Ма Лян и волшебная кисть. Сюньтао Хун

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      “I mean, you were spending all of this time with me. We were together all the time.”

      “Not all the time,” she protested. “Not with you working as much as you do.”

      “But every time I came home, there you were. Now, you’ll have a chance to do outside stuff.”

      “You want me to use this as, what, some kind of survival training?” She tried to make it sound like a joke, but her voice had other ideas.

      “Well, it’ll show me how long you’ll last without me there.”

      She gasped a little at this. “What are you saying?”

      “Nothing…nothing. It’s just that, sometimes you can be a handful, Sarah. I feel like I’m taking care of you. Now you hit me up with the ‘how much can you help with rent’ and ‘when are you flying down to visit me?’ stuff, and I just wonder—how can you expect to survive L.A. without me at this rate?”

      “I didn’t realize I was going to have to,” she snapped back.

      “See? That’s exactly what I mean!”

      She sighed. “Benjamin…”

      “I’ve got to go. These sales figures aren’t typing themselves into the spreadsheet.” She guessed he was trying to make a joke, too. Like hers, it came out wrong.

      “I’ll get a job,” she said hurriedly. “And I’ll make it just fine.”

      “I really have to go.”

      “Jam,” she said, relapsing into her old nickname for him, “you know I love you.”

      “I know, Sarah,” he said. “Talk to you next week.”

      He hung up.

      She stared at the phone, until it made that annoying beep-beep-beep and she hit the off button.

      Lying naked on her back, feeling the soft strokes of his fingertips on her skin, Martika felt truly, utterly bored.

      “What are you thinking?” he asked, his blue eyes huge and curious.

      She glanced at him. “That’s a woman’s question.”

      “You’re so mysterious,” he said, and she supposed he was complimenting her. It might help if he’d stop mooning over her like some Regency poet. “I always wonder what you’re thinking.”

      I’m thinking, why the hell am I still here?

      She’d been staying with…Andre. His name was Andre, she reminded herself, watching the way his blond hair hung slightly in his eyes. It used to charm her. Now it just made her fingers itch for scissors. Anyway, she’d been staying with the man for the past five months. He’d been starting to pressure about things like “where are we going with this?” and hinting around “permanent relationships.” She thought he was about two years younger than she was chronologically—about five years younger emotionally, and about fifty years older when it came to things like marriage. She tried not to roll her eyes.

      “So what are you thinking?” he pressed.

      She winced. “I’m thinking that I’d like to go clubbing. Maybe hit Sunset.”

      He frowned. “You’ve been out three nights this week. I thought we could spend tonight at home.” He grinned, his dimples pitting his cheeks. “In bed.”

      She was getting bored there, too…and bored in bed meant a hasty exit, stage right. “I really felt like going out.”

      His frown turned into a scowl. “Fine.”

      She huffed impatiently. “You don’t have to pout.”

      “Sometimes, you can be such a bitch, Martika.”

      She pulled on a loose black silk robe. “No ‘sometimes’ about it,” she agreed, grabbing her cigarettes and heading for the balcony. She was two steps toward it when she heard the high-pitched trill of her cell phone. She swiped it up on her way, shutting the glass door behind her as she hit the green answer button. “This is me. And you are?”

      “Are we drinks?”

      She grinned, leaning back and patting the cigarette package, pulling one out with her lips. It smelled like rain…and looked like it. Fat drops were haphazardly hitting the pavement. She hoped it would storm. “Taylor, you are my white knight. I thought I was going to have to bite my own leg off to get out of this place.”

      “Oh, Tika,” he said, with a slight note of disapproval. “Have we hit that point, then?”

      “If you mean the leaving point, yes, we’ve hit it and run through it.”

      “Damn. He’s got such a great body.”

      “I know.” She lit the cigarette, taking a long drag. “Too bad he’s not a mute. Still, even then, I could only put up with those soulful looks for so long.”

      She glanced back through the glass door. Andre was still sitting on the bed, naked, sulking.

      “So. What’s the ETD?”

      She grinned. “No departure date yet, Taylor…but soon. I feel like it’s coming up soon.” She took another drag on her cigarette. “Fuck. I hate moving.”

      “Strange, for someone who does it as often as you do,” Taylor pointed out dryly. “You’re like the Bedouin Dater. Maybe you should try living with somebody you aren’t sleeping with.”

      “I have lived with people I haven’t slept with.”

      “Your family doesn’t count, darling, and that was how many years ago?”

      “Touché.” She didn’t think about that, really. “But there was that guy…what was his name? Robbie?”

      Taylor laughed. “The other restriction—you need to live with somebody I can’t sleep with. Remember?”

      She chuckled. “Ooh. Right. God, what a fiasco that was.”

      “Maybe you should try a girl next time.”

      “What, to sleep with?”

      Taylor huffed. “Roommate, silly. Although…”

      Martika cut him off. “I don’t think so. Girls don’t like me.” She unleashed a feral grin. “Probably with good reason.”

      She heard a rap on the glass, and looked over. It was Andre, obviously unamused. “Are you going to be out there all night?” he mouthed through the glass.

      “Maybe,” she mouthed back, then turned back to look out on the road. “Taylor, there’s the warden. We are more than drinks tonight, sweetie, we are club. Sunset?”

      “Oooh. Let’s be trashy and do martinis at the Viper Room.”

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