“Tyler would actually kick my ass, wouldn’t he?”
“That’s right,” she said and nodded as she poured. More wine might not be a good idea, but she’d never been this thirsty in her life. Still, she stopped at half a glass.
“Ah, well. Maybe next time.”
She could have tossed the wine all over him when he winked at her and sat back as if it was no big deal. When she opened her mouth and the words she was thinking rolled right out, she realized that any wine, in fact, might have been too much while sitting half-dressed on the floor next to the man on whom she’d had a massive crush for most of her formative years. One who’d left town, married some wannabe starlet, and hadn’t even had the courtesy to get a real divorce.
“I wouldn’t sleep with you for all the yen in China. Or Japan. Or wherever, Joey Damico. You were the first in a long string of guys to steal my heart and hand it back to me in pieces.” She shook a finger at him. “And since you started the trend, I figure you should get the blame for every jerk and jackass who followed.”
“Me?” The shock on his face looked genuine but she refused to feel sorry for him. “What did I do?”
She pushed her head forward and stared him down, but his look of confusion didn’t even hint at any guilt.
“What?”
“You kissed me,” she enunciated with precision, just in case his hearing was as defective as his conscience, “and then five minutes later you were making out with Jessica Blackwell in the bathtub.”
“I never—when?” he demanded, swinging his legs over her head and dropping his feet on the floor by her side with a thud. He set his wine glass on the end table and turned back to her. “When did I kiss you, and who’s Jessica Blackwell?”
The last three words did nothing to improve her impression of him. She waited for him to remember.
After a minute of their glaring at each other, it became clear that that was not going to happen.
With pleasure, she enlightened him.
“July, 1995.”
“July ninety-five…” His forehead wrinkled and then smoothed as she saw the memory return to him. She sat up straighter and waited for his apology. It had been a long time coming.
“But you were only, what? Twelve!”
She could hear from the disbelief in his voice that she’d be waiting for that apology forever.
J.D. ran his fingers through his hair, dislodging a few loose strands that fell against his chin as he shook his head.
“You were twelve, and I was saving you from kissing Tad Kipling, who I believe you referred to as ‘that sweaty-palmed toad from square-dancing class.’ You kids were playing spin the bottle in your mom’s basement and I pretended the bottle was pointing at me when I came downstairs to check on you, because I could see you squinching up your face at the thought of kissing him. I rescued you!”
She had forgotten. He was a man, and men never understood anything.
“You kissed me, and then two minutes later you were sucking face with Jessica Blackwell!”
Apparently she’d lost all control over both her brain and her mouth.
“Let me repeat. You were twelve. I was fifteen. Jessica Blackwell was sixteen. She had her own car and wore a 36D bra.” He nipped the wine glass out of her fingers before she could throw it at him. “I’m sorry, honey, but you never stood a chance.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she muttered and threw herself down onto the concrete floor so that she could stare morosely at the far-off ceiling. “I was twelve. Don’t expect rationality from a preteen.”
A light flashed.
She propped herself up on her elbows and glared at him as he dropped a camera into his lap. When did he bring that out?
“Hey! Don’t take my picture when I’m pouting. Jackass.”
He smiled at her and she felt herself blush. Damn it.
“Sorry. If it’ll help, I apologize for handing your heart back to you in pieces. In my own defense, I have to say that I wasn’t aware that I had it.”
“Yeah, you’re forgiven. I got over it in my twenties.” She waved a hand in his general direction. “I’m thirty-one. Old enough to know that the kiss wasn’t that good.”
She rolled onto her side, ready to laugh at the end of a good joke, the same way he’d done earlier after pretending to hit on her. Of course, she knew she was kidding herself when she called it joking. A part of her still felt like that twelve-year-old girl watching her crush drive off with the beautiful blonde girl who had the car and the boobs.
She smiled at her own foolishness and was about to sit up when two glowing gold eyes flashed out at her from beneath the couch.
“Hey,” she lowered her head back to the floor, “there’s a cat under here.” When she popped back up, J.D. was looking at her with raised eyebrows. Suddenly she remembered why she’d shown up on his isolated doorstep in the first place. “Right, you have a sick cat. What’s wrong with kitty?” She ducked back down to peer under the couch.
“I can’t believe you’re a vet, by the way. You couldn’t stand the sight of a bloody skinned knee when we were kids.”
“Yet another thing I got over,” she said and snapped her fingers at him. “The cat, J.D.?”
“How should I know what’s wrong with the stupid thing? It’s been under the couch ever since it walked in off the street a few days ago. The only time it came out was when it got cold in here. I found it sleeping in the ashes of the fireplace, so I stoked up the fire, cranked the heat up to eighty, and I’ve been sweating my ass off for two days while it hides out.”
Half an hour and two cans of tuna later, she had the cat in her lap, willing to trust her for the moment. She ran her hands over its body and looked up with a grin.
“Congratulations, J.D. You’re gonna be a daddy.”
Over his protests that he “couldn’t have a cat let alone kittens,” she explained that she’d send someone over with more food and some special vitamins the following morning. Meanwhile, she changed back into her suit and gathered up her things, having decided that it was definitely time for her to get going. She left him with some last-minute instructions.
“Keep her warm. That was a good idea. Give her all the tuna she wants tonight and refill the dish of water I put out if she finishes it. And J.D.?” She stopped at the door and turned back to look at him. He was standing in the middle of the room, leaning on his crutches, backlit again by the glow of the fire. Even now, with muscles that weren’t there when he was a teenager and longer, straighter hair that was still escaping from the blunt ponytail, there was no mistaking the graceful and supremely controlled kid she’d watched and wanted for years.
“Yes, Dr. Evil?”
“Better find something to call her instead of ‘stupid cat.’ She’s yours now.”
She stepped outside into the frigid March air and headed toward where her Jeep was parked at the curb, leaving him to muscle the door shut behind her. Plastic bags and old newsprint pages blew past her ankles in the winter wind.
“Hey Sarah.”
He was standing in the doorway, one hand outstretched as if to hand her something she’d left behind. She opened the car door and slung her bag into the backseat before jogging back up to the building.
“What, did I forget some—”
He grabbed the collar