About Face. Amy Lee Burgess

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ don’t have to?” Ron-or-Don made the statement into a question. I wanted to scream, but didn’t. “I mean, I’d like it if you stayed, okay? Unless…you have a boyfriend, right? You kept telling me last night you didn’t, but you do, don’t you? Can you stay for ten minutes to eat something? Please?”

      As he spoke, I shimmied into my bra and last night’s cocktail dress. I spied my panties tucked half under one of the sofa cushions. Disgusting. With a grimace, I plucked them free and debated whether I wanted to put them on.

      “Oh, I just wanted to tell you? I used a condom, okay?” He gave me a sheepish smile and then turned back to the eggs on the stove. They smelled gruesome, and I pressed my lips tightly together to keep from gagging.

      The way he looked at me made me think he expected some sort of response. Congratulations, perhaps? Gratitude? A high five for quick thinking even while inebriated?

      “Safe sex, you know?” he added. I didn’t even remember getting laid, let alone whether there was a condom involved.

      “I have to go,” I repeated as I slid on one of my shoes and lurched for the other, one leg magically longer now, thanks to the four-inch heel.

      “It was a mistake, wasn’t it?” Ron-or-Don asked. “You wish you’d never met me, don’t you?”

      My head hurt. I massaged my temples with the fingers of one hand while I braced myself against the door with the other and slid my foot into the second shoe.

      “I was drunk and so were you.” I was aware I wasn’t being kind and the poor bastard hadn’t done anything wrong. He looked at me in the harsh morning sunlight and more than ever did not resemble Murphy. What the fuck had I been thinking?

      “Look, I’m sorry, I can’t stay. You’re a nice guy.”

      That made him wince. I guess Others didn’t like being called nice. I had no time to figure him out. I didn’t want to figure him out. It did seem as if our roles were reversed. Generally, wasn’t it the guy who rushed out the door in the morning and left the girl to feel guilty and used? Or maybe I was being sexist. I didn’t have a clue.

      “You know what? Can you tell me your name? Can you believe I forgot it?” he confessed as I unlocked the door. Perhaps this was his attempt at a cheap parting shot? I flashed him a rueful smile over my shoulder on the way out.

      “That’s okay, I can’t remember yours either.”

      * * * *

      Lauren’s makeup was spread out in a vast confusion across the bathroom vanity when I walked into our motel room just after five PM that afternoon.

      She wore a peach-colored slip, and her hair had obviously been styled at a salon. Her finger and toenails were colored a darker peach than the slip. Summer color.

      As soon as I walked in, a radiant smile lit up her lovely, perfect face, and she was in my arms a second later. She smelled like Chloe and Calvin Klein’s Escape because, of course, she hadn’t been able to choose between them. I’d thought I’d been so clever. I’d gone through her suitcase before we’d left and taken out all but two perfumes—one for day, one for evening. I should have known she’d wear them both.

      “I thought you’d left. When I came back to the room this morning, your bed wasn’t slept in, and I thought you walked out.” She burrowed her soft face into my shoulder and, as I hugged her, I thought how inverse our relationship was. She was more like the child and I, the mother. It had been that way since my teens, and that aspect hadn’t changed in the past two months, even though I’d desperately wanted it.

      Oh, for a mother I could confide in. What would it be like to have one who would listen to my woes and thoughts and hopes and offer advice, comfort, understanding? All Lauren ever did was look to me to fix things, to approve, to give sanctuary. I did those things ungrudgingly, but I wished sometimes our roles were reversed.

      I was also a little weirded out she’d spent the night with Jason Allerton. Thoughts of their naked bodies entwined in passion made me strangely uncomfortable. Lauren having sex didn’t bother me. No, Lauren having sex with Jason Allerton was the issue. What did he look like without his Armani suit and tie? Did he drop his authoritative, commanding personality in bed? Was he strictly a missionary position kind of guy, or did he like to experiment?

      I squeezed my eyes shut and banished that shit straight out of my mind.

      When I opened them, Lauren had tears in her eyes that turned them nearly purple. She looked so goddamn young and vulnerable in her lacy peach slip and bare feet, her hair twisted up into a breezily perfect updo that had taken at least an hour to arrange.

      My heart contracted the way it always did when she looked at me like that.

      “Silly, did you really think I’d miss your bonding ceremony?” When I hugged her, I dropped the three shopping bags in my hands. The first two contained a new dress for tonight and shoes to match. The third bag held my cocktail dress from last night. After I’d left Ron-or-Don’s apartment, I’d gone to the Providence Place mall, straight to Gap for a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Then I’d gone to Victoria’s Secret.

      A new pair of Skechers had replaced the silver evening shoes, which were in the bag with the shoes that paired with my new dress.

      Shopping, especially for shoes, cleared my head of all the crap that haunted me since the moment I’d opened my eyes in Ron-or-Don’s bed.

      At least until I’d walked into the motel room and had to face everything again. That’s the problem with shopping. The stores eventually closed, and I had to go home.

      Now I needed a shower and time to pull myself together before the ceremony at seven, and Lauren would need me to reassure her and help with her makeup and…

      Breathless, I contemplated the depth and complexity of my selfishness. What did it matter what I looked like tonight? She was going to bond with Jason. They were going to start a new life together. And I ran out on them the night before.

      My cell phone was full of both voice and text messages, mostly from Lauren, although Scott and Faith both left a few. A notable exception was Jason Allerton. He was royally pissed at me, I guessed. Big deal. I was furious with him, so we were even.

      “You don’t want me to bond with him.” Lauren’s voice was subdued, and she walked away from me so she could look out the motel window at the shore beyond. I wanted to remind her she was in her slip, but I bit the inside of my cheek. I wasn’t her mother, no matter how much she looked to me for support. She was fifty-eight years old, even if she didn’t look much past thirty. She could decide for herself if she wanted to stand in front of an open window in her damn underwear.

      “Lauren, are you sure this is what you want to do? You don’t have to, you know.”

      “Oh, but, Stanzie, I do!” She turned away from the window with such exquisite happiness on her face I took an involuntary step back. I had never seen Lauren Newcastle look like this before. “Jason is the kindest, gentlest and most understanding man I’ve ever met. I want to be with him. Every minute I spend with him I just keep thinking how much I like him. How much I want to show him who I am. I feel like I’m eighteen years old and back in Aspenmoon with my family. Happy.

      “Do you ever think about a time in your life when you were so happy you couldn’t even imagine СКАЧАТЬ