “Take care of it and get back to business. Where’s your vibrator?”
“That’s not it,” Tilda said. “I’m mad at him for the painting, not for not coming.”
“I don’t think so. You’ll feel much better if you finish yourself up. Or go bang on Davy’s door and make him finish what he started.”
“He did,” Tilda said. “We are completely finished. You can have him.” She clenched her jaw. “He’s all yours.”
“Not a chance.” Louise swung her feet off Tilda and pushed herself up from the couch. “He’s yours. I do not poach.”
Someone hammered on the street door and they both turned to look through the window in the office door. “Don’t answer it,” Tilda said, “it’s late,” but Louise was already on her way, so Tilda followed.
“Hel-lo,” Louise said when she opened the door, and Tilda peered past her and thought, She has a point.
He was dark and tall, he had one of those classically beautiful faces with cheekbones, and his clothes were impeccable. Tilda had a brief moment when she thought that getting mugged by this guy would be a step up from sex with Davy.
“Would you like to buy a nice seascape?” Louise said, channeling Mae West as she stood back to let him in.
He looked at the nearest Finster as Steve sniffed his shoes. “No, thank you.”
“Wise move,” Tilda said.
He smiled at her, a lovely matinee-idol smile, and said, “I’m really here to bail out my friend Davy Dempsey. He is staying here, right?”
“You’re Davy’s friend,” Tilda said.
“And he owes you this,” the lovely man said and handed her an envelope.
When she opened it, there were fifteen crisp hundred-dollar bills in it. “Oh. Yes, he does,” she said, thinking, I had to sleep with the wrong guy, I couldn’t wait until the right one showed up.
“Is he here?” Davy’s friend said. “The name’s Simon, by the way.”
“Davy didn’t mention you.” Louise moved closer.
“He never does, love,” Simon said, l
ooking deeply into her eyes and smiling. “He never does.”
Tilda sighed, and Simon transferred his smile to her.
“Two brunettes. Which one of you did Davy meet first?”
“Tilda.” Louise linked her arm through his. “I’m Louise. I’ll take you up to his room.”
“Thoughtful of you,” he said, smiling down at her with intent.
Tilda thought about intervening, and then decided there was no point. She was here and Davy was up in his room, so unless Louise raped him on the staircase, Simon was safe. And they had fifteen hundred dollars. She put it in the cash box in the office after Louise had started up the stairs with Simon, and then she caught sight of the flower painting again.
Just hell.
Sooner or later, Mason was going to notice he was leaking paintings, and he probably wasn’t going to buy the explanation that Davy was dumb as a rock. The thought of Davy made her clench her jaw, which was ridiculous. It wasn’t his fault.
It was just that at the end, there’d been that possibility. The thought alone was making her warm all over again. She tapped her feet on the floor faster.
Really, just hell.
She took the flower painting down into the basement and stuck it under the quilt with the cows, and then she went up the stairs with Steve on her heels one more time and paused at Davy’s door. Maybe Louise was right, maybe if she said, “You know, I was close,” he’d be interested in giving it another shot. Maybe—
Inside, Louise giggled, and Tilda froze. When Louise giggled like that—
Davy must have gone out. Not even Louise would do a three-way. Probably. Oh, hell. Tilda went upstairs and opened her dresser drawer and found Eve’s Christmas present from ten years before. Thank God Louise picked it out, she thought as she plugged it in. At least somebody around here knows what she’s doing.
BEATING ANOTHER sucker at pool had partially restored Davy’s good humor, so when he went into his apartment and saw Louise and Simon in bed, all he said was, “Of course, that’s perfect,” before he went back out and stood, bedless, in the hall. Somebody was going to pay for his lousy night. After a moment’s reflection, he climbed the stairs to Tilda’s attic, knocked on the door, and went in.
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